Showing results by author "Neville Goddard" in All Categories

Tonight’s subject is, "They Told What Had Happened" - "They Related Their Own Experience" is the better translation of that phrase in the 24th chapter of Luke. When I speak of "they told it", I am speaking of the evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

You will find tonight to be a very practical and yet a very spiritual hour, for I am going to speak to you of the Creator. In Paul's letter to the Romans he said: "All the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." Man is called upon to look at the made, in order to discover the invisible God.

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and dwells in us." (John 1). Our physical birth is God's incarnation, for incarnation signifies the assumption by a divine being of human or animal form. When you were born your little human form was assumed by God. Christmas marks the departure from God's incarnation and your birth as God.

If you find yourself miserable or helpless here, may I tell you that you are not condemned to that state by a deity outside of yourself, for everything that takes place in your world is but a movement within God. We are told that in the very beginning the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and things came into being. Everything - your misery, your helplessness, your joy, your sorrow - no matter what it is, comes into being by a movement within God, and he is not a deity outside yourself.

I think you're all aware that this is the most dramatic week in Christendom and yet I dare say that not an nth part of one percent of those who call themselves Christians really understand what it is all about. It's the story of the fulfillment of God's purpose. That's the week, the triumphant march into Jerusalem, the crucifixion and then the resurrection. And it's told as though it took place on earth. That's how the story is told. Man cannot think abstractly, so it's told in the form of a story. And man has mistaken the story for the reality.

Faith is not complete until, through experiment, it becomes experience. God's promise cannot be tested. It cannot be earned, for it is given by grace. But your faith will be increased when you experiment, when you test God's law. It is easier to accept the Christian faith than to live by it, but you must live by it for your faith to grow!

The book of Genesis is made up of three records called the J, P, and E manuscripts. Here, I will refer to the E manuscript, which begins with the 15th chapter of Genesis: "As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abram, 'Know for a surety that your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs. They will be slaves there and they will be oppressed for four hundred years. After that they will come out with great possessions.' Abraham believed and it was accounted unto him for righteousness."

The word disciple means “learner”, and anyone who hears God’s pattern of salvation from one who has experienced it and believes, hungering to learn more, is a disciple. Tradition tells us Peter, James, and John were disciples. No, you are a disciple if you believe my words! Now, when I speak of Jesus, I am speaking of the pattern man, for “He has made known unto me the purpose of his will which he set forth in Christ as a plan (a pattern) for the fullness of time.”

We have been talking about God's law and God's promise. God's law is conditional. You cannot be in one state and not suffer the consequences of not being in another state, and you and I are free to imagine any state in the world, and imagining that state we can occupy it. Occupying the state, we fertilize it; having fertilized it, it has its own appointed hour for fulfillment. Every vision has its own appointed hour it will flower; if it seems long, wait for it - it is sure and it will not be late.

When asked "What must we do to be doing the work of God?" He answered, "Believe in him whom he has sent." That's all you have to do. Salvation is yours when you believe in him. There is no aristocracy of privilege, and to believe that Jesus exists means nothing. The question is: Can you believe in his story?

Paul tells us that whatever was written in former times was written for our instruction. When he speaks of things "written in former time", he means only the Old Testament. He quotes no other book. He doesn't quote Plato, the Vedas, Upanishads, or any ancient book- only the Old Testament; and he tells us that they were written - these books - for our instruction.

So, really, in the end, there is only God. And God is Jesus Christ. There is no other God. So, let no one scare you. Your salvation has already been predestined. You are already redeemed because you have already been predestined. Predestined glory, and glory is nothing more than the magnifying - "making self many." So, each becomes the face of God, everyone knowing that he is God, and everyone knowing that the other - his brother - is God. And there is nothing but God!

Start tonight. Feel yourself into your desired state of consciousness. What would you be conscious of feeling if the world reflected your desire right now? I encourage you to use feeling, just as Isaac did in his story. As Isaac, you cannot see your desire as objective to yourself. It is Jacob, smooth-skinned and with no external reality while this objective world is Esau. You must clothe Jacob with such external qualities that he will feel objectively real to you.

There is nothing that appears in perception which cannot be duplicated in fancy, and what the world perceives is all imaginative in character. Here is a graphic example: I am sure everyone knows what it is to detect the fragrance of a rose. Now smell is a chemical sense and depends upon contact for perception. But does one really need a rose to detect its fragrance? Cannot its fragrance be reproduced imaginatively?

President Hoover, a man who began his life here on earth in the state of poverty, yet rose to the highest office in our land, made this statement at a convention in San Francisco: "Human history, with its forms of governments, its revolutions, its wars, and in fact the rise and fall of nations, could be written in terms of the rise and fall of ideas implanted in the mind of men."

To unravel the mystery of Christ from all the interpretations put upon it is quite a difficult task. We are up against all kinds of misunderstandings of the mystery. Most people believe that it is secular history, and the story has something to do with some historical occasion, and it isn't. It is salvation history. The whole thing is taking place in you, the individual. It's not taking place on the outside at all, but how to convince men that this is true?

You may ask how can a mortal man, born as we were born and who will die as we all will die, know that God only acts, but I tell you I know it from experience. I have experienced the Word of God and tonight I will tell you how I know that God and God only acts. The name of God is the key to understanding the biblical doctrine of God. In biblical terms the question is asked, "Does God exist? Who is our God? What is his name and what is his son's name?" For Israel, the personal name of God is I Am.

Tonight's subject is on conception, both on this level and the highest level. The Bible is vision from beginning to end. Words such as Jesus, Moses, Abraham, and Isaac are used, but their stories are visions. Jesus is the fulfillment of scripture, so when I speak of Jesus, I am speaking of you raised to the level where you can make the same bold statement.

Tonight's topic is: "The Most Precious Gift". If God who created the Universe and all within it gave it to you, and with the whole vast universe owned by you, you would consider that the greatest gift in the world. And, yet, he gave you something far greater than that. He gave you himself! God actually became as you are, that you may be as he is.

According to a rabbinical principle, what is not written in the Old Testament does not exist. The life of Jesus follows this principle. He made no attempt to change the world of Caesar or its social order, but left it just as it is, for man to make mistakes and live as he desires. Urging man to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's, Jesus comes into our lives for one purpose and that is to fulfill scripture. I want to show you how this is done in 1,260 days.