God is in Christ, Reconciling

If you opened the Bible and you opened to the page and read this simple little statement, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself,” would you grasp it? “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation,” what would it mean (2 Cor. 5:19)? Who is this God and who is this Christ, and who are we that he entrusts to us this message of reconciliation? When you open the Bible, you’re really opening the greatest mystery in the world. It’s not something you can pick up and then just say, well, I will read it and this is something like reading the morning’s paper, a little news item. So, you follow me closely and see how it works with us.

I will now quote the most quoted Psalm that is quoted in the New Testament, the 110th. “And the Lord says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’” “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek’” (Ps.110:1,4). Now this is the most quoted psalm in the New Testament. When it’s quoted in the gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke, the words are quoted by Jesus Christ. Naturally, after the gospels are over, it could only be quoted of him, not by him, and so we find it in Acts, in Romans, in Corinthians, in Ephesians, in Colossians, twelve times in the epistle to the Hebrews. We find it in the epistle to Peter and in the very last book, the Book of Revelation. And here is this 110th Psalm…what does it mean, “And the Lord says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool’”? Now here he introduces three characters, seemingly. For here is the great poet, the inspired poet David, and David is speaking; and he speaks of “the Lord,” the creator of the universe; then he speaks of “my lord,” something entirely different. What is the difference between David, the Lord who is the creator of the universe, and then David’s lord? Speaks of it as “my lord”…”He says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’”

Now, he’s entrusted to me the message of reconciliation, as I quoted in the beginning from Corinthians, so I must this night explain to you this passage. For what is Christ in the world doing? He doesn’t come to change governments; he doesn’t care whether the government is one of Democracy, of tyranny, really, that’s not his purpose. When Christ begins to awaken within man, he has no desire whatsoever to change forms of government. He doesn’t care if this government is a government of Democracy, and one is one of Communism, and one is one of something else…hasn’t a thing to do with governments. He comes only to fulfill scripture: “Scripture must be fulfilled in me” (Luke 22:37). So, “Beginning with the law of Moses and through the prophets and the psalms, he interpreted to them all that was written about himself” (Luke 24:27). So everything is written about me, for the Christ of scripture does not differ from the Christ in you. The Christ in you is your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s Christ. So, divine Imagination is limited in man as man’s wonderful human Imagination.

Now we go back, “The Lord”—-that’s Yod He Vau He, the Grand I AM—-“says to my lord”—-that word is Adonay, which is often used as a substitute for Yod He Vau He…same thing. They do not differ in substance, do not differ in anything other than one is keyed low. God keys himself low, empties himself of his divine being and becomes man, man’s wonderful human Imagination (Phil. 2:7). And that limited state is called Christ Jesus. So he comes down and becomes man…and this is Christ Jesus in man. Now, “Sit here at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.” Well, the right hand is only the place of honor, that’s all that it is. Even today, in 1965, you have a dinner party and your guest of honor is seated at your right hand. If you now went to the White House, the most important member of the cabinet is at his right hand. If you went to Buckingham Palace and you were invited there, you could look around the table and see the most important at that gathering—based upon her concept or their concept—-is going to be seated at her right hand. All it means is simply “the place of honor.”

So here, seated at my right hand…well now, who’s going to do the whole thing? Listen to the words carefully: “The Lord said to my lord:”—-two entirely different states, seemingly—-‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’” So who is going to do it now? The Lord is going to do it…not my human Imagination…for this is Jesus Christ. Is it really Jesus Christ? Well, scholars have argued over the centuries as to what it means “my lord,” and they said, David meant the ruling king of the day. Well, he could not have meant the ruling king of the day if you take it historically because he was the king. If you take it as he wrote it when he was a child, then Saul was the king, and Saul was rejected by the Lord. David was called and anointed by the Lord (Ps. 89:20). So you can’t say Saul was king and you can’t say there was another king, because David reigned until his end. He didn’t die a king and someone reigned, that is, he didn’t find himself expelled from the throne, he reigned until the very end. So how can scholars say he is speaking of the king?

