Neville Goddard Lectures: “His Own Credentials”

01 Jan Neville Goddard Lectures: “His Own Credentials”

4/3/64

Tonight’s subject is “His Own Credentials.” When anyone aspires to hold public confidence, they must begin with their own credentials, that is, they must speak from experience. Then it will be said of you what was said of the central figure of the gospels. They were astonished at his teaching and they said, He speaks as one having authority and not as the scribe.

Now this is a gradual transition from a God of tradition to a God of experience. Tonight I can tell you what I have discovered, but I can’t persuade you to accept it one hundred percent. It will come. You’ll try it, it will prove itself in the testing, but it takes time for a man to give up his belief in an external God. And so, from this platform we identify God with the human Imagination and in doing that we close the gap between God and man. And so, tonight you may allow the gap to close and then test it. If you do, you’ll get the result. But I’m not promising that tomorrow you will not depart from this God that you find tonight. You will simply…it’s too much, it sounds so great, so overwhelming you can’t believe that this thing really is true. So you try it again, and gradually, as you try it and try it, then God himself will unveil himself within you. It’s called in scripture revelation. But Paul said, “The gospel that I preach is not man’s gospel. Nor was I taught it, but it came to me through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:11). And revelation to Paul was an act of God in self-revealing.

So here, we turn back to the ancient scriptures, the Psalms. You and I will read the words and you might think they are said of someone else. For by the word of the Lord the heavens were made…this is the 33rd Psalm: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the populations of the world,” every man and woman in the world, “let them stand in awe of him” (verses 6, 8). And now he asks why, like you would ask why, why should I fear the Lord? Is he not a God of love as the psalmist told me? And here is the psalmist writing again, so why should I stand in awe of him? Why should I fear him? And he tells me why, “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood forth” (verse 9). Well, I certainly should respect that power. For the word translated fear means “reverence,” means “to revere, to respect.” And so, I must respect a power that is so creative. It only speaks, and it comes to be; it commands, and it stands forth.