God's Law and His Promise

[...] wonderful principle of God’s eternal law and his promise. The law is so very simple, only it is conditional. We are the operant power; it doesn’t work by itself. You can be anything you want to be in this world if you are willing to pay the price. The only price you pay is to give up what you are that you may in Imagination become what you want to be. That’s the price you pay.40 ¶1

The coin you use is simply diligence, persistency, faith—faith in the reality of your invisible act. You imagine yourself to be what you want to be and you believe in the reality of that unseen act. And then you become diligent, you become persistent, and you persevere in that state. And then it takes root and it grows into this world.40 ¶2

So you are not the same person when you become the other person. So you can’t be one being in one state and not suffer the consequences of not being in another state. There are infinite states and you can choose. Man not knowing this, he thinks he has to simply accept what is called fate. He was born in a certain environment, he didn’t have the proper encouragement, no background, this, that and the other. He accepts that. If he does, then he lives in that state.40 ¶3

But you need not if you really know this principle that whatever you desire, believe that you have received it and you will. That’s scripture. I tell you from experience, my own personal experience, that you will. You ask no favors of others; no one need help you. The whole vast world is response; they respond. They have to respond, they can’t help it, for the very simple reason all things really exist in us. As Blake so wisely said, “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.”40 ¶4

It’s so clearly revealed in the depth of one’s soul through vision that everyone in the world is simply responding to what is taking place in your own wonderful human Imagination. So, it’s entirely up to you to know what you want and then dare to test this law.40 ¶5

As we are told in scripture, “Come test me and see. Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in thee?—unless, of course, you fail to meet the test.” Well, Jesus Christ in scripture is defined as the power and wisdom of God. And so, the power of God is in you, your own wonderful human Imagination. So you can test it and see.40 ¶6

When we come to the Promise and because we only have two weeks left—and I do hope that many of you will be reading the Bible in the interval between now and when we return in late October—I’d like to give you a few points on how to read the Bible.40 ¶7

When you take a book in your hand and you read a novel, and they’re all characters in the imagination of the writer, and you read the book, and they all become alive to you. Today you read Dickens, and the characters of Dickens are more alive than Dickens. You read them and all of a sudden you endow every one with a personality and they’re so real. You read Shakespeare. Turn on your TV tonight and a man sat down or a lady sat down and wrote that script, and yet all are in his Imagination or her Imagination, but they’re all real as you look at it.40 ¶8

Now, when you look at the Bible and you open the Bible, may I tell you, from the very beginning to the end…but I will limit it now from Adam which is the very beginning of Genesis to the first of John where John the Baptist is introduced as a character; and so we are told, the law and the prophets were until John. That is the script, a script written just as any author here would write a script, only this was shown in vision. He didn’t sit down and cogitate and try to figure out how to write the script; the whole thing was revealed from beginning to end. It’s not the product of some man’s composition. These men inspired by the depth of the soul wrote scripture. They wrote the eternal drama. So from Adam to John…and you can close the book. The whole thing is in you, that sacred scripture.40 ¶9

Now, always bear in mind when you open the book and you read this book that the names Moses and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are not there meant but the states signified by those names. The individuals are but representatives or visions of those states as they were revealed to mortal man in the series of divine revelations as are written in the Bible.40 ¶10

May I tell you, with Blake, I have seen these various states in my Imagination; and seen at a distance it appears as one man, and when you approach and you come near, they are multitudes of nations…one man.40 ¶11

Now in Hebrew thought history consists of all the generations of men and their experiences fused into one grand whole; and this concentrated time into which all the generations of men are fused and from which all spring is called eternity. Eternity is personified as a single youth, and that youth is David.40 ¶12

So really when you’re told “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee,” these words are addressed to David, they are addressed to humanity, the whole vast world. But all the sacred scripture, every one within them, all experiences, fused into a single being and that is David. And you have to bring him forth. When you enter the arena—and it really is an arena—and you play this frightful tragedy, at the end of your journey you bring forth humanity. But not multitudes, you bring humanity forth as a single youth, just David, and David calls you “Father,” calls you “my Lord.” You are his Rock.40 ¶13

Then you understand the words in Revelation, “I am the root and the offspring of David.” I AM, that’s the root. And humanity came out of me, as told us in the 11th chapter of the Book of Isaiah: And out of the stump of Jesse—the word Jesse means I AM—out of the stump of Jesse will spring this root, this little branch will come out. So, out of I AM the whole vast world of humanity comes out.40 ¶14

And then in the end when the drama is over and dream is over, you see it all fused into a single one, and it’s David, and you are the Lord. You are the root of the whole vast world; and strangely enough, you transcended yourself, you are now offspring.40 ¶15

