6/24/68
This is our final week for a little while, tonight and Friday, and then we’ll be gone for about approximately three months. I do hope that everyone here will have some vision, some evidence that they’ve either brought forth the only important thing in this world or that they have conceived it. For really no matter what man accomplishes in the world it really doesn’t matter if he hasn’t been born from above.
Tonight, we will take the chapter, the 3rd chapter of the Book of John. Now, John is anonymous as the other evangelists are anonymous. No one knows who they really are. They were not writing history as you and I understand it, not secular history; they were writing salvation history. So they introduce characters that may never have walked the face of the earth…but their names are significant. In the Book of John, Nicodemus is introduced. He’s not mentioned in any other part of the Bible, just in the Book of John. Well, really if his part was so great surely any historian would have mentioned him, but he’s not mentioned in any part of the Bible save in the Book of John. So you can see he’s not introduced for some historical purpose. His name means “conqueror of the people; all victorious.” He is the one who is victorious. Well, we read about him…first of all, he’s a Pharisee, very learned, a member of the Sanhedrin. That would be like being a member of our Supreme Court. They interpret the law—in his case the law would be scripture—and then they pass judgment on all. He found in someone called Jesus something that was different. He couldn’t find it in the law as he understood it, so he searched the law but couldn’t find it. But he was a very learned man. Biblical or rabbinical tradition has it that he was the third richest man in the age in which he lived, so he was not only learned but very, very rich.
He observed all the things of the rabbinical order, and so he sought information of Jesus at night. He did not wish to be seen in his company, for Jesus in scripture was the unlearned man. He had no education by standards known to man. He didn’t have these normal standards, while Nicodemus was a very learned man, a member of the Sanhedrin, and there were only seventy-one in that group. So he came at night and he called Jesus “Rabbi,” recognizing in him a teacher. He said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who is come from God”—because of the signs that he saw—“For no one could do these signs unless God was with him.” Now Jesus answers… but now starts a dialogue that shades off into just a discourse. The dialogue begins between the two, Nicodemus and Jesus, and he said to Nicodemus, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, unless you are born from above you cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How is this possible? How can a man who is old for a second time enter his mothers’ womb and be born?” He said to him, “You a teacher of Israel and you do not know? For I tell you, except you are born from above you cannot see the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:3-10).
Well, that phrase, “see the kingdom of God,” means really, “enter the kingdom of God.” The word “born from above” is translated “born anew or born again”; but that is a Greek phrase that translates this, “begotten from above,” that is, “from God.” Well, that confuses everyone. Then he said to him, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:6). There must be an entirely different birth that must take place, and it comes from above. Well, that word is anothin and it means “from the top, from the brim, from above.” We find it in the gospel of John when they speak of his robe, his coat…it was seamless throughout, woven from the top. That word “from the top” is anothin. When he stands before Pilate and Pilate said, “Do you not know that I have the power to crucify you and the power to set you free?” He said, “You have no power over me were it not given to you from above” (Jn.19:10). That’s anothin. You will find through the gospel of John this word brought into play where he is from above and others are from below, which means of the earth, they’re born of flesh; but everyone has to be born from above.
Now when you read it, make a little mental note of this, there are only thirty-six verses (Jn. 3). You start with 1st and you go through to the 21st verse; and then jump to the 31st verse and go to the 36th verse; then go back and read from the 22nd to the 30th. You will find a continuity that is completely broken if you read it as it is now printed, as though the pages were dislocated before publication. So you read from the 1st to the 21st, go to the 31st and go through to the 36th…that gives you a flow of the dialogue. If you don’t, you’ll find a break that is unnecessary and words are put into the mouth of the Baptist that do not belong on his lips at all; these words belong to Jesus. Now, as Nicodemus is introduced he is seeking a fuller understanding of the meaning of Jesus. Jesus is not a man; Jesus is the pattern man. Jesus is God’s image. It’s a pattern that has to be implanted, and when implanted in man that pattern at a certain interval of time—for there’s an interval between the implanting of that word and its eruption in man—then that eruption takes place in man and everything said of him unfolds in the one in whom it is implanted.
