Neville Goddard Lectures: “Advent: the Four Tears”

29 Dec Neville Goddard Lectures: “Advent: the Four Tears”

By Neville Goddard November 26. 1963

Tonight’s subject is Advent. And I’m not referring to that tremendous tragedy and great advent that all of us have experienced in this past weekend, for that really was an advent [JFK], but I’m speaking of God’s Advent. Advent is the term used to designate the coming or the second coming of the Christ at the end of the age. The purpose of his coming is to redeem man from the wheel of fate, the wheel of recurrence. There’s a definite pattern by which it is done.

Advent will begin next Sunday in the churches. Now this does not mean it actually begins next Sunday, but that’s part of the ritual. It always starts on the Sunday nearest to the day of Andrew. Andrew’s day is always the thirtieth day of November, and the nearest Sunday to that day begins the season of Advent. And it runs four Sundays and culminates on the day of Christmas, the birth of Christ—because, Andrew was the first, in the most mystical of the gospels, to behold Jesus. Andrew first found him and told his brother Peter. And so, on the day marked as Andrew’s day, here comes the great watch: It is the longing for the coming of the Savior of the world.

Now, man has been taught to believe that he comes from without; and the way he comes the world finds it difficult to believe that he did come. So Andrew who found him could not have found him on the outside. He never comes from without. The only way that you will know that he came is to compare what is happening in you to what was foretold in the ancient scriptures. You go back and you read the ancient scriptures, meaning the Old Testament, and there it was all foretold… but not through any one prophet. And suddenly it happens in the individual, and he finds in the ancient scriptures confirmation of what is taking place in him. And he tells of the coming of this great event.

So Advent is the coming of the great event. It’s really a series of events where the structure is unveiled. It’s the unveiling of Christ in man, and this unveiling takes a certain series of events. It’s told symbolically. And they looked at him, and then they tore his garments into four parts and each took a part. But they said, “Let us not tear the tunic, for it’s woven without seams from top to bottom; let us cast lots to see who will get it” (John 19:23, 24). And there were four who cast lots to see who would get it. There are always four, because the fourth one falls heir to the next unveiling of the temple. For, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). That day is not at the end of history; it is within history. It happens tonight—I hope it does to many of you—but it comes at the moment that you least expect it, when the scaffolding comes down, and the scaffolding is torn apart, in four parts, and then the building is revealed. It’s the immortal body you will wear. The same identity, now no change in identity. But with all the changes of identity there’s a radical discontinuity of form. You don’t wear this form. This is the scaffolding and it is this that is torn.