The Morning Star
THE MORNING STAR : Neville Goddard
Tonight is a bit of a riddle, but you listen carefully, for it’s very, very important. It is "The Morning Star," a promise made to man.
"He who conquers … I will give him the morning star." (Revelation 2:26, 28 RSV)
Then, in a realization of this promise, he identifies himself as the morning star. He says –
"I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star." (Revelation 22:16 RSV)
The Bible ends on this note, in the last chapter of the book of Revelation.
So, he tells you that he is "the root and the offspring of David, that He is the Morning Star," that which he promised to the man who conquers.
Again, let me remind you, when I speak of "man" in the Bible, I speak of generic man. "Male and female created He them," and called their name "Man." (Genesis 1:26) So, it is to you, whether you be male or female, that he speaks, and he’s promised you Himself.
Now, he tells you he is the root of David and he is the offspring of David. Here we find three generations: we find the grandfather, which is the root – the Cause; we find the father, in the form of a David, and then we find the grandson, which he doesn’t name. He says, "I am the root and the offspring," so he identifies himself with the root, which is the grandfather, and calls the grandson himself.
So, he is the grandfather and the grandson.
Now, who is this son that is David? The grandfather and the grandson are one. David is the son. David is the symbol of Humanity. So, we have as our root Jesus, for this is Jesus speaking. My root is Jesus; and Jesus unfolds himself creatively in me. Now, what is that that is unfolding within me? It is Jesus. Well, what comes out of Humanity? What comes out of you? What comes out of me? He calls this, in Scripture, his "creative power."
In Scripture, the creative power is defined as Christ. Christ, as we are told in the first chapter, the 24th verse of I Corinthians,
"Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God."
So, this comes out of you, for your root is Jesus, and what comes out of you is one-with-the-root. And the thing called Humanity is what is known in Scripture as David.
If you took all the generations of men and all of their experiences and fused them into one grand whole, that whole Scripture calls Eternity. Scripture calls it "the world." Now, we are told in Ecclesiastes –
"He has put eternity into the mind of man, yet so that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
So, the whole of humanity and all its experiences are in man, but man will not find it out until the end. Now when you take all the experiences of man and all the generations of man and fuse it together, when it comes out personified, it’s a youth, and the youth is David.
The world is called Olam in Hebrew. It’s translated as eternity; it’s translated as "the world," yet, it is more often translated as "the youth," as "the stripling," as "the young man." But you can’t see that young man until the very end. He has promised me – he has promised you – he has promised everyone Himself, for he has promised me the Morning Star. And what is the Morning Star? It’s the symbol of eternal life.
Now, he tells us: What is eternal life? "And this is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God." (John 17:3) When you find God – and you’ll not find Him in any other way than one way, for no one has ever seen God, but the Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made Him known.
Only when David stands before you – and he doesn’t have to say a word – and he stands before you as though memory returns. As you look at him, this relationship of father/son is beyond all doubt. There is no doubt in your mind as to who he is. At that moment, memory returns, and the whole thing is so clear, as though in the beginning you knew it and deliberately went to sleep in the forgetfulness of the Eternal Son that is your son.
But you will not find David until the very end, and when you find him, he calls you, "Father." And David is the Son of God. David is the symbol of Humanity, and all of its generations fused together, it comes out personified as that Eternal Youth called "David."
In the 4th chapter of the book of Acts, the writer, who was also the writer of the book of Luke – for all scholars agree that he who wrote Luke also wrote Acts. The unknown writer of Luke is also the unknown writer of Acts. But here in this 4th chapter, "Now, turn, O Sovereign Lord, creator of the heaven and the earth and the sea and all there is in it, who by the mouth of thy servant David, our father, did say" – and now he quotes the 2nd Psalm:
"Why did the Gentiles rage,
and imagine vain things?" (Acts 4:24, 25)
Then it goes on in the same 2nd Psalm, and these are the words – and David now speaks:
"I will tell of the decree of the Lord:
He said unto me, ‘Thou art my son, Today I have begotten thee.’" (Psalm 2:7)
It is so clearly stated.