Another scholar said he was speaking of a visionary being, some visionary figure, in other words, the Messiah of his dream. That comes closer. But this is not secular history, this is something entirely different. Then who is he speaking of? This is a mystery. There are three characters: there’s David; the Lord, Yod He Vau He, which is I AM; and then “my lord” which is David’s lord. Well, who is David’s lord? The Old Testament is one grand question mark to which the New Testament gives the answer. To find the answer to this you go to the New Testament. So we go first to the last books, we go to the 22nd chapter of the Book of Matthew—-you can find this in the 22nd of Matthew, the 12th of Mark, and the 20th of Luke, same story—-and the words are put into the mouth of Jesus Christ. He’s discussing resurrection, the breaking of the last barrier in this world; for the last enemy to be overcome is death.So he’s telling the world that you don’t really die, that those who are resurrected they die not more. You die and you’re revived, and you die and you’re revived, until that moment in time when you’re resurrected, and then you die no more. You’re part of an entirely different age, a different world: You are now the Son of God and, therefore, one of the resurrected.

Then he quotes the greatest of all commandments, the Shema, “Hear, O Israel”—-and the word now used is Yah-Adonay, which is the same word used in this statement, “my father,” which is called “my Lord.” So he tells us, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deut. 6:4). They agree with that, for that is fixed in the minds of all who understand God’s Word. No one asked the question, so he asks the question. This is where the whole mystery is unfolded if one can get it. He said, “What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he? And they answered, “The son of David.” He said, “Why then did David, in the Spirit, call him Lord? saying (in the Psalm), ‘The Lord said to my lord, “Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool’? If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” (Matt.22:42). Now he shows us the relationship of this question asked and stated in the 110th Psalm. He quotes the 110th Psalm.

Now, “my Lord” is an expression used of a slave of its master, of a wife of her husband, of a citizen of his king, by the son of his father. He asks the question concerning the relationship of father-son; so he sets it up, that David is asking and stating about his father. He identifies himself with the statement “my Lord.” Why did David call me, he’s telling us, “my Lord”? And being my son, he’s calling me his father. If David calls me “my Lord,” how could I be his son? For here is Christ speaking, he said, “What think ye of the Christ, whose son is he? And they answered, ‘The son of David.’ Well then, why did David in the Spirit call him Lord?” And then he quotes the 110th Psalm: For David in the Spirit said,“The Lord said to my lord—-which is to my father—‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’” “If David thus calls him Lord—-which is ‘my father’—-how can he be his son?” He’s revealing the great secret, this reversal of order, which to this very day people do not grasp. Even though they hear it from the lips of one who has experienced it, they still will not accept it because of two centuries, or 2,000 years, of prefabricated misunderstanding of the mystery. So we set the whole thing up…tells us how it’s done.

Now, he is my own wonderful human Imagination. Do I do it? No, he puts me through the paces. Who?—-the Lord, the Grand I AM. “The Lord said to my lord”—-the Divine Imagination said to my Imagination—-‘Sit at my right hand,’—-take the place of honor—-‘till I make of your enemies your footstool.’” And then I am put through the paces; I have no choice in the matter, none whatsoever. But I am one with the one who is putting me through, we are one. He keyed himself low in me for this purpose, to expand his creative power. And when the victory is over, I as a man didn’t gain the victory. I’m united with the victor because we are one. We were one in the beginning; we’re one in the end. He’s simply working on himself, so he keys himself low in me, he keys himself low in us, and works on himself. The very end, when the victory is won, I’m united with the victor. And that’s the mystery.

So, in this 110th Psalm, well, how does he do it? Listen to this one now, he says, “I’ve come only to fulfill scripture. I fulfilled the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms.” So while we’re on the psalms tonight, we’ll take another one. We take the 24th Psalm: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. Who shall ascend the hill of the lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” Then comes a response, “He who has clean hands and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:1,3,4). But how do I do it? Do I go about making my hands clean? How do I do it?I don’t have to think for one moment how to do it, because God is working on himself, that’s all. He puts me through all the paces that man could ever conceive, and I fail, I flunk every test that he ever gave me when I was keyed low. Then he breaks the spell and he expands me, and then I come forward with the answer to every test that in the beginning I flunked.

