Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Remnant”

07 May Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Remnant”

6/10/68

I cannot conceive that there is a greater satisfaction than sharing in the divine creative activity. There is no room for boasting, I assure you; for everything is by grace, and so we did not earn it. But we can share in this activity. As Paul said in his 3rd chapter of his 1st letter to the Corinthians, when someone proclaiming, I am of Paul and I am of Apollo, he said, “Who is Paul and who is Apollo?” He said, “I have planted and Apollo has watered, but God gives the growth” (verse 4). You can plant anything and that seed will remain dormant unless God gave the growth.

But, he made it quite clear that at all times in eternity there will be a remnant…always a remnant. And then he quotes the 52nd and 53rd chapters of Isaiah as he explains what he means by the remnant. When Elisha petitioned God against Israel, saying that they had killed his prophets and destroyed his altars and I alone am left…and “What did God say?” asked Paul. God said to him, “I have seven thousand men who have not bent their knee to Baal” (1Kg.19:18). Then added Paul: “So too at this time there is a chosen remnant, chosen by grace. And if it is by grace, then it is not based on works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Rom.11:5). So it is all by grace. Yet no one knows God’s elective love…what is the secret of his election? How does he elect the remnant? So we can’t boast if we are within it. But I have every evidence in this world to make a bold claim that this is a remnant. Now, we can’t take 7,000 as 7,000 people. Seven means “spiritual perfection.” But we did not earn spiritual perfection: Fitness for the kingdom of God is the consequence not the condition of his grace. So the moment that man is called, and that is the individual, by that very call when he is embraced and has union with the Holy Spirit that fits him. Prior to that he was not; therefore, the whole is grace.

Now Paul asks the question—and this is most important—in his letter to the Romans, you’ll find this in 10th chapter, but the entire epistle to the Romans rests upon his argument for the paramount importance of faith. And by faith he means faith in the pattern, faith in God’s plan of salvation. For to him Christian preaching was preaching Christ not as a man but that great mystery that is Christ. Christ, as he defined him, is the power of God and the wisdom of God wrapped into a pattern, the pattern man, that will unfold within the individual (1Cor.1:24) And when you hear the story, your response to that something that has happened in the world of men is the measure of your faith. That kind of faith Paul is speaking of. Not that I believe I’ll get a promotion in my job or that I will get a large sum of money or that I will inherit some estate. He’s not speaking of that kind of faith. He doesn’t deny it, but the faith of which he speaks is the faith in the pattern, the faith in what he calls Christ.

But the churches have completely distorted and made of it a little icon, make it a person. And he asked, “What brings you out to see, a man that can be tossed by the wind?” So now he asks the question: “How can men call upon him in whom they do not believe? And how can they believe in him of whom they’ve never heard? And how can they hear unless there is a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news!’” (Rom.10: 14). But not everyone heeded the gospel. As Isaiah said, speaking now…and Paul uses it in the most marvelous argument, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” Then he concludes, “Therefore faith comes from hearing, and hearing comes by preaching Christ” (verse 17). He’s only speaking of the kind of thing that you hear concerning Christ. That’s the only faith of which he speaks.