Tonight’s subject is: “Predestined Glory” In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the author speaks of God as “bringing many sons unto glory.” (Hebrews 2:10) What is “bringing many sons unto glory”? Well, if you read the Scriptures carefully, you will see that glory and God are synonymous, “I will make my glory to pass before you,” or, “While my glory passes by… I will cover you with my hand,” (Exodus 33:22) and, “When I pass by, I will remove my hand.” (Exodus 33:23)
So, here we find “my glory” is equal to I. “My glory passes by,” and “When I pass by…” What is He doing? He is bringing His sons to Himself. He has chosen His sons . . unnumbered sons, and, yet, there is a number to it, but it seems like an infinite number. And the word glory means to magnify, to “make self many.” So, He is transforming us into Himself . . actually one with God, as God. That is the story . . the great mystery of the Christian faith.
He said, “I consider the sufferings of this present time not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18) Then He tells us that He calls us “according to His purpose, for those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be . . “conformed to the image of the Son…” “and those whom He predestined, He also called, and those whom He called, He also justified, and those whom He justified, He also glorified.” (Romans 8:28-30)
So, here we have five terms: “foreknew,” “predestined, “called,” “justified,” and “glorified” . . the affirmation of predestination. And there is no way of interpreting these terms to avoid such a conclusion. You are predestined to be God!
Now, you may say, “Well, now, look at the things that I have done, the horrible things that I have done!” It doesn’t really matter. We have all done them, or we are doing them, or we will do them, but that does not interfere with God’s predestined plan. There we have in five terms the structure of God’s plan of giving Himself to us, not as something that is great on the outside, but giving Himself to us. So, we actually become God!
Now, I know the priesthoods of the world scare us to death trying to make us conform to their concept of what a man ought to be in order to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. May I tell you, fitness for the Kingdom of Heaven is the consequence, not the condition, of His glory. When He calls you . . and He calls you individually . . you could be the most unclean being in the world, judged by human standards, but God calls us according to His purpose. Now, when He is ready, He’ll take you into His body, for His body is the Eternal Temple, now made up of living stones . . not dead stones, and only God knows that you are not fitted, but you are fitted by reason of His call. When He calls you, He incorporates you into His body, and that incorporation fits you for the Kingdom of Heaven! So, fitness is the consequence, not the condition, of His glory.
Now, let me share with you my own experience of the Call. It was this month back in 1929. I was then a dancer. I was 24 years of age, searching . . searching for an experience of God. If anyone went into blind alleys looking, I did. I tried everything, trying to find Him. No, I didn’t try dope; I didn’t smoke marijuana. No, I didn’t go in for that. First of all, I couldn’t afford liquor, and Prohibition was on in those days, and I wasn’t in the habit of drinking. I couldn’t afford it, and there was no liquor around unless you went to some expensive speak-easy. Well, I couldn’t afford it. But I was searching for God. I thought maybe a certain diet, like a strict vegetarian . . maybe that would do it. I tried that.
When I was 24, I went to sleep perfectly normally, as I do today, and during the night I was taken in Spirit into the Divine Assembly, and I was taken into the presence of a Recording Angel. And here sat this heavenly being . . a desk at a slant, with a huge ledger open before her, with a quill pen. She said nothing. I said nothing. I was simply taken in Spirit. I had no control of the action; it was all automatic. I stood at her side . . at her left side. She turned, and she looked me in the eye . . turned her left face and just looked at me. Then she turned back to the ledger, and wrote something or checked something in that ledger.
Then I was taken into the presence of the Risen Lord . . Infinite Love . . Man. Yes . . Man! And here is the “Ancient of Days” . . not an old man . . but a man without beginning, without end . . an Eternal Being . . all Love. All I can say of this one: He is the “Ancient of Days.” And he asked me to name the greatest thing in the world, and I replied with the words of Paul, automatically as though I were prompted. I didn’t stop for one second to think. I just simply automatically used the words of Paul: “Faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 13:13) At that moment, He embraced me. At the moment of our embrace, our bodies fused, and I became one with the body of the spirit of the Risen Lord.