I don’t have to test myself. How do I have clean hands, how do I have the unclean hands? Well, the unclean or the stained hand is the hand that takes a bribe, the hand that commits the act of murder, the hand that steals, the hand that has the greed for gain, that’s the stained hand. And the same is true of the impure heart. If you read the 15th chapter of the Book of Matthew, he mentions all these qualities, for everything that is unclean proceeds out of the heart, everything.I couldn’t murder unless it was first part of me. And the words “mind” and “heart” are the same in Hebrew. And so, I couldn’t murder unless first I entertained the thought, I couldn’t steal, I couldn’t take the bribe, I couldn’t have that intense greed for gain at the expense of others. Did it not come out of the heart, out of the mind? So he tells me, those who have a pure heart they can scale the heights and see God…those who have clean hands. Well, do I go about trying to purify myself? No, God does it. It is God who set us up which is himself.The story of Job all over; that you and I here we had no choice in the matter, we are victims of this cruel experiment, but the end will justify the horror of it all. For in the end, you are united, all of us will be united, with the author, the creator of it all. We are God…in the end.

So here, he sets it up in a simple way. Let me give you one simple little story told me only yesterday. Friend called me up, called my wife up, and she is very sweet and kind to us. We don’t drive, we haven’t a car, and so she calls us every week and offers transportation for anything we want to do. So this friend and my wife went off shopping. My wife had occasion to stop in at the supermarket for some small, little item, and so she bought it. It only came to ninety-eight cents. A lady just next to her before…instead of ordering what she wanted to order, she had to justify her purchase, which was chopped round, and there was something, thirty-eight cents, so she had to say, “I want this for my dog.” Well, the person knows exactly who’s going to eat it anyway, so why go to all that trouble of saying “I want it for my dog”? So she bought a pound of this thirty-eight cent meat for her dog, and the butcher knew exactly who was going to eat it when she took it home. So the butcher simply did this. And then my wife said, “I’ll have a pound of top sirloin, ground top sirloin.” Well, that was ninety-eight cents as against thirty-eight. So the butcher, having written this thing out thirty-eight, he took the pound, wrapped it up, and then put thirty-eight, and gave it to my wife. She saw his mistake and she said, “I think you made a mistake. Didn’t you give me what I ordered? I saw you take it from this thing…” and he said, “I did.” “Well, then you only put down thirty-eight cents, it should be ninety-eight cents.” He thanked her, took it back, and then wrote ninety-eight. That’s how the Lord speaks to my lord, my Imagination. You sit here and I’m going to put you through the paces, you don’t test yourself. When you least expect it, these things are placed upon you, a simple little thing like this.

Now may I tell you, it isn’t because my wife could not have used the extra fifty cents. We have in little Barbados supermarkets…my family, we have three huge supermarkets, and the wealthiest people in the island, socially prominent, and we know who they are, they come in and they are shoplifters. But their husbands know it, and they make no complaint. We never say a word, but we have notified their husbands of this simple, peculiar attitude that the wives adopt. So they allow…instead of embarrassing their wives and therefore reflecting on them, you let them take anything they want as though you’re getting rid of it…at the end of the month you send me the bill. And so, at the end of the month we send the bills to these shoplifters, who are prominent socially and very, very wealthy. So it hasn’t a thing to do with wealth. These are the tests that “the Lord” says to “my lord,” to my Imagination: You sit here, I’ll put you through…I’ll put you through the paces, and when you go through all the furnaces, your hands are going to be clean. I could put anything before you and it would not be a temptation. If you are dying of starvation for the lack of a penny and a dollar was there that you could take illegally, you wouldn’t take it. You reach that point; and then, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place? Those who have clean hands and a pure heart.”

All of these things, may I tell you, we experience, and we all go through them; not one will fail. In the very end, the reward, if you can call it a reward, for all the horrors that you go through is that you are united with God himself. There’s only God. The most difficult thing in this world for man to believe is that God is playing all the parts. Because he plays all the parts and having flunked every test and then passed every test, he can say, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” If he hadn’t flunked all and then passed all, he could not forgive all. But he flunked all, every test in this world you and I have flunked; and every test will be given again and again and again, and every test you and I will pass. We’re only here to fulfill scripture, that’s all, to pass the test of scripture. To pass the test of the world, that means nothing.

