The Bible is a mystery, to be known only by revelation. You can sit down and think about it and rationalize from now to the ends of time, if it is not revealed in you, you will not know it. And the majority of the teachers of the world take the traditions of men and teach it as fact, and so we come, then to one Bible with these preconceived misconceptions of the great revelation of God to man.
So tonight we are taking the Pattern Man. Everyone who has heard of Jesus Christ thinks of him as a man. Jesus is not a man; he is the man . . the only man . . who is buried in every child born of woman, and who will rise in every child born of woman. And when he rises in us, then we and the Lord Jesus Christ are one. He comes only to fulfill Scripture. Man goes, building on this world of ours . . it’s perfectly all right . . let him do it . . he’s encouraged to do it, but the story of Jesus is to fulfill Scripture. He said, “I have come only to fulfill Scripture. Scripture must be fulfilled in me.” (Mark 14:49)
And beginning with Moses and the law and the prophets and the Psalms, he interpreted to all, all the things concerning himself, for the Scripture was not the New Testament . . it was only the Old. So, when you spoke of the Scriptures in that day, you only had one Scripture, and that was the Old Testament. So the Old Testament was a prophecy, and the New fulfills it, and He is the New. So He is the Pattern Man in every child born of woman. So, he’s not a man; he is the man, the perfect man, and this Perfect Pattern awakens and unfolds in us.
Now, we are told in the last chapter of Zechariah: “The LORD will become king over all the earth, and in that day the LORD will be one, and his name one.” (Zechariah 14:9)
If you were born into the family of the Brown’s, you automatically . . regardless of the name given you . . you are a Brown. So, you may be given the name of John, but nevertheless, you are John Brown, if you are born into the family whose name is Brown. Well, all are being born into the one body whose name is Jesus. So, in the end, everyone will be Jesus, for “in that day the LORD will be one, and His name one.” (Zechariah 14:9)
You will not lose your identity. I will know you in this world of Caesar, and I will know you by your name, a friend of yours. But in the end, when you are born in the body of Jesus, you’re still the John that I know here, but you are Jesus, and I will see you, and see you as Jesus, for there’s only, in the end, only one man . . the Perfect Man, the Pattern Man, and that is Jesus. And Jesus and the LORD God Jehovah are One! They aren’t two gods; they aren’t two lords. It’s only one God . . only one body, only one spirit, only one hope … only one God and Father of all. (Ephesians 4: 4-6) with my sister, and she is trained as I am trained, or was trained . . but this is before the vision. And before the vision, certainly I believed Jesus was a man . . trained as any Christian in the world, believed that he was a man, born of a woman who knew not a man in some strange miraculous manner, and then came the vision, the actual experience of the mystery of Christ.
As Paul tells us in his letter to Timothy: “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion.” (I Timothy 3:16, Revised Standard Version )
Well, if it’s a mystery, then it isn’t history, for history is certainly not a mystery, for history is based upon facts. So, there’s no mystery to the facts of life. And if the Bible is based upon secular history, then it’s not a mystery. But Paul, he said, “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion.” (I Timothy 3:16, RSV), and he uses the word mystery no less than twenty times in his letters. He said, “And God has made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth as a plan in Jesus Christ for the fullness of time.” (Ephesians 1: 9, 10, RSV)
So, when the time is full in you, in everyone, that plan erupts. And everything said of Him in Scripture, which you were taught to believe was secular history, proves itself in you to be supernatural history. It’s a history of salvation. You are saved by that Pattern . . that perfect pattern.
So, He was born in a supernatural manner. You’ll be born in a supernatural manner. And if his name was Jesus, you remain the same . . John or Mary, whatever your name is . . but you are Jesus by reason of that birth, for you are born supernaturally. It comes so suddenly, it comes so unexpectedly; you don’t look forward to it because you were not taught to believe that it is going to happen this way. You were taught to believe that some time in Eternity, if you are a good person in the eyes of Him who is your Savior, that then He will decide whether He will save or not. While not a thing on the outside would help, nevertheless, you depended upon His grace, whether He would save you, when all of a sudden you discover He was in you all along.
The whole story of Christ is wrapped in man as a pattern, but it can’t erupt in man until a certain moment in time. At that moment nothing can stop it! You may be on a journey at the moment, and certainly not thinking of this, when suddenly the whole thing unfolds within you. And the drama takes the same time as mentioned in Scripture: it takes twelve hundred and sixty days, as told us in Scripture.