Until you experience it, you will never know such infinite love . . just love, sheer love. And while I am embraced by Infinite Being, who is all Love, a voice rang out . . out of the blue, and it said, “Down with the bluebloods.” At that moment, I found myself in the presence of Almighty Power . . Man. Yes, it’s a man! Not the Ancient of Days . . the face differed now, and here is Almighty Power, but a man, and without using his vocal cords, without using his lips, I heard what he thought. He commanded me, without using words by the use of lips, and I heard within me that which he thought, and he said to me, “Time to act.” And with that, I was simply propelled . . catapulted out of that Divine Assembly back into this little body that was reclining on its bed, about 4:00 in the morning in the month of July of 1929. From that moment on, things began to happen within me. I had no idea what it meant to act. But he said, “Time to act,” and then within me things began to unfold.
Everyone will be called. Everyone will be incorporated into this one body, for “There is only one body, one spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6) Each will be called in his own good order. No one can tell me that he feels himself fit for the Kingdom of Heaven. There is not one man in the world . . by man, I mean generic man . . that thinks himself so good that he thinks he is worthy of it. No one can tell me honestly he thinks himself worthy of it. So, forget it when someone tries to scare you into believing you’ve got to make an effort beyond the effort that you have made in order to qualify for the Kingdom, for fitness is the consequence, not the condition, of His glory. When He fuses us, He has already made the choice at the beginning. “Before the foundation of the world, He chose us in Him” (Ephesians 1:4) . . then sending us into this world of horror. This is a world of horror, a world of death, and we pass through all the furnaces of experience in this world, and while we are in it, we are called. At the very moment of being called, the embrace purifies you . . at that very moment. Now, the body of flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, so I was not in this body when I stood before His presence. I was in a spirit body, but I was conscious of being Neville. I was conscious of being all that, as a man called “Neville,” I thought I had done. I wasn’t proud of my 24 years on this earth. I had done many things of which I was ashamed, and yet, in spite of all the things I had done in 24 years, He still called me, for at that moment in time that one stone was necessary. He is rebuilding His temple. The temple has been shattered purposely, deliberately, and we are the fragmented parts of that temple. And the parts go through all the furnaces of experience in this world, and He knows exactly what stone He wants now, at this moment. And He calls that stone. It’s a person . . it’s you! And He is calling you to glorify you, but He glorifies you with Himself.
So, here are the five terms: “Those whom he foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His son, and those whom He predestined, He also called and those whom He called, He justified, and those whom He justified, He glorified.” (Romans 8:28-30) Justification is the Divine Acquittal. Whatever I did in all ages that passed between that moment when I fell with God . . for He brought us all into one body, and one body fell and fragmented itself into the unnumbered races and nations in the world.
Now, He calls us, one by one, and when you are called, though unfit, He justifies you; and justifying you is simply Divine Acquittal. You are acquitted of all the things that you have ever done. Then comes glorification, and glorification is the gift of Himself to you. You become one with God . . because there aren’t two gods; you are God, though you remain in the little garment of flesh for a while. You remain in this little garment of flesh . . still weak, still limited, with all the limitations of the flesh, until that moment in time when He takes it off for the last time, and you awake then as God, without loss of identity.
So, let no one scare you that you are not fitted for the Kingdom of Heaven. That choice has already been made, “You were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world,” (Ephesians 1:4) and you are sent out and told that you are going to suffer. Read it in the book of Genesis, You will go into a land . . a strange land, and you will be enslaved there . . enslaved for “four hundred years” . . not four hundred years as you and I measure time. This cross of flesh [indicating the physical body] is “four hundred,” for four hundred is simply the numerical value of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, whose symbol is that of a cross, It is the taw, the 22nd letter, and this is the cross on which God is crucified, and you suffer while you wear the body of flesh and blood. We are enslaved by the body that we wear.
No matter what you own in this world . . if you owned the whole vast world, and all were your slaves, you could not command one slave in your world to eat for you and assimilate for you. You have to eat, assimilate and eliminate for yourself. You are a slave of the body that you wear, and you will wear it for the “four hundred years,” until that moment in time when you are called.
Now, when you are called, you are incorporated into the Body of Love. From then on, you “taste of the powers of the age to come.” (Hebrews 6:5 RSV1) The powers are so fantastic; nothing known to mortal mind compares with the power that is yours to be exercised after you are called. And then the body comes off for the last time. But you could not exercise this power until you are first incorporated into the Body of Love. For, if you had this power, minus Love, you could destroy the universe!
