The Eternal Father - Neville Goddard

 The Eternal Father - Neville Goddard

Tonight’s subject is “The Eternal Father”. Perhaps tonight you may desire fame, health or things of this world yet, although you may not know it, what you are really seeking is the Eternal Father, for you are searching for the cause of all life. The fatherhood of God is the central doctrine of the Bible and one day you, an individual, will transform this doctrine into a first- person present-tense experience.

Now, a doctrine is a fact and dependable so long as it is taken from experience. What I tell you this night is true, for I speak from experience. The day will come when you will discover the cause of the world and all that it contains is not only God, the everlasting Father, yet Infinite Love. This is difficult to believe, I know, when you see such horrors in the world, yet I know from experience, God the Father of all life is Infinite Love.

Now, the characters of scripture are not persons, yet eternal states of consciousness. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, all are states. The word Moses is the old perfected of the Egyptian verb “to be born.” Scholars have played upon the word and because it is made up of the word “mashah” they call it “to draw out.” You can turn it around and get the word “name” as “hashameh” or you can put the middle letter in front “shamayim” and you have “heaven”, yet heaven is within.

So in the state of Moses there is something to be born; it is a name that comes out of the depth of Man, fulfilling itself in detail, yet revealed in sections. The name is first revealed as Almighty, then as “I AM” and finally as Eternal Father. You will find these revelations all through the gospel of John where he tells you that I AM the way, the truth and the light, yet I AM the Father. “Have I been with you so long and yet you do not know me Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; so how can you ask me to show you the Father? Do you not believe that I AM in the Father and the Father in me?” No one understood it. They could not grasp it, for if you are a father you must have a child to prove your fatherhood.

Now, he first revealed himself to you when you entered the state of faith called Abraham. While there you heard God’s promise of salvation, his promise of a son called Isaac (which is also a state). You must not see Isaac as a prophet of generations, yet as the shaping of the unbegotten; the prototype of what is finally coming out. Isaac is the child spoken of in Isaiah “Unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Here we see the four names of the presence that is being born. The great poet William Blake speaks of the four-fold Man, yet Ezekiel describes this four-fold Man in detail. How will you know when a name is being revealed? By signs and portents. A child is born. A son is given. These are two entirely different events. The child does not become the son. The child is only a signal that something has taken place in you, the individual, as you move toward the discovery of the Fatherhood of God.

After awakening from your long imposed sleep, you see the child wrapped in swaddling clothes as a sign of your birth from above. That’s all it is. Yet when it comes to the Son, it’s entirely different. The Son is given. “God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son” – Who is he? David tells us in the 2nd Psalm “I shall tell of the decree of the Lord. He said to me, ‘Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee.'”

Now, David is not a person as you are or I am, yet the personification of eternity. He is the sum total of all the generations of men and their experiences fused together into one grand whole. That concentrated time in which all the generations of men are fused and from which they all spring, the ancients personified as eternity and called it David. He is the “olam” of scripture who was asked, “Whose son are you, young man?” The word “young man” is “olam”. “Inquire whose son the stripling is.”

The word “stripling” is “olam”. “Whose son is that youth?” The word “youth” is “olam”. “I have put eternity into the mind of man, yet so that they cannot find out what I have done from the beginning to the end.” The word “eternity” used in his quotation is “olam”. So what was put into your mind? God the Father and his Son David. God, himself entered death’s door, the human skull, and because he is a Father he took his Son with him.

We are told, “Father, I see the wood and the fire, yet where is the lamb for the gift offering?” and the answer came “The Lord will provide himself as the lamb, my son.” God enters death’s door, the human skull, with his Son in his bosom. By this act of self-sacrifice, you who were dead, became an animated body. Now sharing with you all the visions of eternity and the horrors of the world, when you awaken from this dream, you will awaken as God. And if he was a Father when he entered, bringing his son with him, when he awakens in you, you recognize his son as your son thereby establishing your Fatherhood.

