—Part 3 of “The Garden of Eden”

FRANCE, 18/4/81DFO1171

(Introduction of children singing "Let's Get Back to the Garden!")

1. PTL! HALLELUJAH TYJ! HERE WE ARE! BACK IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN, The Garden of God, the Garden of Love! How do you like that name? Isn't that a pretty good name? We were just discussing & thinking about we ought to have some kind of a name for this show‚ some kind of an I.D., some kind of a logo or identification or credit or something so that when you saw it on TV or video you'd recognise it. And I got to thinking about, well, now why just have all that beautiful bare scenery without a little identification?

2. I GOT TO THINKING ABOUT OUR SCENERY HERE & OUR BACKGROUND & OUR BEAUTIFUL SOUTH SEA ISLAND TROPICAL PARADISE LOCATION & I thought, well just what should we call it? What is it most like? What does it look like & what is the most beautiful thing you can think of‚ the most beautiful place you can think of, in the most beautiful time you can think of, with the most beautiful people you can think of?—Not me! I wish they were here!

3. I ASKED MY LITTLE TWO-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER TODAY ABOUT THE GARDEN OF EDEN. I said‚ "Do you know anything about the Garden of Eden?" And little Techi said‚ "Yes!" I said‚ "Well, who was there?" She said, "Adam & Eve!" Without hesitation‚ just as quickly, of course as though she was surprised, "Don't you know who was there? Of course, Adam & Eve!"

4. WELL, I'M SORRY WE DON'T HAVE ADAM & EVE. HERE FOR YOU TONIGHT, But just be patient, we may have yet! Mmm! Just wait a little while! I haven't called them out of the bushes yet back here! They're still lying under the bushes back here‚ just a bit out of sight. And just wait until you see them. Ah! They are beautiful! Gorgeous!

5. YOU NEVER SAW SUCH A BEAUTIFUL ADAM & EVE IN ALL YOUR LIFE! And she's going to dance for you! Mmm! And romance for you! Mmm! As she charms her Adam into the scene, & they're going to prance for you! xxxxxxx! It's going to be beautiful, gorgeous! So here we are.

6. I COULDN'T THINK OF A MORE BEAUTIFUL SPOT ON EARTH THAN THE GARDEN OF EDEN! When you hear the name garden of Eden, doesn't that kind of ring a bell? A-ring-a-ding-ding! What's the first thing you think about when you think about the Garden of Eden? Don't you think about Adam & Eve?—The two most beautiful people ever created, the perfect man, the perfect woman! And you don't think about him wearing a business suit & her a house dress, do you?

7. NOW HONESTLY, WHEN YOU THINK OF ADAM & EVE IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN‚ WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT? Hmm! Ah! You're thinking of two beautiful handsome, absolutely naked male & female people, right? In this beautiful garden, where we are here now, wouldn't you like to see Adam & Eve appear? Well, be patient, we're still discussing it with them, & we have to make a little arrangement‚ because they're very busy right now, right here behind the bushes.

8. IT SEEMS LIKE THEY'RE ALWAYS BUSY LIKE THAT & THEY DON'T SEEM TO HAVE MUCH TIME FOR ANYTHING ELSE! All Adam has to do, he doesn't belong to the union‚ & he doesn't worry about salary & government or competition or anything, all he has to worry about is keeping & tending this lovely garden & picking enough fruit off the trees—coconuts, mangoes avocados!

9. AH‚ THESE DELICIOUS TROPICAL FRUITS! Papayas, guavas, umm—umm!—Love apples‚ mangoes! Oh my, there are so many delicious fruits! And one of the most sexy delicious of all is that one, what is it called? It's all bumpy on the outside, & it's all in sections. Now what do you call that? Some of you should remember it. (Pomegranate!)

10. THERE WAS ONE WHEN I WAS A KID & I LIVED IN THE TROPICS in a beautiful South Sea Island location, paradise on Earth‚ & we loved it! I'll think of it pretty soon. All these tropical fruits, pineapple! And we used to make a most delicious drink—piña colada, the Cubans called it—pineapple & coconut milk mixed, & oh! Ai! Yai! Yai! "Such a business, vat it is on Miami Beach!" It was delicious! PTL! Hallelujah!

11. SO I THINK ADAM & EVE ARE OVER THERE BEHIND THOSE BUSHES right now busy making, not piña colada, or coconut milk or pineapple juice, I think they're making some other kind of juices! But maybe when they get done we can persuade them to come out of the bush & let you take a nice look at them!

12. I'VE SEEN THEM! THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL! I promise you they are exquisite! They are exotic, erotic & gorgeous!—Just absolutely beautiful! Wait till you see Adam & Eve! If you think this is beautiful, wait till you see the inhabitants, the first male & female in the whole World, the first human beings that God ever created‚ the World's first pair!

13. IT HAD TO BE A PAIR, YOU KNOW! I'm not talking about something like a fruit off a tree—a pear—but part of her is kind of shaped like that! She has a gorgeous, beautiful ... Oh! Wait till you see it! Oh, you never saw anything so beautiful!