Nothing in the world compares with this power. You could stop the whole vast world, and make time stand still, then change the motivation of these slaves on earth, and make them do your will, and it would be the most horrible will in the world. But you wouldn’t after you were incorporated into the Body of Love; your every motive, then, is governed by Love.
So, first comes the call. Predestined, yes, foreknowledge, yes, before you are called, and He predestined. But now comes the break, and now He calls. And He calls us, one by one, to be incorporated into His own Being, the one Spirit. For, he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him, So, in the end, you and I, without loss of identity . . we are God Himself! This is the Glory of which I speak. This is the glory that was foretold in Scripture, the greatest book in the world, and the most misunderstood book in the world. It is all about you.
So, we are told, “And the Lord will rise upon you, and the Lord will be seen upon you, and His glory will be seen upon you.” (Isaiah 60:1, 2 RSV)
His glory is Himself. And I am telling you from my own experience, we will be seen by others, and be identified by others as God Himself! And, yet, the friend of the one who sees you . . they will stand amazed, knowing you as their friend, and yet they cannot deny what they now see. They will see you as God Himself, and there will be no uncertainty in their minds when they see you as God Himself . . a face raised to the nth degree of beauty and majesty and character beyond the wildest dream of anything on earth. And, yet, you are God, and they will know it. The day you wear the actual Body of Love . . anyone who sees that will see the most glorious sight in the world.
But the glory of which the Bible speaks is God Himself. “For I will make my glory to pass by; when my glory passes by, I will cover you with my hand.” (Exodus 33:22) And then I pass by. So, the I is equal to “my glory.” “Though you will not see my face, you will see my back, when I pass by.” Why? Because, “Only the Son knows who the Father is.” (Luke 10:22) So, when Paul speaks of this revelation, he speaks of it in the text that “when it pleased God to reveal His son in me.”
When He reveals His son in me, He reveals me as Himself, because “No one knows who the Father is except the Son, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father.” (Luke 10:22)
And, so, no one has ever seen God, but the only Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known, for it takes the Son to reveal me. When God’s son stands before you and calls you “Father,” then you know who you are. And that son is David. “I will tell of the decree of the Lord, and He said unto me, ‘Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.’”
And the Lord is Jesus Christ Himself, let no one tell you otherwise. They will tell you, but don’t believe them. Jesus Christ is God the Father! And David is the sum total of all the experiences that man has ever had in this world. Take all the generations of men and all their experiences, and fuse them all into a single state. The state personified comes out as God’s son, and that is His anointed one called “David.”
And David said, “I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me, ‘thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.’” He stands before you, and from then on, you know the Eternal Son, and the job, so far as you are concerned, is over.
Now you will understand the words, “Return unto me the glory that is mine, the glory that I had with thee before that the world was. Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, for I have accomplished the work thou gavest me to do.”
What work did He give me to do? What work did He give you to do? Well, in the world of Caesar, I have been a dancer, I’ve run an elevator for Macy’s, I’ve filled bins for J. C. Penney; I did all kinds of things. And, then, in 1938 I started telling this story, and I haven’t stopped since then, but before 1938 I had many jobs. But they are unimportant . . it doesn’t really matter. The only thing that man has come to do, and must accomplish, is to fulfill the Word of God. And don’t be concerned . . you are going to fulfill it, for the simple reason, God fulfills it in you. He has completed it, and He’s buried in you. The whole thing is brought to a climax already. It’s assured. You cannot fail. No one, in eternity, can fail, because it already has been brought to its climax, and it’s finished.
“I have accomplished the work Thou gavest me to do.” Now, the One who made that proclamation is buried in us. He is the Pattern Man buried in every man, and that pattern will unfold in man, and everyone will be the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord Jesus Christ is God the Father! There is no other “God the Father.”
The day will come, you will know it . . you will experience it. And what you know from experience, you know more thoroughly than you know anything else. I can tell you now that you will do it, and I trust you will believe me. I can’t persuade you to the point of conviction, but when you have it, it doesn’t matter what the whole vast world will say. The whole world could rise in opposition . . it would make no difference to you, for the evidence has already been given to you.