If tonight I were a billionaire, what would it really matter? I saw in the current Time magazine these two billionaires. I don’t recall the name of one, the other is Getty. There they are nose to nose. And when you read the little story, both are really with both feet in the grave, anyway. This other one…I don’t know, a Greek name or some Armenian name, some name of that nature…and when they asked him what they discussed, they were discussing oil and the twenty or twenty-one thousand dollars a moment, while they were standing there they were earning that apiece. While they were in this discussion they were bringing in twenty-one thousand dollars in actual cash. He asked…the question was asked him, and he said, “What else is there to discuss?” Well, that’s his present level of consciousness. He’s completely right…and don’t change him. He will tomorrow or ten years from now or in the not distant future make his exit from this world and be put to another test. So let him make his billion today…and twenty thousand dollars coming in every moment in this fabulous world of theirs in dollars and cents. And he wondered, “Is there anything else to discuss but the making of money?”

Alright, so I say, God is in Christ—-Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination—-reconciling the world to himself; and now he has entrusted us with the message of reconciliation. So he’s entrusted me with the message, well, what is the message? I’ll tell you: Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination. And although you’ll go through all the furnaces in the world, meeting tests that you did not expect because the Lord, the Grand I AM, is putting you through, while you’re waiting for them or going through them, you can use the same power keyed low on this level. For God the supreme Imagination and God human Imagination are one, they’re not two. So on this level, you and I simply imagine lovely things for others, and watch them come to pass.

You and I will meet the test. We may fail, but eventually we will not fail. We’ll pass every test in this world. The test given us is only clean hands and a pure heart, that’s all the test. It isn’t that I’ll become rich or become famous or become this…no, the test is simply the clean hand.Am I given the opportunity to take something from another in some illegal manner, and then I take it? Well then, I haven’t made the test or met it. Now I will get this same test over and over, and I’ll change it somewhat so I wouldn’t recognize or remember how it was given to me before.Numberless ways of receiving the same test, until the hands become clean and the heart becomes purified. When the heart becomes purified and the hands are clean, I will see him. So read the entire 24th chapter of the Book of Psalms…a very short one, only ten verses.

So he asks this wonderful question…first of all, you’re going to come before and see the face of the God of Jacob. That’s what you’re going to see, as we brought out last Friday night, the apple of his eye. And here was little Jacob; he found him in a desert, a howling waste wilderness, but he was the apple of his eye so he encircled him. The apple of the eye is simply the pupil of the eye and the pupil of the eye reflects the beholder, so I become what I behold.So God beholds himself in you, but at first it’s a tiny little thing. When I look into your eye, I see myself reflected, but I see a tiny little reflection of myself. So Amos asked the question, “But Jacob is so small! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!”(Amos 7:2). Again the Lord repented. This is your affirmation. For his second…when it’s done twice, it means now it will be done. He repents and then the image begins to expand in you. What image? It’s the image of God. For if I look into your eyes I don’t see you, I see myself. If I smile then the image smiles; if I frown it frowns. No matter what I do it does. God then begins to change his nature relative to me, and I begin to expand as he changes his nature. Finally I arrive at the very end where it is God the Father who is infinite love. But to arrive at that, he has to take me through all these stages and it’s God himself imposing this upon himself. There’s only God…there’s nothing but God.

So here is this wonderful, wonderful 110th, the Psalm most often quoted in the New Testament. Now, the passage of it which I have not touched so far, which is quoted all through Hebrews, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:6). Is that what I am?—that’s what I’m told, after I’m resurrected. For this is identified with resurrection. Who is Melchizedek? He has no father, he has no mother, he has no beginning of days and no end of days, and no genealogy, no origin, no background. Who could he be but God himself! You sit at my right hand, the honored place, and I’ll take you through the paces, and in the end you will be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. So he brings me to the state where I don’t have a background, I have no origin: I’m self-begotten. I am the being that I am, not by reason of the fact that someone begot me. I am the same being that is the one that created the whole vast universe. That is Melchizedek: No father, no mother, no beginning of days, no end of days, no genealogy.