14. I'M GOING TO INTRODUCE ADAM & EVE TO YOU HERE SOME NIGHT, if you'll just be patient, & I'm going to ask them to show you what they looked like & how they felt when they first saw each other on that first exciting electric exhilarating dramatic—ah!—marvellous moment when they first met! What do you think happened? Well, it's only the beginning‚ folks! It's only the beginning!—That was the beginning of it all!

15. SO PTL, THAT'S ONE OF THE THINGS YOU THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU THINK OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN, RIGHT? You think about a beautiful naked man & a beautiful naked woman! And what is the first thing that a beautiful naked man & a beautiful naked woman would of course naturally do as soon as they saw each other & nobody else around, & absolutely have the whole World & the whole Garden to themselves? I think just one look was all it took, & bloop!—And that was it! PG! Hallelujah!

16. BECAUSE THEY HAD SEX LONG BEFORE THE DEVIL ENTERED INTO THE PICTURE. They were immediately commanded to be fruitful & multiply in the very first chapter of Genesis, when the Devil didn't even show up till the third chapter! So! They were created with those genitals, Beloved! They were created with those sexual parts. Mmm!

17. "YOU MEAN GOD WAS SO SEXY IN THE VERY BEGINNING that he first made this beautiful Garden of Eden & put these two most gorgeous people that ever lived in it‚ stark naked, totally nude, not even a fig leaf? You mean to tell me that He allowed them to immediately participate in sex? I thought sex was a result of the fall! I thought sex was the temptation of the Devil! I thought sex was of Satan, not of God!"

18. WELL, MAYBE THAT'S WHAT YOU THOUGHT, BUT THAT AIN'T WHAT I THOUGHT! Because that ain't what I read in the Bible! Right here in the first chapter of Genesis you'll find that the first thing He told them to do after He made them was to go at it! Get it on! Be fruitful & multiply! (Gen.1:28.) And how in the World were they going to do that without fucking, huh? Zzzzzt! Censored, 'scuse me! The censor may have to take that out, I don't know. But it's the truth!

19. ADAM & EVE WERE IMMEDIATELY COMMANDED AFTER THEY WERE CREATED TO BE FRUITFUL & MULTIPLY! That was the very first commandment of God to man was to have sex‚ to copulate, to have intercourse. I don't know why we have to use all these big Latin & Greek words, copulate & intercourse & sexual relations & sexual intimacy, blah, blah, blah‚ blah, when we can just use a nice little Anglo-Saxon word of only four letters. They were commanded by the Lord in the first chapter of Genesis to fuck!

20.YOU SAY, "WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU DOING? You, supposed to be a preacher & a prophet using language like that & talking about such things as sex & fu ... fu ... fu ... fu ... I can't even say it, it's so terrible!" Well, they did it! They didn't have to say it! They probably didn't say very much!

21. GOD PUT ADAM INTO A DEEP SLEEP BECAUSE HE HADN'T FOUND ANYBODY TO BE A COMPANION TO HIM, To be a helpmeet to him. God had brought every animal throughout the whole Garden, everywhere, He brought up all these animals, everything from elephants—& as the old coloured preacher said, ephamaflunts—& hippopotamuses & giraffes & lions & tigers & bears & cats & everything he could imagine, God had created & brought to Adam & had him name every single one of them!

22. THAT MUST HAVE TAKEN A FEW WEEKS JUST TO BEGIN WITH, JUST FOR A STARTER, Just for his first occupation in the Garden of Eden, Besides tending & keeping the Garden & picking the fruit off the trees, he didn't have very much to do. He didn't have a wife to take care of or argue with or fuck, & he didn't have any work much to do‚ kind of tend the Garden a little bit & take care of it & pick his meals off the trees‚ coconuts & drink coconut milk & eat those delicious mangoes & avocados & delicious guavas & papayas & all that delicious fruit off the trees!

23. BUT THERE ALL BY HIMSELF ALL ALONE HE MUST HAVE GOTTEN A LITTLE BIT WEARY & TIRED OF THE WHOLE THING & A LITTLE BIT LONESOME. So God brought all these pets to him & there was peace between man & the animals then & there was no war & they were just like pets & they all came whenever he called them, & he called them different names. God brought'm to him to see what he would call'm.

24. AND HE NAMED ALL THESE DIFFERENT ANIMALS‚ Probably according to their various characteristics, but there wasn't one animal, not one creature that God had made that satisfied Adam as a companion & as a helpmeet & as really good company in the Garden, somebody he could talk to & could talk to him.

25. THE ANIMALS COULD TALK A LITTLE BIT IN THOSE DAYS, DID YOU KNOW THAT? Yes, they could! Before the curse, man & animals were able to communicate & talk to each other! That's why Adam could call the animals & name them‚ & that's why when Noah got ready to board the Ark he was able to call the animals by name & tell them to, "Come now, we've gotta get on board!" (Sings:)

"Come‚ get on board, little children,

Get on board, little children!

There's room for many a more!"

—And he got all the animals on board!