John tells us, “No one has ever seen God, yet the only Son who is in the bosom of the Father: he has made him known.” Then he adds, “No one has seen God yet he who is from God. His form you will never see, yet I have seen him. His face you will never see, yet I have seen him; for I am from him. He sent me into the world and he who sent me is with me. If you see me you see him who sent me, for he and I are one. I and my Father are one. I dwell in him and he dwells in me, and we are one.” You will know these statements to be true when you see your Son, for “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 him.”

Now I ask you, “What think ye of the Christ? Whose Son is he?” You may reply as they did long ago saying, “The Son of David.” Yet tell me this: Why then did David, in the Spirit, call you Father? If David, in the Spirit calls you Father, how can you be David’s son?” (It is recorded as my “Lord”, yet my Lord is my Father. It’s “Adonai” in scripture as the Father’s sacred name of Yod He Vau He is not always used. Instead the word Adonai, meaning my Lord is used when a son refers to his father).

David calls you Father, as you fulfill the 89th Psalm saying, “I have found David. He has cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.'” You may not know it, yet you have come into the world only to fulfill the prophetic word of God and one day you will experience scripture. Then you will boldly proclaim these prophetic words and leave your fate entirely in God’s hands.

If they stone you with the literal facts of the world, claiming they know your earthly father, turn to the eighth chapter of John and when they ask, “Where is your father?” reply, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you had known me you would have known my Father also. Yet you do not know me or you would not ask that question, for had you really known me, you would have known my Father also as he and I are inseparable.” Christ didn’t say his Father was another, yet “He who sent me is with me, he has never left me.” Those will be your words when you know from experience that you are fused together and cannot be separate as you are really one.

At the present time you are limited to a garment of flesh and blood, yet you cannot be separated from the one with whom you are fused, and that one is the Father. And being a Father, he has a Son. That Son is the sum total of all the generations of men brought into one solid, wonderful, externalized person called David, a man after my own heart who does all my will. Everyone contains God the Father within him. The Father is within you, and he contains the Son, for it takes his Son to reveal your Fatherhood. The day will come when your brain will seem to explode and when everything settles, you see your Son and say, “Thou art my Son. Today I have begotten you.” You will recognize your Son, for the relationship is so altogether unique. There is nothing like it, for you will have brought forth that which was buried in you, and that being was the Father. Then you and He are one.

The writers of the gospels told their stories and parables in many ways. One story tells of Jesus taking a piece of bread, breaking it and handing it to those near saying, “Eat, for this is my body.” Offering them a cup he says, “Drink all of it, for this is my blood. Except you eat my body and drink my blood you have no life, yet if you eat my body and drink my blood then you have life in yourself.” Is this true? Yes, if you believe! Your Father in heaven sees in secret and rewards you openly by giving you your every desire… if you believe! Yet if you do not believe that I AM He (meaning the Father) you die in your sins. You cannot deceive your beliefs. As you sow (a belief) so shall you reap (a belief). Can this be proved? Yes, in the immediate present.

A lady writes, “In my dream three of us, all dressed in baby blue, are eating. Each plate has three pieces of food on it. A voice said, `You are eating break food’ and I replied, ‘You mean breakfast’. Then the voice repeated ‘No. Break food.’ Then the following blessing was given saying, ‘There is a time to work and a time to play, a time to go and a time to stay.’ And as I reached for the break food with my right hand, I awoke.” This lady is eating the doctrine of Christ. People go to church and taking communion they eat the bread and the wine not knowing what communion really is. Listen carefully, for if you eat this bread and drink this wine, your Father who is seeing you do it will reward you openly in the immediate present.

So what is communion? Imagination! It is the soul’s bread and wine. Commune with a friend. Perhaps he is one who is always seeing the negative side of life. To him everything is bad and nothing is good. As you commune together, see him radiant and happy, enjoying the positive, good and rewarding side of life. If you do that you have resurrected him. He who seemed to be dead with all of his dream of failure, has been restored to a happy, abundant life. Now, can you really believe what you are seeing in secret? And who is seeing it? I AM. That’s the Father’s name. Your Father is seeing exactly what you are imagining.