Then you will understand the words in the 7th chapter of the 2nd Book of Samuel, and these words are addressed to David: “When your days are fulfilled”—and listen to the words carefully, “fulfilled” as told us in the earliest of the gospels—“the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.” So, “When your days are fulfilled”—brought to fullness—“and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your son after you, who shall come forth from your body. I will be his father, and he shall be my son.” So, a supernatural being rises in you, individually, and when that being rises in you, the power of it conjures that single being representing the whole vast world of humanity, and he calls you “Father.”40 ¶16

Now you understand these words of Paul: “When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spoke as a child, I reasoned as a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” “From now on we regard no one from the human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from the human point of view, we regard him thus no longer.” He is speaking of that entire closed book. He’s not speaking of you and speaking of the speaker, he’s speaking of the characters of sacred scripture. He, too, thought Abraham was a man and not a state. He thought Moses was a man and not a state. He thought all the characters…so when he heard of Messiah, he consented unto the death of Stephen and joined in the stoning; and did all these things that when a man, mentally speaking—not physically speaking but mentally speaking—is a child he does all these things. They are men, and so they will stone any man who comes to take away the glory, the little light from his great patriarchs of the past, and stone him to death.40 ¶17

He didn’t know the mystery of Christ until it was revealed to him. So said he, “The gospel that I now preach I did not receive it from a man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through the revelation of Jesus Christ.” So I will not now discuss it, said he, with flesh and blood. He goes to meditate upon it, for the thing began to unfold within him. So then we see in his letters that Jesus Christ is the pattern for every man, not a man. It’s the pattern of the unfolding God in man.40 ¶18

So, I once saw him from the human point of view, as I saw Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. I no longer see him from the human point of view. I will see only the risen Christ, that which is buried in every man, now rising to fuse and to be actually one man, the father of humanity, that is personified as David. So in everyone God rises and in everyone he becomes God the Father. That’s his name. And if he’s a father then there must be a son. Humanity is the son, but when you see humanity on high you see a single youth, and it’s David. David represents the whole vast world of humanity.40 ¶19

So start with your Adam, go through to John the Baptist, fuse them into a single whole; and this fused concentrated time, personify it and you find eternity. Now we are told in the Book of Ecclesiastes: “God has put eternity into the mind of man, yet so that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning until the end.”40 ¶20

Only in that eschatological moment when man rises at the end will he really understand what God placed in his mind. He put the whole vast world, he put eternity into the mind of man, and eternity simply consists of all the generations of men, all their experiences, fused into one grand whole. So the whole vast world is placed in the mind of man and when he comes to the end, having played these many parts—fighting against himself, running from himself, and all the horrors of the world—he awakes. Then he finds the whole fused into a single youth that he loves beyond measure. For the words are, here is my beloved David; I will never take my steadfast love from him.40 ¶21

Now here we are told, he is king over all of them when they are in battle, but at the end he is their prince forever, not king. He is king when the whole vast world is fragmented, but in the end, he is prince, and he is my beloved forever. For if he is the prince then I am the king. I see my son who is now prince forever having played all the parts, a man after my own heart. So “I have found in David the son of Jesse”—the son of I AM—“a man after my own heart.” My own heart…well, “blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” So when I bring him out and I see him and he calls me “Father,” he’s the pure in heart; he is by his very presence telling me who I am. He has to be perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect.40 ¶22

And so, everyone is playing the part. Everyone in this world is playing the identical part. For in the end we all come out and there aren’t two Gods, three Gods, only one. So we are told, everyone who is united to him becomes one spirit with him. Everyone who is united to him becomes one spirit with him. So we are told again, “I am gathering you one by one, O people of Israel.” Everyone, in due time, is called to awake. As he is called, he’s fused into the single body and that body is infinite love.40 ¶23

If I could take anyone this night with me into the presence of this personified love, it’s infinite love. But how to persuade others who are conditioned to read the story as told us in Sunday school? For I dare say many of us went to Sunday school, I know I did. I didn’t want to, but I had to. And so, I went and I heard the story from beginning to end, Sunday after Sunday, at 4:00 in the afternoon. And here I heard Abraham was a man and he had these sons and they were boys and they grew into men. But I couldn’t understand the Bible; it had to be revealed. My school teacher didn’t know it any more than the priesthoods of the world today know it. What do they know about it? It has to be revealed—you can’t rationalize it—the whole thing is unveiled within you.40 ¶24