26. IT WASN'T TILL AFTER THE FLOOD & AFTER THE ARK THAT GOD ALLOWED ENMITY BETWEEN MAN & THE ANIMALS. Because in this day that you see here, in this beautiful Garden there was absolute peace between man & the animals, & there was nothing but peace between man & God, because sin had not yet entered in. Man didn't yet have the knowledge of evil & there wasn't any woman to argue with yet! I can prove to you that there was peace & quiet in the Garden of Eden because Eve hadn't yet been created! It's a little bit like one preacher told me once, he said:

27. "YOU KNOW‚ I CAN PROVE THAT THERE AREN'T ANY WOMEN IN HEAVEN!" I said, "What do you mean, no women in Heaven? How can you say that?" He said, "You read it right in the Book of Revelation, it says 'and there was silence in Heaven for the space of half-an–hour!' So obviously, there couldn't have been any women in Heaven if there was silence for half-an-hour!" (Rev.8:1.)

28. WELL‚ POOR ADAM, HE DIDN'T EVEN HAVE ANYBODY TO ARGUE WITH! He didn't even have anybody to fuss at him or henpeck him. He didn't even have anybody to criticise him. You know, it's better to have somebody around to even fuss at you & argue with you & henpeck you & criticise you & make you pick up your clothes & hang them in the closet & put away your shoes & take a bath once in a while & come to dinner on time & help get the kids off to school & get off to work to earn the bacon! It's better to have somebody around to kind of get you to do what you're supposed to do, than nobody at all! Right?

29. I'VE FOUND MOST OF THESE LITTLE WOMEN ARE PRETTY GOOD MANAGERS & the Lord must have sent them along to keep us men moving! Otherwise we might have just lain down there under the trees in the Garden & never did anything!—Got real lazy & real relaxed & not have anything to spur us to do anything or accomplish anything or get any work done.

30. WE MIGHT HAVE NEGLECTED THE GARDEN & IT ALL WENT TO WEEDS & SEED, & we might have not picked the fruit off the trees in time & it'd just fallen off & rotted‚ & we didn't gather up the food in time for Mama Eve to make our salads! I don't know if they did any cooking then, they didn't really have to cook any of these fruits because they just picked them right off the trees‚ isn't that beautiful?

31. LOOK, SEE THAT COCONUT TREE UP THERE? I climbed many a coconut tree like that when I was a little boy! I used to just shinny right up a tree like that, zip like that, in my little bare hands & bare feet & I was all bare except my bottom, because it was a tropical paradise! You just grip the feet around the palm tree, around those little ridges you see there‚ & you grip the hands up on top, & just like a little monkey I used to run up a tree, up to the bunches of coconuts way up there at the top!

32. I DON'T KNOW WHETHER YOU CAN SEE ANY COCONUTS UP HERE. Can we see any coconuts up here anywhere?—Way up at the top of the tree up here somewhere? Over here maybe at the top of this tree back here. Now right about in there you'll find a bunch of coconuts hanging down, & they grow in groups. They grow like bananas, in a bunch.

33. THE NATIVES WHO HARVEST COCONUTS, FOR THE COCONUTS & THE COPRA—The copra is the packing around them—they used to run up the tree—I've watched them many a time in the Bahamas & the Seminole Indians in Florida, just run right up a tree like it was a series of stairsteps or a ladder, with a big machete in their mouth!—Great big knife about this long, huge big knife with a big wide blade like that‚ sharp, slightly curved like a scimitar.

34. THEY'D STICK THIS BIG KNIFE IN THEIR MOUTH & RUN UP THE TREE & When they got up to where the bunch of coconuts were hanging they'd take the knife out of their mouth & they used to go slash, like that!—And with one quick cut they'd cut the stem & the whole bunch of about half-a–dozen to a dozen coconuts would fall to the ground with a thunderous thump like that! And you'd better be out of the way when that many coconuts hit the ground, Brother! It could knock you flat & knock you silly & crack your skull if you're underneath it! So you'd better not be underneath them.

35. BUT WE LITTLE BOYS, WE DIDN'T CARRY MACHETES, They were too dangerous, but when we were out there‚ out in the woods or out in the jungles or on a tropical island, or out in Matheson Hammock or some of those beautiful tropical places, & we got hungry for lunch—sometimes we rode clear out there on our bicycles & we swam out there in the bay—& we would run up those trees in our little shorts or our little bathing suit trunks‚ almost naked, bare feet, bare hands, run right up the tree‚ & we'd go right up there, right up the tree, right on up to the branches, right there where the coconuts grows, right up in there!

36. AND SINCE WE DIDN'T HAVE A MACHETE & THEY'RE FASTENED REAL TIGHT, What we'd do, we'd reach up & we'd grab a coconut like this, & we'd take ahold of the bottom & just twist it around real fast like that, we'd spin it like a top, because it was fastened with a real tough stem. We didn't have to have a knife‚ we knew just how to do it, we'd just spin it from the bottom. It would spin around like that & it would just twist the stem right off & it would go kerplunk!

37. OF COURSE, WE ALWAYS WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT IT WASN'T RIGHT OVER OUR HEADS, Or our heads weren't right under the coconut like that. We always made sure the coconut was off a little on one side like this & when we twisted it off & it fell kerplunk like this & our little boyfriend down below was ready.

38. AND THEN, THE JOB WAS ONLY HALF BEGUN, NOT EVEN HARDLY HALF BEGUN, Because that was almost the easiest part‚ the shinnying up the tree & twisting it off. Because then we had to open the coconut, & if we were someplace where we didn't have a screwdriver & a hammer—which is one of the best ways to open a coconut—we had to just do it by hand.