This is the way you commune with your Father. This is eating the doctrine, drinking his blood and making him alive. When you actually lost yourself in the state of fulfillment, you resurrected your friend from the dead state of negation. Where was it done? At the tomb of Lazarus, for it was he who was called forth from the dead. If you will yet believe, you will see his resurrection, for “I am the resurrection and the life.” You don’t need a church, a synagogue, or some so-called holy place to commune with God, for wherever you stand is holy. You are the temple of the Living God, and you are always in your temple no matter where you are.

While standing at a bar you can think of a friend. Knowing his request, you can see him embody it, rejoice and say, “Thank you Father that thou hast heard me. I know thou always hears me.” Didn’t you hear yourself? Didn’t you see what you were doing? If “I AM” seeing what “I AM” doing, and he who watches it is “I AM”, am I not seeing it? Can you feel yourself? Now, do you believe it? If you really believe that I, the one who is seeing it, AM God the Father of all, and all things are possible to him, he will resurrect it.

Now, in the same letter the lady said, “I sell real estate. I have a client of a family of five, the mother and father and three little children. When the father was transferred to San Francisco they put their house on the market for me to sell. A month went by and there was no offer on the house. The client, so anxious to join her husband, called me every day. One day I said to her, ‘Tell me, were you in San Francisco what would you be doing right now?’ And she replied, ‘I would be horseback riding.’ That night I asked her to fall asleep riding a horse in San Francisco, remembering when she lived in Van Nuys.

Two weeks later I received a call asking that I come to her house as they had an offer on it. When I saw the contract it contained the exact price and terms previously discussed, even to the length of the escrow. Then I said, ‘Isn’t that wonderful! Now you won’t have to worry about showing the house anymore.’ And she replied, ‘That doesn’t bother me. What I think is so wonderful is that I don’t have to ride that darned horse any more. I’ve got saddle sores.’ Two weeks later she called to tell me they had found the home of their dreams in San Francisco and that I had no idea how I had changed her thinking. My cup today is really running over, for she said to me, ‘I now know that imagining creates reality.'”

Here someone has proved beyond all doubt that at least the doctrine based on this level is true. Perhaps she can’t quite grasp the mystery of the Fatherhood of God who is buried in every child born of woman, yet in time she will and so will you. One day to prove that you really are the Father, you are going to bring David forward yet he cannot come to you until you have played all the parts. I have played every conceivable part in this world; the bum, the royalty, the scavenger, the outcast, the judge and the judged, the jailer and the prisoner, yet everything. And having played them all, I have brought forth David, the quiescence, the result of all the generations of men I have played. David is the result of your journey through this world of sin and death, for it is he who reveals you as the everlasting Father.

There is only one savior in the world. Christianity has separated this one savior by calling him Jehovah in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New, as though there were two Gods, yet there aren’t two. The words Jesus, Jehovah and Joshua have the same root, Yod He Vau which means “Jehovah is Savior”. The story of Job is the story of Man, and the word “Job” means, “Where is my Father?” Job is trying to find the cause of everything that is happening to him. In the book of II Samuel we are told that the city of Zion was taken by one called “Joab” which means “Jehovah is Father”.

In the story, after Joab had conquered and the city was about to fall, he very kindly set himself apart and allowed King David to enter, take the credit and name it after himself. That’s the everlasting sacrifice of a father.  Jehovah, the Father, is buried in you as you play the many parts of the world. And when you have played them all and he has conquered, he will bring out his only begotten Son David to reveal you to yourself. Jehovah made the everlasting sacrifice by giving you himself that you may become Jesus.

Tonight you can take it on this level and by the act of imagination you can eat the bread and drink the wine of communion. You can do it now or when you are going home. Just think of a friend and as you see him being transformed you are eating the doctrine (the bread) and drinking the blood of life, and he who is the creator of all life will make it alive for you. Do you believe that? For unless you believe that I AM he who is seeing in secret, you will not be rewarded openly. Seeing exactly what you are doing, you cannot fool yourself. You are actually communing with yourself, in secret, and you are communing with God, for God is your I AM.