In the last chapter of Daniel, a book written six hundred years B.C., Daniel said, “How long to the end of these wonders?” (Daniel 12:6) Not a statement is made as to when you begin to count, but: “ ‘how long will it be to the end of these wonders?’ …And he who stood above the water said to him: ‘A time, times, and half a time.’” (Daniel 12:6, 7)
The Ancients counted a time as a year, and a year to the Ancients was three hundred and sixty days. They divided the three hundred and sixty days by twelve, making twelve periods of thirty days. Then a half of that would be half of a time, which would be one hundred and eighty days. So, a time was a year, times, two more years, and then half a time. Well, you multiply it and add it up, and you will see it comes to one thousand, two hundred and sixty days, as told us in Revelation . . the 11th chapter of Revelation, “And my witnesses will come and prophecy for one thousand, two hundred and sixty days.” (Revelation 11:3)
Well, this erupted in me on the 20th day of July 1959, in this City of San Francisco. On the 6th day of December was the second eruption of the same year, ’59. On the 8th day of April of 1960 was the third eruption, and then on the first day of January of 1963 for the fourth eruption. When you add from the 20th day of July 1959 to the first day of January 1963, you will see it comes to 1,260 days . . right to the day. I had no idea that Scripture was so literally true, but not on this level, for the birth was certainly not a physical birth. Yet, I was taught as a child to believe that Jesus’ birth was a physical birth, and they came from some physical section of time and place to find a little physical child. But in reading Scripture after the event, you see the whole thing was a drama taking place, not on earth, but taking place in Heaven, for He is made to say, “I AM not of this world. You are from below; I AM from above. You are of this world; I AM not of this world.” (John 8: 23)
So he is telling you in the most graphic manner what takes place in man. He is the Pattern . . the pattern of a New Man that unfolds that takes the man from this world and puts him into an entirely different world, called by men “The Kingdom of Heaven.” Until you are “born from above” you cannot in any manner enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:3); and you don’t acquire it. It’s all by grace. But that grace was “in the beginning …” (John 1:1), “for He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” (Ephesians 1:4)
So, we are all chosen in the one body. The one body fell for a deliberate purpose, and we continue within the one body when the time is fulfilled and the body begins to erupt to fulfill its purpose. You and I are born in this manner, and we discover the Fatherhood of God in this manner. We discover the section of the torn part of the temple in this manner, and then we find the complete satisfaction of what has taken place in us when the Dove descends upon us individually. But you read it in the story as something that took place two thousand years ago, and there it stopped. Then we are on the outside, hoping in some strange way, through our efforts, that He will see our efforts and then add them all together and we will acquire merit, and that He will save us because of acquired merit. You cannot, by any effort on your part, bring about this birth or enter the Kingdom of God.
It’s all grace, grace, grace . . and still more grace! So we are told that grace and truth come through Jesus Christ. Well, grace is God’s gift of Himself to man. That’s grace.
People think of grace as something else, but, actually, in the Scriptures the word grace of which so much is said today as “he has charisma”; they spoke of the Kennedys as charismatic. They were those who had charisma, meaning a peculiar spiritual force seemed to have moved them. Well, charis is the root of the word grace meaning a gift from God. And God’s gift to man is God Himself.
God becomes man, that man may become God. So, that’s God’s gift. What greater gift could He give me than Himself? Well, He gives me the ultimate . . that’s Himself. So He dies by becoming me. He has to empty Himself of His glory to take upon Himself the limitation of this slave, and
He wears this slave throughout unnumbered generations, for I didn’t begin in my mother’s womb, and I do not end in the grave. You and I began unnumbered generations ago. But at a moment in time predetermined by Him Who gave Himself for us, we erupt, and erupting, we find that we are He!
So, God becomes as I AM, with all my weaknesses . . all my limitations, that I may become as He is, without weakness, without limitation . . free beyond measure. And without this Pattern in us, it could not work. He could not mold us from without, and make us what He desires to make us. He had to enter us. So, we are the grave in which God is buried.
God Himself entered the tomb, which is man, and He lay down in that tomb with man and shared with me my visions of Eternity, until I awake and see Jesus. And Jesus is whom then I become! For everything said of Him, as they think, erupts within you . . you experience. You don’t hear it coming from without; you actually experience it, so you are talking then, from then on, from experience . . not from theory. You don’t speculate. If He was born from above, and you are born from above, if the infant child is brought to you as the sign of your birth, as it was brought in the cave . . as we call it in the Scripture, and if there are witnesses there to record this birth . . the child was not the thing born; the child was the evidence of something that was born. God was born. So, you are told in the Scripture, “And this shall be a sign unto you.” (Luke 2:12) What sign? “You shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12)
So, they went in haste, and they found just as it was told. They found what? The sign of a birth! The child wasn’t the thing that was born; that is the symbol of a birth. Well, what was born? Man was born as God!
For you are told: “and that thing’ . . and the word is called thing . . “that thing which shall be born of you shall be called holy, the Son of God.” (Luke 1:24) So when you are “born,” then that is the thing.
