Neville Goddard Lectures: God’s Almighty Power And Wisdom

10 Dec Neville Goddard Lectures: God’s Almighty Power And Wisdom

12/2/68

God’s almighty power and wisdom express themselves most characteristically in the acceptance of what the world calls weakness or foolishness. So I ask you, “Do you know what you want?” and you say, “Yes I know.” And then I ask you, “Do you know what it would feel like if you had it?” and you reply, “Yes, I think I do.” Then I tell you to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Then you may say, “Well then, after that, what?” I say, “Nothing…just assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled, and live in that assumption as though it were true.” You may question my sanity, but that is the best channel for God’s almighty power and wisdom to express itself. You find yourself behind the eight-ball and you apply it and then it works. You may not have an occasion to apply it for another year, two years, three years, but do you remember what you did?

Now this is the whole story: I tell you that you really are the Jesus Christ of scripture. Tonight we’ll take one section of the unfolding story. He is baptized with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove; and knowing scripture he interprets that to mean that he is the Son of God, clothed with power, clothed with the Holy Spirit, which is the power and wisdom of God. So now he is the power and wisdom of God. Then we are told that he was moved in Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil (Mat. 4:1). And then he hungered, for he had not eaten and he had nothing to drink in forty days and forty nights…reminding one of the story of Moses on the mount for forty days and forty nights (Deut. 9:9) Well here, now we are told that someone stands before him in the form of an adversary, an accuser, and the first one is, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread” (verse 3). He replied, quoting only scripture, for “he comes to fulfill scripture” and he has just fulfilled scripture in the descent of the dove. Now he’s wrestling with himself. This whole drama is taking place within the individual and it is wholly subjective. There is no outside objective tyrant; it’s all within himself. He is questioning…what he knows from scripture is happening to him.

He knows from scripture because of what has just happened that he is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Well, if I am the power and wisdom of God, I am testing myself. So it’s now put in the form of an adversary that seemingly comes from without when the whole thing is from within, for he’s all alone. So anyone who records it in scripture, like the evangelists, would have to be told it by the one who had the experience…for no one was present. It’s all taking place within the individual. I know from scripture what has happened. I interpret scripture to mean, well, then I am the elect, I am the chosen, I am one who is now as of this moment the Son of God. Being the Son of God I am his creative power and his wisdom. If I am his power and his wisdom, then turn these into bread…and he answers, “It is written that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Mat. 4:4). His hunger is not for bread, but for every word. His hunger is for the hearing of the Word of God with understanding…that is his hunger.