They Related Their Own Experience
Neville Goddard
Tonight’s subject is, “They Told What Had Happened” – “They Related Their Own Experience,” is the better translation of that phrase which you and I will read in the 24th chapter of Luke. When I speak of “they told it,” I am speaking of the evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
These are anonymous names. No one knows who Matthew, Mark, Luke and John really are. They are all anonymous. They each related their own experience. These experiences, which they talk about, were seen and heard by none, save him in whom they occurred. Through these experiences they learned for a certainty that they are God. They were not speculating, trying to set up a workable philosophy of life; they are simply relating their own experience.
One must experience Scripture for himself before he can begin to understand how altogether wonderful it is. So, tonight I will show you just what I mean by relating one’s own experience concerning Scripture.
We have what is known as the Old Testament. The Old Testament is an adumbration – that is, it is a foreshadowing in a not-altogether conclusive or immediately evident way. It is a sketchy representation, omitting details and – well, avoiding revealing God’s plan of Redemption.
When Blake was asked by Reverend Trussler why he wrote in such a strange manner and said to him, “You know, you need someone to elucidate your writings.” Blake replied, “That which can be made explicit to the idiot isn’t worth my care.” And the wisest of the ancients considered what was not too explicit was the fittest for instruction, because it rouses the faculties to act. That’s why we have an Old Testament, because it rouses the faculties to act.
So, you study it and you study it and you try to extract from it some bit of meaning, and yet it is only an adumbration – a very sketchy representation of the Plan of Redemption. But then, in the fullness of time, it unfolds within the individual, and then he sees the true meaning of the sketch. But not until it unfolds within him can he really understand that which was foreshadowed and told us through the voice of the prophets and given to us in what is now called the Old Testament.
So, the New Testament is simply that which is the individual’s experience, so he tells it and relates exactly what happened to him.
Let us take now a simple statement in the 22nd Psalm, which is called a Messianic Psalm. You will find that in this story of the Crucifixion – for it’s all in the New Testament; in the story of the Crucifixion you will find tremendous correspondences between the sufferings of Christ and those of David. The 22nd Psalm is a Psalm of David. Let us take one simple verse, and he calls upon the Lord: He says:
“Deliver my soul from the sword,
And my life from the power of the dogs!” (Psalm 22:20)
How on earth can you interpret that? “Deliver my soul from the sword, and my life from the power of the dogs!” You can just look at it and read it, and then you will skip on to something else. He tells you at the very end of that chapter that God “wrought it.” (Psalm 22:31) Let me turn back; now, to the word translated “my life.” It only appears twelve times in the entire Bible. It means unique. It means “the only one;” it means “Thy only Son.”
In this 22nd Psalm it means, “Thy only Son.” Let me quote it now:
“Deliver my soul from the sword,
And Thy only Son from the power of the dogs!”
The night that I encountered David – for those who are not familiar with this teaching of mine, which is Scripture – David is the personification of Humanity, after the individual has experienced all that Humanity offers. Having played all the parts, with not a thing else left to be played – gone through everything; then David stands before you as the personification of Humanity, as God’s only Son. He calls Him, “Father,” and you know you are his father, and he knows that he is your son. He’s calling upon you to deliver your only son, which is himself, from the power of the dogs.
The night that I encountered David and knew David to be my son, and he knew me to be his father, two homosexuals stood next to me, maybe in their late 30’s – very attractive men, looking at my son in the most concupiscent manner. They could have feasted upon him, for he is altogether lovely. You cannot describe the beauty and the attractiveness of David, which is the sum total of the experiences of Humanity. He comes out as the result; he is the resultant state of God-passing- through-all-of-Humanity.
And here are these two very attractive men, obvious homosexuals, looking concupiscently at David, and I reminded them that David has never lost a battle. Before me is the severed head of the Giant Goliath which my son David brought down. It’s not a man who took off the head of a giant. That is the victory – the sign of the victory that he brought down the enemy of Israel. I reminded them that he never lost a battle.
