Neville Goddard (July 14, 1970)
Tonight’s subject is: “What Is Truth?” The Bible is the revelation of eternal truth, written without regard for secular history. “It is not concerned with secular history.” This is the world into which you and I were sent – all of us – for a divine purpose, for we are told,
“He chose us in Him before that the world was,”
and there was a purpose behind the choice. We were called His sons, and the purpose is to transform His sons into Himself. And the most incredible story ever told is that story; how to transform us, His sons, into Himself, and the only way that it could be done is to send us out. So, we went out into a world that was strange, and we are enslaved there, and this is that world. But the plan was “before that the world was” – how to do it.
So, He chose us in Him “before that the world was,” and made known unto us the very mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which is set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time. So, Christ is the plan. Man has completely misunderstood the mystery – that is, the plan, but the plan is in us, and that plan will unfold itself in us. Then we will know the truth concerning Scripture.
Now, in Scripture we come upon this scene between the external being called Pilate. Pilate is the rational mind. And here before him stands the personification of Eternal Truth, and Truth speaks. He says, “For this purpose I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth.” Pilate asked, “What is truth?” and there was a silence. He couldn’t discuss it, because truth on this level is one thing, and Truth in the New Age is entirely different.
So, here tonight we’re asking, what is Truth? He said, “I am the Truth,” “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life revealed.” “No man comes unto the Father except by me.” There is no other pattern; there is no other way. “I am the true and living way to God, the Father.” And the purpose of it all is to transform Man – humanity – into God the Father.
Now, just imagine that you and I were present “before that the world was,” and we cannot, for a moment, conceive it, but we trusted our Father, and He told you this – He is going to transform you into Himself.
Now, we turn to the 82nd Psalm, considered by all scholars the most difficult of all the Psalms. It begins “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.” And then he said to the gods –
“I say, Ye are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you will die like men, and fall as one man, O ye princes.”
Put yourself into that state here now. We are present. We are sons of the Most High. We will leave His presence and fall as one man. That one man will become fragmented, into this world that is strange to us, and we will know what it is to die. And we will know what it is to lose the presence of the Father, and then, from then on, our search is to find the Father. How long, how severe, how frightening the anguish before we find Him – was long to tell. But we will find Him, for that was the Promise. And all these promises find their “yes” – their fulfillment – in Jesus Christ.
So, the story is that the pattern, called Jesus Christ, is buried in us. And He will not fail; He will unfold the pattern in us, and the pattern is the story of man becoming God. So, God became man, that man may become God!
So, in this world we fight, one against the other, not knowing that we were “before that the world was,” we were brothers – loving brothers. We came down into the world for one purpose, to be transformed into God the Father.
When he was asked, “What is truth?” he was silent. You can’t tell it until it happens within you. Now, truth that is experienced is really the only Truth, for truth that I know from experience I know more truly – more thoroughly – than I know anything in this world. I may hear that truth stated, and it’s true, and I believe in Andrew’s statement. But I did not know it as I will know it after I have experienced it.
So, I can tell you tonight – and I’m telling you the truth: You are the Lord Jesus Christ. That is true. I am not lying. I am speaking from experience, but you do not know that until you yourself experience it. So, then, you know now because you believe me, if you do believe me – you know it as hearsay. But he said –
“I came into the world to bear witness to the truth.”
I cannot be a witness to the truth if I speak from hearsay. I must speak from experience.
When two persons who differ as persons agree in testimony, their testimony is then vital. That’s right. But they must agree. Now, we have one testimony. “The sum of Thy word is truth.” The Bible is the Word of God. Jesus Christ is called the “Word of God.” He is really the pattern – the Bible. It’s written, here is the Bible. I must experience within me the Bible. I must be cast in the central role as Jesus Christ.
When I know that story to be true, based upon my own experience, then I witness to the truth of God’s Word.
He said, “I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth.” And humanity – that is, the secular world – is personified as Pilate, and Pilate asks him, “What is truth?” Well, the truth to which I bear witness cannot be otherwise. It is revealed truth; and revealed truth cannot be logically proven.