Now in that same passage that I just quoted they translate a word that is more often translated as "son" – they call it in this passage, "servant" to confuse the issue, because they cannot believe for one moment, having taught through the centuries that Jesus is the Son, that now when it comes to David, they call him the "servant." Yet, that same word in the same chapter is translated "son" or "child." So, why change it? You miss the point completely. David is the Eternal Son, and you, when Jesus unfolds himself within you – you are the Lord. You are the Father.
So, here I am rooted in Jesus. Jesus is my root, and Jesus unfolds himself creatively in me. And when he completes the work in me, "I am He." And when it’s completed, to prove that it is completed, David appears, and David is my son.
Now, he said –
"I have come only to fulfill Scripture. Scripture must be fulfilled in me,"
– and beginning with Moses in the law and the prophets and the Psalms, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning him.
Now, in the 89th Psalm the Lord is speaking, and the Lord is saying, "I have found David, and he has called unto me, "Thou art my Father, thou art my God, and the Rock of my salvation." (Psalm 89:20, 26) He has come only to fulfill Scripture. That is the purpose of life.
What a man does in this world – it makes no difference to Scripture whether you are a carpenter, a mason, a scientist, a doctor, a speaker; it doesn’t really matter. That doesn’t concern the writers; they were not writing secular history. They were writing salvation history. It hasn’t a thing to do with secular history. Whatever you want to be, you can be by a principle laid down in Scripture, but that means nothing to the writers of Scripture. Listen to these words of Paul –
"From here on, I regard no one from the human point of view, even though I once regarded Christ from the human point of view, I regard him thus no longer." (II Corinthians 5:16 RSV)
He does not deny the physical you; that doesn’t concern him. His only concern was the life, death and resurrection of the Christ-in-you, for that’s the creative power of God and the wisdom of God, and that has to form itself in you to complete that passage I quoted in the beginning that comes from the 22nd chapter of the book of Revelation –
"I am the root and the offspring of David. I am the bright Morning Star. And he who conquers, I will give him the bright morning star."
In other words, I will give you my Self.
Well, now, David in the spirit calls you, "My lord," as we are told in the 22nd chapter of the book of Luke, "David in the spirit calls him ‘my lord.’" Well, every son spoke of his father as "my lord." So, "Who is your father," he asks, and what did he answer? He said, "My Father is He whom you call God, and I know my Father, and ye know not your God."
Now, David stands before the insane king. His name is Saul. That represents the world; the world that has forgotten, the world that now suffers from amnesia.
For, man has completely forgotten who he is; he doesn’t know he’s Jesus. If I told you now that you are the Lord Jesus, you would think, "Why, he’s silly. That’s perfectly silly. Here I am making a profit in this world to pay rent, to buy food, and he tells me that I am the Lord Jesus."
If you had a billion dollars today but you didn’t know it, you could die of starvation for the want of a dollar. If you didn’t know it, you wouldn’t go into any bank that held your reserves because you would not know you had it there. You could be dispossessed from your home; not knowing you could buy the home. You could be dispossessed from society, not knowing you could buy it all if you didn’t know you had provision. Well, that’s what man is. Man is suffering from total amnesia. He has forgotten who he is! For the root of man is the true identity of man, and the root of man is Jesus. And Jesus unfolds himself in man.
Well, what does he unfold? His own creative power and his wisdom, and then he gives to the man in whom he unfolds himself – he gives Himself, for he is the Morning Star.
When Jesus gives himself to you, his son must appear and call you, "Father." Then, and only then, do you know that you are the Lord Jesus. No loss of identity, no, none whatsoever. Only a far greater You now appears. You are Fred, John or Mary, or whatever your name is, but now you know, as no one knows, because they are still without this true identity. It hasn’t yet returned.
They are still suffering from amnesia. So, you do not tell them. You do not boast. You simply walk the world, seemingly alone, because the Unknown Being that has come to everyone in the world who has accepted Him in faith, and they speak of Him as Christ. But the Christ of Faith comes to us as one unknown, yet one who knows an inevitable mystery lets man experience. Only as you experience Christ, do you know who you are.