“And so, when it pleased God,” Paul said, “to reveal His Son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood.” (Galatians 1:16) What man still in the consciousness of being a man of flesh and blood could in any way illuminate it for me? How could he analyze it for me? He would tell you, maybe, that you are suffering from some hallucination.
But the great poet saw it so clearly. Robert Browning, in a poem called “Saul” . . as you know, in Scripture Saul was demented; he was insane. He was the choice of man for a king. Israel said they wanted a king, and then the Lord said unto the Prophet Samuel, Warn them as to the result of wanting a king, that he will enslave them; that he will simply take from them their sons and their daughters and everything, and their money, to keep his kingdom going. But Israel wanted to be like other races and other nations, and she insisted on a king, so Israel selected Saul because of his outer appearance. He was tall and handsome and strong. So, they got exactly what they wanted . . a king. He was insane. He was rejected, and the Lord picked David in his place, and anointed David. And so, from that moment on, the Spirit of God came mightily upon David and never left him, for David was the choice of God, and Saul was the choice of man.
Now, this poem called “Saul” is based upon the 16th chapter of I Samuel, where David is explaining to the demented king the meaning of Messiah and the coming of Messiah. And these are the words of the poet Browning. David stands before Saul, and David makes the statement:
“O Saul, it shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee!
See the Christ stand!”
They called Saul. Here, David stands before the demented king who does not recognize his own son, for you would have to be suffering from amnesia not to know your own son. So, he stands before him and tells him a prophecy and declares, “A Face like my face shall receive thee.” What is “my face”? Then he tells him:
“…a Man like to me,
Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever; a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee!”
Now, said he, “See the Christ stand!”
He was the Anointed One. David was the one whom the Lord anointed. He said, “That is he. Rise and anoint him.” (I Samuel 16:12) And from that moment on, the Spirit of God never left David.
David is the sum total of all the generations of man and all their experiences fused into a single being and personified. And that is the resultant state of our experiences in this world of sin and death.
So, really, in the end, there is only God. And God is Jesus Christ. There is no other God. So, let no one scare you. Your salvation has already been predestined. You are already redeemed because you have already been predestined. Predestined glory, and glory is nothing more than the magnifying . . “making Self many.” So, each becomes the Face of God, everyone knowing that he is God, and everyone knowing that the other . . his brother . . is God. And there is nothing but God!
So, God is made up of the brotherhood behind all the masks . . whether they be male or female . . is the brother, and that brother is God. We are the sons of God that God redeemed and brought to glory. “He is bringing many sons to glory,” as we are told in the 2nd chapter of the book of Hebrews: bringing us all to glory, and glory is Himself. So, He is bringing us all to be one with Himself, because there cannot be two Gods . . only the one God. And, so, you are destined to be that God!
I can’t tell you the thrill that is in store for you the night that it happens. And when it comes, it comes so suddenly –as told you in Scripture, “just like a thief in the night.” (I Thessalonians 5:2) No preparation for it! You go to bed feeling just the normal person that you are; not overly proud of what you have done, not ashamed beyond measure, but you wish it was a better sort of a day. You wish you hadn’t entertained the thoughts you did that day, but in spite of your uncleanliness in your own eyes, and maybe even in the eyes of others, it was the moment in time that was ripe, and God chose you at that moment in time.
So, He chose us. We didn’t choose ourselves. He calls us when that stone is ready to be inserted into the Body of the Living Temple. But while we are here in this world, to cushion the blows . . and only to cushion the blows . . He has given us a Law. And the Law is simple . . very simple. And the Law is:
IMAGINING CREATES REALITY.
It’s a simple, simple law. These are my words, but I only take them from Scripture . . based upon Scriptural words, “Whatever you desire, believe that you have, and you shall.” (Mark 11:24) So, putting it into my words, I say, “Therefore, imagining creates reality.”
I have to imagine. So, if I imagine now that I AM what, at the moment that I imagine it, reason denies and my senses deny . . if the Scripture is true and I persist in that imaginal state, it shall become a fact. Well, having tried it . . and it works . . I share that knowledge with others.
