Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Riddle” (1969)

06 Nov Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Riddle” (1969)

11/3/69

The Rev. Dr. Trusler criticized Blake for his abstruseness and said to him that he needed someone to really elucidate his ideas. Blake said to him, “You ought to know that that which is grand is necessarily obscure to the weak.” Then he went on to say that “You also ought to know that what can be made explicit to the idiot isn’t worth my care, and that the wisest of the ancients considered that what was not too explicit fittest for instruction, for it rouses the faculties to act.” Then he asked the Rev. Dr. Trusler this question, “Why is it that the Bible is more entertaining and instructive than any book? Is it not because it is addressed to the Imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and only but immediately to the understanding or reason?”

Now tonight, we will ask a question based upon scripture. It’s a riddle and the riddle is this, “What is it that becomes his own grandson and vice versa?” How is it that that which is called the Divine Creator, who created me, is my child? How can the Divine Creator, my father, be my child? Now we’ll take the riddle and show you how these parts are put together. It’s not addressed to those to whom you must take it apart and show it in little detail; it’s addressed to the human Imagination. I doubt that any logical, reasoning mind could unravel it; it has to be revealed. When it’s revealed you stand amazed at the statements as told in scripture. Now here, we go back to three passages from the Book of Isaiah. The 7th chapter is the first. It is translated in some translations “a virgin” and in others simply “a young woman, a maiden.” “A maiden will conceive and bring forth a son” (7:14). Now this will be a sign you are told, and it is that the Lord will give you a sign, and the sign is this: a maiden will conceive and bring forth a son and will call his name Immanuel. Immanuel is translated as “God with us”; it is better rendered, “God is in us” as confirmed in the New Testament, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke17:21). So it is not “God with us” as something on the outside, but is “God in us” that is the true interpretation of the word Immanuel. “And she’ll call his name Immanuel.”

Now we pass on to the 9th chapter and here we read “Unto us a child is born…and his name shall be called the “Everlasting Father” (Is.9:6). Here, to us—to us the human personalities—and yet what we bring forth as a child his name is Everlasting Father. I am bringing forth that which created myself. The Everlasting Father and the child are now told to be one. His name is Everlasting Father, and the Everlasting Father is the self-existent, the ever-creating being that created the entire universe and sustains it. Yet I am told I bring him forth…I bring him forth as my child. My child is my Father. That is what is implied in the statement.

Now we go another two chapters into the 11th, and here we find in the 11th chapter “And there shall come forth out of Jesse a stem…and out of the stem will come a branch…and this branch will be the ruler of all” (Is.11:1). Out of Jesse will come a stem and out of the stem will come a branch, and this branch is ruler of all. (11:10). The solution of the riddle you will find in the names. The word Jesse means “I AM,” the eternal everlasting name of God. Now we are told, out of Jesse comes the stem…well, Jesse’s son is David as told us in scripture (1Sam.17:58). So here we now find David. And now out of David comes a branch, and the branch is one with his grandfather.

Now in the New Testament the same riddle is proposed, but not answered: how can they say that the Christ is the son of David when David in the Spirit calls him Lord? No one answered…it’s simply stated to describe in the 20th chapter of the Book of Luke, you read it in the 41st and the 44th verses. “How is it that they say”—meaning the scribes say, the wise men say that David—“the Christ is the son of David when David in the Spirit calls him Lord”…calls him “my Father?”