How on earth can I prove to anyone that I have been born in a way that man normally is not born? How can I prove to anyone that I was born from my skull, and yet the body that now stands before you was born from my mother’s womb, and the one that is now speaking to you is not the one who was born from my mother’s womb?
Something else happened in me in 1959 in this City, eleven years ago this coming Monday, where I was born from my own skull, “born from above,” as the body that I now wear was, 65 years ago, born from below from my mother’s womb. How can I take anyone into the room where it took place and show them the event? I can’t do it. You either accept it on faith, or you reject it. It’s entirely up to you. But unless it happens to you, you cannot return into that New Age where you are God Himself. And the purpose of life is to transform His sons.
“I say, Ye are sons of God, all of you” – not a few of you – all of you – “sons of the Most High; nevertheless, you will die like men, and fall as one man, O ye princes.” (Psalm 82)
But when you return, you will be God the Father, So, I send you out, He said, to search for the truth, and when you return, you will discover your Self. You will discover that you are the Truth, and you may say, “I am the way, the truth, and the life revealed. No one comes unto the Father except by me, I am the only pattern by which man can return as God the Father,” We are told – Thy truth, the sum of Thy Word is Truth. The whole vast story as told in Scripture – summarized – is the Truth, and the Truth claims it’s fulfilled in the Pattern Man called “Jesus Christ.” And Jesus Christ in you is your hope of glory.
So, Christ in man is the Pattern Man, and that pattern will be made alive; it will erupt one day, and everything said of Jesus Christ in the Gospel, you are going to experience. But when you experience it, you are not a spectator living as a man being born in this strange, supernatural manner. You are the man. You are born in that manner. And everything said about Him, you are going to experience in the first-person, singular, present-tense experience, and you are the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then you are going to be able to say, “I and my Father are one.” (John 10:30) “He who sees me sees the Father, for I am the Father.” And, then, you’ll remain in this world to tell your story to encourage your brothers who are still waiting for the Promise to be fulfilled.
So, the story of truth, as revealed in Scripture – I tell you from my own experience, I bear witness to the truth of it. And a simple man, as you are – and I speak now of generic man – male and female – we are that man. I’m just as simple, and as weak, and as limited in this physical sense as any man that ever walked the face of the earth – completely shut out, and, yet, after this happened, now I am comforted. I know what to expect.
When this garment for the final time is taken off, then instantly I enter the Age that my Father promised me “before that the world was” – automatically. I am not restored to life. I enter the New Age, as God the Father. And everyone in this world is going to enter that New Age as God the Father. And we who are the Brothers return, having discovered the truth that was spoken to us “before that the world was,” return as God the Father.
So, throughout Scripture we find the emphasis on the truth. “The sum of Thy Word is Truth,” in the 119th Psalm. Then he makes this statement, “Oh, where is He? He hid Himself within them.” Yes, He is hid within you. The thing is He-in-you that unfolds. May I tell you; you are He.
It was shown me so perfectly one night. I found myself in a field of infinite flowers, like lovely, big sunflowers. Take a daisy and multiply it to that size, [indicating] and here was an infinite field of beautiful, perfect flowers; but the flower was the human face – just the human face. When one bent, they all bent. If one smiled, they all smiled. I stood in the midst of them, and I was not as perfect as they appeared to be. They were perfect, but I experienced more freedom than all of them put together.
They were perfect human flowers, every one of them – rooted. They had no motion; save they could sway – swaying with the wind as the Spirit moved them, they moved. Whatever the Spirit commanded, they did, but they were simply stationary in the earth. And here, I could move among them. Weak as I was as man, limited as I was as man, I experienced and enjoyed more freedom than all of them put together. And then I realized what it meant; “He chose us in Him before that the world was.”
They had no freedom. They were perfect in His eyes, like human flowers, but no freedom, and He is going to set us free – as free as He is. And so, we were simply chosen in Him, and one man fell, bearing within Him all that He chose, and you and I are those that He chose within Himself.
And then, we were set free in a world of horror. This is the world of horror – a constant, constant battle. Do you think you are going to bring peace on earth? He said –
“I did not come to bring peace; I came to bring a sword, to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies are those of his own household.”
