Neville Goddard Lectures: “What Must We Do? Believe!”

02 Oct Neville Goddard Lectures: “What Must We Do? Believe!”

1/28/66

Tonight’s title is “What Must We Do?” This is asked in scripture, “What must we do to be doing the work of God?” and he answered, “This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John6:29). It all starts with believing; you believe in him whom he has sent. Now, what must I do? Believe that a person called Jesus Christ lived? Just how would I go about believing in him and believing that God sent him? I simply read his story, read all that he tells, all the signs, and then see if I can believe it. For he tells us, “We speak what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not believe it. If I tell you earthly things and you do not believe it, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (John3:12).

So what was the earthly thing that he told first? The earliest gospel is that of Mark, and the first words recorded of this central figure we find them, “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mk.1:15). He encloses within his doctrine the message given to the prophet Jonah, who brought the one message: the message of repentance. So he takes that in, “Repent and believe in the gospel.” He knows that man did repent. Well, man wants a sign. He calls this now an evil generation; he said, this is the generation, “it’s an evil generation, it seeks a sign, but no sign shall be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah” (Mt.16:4). And as Jonah was a sign to the men of Nineveh, so will the Son of man be a sign to this generation.

Well, what did he bring? He only brought the message of repentance, and people believed him. He tells us, now they won’t believe his message; because Jonah’s message, you could try it, and if you tried it it would work. The people of Nineveh tried it and saved not only themselves but their city. They repented, and they realized that a change of attitude would result in corresponding changes in the outer aspects of their lives. So he called them an evil generation, but what is an evil generation? An evil generation is simply an unrepentant generation, that’s all that it is. A man could always repent. If he could change his attitude towards life, he’d change his life; and therefore he could always save himself, or save the environment in which he finds himself by simply repenting. So we are told that they did repent and saved themselves and their city of Nineveh. But he wonders who now will actually believe his story, for he brings the final revelation. And here he contrasts the unresponsiveness of the people of this generation to his greater revelation with that response that Jonah got to his lesser revelation.

So here we find, “What must I do?” Well, I could be tending bar tonight and really believe what he told me, and I’ll be doing the work of God. Or I could be sitting on the throne in the Vatican, and so busy with my vast portfolio I have no time to believe what is said and not be doing the work of God. So you can’t judge a man’s profession and think because of his profession—he’s a minister, a rabbi, a priest—that he is necessarily doing the work of God. To do the work of God is simply believe in him whom he has sent, and he tells you exactly in the signs. You believe in these signs, because I can’t reproduce them for you; they belong to the very depths of your soul. They belong in a region that is outside of the range of one’s rational mind, so you can’t bring them to the surface that anyone here could experience. You must wait on them.

In the meanwhile, you go and you tell the story of repentance, and play the part of a Jonah. I know in my own case I told it for twenty-one years before I could honestly say, “And now I am a witness to what I have seen.” The word seen means “experience.” I did not experience salvation, yet I was called and sent. And all that I could actually say I know this from experience. Know what? I know if I change my attitude towards a certain individual and persuade myself of the reality of this change of inner attitude, I would see the day that he will conform to this inner change in me. So I knew that from experience.