Know what you want. Try not to hurt another. It doesn’t really matter about others. Others will aid you in the birth of that assumption.
So, you assume that you are the man that you want to be, though at the moment of your assumption, reason denies it and your senses deny it. But you dare to assume it and persist in that assumption, and your assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact.
So, you cushion the blows in this world while you wait for the Call. But the Call will come. You can’t rush it. Everything comes in time. We are all called according to His purpose, and when the stone that you represent is ready in His eyes . . not because of your fitness, but because that is the time for it to be incorporated into the Body of the Risen Lord, you will be called. And you will tell the story that I am telling. And you will have the same reception: some will believe you, and some will disbelieve you. Don’t stop to persuade those who disbelieve you. Encourage those who do, that they too may be called. On the other hand, you can’t promise them that tonight will be the night or tomorrow night. “No one knows the hour” (Matthew 25:13) . . only the Father.
So, they will be called in the Father’s good time. But you can tell everyone they will be called. I can tell that to a Hitler, if he stood before me with his hands dripping in blood, as they are. If I told it to a Stalin, who was a monster on earth, “You will be called,” I am not sanctifying or justifying his behavior as a man . . no. But I can say that the Being behind the mask that is a Stalin, that is a Hitler, is God, and in the end, God forgives all. He said, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)
But you, knowing now what you do know . . you can play this game beautifully, all in love. All you do is follow the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” (Luke 6:31) You can’t go wrong! You can’t go wrong. If anyone asks you to hear that someone is dead that he may get their estate, that is not what you want done to you, therefore you would not accept that request. “Go elsewhere, but don’t come to me.” But if they ask you to help them hear that they have a fortune, or that they are secure, or that they are contributing to the world’s good, believe them, because I would like to do those things myself. Who wouldn’t want to be secure? Who wouldn’t want to feel that he contributes to the good of his environment? To the good of his country? Anyone wants to feel that. Therefore, if the request was along that line, believe it when you hear it. So, dare to assume that they have what they now request, and if you persist in that assumption, they will get it. You don’t have to concern yourself as to how they are going to get it.
A friend of mine wrote me concerning my book, “Feeling Is The Secret,” that we never get what we want, we only get what we are. Well, he knows if he reads the book carefully that you can make what you want what you are, by an assumption. I start with a want. Yes, I want to be. By the mere saying that I want to be, I am confessing that I am not. Well, if I dare to assume that I AM what reason tells me that I am not until that wanting ceases to be, because I feel that I AM it . . before I have the evidence to testify and to bear witness to it, I must precede it by an assumption that I AM it.
When you know what you want, you are told in Scripture, “Believe that you have received it, and you will.” That follows your daring mood to believe that you are what, at the moment, reason denies that you are. So, I would not go back on what I have said in that book. I maintain, I’ve said it correctly; that you do not get what you want, only what you are. Through what you want to be, you can live to be what you are. Assuming it long before there is evidence to support that assumption, then the evidence will come like the fruit coming out of a tree. If you do not know the nature of the tree, wait until the tree is bearing, and when it bears, all arguments vanish, for the fruit will tell you what the tree is. So, all of a sudden, things will happen, based upon what you are.
You don’t have to will it. No, people are always trying to will things into being. It is not done willfully, nor even carefully. People gather around themselves everything, and they call themselves “careful operators” . . taking advantage of. No! It is simply the core of integrity. You come right down to: Am I really that? Am I really serious? Well, if I am serious, I should see it all day long as I walk the earth.
My friends know me as I AM now. Any change in me, they will see the change; they will hear it through the grapevine, if suddenly something happens to Neville. Whatever happens, one friend will tell another friend, and the other will tell another, and then finally they all will become aware of changes in me.
Well, now, let the change take place in me first, that I may see them in my mind’s eye. Today I see my wife. She knows all the things that are taking place in me. Any change in me, she observes it. A change in my fortunes, she knows it. If the bank deposit goes down, she knows it . . she keeps the books.
If it goes up, she knows that. If I get a big dividend check one year, she knows it. If the next year, they perhaps don’t give a check . . they simply pass it, she knows it. So, anything that happens to me so far as my fortunes go, she knows it. Now, would I like to change that and see it tripled? Well, assume that it already has been deposited and is tripled. Well, now, let me think of my wife. Wouldn’t she see it in me? Wouldn’t she know it? Certainly, she would. Well, I assume that she knows it. I let her see me as she would have to see me if it were true. And, so, another feeling.