Now, you may ask, “What has that to do with the verse?” Well, the word translated “dog,” which is keleb, is by definition a male – well, I would not call it “harlot,” but a male in the service of the priesthood, a homosexual. That is what the word “dog” means in Scripture. Now, who on earth would have known that? It is used twice in that wonderful 22nd Psalm. “For the dogs surround me.” (Psalm 22:16, Moffatt) “Now deliver Thy only Son from the power of the dog,” (Psalm 22:20) from the power of the homosexual.
I can’t tell anyone how altogether literally true this Bible is until the individual experiences it! So, here I am looking at David. I know he is my son; he knows I am his father, and these two men looking at him as though they could feast upon him, and I remind them that he never lost a battle. So, here it is all adumbrated; it is all a complete forecasting and a foreshadowing of what the individual, one day, will experience. That is why Blake said, “What can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.” And the very wisest of the ancients considered what was not too explicit the most fit for instruction, because it arouses the faculties to act.
Even with a good Concordance and looking up the definitions, you can’t quite bring yourself to believe that that is really what he means until you experience it, and then one day you are going to experience that encounter. When you meet your son that seems to be something that has been long, long lost, all of a sudden memory returns, and here is the resultant state of your experience through the journey called Man.
Now, let me turn to the 82nd Psalm, considered the most difficult of all the Psalms for the interpreter:
“God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgments”:
And now He speaks. He is speaking to the gods. He says:
“I say, ‘You are gods,
Sons of the Most High, all of you:
Nevertheless, you will die like men,
And fall as one man, O ye princes.” (Psalm 82:1, 6, 7)
To “fall as one man, O ye princes.” Now, our scholars tell us that this is the most difficult of the 150 psalms for any interpreter to extract any meaning from it. Well, let me give you my experience of it:
“God has taken his place in the divine council…” (Psalm 82:1)
Jesus is the “divine council,” the sum total of all. “Jesus” and the word “Jehovah” are one and the same. Jesus is the divine council, leader of the gods, for the word translated “gods” is a plural word. The word is “Elohim” in this 82nd Psalm. So, when we are told that God – that is Elohim. We use the plural now; “gods” is the same Elohim. First it is translated in the singular, and then the same word is translated in the plural. So,
“God has taken his place in the divine council;
In the midst of the gods he holds judgments”
What is it all about? He tells us now, although they are gods and sons of the Most High, they are going to die like men – that’s the judgment, and they are going to fall as one man, “O ye princes.”
What they are telling us is the fall of God into division, and His resurrection in unity. They are telling us of His fall into the generation of death and decay, and of His regeneration by the resurrection from the dead. That’s the entire history, the fall into fragmentation. The whole One Man is fragmented into unnumbered men, and then through regeneration, which is by resurrection, we will be, one by one, raised from this world of death into unity once more.
Having been experienced in the world of death, and having experienced it, we are now returned to the unity, enhanced beyond the wildest dream by reason of the experience in the world of death.
So, they are only telling of their own experience. I beheld the one – and you are going to behold the one. The day will come that you will see our contracted senses make many; our expanded senses produce the one. As the sense expands, what seems to be a multitude appears as one man, and that one man we call Jesus, and we-in-him and he-in-us live in harmony in the world of Eternal Life. But not until we are individually resurrected, do we see the unity of being – that one Being, and we are that one Being.
The story is the story of Christ. It is all about you, because Christ-in-you is the hope of glory. “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” (II Corinthians 13:5) as Paul asked the question. Therefore, all things said of Christ are said of you. It’s all about you! So, this Psalm that is considered by all scholars to be the most difficult to interpret – if you could see it through the eyes of one who has experienced it, is simply the fall into division of the One Man, who is God, and then the resurrection into unity of that same One Man. He fell into division – into you one, I one – we are all members of the One Being, for there is only “one body,… one spirit,… one Lord,… one God and Father of all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6)
So, the homosexual – who on earth would have thought you would have that experience, to look at them and warn them not to touch your son? And, yet, God made the homosexual! For we are told, “Never wouldst Thou have made anything if Thou hadst not loved it.” It is a part of the play. Who would have thought for one moment that you would have come upon a scene of that nature? And, yet, it’s part of Scripture!