No peace on earth, regardless of what the world will tell you. We stop the battle of machine guns and atom bombs, and we find a still fiercer battle, and that battle is the economic battle. You can take a whole country and turn it into ruin economically. A whole family can be wiped out economically and be disgraced, and still be left to starve. Better if you wiped them out and they were not there before your eyes, than to see them starve. So, people are stopping the war in some mechanical way, and yet war goes on economically.
So, there’s no peace on earth. This is not a world of peace. This is educated darkness to raise us into God the Father. The battle is on, and on it goes until man individually – it is not done collectively.
And you can’t be lost, or God would be lost.
None of you can be lost, but you cannot be called back until the work is done in you. And when that work is completed in you, you are the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God the Father. You are unique; there is no one in the world who could replace you – no one!
Then he said, “I go unto Him who sent me, and you know where I go.” They said, “We do not know where you go.” He said, “I have been with you, and you do not know where I go?” Philip said, “Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
“I have been so long with you, Philip, and yet you do not know me? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How then can you say, Show us the Father.” Do you not know the Father?’’
I tell you, looking at you – even though it’s a mask – behind you is the Father, and, may I tell you, He resembles you – only you raised to the nth degree.
Well, the Father is made up of humanity, and bears your face raised to the nth degree of majesty, of beauty. It is the Father. The face you now wear, even if it is disfigured – it is nothing; it is a shadow. Yet the face that is perfect, as you think it’s perfect, cannot compare with the face that hides behind the mask you now wear. That is the God who is God the Father.
Last year when I came here I spoke, telling the vision of one who departed this world two years ago while I was in this City. So, when I returned I told it, and a lady objected to it. She came with a crowd of about five or six who have never returned, because I told the vision.
I said, I have told you that I have awakened from the dream of life, and I know I am He. They are weak and restrained and limited as man – every man in the world. Then I told the vision of my friend who departed this world a few months later.
She said, “I saw Neville. I was seated in a huge, big area with marble pillars, all alone; and suddenly a carriage drove up, self-propelled, and the door swung open, and out you stepped. And, here you wore a blue cape.
As you stepped out, I knew I was looking at God, but God clothed as power. You came into the place. You did not recognize me, that is, you didn’t know me, and you simply proclaimed whatever you were proclaiming. It was sheer power. And I sat there alone saying, ‘Why, Neville is God. Neville is God!’ I kept repeating to myself, ‘Here is the power of God,’ clothed as you, and it is proclaiming power – sheer power.
And then you broke it off, turned around and left the room, and then that self-propelled car came up – a carriage. As though by appointment, the door swung open, and you stepped in and vanished – vanished into space. But I know I saw God clothed as Power, and He wore the face of my friend Neville.”
Soon after that she departed this world. I tell you, those of you, having had the experience, you will see me – if not all of you. You will see me clothed in different garments that God wears. If you ever have the privilege of seeing me clothed in His real garment, which is Love, then that is beyond measure – a joy!
But you will see me clothed in the garment of Power, in the garment of Wisdom, in all the attributes of God, but when you see me clothed as Love, you will see, not an attribute of God, you’ll see God Himself. And when you see that, then you are called – called to be embraced by God, to be incorporated into His body as God, and then sent to tell this story. That is when you see Him as Love, Infinite Love, and yet it is man.
I told you the story only concerning Power. Well, it struck them in a strange manner, because they worship God as the world does, from without. Possibly they went home and prayed for my soul, and praying to some unknown god on the outside, hoping that they could save Neville from this arrogance! Read the Bible carefully. “This man is mad! He has a devil. He claims that he is God.”
He said, “I am the Son of God, and I, the Son, am one with myself, the Father, who is God, but I know my Father, and ye know not your God. And they took up the stones to stone me.” And then he quoted the 82nd Psalm that I quoted tonight.
“Is it not written in your law that I say, Ye are gods? If, in the book, it is said, Ye are gods, why do you stone me because I claim only what your book claims that I am?”
And they had no word to say. They had not had the experience.