So the office of the one who has been sent to do it is so that simply men may become sons of God by grace. For grace comes through Jesus, that all men may become sons of God by grace, by union with him who is the Son of God by nature. That man can be used as the agent to impregnate that pattern, that idea, which contains within itself the entire plan of redemption. It takes an interval of time…that internal, by my own observation, is thirty years between the moment of impregnation and the eruption which is the birth from above.
Now let me share with you an experience of one who is here tonight. She had an experience where she was sailing down the coast of California. She turned to a passenger and said to the passenger, ‘Let me know when we pass Pt. Conception.” The passenger said, “Why, we passed that a long time ago, way, way back, why that’s thirty miles back, don’t you remember?” and she felt a little bit sheepish and foolish about it, because she said suddenly, “Yes, I remember.” “I forgot” said she. I told her from the platform it wasn’t thirty miles back, it was thirty years ago, and therefore you have had the birth from above.
Then her other visions that followed in the immediate future convinced me she’s not only had the birth from above but the first three major mystical experiences that must take place before the completion of the entire drama. There are four. Well, this past week she wrote me this letter, she said, “I went to bed and I heard a voice and the voice said, ‘I remember when you were born.’” She questioned the voice, she said, “Then tell me when,” expecting the voice would give her some dramatic picture as to the events surrounding the birth, and all that the voice answered was, “1967.” Now she said, “I recall I was away from home on a job a little bit north of Santa Barbara. It was not represented correctly to me, but I was there between the first of February and the end of March. This was the experience that I had, I made a note of it and recorded it, but I thought it was only a foreshadowing. I thought that the experience had to duplicate yours. And having read yours I thought it would have to be a duplicate of yours, therefore, I thought it was only a foreshadowing. I was quite happy with that as a foreshadowing.
“Well, this is the experience, I was in a house, it was very, very dark, a complete absence of light. I was having great difficulty with the outside door, and finally I got the door open. I was almost blinded by the brilliance. The light was so startling I was almost blinded. When I could adjust my sight to the scene around, here at my foot on the steps was a babe in a basket, and I knew it is my baby. There were two women standing there and a third a little removed. One said to the other, ‘It’s her baby,’ indicating me. The other said, ‘How can it be her baby? She was on the inside. Someone undoubtedly just left it there…and I’ll take it.’ The other one said, ‘Oh no, you will not, oh no’ then lifted the child up and placed it in my arms.” She said, “I took the child and I knew it was my baby. As I looked at it, I said aloud, ‘He’s mine,’ and the babe just simply burst into this heavenly smile. When I looked up, they had vanished. So I recorded it, but thought it was simply a foreshadowing.”
That was no foreshadowing, that was it! That was between the 1st of February and the end of March of ’67 as the voice said within her. I knew nothing of this when she told me her vision. But I tell you, I hear it coming from within me when I interpret your dreams, I’m not speculating. When I hear it and read it, something comes from the depths of my soul and I know what I’m talking about. I knew the thirty miles were not thirty miles, it was simply thirty years ago that that one who played the part of the impregnating one who is Jesus Christ. For listen to the words now, we go now to another gospel, Luke: “And the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (1:35). Well, the power of the Most High is Christ Jesus, as we are told in the Book of Corinthians: “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor.1:24). So the power of the Most High that comes upon you is Christ. Well, Christ is simply the power, the creative power of God. Any man who is twice born can be used as the agent of that power totally unaware. But, it has to take place…that impregnation which is a supernatural impregnation. And then thirty years after, that child—which is only a symbol of your birth from above—takes place in your world.
So I tell you, all here are awakening. What does it matter if tonight everyone could go through that door and say “I heard the most wonderful story of how to make a fortune? Do you know that everyone here is a millionaire, and many are multiple millionaires?” That would be as nothing. But to go through that door and there are at least a dozen, two dozen here tonight, who could go out and say, “I’ve brought forth the child.” In other words, a new age is yours when you take off this little garment…an entirely different world you will enter. You’re not restored to life. You leave this world completely and you enter an entirely different age equipped with a new body, a body that no one here knows, because it’s a body that contains within itself life. It’s a life-giving power; it’s not an animated body.