Here I am looking at this man, and I am looking at my son – the Eternal Youth. He is the resultant state of my experiences, for I fell into division, and I must rise into unity. I actually came down into the world of man. Blake made this statement:
“Eternity exists, and all things in Eternity, independent of Creation,
which was an act of mercy.” (Wm. Blake, from “The Last Judgment)
He is telling us that man, as we understand man, is an eternal part of the structure of the universe. So, one man comes down into diversity and penetrates the bodies and annexes the brains of that which we call man, and by that act, which is an “act of mercy,” he becomes a living soul – not yet a life-giving spirit, but a living soul. And He who penetrates the body, annexing the brain of that body, must suffer with it. He takes upon himself all the weaknesses and limitations of the body that He penetrates and annexes, and it is God-in-man that is suffering.
So, in the 22nd Psalm, the whole thing is told you in detail in the four Gospels concerning the suffering of the Christ, and it is all annotated in the Gospels concerning that 22nd Psalm, and it is all about David.
David is Humanity, and the sum total of the experiences of being man comes out in the end as the most glorious son. God begets that son by first becoming Humanity, and you are that God! You became man. You actually became man, that man may become as you are. But to become as you are, you had to become as He is; so, God became, as I am, that I may be as He is.
So, every little story that seems to have no sense when you read it in the Bible makes so much sense when you experience it. Every little portion of it you will experience one day. And, then, you will gain the certainty that you really are the God spoken of in Scripture, though it is spoken of as a being that lived – or you think it is a being that lived unnumbered centuries ago. Then you discover it is contemporary, but the time has not fully come for This One to awake within you. That Being awakes within you, and you are God.
Believe it. I am telling you what I know. Like the evangelists, I am not speculating. They were not trying to set up some workable philosophy. They simply told exactly what had happened to them. They related their own experience. So, I have started now relating my own experience just like the evangelists, telling exactly what happened to me. But they told it in the form of a story, because:
“Truth embodied in a tale
Shall enter in at lowly doors.”
My Mother told me the story, as your mother told you, and then I heard it repeated when I went to school, as a story that took place two thousand years ago. And when we read the Old Testament that was thousands of years before, I had no idea that it was contemporary! But that story is taking place in Eternity. Think of it in this light.
Can you conceive of a drama that must be done absolutely and continuously, without any reference whatsoever to completion or incompletion – without any reference whatsoever as to duration or repetition, or to its position in time – although sometimes with reference to past time? It is a drama that is taking place forever. In other words, it is like the imperative passive mood, a thing to be done absolutely and continuously. All of a sudden you enter into that drama that is taking place, and then the drama unfolds within you. It is adumbrated in the Old – only foreshadowed. But when it unfolds itself in you, you understand the foreshadowing, and you know now that it’s all about you; that everything written in that Old Testament was all about you. “In the volume of the book, it is all about me.” (Psalm 40:7)
So, when it happened in the soul of one, he simply told what happened to him, and that’s not what the world was looking for, any more than that is what they are looking for today. Today the whole vast world is hoping and waiting for Him to come. He cannot come from without, because He’s already come. He is already in you, and He has fallen into division in unnumbered billions of us. He has fallen into – well, fragmentation, and His resurrection into unity. And only through the resurrection of the One Who has already fallen in you can you actually return to the unity that you and I enjoyed when we met in the “divine council.” So, “God has taken His place in the divine council;” (Psalm 82:1) that was the beginning. “In the midst of the gods He holds judgment.” (Psalm 82:1)
Now, He speaks to all within Himself, “I say, ‘Ye are gods.” (Psalm 82:6) He is speaking to you – “all of you, sons of the Most High; nevertheless…” now – “you shall die like men, and fall as one man, O princes.” (Psalm 82:8) So, that was the Fall, a deliberate fall – not because of any mistake that He made – a deliberate fall into division, and then a resurrection into unity.