So, I say, the truth that man experiences he knows more thoroughly, than he knows anything else in this world, or than he can know that same truth, in any other manner. You can repeat the truth, and it’s true: you can go out tonight and say, “I am Christ” and that’s true, but until you experience it, you do not actually know it, to be a witness.
So, he said, “I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth, and the truth is that I am God.” That is what he is telling you, that he has experienced it, and those who have not experienced it, who still worship an outside god, cannot believe him, so they cast the stones of literal fact at it.
I am telling you tonight, You are God. You are, like the face that I saw, perfect beautiful, not blemished not a thing about you could be blemished – it is perfect. But you are stationary, and all move in unison. If one smiles, all smile; if one sways, all sway – no freedom whatsoever.
And He is going to grant you the freedom that He enjoys, and send you into the world as Sons of His. And then you go through Hell, and we are told in Scripture –
“I have tried you in the furnaces of affliction. For my own sake I did it – for my own sake, for how should my name be proclaimed? My glory I will not give to another.”
He can’t give it to another. He has to take the other and make the other Himself to give His glory to the seeming other. So, God lives by giving Himself to what He wants to be other than Himself, and then that self becomes God, who gave Himself to it.
So, today He has to put us through the “furnaces of affliction,” and we go through hell in this world – not necessarily physically in pain, although we all do. If you live long enough, you’ll suffer. Let no one tell you [that] you won’t. You could be as strong as all outdoors but, as Shakespeare said –
“There will come the day, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans everything.”
If you live long enough, you’ll finally be eating mush. If you live long enough, you will find that you cannot get glasses strong enough to see objects in space, if you want to live long enough. For the bodies wear out, but there is something in you that is immortal, and that is the Son of God.
Now, is everyone born of woman a son of God? Yes. The 32nd chapter of the book of Deuteronomy swears to it.
“I have put bounds to the people of the earth according to the number of the sons of God.”
Read it in the 32nd chapter of the book of Deuteronomy.
We speak of a population explosion. Not one child in this world can be born that is not a garment that a son of God wears, whether he be white, yellow, black, pink, or any other color in the world, whether he be of this nation, that nation, or any other nation. “I have put bounds to the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.” We are numbered – not just a bunch.
“He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.”
You are unique; you are His choice, and you are buried in these bodies that we now think to be physical garments. And everyone eventually will come out of these garments wearing the garment of God, as God the Father, for it takes all the sons of God to make God the Father. There is Only One Being expanding. So, He expands and expands by selecting.
We are now stationary – perfect – but without freedom, and then burying Himself within that selection, He enters this world of death and goes through all the horrors of the world, and then transforms that into Himself. There is only God in this world – there’s no room for anything else but God.
So, the beginning was God, and the end is God, and all ends run true to origins. We began in God, and our end is God, only we are conscious of the fact that we are God. Before He came out, we were not.
We worship that which could shred us – perfect, and that is not good enough. God wanted to transform us into Himself as Himself. He said –
“I will call them, one by one, O ye sons of Israel. I will incorporate you into Myself, one by one, each in his own order.”
Let no one tell you that you are coming in groups. You are too unique; you are too altogether wonderful in His eye to be called in pairs even. You are called, one by one. When you get back without loss of identity, you are God the Father, and still completely individualized as yourself. So, when she saw me, she saw Neville, and she knew him to be her friend, and yet, she knew him to be God above – God Almighty.
Others will see me as some other character. I will see you in that same character, without loss of identity, when you are “born from above.” Right after you are “born from above,” you take on the garment of God, without loss of identity; only your face now radiates the perfection that is there, that was always there. But now you are individualized, completely set free.
So, don’t look for peace in this world, no matter what they tell you in the world. You aren’t going to find it. This is a schoolroom. This is a school of educated darkness.
So, they are in New York City now trying to figure out that this is peace, that is peace, and they cry, “Peace, peace,” but there’s only the conflict. I read in the paper this past week that every moment in time – not every day, not every week, not every month – every moment in time there are approximately eighteen hundred thunderstorms on earth. Every moment! We have been here now quite a few moments. Every moment that we’ve been in this room, which means a second or a split second, there have been eighteen hundred thunderstorms traveling over the earth, causing havoc, causing fright, causing horror to those who entertain it.
