Neville Goddard Lectures: “Signs and Wonders”

05 Jan Neville Goddard Lectures: “Signs and Wonders”

5/15/64

Tonight’s subject is “Signs and Wonders.” As we are told in the 6th and 20th chapters of the Book of Deuteronomy, “The Lord brought his people out of Egypt with signs and wonders.” Now, the Bible from beginning to the end is divine history. But this history is not history as you and I understand it. In other words, you could never by historical research either prove or disprove it; and any religion in this world that depends upon historical and scientific confirmation really is not a fixed act.

Let us now take the book, this divine history. It’s your history, a history that you and every child born of woman will experience. Every child is Adam, and Adam is compelled to be disobedient. As we are told in the 11th chapter of the Book of Romans, that “God has consigned every man to disobedience that he may have mercy upon all” (verse 32). So Adam is the garment that God wears. And that disobedience is for one outstanding purpose: He eats of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that conscience may be born. And so conscience is born by the seeming disobedience. Then he passes through the furnaces of affliction. But at least he does have conscience and he does know right and he knows wrong. He violates it time after time. And so from Adam to Noah it is sheer hell in scripture, because everything is for self-gain; and so, he simply buries his conscience which tells him it is wrong, and simply, well, for the purpose of self-gain. Then we’re told this is all wiped out, and then we start with Noah.

Remember these are all states…every character in the Bible is a state of consciousness. They’re simply personifications of the eternal states of the soul through which the individual passes like a pilgrim. So he moves first through Adam to Noah. We find now the character called Noah, for here is Noah the first tiller of the land, the first beginning of civilization (Gen. 11:20). Then he drinks successfully of the fruit of the vine, and he got drunk, and found himself completely exposed, but completely drunk, flattened out and uncovered. Then we are told, his son Ham came in and saw him in his nakedness, and then he told his brothers Shem and Japeth. They brought a sheet and walking backwards, without turning around, they covered the nakedness of their father that they would not see his nudity. When he arose from his drunkenness and once more returned to normalcy and discovered that his son Ham had seen his nudeness, he cursed Canaan…didn’t curse Ham. He cursed Canaan and said, “Cursed be Canaan; you shall be a slave of slaves to all your brothers” (verse 24). So that is now a new beginning. Well, who is this Noah and the state of consciousness, when you and I start a certain attempt to create a civilization, to really move forward? Who is this Ham that saw my nudity? For the word Ham in Hebrew means “life.” It’s Cheth Mem—it is life itself. He curses Canaan and Canaan is the world that is cursed.

You can’t understand Canaan until we jump now to the next character where you and I really begin in this world. The next character is Abraham. It’s really Abram in the beginning of it all which is faith. So all this is a turmoil. Then Abram is put into a deep sleep and then a dread and frightful darkness descends upon Abram. While he is in sleep, the Lord speaks to him and tells him to leave Haran and migrate into Canaan. There he and his descendants will be enslaved as sojourners in this strange land, and they will be slaves of slaves for 400 years; then he will deliver them with signs and wonders. So every descendant of Abraham will go into this land and be completely enslaved. He must leave Haran. Well, Haran means “sanctuary, it’s the haven of rest, a comfort.” He must leave this innocence and move into a world of experience; and in the world of experience he goes through all the fires of hell. For every conceivable situation that man could ever think of, man, the individual, must pass through as he goes into Canaan. And there he remains for 400 years.