Advent

Tonight’s subject is “Advent.” Advent begins on Sunday. It’s the first Sunday nearest to the 30th day of November, which is called Andrew’s Day. And then for four Sundays men are watching—this is all traditional—and they’re watching for the coming of a great event, the second coming of the Christ at the end of this age. So that’s what man watches for, for the second coming which will end this age. But they look to find someone coming from without, and he never comes from without, he comes from within. For the first has taken place: God limits himself in the incarnation. God became us that we may become God—that’s already accomplished. But while he is in us, then he awakens in us at the end of this age as far as we’re concerned. God limits himself. Actually to achieve his purposes in this world he imposes upon himself this self-limitation by a certain specialization, a certain selection, a certain contraction, in order to expand. For the only purpose of it all is for God to expand.

Now Andrew is the one who is called upon to start the watch. He is the first one of the apostles who found him, and having found him he went and called his brother Peter. So Andrew is the first to discover the one of whom the prophets wrote, the one of whom Moses in the law wrote; and having found him he called his brother Peter to tell he had found him, found the Messiah. Andrew was among the four who always accompanied him. We speak of Peter, Andrew, James and John. And so, in the 13th chapter of the Book of Mark, he takes the four up into the mount, the Mount of Olives. ___(??) It isn’t said who asked him the question or who made the statement, but one made the statement, Look at the buildings, these glorious buildings; and he replied, “Not one stone will be left standing upon another. It will all be cast down. And they wondered, when, when will it happen? Not one stone will be left upon another” (Mark 13:1). What is he talking about, buildings in our city here? No. Not one concept that man would have of life based upon his own reasoning will stand the test of time, not one—his theory of evolution, his theory of man, every concept that man holds so dear. And there are libraries the world over about all that man knows—not one stone will be left standing, all will be cast down. It’s so completely unlike what man believes it to be, for the wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God (1 Cor. 1:25).

Now, in the 40th chapter of the Book of Isaiah, we read the words: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Have you not been told from the beginning and have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth…calling them by name…his mighty power…and by his great power not one is missing,” not one (verses 21-26). He calls everyone by name and not one is missing by his mighty power. He is the one who sits above the circle of the earth. And when you sit above the circle of the earth and see it, it’s so completely unlike what man believes it to be. It’s dead; the whole vast world seen from above is dead. Then God by self-limitation to achieve his purposes comes down by selection and assumes your body, my body, all these bodies, and every body is related. The minute you enter it you animate it and then everything starts.

But everything in this world is completely finished, everything is finished. You can’t conceive of a situation in the world that isn’t already worked out.Blake saw it so clearly and told it in his 13th Plate of Jerusalem, where everything in the most minute detail is worked out, all the relationships of men, everything. And any man who dares to come down—I said man, I mean God comes down—and assumes a state. The minute he animates that state the whole vast world related to it comes into animation and the whole thing starts to move. It’s so completely unlike what the wise man of the world believes it to be. So Blake made the statement in his dictated poem called Jerusalem and he gave us the theme of: “The Sleep of Ulro and of the passage through eternal death and of the awakening to eternal life.” Then, said he at the very beginning, “Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand! I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine.”

Now who is this that actually came down? We’re now waiting, beginning on Sunday in the traditional concept, waiting for the Second Coming. Tonight I’ll tell you he’s come. It’s the second coming they’re waiting for. How did he come? Well, he’s spoken of in scripture as Christ Jesus, defined in scripture as the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24). The power of God and the wisdom of God is buried in man. That power and wisdom is called Christ Jesus. It’s personified as a being called Christ Jesus. He’s spoken of as the Son of God, but he makes the claim, “I and my Father are one.” So God himself comes into man, buries himself in man, and is the reality of man. And that God in man, which is Christ Jesus, has to come the second time; this time not from without, he comes from within.