So when you pick up the works of Paul, after it was unveiled in him, does he not personify a city? He calls Jerusalem “my mother from above.” He said Abraham had two sons, one was born into slavery and took with him his mother into slavery, and the mother he calls Hagar. Then he said Hagar is the present Jerusalem. But there is another and she is our mother and she is “Jerusalem from above.” There’s a Jerusalem from below; the womb of woman that is Jerusalem of this world, it’s from this world—and every child born of the womb of woman is born into slavery. Then comes another Jerusalem who is from above, bearing children into freedom, and he said, “That is our mother.”40 ¶25

In the story of the gospels, is it not put into the mouth of one called Jesus Christ, who is only the personification of God’s plan of salvation? Don’t think in terms of a man; it’s the plan of salvation. And does he not say, “O Jerusalem, O Jerusalem,” and then speaks of her as a mother? He calls her a hen, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you? How often I would have gathered all of your children together as the hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not. So he personifies a city, he calls Jerusalem “mother” and likens her to a grand hen, gathering all of her chickens under her wings, just like a wonderful brood…and they would not.40 ¶26

So here, we find all through scripture not only the personification of these states called the law of Moses, and this wonderful plan called Abraham and the wonderful son—when all brought together and the heart is the heart of God, called David—all humanity. But we find cities personified and called mother and all the inhabitants of that city called children. So when you open the book, don’t forget it; try always to remember that the persons, called by names Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and so on, are not there meant but the states that are signified by those names.40 ¶27

And every name in scripture has meaning, has significance. Look up the name in your concordance and find its true significance. Abraham, “the father of the multitudes.” Here is the beginning of the grand journey, the father of the multitudes, more numerous than the sands of the sea, more numerous than the stars of the heavens.40 ¶28

Not a man, and yet he has two sons, said Paul. If you read scripture, there are more than two. He has been promised more than the sands of the sea, but even in actual chronological order there are more. But he only takes the two: the slave (this body), born from Jerusalem from below, which was my physical mother; and then that which happened in me, born from above, which he called, my mother Jerusalem from above, born into freedom.40 ¶29

So here, no matter how you look at it, always try to remember that you can’t read it as you would a novel. But think of a novel as a creation of an author, single author and he conceived all these parts and they become alive to you the reader. Well, the Bible is written in the same manner, only it’s under inspiration. It’s the eternal story by which God brings into being the supernatural being that is Christ. Christ is the supernatural being.40 ¶30

And tonight I say without hesitation, I wouldn’t for one moment hesitate to rest the case for the divine meaning and the validity of the gospel on the testimony of my own inward experience as was wrought in me by the Spirit. I know it is all unconditioned. For here is a man with all the limitations of man in this world and in spite of my obvious limitations it happened in me. So I know it is unconditioned. I did not earn it. I did not acquire and gather together any merit for it. It’s a gift from beginning to end.40 ¶31

But the law, of which I have been well informed, is conditioned. And while we are waiting for the fulfillment of the Promise, let us learn to operate the law. For, the law is conditioned and we are the operant power. So I tell you of the law and leave you to your choice and its risk. There’s a risk involved. You can burn your hand, I tell you of it. If you use it lovingly you’ll never go wrong…can’t hurt if you use it lovingly. But, may I tell you, you can use it as a Stalin or a Hitler or any tyrant in the world and it still works. It’s the law. You can become anyone that you want to be if you are willing to assume that you are, and remain faithful to that assumption just as though it were true. You can become it, but you’re going to pay the price. Hitler paid the price. Stalin paid the price. Mussolini paid the price. They all paid the price in the end, but they were willing to pay another price and that price was bigamous. They were completely alerted to what they had assumed that they were.40 ¶32

If you are willing to assume that I am…and you name it. And you be the judge—I am…and you name exactly what you want to be, and then see in your mind’s eye the world that you would see were it true. What would it be like were it true? How would it feel were it true? You simply ask yourself these simple questions and you get responses. Then you feel natural in it. When it seems natural to you, this is right, alright, that’s it. It’s taking root, and in a way that no one knows it begins to unfold. It will lead you across a bridge of incidence that you don’t build. You walk across the bridge of incidence—at least, you don’t consciously build it—and across this series of events you are taken to the fulfillment of that which you are assuming that you are.40 ¶33

When you get to the end, and now you realize it completely, you turn back and on reflection things happened so normally and so naturally you might say, “Well, it would have happened anyway.” You might say it, because it happens so naturally as it unfolds. But it takes you across this series of events, and you must confess you didn’t actually make the events. They seemed to appear and you were led across the series of events right up to the fulfillment of what you assumed that you are. All you’re called upon to do is to remain faithful to your assumption that you are already the man that you want to be. Assuming that state, remaining faithful to it, you fulfill it. And that’s the law.40 ¶34