Well, how do I know that I AM “born from above”?
I felt the whole thing coming from inside . . that is, from the whole head exploding, and something is coming out . . and I am coming out . . out of a grave. But, within a matter of moments, here comes the child, here comes this “infant wrapped in swaddling clothes,” placed in your hands, with the same heavenly smile that is told in Scripture. And, then, the whole thing dissolves.
On the heels of that, a few months later, comes the discovery of the Fatherhood of God. And this is the most fantastic thing, because when it happened to me, I could hardly believe this thing. Had I gone off my rocker?
I went to bed quite innocently in a normal manner, as I did night after night, and here, this night, my head begins to explode . . and you feel you are exploding, and you wonder, “Is this the last moment in time for me? Is this what the world calls a massive hemorrhage?”
Not having had anything wrong with my head prior to this, you entertain the thought, because the whole thing is simply intensifying, and your head becomes more and more vibrant, and you cannot arrest it. You can’t stop it, and it increases in intensity, and when it reaches the apex of intensity, there is an explosion. And all of a sudden, standing before you is the David . . not a David, but the David of Biblical fame. And he looks at you, and you know he is your son and he knows that you are his Father. Here you are, admiring and drinking in the beauty . . sheer beauty. You can’t describe the beauty of David. People have tried to paint him. There is a sculpture called “The David”; it can’t come near the David . . that living reality . . that comes before you!
Well, who is he? In Scripture, Jesus said, “He called me Father.” (Luke 20:44) Well, Jesus tells us in the Scripture that: “I AM the Father. He who sees me sees the Father.” (John 14:9) “How can you say, Show us the Father? Have I been with you this long and you do not know me, Phillip? He who hath seen me hath seen the Father.” (John 14:9)
And, if I am a father, there must be a son. And then, where is my son? And there comes David to fulfill Scripture, for he only comes to fulfill Scripture. For the prophecy was . . and these are the words in the mouth of David: “The LORD said unto me, Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.” (Psalms 2:7) Read it in the 2nd Psalm, a psalm written one thousand years B.C., and these are the words of David.
Now, in the 89th Psalm, the LORD comes upon David: “I have found David, and he has called unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.” (Psalms 89:26) So, here you find yourself fulfilling Scripture, and here as you read the Gospels, he says, “I am only here to fulfill Scripture.” (Mark 14:49) He didn’t raise one finger to exchange the world of Caesar. He knew that everyone born of woman was enslaved by the body that they wore.
You could be born in a castle or born in a hovel; you are a slave of the body that you wear because of the ambitions of that body, the desires of that body. So, if you wear it for ten years or a thousand years, you get up in the morning and you bathe it and you shave it and you feed it, and then you allow all the normal functions of nature to dictate. You are a slave of it! If it’s in pain, you’re in pain.
So, he knew that even though one calls him a Pharaoh or a King, and one a slave, all were slave of the body that they wore. He made no effort to change the world of Caesar.
“Whose coin is this? Caesar’s! Well render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” (Matthew 22:21; Mark 12:17; Luke 20:25) He is not concerned about that. He’s only concerned about the Kingdom of Heaven . . the “new birth” that must set man free. For, no matter how long I live here, or how much I hold as things in this world, I am still a slave . . a slave to things.
The day you buy a chair, you pay rent from then on. Let someone give you a table, and you accept the gift and from then on, you buy some place or pay rent for some place to house the table. You either give it away or, when you cannot use it any longer, you put it in storage and pay rent on it. You buy one thing in this world, and from then on, you are a slave of it! And He knew that, and so brought freedom to the world, and the freedom comes with a “second birth”; and that birth is the “birth from above,” not the birth from below.
Everyone born from the womb of woman is a slave. Everyone born from the skull of man . . by man, I mean generic Man . . is set free, and that is told us in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. (Galatians 4:22-27) He said, we have two mothers, one is Hagar who bears children into slavery, and one is Jerusalem, called Sarah in Scripture (Old Testament), and she bears them into freedom. One is from above, and one is from below.
So, no matter who you are, how wealthy you are, how strong you are as a body, it’s still a slave. But when you are “born from above” . . when you take off this garment for the last time, you immediately take on that immortal garment . . the body of glory; for you’re in the body of Jesus. So, he is not a man, as the Christians believe and pray to a man on the outside; he is the Man, but the man who was crucified in us, and who rises in us individually, one after the other. Now, when he rises, you are set free! When he rises in me, and I AM He, and my name must be One, for in the end the Lord’s name is One . . not two.