Maybe you are afraid of thunder. I know friends of mine who are scared to death when it rumbles. A friend of mine who lives under a volcano on the Island of St. Vincent came to New York City as my guest for about a month. Well in New York City, with its tall buildings, in some strange way, we have frightful thunder-and-lightning storms, and one day it started.
And here, about 3:00 in the morning, my wife in her bed and I in my bed, and she in the guest room with my daughter – she was just a little girl, but the little girl wasn’t protection enough. At 3:00 in the morning here comes this girl jumping through space into my wife’s bed. A thunderstorm, and she lives actually under an active volcano on the Island of St. Vincent, but she can’t stand thunder or lightning.
Now, just imagine eighteen hundred of these storms are taking place every moment of time on earth. You want peace on earth? You aren’t going to find it on earth. You’ll find it in yourself only after you depart from this world, having been “born from above.”
So, what is truth? He said, “I am the truth.” Well, who are you? “I am the Pattern Man. I came out from my Father, and I came into the world. Again, I am leaving the world and returning to my Father. But I can’t return to the Father – as the Father – until here, in secular history I am “born from above.”
And I am “born from above,” not at the end of history, but within history, while I walk the earth. For I’m picked out, one by one by one, while I am still in the world of Caesar. And then I am born right here, continuing for a few years to tell it, to encourage my brothers, who are still confused because they have been taught by those who have no vision.
The whole vast world – call it by any name – ministers, popes, priests – are men without vision, and they teach the Bible as secular history, and it is not secular history. The Bible is a revelation of eternal truth, written without regard for secular history. It is not secular history.
So, when they try to tell you Jesus lived on earth as a man, and they’ve been seeking two thousand years to find evidence to support it – they won’t in eternity find any evidence to support Jesus as a man on earth. He is buried in you. That’s Jesus. He is the Lord Himself buried in man. He disappeared after he told the story and chose us in Him and then one man fell. That is the Lord Jesus Christ, bearing within Him all that He chose – We the sons of God -and then we became fragmented, all of us, into this world.
So, they are trying to find His burial place, and throughout the centuries organized religions have said, “This came from the cross – this little piece of wood.” If you took all these little pieces of wood that came from this cross and put them together, you could build this building. He is nailed on that cross. If you took all the little pieces of cloth that they tell you in the organized churches came from his tunic and put them together, it would clothe a regiment.
The liars have taken all these things and simply confused the minds of people, and they go in to kiss that little piece of cloth. He never wore any cloth of that nature! He is “born from above.” He said, “My kingdom is not made with hands.” And they are telling you that this is a piece of wood on which he was crucified. The only cross on which Jesus Christ is crucified is the human form. Your body is the cross that He is wearing.
It is in you that He is buried. In you He will rise. In you He will unfold the entire drama of Himself as you. You will not be a spectator seeing it as another. You are the central figure. He unfolds Himself in you, and you are the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then He tells it, not hopefully. How many will believe you, because they know the limitations of you. They know your past, they know your weaknesses, they know everything about you, and they will say, “What? We know this man. We know his father. Was not his father Joseph and his mother Mary, and his brothers – ” and they name four brothers in the book of Mark – name them, He had brothers. I once said to an Aunt of mine, a strict, strict fundamentalist, I said, “Don’t you know that Jesus had brothers?” Her answer was, “Oh, no, he was God’s only begotten son,” I said, “Bring me your Bible,” She opened her Bible and turned to the 6th chapter of the book of Mark and read it from her Bible, the names of the brothers. They name four, and they speak of sisters in the plural. At least there were seven that she gave birth to.
She read it to confirm what she thought was a lie when I was reading it. Then she closed it, ran into her room and slammed the door and never came out of it that day. When I left that home, I left without saying “good-bye” to her.
She would still rather believe he was a little man in this world of secular history, and had no brothers, and yet you can turn to the Book and read these words,
“Go and tell my brothers I am ascending unto my Father and to their Father, unto my God and to their God, for I have finished the work He gavest me to do.”