Now, in the course of a day, am I going to go back on that? I think of her whether she is physically present, or if she is absent, I think of her. So, when I think of her, would she see me in that change? She would. Well, then, let me be constant in myself. Let me be constant to that change in me until it becomes the very core of integrity. I am faithful to that change in me, and I use her, and use my friends, as the barometer to register the changes that I have tried to produce in myself. So, if I produce them, they would reflect it. If they are not reflected, I have not succeeded in producing in me the necessary change.
If I succeed in producing the change in me, they should reflect it. So, I will not go back on what I have said: You don’t get what you want . . you get what you are. But take what you want and make it what you are. Let go of what the present state is, and put that in its place as a substitution.
It’s called in Scripture . . I call it revision, but Scripture speaks of it as repentance; but unfortunately the word repentance has been misused. It originally meant, and still does mean, what the ancients intended that it should mean. Originally it meant a radical change of mind. It wasn’t remorse. You don’t go down and be remorseful and regretful. That has not a thing to do with the word repent. Repentance is a radical change of attitude towards yourself, towards the world, and to the degree that you succeed in changing that attitude towards yourself, and therefore the world . . to that degree, the world will change to reflect that . . all taking place within you.
So, you make what-you-want what-you-are come now and then into a sense of being, for whatever I AM, I am going to raise it. I am going to expel it into my world.
So, here, you are predestined to be glorified, and when you are glorified, it is because God at that moment of glorification has succeeded in giving you Himself. That is why we are told in Scripture, “The law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17)
Grace is God’s unmerited, unearned gift of Himself to you. That’s Grace. You don’t earn it, and you certainly do not merit it. It is God’s unmerited gift of Himself to you. So, Grace comes through Jesus Christ. And the Truth comes through Jesus Christ. We talked a bit last night about Truth. Truth: He said, “I AM the truth, I AM the way, I AM the life.” (John 14:6) He is the Pattern Man.
So, when Paul writes his letter to Timothy, he says, “Hold fast to the pattern of true words which you have heard from me.” (II Timothy 1:13, RSV) I have given you the pattern of the true words. Now, read his letters, because they came first in the Bible. They preceded the Gospels . . preceded everything else in the New Testament. They came first by twenty-five or thirty years. He tells us to hold onto these patterns “that I have given you.” There is no other pattern. There is no other way to the Father, other than this pattern “that I have given you.” Now, read it carefully, and you will find the pattern.
When it unfolds in you, you ask yourself: Who is Paul? Just who is he? He is named in Scripture, but he is not named in any book of the First Century outside of the Bible. Well, how could a person like Paul go through all that he claimed that he did? He was imprisoned in Rome . . imprisoned in all these places all through the Near East, and yet there is no record of his imprisonment . . not any record outside of the Bible! If he was imprisoned, and we take it literally, then the record ought to be there, for these records were kept. Yet his name is not mentioned in one book in the First Century outside of the Bible. So, who is Paul? He is you!
He was first named Saul. When that amnesia fades and then memory returns, you are God! God is a father, and as a father, He has a son, and His son is David of Scripture. So, when memory returns, you recognize your son, and you don’t have to ask him, “Whose son are you, young man?”
You see, his first name was Saul, of the same tribe of Benjamin, a descendant of Abraham, the same identical descent and background of Saul the king in the Old Testament is that of Paul in the New. They name him, but the name has changed now. A radical change took place in him from Saul . . from asking, for Saul means “to ask.” [Saul asks David, “Whose son are you?”] So, if I put my daughter before me or my son before me and ask them, “Tell me, whose children are you? I can’t remember.” Well, am I not insane? Am I not suffering from amnesia?