He awakens in man…something that may not be easy to grasp. But may I tell you, if you reject it…I will quote the 12th chapter of John, for when you reject a man’s words you reject him. “He who rejects me has a judge; the word that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day” (John 12:48). He won’t be heard because the same being…but on the last day when it happens to you, you will know how true the word was. So “He who rejects me has a judge; the word that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day.” That last day could come tonight. For when it comes it comes suddenly, comes like a thief in the night. You don’t really expect it, it suddenly happens to you; suddenly you awake and you realize that the being you thought to be Jesus Christ and looked because of the misunderstanding of Jesus Christ, you thought him to be another.And you look eagerly for a second coming, some being who would come out of space and save you and your nation and your race and all these things, and it doesn’t come that way at all. It’s all specialization: God actually achieves his purpose by self-limitation by selection. He selected you in this fabulous state and limits himself to you, and took upon himself that contraction that is you that he may expand. For the whole thing is based upon his contraction. As he contracts himself and takes on this limitation, then something happens in you. He breaks it, like a seed becoming alive, and it begins to grow. So he takes upon himself the limitation called Neville. I think I was born of my mother, I think I have a certain background, of a certain family background, and all this thing man taught me. I was told that I evolved from some strange thing out of the mud, and all of a sudden here came man and then another man and another man, and finally I find myself this man. Don’t believe it. Every stone that man has simply piled up on this glorious building of his, called the wisdom of man, the whole structure is going to fall, and not one stone is going to be left standing upon the other.

The day will come you will actually have the experience of the 40th chapter of the Book of Isaiah: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the very foundations of the earth it is he who sits above the circle of the earth…calling them by name? Every one called by name.” We are afraid of billions? Multiply billions by billions, more than the sands of the sea, and every one is named. He calls every one—he specializes—all by name. And as he calls them by his mighty power, not one is missing. “Not one can be lost in all my holy mountain.”

The day will come you will have the vision of the mystics, the vision of Blake. I have seen it. One night he showed me how to look and I saw it. I’m not alone in this, others have had the experience of actually being above the circle of the earth and seeing everything here as dead, and how they could not animate it from there. They had to come down. They must leave that high, exalted level and come down and assume the state. So Blake tells us, when you enter into the state, everything else seems shadowy and unreal, but the state seems to be the only substance.Before you enter the state you see it as something dead. But if you dare to enter the state and take upon yourself the restrictions, the contraction of that state, and move it, animate it, everything related to that state becomes alive and everything else is shadowy and unreal.So, said Blake, “If one could only enter into these states in his Imagination, approaching them on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought…if he could make a friend and a companion of one of these states in his Imagination…then he would rise from the grave…then he would meet the Lord in the air and then he would be happy” (Vision of Last Judg., Pps.82-84).

Well, that’s what God did. God sent himself called Jesus Christ—Jesus Christ being the power and the wisdom of God—for that’s what God desires to expand. He took upon himself the limit of contraction that is man, the limit of opacity that is the darkness, called in scripture the devil or called Satan. He took that upon himself. And then, wearing it for awhile—Blake calls it 6,000 years—the seed breaks and suddenly it’s the second coming. The first coming was the contraction and assuming the limitation of that contracted state; and the second coming is when he, as you, rises in your skull, and you awake in your skull…not another. Then you realize who Jesus Christ really is. So when you read the word “he’s the power and the wisdom of God”…and this is how he actually came the second time: He was born from above. For, we are told in the Book of Peter, 1st Peter, the 3rd verse, “We are born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Man is born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and all of a sudden you are born anew. But no other being came into your world. Then you realize who Jesus Christ really is—you are resurrected from the dead. You awoke within yourself, and having awakened within yourself you come out and now are born anew.

Then you realize the story as told in scripture as they record it. They’re not recorded according to the position that they occupy in chronological sequence, but they are recorded according to their content. And events that coincide in content are simultaneous. So the resurrection that should come, say, fifty years later or 6,000 years later—for if the journey is 6,000 years, and we have been crucified with him in a death like his and we shall be resurrected with him in a resurrection like his, well, this is a 6,000-year span—they should be so recorded. But they’re not so recorded. Because events that have mingling in content are really, though separated in time, they are really simultaneous, they are together. I can tell you from experience these two really are together.

Now there are signs that precede it, no question about it. One of the signs is the sign I’m speaking of this very night.You will have the experience of being seated above the circle of the earth looking down on a world that is dead, I mean dead, just dead. You have the experience of coming down from that circle and entering what you see as your own body. You will animate it once more. As you animate it, your world becomes alive. If you didn’t come down and re-animate it, the world remains dead as far as you are concerned.For, none of these here really are what they appear to be. Every stone is going to topple. Not one stone will stand above the other when he comes. And when he comes he precedes his coming by these experiences. You have the experience of sitting on the circle above the earth and watching it all as something that is inanimate. You’ll have the experience of returning and animating a body that seemingly was dead. You have the experience of stopping and starting the machine and realize that they aren’t there at all. The whole thing is taking place within you, for the purpose of it all is to have life in ourselves: “As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (John 5:26). And you realize what life really is.