By that resurrection into unity, we expand. There is no limit to expansion of God. He set a limit to His contraction, and that contraction was man into whom He fell.
He fell into man, and animated man. So, I can tell you from my own experience that Humanity, this whole vast world, is animated by a Power within you, but you have not yet tasted of that power.
The day will come; you will actually taste that power. In tasting, I mean you will experience that power. You will stop it, and Time will stand still, and you will see everyone in your world perfectly dead. You will release that power, and they will become once more reanimated, and continue to fulfill their intentions. You will go beyond that, and realize that you have the power to change their intentions, and you will actually stop it and change the intention of man, or any group of men as large as you want – change the intention. When you release the power, once more they will become animated, and they will think that they originated your present intention, not knowing it came from you.
Then you will understand these words in the book of John when He stands before – as the story is told – the judge of judges; He stands before Pilate, and Pilate said, “Do you not know that I have the power to set you free and the power to crucify you?” He said, “You have no power over me, were it not given to you from above.” (John 19:10, 11) You can only execute the order that comes from above; you do not do a thing here. It comes from above.
You are destined to be a part of that “divine council” when you awake from your dream. Who will then give the order from above? Today, man thinks he is doing it. He isn’t doing it at all! You will stop time and you will start time. That doesn’t make sense on this level at all, and no scientist, possibly, would agree with me. But, you see, I experienced it. I know what I am talking about from actual experience. I am not speculating. “I have tasted of the power of the age to come,” (Hebrews 6:5) where I was taken in spirit into a world just like this, and here everything was animated, seemingly independent of my perception of it. They were doing exactly what they wanted to do, and I was simply doing what seemingly I wanted to do, and then suddenly I knew that I could arrest something that I was feeling for the first time within me. And I also knew that if I succeeded in arresting it, that everything that I was seeing would stand still. And I did. I arrested an activity within me, and everything stood still. I examined everyone, and they were all dead, as though they were made of clay, but I did not change their intention. I simply stopped the activity, and Time stood still.
For space is simply a facility for experience, but time is the facility for changes in experience.
Not a thing could change. Nothing could change. The grass stopped waving, the bird stopped flying, the waitress stopped walking, the diners stopped dining; everything stood still. It could not move. One second before, it seemed completely independent of my perception of it. They did not need my permission to eat, and the bird did not need my permission to fly, and nothing needed my permission to do anything that it was doing. And, yet, at that moment I knew that it was all activated and reanimated by me.
I could have ordered a change of intention, and the bird, instead of flying to the branch which it intended, had I changed its intention would have gone where I commanded it. And the diner dining, had I changed the intention, would have put the spoon back instead of completing the operation of bringing that soup to his mouth. I could have changed it in the most radical manner. I didn’t. “I tasted of the power of the age to come.” (John 6:5)
So, they are actually telling us in Scripture what they themselves experienced, trying to encourage everyone to believe that it is all their future. You are destined to waken from this dream. And the dream is being controlled by the depths of your own Being, who is God-in-you.
It doesn’t make sense, but I tell you, it is far better to hear it now, even though it disturbs you – and let it disturb you – than to continue in the dream, as the whole vast world is dreaming.
So, here, the evangelists, unknown as they are but have lived through the centuries as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, told it in the form that you and I could accept it in kindergarten. They told a story, because:
“Truth embodied in a tale
Will enter in at lowly doors.”
So, my Mother told it to me as a little story. When I saw that thing on the wall in my Mother’s living room, at the time I did not question my Mother’s right to have it; but she told me the story of the “Slaughter of the Innocents,” and she had a picture of it – a copy of some nice painting of it – a gruesome thing, the slaughter of the little children, all under 2 to get to the one that they wanted. I would cry. I would actually cry – literally cry. Then I realized, in the end, it wasn’t so at all.