So, I will be of the body of Jesus, one body, and of the name of Jesus, therefore the name Jesus, yet I’ll be Neville. You’ll know me, and know me as Neville, but you will know me as Jesus. I will know you as Peter or Mary, or any other name, but I’ll know you as Jesus after you are “born from above” because the Scripture must be fulfilled, for the Word of God cannot be broken.
So, we are told: Do not add to the words of God, do not take from the words of God (Deuteronomy 4:2) . . leave them just as they are. But throughout the centuries our scholars, in translating, they bring their own prejudice to the Bible, and they insert. That’s why it is essential that year after year new editions must come out, to see where these zealous people have been carried away by their own preconceived misconceptions and incorporated that misconception into Scripture. And you’ll find it time and again. So, it always calls for a new edition to delete these misconceptions. But even then, those who are called upon to do the job, they will bring their misconceptions too.
But after the eruption takes place in man, it’s all by vision, so you don’t really care what they say. It’s what has taken place in you, and you didn’t do it consciously. The whole thing happened. And, so, you didn’t sit down to compose some workable philosophy of life. The thing just happened! Well, if it happens in this way, then you tell it, so you will relate your own experience. If it doesn’t fit their concept, it’s perfectly all right. You relate your own experience.
But you will find that the same pattern will be followed by everyone “born from above.” So, you are on very solid ground. You tell it, and if the whole, vast world rises up in opposition, it doesn’t matter . . you tell it. Record it, if you will, but leave it as a record and a witness, for we are all called upon to witness the truth of Scripture.
Now, there must be two witnesses if my evidence is to “hold water.” If there are not two, it’s thrown out of court. Well, when two different persons agree in testimony, it’s conclusive, and so, if I tell my story and go on record, and put it into written form, and then you have an identical experience and see that then, you and I are the two witnesses. Can we find Scriptural support for our experience? I then search the Scriptures, and I find in Scripture support for what has happened to me. So, if have the external witness of the Word of God . . the written Word of God, then I have the internal witness of the Living Word of God as it unfolded within me, paralleling that which is the external Word of God.
Then what does it matter what the world will tell me? What does it matter what anyone will tell me? I can only say to everyone: You wait. God is merciful and patient, and in His own good time He will unfold it within you. It may come this night. It may come before the evening goes. Who knows? “It comes like a thief in the night,” (II Peter 3:10) but it hasn’t a thing to do with any external behavior on the part of man. You can go to church every day of your life. You can go to church and give to the poor, and do all the things on the outside . . it hasn’t a thing to do with moment of eruption.
You could, this night, be coming from a bar and be drinking until you can’t see clearly, and that night may be the night that He Who doesn’t judge your human behavior erupts within you, because in the end, all things are forgiven. The Lord cried on the cross, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” (Luke 23:24)
But man is taught to believe, I must conform to what man believes is the right thing, and so, unless I do that, then I’m punished. They think of a God who punishes. They can’t believe Scripture, that God is infinitely merciful. I mean, infinite mercy, not just a little bit of love. You stand in His presence, the Risen Lord, and it’s Infinite Love, and yet you know when you are drawn into His presence by a power that you could not resist that you are capable of the unnumbered, unlovely things that man is, and you know that you’ve done them and you still feel you could continue to do them, and yet, in His presence you ask one simple little question . . that is, He asks it of you, and you answer as though you were divinely prompted. He embraces you, and you fuse with the body of the Risen Lord, and become one body. From then on, you are that body, and those whose eyes are opened spiritually, when they meet you, they meet you and see you as that Being. I have had that experience unnumbered times from those whose eyes spiritually are opened.
On this level . . yes, a little man, a weak man, capable of all the silly little things that men are capable of, yet, when the body sleeps and He Who is awake within me wakes, they see that man. And that’s the man that I will, when this body drops for the last time, be . . the Immortal Being, for that Being has been awakened within me . . and I am not unique. I am one of every child born of woman. Regardless of race, regardless of nation, regardless of anything, we are all one, in one body, and that body is the Man, the Pattern Man. And the Pattern Man is the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God Himself!
He is not some little thing. That is the universal God Who is crucified on man . . not on a little piece of wood, where the churches of the world are taking pieces of wood to show you the cross that was His. As the writer Mark Twain said . . he traveled across the world and went to the different churches and all the priests showed him . . that is, the Protestant priests and the Catholic Priests, and all the others . . pieces of wood that came from the cross. He said if that was the cross, it could build a house. Yet, a man carried it . . a man called Simon, a normal man, carried the cross, so we’re told. If he carried that cross, he might just as well lift up this house, for every church that he visited as he crossed Europe had a piece of the wood from the cross! They also had a piece of the cloth that he wore . . the robe, put it all together, it would actually clothe an army . . a huge army. That was what he wore! So, everyone with their silly little things to enslave the minds of man!
