FIRE & FREEDOM!  DO 1829  Switzerland, 14/8/78

         1. (AFTER A LESSON ON BURNING TRASH:) YOU SAY, "YOU SURE MAKE A MOUNTAIN OUT OF A MOLEHILL, LIKE IT'S A GREAT BIG THING ABOUT BURNING A LITTLE BIT OF TRASH!" Well, it is a great big thing & it's something that has to be done every day, & it can save you a lot of money & save a lot of heat & save things like energy--energy which the World is burning up so fast now that it will never be replaced, because they're using what's probably the wrong kind of energy. (For you in the cold North!)
         2. I DOUBT IF GOD EVER INTENDED FOR THAT KIND OF OIL TO BE BURNED! Just the fact that it pollutes the atmosphere so much is a pretty good reason for believing that God didn't intend for it to be burned. I may be wrong, but that's my opinion. I think He intended for nice things like wood to be burned. I even wonder about coal, it's so smokey, & oil is smokey.--They both pollute the atmosphere.
         3. GOD NEVER INTENDED FOR THERE TO BE ANY KIND OF BIG INDUSTRY ANYWAY! The steel industry is probably one of the worst things that ever happened to mankind, because out of the steel industry, the knowledge of how to make steel, has come weapons of war & automobiles & nearly all the evils of the World!
         4. ABOUT THE ONLY HEAT EARLY MAN NEEDED WAS TO KEEP HIMSELF WARM, IF HE NEEDED IT AT ALL. Adam & Eve didn't even need clothes! Apparently they had such an ideal climate in the Garden of Eden that they didn't have to have any heat! They could live outdoors. Originally they didn't have to do any cooking either.
         5. IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN, IN THE IDEAL CONDITIONS GOD INTENDED FOR MAN TO LIVE IN, THERE WAS NO NEED FOR FUEL OF ANY KIND! They didn't have to cook, didn't have to heat, so they didn't have to pollute the atmosphere. But then when man did have to start cooking, he used the obviously most available fuel, which was originally wood. Early man had wood for fuel & his campfire to heat his cave or cabin or tent or whatever it was. Tents used to have a hole in the top so they could even build a fire inside & the smoke could go out.
         6. WHO DO YOU SUPPOSE MADE THE FIRST FIRE? (Fam: Cain?) Why would you say Cain? What was the matter with Abel's sacrifice? Abel's was the sacrifice the Lord accepted. It says very clearly, the Lord Himself told Cain that he didn't have the right sacrifice or He would have accepted it.
         7. HOW DID THEY KNOW WHETHER THE SACRIFICE WAS ACCEPTED OR NOT? It has something to do with what I was just talking about. (Fam: If it burnt.) Exactly! An example of that in the Bible is Elijah: When the prophets of Baal offered their sacrifice, it was not burnt. Their god was dead, in fact he didn't even exist!--Or if he did, he was the Devil & the Lord didn't let him do it. But when Elijah offered his sacrifice, even though he poured gallons of water on it & dug a ditch around it & filled it with water & everything else, the Lord sent fire down from Heaven & devoured it just the same! That must have been quite a lightning bolt that devoured that--boom! (1Kings 18) Apparently that's the way the Lord indicated in those early days whether the sacrifice was accepted or not--if it was, the Lord Himself burned it.
         8. WHEN MAN WAS FIRST CREATED, HE ATE THE FRUIT RIGHT OFF THE TREES! You don't have to cook them, you don't have to soften them. They're ready & prepared to eat & you can eat the package & all, how about that? In fact, the peeling contains a lot of vitamins & minerals that are very good for you. God is the most amazing Packager in the World!
         9. MY, THERE'S SUCH A VARIETY OF FRUITS IN THE WORLD, THEY MUST HAVE HAD THEM ALL IN THE GARDEN! I'll bet God had a sample of every fruit tree there was so Adam could try them all! He didn't have to cook them, he needed no fuel, the climate was ideal & they didn't need clothes, so they certainly didn't need any fire!
         10. IN THOSE DAYS WHEN GOD USED TO WALK WITH ADAM EVERY EVENING IN THE COOL OF THE DAY, HE MUST HAVE TOLD HIM A LOT OF THINGS. After all, here was the first man & he had nobody else to teach him how to live, what to eat, what not to eat & how to survive! The streams were not polluted by all kinds of chemical plants & whatnot, so he could drink the water pretty safely. So I'm sure the Lord must have instructed him what to do with his own wastes, which He later did in the Mosaic Law, to dig a hole in the ground & bury it.