This comes through the revelation called resurrection. So when Paul uses this 110th Psalm in his letter to the Ephesians, he speaks of God: “Which God accomplished in Christ, by his resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and now sits at the right hand in heavenly places” (Eph. 1:20). But who did it?—-God—“that which God accomplished in Christ.”Well, Christ is your own Imagination…so God accomplished it in you. What did he accomplish in me? Everything recorded in scripture concerning Jesus Christ he accomplished in my Imagination. When I least expected it he came like a thief in the night and awoke me from a long, long slumber, which, undoubtedly, was a horrible dream; for we all had to dream the same dream and the dream is the dream of horror.Then he awoke me in my skull, which is called Golgotha. Then he brought me forth to show me the symbolism of my birth.

Then be brought David into my world. Well, who is David? When I saw him he was simply a youth, twelve, thirteen years old. But in Hebrew thought, history consists of all the generations of men and their accomplishments fused into a single great whole; and this concentrated time into which all the generations of men are fused and from which they all spring is called eternity (Eccles. 3:11). Eternity, by my own mystical experience, is personified as a youth. It’s not an old man as the Greeks have painted and our modern artists have painted. Hasn’t a thing to do with age; eternity is youth. And that concentrated eternity which God placed in my mind which I had to bring forth is personified as a youth and he’s David. So I had to play all these parts that were contained within this completely concentrated being. So history is simply made up of all the generations of men and their experiences fused into this one being, that being is David. Eternity is put into the mind of man and then you dream it. He is the grand dreamer. He is the being who is doing all of the fighting in the world; it’s you dreaming it. And at the end you will bring him forth out of your own mind, and you are his father, so he calls you “my Lord.” You are the father of him, so you bring him out and he stands before you and calls you, “Father,” which is “my Lord.”

So we go back, “What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?” “The son of David.” “Then why did David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my lord, “Sit at my right hand, till I make of your enemies your footstool?” “If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be David’s son?” A complete reversal of order. So eternity was put into the mind of man, and man brings him forth, personified as a youth. The being who brings him forth being the father of him is greater than eternity, greater than the whole vast concept of all that is now man and all that man has done, is doing and will ever do. The whole thing is within man, concentrated into this one, single youth. And after you’ve played all the parts, you will not flunk eventually; you’ll pass every test eventually ‘til the hands become clean and the heart becomes pure. When the heart is pure you see God. Who do you see?—-yourself, raised now to the nth degree of beauty and majesty. That’s what you see…your very being.

So you put yourself through the entire paces for the purpose of expansion of creativity. And this is the story. He said, “I’ve only come to tell you and to fulfill scripture,” so he interprets scripture and fulfills scripture. He has no purpose other than that. To come into the world to change this form of government for another form of government or to impose my will upon man? No. Read these two psalms. I tell you they are so beautiful…the music in them, the beauty! And they are so short, one is only seven verses, one is only ten. He comes as though he came to a wall, and now he personifies a gate; he said, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates!; and lift up your doors, ye everlasting doors! that the King of glory may come in.” And voices come from beyond, “Who is the King of glory?” He first answers in might, the Lord of battle, the Lord of might. Again, he asks the question, the same question, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates! and be ye lifted up, O everlasting doors!” Again they ask, “Who is this?” But the final one—-and this is the payoff, that last beautiful verse, when he said, “Who is this King of glory?” and then he answers, “He is the Lord of hosts, that is the King of glory.” Who is this King of glory? And then he answers completely, changes the entire mood: There’s only one King of glory (Ps. 24:7-10). But these heads are not high enough to let the glory in, hearts not purified enough, the hands aren’t clean enough, and, finally, everyone has to be lifted up within himself. As he’s lifted up, then the glory can pass through, because he is the door. Who’s the door?-—“I am the door. Those who came before me are thieves and robbers. They cannot get in, for I AM the door” (John 10:9). The door must be lifted up; the gate must be lifted up.