Well, this is a mystery. This has not a thing to do with human history. It is divine history. It’s the history of salvation. And God actually became man, and God’s only name as told me in Scripture is “I AM.” And the word Jesus, if you break it down to its actual root, is “I AM.” It begins: “Jod He Vau” which is the beginning of the name Jehovah . . Jod He Vau He; and that’s how you spell Jesus in Hebrew. The word Jesus in Hebrew is Joshua. Jeshun, . . that is the name, and it is the same name that you spell Jehovah. So, the Lord God Jehovah is “I AM.”
“Go and tell them I AM has sent you. That is my name forever, and by this name I shall be known throughout all generations.” (Exodus 3:14, 15)
So, can you say, “I AM”? That’s God, but you don’t know it, because it has not erupted as yet, but that’s God. That’s God-in-man. As I walk the earth, though I lose my memory . . I do not know where I am . . who I am, but I know I am because I can’t stop knowing I am, and that is God! And the day will come, the Pattern . . that perfect pattern . . that was buried and fused with me in the beginning . . will erupt like a seed erupts. But you are told in that mystery of the seed . . he said, “A seed, except it fall into the ground and dies, it remains alone.” (John 12:24) Well, if it dies, it brings forth much. So, He fell . . the Great Seed, the great Word of God, which is God Himself . . planted himself in us, containing within Himself the pattern . . the plan of salvation. And, so, as the plan comes to its fullness of time, it erupts, and erupting in us, it’s not something we are observing on the outside. We are experiencing it on the inside. We are actually going through the experience in the first person, present. We are the main action of the drama.
Here, may I tell you, Jesus is the only reality, but everyone you meet will one day know he is Jesus. In the sleep, he doesn’t know it; and because he sleeps, he has a nightmare, and he kills his brother, he steals from his brother, and therefore he is stealing from himself, for there is no other!
Any time I plot and plan to take from a seeming other for my personal gain, I am simply robbing myself, because there is no other. There is no other, for there is only Jesus. So, in the end, when they looked up and their eyes were opened and the brain began to completely explode, they looked, and it was Jesus only . . nothing but Jesus.
So when people say, “I have another way to God,” forget it. There’s only one way to God. He said: “I AM the way; I AM the truth; I AM the life. No man comes unto the Father except by me.” (John 14:6)
You can’t go to the Father and find the Father unless you go through the Pattern Man, which is Jesus. The Pattern either unfolds within you, or you’ll never find the Father. And when it erupts within you, here, you know you are the Father, because the Father’s only begotten son is calling you “Father.” And yet, you are a man walking this earth with all the weaknesses of man, but you will not in Eternity see the Father, for the Father is not seen by anyone but the Son. No one has ever seen the Father, but the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father; he had made Him known.
So, “No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal it.” (Luke 10:22)
So when the Son explodes within you, and the dust settles and He stands before you, then you know who you are. You are the Father! For the Son calls you “Father.” And you know the relationship; there is no doubt, no uncertainty, in your mind as to this relationship between you, the Father, and the Son called David. So you see that David is not a physical being.
People expect that David is some physical being that lived one thousand years B.C., and that he had this, that, or the other. It isn’t so. David is an eternal state, a spiritual state, and I am speaking of a spiritual drama . . not a physical drama. We are passing through what we think is a real world. This is a shadow world . . a world where we are banished, but if one understood the symbolism of Scripture, we are banished for “four hundred years.” Well, it’s not four hundred years as you and I measure time. Four hundred is the numerical value of the 22nd, which is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet; and the last letter has the cross as its symbol. “Tav,” that’s the last letter; the 22nd letter of the Hebrew alphabet is “tav.” Its symbol is the cross; its numerical value is four hundred. So, I will banish you for four hundred years while you wear the cross. As long as we wear these crosses [indicating the body] that are slaves, we are on the journey. Then I’ll bring you out and set you free, and give you bliss beyond your wildest dreams, because He is going to give you Himself. But you must first go into slavery.
That was shown me so vividly in a vision of mine. I came upon a scene, the most glorious scene of flowers. They were huge sunflowers, but the flower was not a flower, it was a human face! They were all rooted in the ground, just beautiful sunflowers. If one moved, they all moved in concert. If one smiled, they all smiled. If one bent over, they all bent over. And I, walking among them . . I knew, in spite of my weakness and my limitations, that I at that moment enjoyed a greater sense of freedom than all of them put together. They had not gone out. They were in a state of infinite joy and peace and innocence. They had not gone through the story of experience. And the whole journey is from Innocence, through Experience to Awakened Imagination. That’s the journey of man.