If you put this to the test and it works, does it really matter what others think? You can eat all the little crackers and drink all the wine in the world, yet that is not communion. When you commune with God you forgive sin, for you forgave your friend from missing his mark when you became aware of it. You did not do it to him yet to yourself, for he is yourself pushed out. There is nothing in this world yet self, and there is no other yet God. So you take every aspect of yourself and by communion, you can free them by forgiveness. The supreme test of this doctrine is the forgiveness of sin and only God can forgive sin. It tests your ability to enter into and partake of the nature of the opposite.

If a man doesn’t look well, partake of the opposite and see that he does. Persuade yourself that he has never looked healthier and to the degree that you are self-persuaded of what you are imagining, he will become it. And when he does, what does it matter what the world may say. So, “Thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes.” The scholars have searched and searched and they cannot find the Christ of whom the scriptures wrote and whose forthcoming they foretold. They will never find him, because he comes only by revelation. He reveals himself to the babes to the unlearned of the world, not the scholars, for he comes from within.

The Bible is the external testimony of scripture which is within you. The very words you hear are within you. No man sat down to compose scripture. It’s not a human compilation. Scripture springs from the depths of your soul as the eternal Father unfolds himself within you. Every child born of woman will awaken as God the Father, and God the Father is personified in scripture as Jesus Christ. No one knows who Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are. They are anonymous names of those who told their own experiences in the third person and called him Jesus, for Jesus means Jehovah. No one knows the authors of the five books of Moses either. They only go by initials. We have the “J” manuscript, the “E” manuscript and the “P” manuscript yet their authors are unknown.

They are all called Moses, yet Moses is the lawgiver, the state through which the end is revealed. The writers of the Old Testament, like the New, were telling their own experiences, their own visions, which they recorded in the third person so that man could accept it. Man may accept what you have seen yet they can attach an adoration to an unknown, rather than you they know, so all the authors of the Old and New Testaments although unknown, are telling their own experiences. The story of Jesus Christ was foretold in the Old Testament. It unfolded in Man and for men in whom the story unfolded, told it, yet wrote it in the third person, singular and put the words into the mouth of one they called Jesus. Why? Because it was foretold that he would save his people from their sins.

Who is this savior? The answer can be found in the 43rd chapter of Isaiah, “I am the Lord your God, the Holy one of Israel, your savior, and beside me there is no savior.” The one called Mary said, “I gave praise to my savior, the Lord Jehovah.” There is no other savior other than he who reveals himself as your I AM. “That is my name forever and by this name I shall be known throughout all generations.” Yet today Man has put a little tag on him. They have made him an idol, not knowing that Jesus Christ is within; and when he comes, it is from within, for the drama of Christ unfolds within Man.

God has only one Son called David, who is unique. Being the only one of his kind David is brought forth not of the flesh or of the will of Man, yet of God. Having played all the parts God brings forth the result of the play personified as the essence of it all, my Son in whom I am well pleased. A Man who will do all my will, my Son David. In the end you will bring him forth as I have brought him forth. If we all know him as our Son David, are we not one? Is not, then the confession of faith of Israel the greatest confession ever made? “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”

Are we not the one Lord with the one begotten Son? And what is our name? Wonderful Counselor, the Holy Spirit. “I will send the Wonderful Counselor, the Holy Spirit who becomes, Almighty God (El Shaddai). Called Jehovah’s first revelation to Man, the Holy Spirit is Almighty God, for there are not two. Then comes the revelation of being the Everlasting Father. “Holy Father, I have made manifest thy name and the name thou gavest me I have revealed to them.” (He gave me the name of Father by giving me his Son). “Keep them in thy name that thou gavest me that they may be one as we are one.” (Keep them in the same love as thou lovest me, for we are one.)

Now we see that the Holy Father is the Wonderful Counselor, the Almighty God, the Everlasting Father forever and his final revelation is: Prince of Peace. There can be no peace until you find him and that comes at the very end. We have four acts here and when the last scene of the play is over it’s only to enjoy that seemingly infinite peace for a moment. It came out just as foretold and now it is time to transcend it even though the next drama may put this one to shame. So, as the poet said, “Be patient, our playwright will show in some fifth act what this wild drama means.” Good night.