So here, this being the closing week, I do not know what I could tell you more important, more encouraging: That you are drawn for a purpose, for the impregnation, and then the departure from this world of sin and death. Well, if you lived here forever and had all the fortunes in the world, and everyone knew you and admired you, just simply worshipped you, what would it matter if at death you simply are restored to life in a new body, yes, unaccountably new, in a world terrestrial just like this to continue the same journey of slavery? But then, to depart here to find you are in an entirely different world, it’s a transformation. This is something entirely different, a metamorphosis takes place within man and it’s like the caterpillar and all of a sudden what comes out of it, the painted butterfly. Well, something entirely different comes out of man and the contrast is greater than that between the caterpillar and the painted butterfly. One clings to the leaf and can’t move beyond it, and the other takes us into an entirely different element, a new world. Well, that’s what comes out of man when he is born from above.
So in her case, all she has now to wait for—and now a year and a half is gone, it happened between February and March of ’67—she now has to wait for approximately two years and six months for the dove. That’s all that she has to wait for. And from appearances she’s young and healthy, so she can wait, wait for that glorious thing. I do hope this time that her surface mind will hold it, and she will actually experience it and retain the experience. But if she doesn’t, she too will know, as she has just discovered, it will come back in memory…the voice will say, “I know when you were born. I know when he descended.” And then instead of giving the date the next time it will give, possibly, a symbolism. And you will see it perfectly.
But now, I’ve asked you to jump from the 21st verse to the 31st verse to continue (Jn.3). Well, the last three verses, the 19th, 20th, and 21st, are all devoted to light. Now, she came out of the house of darkness and moved from darkness to light, and these three verses are given over to light: “And he who moves into the light will see clearly what has been wrought in God.” The whole thing is given to light. Mind you, it’s only thirty-six verses in this 3rd chapter, and three devoted to the moving from darkness to light. Then you jump into the 31st verse and how does it begin, “He who is from above”—again, anothin, that which is born or begotten from God—“is above all.” So the continuity comes from the 21st verse to the 31st verse; then go back and pick up what could easily have been put into the mouth of someone other than this character. For this is a dialogue between Jesus—and the word Jesus is the same as Jehovah, “Jehovah saves,” same word—and Nicodemus is the victorious one. He is trying to find and seeking a fuller understanding of the meaning of Jesus, because what he’s hearing he can’t find in the book. He’s a learned man, a great scholar, but he can’t find it in the book until it is explained to him by revelation, then he can understand it. So you’ll find this character following him all the way to the very end, and bringing fabulous quantities of spices at the very end for the burial of this one. So he is introduced into this book, he remains in that book, and he departs from it; and he’s not mentioned in any other book in the entire Bible.
Well now, if it’s history, certainly he’d be mentioned, wouldn’t he? So the Bible is not history as we understand it. It’s not secular history; it’s the history of salvation. The whole thing is supernatural. It hasn’t a thing to do with any little boy called Jesus who was born of a woman called Mary. This birth is a supernatural birth that comes from above. You can be called by any other name, John Brown, Mary, and as you walk the earth suddenly—if you have conceived thirty years prior—this that is within you erupts. The first thing is an awakening within yourself followed instantly by a birth similar to the one that this lady experienced. No two need be the same, but it’s an identical pattern, in the sense that there is a child and there are witnesses. In this case there were three. She said, “Although the scene was contemporary, the scene could be modern…they were dressed in what I’ve always seen when I see pictures of the biblical age…they were dressed in the costume of that period. At least what I saw them wearing seemed to be of that age; yet the scene, the street and everything seemed to be modern, all but the three and they were witnesses, witnesses to the occasion.” What occasion?—the birth from above. She found it lying on the floor. Well, the floor and the “manger” are the same. It means “the lowest spot”…you can’t get any lower. That’s where the child is always found, down below. It’s placed in your hands, someone places it in your hands, you find it there, and the whole thing unfolds within you.