So you must come out of the state of Innocence and enter this world of experience . . and it’s a hellish world; it’s a world of hell, where everything dies. No matter how long it lives, it dies. The stars die. Everything dies in this world. So we enter the world of death wearing a cross, which is the cross of the slave, and then, we are brought out by this Pattern Man erupting within us, and then, having gone through the experience, we are immortal beings . . but this time, fully awake . . not just all anchored like beautiful flowers who move in concert. We are individualized, and yet one body. We do not move in concert. We agree to work in concert, but we are still individuals. Well, they are not individuals; they are all one grand being, moving together. I saw it so vividly this night.
So, you and I who came out . . it’s the story of the Prodigal Son. The first one didn’t come out, but he didn’t know he had all that the Father possesses. The Father said to him, “But my son, all that is mine is yours,” (Luke 15:13, RSV) but he didn’t know it. He was envious of the second one, who went out and wasted his money, and came back to find everything in abundance: the robe, the ring, the staff and the fatted calf.
He said, “But this, your brother, was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.” (Luke 15:32) You have never left my house. You were never lost; you hadn’t died. One must die to be made alive . . the mystery of life through death.
So you and I were chosen in His Body in the beginning of time, before the foundation of the world. Then He fell, bringing all of us with Him . . a deliberate fall. And then we were fragmented, and started on our individualization. And when we have gone through all that we had to go through, then He erupts in us, and we and He are One.
Tonight, you dwell upon it, and set your hope fully upon the eruption within you, and I hope that in the not-distant future it happens in you . . all of you, individually, because no matter what you have heard in the past . . no matter what you have experienced in the past . . concerning the world of Caesar, it fades into nothing. It fades into nothing! And when people say to me, as someone called me today, a friend of mine I left at my last meeting, the night she was there. She was sitting in a little Mexican restaurant down in Laguna . . she and three others who were at the meeting last night in Los Angeles. They had some Mexican dish and a glass of beer, and she had two cigarettes. Then all of a sudden she said, “Why, isn’t this a strange feeling . . oh, what a strange feeling!” and she went over this way and she was gone . . just completely gone.
But she is awake! She was awake when she was here. So she slips from mortality into immortality. All the others who will slip like that, or after painful exit . . they are restored to life just as they were before, in a body the same as before, only young . . unbelievably, unaccountably young, in a world just like this, but not this one (Marta). She has gone into Heaven, because she was “born from above”, so she has immediate transition from a body of flesh and blood to one of glory in the body of God, which is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, I have no tears to shed for her . . none, because she has been released from the body. It was a nice body; it wasn’t in pain. It was just that moment in time when she slipped, and she was gone.
To all the others, death is a blessing . . to everyone who has not been “born from above.” Do you know why? It compels everyone who dies to modify and quite often to radically alter the ideas they championed while they were here on earth. They believe, because of their external efforts to be good, that suddenly someone is going to come and meet them at the grave. They find themselves restored to life and young . . unaccountably young and new, nothing missing . . no teeth missing, hair not missing, arms not missing, everything is perfect, in a world just like this, to continue the journey. And, then they wonder . . What did that minister tell me? What did that priest tell me about what follows? Why, he was a liar. No . . he was a liar, only because he didn’t know. The blind leading the blind!
No man can ordain you to do the work of God. You are either sent to do it, or you are simply going to have some little man-made religion and call it God-given. As you are told in the book of Romans, “How can someone preach unless he is sent?” (Romans 10:15, RSV) And who sends him? The Risen Christ sends him.
So, you stand in His presence, and you are sent! And when you speak, then you speak with the authority of experience. You are not rationalizing; you are not in any way speculating what ought to be. But all these leaders of different groups . . religious groups, they are telling God what He ought to do . . always what He ought to do, not what God has planned to do. So they tell you that He is going to make you suffer, and they will not preach the God of Love.
God is Infinite Mercy, but man has to pass through the furnaces of experience . . not the furnaces of fire, as they talk about it, but the furnace of experience.
Do you know any greater burning than to lose someone you love dearly . . a mother losing a child? It doesn’t go off for the night or the day or the week or the month, or even the year. That’s burning . . a separation between two who love each other. Isn’t that burning? When you can’t sleep, you are all carried away . . that’s burning. That’s a fire. That’s hell.
So, you are in hell right now. All day long, the loss of a business, the loss of face, a man has a business and he’s so proud of it, he joins the best clubs, and he looks down on everyone who can’t get into that club. Then comes a blow and he loses the business and he can’t afford to remain in the club, and he has to beg now for credit, and he has no credit. He goes to the grocer’s where he was so proud before, and the grocer considers whether he will give him credit or not. Now, isn’t that hell?
