Neville Goddard Lectures: “What Does the Lord Require?”
19 Jan Neville Goddard Lectures: “What Does the Lord Require?”
11/20/64
Tonight’s subject, that is, the title of the subject is taken from the Book of Micah, the 6th chapter, the 8th verse. In this verse he asks a very simple question. First, he makes the statement, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to be just and kind and live in quiet fellowship with your God.” Nothing else is required of man after man has been told what is good, these three fundamentals. Outside of these the outer ceremonial is an affront to God. It’s an attempt to bargain him into accepting from man less than he wants of man. So, all the rituals, all the ceremonials, everything on the outside is really an affront to God. All he asks of us is to be just, to be kind and to live in quiet fellowship with our God. Well, how would we go about living in quiet fellowship with our God?
I think tonight you are going to find this a very, very practical approach to living in this quiet fellowship with your God. To understand it, let me go back now into the Book of Psalms, the 4th chapter, the 4th verse: “Be angry, but do not sin; commune with your own hearts upon your own beds, and be silent.” How would I do it? Would that really be living in quiet fellowship with God? Yes. Well, how do I know? I’ll tell you this night how I do know. There are supposed to be a billion Christians in the world. And I wonder what percentage…it would be so small it would be ridiculous. If I would ask a very simple question of the whole billion, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?”—-I’m quoting from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, the 13th chapter, the 5th verse; he’s asking the Corinthians, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?”—-if we were honest, the billion of us who claimed that we are Christians, our answer would be, no, we do not know that Jesus Christ is in us. All you have to do is go to any home, especially the homes of those who put up pictures and little icons, and look and see what they have on the wall to represent Jesus Christ. It doesn’t faintly resemble any member of the family, far less the one who occupies the home as owner. It doesn’t resemble in the most remote manner any member of the family. And most of them are painted or done by very poor artists…they’re monstrosities. But there they are, all over the walls, all over the places in all these homes that call themselves Christians. They do not know that Jesus Christ is in them.
Tonight, you do this in a simple way, for I’m speaking from experience. You are told to be angry, and the word translated “angry” is “perturbed, enraged.” So something disturbs you, burns you up, but do it in the seclusion of your bed. Do it in the silence of the night, the darkness of the night. Let it off your chest. You’re required to help someone; and that someone has been helped, then they go back and go back a hundred times, and you are made aware of their falling back. How often Lord…seventy times seven (Mat. 18:22). But get it off your chest, tell them exactly what you think, and then, do not sin. These are the words, “Be angry, but sin not” (Eph. 4:26). Sin is missing the mark; sin is having a target and failing to hit it. You have a goal in life, either for yourself or for another, and if that goal isn’t reached, well, then you’ve sinned. So be angry, but sin not.