You won’t find it in any laboratory in the world. I am told today that fortunes are being spent, something, a very hush-hush process, to find out the secret of life. I’m told that great foundations are giving fortunes right here in our land. They think they’re on the very verge of it.And I have news for them you will never find it in a test-tube. You will never find it in anything that man thinks that is the origin of life: it’s all in you. Life is an activity of your own wonderful human Imagination.One day you will so control it you will stop it and start it at will, and the whole vast world will stop and start at will.But, before you have that control, you will sit on the circle above the earth and watch it as something that is completely dead, and make your selection, make your specialization, and come down and take that contracted form, and bury yourself in it, and assume the complete limitation of that contraction for one purpose: for expansion. But to do it means you must dream the dream of life and you will dream the dream of life. At the very end of the dream something will break within you. As it breaks, you awake, and you awake to find yourself in your own wonderful skull, the sepulcher wherein you were placed when you made your decision. It is all God.

And then you realize the words of the 11th chapter of Romans, all things were made by him, and through him, and for him. Then the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians, and ultimately it will be revealed that he himself is everything. There is nothing but God and you are he. Nothing in this world but God and you are God. It’s God who actually took upon himself this restriction for the purpose of expansion. And this restriction is called by Blake, the great dream, the great sleep, where he passes through death. When you read these words—and he claims they were dictated by the spirit of love—well, how could you actually have a passage through death? He said, “The sleep of Ulro and the passage through eternal death and the awakening to eternal life.” Well, how could you have a passage through eternal death? When you see it, you realize that’s the death, and you go right down and actually take possession. You select it.

Then, at the very end, you come out, called by name, and yet you are Jesus Christ. In the end there’s only one name, really, it’s Jesus Christ. But you are called by the name—it’s not Jesus Christ—by your own wonderful name. He calls them by name and not one is missing, we’re told. You read it carefully in the 40th chapter of the Book of Isaiah. Start from the 20th through the 26th verses…just that short six verses. And he asks us as though, why have we forgotten? “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not been told this from the very foundations of the earth?”Then he tells us what we were told but we forgot. And may I tell you, when you come here you have to drink the drink of forgetfulness. God completely empties himself and completely forgets that he’s God when he becomes man, completely forgets.So you do not know anything but the relationships of birth; and you’re proud of your background, of your race, of your nation, of all these things; and none of these things are you, in the true sense of the word. You brought them all into being and there they are part of the eternal structure of the universe. But you took upon yourself this structure—which was the limit of contraction— for the purpose of expansion. For there is no limit to expansion, only to contraction; there is no limit to translucency, only to opacity. So you took upon yourself the most opaque state in the world and felt yourself completely shut out, and all dark. Then you move from darkness to light, from this contraction to expansion.

Now, while we are in this world of ours, having completely contracted ourselves, we can still test this principle on this level. While a man called John Brown—and John Brown may be poor, or he may be unemployed, or he may be this, that or the other, and he desires to be other than what he is at the moment—he could dare to assume that he is the man that at the moment of his assumption reason denies and his senses deny. And if he dares to assume that he is, he’s doing the same thing that he did from a higher level when he came down and assumed the fact he was John Brown. So he came down and took upon himself the restriction of John Brown. As John Brown, he need not go on forever in that one place. He could change from state to state to state. And when he enters a state, all the other states seem so unreal; but the state he enters seems to be the only reality, the only substance, as he enters that state.

So you could this night assume that you are this very night the lady or the gentleman that you want to be and although everything denies it, just dare to assume that you are it. Then remain loyal to that assumption, as you in the beginning swore to yourself you’ll remain loyal to being man until you woke in man as an individualized being, completely individualized. That was your pledge—not to another, for there was no other—it was your pledge to yourself. Now, as that pledge is being kept while you are here and completely shut out and everything is forgotten, you could now assume that you are and you name what you want to be, and see it actually unfold before your eyes, the whole thing has become a fact. If you know what you want to be or if you know what you would like someone you love to be, then dare to assume that they are it or you are it or others are it. And then, try to remain as faithful as you can to that assumption as you are now remaining, and you will remain, to this present and most unique assumption when you specialized in becoming man. For, you’re not going to break it. If you die this very moment, you don’t really die. You restore yourself to life, really, and insert yourself in the same circle that is here, where you were above it before you came down. No loss of identity, but none whatsoever. With the same identity you’re re-inserted into a time sequence best suited for your awakening.