So here, it may seem to you a night of a spiritual talk, but, may I tell you, that which is most profoundly spiritual is in reality most directly practical. So tonight, you will go out, I hope, with a lighter heart. But you are not going to go and fix the test for yourself. The test will come when you least expect it. Forget the test, it’ll come. You go out determined to take this wonderful principle and use it wisely to change the lives of everyone you know for the better. You will still be given the test, so don’t think about the test. The test will come. In a simple little thing like trying…and certainly the butcher did not for one moment think that he was making a mistake. And if he had made a mistake, it wasn’t his money, it belonged to Food Giant. He would not have been aware of it. She made the little purchase, so what, ninety-eight cents? But she saw the difference between what she bought that was ninety-eight and thirty-eight, and she called his attention to it, and he said, “Oh thank you” and then wrote ninety-eight instead of thirty-eight. He was confused by the one who was buying it for herself, called “the dog.” So she was playing her little part too. She failed in her little test because pride got her. And we’re told in these two psalms, speaking of false pride, “…who will not lift up his soul to vanity”—that’s part of the 24th Psalm (verse 4)—-doesn’t lift it up to vanity. Well, that certainly was vanity. Who cares? The butcher doesn’t know me, he doesn’t know her, doesn’t know anyone. They know you, but not really. You see the familiar face, so he serves you as he should, but, really, he doesn’t really care. He’s working ___(??). At the end of the week, it’s going to be so much whether he sells it or not, and so he’s going to be part of that establishment. He’s a union man.

And so, you’ll take all the tests. But don’t plot the test; you can’t plot it. Don’t try to overcome it, leave it alone. In the very end of your journey, you, too, will cry out, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do”; because they were not expanded enough to meet that test. Tomorrow, a similar test will come and they’ll meet it without batting an eye. And another test will come, until finally it’s reached the limit of expansion, the hands are clean, the heart is pure. And then who do you behold? You behold the face of the God of Jacob, he who found me in the howling wilderness and encircled me with his love and took care of me, he’s the one. If you were not here last Friday, that’s the 32nd chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy (verse 10). He found him in the wilderness, encircled him with his love, took care of him, for he was the apple of his eye; therefore, the relationship is established right away, the father-son. But in the beginning, the son is so little, a little tiny thing on the pupil of the eye. Then the Father repents that he’s so little and expands him. You can’t expand him without putting him through the tests. And then he flunks and he flunks and he flunks, and then you expand him, and then he passes the test. And, finally, at the very end, he is one with the being who beholds him. So Blake, all through Jerusalem, uses this expression so often, “And they become what they behold.” So in the very end, God who is beholding me has expanded me to actually fit his mold, and I am really his image. Then I am declared “Son of God” by reason of my resurrection from the dead.

Now let us go into the Silence.

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May I call your attention to the book table. My book Awakened Imagination is back in print. It’s been out of print for quite awhile; now it’s back in print and many of you have asked for it over the months that it’s been out of print. Every book on the table I recommend.

Q: Would you elaborate on the statement “___(??) vanity.”

A: Well, first of all, there are people today who would sell their soul to be mentioned by Winchell. That’s vanity. They’d give anything to appear on the cover of Time or Life or, maybe, Playboy, give anything! I mean, they would really give their body for this transient thing…that’s vanity! But you go beyond it, all the medals that our great generals and our great politicians acquire, they’re all poured out as nothingness when you see the vision. If you ever read The Vision of the Last Judgment by Blake, you saw them all being poured out, a huge cornucopia, pouring out all vanities of earth and all the riches of the earth. Today, if someone came in here and was very, very wealthy and someone whispered to the other, “You know who’s here? Getty!” Well, those who heard the name Getty wouldn’t hear one word that Neville is saying. They’d all turn around and see a man who has a billion dollars, and I may be at that very moment really revealing the most profound of the mysteries of Christ. But there would be no ear to hear it if they knew Getty was in the audience. Because, “Getty is here, he made a billion, let us get his secret, not what Neville is talking about. How did he make a billion?” And so, that is vanity, all these are vanities.