So in this wonderful 3rd chapter of John, and you read it, and tonight, may I tell you, as you read it, bear in mind that continuity from the 1st to the 21st; jump to the 31st, go to the end, the 36th; come back to the 22nd and read through the 30th. It’s a short little chapter, but the whole thing is about you. Then who is Nicodemus? He personifies the blindness of what in that age was called Israel. Well, today you could call it Catholicism, Protestantism, Israel, call it any orthodox religion in the world. Those who think they know it, and keep alive with external forms some peculiar thing that has not a thing to do with a drama that is unfolding within us. So he was simply the personification of a blindness…he could not see…and limited as we all are, I should not be seen in the company of certain people; for my own social benefit, or financial benefit I must not be seen with them. But he was eager and sought him at night. So he sought Jesus by night and asked these questions. When the question is asked, he didn’t get an answer. First of all, it wasn’t even a question, he said, “Rabbi, we perceive that you have been sent from God; for no one can do these signs unless God is with him” (verse 2). Now the answer that is given him is not related at all to the signs. He picks it up by saying, “Except you be born from above, you cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Now he uses a certain phrase, “As the wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes and whither it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (verse 8). It comes so suddenly, just like the wind, and the word wind and Spirit are the same in both Greek and Hebrew. So it comes suddenly…it could happen tonight if thirty years ago, even though you are totally unaware of that moment of conception, it could happen this night. And here this lady has been sitting here hoping and yet a year ago it happened. But she thought because it didn’t duplicate mine, it was only an adumbration, a foreshadowing of the event… and it’s already happened.
So I tell you, share with me your visions. I can interpret them. I hear it coming from the depth of my soul. If it is not, well then, I’ll tell you. If it hurts, well, I’m sorry. If it is not exactly what you want me to say, I’m sorry; but nevertheless I cannot say other than what I’m hearing from within me concerning your vision, your dream. For God speaks to man through the medium of dream, and makes himself known and unveils himself through the medium of vision. So this that happened…and she was away from home, up north of Santa Barbara, on a job that was painted to be a lovely job, and it wasn’t what it was painted to be. But she was taken away from home when the event took place. So she’s had them all, all but the descent of the dove.
So tonight, because it is our last, let us turn to another side of this principle which is the law. The law is this, based upon a simple, simple plan: “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will” (Mark 11:24). This is based upon the premise that imagining creates reality. If imagining creates reality, what can I imagine that could not become objective fact? For if I’m told, whatever I desire, believe I have received it, there’s no restriction on the power of belief, none whatsoever. Can I believe it? I may deny it, all right, then I don’t believe it. The only qualification is, can you believe it. Can I deny the evidence of my senses? Can I suspend reason, and persuade myself that I am the man that at the moment my reason and my senses deny? To the degree that I am self-persuaded that I am such a man…and in my mind’s eye I see images implying that I am that man. What images? The faces of my friends and I see them seeing me as they would see me if it were true. How would they see me if I now embodied the ideal that I want to embody in this world? How would they see me? They couldn’t avoid it unless they’re blind, and even if they were blind, they would hear of it. They may not be deaf and someone would tell them of my good fortune, and if they are truly friends of mine, they would empathize, they would rejoice with me. Well, are they actually rejoicing with me? In my mind’s eye see them see me as they would have to see me if it were true.
Well, if this statement is true in the Book of Mark, then all I have to do is simply believe it and walk as though it were, and that assumption though at the moment false because it is denied by my senses, it will harden into fact. If I persist in it, it will simply harden into fact. I don’t care what the world will tell you, it works this way. All these precepts must be accepted and taken literally, and they’ll be proved literally. Someone dares to believe. What person in this world can tell me he was born to be what he is? He might have been born into great wealth and was so surrounded by it that he took it for granted, well, that’s an assumption. So he grew into it and he actually believed this is what I’m entitled to. Perfectly all right! But go back in his family, maybe his father wasn’t, maybe the grandfather wasn’t, and they had the vision. If they don’t know the principle that supports it and they lose the money, they will never regain it. But if they know it’s all based upon an assumption that the assumption though false if persisted in will harden into fact, then you can’t take a thing from a man that he really wants. Take it, take the symbol from me, but don’t take from me the knowledge of how it’s done. So take the thing, confiscate everything that I have, but leave me with the knowledge of how I did it, well then, I will still reproduce it. You can’t take from me unless you take from me the knowledge of how it is done.