And so, the moment will come in time, at the very end, when you will awaken; and you will understand this great mystery being celebrated this coming Sunday by the Christian churches of the world, the Day of Andrew. Behold the man…they are waiting for him. But the whole vast world is waiting for him to come from without. Many of them sell their possessions and go off to some mount waiting for him to come. And you’re told he does not come by watching; he comes suddenly when you least expect it…and that I know from experience. No expectation, no even looking for him, suddenly, a very normal day, a normal night, and suddenly you begin to awake. You think, at the beginning of the awakening, that this is a normal waking, but it doesn’t feel like it, it’s more intense. Your head becomes so intense and then you awake to find yourself in a sepulcher, and the sepulcher is your skull. Then you know, and you push a certain hole at the base of the skull, and out you come and you are born from above.

Here, these two events that should be separated in time between birth and resurrection, and if you are, say, sixty-years old, birth should be separated from resurrection at least by sixty years, but it isn’t…the same night. Because the contents of the two events coincide, and so in their mystical language they coexist, they’re simultaneous. And then the other event follows quite closely on it, a few months later, and altogether all part of the same complex, all within a matter of three-and-a-half years. And what should really be a long spell of time, but in the last days they rush upon you, and all are culminated in three-and-a-half years, after the end of a long dream. A horrible dream in many respects, yet not altogether horrible; many parts of it were lovely. But as Blake said, “Joy and woe are woven fine, a garment for the soul divine.” It’s not all woe and it’s not all joy, but they are woven fine, a garment for the soul divine. And then you weave your garment through 6,000 years of this dream, and then when you come out, you’re clothed as he is clothed, clothed with the Spirit. And you had the experience of the dream of life while wearing the restrictions of the garment called man.

So, this is Advent. Advent, the coming of a great event: The second coming of Christ at the end of the age, this age. For when it comes at the end of this age, you have broken the thing called death. You can die no more, as told you in the 20th chapter of the Book of Luke (verse 35). You are now a son of the resurrection, a son of God, returned, enhancing the glory of God. For when a son comes back he brings back by his breaking through death, he brings back an increase of power, an increase of wisdom to God. For bear in mind the son is defined in the 1st chapter of Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians as “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (verse 24). So when that son returns, having gone into death and destroyed death—for that’s the last enemy to be destroyed; he destroys death as far as he is concerned—and returns with an increased power and an increased wisdom. And that’s the only purpose for this creation. Hasn’t a thing to do with the natural order at all; simply to extract his sons from the natural order. And the whole vast creation groans waiting for the revealing or the unveiling of the sons of God. And they are unnumbered, more than the stars of the heavens, more than the sands of the sea, and yet everyone is unique, everyone is known by name, and not one is missing. Not one can be missing when they return, and altogether to unite into a single man who is God…a single man and that one man is God. The fragmented being taking upon himself—having seen exactly what it’s going to be—but that was for a purpose and God achieves his purposes by self-limitation, by specialization, by selection, by contraction in order to expand.

And so, you were chosen and no one in the world could have entered that expansion of God for you, no one. God’s only begotten Son actually became that one particular thing that you call you; and it’s in-woven in you, and sleeps in you dreaming the dream of life. And then he wakes and you are he. And that’s the glory of it all! Then that whole wonderful story as you’ve been told it for centuries now begins to return, memory returns. It was never another that he sent; he sent himself. He who sends me came with me, and, therefore, he who sees me sees him who sent me. If you will not receive my word, then you reject me; if you reject me, you have a judge. I will not judge you and no one else will judge you, but you have a judge; the word that I have spoken will be your judge on the last day. For on that last day you will experience it and having experienced it you are self-judged; and you will know the truth of the word you heard and you rejected.