I realize today, from experience, that the Crucifixion, far from being a cruel event, was the choice of God! And may I tell you? It’s sheer ecstasy. Sheer ecstasy – as it happened to me by memory many years ago.
In the 42nd Psalm we are told, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.” (Psalm 42:1, KJV1 ) That hunger must come upon man. That thirst for the will of God must come upon man. When it does, nothing in this world can satisfy you but an experience of God. And this night I had that experience as told in the 42nd Psalm.
I remember – and the word now is “remember,” so this is a memory returning. I remember leading them in procession to the House of God. It came back so vividly, and here I am leading an enormous crowd, leading toward a seemingly invisible Mecca – an invisible Temple of God. (See Psalm 42:4) And as we proceeded, a voice rang out, “And God walks with them.” And a woman at my side asked the Invisible Voice – we all heard the voice; she said, “If God walks with us, where is He?” and the Voice answered – and we all heard it, “At your side.”
She looked to her left and looked into my face. Well, she knew me as a friend, and she became hysterical – it struck her so funnily, and she answered the Voice, and she said, “You mean Neville is God?” and the Voice answered, “Yes, in the act of waking.” She was still hysterical with laughter. Then the Voice spoke, but this time I alone heard it; it seemed to come from the very depths of my Being, and the Voice said to me, “I laid Myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed…” and I knew exactly what it was saying. It dreamed that it is I. And I knew that when it awoke from its dream, I am He!
But no sooner would I know that than this is what happened, I returned to this little garment on the bed, [indicating the body] and my two hands, my head, my right side, and the soles of my feet were whirling vortices. That was the Crucifixion.
“God [deliberately] became as we are, that we may be as He is.” [Wm. Blake, “There Is No Natural Religion”]
He deliberately nailed Himself to those vortices. And may I tell you – the sensation was sheer ecstasy. No pain whatsoever, as depicted by our artists concerning the Crucifixion. No pain! As we are told in the book of John, “No one takes away my life. I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again.” (John 10:18) It was a deliberate act on the part of God to become as we are. And then He rubs out the division between the two, and when He awakes, having dreamed our life, we awake as the Dreamer, but now we are awake.
So, I tell you, I know what it is to experience the great Crucifixion! So, Paul can tell us: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and became me.” (Galatians 2:20) You are that Son of God!
We are the sons that together form – God! And we came down and possessed these garments. We individualized these garments, and we will take them back, completely individualized as God.
So, I am relating my own experience, as the evangelists related their experience. “They told what had happened.” That means they related their own experience, and that’s the entire story – of the Gospel. It’s not about some Being outside of you; it is about a series of experiences that you are going to experience, for Christianity is based upon the assumption that a certain series of events happened in which God revealed Himself in action for the redemption of man.
Did they happen? Well, I know they happened, because I have experienced them. So, I am telling you, they did happen. They continue to happen in everyone born of woman.
Now, you may think this is not a practical matter. But I know from experience that that which is most profoundly spiritual is in reality most directly practical. While you are listening to what seems to be something that you did not come to hear, something far deeper is working within you. What you came to hear concerning the world of Caesar and how to get things – you’ll find it far easier. He knows your need far greater than your conscious mind does. You will get it!
Just listen to the depths of your own soul, and these things on the surface will come into play. They will all come into being. Money will come. Health will come. All these things will come if you listen to the Word of God. You do not have to go through anything that so many teach in the world concerning being austere with yourself and doing violence to yourself.
Our Patron Saint of this City, St. Francis of Assisi – on his deathbed he realized that he may have been too austere with his body. He was a very wealthy young man, and he had a vision, and the vision so moved him that he acted upon the vision and remained faithful to the end of his days and lived the most austere life. He was wealthy, and he gave up everything that he owned to the last piece of cloth on his body, and then the Bishop of Assisi gave him a cloak to cover his nakedness.