39. WE HAD TO FIND SOME PAVEMENT OR A ROCK OR SOMETHING, & take the coconut & bang it on the ground as hard as we could on the point of the coconut! Coconuts are shaped a little bit heart-like, sort of like that, & on this point down here, that's the only place you can get a hold, & you have to bang it on the ground real hard!

40. NOW YOU FOLKS WHO ARE ALREADY OUT HERE IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN IN PARADISE, I'M TELLING YOU HOW TO OPEN THOSE COCONUTS. I've had a lot of experience‚ since I was six years old & I opened my first coconut on the sidewalk right in front of our big three-story mansion on Bayfront Drive, right there across from the Episcopal Church in Miami, Florida, just a block from the Women's Club & Miami library, & that little pier where I used to fish.

41. I USED TO CLIMB THE TREES ALL AROUND THERE THAT HAD LOTS OF COCONUTS, & I'd bring down a coconut & then bang it on the ground till I got it open, on the concrete. You have to find a rock or pavement or something to bang it real hard on the point until you split the point open. Now some of you folks who don't know much about coconuts, some of you guys that live up in the North, you say:

42. "OH, I KNOW ALL ABOUT COCONUTS! I WENT TO THE DIME STORE & THEY HAD A WHOLE COUNTER FULL OF COCONUTS & they were on sale for 25 cents apiece, & I bought me one & it wasn't hard to open!—Just a little tiny round hard brown shell like this, about this size, about this shape, had three little holes in one end, & I just hit it with a hammer, squash!—And all the milk poured out & spattered out all over everywhere, & then we just digged the meat out of the shell. What do you mean‚ it's so hard to open?"

43. YOU NEVER SAW A COCONUT, A REAL COCONUT IN THE RAW‚ IN THE JUNGLE, ON A TREE! Because a coconut is a bottle of milk, believe it or not! It's a bottle of milk lined with delicious coconut candy! Now what more could you ask for than that? A bottle of milk lined with coconut candy! Coconut candy! Coconut meat this thick, all around inside that round brown shell that you bought off the counter at Woolworth's for 25 cents, like this, & you found it very easy to crack it open & split the shell.

44. BUT YOU NOTICE ALL THOSE LITTLE KIND OF HAIRS ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE COCONUT SHELL, Sort of hairs still clinging to it? I've even seen cartoons & so on of monkeys picking this kind of coconuts off the tree, & any sensible monkey would have just laughed himself silly if he'd seen that cartoon because he knows that coconuts don't look like that when you pick them! Because you can't drop a bottle of milk off a tree 35 or 50 feet high onto the hard ground, not even in a nice little hard shell, without breaking it! So what did God do? You know what he did?

45. AROUND THAT LITTLE SMALL DARK BROWN HARD SHELL WHICH IS ONLY ABOUT A 1/4-OF-A-CENTIMETER THICK, Inside is this delicious white coconut-meat about a centimeter thick‚ & inside of that nice coconut-meat shell that's all around inside of that hard brown shell, there's this delicious white milk that is so sweet & so delicious! Because it looks like milk or semen‚ it has been called milk, & the coconut itself is more than half full of that delicious milk.

46. TO REALLY DRINK IT RIGHT, YOU HAVE TO KNOW HOW TO PUNCH THE HOLES IN THE THREE LITTLE EYES OF THE MONKEY, Because the bottom end, the little slightly pointed end, looks just like the face of a monkey! It has three little eyes about that far apart, & you have to take an ice pick or a screwdriver & stick it through one of those eyes which is a hole in the shell really‚ right through the coconut meat into the inside, either two or three of the three eyes so that you have a little place for air to get in, & then you tip it up & you suck the delicious milk right out of the coconut!

47. BUT IF THAT LITTLE ROUND BROWN COCONUT SHELL WITH ALL THAT MEAT & MILK IN IT HAD FALLEN OFF THE TREE 25, 35, 50 feet up onto hard ground or pavement, side walk or street, such as there were lots of when I was a boy, it would have broken right wide open, cracked wide open, at least cracked the shell, & the milk would have all been spilt, & you wouldn't have had a drink of milk!

48. SO YOU KNOW WHAT GOD DID?—THE MOST MARVELLOUS PIECE OF PACKING YOU EVER HEARD OF! He packed the little round hard brittle shell, less than a 1/4-centimeter thick coconut shell, in a nice big round packing about this big, here in the shell about that big, but the packing is about that thick on each side of the coconut shell about that thick‚ right there. I've opened many a coconut so I know what I'm talking about!

49. THICK!—JUST LIKE EXCELSIOR PACKING, SORT OF SHREDDED EXCELSIOR, THAT'S WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. If you've seen excelsior, all these wood shreds or paper shreds in a box to protect something that's packed in a box from being broken, that's exactly the way God has packaged every single bottle of coconut milk! Isn't that amazing? Isn't that marvelous?

50. HERE'S THIS LITTLE ROUND DELICIOUS-LOOKING BROWN BOTTLE OF MILK & It's packaged with all this nice thick spongy packing, & then a nice tough skin around the outside, not too hard, but just to keep the packing all packed around the coconut shell. So the actual green or ripe coconut is about this big, with the packing.