So everyone, everyone will be saved, but no one is lost. No one is unredeemed at the end of the dream, for God is calling everyone by name. And he actually sits above the circle of the earth, that’s his home, but he comes down and assumes the restrictions and the limitations of man. And when you see it from above, believe me, it’s dead. It seems so alive here—three and a half billion animated bodies moving all over—but when you see it from above they’re dead, everything is dead. And then you’ll see even wearing a garment that you yourself wear and you will come down and animate it. Only as it is animated does the world related to it become animated. And then it becomes animated because you animated the body that you specialized, that you actually selected, and wove yourself into that limited state…and then this becomes animated.

Then one day you’ll have other experiences of turning it off and turning it on. All these precede…he said, what are the signs of the destruction of the temple? He doesn’t analyze any of the signs, but he implies, he intimates some of the signs. You read it in the 13th chapter of the Book of Mark. He doesn’t actually spell it out but these are the signs that I’m telling you from experience. These signs you shall have, the signs of moving into a world within a world, returning to this world to find a dead body that you left behind. And then you restore it to life; then you know the mystery of Lazarus. It was not another: it was Jesus Christ in you, who is your very being, who restored that body, because Jesus Christ restored that one, and “Jesus Christ in you is the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). As we are told, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless, of course, you fail to meet the test” (2 Cor. 13:5). Well, the test is to animate the body; for only Jesus Christ can animate it; for he is the resurrection and the life. For if you come into a body that is dead, cataleptic, and it won’t move, and then suddenly after, well, how long I do not know, maybe a minute, maybe minutes, maybe longer, then the thing becomes once more animated, reactivated, then you know who Jesus Christ is.

And then, ___(??) comes that final state at the end of the play, before you depart from this world, because your time has come at the end when you’re going to depart from the world. “For the time for my departure has come,” said he. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” What faith? That faith in the beginning when I came down and limited myself for the purpose of expansion—I’ve kept the faith and “Henceforth there’s laid up for me a crown of righteousness” (2 Tim. 4:6). So here, everyone goes through the same thing; so in the end, everyone is that one being, without loss of identity. That’s the amazing part, no loss of identity, and yet all the Son of God. And the Son of God is one with God the Father: “He who sees me sees the Father. How can you say, Show me the Father? If you see me you see the Father” (John 14:8). For he who sent me hasn’t left me, he’s one with me; so whoever sees me sees him who sent me. And so it was a self-decision when man as God comes down and takes on the limitation of man.

Now to put it to the test…tonight, you put it to the test…you take some noble dream for yourself. Make it a noble dream and dare to assume now that you are the man, the woman that you would like to be, and then look mentally into your world for confirmation. They’re all dead; just look at them, and then animate them, let them see you as you are seeing yourself. Let every one of them see you as they would have to see you were it true. Then see them become alive in your mind’s eye and hear their conversations implying that they see in you what you want the whole vast world to see, just let them see it.Now that’s another state you’ve animated while still waiting for the end, for the second coming or the awakening of Christ within you. Before he awakes within you, you can put him to the test, because he is dreaming. He’s dreaming this whole vast world and you can modify the dream and change it to suit your heart’s desire.

So tonight, you take yourself, take a friend, take anyone, and just simply try it. May I tell you, if you try it, it won’t fail you. You don’t need any intermediary between yourself and God because you are he. God became you that you may awaken to find yourself God. So you don’t need anyone between yourself and God. So try it. Do you know of someone in need? Well, alright, represent him to yourself as the man, or the woman that you would like him to be, or like her to be, and just believe in the reality of that imaginal act, just believe in it. And be as faithful to that as you are now faithful—and may I tell you, you will remain faithful—to your initial decision to restrict yourself for the purpose of expansion.

When you see it in this light and you go back and you read Blake, the whole thing becomes awake, for he sees it so clearly. That first line of his, after he gives us the theme, he said: “This theme calls me in sleep night after night and wakes me every morn”—and he tells us of this wonderful being called the Spirit of Love—“spreads his beams of love over me and dictates the words of this mild song.” But the first dictated words are “Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! Expand! I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine”…the first dictated words of this glorious poem, which he claims God himself dictated and did this night after night. As he was waking he could feel the words and hear the words coming through twelve, twenty lines at a time.