And he, at the age of 43, because of the austerity, made his exit from this world. But on his deathbed he asked the forgiveness of “Poor Brother Donkey, my body, for all the hardships which I have caused it to suffer.” He could have given it a bowl of soup or an extra piece of bread. He denied it everything because he took the vow of poverty. And he realized what hardships he had caused the poor donkey. Now, you know what the ass is that the Lord rode into Jerusalem! Not any little donkey. He tells you exactly who the donkey is, so he asked the forgiveness of “Poor Brother Donkey, my body, for all the hardships which I caused it to suffer.”
So, you do not have to take this donkey that you are riding into Jerusalem and cause it to really go through such terrible things that he put his body through. You don’t have to over-indulge, but you can give it the comforts and some of the luxuries of this world. It’s all yours for the taking. You do not need to live in poverty. You do not need to neglect these things. Give your body the normal things that anyone who has an animal would give it. This [indicating the body] is an animal. Just treat it well. Don’t overindulge it because that is not good, but treat it well. He confessed that he did not treat his “Poor Brother Donkey” well. His father disowned him because he was a very, very rich man, and then his son who he thought would take over the business gave everything away and became a pauper, so he disowned him.
So, here are the stories of the Gospels. You are wearing the body right now that is called in Scripture the “ass” that He rode into Jerusalem. Treat it well. Clothe it well. Don’t go naked, as he did. And one day that whole story will unfold itself within you, and you will know you are the Lord Jesus! You will know it more surely than you know you are now whatever name you think you are. But you cannot get away from that true identity, and that is that you are really the Lord Jesus, who fell into division, and then resurrects into unity, so when it is all resurrected there is only one body, and that one body is the Lord Jesus, and you will be the Lord Jesus – without loss of identity, you will know yourself to be Jesus.
Let me share with you an experience, and I tell you the story must unfold in everyone. This past Fall a little girl eight years old – she doesn’t come to the meetings. Her mother brought her after the event. Her mother came to the meetings, but there was no tape recording, so it was not heard at home. She does not read these books of mine to the little child. The child, naturally, is in school most of the day.
One day she said to her mother, “Mommy, I met that man in my dream.” Well, the mother said, “What man?” She said, “The lecturer,” so the mother said, “Well, you mean Neville?” The little girl said, “Yes, that’s the one.” Then she said, after that, “I had another dream about him.”
She wrote me now. She said, “I want to write and tell him of another dream that I had.” So, she writes me this letter. She said, “Dear Neville: You were in my dreams again. You took me on a plane to France, and when we got off the plane, you took me into a huge big hall. But as we arrived in France, the people said, ‘Oh, Neville! Neville is here to see the king.’ and I was afraid. And you took me by my hand and took me to a huge big hall, and as we entered, there was the king seated on the throne. And then, do you know what? You vanished! And I was afraid, and I went up to the king, and I took hold of his hand as tightly as I held yours. But do you know what? He was you! You were the king. And then do you know what? He vanished, too.”
Now, this story she told me in the letter. So I talked from the platform, and the mother was not there. The mother’s mother was there, so when she went home she called her daughter and said, “Neville told Maylo’s story tonight about meeting the king and how Neville vanished, and then the king became Neville, and then the king vanished.”
So, the mother was so excited that she went to the room and woke her little child, and told her that Neville had told her story. And the child in a daze said, “He has come to me three times, first as a man, then as a king, and now as the Lord Jesus Christ!” Then she turned to her mother, still in that dreamy state, and said to her mother, “He is the Son of God,” and then went back to bed, and her mother covered her up and said, “I went into my living room and shook for an hour.”
Then she writes me another letter. She says, “Do you know what? I saw you at a lecture, and there you were standing lecturing, and to the people, you took off your coat, but not to me. You took off your skin, and I could see right through you, and do you know what? I saw the king that you were when you took me to France. And then it all vanished.”