When you experience Jesus, you know who you are. In no other way do you ever know it, for "No one knows who the Son is except the Father; and no one knows who the Father is, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal it." (Luke 10:22)
I could tell you from now to the ends of time that you are Jesus; that you are the father of the immortal Biblical character called David, and you would shake your head and wonder if you were really "all there." "Why do I come and listen to this, because it seems so insane?" And I am telling you an eternal truth.
But spiritual truth, which is the eternal truth, cannot be logically proven. You have to wait for it to reveal itself within you.
I can tell you – and the day will come – that all that I’ve told you will return to your memory, and you will know I have told you the truth. But when it comes to you, it is because the Holy Spirit has been sent. He is called the Rememberer in the Bible.
"I will now depart," he said, and that’s man’s darkest hour when He becomes invisible. And darkness covered the earth because the Lord became invisible.
Well, where would He go? He went into the tomb, and the tomb is called, in Scripture, "Golgotha." Golgotha is the Hebrew word for skull. So, when the Lord is buried, He becomes invisible, and He enters Golgotha, the human skull. God Himself entered the skull and shares visions of Eternity with those who are there until they awake. And they awake one day to find they are entombed, and then they come out of that tomb, and all the imagery of Scripture surrounds them as a cubic reality – not something in the distance.
They are cast in the central role. They are the Being called Jesus. Without loss of identity, you are still Mary, you are still John; you are still whoever you are when this thing happens. Then all the imagery – the witness to this thing that happens to you – it all takes place before you, with a cubic reality just like this room. And how different the cubic reality is from the plane of any depiction of it.
Oh, I can depict it in a picture, on a script, or I can put it into the form of a piece of Scripture, but how different the cubic reality from the plane of any depiction of it! Right now this room is so real, isn’t it? Why is it real? Because we are here. Yet this room is not as real to you as the home you left. The home you left is more real than this because you visit this so seldom in the course of a year or a lifetime. Yet, every night you go home. But the home that you now think of is a plane. It hasn’t this reality; it hasn’t this cubic reality. Why? Because we are not in it.
So, when this play unfolds within you, you are in the play. You are the central figure in the play, and it’s just like this cubic reality, and the men are objectively real to you, and everything about it is real, just as this room is real. Prior to that moment, it was simply something that happened two thousand years ago. No, it is happening at every moment of time in the imagination of man, which is the reality of a man. Well, when it happens in that reality, it takes on this form, the form of the cube.
So, here, the Morning Star, as told us in Scripture, is Jesus Himself. And I, Jesus, said unto my angel, "Go and say, I am the root and the offspring of David; I am the bright morning star. And he who conquers, I will give him the morning star."
He will give us Himself. Well, if He gives us Himself, and He is Father, then where is my child? I can’t be a father unless there is a child. So, show me my child.
Well, I’ve searched the Scriptures, and it tells me the Father’s son is David. So, "I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me, ‘Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.’" At the very end of the journey, I have begotten a son, as the resultant state of my journey through all the states of Humanity. I pass through every state: good, bad, and indifferent, and having experienced those, the resultant state of these experiences comes out as David. "And David in the spirit calls me ‘Father.’"
So, "What think ye of the Christ?" he asked, and they said, "Why, the son of David." He then said, "Why, then, did David in the spirit call him, ‘my Lord’?" If David thus calls Him "my Lord," how can he be David’s son? They did not answer. They did not know the mystery.
So, when David stands before the insane man symbolized as Saul, a king who had forgotten – he had lost his memory, and he had promised to give the man who destroyed the enemy of Israel – to set that man’s father free. He’s not going to set the man free. He is going to set free the father of the man who destroyed the enemy of Israel. And now here comes the man, and he holds the head of the enemy of Israel, symbolized as Goliath. And here is a head; he holds it in his hand, and King Saul said to him, "Whose son are you, young man?" for he had promised to set that man’s father free. He wants to find the father. "Whose son are you, young man?" And the young man answered, "I am the son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite."
Jesse, the Bethlehemite. Well, the word "Jesse" is "I am"; it’s any form of the verb "to be." What he actually said is, "I am the son of him whose name is ‘I am.’" Well, what is God’s name? "And the Lord said unto Moses, ‘When they ask you for my name, say, "I am" hath sent you. That is my name forever, and by this name I shall be known throughout all generations.’ " So, that’s my name. So, "Jesse" tells you the name of the Father of David, for he’s asking this question of David, and David answered, "My father is Jesse the Bethlehemite."