So, the whole thing is simply to awake after having imposed this profound sleep upon self. So we’re the ones spoken of in the 2nd chapter of Genesis, where he caused a profound sleep to fall upon man and he slept (Gen.2:21). Now, the waking is the second coming of Christ. And all through scripture the words are “Awake! Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord?” (Ps. 44:23). It’s always a call to awake. But may I tell you, you will awake at the end—that end which is called Andrew’s Day, the second coming of Christ, you’ll awake. And the words that I’ve told you from this platform and I’ve told you in my latest book, The Law and The Promise, that last chapter, are true. There are some who will reject it because of their traditional concept of the second coming. They expect him to come from without and not to awaken from within, and so they will reject it. But I will repeat, from the 12th chapter of John, “He who rejects me has a judge; the word that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day.” Not going to condemn him; he will see how true it was when he heard it a year, a century, or centuries ago. It will all come back to him that he heard it and he rejected the word of God; and now he fulfills the word of God. And so now he tells it to find himself rejected…and so the old, old story. So now he goes out and tells it expecting acceptance from him, when he rejected it when he first heard it. That’s the old, eternal story.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

Q: Neville, would you explain this from 1st Corinthians, the 10th chapter, 9th verse “Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents.”

A: Let us not tempt Christ as others tempted him and were destroyed of serpents? Well, that goes back to the Book of Exodus where those who would look at him risen when lifted up were instantly cured of any disease that they had. Those who would not look were destroyed by the disease, whatever disease they had. And so, they were told to look at the serpent that was lifted up on the rod that budded, and everyone who would look to this lifted-up-serpent were cured. Well, the lifted-up-serpent was simply the Son of Man raised from the dead. Hear the story and believe it. You’re looking at it, you’re seeing it, you’re accepting it. If you know it—“to know” and “see” are one in Greek—and so if I know it because I have accepted it, I’m seeing it. So I’m looking at the risen serpent and no one was destroyed who looked at the risen serpent. Those who were bitten by serpents, who would not look at the risen serpent, were destroyed. For we speak of the serpent wisdom, well, the wisdom of man is serpent wisdom, and they’re so wise in their own conceit; they know it all.

There are some who are going to live forever in the garments of flesh. Why, I would never know. We come to the very end, as Shakespeare describes it, sans teeth, sans everything, yet they still want to vegetate, without any reason for living, not a thing that is left. Making us all ___(??), the one thing they valued. And all the other things go with it, but they want to live forever. In fact, I saw a sign here “How to live forever” right on the street at Hollywood and Vine, a huge, big sign advertising some lecture. This man is going to show them how to live forever. Because he goes on the theory, as others have, the way to make his exit from this world tonight, why should he care? As long as he’s still here he can get away with it and fool everyone until he makes his exit, which is inevitable, and the day he makes his exit he isn’t going to be concerned about the millions he fooled. And so, let the millions come and pay him for living forever. He’s not alone; it’s been going on forever—so the serpent and the wisdom, human wisdom, up against the serpent that is God.

Blake speaks of this wonderful serpent, he calls it Orc. When the child was born it was named Orc and it came from the serpent that was coiled in the south, and to Blake the south is the eye. And so, here he sees this thing coiled, in vision, and then when it brought forth a child the world screamed, and they called the child Orc.

Any other questions, please?

Q: What determines the individual awakening? You keep saying that none will be lost, but what determines the individual awakening?

A: Well, my dear, I can only give you my own experience. No one in this world of the three billion and a half who walk the face of the earth (and I am one of them) no one ever told it to me, I never suspected it, it just happened. And when it happened, it came so suddenly, so unexpectedly, no one was more startled. I was born and raised in a Christian home, raised in the Christian tradition, and I wasn’t taught it this way. With all of my teaching across this country I wasn’t taught it this way. I was taught that Jesus Christ was another, some other being, and didn’t realize it’s the universal, the cosmic Christ which is the power and the wisdom of God. I read it in scripture, but because of my background and training I didn’t see what was there to be seen. It’s so difficult for man to change his opinion of events once they’ve become fixed traditionally in his mind’s eye. When as a Christian I was raised to believe Christ in a certain way, I didn’t realize that the sepulcher in which he was buried was my own skull. I didn’t know it. The birth of Jesus Christ I thought took place; I didn’t realize it is ever taking place, on the heels of the resurrection. So you go back and you read scripture and in that 1st chapter, the 3rd verse of 1st Peter, “Man is born anew”—that is that second birth—“by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Well, it comes right on the heels of your resurrection…and you realize how it is conditioned on the resurrection. You wouldn’t think a birth is conditioned on resurrection, would you? It doesn’t make sense. And yet there are the words in scripture: “Man is born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