51. AND THAT OUTSIDE PACKING, THE WORLD OR INDUSTRY CALLS COPRA‚ Some people call it co-pra, or cop-ra, whatever you want to call it. That packing makes excellent material for making ropes & rugs, & all kinds of fibrous materials are made or woven out of that packing; it's very useful. In fact, it's gotten to where it's almost more valuable even than the coconuts inside, believe it or not! And the copra industry harvesting coconuts & copra, which is that packing around the coconut shell, has become one of the major industries of the Tropics, everywhere that coconuts grow‚ coconut palms.

52. WELL, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THESE COCONUT PALMS. They will grow in almost any mild climate. You'll find them planted artificially in California & in Texas & Northern Florida, the South, & you'll find them in Southern Europe, & you'll find them many miles from the sea. But sometimes they will die of frost if it gets too cold, because in their natural habitat it never gets really cold, it never freezes.

53. BECAUSE IF IT FREEZES‚ THE POOR COCONUT PALM FRONDS, All those delicious beautiful green fronds you see up there, they all turn brown & look terrible, it's really pitiful! Because they weren't built or made to live in such a harsh cold climate as man has gone to since he left the Garden of Eden & drifted all over the World, out of the will of God into those cold freezing‚ snowy, icy climates.

54. THE COCONUT PALM DID NOT DRIFT AWAY FROM THE TROPICS, IT STAYED RIGHT THERE, & only when man has transplanted it & misplanted it in other places has it ever been planted elsewhere out of the tropical or subtropical zones. And you'll see them, you've seen them in Texas, you've seen them in California, & you've even seen them in Southern Europe along the Riviera or Northern Italy. What do they call that Riviera in Italy there? Ligure!—You've seen coconut trees growing & looking beautiful!

55. BUT SOMETHING'S WRONG, WHAT'S THE MATTER?—NOT A COCONUT! They will blossom, & a bunch of little coconuts will start, about that big, hanging on their little bunches, a little bunch of coconuts sort of like dates on a date tree. And there are times when they pollinate, & they apparently get very sweet & the bees just buzz around them in a terrific swarm because apparently they've got a lot of sweet pollen.

56. THERE'LL JUST BE ALMOST LIKE A WHOLE BEEHIVE & A BEES NEST IN ONE BUNCH OF COCONUTS, &that's when us little boys always stayed away, that pollinating season! But despite all the work of the bees, & everything else, if the tree was more than 25 miles from sea water, the coconuts would not mature, would just get about that big, then fall off! The reason they can't grow on the Mediterranean or Riviera & other parts close to the water is because they are not tropical climates.

57. COCONUT PALMS GOD CREATED TO LIVE NEAR SEA WATER ON THOSE BEAUTIFUL TROPICAL SHORES & those beautiful tropical beaches, beautiful tropical South Sea Islands‚ to feed those dear natives that run around with almost no clothes & would have almost no food if they didn't have some of those delicious coconuts! God made them so they will not bear coconuts that mature further than 25 miles from coastal sea water, think of that! Isn't that amazing? Marvelous creations of God, huh?—Coconuts!

58. WELL‚ I HAVEN'T FINISHED TELLING YOU YET ABOUT HOW WE HARVEST A COCONUT! We little boys when we were hungry & young & out riding around on our bicycles & got hungry & thirsty shinnied up a tree & twisted off a coconut & it fall down with a crash, thud! I mean, big things this big with all that packing that weighed at least a couple of kilos! Think of that! Four or five pounds! They were big & heavy! I mean, if they'd a hit you on the head‚ "zonked you on the bonkus," as Techi says, it would have knocked you completely out!

59. IN FACT, THEY HAD SOME [FOLKS] ON MIAMI BEACH THAT OFTEN SUED THE CITY for a coconut falling off the tree & hitting them on the head‚ knocking'm out! So the city got smart, & just before the coconuts began to fall, they began to harvest them every year. They sent out a team with a wagon with a ladder & started cutting down all the coconuts before they began to fall on the heads of all those penurious ... avaricious [folks] who were just looking around for something to sue the city for anyhow!

60. IF THEY'D STUBBED THEIR TOE ON A ROCK, OR CATCH THEIR HEEL IN THE CRACK IN THE PAVEMENT‚ They'd scream & holler & go to the hospital & sue the city for thousands of dollars, blame it all on the poor city! So the city got wise after awhile & begun to harvest all the coconuts & fill up all the holes in the sidewalk & the pavement so [these people] couldn't complain any more, wouldn't have any excuses for suing them for thousands of dollars.

61. SO NOW WE'VE GOT THE COCONUT DOWN TO THE GROUND, NOW WHAT? It's got this real tough shell & all this tough padding, I mean, tough! And we wanted to get at the inside, that nice little nut that we could take our little jackknives & screw out, ream out the holes in & drink the milk & then sock it on the pavement & crack it open! But you just can't do it like that to begin with. You've gotta take the coconut like this, here's like a coconut here (Dad's Bible), full of milk & meat both!