Now, we ask the question – a lady asked me tonight before I took the platform, "Why all the confusion in the world?" Well, man is set free to make all the mistakes in the world, but having made them, he will reap the consequences, because man will do the will of the Father. Man is David. David is the symbol of Humanity. Now, is that stated in Scripture? In the 13th chapter of the book of Acts, "I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart who will do all my will."
Humanity has done all the will of God. Well, you say, "Wars, too?" Yes, man imagines war. He will do the will of God to go to war, for God will compel him to perform every act in this world that he has imagined.
We do not have a complex in this world that runs over thirteen billion dollars a year, and then not sell the profits of it. Russia has a similar setup, and they sell between twelve and thirteen billions of the same items. Sweden is a neutral country, and they run into billions – and they are neutral – criticizing us.
Switzerland has an enormous factory producing the same things, England the same thing, France the same thing. And I am speaking of war materials. But all the production of the factories that produce only for wear – put it all together from all the nations who have the know-how and the ability to make it, and it will run into billions and billions of dollars.
We confess to selling every year in excess of thirteen billion dollars in war materials to the outside world, not only what we keep for ourselves and use and stockpile, but what we actually sell to the outside world. We have competitors trying to outsell us. Russia is our biggest competitor. England is not far behind for a small country today. France is there. Switzerland – they all do something, all these countries who can make the things, and they are all now asking for peace! Not one wants to close their factories. They would like us to close our factories so they could sell more, not less.
Each is competing with each other in the making of war materials. And they are asking, "Why war?" Why do I make bread? Because people will buy it if I pub- licize it enough. I do not want to make all kinds of bread and not sell it. I would have to go broke if I didn’t sell it. So, I make bread based upon the consumption of man and my ability to persuade him to buy my bread.
Well, there we come to the very basic root. You find it true in everything that we produce in the world. If I can’t dispose of it, I must stop producing it. So, to ask me why we have war, go back to the imagination of man. He conceives the item, he conceives the use of it, and then he brings in his name to advertise it, and then sends out his salesmen to sell it.
And that’s why we have war. You can’t go on stockpiling it, going more and more broke in these poor countries and not use it, and so whatever man can imagine, man can realize, and so we will realize it. It’s just as simple as that.
But man does the will of God. God didn’t will him to go to war. He gave man freedom of choice. We ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We are told to choose "good," but the choice is ours. We can choose "evil." When man chooses "evil," he is under compulsion to express it.
So, I have found in David, the symbol of Humanity, a man after my own heart, who will do all my will, and so God puts him through the paces to express what he himself has chosen to express. So, that’s the whole vast thing in this world.
If we want to stop it, we don’t stop it on the outside; we stop it on the inside. But in the very end, you’ll discover you have played every part in the world.
You’ve played the part of the harlot and the part of the one who sat in judgment and condemned her to death. You have played the part of the thief and the one who was the victim of the theft. You’ve played every part in this world: the peacemaker and the war-maker, and in the very end, having played all the parts and the journey is over, you come to the end.
And then, the end is a reward, and that is the Morning Star. And the Morning Star is the gift of God Himself to you. That was the purpose in the very beginning. This wasn’t something thought up afterwards; it came in the very beginning. God so willed it that in the end, having suffered for the thirst in the very beginning, is for the God that became invisible.
So, God is telling the entire story, as told us in the book of Genesis. In the very beginning we were told we are going to go into a world that is not ours, and we will be enslaved there four hundred years. Well, four hundred is not four hundred years measured by the clock. Four hundred is a symbolic number, as all the numbers in Scripture are.
Four hundred is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet symbolically. Its numerical value is four hundred. Its symbolic value is a cross, and the cross that God wears is the human form. It is on this cross that God is crucified. That I know from my own personal experience, for when I re-enacted and replayed the 42nd Psalm, that night that I completely reread it leading an enormous crowd in procession going into the house of God.