But when man is taught to believe he did it 2,000 years ago, then our second birth would follow because he did it as a resurrection…isn’t so at all. He is resurrected in you, and on the heels of his resurrection in you, as you, you are born from above. That’s how it happens. And it happens without anyone taking thought. You came to the end of your journey. We are on a very long journey, a pilgrimage where man is enslaved; God is enslaved. He took upon himself the form of a slave and was born in the likeness of man…you (Phil. 2:7)…that’s the one he took upon himself. And one night when you least expect it…it could be a very simple day, as it was in my case, certainly not expecting it, because I never heard it. No man taught it to me. I never read it in a book where I understood it. Yet it is in scripture, but scripture isn’t taught that way by those who teach scripture. They have a complete misunderstanding of this great mystery. And so, when he wakes in you, at that very moment you are born…you come right out. You wake in a skull to find it a sepulcher, and you know it’s a sepulcher. You push the base and out you come. All the symbolism as given us in the Book of Matthew and Luke appear before you, the men, the child, the wind, everything. The whole thing comes and you don’t invite any of it, it just happens.

And then you come back to this so-called normal world and you stand bewildered, just bewildered. What is this secret of God’s selective love? For you don’t feel worthy of what has happened to you. You’re the same man that you were the night before you went to bed. And yet you know what has happened, that everything said of Jesus Christ has happened to you, right now. And yet you know your background, memory hasn’t failed you, and so you know the mistakes you’ve made, the things of which you are ashamed. Things that you would not do over, you hope, if given the same opportunity—you’d be more of a man—and yet you can’t deny you did them. And you realize what God’s grace really is. So what is his selective love? What is the secret of his selective love? It remains his secret.

So I say to everyone, just as you’re told tonight, not one will be missing. Because of his mighty power he calls us by name, and not one will be missing. So you can tell that to the whole vast world. “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” That’s a promise made in the very early part of Isaiah, either the first or second chapter of Isaiah, “Though you’re sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow” (1:18). And who hasn’t made these mistakes in his life? Show me the man who will claim that he hasn’t and I’ll show you a liar. So my memory hasn’t faded, I recall the mistakes I’ve made. I’m still aware of what I have done in my sixty years…and yet it happened to me. So it is said of him, he comes into the world eating and drinking, a glutton and a winebibber, so how could he embody the Messiah that is the expected one in this world? So he comes a normal man from a normal family doing the normal things, a friend of sinners, a friend of tax collectors, everything that they would not expect the coming one to represent. So he comes in that garb…that was his selectivity…and while he selected that constricted state within him he wakes. He took upon himself that limitation and then he woke within himself. Everything said of him happens in you.

Any other questions, please?

Q: A strange question perhaps but how have organized churches gotten so far off the path through the centuries?

A: How can organized churches get so far from the truth, from the path? All I can say is they are men without vision. And let us not, because a person calls himself an ordained minister think for one moment that he was sent by God. He was appointed politically by those around him. He was best fitted for the job, as they saw it. He knew how to raise large sums of money, how to meet the right people, how to give them the best seats in church, and how to smile at the one who is richer than the other, and all these things they know. And they know what is known as church law, not God’s law. If you dare…I’ve tried to begin to discuss this just at a little gathering, a dinner party, with any member of the cloth, they go blanch. They don’t want to discuss it. They are above it all, and you are a layman, so who are you to discuss God’s word? So, that’s been true since the beginning of time. Go back and read scripture, he was not from the tribe of the Levites. They were the traditional priests of the world and came from the tribe of Judah, not from the tribe of Laban. And Laban was the tribe of the priests of the world. So how can you tell the Sanhedrin anything? He confounded them with his arguments, but they still could point to the fact he was not from the tribe of Laban. They will ask you, “What is your college?” and you say none, well, right away they close the door. “What are your degrees?” None…well, that closes it all the more. And so, they have these little codes that they set up.

So, I am speaking from experience, not from theory. I can stand here without batting an eye and say to you in biblical terms, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For “the yoke of the law” is the common rabbinical expression for the study of the scriptures. But, my study of the scriptures is based upon experience and not upon theory, I’m not speculating. When I offer you my yoke in exchange for yours, I’m offering my experience for anything you may have that’s not based upon experience.

Goodnight.