62. HOW 'BOUT THAT?—LIKE THE BIBLE, HUH? MILK OF THE WORD & THE MEAT OF THE WORD, IT'S GOT BOTH! Well, it's a kind of a tough book to crack! Some people don't understand how to open it! They don't understand how to eat & digest the contents. That's what we're going to do in this Garden of Eden series, show you how to live like Adam & Eve, how to listen & hear the Word of God & understand it & obey it in the paradise of the Garden of Eden, & how not to make the same mistake they made of listening to that old Devil tempting them to try to know what the knowledge of evil was like.

63. SO COCONUTS ARE SO MUCH LIKE THE BIBLE! They've got a real tough cover, like this, & they're a little bit hard to crack & open & understand how to eat the meat, or the strong meat‚ or drink the delicious milk. Milk is for babes, but when you become mature & an adult, you should be able to eat the meat too.

64. AND COCONUT MEAT IS A LITTLE BIT DIFFICULT TO DIGEST, LET ME WARN YOU! Don't eat too much at a sitting, it's such tough roughage that it's a little bit hard on your digestive tract & your intestinal tract & it might give you a little bit of the runs because it's so rough & real roughage.

65. SO YOU DON'T WANT TO EAT TOO MUCH OF THIS MEAT IF YOU'RE JUST A BABE! It could make you a little bit sick & give you a little indigestion or a bit of the runs & just runs right through you & doesn't do you a bit of good & you don't even understand it! You need first as a little babe‚ just to drink the milk.

66. SO WE TAKE THE BIG TOUGH COCONUT ALL WRAPPED UP IN ITS COPRA, ITS EXCELSIOR PACKAGING. You have to know just exactly how to do it, it's a real art! You take it like this‚ & you lift it way up above your head like this, & then you slam it on the pavement with all your might as hard as you can! And you lift it way up again like that, slamming it down on the pavement again, like that!—Right on the point!

67. IT DOESN'T DO ANY GOOD TO DO IT ON THE TOP, IT'S TOO WELL PADDED. The point is the closest to the shell, see? Besides, it's built so that if you could crack open the point, the padding kind of comes to a point there on that point at the bottom, & as you crack it down hard on the pavement, little pieces begin to come loose like this.

68. AND SO YOU, LITTLE BOY, HUNGRY, THIRSTY‚ THE MINUTE YOU GET ONE LITTLE PIECE That you can dig your fingers around like this, you rip it off like that and you've got one piece ripped off! And as soon as another piece is loose you rip it off like that & you rip it from a point clear around to the top of the coconut like that. You just rip it off & it's hard work!

69. IT REALLY TAKES STRENGTH AND HARD WORK! When I was only six or seven years old it was very hard for me & I had a hard time doing it. Later on as I got older, stronger & a teenager, we could shell'm in just a few minutes! But in those days it was really hard, when I was just a very young boy. But we would be hungry, really hungry, or really thirsty & far from home‚ gone off on our little bicycles somewhere & we always knew where we could get something to eat & something to drink. But we just had to work for it, that's all!

70. THE LORD DIDN'T INTEND FOR YOU TO HAVE THINGS TOO EASY. He didn't intend for you to just be able to pick fruit off the trees so easy you'd get lazy & indolent & fat & weak from lack of exercise. It took a lot of work to climb that tree & twist off that big heavy coconut, then run back down the tree & start pounding it on the pavement till we could finally get a piece loose.

71. WE'D TURN IT OVER & RIP OFF A PIECE ONE AFTER THE OTHER, Rip off this piece, then this piece, then that piece, have to go right around the coconut until we had ripped off all that thick padding that thick—pieces of padding that thick and that long & about that wide usually, that's about all you could rip off with one hand. It took all your strength. You held the coconut with one hand & ripped off this piece of padding like that, till finally, victory at last!

72. TRIUMPHANT, OUR EYES BULGING & OUR TONGUES HANGING OUT & practically drooling with thirst & hunger, we had that little bare round nut all bared & naked & unclothed from all that padding, & we were just about to ... punch a hole in it & drink the milk out of it! By that time the whole padding was off, & on the point of the coconut, as you turn it over, the point up like that‚ there were these three little holes about that far apart that looked just like a little monkey face, like a little monkey nose & two little monkey eyes.

73. YOU COULD TAKE YOUR LITTLE KNIFE, YOUR JACKKNIFE, & STICK IT IN THE HOLE & REAM IT AROUND LIKE THAT Until you'd dug about that far through the meat. That was the only place on the outside of the shell that the meat showed at all. The meat has a brown backing, a brown covering, & the brown covering in the meat just showed in those three little holes. You took your knife, you dug through that & you could see white, that delicious white meat.

74. AND OH, WE COULD HARDLY WAIT! We'd ream around with our jackknife like that &—umm!—take the first taste‚ just a few little crumbs of that nice white coconut meat off the end of our knife! Ream around again, umm! We were so hungry! And umm! Then we'd have to take the smallest, narrowest blade of the knife, less than that, because the hole was even less than that big, & finally ream out the hole till we cut through usually about 1/2-an-inch of white coconut meat.