Read the 42nd Psalm and you will see: He led them in procession to the house of God, and then he remembered. "And these things I remember" – and how he led the gay procession.
And this night in question I had this enormous crowd, all in the Arabic costumes – and the men, and here I am leading them to this invisible home, the home of God. And a voice out of the nowhere rang out, "And God walks with them."
A woman at my side – at my right – asked the voice, "If God walks with us, where is He?" and the voice replied, "At your side." She turned to her left and looked into my face and became hysterical. It struck her so funnily that she was looking into a man’s face and that that man was God? So, she asked the voice, after looking into my face and becoming hysterical with laughter – she said, "What! Is Neville God?" and the voice replied, "Yes, in the act of waking."
And, then, the voice spoke from within me, and no one heard it but the speaker, and from the depths of my soul, the voice said –
"I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed" – and I finished the sentence. Yes, He was dreaming that He was I. And when you wake from the dream, He is I.
And how would I know that I am He? Well, he is a father, and therefore his son has to be my son. And when His son stands before me and calls me, "Father," then He gave me the Morning Star.
That is the fulfillment of Scripture. So, I knew at that moment that some time following that vision – that actual experience, if He is still asleep within me and I do not know the son, the day He awakes within me, I must remember my son.
Well, He awoke within me, and He was in the tomb of my skull, but he wasn’t another – He was myself. Then, when He awoke within me and I came out, a hundred and thirty-nine days later His son stands before me, and here His son calls me, "Father," and I know he is my son. I also know his name is David.
Then, a hundred and twenty-three days later, here comes another grand event, and my temple is split, for we are told in Scripture. "You are the temple of the Living God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you." If you are the temple of the Living God and the curtain of the temple is torn from top to bottom, there must be something about you that is torn from top to bottom. Don’t go into any temple made with hands, for you will not find God there. God dwells in a temple made without hands, and if you are the temple of the Living God and the Living God’s Spirit dwells within you, and the curtain of the temple is torn from top to bottom, then there has to be something about this temple that you are. And it is.
A bolt of lightning strikes you and you are cut in two from the top of your skull to the base of your spine, and you see at the base of your spine what appears to be a pool of golden, liquid light, and as you contemplate it, you know it is yourself.
As you know that it is yourself, you fuse with it, and then like a coil of lightning you ascend what would be your spinal column right into your own skull, and the whole thing reverberates – reverberates just like thunder, and you return into the Heaven of Heavens, into the Holy of Holies, taking, not the blood of calves, the blood of bulls, the blood of doves, but your own blood. That was the blood. That was the living blood of God, and fusing with it, you return with your own blood. That is your offering – to return as The Being.
Well, now, who is that Being? You are told that no one has ever ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up, in the same serpentine manner, but he could not be lifted up unless he first descended from heaven.
So, I tell you, you did not begin in your mother’s womb. You came out from heaven and came down into this world of death, this world of sin, and because you descended from heaven, you can ascend to heaven. But you will never ascend into heaven until the curtain of your temple is split in two from top to bottom. Then you take with you into the Holy of Holies the blood of God Himself. And you are that God revealing your own Being by your own blood.
And, then, nine hundred and ninety-eight days later, making a total of one thousand two hundred and sixty days, the dove – the symbol of the Holy Spirit – hovers above you as though floating – floating on water, but the water is crystal clear – luminous, but it is transparent. But the action of the dove leads you to believe it must be floating, for it doesn’t use its wings. It makes no effort to remain afloat; it is simply floating, but it is floating without the effort made for a bird to move. It makes no effort; therefore, it is floating as a duck would float.
But it’s not a duck; it’s a dove. And, then, as you look at it, you raise your hand automatically, and it descends upon your index finger, and it comes to your face as you draw your hand to your face, and it smothers you with affection, kissing you all over your face, your head, your neck, and it remains upon you. And a woman at your side – the voice of God, and the woman says, "They avoid" – meaning the bird – "They avoid man because man gives off the most offensive odor. But he loves you, and to demonstrate his love for you, he descended upon you." And while he is smothering me with love and affection, the scene dissolves.
And these are the Four Mighty Acts of God to reveal Himself in the one who has the experience of these acts.