         11. BUT THERE WERE NO FIRES AS FAR AS WE KNOW, THEY WEREN'T NEEDED.--Unless that was God's method of accepting their sacrifices, the fire that came down from Heaven. So there was no pollution! The only kind of real wastes were vegetable wastes which fell down & enriched the soil they fell on, & animal wastes which also fertilised the soil they fell on, so there was no real pollution.
         12. EVEN ALL OF THE GOD-CREATED WASTES SUCH AS ANIMAL & VEGETABLE WASTES ARE USEFUL, they serve to nourish & replenish & fertilise the soil, to replenish the minerals & the chemicals needed in the soil. In other words, the wastes which God created in His Own created animals & human beings are useful!
         13. I BELIEVE THE BIBLE! I BELIEVE IT HAPPENED JUST LIKE IT SAYS! I believe man lived just like that with no clothes, just picking fruit off the trees! And his & the wastes of the animals that the Lord had already created merely went back from where they came, dust-to-dust, to continue to replenish the nutrients of the soil.
         14. IT SHOWS YOU HOW GOD HAD A PLAN FOR EVERYTHING! God's design, God's plan was perfect!--Nothing wasted, nothing polluted, but everything pure, everything good. But of course man fell & had to go to work & really work hard, not just easily picking fruit off the trees like he had while keeping the Garden.
         15. IN ADAM'S DAY THEY DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TO GROW GRAIN OR VEGETABLES, HE JUST ATE THE FRUIT OFF THE TREES! He didn't have to dig up potatoes, he didn't have to dig up carrots.--If you've ever done that, you know what a dirty hard job it is! He didn't have to dig up those plants, neither did he have to till the ground, he didn't have to plow, he didn't have to sow grain, he didn't have to harvest grain. He harvested fruit, but not grain. There was so much he didn't have to worry about--like canning it for the winter, because there wasn't any winter anyhow!
         16. I'M TRYING TO PROVE TO YOU, AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED, THAT GOD NEVER INTENDED MAN TO HAVE TO USE EITHER COAL OR OIL, THOSE POLLUTING FUMES!--Because Adam didn't have to use any fuel at all, not even wood--because he didn't have to have any fires!
         17. WHO DO YOU SUPPOSE TAUGHT MAN HOW TO MAKE A FIRE?--GOD PROBABLY STARTED A FIRE FOR THEM BY A BOLT OF LIGHTNING! And to this day in certain tribes & villages, once they've got the fire going they keep it going eternally, so to speak. Everybody in the village who wants a fire comes & plucks a coal out of the common fire & takes it to his house to start his fire. They keep a fire burning continuously, night & day, & it's somebody's job to stay there by it all night & keep the fire going all the time.
         18. LATER ON, MAN LEARNED HOW TO MAKE A FIRE BY FRICTION, BY A STICK & A HOLLOW SOFT PIECE OF WOOD. Then he learned to make it by a bow with a string on it that was wrapped once around the pole & you pulled it back & forth, which makes it spin very rapidly. Probably later on he used flint, striking sparks into some tinder. They were still doing that even just a couple hundred years ago!
         19. MATCHES ARE A FAIRLY RECENT INVENTION! When I was a kid in post-World War 1 days, we called them "lucifers"! There was an old WW1 song they used to sing: "Give me a lucifer to light my fag, & smile, boys, smile!"--A poor doughboys' song from WW1.
         20. THEY APPARENTLY HAD NO FIRES UNTIL AFTER THE FALL OF MAN when he had to grow grain & make bread, & one of the very first fires he ever needed was probably for cooking bread. In fact, we have no evidence that the climate even changed until after the Flood!
         21. WHEN THEY ATE OF THE TREE OF GOOD & EVIL IN THE GARDEN, THE LORD SAID, "FROM NOW ON YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO EAT YOUR BREAD IN THE SWEAT OF YOUR FACE!" (Gen.3:19) In other words, from now on it was going to be hard work to earn a living! It was going to be hard work to produce food! Whereas Man had been in the Garden previously & could just pick it off the trees, now God thrust him out where he was going to have to till the ground, plow, sow, reap, & on top of that grind it & bake it & all the rest!
         22. THE CURSE WAS PROBABLY INTENDED TO BE A BLESSING, because I imagine when Adam & Eve were in the Garden & they didn't have very much to do, they had a lot of spare time to play around & play with each other & pretty much enjoy life. They didn't have to really work real hard, they had some work to do but not very hard. But after the Fall of Man & sin entered in, Man could not be trusted with so much spare time. He had to work very hard & be kept very busy to keep him out of trouble.