75. THEN WE WERE INTO THE MILK, INTO THE INSIDE, & WE'D LIFT IT UP & GLUG, GLUG‚ GLUG, GLUG, GLUG! Gurgle‚ Gurgle, Gurgle, Gurgle, glug, glug!—Hey wait a minute! Gimme some! And we'd grab it from each other, two or three of us little boys, & take turns drinking the milk. 'Cause you had to drink the milk first‚ you couldn't crack the coconut open or you'd just lose all the milk, & We'd keep it up there till we drank it dry!

76. DO YOU TAKE YOUR BIBLE & KEEP IT UP THERE TILL YOU DRINK IT DRY? Get all that milk first? You gotta drink the milk first, because you can't get out the meat until you drink the milk. The milk comes first. And then, it's kind of hard work, even getting that far. And then, once we got the milk drunk dry out of the little brown nut‚ it was very easy, I mean, that was the easiest part almost.

77. THEN WE'D CRACK THE NUT DOWN ON THE SIDEWALK REAL HARD, & it would usually burst into two or three pieces. And two or three of us little boys usually, we'd dive for those pieces & see who could grab the biggest piece first! It'd crack right open, sometimes in two halves, but usually in about three pieces it seemed, two or three pieces. And we'd each dive for a piece, & each of us take our little jackknife, & you have to be careful you don't cut your fingers‚ you know.

78. IT'S GOT THIS LITTLE THIN, VERY HARD SHELL, SO HARD IT'S HARD WOOD. Very hard wood, they'd even make lamps & all kinds of carved trinkets & souvenirs out of this very hard wood. It'll even polish‚ it's beautiful stuff! Have you ever seen a coconut shell polished? Really shined up & polished? It's very hard wood, very hard! Brittle & very hard to break—you had to slam it on the sidewalk to break it!

79. THEN WE WOULD TAKE OUR KNIVES & YOU'VE GOTTA THEN DIG THE MEAT LOOSE FROM THE SHELL. The meat has a kind of a brown skin on the back, & you try to slip your knife in between the shell & the brown skin. You slip it in there & you loosen a little bit & you stick your knife in there & loosen a little bit, you stick your knife in there & loosen a little bit, & you stick it in down here & loosen a little bit, & gradually you're beginning to peel the meat off the shell.

80. AND IF YOU'RE A REAL GOOD PEELER, A REAL GOOD COCONUT EATER, YOU CAN PEEL IT OFF IN BIG CHUNKS ABOUT THAT BIG, LIKE THAT! Big round chunks almost as big as your hand, curved like that. And then—ahhh! That first bite‚ it is so delicious! So luscious! I mean, an average little boy can only eat about a half of one of those coconuts, because it's so good! For one thing, it's hard to bite! You've got to have good teeth to bite it! Along with that brown part.

81. NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TOO MUCH ROUGHAGE IN YOUR SYSTEM& It's a little hard on your bowels & stomach, don't eat the brown part. You've got to shave it off with your jackknife‚ the brown skin on the back of the coconut meat. But you take it then & you—Mmmm!—You've really gotta chew & chaw! I mean, it is tough & hard, & only real good big strong boys can really chew & eat it, after they've drunk the milk.

82.BUT IT'S SO SATISFYING! SO DELICIOUS! Quenched your thirst, first of all, with the milk, smack, smack, smack, smack!—And then you get into the inside. The shell is about that thick like that‚ & then the meat is about that thick. You see there? That's about how thick the meat is. And oh, boy! It's so good! Mmmmmm! See, like that? You really eat it! I mean, it's good‚ like that! And it's about that color too, kind of white, grayish color, and it's so delicious, that delicious coconut meat & milk, & it's just wonderful! We really enjoyed it & would be satisfied.

83. THEN WE HAD ENOUGH STRENGTH AFTER THAT REFRESHMENT, that delicious milk & luscious meat, we two or three little boys would be able to get up & mount our noble steeds once again, our bicycles, & pedal all the way home, five or ten miles home just in time for supper! Hallelujah! That was just our salad! Our appetiser! Just enough strength to get home!

84. HOW MUCH LIKE THE BIBLE THAT IS, YOU KNOW? See what Bible we study? You want to know what version we study, what Bible we like? It's the Holy Bible‚ see that? Holy Bible! That's the one! And it's so much like those coconuts, those tropical coconuts! You know, it's almost easier for you to go out & buy a Bible than it was for us boys to climb those coconut trees! And once we got the coconut down, we had a lot of hard work to just even get it open!

85. MAYBE YOU'VE HAD A LITTLE STRUGGLE CRACKING YOUR BOOK, TOO! Maybe you've had a little problem getting around to opening the Bible. Maybe it's been a real problem‚ you didn't know where to start. You started over here in Genesis & then you got all bogged down in the "begats," & you got bored & you didn't know what to do next & "where shall I start reading?"

86. WELL, I SUGGEST THAT YOU FIRST OF ALL TAKE THAT COCONUT & YOU TURN IT TO THE NEW TESTAMENT, To the Gospel of St. Matthew, the New Testament. It's kind of a Jewish history that's very good & very interesting. But I suggest another one that's even milkier than that & maybe easier for you to understand‚ the Gospel of St. John. Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John—here it is, right there. That's some of the sincerest milk of the Word!