The first begins with the Resurrection, followed instantly with the "birth from above." Then comes the discovery of the Fatherhood of God, and you are God, for His son calls you, "Father." And then comes the splitting of the temple of your body from top to bottom and your Ascent as the Son of Man into Heaven, and no man ever ascended into Heaven but He who first descended, the Son of Man. Now, you know who the Son of Man is. "And he calls himself the Son of Man." And then comes the climax of it all, the seal of approval, with the work completely done. He sees his work and pronounces it "good and very good," and brings the Seal of Approval upon it, and that seal is the Holy Spirit.
And you add the days together, and they come out: one thousand two hundred and sixty days, as told us in the last chapter of the book of Daniel. "It will take one thousand two hundred and sixty days." He said, "I saw the man clothed in linen, and he said to me, One thousand two hundred and sixty days – " I did not understand. He said, "Seal the book until the end." (Daniel 12)
Then you turn over to the 12th chapter of the book of Revelation. It is supposed to break the seal, and it tells you all about the beginning of the child. That is when you start, and you start counting from then when this mysterious heavenly child is born and caught up into the heavens, and now count one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
So, I tell you, the story is true. The Pattern of God is buried in man, just as you take a seed, the spermatozoa, and bury it in the womb, and what it contains is going to unfold because the pattern of God – and God is one, so that identical pattern must unfold in everyone in whom it unfolds, and it will unfold in every man, for that is the Word of God buried in the Pattern Man, and the Pattern Man is called in Scripture Jesus Christ.
I tell you, that is your true future – Your true identity is Jesus Christ – But at the moment you have forgotten it, but memory will return and bring to your remembrance all that I have told you, for I will depart, and this will linger as a vague memory until the day that it actually happens; then the whole thing re- turns. And then you become a witness to the Eternal Truth of God. You cannot be a witness alone; you must have two to have verified, as told us in Scripture. Well, there are two; you and the Book. The Book is the external witness, Scripture, and you are the internal witness. So, you together come before the throne bearing witness to the truth of God’s word.
Eventually all are witnesses to the truth of God! But while we are here, we’re invited to exercise the talent that He gave us, and the talent is the Law, and how to use this Law to simply cushion the blows – the inevitable blows that man must experience in this world. If you can be used to aid the birth of another man’s imaginal act, you will be used, and you may wonder, "What’s happening to me?" It is an unpleasant thing. All right, you can change it.
You can change it by the use of your own wonderful human imagination. That is called in Scripture repentance, misinterpreted in this world as "to feel regretful, to feel remorseful." It hasn’t a thing to do with regret and remorse. The word is "metanoia"; it means a radical change of attitude – a radical, down-to-the-root change of mind.
When man can change his mind radically, then that change will project itself and nothing but it, will project itself. That changes the world in which you live. Do it wisely. Do it lovingly, not only for yourself, but for all. And then set your hope fully upon the grace – the gift of God to you – until it is given.
We are told –
"Set your hope fully on the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ," (I Peter 1:13)
when He unveils Himself within you as you. And because He is a Father, you must be a father. And if you are a father, and God gave Himself to you, and He’s a Father, no other son but God’s son can call you, "Father. For, you’re told, "Call no man on earth Father, for you have but one Father who is in Heaven," and Heaven is within you.
When I find that One Father and He succeeds in giving me Himself, where is my son then? Bring me my son. And the son comes and calls you, "Father." Then you have no doubt. There is no uncertainty as to this relationship between you and God’s Son who calls you, "Father."
But having been trained for two thousand years to speak of Jesus as the Son of God, what I say to you now would seem a bit strange, but I am not taking back one word of it. Every word that I have told you is true, because I speak from experience. I am not theorizing. I’m not speculating. Everything I tell you, I know from experience.
Tonight was the Great Promise, the great riddle. I hope I’ve unriddled it for you: that the grandfather and the grandson are the same person; that Jesus and the offspring of man, which is Christ, was the Christ formed in you. We are told in Paul’s letter to the Galatians –
"My little children with whom I am in labor until Christ be formed in you." (Galatians 4:19)
Well, when He is formed in you, and you have completed the work, that which is formed in you and the root of you are one and the same, and you are That.