Now, in this story, she played the part of Peter – to show how the Bible unfolds. Peter was asked the question, “Who do people say that the son of man is?” And they replied, “Some say, John the Baptist, others Elijah, others one of the prophets.” And then he said, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:13-15)
So, He equates, now, the Son of Man with Himself. “Who do you say that I am?” and Peter becomes the spokesman, and Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And he answered, “… flesh and blood could not have told you, but my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 16:16, 17)
So, she plays the part of Peter, though she is a little girl. So, Peter is not a man. Peter is a state of consciousness. Whether you be a man or a woman, in that state you play the part of Peter, and you will actually see the one in whom He has awakened as that one. I had to have confirmation before I depart this world out of the mouth of one seemingly other than myself. And a little girl eight years old had to play that part.
So, I am telling you that everything written in the Gospel concerning Jesus, you are going to experience. It is going to start with your Resurrection – all in your own wonderful skull. Prior to the Resurrection, you are going to be “born from above,” and then the whole thing is going to unfold within you. Everything said and recorded in Scripture concerning Him, you are going to experience. Then you will know what I am talking about when I tell you they related their own experience. But they told it in the third person, because it is better understood – accepted, I would say – than if you tell it in the first. It seems so arrogant for any man to claim that he has experienced being the Father of the Son of God!
If you are the Father of the Son of God, you have to be God! And what arrogance for any mortal man who is going to die – because this thing [the body] has to die; it has to disappear from this world and turn into ash – and yet, I cannot deny the experience. But when you tell it in the first person, it seems so arrogant that you lose your audience. They say, “The man is insane,” and yet you cannot deny what has happened to you. But you can share it with others and tell them that they are going to have it, too.
It is my fervent hope that everyone who listens to me will have it in the not-distant future – will have it, I would say, in the immediate present. I am not anyone to foretell when it is going to happen. For we are told, “It comes suddenly – “with shocking suddenness – “like a thief in the night. (I Thessalonians 5:2) You don’t expect it. Then you will understand how altogether wonderful Scripture is! It is the eternal story of God’s plan of Salvation.
So, this is not unique – this thing called Neville. I want to tell you it happened to me, and Scripture confirms it. This is going to happen to everyone in the world. So, if I relate my own personal experiences, it is not to brag; it is to encourage – to tell you that you are going to have the identical experience, because there’s only one Lord, and there is only one body, and there is only one God and Father of all, and if it has happened to one, it is going to happen to all, because it takes all to make the One.
He fell into division, and now we shall be resurrected into unity. So, it begins with the Resurrection, and the Resurrection is not out of some cemetery. It is not out of some graveyard. It is out of your own skull, for that is the sepulcher where God is buried. There is no other tomb where God is buried. He fell right down into the tomb where He is buried, in the tomb of the human skull, where He is going to awaken, and from where He will be “born from above.” This whole drama completely unfolds within you.
I can’t tell anyone the feeling of comfort and peace and release that comes after it happens in you, because it doesn’t really matter when you drop this [indicating the body]. There is no concern about death. You know there is no death. You came down into the extremes of death, but you know you are the Living God. You tasted of death, but you do not die!
And having gone through the experiences of Humanity, you have expanded beyond what you were when you descended into that which is called Man.
Now, I know this is not the easiest subject to tell or for you to grasp, so suppose we now take the remaining part of the evening and have you ask questions, first after a moment of Silence.
Now, are there any questions, please?
A lady: Would you explain the story of Abraham and Isaac?
Neville: Well, we will take it this way; it is really a series in itself. There is a man 90 years old – rather, 100 years old, and Sarah 90 years old, and “it had ceased to be with her after the manner of women…” In other words, she could not bear. There was no possibility of giving birth to a child; she was 90 years old. But Abraham believed that all things were possible to God. You see, this is an adumbration; this is not an actual story that took place on earth. And the Lord said to him, “Because you gave your only son…” Now, that is not a true statement. For the only son would have to be just one son. It could only be Ishmael, but Ishmael was the first son. Isaac was the second son, but he calls Isaac “the only son.” He discards the first son born of woman. All these are garments, but they are called sons – physical sons born from the womb of woman. There is a second man in every man; that man is the Lord from Heaven. That is the Isaac. In every child born of woman, whether male or female, the outer garment is called a slave garment, born from Hagar the slave, as told us in Galatians. And she is now bringing children into slavery. But there is a second son born of a freewoman, and she is called our Mother from above, or Jerusalem.