So, all these are hells, the furnaces, through which man passes right here on earth. And when he leaves this hell, unless he’s been “born from above,” he continues in hell until that cross is completely worn, and it’s worn by Christ Jesus because Christ Jesus is “I AM.” That’s His name. And He’s wearing this cross. When it is turned to dust, he will still find himself on a cross just like this that bleeds if you cut it, and it’s solid as this is solid, in a world as solid as this world is solid, and he continues, and if he passes through another stage called death, he finds himself restored to life and continues the journey until he resurrects.
There is a vast difference between restoration and resurrection. Resurrection is from above . . the “birth from above” and restoration is simply the passage through the gate called death to be restored into a similar body, but young, unaccountably new.
So I tell you, the Pattern is in you. Don’t beg for it . . it’s in you! The perfect pattern! And Jesus Christ is not a man. He is the man . . the only man . . that saves! He’s in you as a Pattern . . the Pattern Man, and when you least expect it, it’s going to erupt like a seed, and then the flowers will take place in the most dramatic form, the flowers being these mystical dramatic acts: the birth; the discovery of the Fatherhood of God, the tearing of the curtain of the Temple, which is your own body, and the ascent of your own being into Heaven. Like a serpent, and then the descent of the dove upon you, smothering you with love and affection, which is the symbol of the Holy Spirit, satisfied with the work that He has done. That’s the seal of approval. So the whole thing unfolds within you.
Now let us go into the Silence; and in the Silence, on this level of Caesar, conjure a scene, which will imply the fulfillment of your dream . . any dream. Its potency is in its implication . . the scene. What would you see if it were true? Well, conjure that scene, and try to believe in the reality of the scene that you have conjured. And when you open your eyes upon the world of
Caesar, and it’s not objectified, walk through the door as though it were true, in confidence that it will become true.
Now, let us go.
Good.
Now, are there any questions, please?
(Question is inaudible on the tape)
Neville: No my dear, when you are awakened from above, there is no doubt whatsoever in your mind. If you saw one who has made his departure from this world, that’s not resurrection. That’s restoration. The Bible speaks of two births and one death. But one death doesn’t mean that when you depart from this world now, that is death, because you will continue in a world that also dies.
No, the death, when Christ died for us, that was the death of which he spoke in the Bible. There’s only one death. It’s God’s death! So, Christ took us all within His Body, and Christ fell for us. So, one Being dies: that is the death. The little departure from here is like someone leaving the stage, and you will find that he goes through this but he comes back at another scene. That’s restoration. But death is simply the one death, and the only one who really died was the Lord Jesus Christ. He died.
(Several questions that are inaudible)
Neville: It’s not a resurrection, but I will speak to those who are restored because I love them. They are not resurrected. I meet people night after night who were restored. I see my brother who died two years ago, my brother Lawrence. He’s a young man, now. When he died, he was painfully ill, and he looked old. He’s only a year older than I am, but he looked much older, because he was in such pain for the last year and a half or two years of his life. But Lawrence, when I meet him, he’s in his twenties, early twenties.
My mother, when she died at 61 was painfully ill and, oh, so very old looking when she died. I was sitting at home in New York City. At that moment, I felt so drowsy, I could not restrain the impulse to close my eyes; so I shut my eyes just because I couldn’t hold them open. As I did, Mother appeared before me . . this blonde, blue-eyed beauty of about twenty years of age, brushing her hair, under an arbor of beautiful flowers. She was passionately fond of flowers, and had the most glorious rosebushes. I can see her now, morning after morning, with these two boys that were her little gardeners, giving them orders of what to do, especially with the roses. And she would graft her roses, and do all kinds of things. She loved them. I can see her in the garden now, with what she called a parasol. She wouldn’t expose herself to the sun as I do. I’m a sun fiend. And she loved to keep her lovely coconut skin, and she had a lovely light skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair, and she didn’t want it disfigured with the tropical sun. When we, the boys . . you couldn’t restrain us . . were out in the sun, battered, coming in sun burnt. And yet, to this day, in my 60’s, I am still in a way a worshipper of the sun. I love the sun.
But, here was Mother . . she came at that very moment. She was so alive and marvelous, I sat right down and wrote my sister Daphne and told her that Mother had recovered. She was so beautiful and so young. And Daphne sent me a wire saying Mother had passed away. Then when she wrote me the letter a week later to give me the details of Mother’s passage, it coincided with the hour that I saw her in New York City two thousand miles away. So, I know from experience that nothing dies. Mother wasn’t resurrected; she was restored. And they saw Mary there too, may I tell you, and they work there too, and they slave there too, and they build their little castles on sand there, as they do it here.
Anundoon, right now, is restored as a young man with the same drive that he left his seven hundred million dollars here last month. He couldn’t take it with him, but he’s going to rebuild it on the same sand, until that moment in time when he awakes and the whole is his; he doesn’t have to do anything.