It’s stated so clearly in the 11th chapter of the Book of Mark, “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will.” That’s how it’s stated in the Book of Mark. Well, if that is true and these are the words put into the mouth of one called Christ Jesus… he said, “I am the truth”… so if this is true and he can only therefore speak truth, well then, take him literally. Is that true? I don’t have to ask myself, “Does something in this world confirm it? Would it be allowed?” In other words, will my friends say maybe, maybe he could or maybe she could? No maybe! I don’t need anyone to (??). Let me go to the Bible. I am told to search the Bible and then try to live according to what I find in the Bible. What I don’t understand accept on faith until I do understand it, and what I do understand apply it. Anyone can understand this, anyone: How would you feel if it were true? How would you feel? Well, I know how I would feel if it were true; well then, feel it, just feel it just as though it were true. I promise you from my own experience, in a way that no one knows, if you persist in that assumption as though it is true, it will become true in your world. Therefore, every man can be made free if he knows this principle.
But I could give you tonight all the money in the world that you think you now need for this month’s expenses. If you don’t know this principle, I would not be rich enough to persist in the giving. So, everyone wants something for nothing, so you give them…and they will not assume that they have, that they are the power that is God…so you keep on giving. Well, no country in this world is rich enough to give and give and give. They can’t do it unless those who receive it are told as they receive it, you don’t have to be on the receiving end; you can become the giver. You can assume that you are important, that you are wanted in this world, and you dare to assume that you are wanted and that you actually can contribute to the world. All of a sudden you move yourself out of one level into another level. But unless man is told that, and if politicians will not tell people that, but tell them, “I’ll take care of you. Vote for me,” they know that they can’t really take care of them, they know that, they know they’re lying. But the average person conditioned as he is, he will accept these gratuities, and you can’t continue it.
I’ll tell you tonight, from my own experience, there is no prison strong enough to keep you behind bars if you know this principle, but no prison. In San Francisco, oh, maybe about ten years ago, this lady sat in the audience, in this very, very large audience, she asked this question in the presence of all. She said, “My brother is in the Army. I do not know what he did, I’m not concerned what he did, I only know that he was court-martialed and sentenced to six months at hard labor. Now, Neville, if I believed you, without knowing anything other than I love my brother…I just love him, that’s all there is to it, I love him, and because of my love for my brother, if I believed this, would my brother be set free?” I said, “Yes, but only to the degree that you are self-persuaded that he is free.” Now the entire audience heard her. It must have been an audience of 1,000 on a Sunday morning. One week later, she could rise in that audience and tell this story. She said, “I believed you and I went home. I live on the second floor and I’ve got to come all the way down the stairs to answer the front door. I sat in my apartment on the second floor and I imagined I heard the doorbell. I imagined it was my brother. I imagined I ran down the stairs, and threw open the door, and here is my brother. That was last Sunday that you told the story. Well, this week I began to do it over and over. I went home and did it. This week I am sitting upstairs in mediation, imagining the same thing I’d been doing since last Sunday when the doorbell rang, and I knew instantly what that was. I ran down the stairs, threw open the door, and here is my brother. They had completely commuted the entire thing and changed their judgment, and he was set free. And he was not dishonorably discharged. All in one week.” Now, at least 1,000 witnesses to that event.
These are the signs of the power of Christ operated in her. She believed it. She went home and she firmly believed it. If I had this night anyone that I truly loved—take my wife, take my daughter, take my friends that I truly love—and they committed a horrible crime, it would still not change my love. I could not change my love for them. Well, I wouldn’t want them hurt even though I know that it was something stupid and evil and horrible. I still could not alter my love. I would simply assume that they are free as the wind, and in a way that I do not know, I can’t rationalize it, they will become free. Now you may say that is not right. Well, who am I to say what is right and what is wrong? There are only two things that I can find in scripture that displease God: One is eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that’s right and that’s wrong, and the whole vast world goes, “That’s right and that’s wrong.” Yet you ask another nation what is right and wrong, and they’ll name something entirely different…they have a different code of ethics. So to us this is right and that is wrong, and we ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
The other one is the lack of faith in I am he (John 8:24). If I do not believe that I am he, I remain in my sin and therefore I miss the mark. I must believe that he became me with all of my weaknesses and all of my limitations, and his name is I AM. Well, if his name is I AM and he became me, assuming all of my weaknesses, he’s still I AM. Did he not tell me that he emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a slave? This [body] is a slave, a slave of my passions, a slave of my ambitions, a slave of everything in this world. I’m enslaved by it. So he took upon himself the form of a slave and became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross (Phil. 2:7), and this is the cross.