And then Humanity fused into a single Being who, personified, stands before you as the Son of God.
When it happened to me, my three brothers, my eldest brother, Cecil, my second brother, Victor, and my brother Lawrence, my third brother – they were in Barbados, thousands of miles away from here – at least five thousand, when this happened to me in this City eleven years ago. Well, this is all beautiful symbol- ism and imagery.
It is said in Scripture that they were afar, those who received the Angel’s voice. It said, "Hasten to Bethlehem, for this day the Lord is born." For the Lord’s birth, what you find is only a sign. That is not the thing that is born. You are going to find a babe, but the babe is a sign of the event that took place, they say, in Bethlehem, and they hastened, and from Scripture it would be a long journey.
So, that’s a long journey in Spirit. It’s all happening in Spirit. So, they came and they were visible to me, but I was invisible to them. They could speak of me and they knew the sign that represented my birth, although to them – or to two of them, my brothers Cecil and Victor, they thought it the most incredible thing in the world, and they asked, "How can Neville have a baby?"
But my brother Lawrence, who found the infant, he did not question it, and he presented the facts – he presented the child. Without argument, he simply lifted the babe and placed it on the bed.
Then I lifted that child, and I said, "How is my sweetheart?"
– and the child broke into the most heavenly smile, as told us in the adumbrated form in the form of Isaac, for the entire Old Testament is nothing more than an adumbration of that which unfolded within one, and then two, and then three, and finally all. But you could not quite understand it when it was adumbrated. It was a foreshadowing, and people could not interpret that foreshadowing.
So, when it happened, this dream that existed for two thousand years is only in the imagination of Israel, and when it happened in an Israelite, and the Israelite told it and reinterpreted Scripture in the light of his own experience, they denied him. "That’s not what we were looking for. We were looking for a conqueror to come from without to destroy the enemy of Israel," but not to destroy the enemy within man, for man’s only enemy is within himself. And when he brings out that enemy within himself by the discovery of who he is – well, then, he is not what the world is looking for while they remain asleep.
Eleven years ago this thing happened, but I still exist in this body, although I live in my imagination. That is the real You. It sleeps in man, and it dreams in man, and one day it will wake as that man in whom it now dreams – not you and God – you as God! For His Son is going to call you, "Father," and there will be no uncertainty in your mind as to who that son is, and who you are relative to that Son.
I can say this boldly – because I know it is going to come true to everyone in the world. Whether one is trained not to believe it, I don’t care. Eventually they will believe it because the facts will confront them. And if one disagrees, it doesn’t really matter. If there is evidence for a thing, what does it matter what anyone thinks?
Well, one day the evidence will confront you, and whatever you thought prior to that moment will fade into oblivion. The day it happened to me – I was up until that day taught from the time I was a little child at my mother’s knee – I was born and raised in a Christian home, baptized in a Christian church – in the Episcopal Church. We call it the Church of England where I was born, but it was one hundred percent Christian.
I learned the story of Christ from my mother. When I went to school we learned Scripture in school, so I had it reinforced there. I was taught to pray – to go down on my knees every night and to pray to the Lord Jesus. All these things I was taught, and I believed them implicitly.
Then I stumbled upon the Law, not the Promise. The day that David stood before me, it was just like memory returning. Up until that moment, I did not see it in Scripture, for I was taught to believe that Jesus was the Son. No one taught me that Jesus was the Father, yet it is in Scripture. No one taught me that David was the Son, yet it is in Scripture. But I was blinded by what I was taught. And a man, having a fixed idea, becomes incapable of seeing the truth. He has to see it through that fixed idea. Well, when he confronted me, the fact dissolved the fixed idea, and I had to go out, then, and tell it just as I experienced it, not as I theorized it. So, I tell it against fix ideas.
If the Pope stood before me now, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and they still have that fixed idea as they were trained concerning Jesus as the Son, then I would bounce off their minds – but I would go blindly on, knowing that eventually, when the time is ripe, they will be confronted with the facts. And the fact will dissolve their misinformation.
Let us go into the Silence.