Isaac is simply a foreshadowing of the event of which I speak every night, the discovery within you of that child, which is the symbol of your own birth from above. The little child wrapped in swaddling clothes lying on the floor – that is a sign that God is born. God is born in you, from your own skull. You will find the little child, and when you take that infant in your arms and look into his face and call him by some endearing term, he will smile. And the word “Isaac” means “he laughs.” The child laughs. He is called Isaac for the very reason that he laughed. “Isaac” means “he laughs.” So, Isaac is simply the symbol of the child you find when the adumbrated state becomes fact.
The Old Testament is an adumbration that finds its fulfillment in the true form that was intended in the beginning. So, Isaac is only a foreshadowing. The story of the infant told in the book of Matthew and Luke is simply the fulfillment of that, and it is only a sign – a sign that you were “born from above.” It is only God begetting Himself – God expanding Himself through the sons, because it takes all the sons to make God. You are a Son of God. I am a Son of God. Collectively we form God. We are the Elohim. And together we are the God. So, look upon Jesus as God, and look upon David as Humanity, for out of Humanity comes – well, the fruit of God’s experience as Man. And that fruit is personified as the Eternal Youth called David. There is only the Father and the Son.
You will find yourself one day as God the Father, and your son will be the fruit of your experiences as man, and that fruit will be David. So, Isaac is the foreshadowing of that experience.
The lady: I don’t understand the sacrifice. Where does that come in?
Neville: The sacrifice of Isaac. All right – God sacrificed Himself. The story is this: I see the flame, I see the knife, and I see everything for the sacrifice of the lamb. But who is the lamb? And he said, “God will provide Himself the lamb.” He does not provide a lamb; He provides Himself as the lamb. God actually becomes as you are, that you may be as He is. It is the sacrifice of God Himself. Isaac is not sacrificed. As I said earlier, in my experience of the 42nd Psalm, “I laid myself down within you to sleep.” Who said that? God, the Father. So, God Himself enters death’s door with all who enter, and He lays down in the grave with them, and shares with them their dreams of Eternity until they wake and see the linen clothes [which is the body you occupy here]. So, God Himself enters death’s door, and death’s door is your own skull.
Are there any other questions, please?
A gentleman: The testimony of the little girl as Peter, is that the last event?
Neville: No. After Peter makes the confession, then comes the Twelve, and then come five hundred, and then comes James, and then come the twelve apostles, and then finally Paul born out of season. So, these things must take place. Well, so far, I’ve had many since the confession of the little girl.
They actually see you and they cannot believe it. Many people will not come here now because I made that bold claim, and they will say, “He’s an arrogant so-and- so,” because any man who dares to claim that he has experienced being the Lord is, in the eyes of those who see this as secular history, a very arrogant person, and therefore a false prophet who will lead them astray. But I cannot deny what I have experienced. And there are those who must experience it, as I have told it, and there are those who must witness that I am what I’m telling you I am.
As Paul tells it, first comes Peter’s confession. Then comes Twelve, then comes the Five Hundred, then comes James, then come twelve more, but this time they are apostles – they are being sent. And then finally as one born out of season – untimely born. He came to me, also. And now they are coming. I am getting them all the time, but they can’t quite understand it. Why do I see you, the man that I know so well, – I know you – I know Neville – I’ve known you through the years, and I see you as Neville; I know you are Neville. Yet I see you as the Lord! Well, now, you have to see him if you are part of that Five Hundred. If you are part of that Twelve, you’ve got to see it. That’s part of Scripture. Anyone who has been called and has been born from above has to play that same part, and there must be witnesses to what he has been witnessing to. I witnessed Scripture. (End of tape.)
Now let us go into the silence.