But before he did it, he was one with God, and emptied himself of all of his God-like qualities to take upon himself this little weakness and became it. Well now, if I do not believe that I am he, then I’ll die in my sins. So I have to start believing that I am he, and because all things are possible to him, well then, they are possible to me. I’ll begin to believe that I am the man that I want to be, that my friends are what I would like them to be, and so represent them to myself as though they were happy beyond measure, they’re blissfully happy; and not eat any more of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Because who honestly can tell me that you will find a duplicate of what you believe to be good and evil? Tonight, our country is divided, maybe not quite fifty-fifty, but you ask who are you going to vote for? The chances are they’ll lie to you anyway…they won’t tell you. But the chances are it’s not the one you’re going to vote for, and they’ll give you every reason in the world why you should vote for the one they’re going to vote for; and you can give them equally good reasons why they should vote as you’re going to vote. And you go blindly on playing this little game, meaning nothing.
Leave them all. They’re all destined to become sons of God by grace, and this is done by union with him who is the Son of God by nature. When one is born from above, he is singled out to play certain parts, and night after night he is in the supernatural world playing the part—if you can take it, yes, the part of the stallion planting the seed of God in all that God chooses. He doesn’t choose it. They’re all called by his Father, although he and his Father are one, yet the depth of his own soul is drawing that which is right for the planting of the seed. He who is Son of God by nature is used in that capacity, that’s his office, and so he simply impregnates a fabulous world. Thirty years after, that seed which carries within itself the pattern of redemption erupts within them, and they are redeemed. First by awakening them in the tomb of their own being; and then the child, the symbol of their own birth; and then the discovery of the Fatherhood of God; and then the splitting of the temple from top to bottom, which is their own body; and then the descent of the dove, which means it seals the work: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” All these things happen.
But he in that part is playing it, and he may come back night after night after deep, deepest unconsciousness, without the slightest, slightest dream, seven unbroken hours. But has he been busy in the spiritual world! And there are others who may even view and witness such activity. Now there are those who are conscious of the act when conception took place. May I say to them, you are blessed, my dear, blessed. I can only say, at least you do have the qualification for apostleship for you have seen the risen Lord. Anyone who actually has the consciousness of it has seen the risen Lord, and that’s the one indispensable qualification for apostleship. But not all are apostles, not all are prophets, not all are teachers, not all are healers, and miracle workers. But those who have the conscious knowledge of it have the qualification, at least, for apostleship.
Now let us go into the Silence.
* * *
Now remember we have but one left this coming Friday. If you’re on the mailing list, you’ll receive a notice when we are reopening. It will be in September, right here in this place. We do not use your name for any purpose other than to let you know that we are in town, and where we will be located. We do not sell the list nor give it away, so you are perfectly safe in letting us have your name and address. We do not solicit; I’m not trying to sell you anything. I started telling this story on the second day of February back in 1938 and I’ve never used that list to sell anyone anything. I never made an appeal at any time in that interval of over thirty years now to ask for money. And so, I do not intend to break that record and I do not sell you anything. If the book table is there and my books are on it, it’s between the one who sells the books and my publisher. I have no arrangement between the one who sells the books and my publisher, none whatsoever. So you can buy it or not buy it.
Now are there any questions, please?
Q: (inaudible)
A: My dear, death here is only restoration. Anyone who dies here will find themselves, I don’t care who it is, they’ll find themselves restored to life, not as an infant but a young person about twenty years of age. If you died at the age of 100, you’ll be instantly restored to life and find yourself very healthy, no member missing, nothing missing, about twenty, in a world just like this. You will grow old there too as you do here, and you will fear death there as you fear it here. Well, if you had conceived while here and you’ve forgotten because you may not have known—I would say ninety percent of those who are now carrying the Christ child are totally unaware of it—and so it will happen to you there at an early age. As in this room tonight, I know a few…I take one person, a man, for instance, who has only just turned forty. Undoubtedly, he would have no knowledge of the conception at the age, say, of ten in this world. But it’s thirty years between conception and birth of the Christ child. But it takes all the years, all the centuries, to prepare the way for that conception.