         23. THERE'S EVERY INDICATION THAT IN THOSE NORTHERN AREAS THERE WAS A WARM TROPICAL CLIMATE! There was a warm Tropical climate all over the globe at one time & the whole World had the same climate!--So they didn't need any fires! They didn't have to have anything to warm themselves or their houses. I'm not going to swear to it & I can't necessarily prove it, but they probably didn't need fires for fuel for heating very much until after the Flood.
         24. SO WHEN DID FIRES START? WHEN DID THEY BEGIN?--Maybe they had them for the sacrifice, maybe it was only when they first had to bake bread, maybe it wasn't until after Noah & the Flood & they started eating animal flesh & found out it tastes better cooked. But anyhow, they didn't have to pollute the atmosphere with oil & coal & all the rest. See how far I can get just on the subject of burning trash!
         25. AMEN, LORD, WE HOPE IT HAS BEEN PROFITABLE & SOMEWHAT EDIFYING & that they've learned a few facts, Lord, that are perhaps helpful, as well as interesting. But we thank Thee for how You have taught us, & we thank Thee for how You have taught Man many things that he has learned in his history, & how You must have spent a great deal of time personally teaching early Man how to survive, how to live, how to make fire, how to cook. You must have actually had to teach Adam & Eve how to take care of themselves & how to survive in what had become a very hostile World!
         26. SO LORD, WE ASK THEE IN JESUS' NAME TO HELP US TO BE THANKFUL FOR THY GOODNESS & MERCY ALL THESE YEARS! You began by taking care of Adam in the very beginning, & even after he & Eve fell & sinned against You, You did not abandon us, Lord, but You were concerned about us & You made them clothes & You undoubtedly taught them how to grow their food & how to cook it & make fires & all the rest that they needed to learn.
         27. IN SPITE OF ALL OUR MISTAKES & FAILURES & SHORTCOMINGS & WRONGDOINGS, LORD, YOU FORGIVE US LIKE WE DO OUR CHILDREN, & You continue to try to help us to learn what we need to learn, sometimes by trial & error, so that we will learn how to survive in a wicked World today, a very hostile World.
         28. THANK GOD, NOW THAT WE'RE SAVED & CHRISTIANS & OUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN & we shouldn't have evil minds, we should be able to go naked without any qualms, without any fur coats that God had to make for Adam & Eve & their evil minds! They weren't saved yet, don't forget, & when & if they ever were we don't yet know.
         29. BUT TODAY WE ARE SAVED, SO TODAY WE'RE JUST AS PURE AS ADAM & EVE WERE BEFORE THEY EVER LEFT THE GARDEN & we should be just as pure-minded, & nudity & sex should be no more evil to us than it was originally to Adam & Eve!--Savvy? That doesn't mean you can go running down the street out here naked, because it is evil to a lot of other people, & they've got laws against it! So don't try it if the neighbours can see you, because they've got evil minds & funny laws which prohibit it.
         30. EVIL PEOPLE COULD NOT BE TRUSTED WITH THE FREEDOM OF NAKEDNESS, because of their evil minds & what they might do. They cannot be trusted with freedom of sex either, because they would not be sure to use it in love & consideration & in purity. But those of us who are saved & Christians & love the Lord, in His sight are just as sinless--by His grace, His mercy & His Love--as were Adam & Eve in the Garden before they ever fell!--So we're free to go naked & enjoy sex!
         31. SO NUDITY, SEX & FREEDOM OF THE BODY & THE FLESH ARE NO SIN FOR US! We have just as much freedom if we operate in love & do everything in love, motivated by love, as they had in the Garden!--In fact, possibly more so! Because at that time they really didn't know what sin was, so how could they know what mercy was? They didn't know what hate was, so how could they know what love was? They couldn't really know or appreciate these good things without the bad things!
         32. THEY DIDN'T KNOW WHAT BONDAGE WAS, SO HOW COULD THEY KNOW WHAT FREEDOM WAS? They didn't know what clothes were, so how could they even understand what nakedness was? They didn't know what evil was, so how could they possibly think that anything sexual was evil?--It was probably one of the first things Adam did after he got introduced to Eve! Maybe the Lord even taught him how to do it! Well, after seeing Eve & knowing the normal reactions of a man upon seeing a naked woman, I doubt if very much had to be explained!--It sort of comes automatic!
         33. SO ALTHOUGH GOD HAS GIVEN US ALL THIS FREEDOM, we cannot be totally free because we live in a World that's not free, & which has all kinds of laws against freedom! So you have to watch out that you don't break those laws!--Amen? GBY! ILY!


Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family