That was the work He gave me to do, to fulfill His word, and His word is Scripture. And He is called the “Word of God.” So, if I fulfill the Word of God, I must fulfill that which is the law, for His name shall be called the Word of God, So, if I fulfill what He gave me to do, I have come only to fulfill Scripture.
If I am a carpenter on earth, that’s all right: a mason, a doctor, a dentist, a banker, a thief, a murderer – that is the part I play in this world – the outer man. But the Inner Man must fulfill Scripture. And, so, when I have completely fulfilled Scripture, I have fulfilled the story of the Lord Jesus Christ in the first-person, singular, in the present tense experience.
But, then, they know my parents. They will say, “I know him, he’s Neville, I knew his father; his father’s name was Joseph Goddard, and his mother’s name was Wilhelmina Goddard, and he has many brothers.” And, so, they name all my brothers and my one sister. “So, he could not be … Stupid! It happened two thousand years ago once, and for all time, and this is all nonsense.”
But I am telling you how the story unfolds. It didn’t happen once and forever long ago. Read the 13th chapter of Hebrews, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” The same pattern must unfold. You aren’t going to modify it.
So, we are living in what is known as the Atomic Age, Do you think it is going to change? No. “He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” So, when the pattern unfolds, read it in Scripture, the same – the identical pattern. It can’t be modified; it can’t be changed. It unfolds itself within the individual, and everyone will one day know that he is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us take, for those who are here for the first time, truth on this level. A true judgment on this level must conform to the external facts to which it relates. If I should say now, “Isn’t it a beautiful dog?” and you look, and there is no dog, my statement is a lie, for there is no dog to support my statement. That’s a lie. But the Bible tells us that you can make the statement as I have just made it, and even though at the moment that you make it the senses deny it, you can assume that it is there, and persist in the assumption that it is, and in a way that no one knows, the dog will come there.
You can assume, “I am rich,” and not have a nickel in the bank; in fact, you don’t have a bank account. You can assume, “I am rich, and feel what it would be like if it were true. Now that assumption is a false statement if, at the moment of the assumption, your senses deny it and your reason denies it. So, that is false. Your Bible teaches that it is true if you persist in the assumption; that the assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact. This is based upon the simple, simple statement that “Imagining creates reality;” that the true being called Jesus Christ is the human imagination. And all things are possible to Christ.
Well, can I imagine it? Yes. Can I believe it to be true? Well, try it. Can I persuade myself that the thing assumed is true? Well, assume it, and assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. And my assumption, though at the moment of the assumption it is denied by my senses – denied by my reason; if I persist in my assumption, it will harden into fact. That, I know from my own experience; that, I know from the experiences of hundreds of people who have written to me, and it has worked in their cases.
If you say, “No,” all right, say “No.” Continue in your misery. And may I tell you, no one cares. People think that people care? They really don’t care.
Do you know one person in this world who would rejoice at one’s good fortune? And few people even know the meaning of empathy. If another person says to you, “I empathize with you,” would you understand it? Do you know, not one person in a thousand or a hundred thousand would understand what he meant? They would think he is sympathizing.
There are many words for sympathy. Let something happen in a block in some neighborhood that is sad. News just came of a horrible thing in the household of one person. The whole neighborhood rushes in to sympathize and commiserate. All sympathize. But let some good fortune befall that house, and they all will say, “Why didn’t it happen to me?” They don’t say, “Why didn’t it – the misfortune – happen to me?” “Why didn’t the good fortune happen to me?” They don’t go to empathize at all.
So, there’s only the one word to express the emotion of empathy. It is to rejoice with others who have good fortune with which one could rejoice, but there are many words to sympathize. Well, that’s the whole vast world in which we live. So, don’t think for one moment that when you go in the back yard to eat worms others are going to join you. All right, eat your worms. They aren’t going to join you.
So, if you feel now, “I will not accept this. I will not go against my Lord Jesus Christ. I want to get on my knees and pray to him everyday, and pray to him as the intercessor between myself and His Father.” May I tell you, you will pray in vain. In vain. There is only one way, and He is housed within you. And that Being is your own wonderful human imagination.
God became as you are, that you may be as He is.
Now, let’s go into the Silence.