Are there any other questions?
(Question inaudible on the tape.)
Neville: Why certainly my dear. I have a family to support. I have to meet Caesar’s demands upon me, paying taxes. I have no choice but to pay them. They don’t ask me if they should raise them. You put a man in who promises you before you put him in that he’s not going to raise taxes. He hasn’t sat down in the seat before he puts another ten percent on you, another twenty percent on you, and he has four years, and you can’t get him out, and he’s going to put it on. And so, I am in the world of Caesar. So I go into a place . . last year I went in and bought something and it cost me so much; I go back expecting the same thing to find that they don’t consult me; it’s so much more. Don’t keep a record of what you paid for flour and sugar and bread ten years ago . . you’ll go insane. You go in now and buy the same items, and all of a sudden you don’t have it. So, I am in the same world. As long as I am wearing this garment I am a slave, and I must be with all the slaves. When I take this garment off for the last time, which will be in this embodiment, I am immediately clothed in my body of glory in the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I AM one with Him, without loss of identity. But until then, man has to pass through the furnaces and play the world of Caesar, and Caesar isn’t dead. They call him today in our land, Johnson. In Russia they call him . . I don’t know his name; it breaks my tongue even to pronounce it . . whatever the Russian name is. So, all these fellows are the Caesars of the world. Every head of government is a Caesar. In Scripture, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” (Luke 20:25)
And so, I have pain, too. If I drink too many, who knows? I may have a headache. I am not given over because I have been “born from above” that I can violate the little things of Caesar. If I overeat because I like it . . well, I will pay the price. I am not exempt. This body is something that I am wearing, and as long as I wear it, I either take care of it or abuse it. If I abuse it, then it will get even. And that’s the law under which we live.
(Inaudible question on tape)
Neville: My dear, everyone is going to come to the Father through the Perfect Man, known as the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s a Pattern Man. Don’t look upon Jesus as a man, but the Pattern Man; and that pattern either will be followed, or he will never find the Father, for the Father’s only son is David, and it isn’t Buddha, and it isn’t Krishna; and he isn’t any other name in the world. That son is David. He either comes through that channel or he doesn’t find the Father, for David can’t call anyone but God, Father. And he isn’t going to call Buddha father, Krishna father, or anyone else. He’s going to call the One whose name is “I AM.” And so, you will come through the one pattern. “No one comes unto the Father, except by me. I AM the way, I AM the truth, I AM the life.” (John 14:6)
It’s the true way, the living way and the only way. And these things will erupt within you. So they come, giving me all kinds of ways to go to God . . some try to sell me the idea of diets to go to God. Stop eating meat, all right, then you will purify yourself, and you will go to God. Stop doing this . . don’t wear red anymore because that’s a bad color. It disagrees with the spirit, they’ll say. One lady would only wear a certain color because it was becoming to her, someone told her. So she made it a law . . like some divine revelation. You couldn’t wear red; you couldn’t eat onions. Well, can you imagine cooking without onions? Just imagine having to eat without a piece of garlic . . without onions. Well now, she can’t wear red and God has splattered red all over the skies. See a sunset . . what a beautiful picture! A sunset . . that mass of red! Go into any garden and see red. And God does with all the colors what the artist can’ t do, he blends all the colors into one flower, and it’s beautiful. Well, we can’t put red with this, and so-and-so with that, so they have all these little -isms. Yet the Bible warns you against this. When Peter said, “I cannot eat the unclean thing, he fell into a trance and a sheep came down bearing all manner of food, and the Lord said to him in a vision, That which I have cleansed, I have cleansed. Slay and eat.” (Acts 10:15 and Acts 11:9)
So, they can’t eat this, they can’t eat that. If it disagrees with you, all well and good, but don’t say it is unspiritual. He made everything for the food of man. Someone said, “Why do you take a drink? You are a man, and you are supposed to be a man “born from above” and you take a drink.” I said, “Because I enjoy it.” “But,” he said, “that’s not spiritual.” I said, “Who is to tell me what is spiritual? Didn’t God make it?” Who on earth made alcohol? Didn’t He make it in the grain and then give man the intelligence to extract it? Didn’t He make it in the grape, and then give man the intelligence to take it out? And you tell me not to exercise the palate that He gave me? Oh, I can indulge; I can overdo anything in this world. There isn’t a thing that one eats that is good for him that he cannot go to the extreme and make it unwholesome for him. I suppose that almost everything is good in itself, but not excessively, and see if it is. So that goes for everything in this world. Learn to discriminate. I must become discriminating in all my thoughts in this world; but don’t tell me that there are taboos on things that God made. He made everything for man, and He made man for His own satisfaction.
Well, the time is up.