87. AND WHAT YOU NEED TO DO IS WHEN YOU GET YOUR COCONUT & YOU HAVE CRACKED IT‚ YOU START DRINKING THE MILK, Mmmmm, smack, smack, smack‚ smack, smack, smack, smack, from the Gospel of St. John, it's the best place to begin. Really, really good sweet milk & very simple, understandable little one & two–syllable words. Jesus hardly ever used words more than one & two syllable words, did you know that? He must not ever have gone to college & learned all those big, big long words so that nobody can understand Him.

88. HE JUST USED LITTLE SIMPLE ONE & TWO–SYLLABLE WORDS THAT EVERYBODY, EVEN A LITTLE CHILD CAN UNDERSTAND & "except you be as a little child" & climb that tree & get those coconuts & open them, like we did, "you can't enter into the Kingdom of God!"—You can't enter into this beautiful Book & find its wonderful delicious milk & eat its delicious white pure meat, ahh!

89. YOU'LL NEVER KNOW THE THRILL OF THE SATISFYING OF YOUR SPIRITUAL THIRST! You'll never know the wonderful delicious taste of the meat of the Word until you have cracked it open‚ drunk some of the milk & then chewed on that tough meat until you get it ground up to where you can digest it, & it does you a lot of good. Ahh!

90. BUT WHEN YOU DO‚ IT'S SO GOOD! IT'S SO SATISFYING! IT'S SO STRENGTHENING! It is wonderful & will make you a strong man or woman, a real strong soldier of Jesus Christ when you really crack this coconut & you drink this milk & eat this meat, you're really satisfied! Ah! Whew! Makes me thirsty right now ! Makes me so hungry I want to get into it right now! Gobble, gobble, gobble! Nibble, nibble! Right now! So good! Hallelujah! TYJ!

91. LET'S GO RUN UP A TREE, RIGHT AWAY! Do you want to get up a tree? Are you up a tree? You poor folk! Are you already up a tree, you don't know what to do? Well, reach up‚ grab one of the coconuts, twist it off, get it down to your level, down to the ground, & then, bang away, & bang away until you crack it open!—And peel off the shell & drink the milk & eat the meat & be—mmmm, smack, smack, mmm, smack‚ smack—satisfied! Hallelujah! TYJ!

92. YOU THINK THIS IS A KIND OF A SILLY, CHILD LIKE WAY OF TELLING YOU A STORY? Well, I don't know, I just don't know any other way to do it! This is the way I used to tell my children & illustrate it to them & they understood it, & I'll bet all you kids are enjoying it right now, huh?

93. YOU LIKE THE WAY GRANDPA TELLS STORIES?—How you like to crack coconuts & drink the milk—mmmm‚ mmmm, mmmm, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle‚ glub glub glub—& then peel off the tough shell & then crack the nut & drink the milk & open the nut & mmmmm take nice big bites out of the meat, great big bites! Oh, they're about that thick sometimes, like that mmm, mmm, see how big & thick they are? That thick & almost that tough, too! But oh, it tastes so good, like a little bit of Heaven, something right out of the Garden of Eden!

94. WHAT'S THE GARDEN OF EDEN? IT'S A BIT OF HEAVEN ON EARTH, HUH? With all that delicious fruit around. Sometimes it's a little hard to get at. You've gotta climb the tree & you can't wear the equipment of this World to do it; man's equipment in man's World wasn't made to do it. You've gotta strip yourself naked & have bare feet & bare hands to shinny up that tree!

95. I'VE SEEN THE NATIVES SOMETIMES, THEY COULD GO UP FASTER THAN I COULD! We got to where we could go up pretty fast, but I've watched natives run up a tree like a monkey & just get up there with a machete in their mouth like that, & run up the tree like that, & then they'd go, "Whack! Whack! Whack!" & cut down whole bunches of coconuts off of one tree!

96. NOW THAT'S FINE WHEN YOU GET TO BE AN EXPERT, see‚ but if you're just an amateur & you've never cracked even the Bible yet & you don't hardly know what it is‚ you'd better get out of the way & not let all those bombs fall on your head‚ bang, bang, bang, or it'd knock you plumb out! You get too big a dose at once!

97. SO HERE IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN, I'M GOING TO SHOW YOU HOW TO RUN UP THE TREE, get these coconuts, & how to crack'm open & peel'm & drink the milk & crack them open again & dig the meat out & we can get some nice bites out of every single Word & verse & chapter‚ right here in the Garden of Eden! Would you like to do that? Do you like that idea? Praise God!

98. WELL, THEN LET'S GET BACK TO THE GARDEN, SHALL WE? PTL? Back to the Garden! Hallelujah! TYJ! (Children sing: "Let's Get Back to the Garden.") Hallelujah! PTL! Amen. Do you want to go back to the Garden? Take Jesus into your heart & you'll have a Garden of Eden in your heart! Hallelujah!

99. JUST TAKE JESUS INTO YOUR HEART! HE'S THE ONE THAT MADE THE GARDEN OF EDEN! Take Him into your heart & you'll be there, because you'll have Jesus in your heart! And He'll make your heart a Garden of Eden! See you next time!—In the Garden of Eden, the Garden of God's Love, in Jesus! In Jesus' name! Amen.

Copyright (c) 1997 by The Family