Q: (much inaudible) …suppose you were ninety at conception and lived ten more years?
A: All right, then you will have it, my dear. It’s the same interval as you’re told in the Book of Habakkuk, “The vision has its own appointed hour, it ripens, it will flower; if it be long, wait, for it is sure and it will not be late” (verse 3). That’s the 2nd chapter of Habakkuk; it’s the vision, God’s vision contained within the seed that he uses. Think of Christ only as the creative power of God. Well, I tell you that God is man; therefore God being man, it takes man as the agent to perform that function.
Q: (inaudible)
A: Did you hear the question? She goes back to Your Faith is Your Fortune where I say you could take any interval of time. For instance, today is a warm day in June, and I could collapse time and imagine that I hear the bells of Christmas, and see the decorations in the stores at Christmas, and the activity of buying gifts for friends and loved ones. Therefore, I can collapse it to the point where I enter into the spirit of Christmas; The Fall and Restoration 579 and then feel that I have accomplished at Christmas what was only a longing or a desire in the month of June. Open my eyes and I bounce back and I’m here. Well now, I will be led across a bridge of incidents towards the fulfillment of that assumption. I do not consciously direct myself…I am simply led across this series of events that leads me up to the fulfillment of that state.
Now, you took Wednesday. What would a Wednesday do to you to make it feel different from Monday? If you can find something that you can associate with the day. Many a time I have said this feels like Sunday and it’s not Sunday at all, or it feels like Monday and it’s not Monday at all, or this feels like something else. Like that story of Gogarty’s…and he wrote the story and he laid the story in Ireland. Two Irish ladies were on the bus and this man, this strange, weird looking man got on and sat next them. Well, they were afraid; they didn’t want to embarrass him by moving, but they couldn’t wait for the next stop where they would get off. So he just simply looked at them and he could read their minds… he was a weird, strange character. One said, just to pass the time, “You know, isn’t it the strangest time of the year?” He said to them, “It isn’t this time of the year at all.” Well, when you can throw yourself into that sort of state then you really can do it. Throw yourself right into the state, it’s Christmas, and yet the calendar tells you it isn’t Christmas. But you throw yourself into it…isn’t this strange for this time of year…it isn’t this time of year at all, it’s Christmas. Now if you can do that with Wednesday, Wednesday has to produce the result that you felt as you assumed it was Wednesday. Did you make it natural? Try it again, my dear. Never give up! Don’t give up. As I told you the last time you were here, or rather I told others, don’t sin against the Holy Ghost, and the sin against the Holy Ghost is the word “impossible.” There is no other sin against the Holy Ghost.
Q: (inaudible)
A: It’s all by election. No one offers himself for such a seed (Christ). One is told to believe in it, believe this is true, and God will call you in his own good time, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. The word “overshadow” literally means “superimposition,” which is a creative act. He will overshadow you. They tell it in a way that would not offend people when they read it. It’s a euphemism for a creative act, the word “overshadow.” But it’s more than that; it shows you the world here is a shadow world. This body is so real to us and so solidly real, and it’s really only a shadow. What is being superimposed upon it is the reality that will give birth to something that is immortal, that is eternal, that is really real. And all I can say to everyone, set your faith…your hope, rather…we’re told in scripture, “Set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:13). And grace is God’s gift of himself to man…his actual gift of himself. But he takes man as the agent to convey that gift. So these lovely spiritual graces are conveyed to man through the medium of man; but the man who conveys it is the twice-born man, the awakened, who is the son of God by nature. He conveys it to those who may become sons of God by grace, for when they actually conceive and actually become born from above, they then are sons of God by nature. But until then they are sons of God and can receive the grace and become sons of God by grace through union with him who is son of God by nature.
