Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Law of Liberty”

01 Jan Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Law of Liberty”

3/13/1964

Tonight’s subject is “The Law of Liberty.” In this present series I’m asking everyone to try it, test it, and then share with us the result, that I in turn will then share with others what you have proved by this wonderful law of ours. Lord Lyndsay once said to a group of clergymen, “You ministers are making a mistake. In your pulpits you’re arguing for Christianity and no one wants to hear your arguments. You ought to be witnessing: ‘Does this thing work?’ Then share it with the rest of us.” And so, that’s what I’m asking you to do, share it. I tell you it works. We have found that which the whole vast world’s been seeking and it works. But you’ll not know it by just hearing about it. To be convinced you must test it and prove it, and you can prove it.

Now we turn to the great book, the Bible. You judge to what extent you accept it, the testimony of Jesus. For we repeat here, night after night, that it’s very important that we hear the testimony of Jesus and respond to it. So then I make the claim here, quoting Blake, that “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” And I mean that literally. This is not just a lovely poetical thought duly expressed by Blake; he meant it literally. And so the Bible makes this statement—you will read it in the 6th chapter of the Book of John. It’s really called the chapter of secession, because in this chapter a bold claim is repeated throughout the chapter, and in the very end they seceded. And the statement that caused it was this, “No one can come unto me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise you up at the last day” (verse 44). And then we are told he asked a very simple question, “And suppose you saw the Son of man ascending into heaven?” (verse 63). There was no response; no one believed him. And then he said, That’s why I told you that no one can come to me unless it be granted him by the Father, no one. And then he said of the evangelist writing the story he is now editorializing and so he said, And Jesus knew from the first who those were who did not believe and who it was that should betray him (verse 64)—knew it from the first who did not believe and who should betray.

Now we read the story carefully and he said, he repeats it again, “No one can come unto me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” Then we are told that many, at this point many of the disciples turned back, never to walk with him again, never to go with him again. Well, who are the disciples who turned back? They couldn’t go all the way; they came part of the way but they couldn’t go all the way. Now no man judges you, for the drama is taking place in us. We hear the testimony, we hear it either from a platform or we read it in the book or maybe we have the experience, but to what extent can we go all the way?