Tomorrow morning’s paper…alright, I’ll go back…Easter’s coming now, isn’t it? In New York City, my secretary went down to place an ad in the New York Times…this is now, oh, twenty-five years ago. She wasn’t available at the time…she had an appointment with him, but she forgot it. So he waited and cooled his heels in her office. So when she came in she was embarrassed, because she saw on a memo pad she had a date with my secretary, Jack Butler. So, to in some way justify it or to ease the little tension, she said, “Mr. Butler, have you ever seen our social floor?” He said no. Jack never saw the social floor. “Would you like to see it?” and so, naturally, he said he’d like to see it. So she took him down to the social floor to the editor of the social page. All of these lovely, beautiful girls all lined up, and their mothers. Now, this is a month before Easter. She said, “Do you know what they are here for? This is all pre-arranged, all to be photographed in the gowns that they’re wearing. So when you see the Monday morning issue of the New York Times, the day after Easter, these spontaneous pictures coming out of St. Patrick’s, coming out of St. Thomas, coming out of this, coming out of the other, all this was done in advance and its all pre-arranged. These are the top of the social world, and so they want their daughters and themselves and all these people on that page. All this was pre-arranged and done.” That’s the vanities of which I speak.

God doesn’t see it at all but Mrs. Jones sees it, Mrs. Brown sees it, and Mrs. So-and-So sees it, and they’ll buy…in fact, we sell thousands of papers that, really, the advertising is completely gyped. If you go to the races over here, which I do occasionally when my friend takes me, there are…if there are 50,000 people at the races, 50,000 papers are bought that day only for the entries, then all of the papers thrown away, all the ads. So I’ve gone there when 60,000 people were at the race track here, and I myself, I go buy this paper. What do I do? I throw every part of it away but all about the horses. There’s not an ad on that page, so that all the advertising in 60,000 papers that day didn’t register at all, but they can say on their top that we sold this day 780,000 papers. But they don’t tell you how many, maybe, 200 or 300,000 were bought only for one purpose. If I were the mother of one of these little girls and got my little girl’s picture in the paper, I would buy two dozen of them, cut out just the picture, and send it to all my friends, and throw the paper away. So all these are the vanities of which he speaks. “Who does not lift up his soul unto vanity and will not swear deceitfully.” Well, that’s obvious, that’s obvious to swear to ___(??).

This day I went to my barber…I always get a little something from him…and so he was in a very heavy mood today. And so a Mr. Snyder was in the chair and he’s the manager of one of the big apartment houses on Doheny, and he was telling a story. He said he’s from Chicago…he’s really from Russia…but he’s lived a long time in Germany and he’s lived all over this country, but now he’s living here. So, said he, when I was in Chicago my son who was then in high school wanted to get a license to drive a car, so he went down to the bureau to get a license, and the man who was in control of that department…in the days when the mayor was Honest Bill Thompson. You know Bill, when he died they found in his safe deposit box over $500,000 in cash…but he was always known as “Honest” Bill Thompson.” Well, in this department, to give a man a license to drive a car, this kid, just in high school, the man said to him, “How much money do you have on you?” He said, “Seventy-five cents.” “You give it to me” and he took from this kid seventy-five cents. These are the unclean hands. Now Bill Thompson left not only what he left obviously for the world to see, but when they began to ferret out all these hidden boxes, they found another million dollars, all in cash…but he was the “honest” mayor of Chicago.

Now, these are the unclean hands. But forgive him because you and I have done it, we’ve all done it. We’ve played all these parts, and God in his infinite mercy hides it from me. Because if I could remember now the horrors that I’ve gone through, and the bribes I’ve taken, and the murders committed, and all the horrors of the world, I wouldn’t have the courage to stand before you. Because, tonight, I’ve been cleaned, because I have been put to these tests in this little interval of sixty years and I haven’t failed. In all of my poverty, in all of my needs and wants, I haven’t failed to meet the test. Now what…I must remember I didn’t begin in my mother’s womb. I am one with the being who created the whole vast universe and he limited himself to the thing called Neville unnumbered ages ago, and then started the journey, and put me through every test. I have flunked them all until he expanded me and increased the power that I could then pass them all. So, if today he’s brought me to the point where I can actually have in me the fulfillment of scripture…for the only purpose of Christ in man is to fulfill scripture…and as I stand before you, I have fulfilled scripture. I know of no part of scripture that I haven’t fulfilled: The resurrection, the birth, the discovery of David, the ascension, and the dove. I know of no other part of scripture that I must fulfill. I only wait, and I’m not saying impatiently…no, I wait patiently for the taking off of this [body] for the last time.

Goodnight.