So, Saul looked into the face of the Only Begotten Son . . and he is supposed to be the king, and he doesn’t recognize his son. He can’t, because his name is Saul. Now, his name is transferred from Saul to Paul, and Paul knows the Son. “And it pleased God to reveal His Son in me, and I conferred not with flesh and blood.” (Galatians 1:16)
So, we all pass through the identical pattern, and the pattern will come to you, and suddenly when it appears, may I tell you, it’s like something coming out of the blue. And there is no uncertainty as to the relationship between you . . the Father, and the Son . . who is David. And the Son sets you free. You are told, “You are free indeed,” (John 8:33) for he has promised to set the father free . . the father of the one who destroyed the enemy of Israel. And David destroyed the enemy, the Philistine giant, Goliath. And having destroyed him, the king is looking for his father, and he asks him, “Whose son are you, young man?” because the king did not know his own son, therefore, he is still waiting . . waiting . . waiting.
When the king’s mind returns, he is no longer Saul, his name is Paul. And then Paul recognizes the Son. “And it pleased the Father to reveal His son in me, and from that moment on, I conferred not with flesh and blood.” (Galatians 1:16) What man on the face of this earth would I go to, and ask him to explain to me the meaning of this experience of mine when David called me “Father”?
If I went to the most outstanding psychiatrist, psychologist . . call him by any name in this world, he wouldn’t understand it. What on earth would they know about this mystery of Christianity when, to them, everything is sex? They will tell you, you are simply disturbed sexually, or something, because that is all they have put it on, the Freudian concepts of life . . some sex complex. It hasn’t a thing to do with sex. It is the vision returning, and suddenly memory returns, and there is no uncertainty as to the relationship between you, the Father, and the Son who calls you “Father.”
All you can do, then, is simply go and tell it, and try to change somewhat the prefabricated misconceptions of Scripture. For the whole vast world . . if you are a Christian, as I was born and raised one . . I was taught to believe that Jesus was the Son. My Mother never taught me that Jesus was the Father! When I went to school, they never taught me that Jesus Christ was God the Father. It happened, and when it happened, I knew it, because in Scripture, David calls him, “my lord.” David calls him, “my Father.” “If David calls him, “my Father, how, then, could he be David’s son?” (Matthew 22:45)
So, here is the story. He unfolds within you, and the whole thing is contained within you. It was God’s purpose in the beginning to give Himself to you, as though there were no others in the world . . just you and God, and then eventually, only God . . and God is you!
Just before I came up, a friend of mine who has a wonderful incurrent eye . . an incurrent eye is the eye that actually sees inward in to the world of thought, into Eternity. And that eye is ever expanding within the bosom of God. So, an incurrent state is that which gives passage to a current flowing inward, like a sponge giving passage to a current flowing inward. And she said, “I came in vision into a place and I wanted to borrow some money. It was like a loan company. And I went in to the owner, who was also Chairman of the Board. I went to the door, and as I came through the door, there you stood behind the desk. All the papers on the desk, and you were the owner and the Chairman of the Board. And I became almost hysterical, because I knew that whatever I asked of you would be granted. You were Infinite Love, and granted every request ever made of you. No collateral . . just ask. And I said, ‘He is a victim of his own love,’ to myself I said it, not to you. I looked at you, and I knew you would not say ‘No’ to my request, no matter how fabulous it was. I also knew that you were a victim of your own love. When I went out from where I saw you in the role of Love, I met a woman who was distraught and she was downcast, and she was at her very wits’ end. She had tried every place in the world to get a loan, and was turned down. And here she came. Her last resort was to come here, and I smiled to myself because I knew she was going to go through that door and she would get it, and then I woke.”
Well, that is the God-in-you. He grants every wish that you ask. But when you ask, ask believing. If you ask believing, you will get it. As we told you last night, when you ask believing, it’s nothing more than the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. What do I wish for as an objective fact? Well, the subjective appropriation of the objective hope is prayer. And it never fails you!
So, tonight when you go out, go in the deep conviction that you are predestined to be glorified, and know that the glorification of which the Bible speaks is God’s gift of Himself to you. He doesn’t give you His son as a companion. He gives you His son by giving Himself to you. For if you are God, and God is a father, I must be the father of God’s son! So, God gives me His son as my son, and in that way, I know I AM He.
So, I am told, “Unless you believe that I AM He, you will die in your sins.” (John 8:24) And you will know it, and won’t have reason even to believe it, because you have an assured “I know” after the experience.
Now, let us go into the Silence.