Q: (inaudible)
A: Jesus was no longer heard from between the age of twelve and thirty. First of all, he was taken to the temple as an infant and it was done unto him according to the law. At the age of twelve he turned his back upon earthly parents and began to expound within the temple. Well, this [body] is the temple of the living God. When they said your parents have been looking for you… “Your father and I have been looking for you”…he said, “Who are my parents? Do you not know I must be at my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). Well, that was a shock to any earthly parent, so that is the beginning of telling you it’s not an earthly story. At the age of twelve he’s claiming he is not of this earth, he’s from above. It’s a story told in the best way possible to convey…well, how else can you tell it? You’ve got to use terms that we’ll understand on this level, but from the very beginning he’s telling you he’s not of this earth. They know his parents, they know his brothers, his sisters and he’s telling you “They are not my brothers and sisters. All who do the will of him who sent me they are my brothers and sisters.” Now, between the interval between twelve and thirty…the word thirty is simply “the measure of spiritual pregnancy.”
Now it is said that no one heard from him between the ages of twelve and thirty. I wouldn’t give significance to that. That’s not stressed in the Bible. He’s simply not brought into the play. Then Luke suddenly said, “And he began to do his ministry at the age of thirty.” So I would not try to find what happened in the interval, because it’s not here at all. There isn’t a thing here. Christ is in man, and when he is born you are the same man outwardly that all the world knows. They know your father, your mother, your brothers, your sisters and everything in your world, but that’s not you. I can tell my intimate brothers at home, and my father and mother (they’re gone now). I could tell them from now ’til the ends of my little earthly life what has happened to me and they would just simply smile. It wouldn’t mean a thing to them. They had one standard by which they would judge me and that standard is “we have more money than you have.” And they have! They have much, much more money than I have, so in their eyes I am not what they would call a success. The world judges man by what he has in dollars and cents and things. I could say to all of them tonight, I’m not starving tonight, no, I’m not in want, but they will judge it by how much you have beyond what you need. Well, that’s their standard…and they are darlings…they’re perfectly marvelous, lovely fellows, but they can’t help it…they were trained that way.
Today, if I confronted them and I would say to them and I would mean it, “You and I in the not distant future will depart this world, and you are going to find yourself restored to the most glorious, healthy young body, where you cannot describe how lovely it is, how beautiful it is and how young it is, in a world just like this, to continue your struggle; and I will not be with you (and I could not honestly in my heart say unfortunately, I couldn’t). But I will not be with you. We’ll depart in the not distant future, all of us, because we’re pushing that age anyway, but you are going to find yourself here and I will not be here. I am moving straight from here into an entirely different age. I am no longer the caterpillar.”
And so to come back, what happens between this symbolical number of twelve and the thirty, it is not discussed in scripture. I know many have speculated as to what does he do in that interval…did he study with the Sanhedrin, did he do this? It isn’t here! The drama isn’t taking place here, it’s something entirely different. I haven’t found anything in books that I’m giving you tonight, they’re all my visions. Where have I ever found…as I described it in my book Resurrection? I certainly haven’t found it in any book that I’ve read. I do not know one book in this world that I have read where the author stated that David of biblical fame is the only begotten Son of God and that’s the only way God can ever prove to man that he gave himself to man is by having his Son call that man Father, and that man knowing he is his Father. Well, I’m the only one I know of who’s stated it, and not to state it would be to lie to my soul. It happened to me, and then I told it here, wrote about it, and in this audience tonight there are at least six who had a conscious knowledge of this encounter between David and self, who David has called Father. There are another dozen or more who have had it, but they haven’t brought it back. But they’ll bring it back, as she brought back the experiences of birth that happened a year and six months ago. She’ll bring it back. They’ll all bring it back.
For the only Son is David, and David is the only begotten Son of God as told us in the 2nd Psalm, “I will tell of the decree of the Lord, he said unto me ‘Thou art may son, today I have begotten thee’” (7:12). That’s said to David and David calls Christ “my Lord.” And Christ said, “When you see me you see the Father,” therefore, if you see me and you see the Father, because David called him “my Lord,” if David calls me “my Lord,” well then, who am I? And I do not know of one book in the world outside that Resurrection of mine that has stated it. Blake has implied it, but he has not stated it. I thought I could restrain myself and say, well now, it will come regardless of whether I said it or not. I had to tell it. I felt like Jeremiah, “If I say I will not mention it or call anymore upon his name, then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in and I cannot!”
Good night.