But it all depends upon you and your willingness to make the decision and then assume it. As you’re told in scripture, “What man desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost? Will he have enough to really complete it?” He doesn’t want to be laughed at. And so, the tower is simply the elevated state that you desire to fulfill, that’s the tower. You count the cost. Do you have enough faith? Do you have enough stick-to-itiveness? Do you have enough persistency to really assume it and stick to it?40 ¶35

But I’ve found in all who have had it—and I’m going into my closest circle of friends and relatives—they forget it in the end. They don’t forget the law, but they become so much what they dreamed of being that they crow, just as though—and I can’t deny that they did do it—but it was the law, a simple principle, that their porter could have done. Anyone who employs now a thousand porters and men working for him, anyone in that crowd who knew what he did could have done the same thing had they counted the cost.40 ¶36

As you’re told, “What man who desires to build a tower doesn’t first sit down and count the cost?” Is he willing to go hungry this night rather than deviate for one moment, and just simply pull in his belt and simply go to bed just as though he didn’t want a meal—not that he couldn’t get it, just didn’t want it—and live in that state just as though it were true, and so remain faithful to that assumption? If he does, the porter, who today still remains the porter, could, had he started when the boss started, have done the same thing.40 ¶37

So this is this principle, a simple, wonderful principle based upon scripture: “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will.” It doesn’t say that you go to the priest and ask the priest if it’s good for you. It doesn’t say that you take into consideration any moral code. The Bible is not a moral book. Man can’t get it through his head it’s not a moral book. It’s a book of law and promise, and the law is conditioned and the promise is unconditioned. But man has read into it morals that are not present in the book.40 ¶38

He’ll take you through everything and bring you out in the end, and in the very end you awaken, and you are God himself. The Spirit of truth will take the believer right through all these experiences, for he sends the Spirit of truth upon man. When the Spirit of truth comes upon man, he takes that believer, and in that believer the believer has the experiences, all these wonderful experiences. And he brings him out at the very end as the one who created and conceived the whole thing.40 ¶39

And you discover that your creator and your redeemer are one and the same being, and the two are one; and you are one. You created it, you prepared the way of redemption, you redeem self, and in the end you are the very one who conceived it, who played it, and who fulfilled it. It’s only God…there is nothing but God in this world. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” Not two, no room for two. No room for the creator and the redeemer—they are different parts played by the same being. And so, he conceived everything, played all the parts, and in the end we are gathered one by one to unite into a single man who is God.40 ¶40

So I’m speaking from experience, I am not theorizing. And when you read in scripture that God is love, may I tell you, that is true. But just as Jesus Christ is the personification of the power and the wisdom of God, you will meet a man, glorious beyond measure, and all you can actually feel is love. You can’t think of any emotion in this world but love. Yet you stand in the presence of the risen Christ who is God and it’s love. But I can’t deny that all these that were to me as a child—when I was a child I thought as a child, spoke as a child, reasoned as a child, but now that I’ve become a man I should simply put away childish things—and they are no longer men, they are states.40 ¶41

But encountering the states you see a man, for it takes a man to express every emotion in this world, the evil and the good. And so, error needs a man as an agent. Truth needs a man as an agent. Everything that is expressed needs man to express it. So when the thing to express, the state to express, is being expressed, a man appears. But all these men are only personifications of the states.40 ¶42

So who, really, is the reality behind these personifications? I stood in the presence of man and it was love. But we are told in the very end that no mortal eye could see the glory that awaits the awakening of the creator who died, and became this, and then rises from it. When he rises from it, what is the glory that is in store for all to see when all of us are it? But I only know I saw man. And I didn’t have to ask any questions when I stood in the presence of infinite love.40 ¶43

The question asked me was based upon love, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” and I answered “Love,” and at that we fused. There was one more gathered into the body of love. And yet I was sent—fused into the body of love, one with God—and then commanded to go and tell what I had experienced—and the words ringing out in my mind, “Down with the blue-bloods.” Didn’t understand the meaning of it, but that was my command. It was years and years later before I understood the meaning of the words, and they simply mean church protocol, that’s all that they mean.40 ¶44

All external ceremonies, all outside activities in the hope of gaining merit, down with it all, have no part of it. And I can’t tell you how often from that moment on I have been—never really tempted but—invited by numberless across this country to join their organizations, saying “Speak. You have your books, you wouldn’t have to go to school; we’ll ordain you today.” That’s done too, you know, without exams…ordain you today and send you out. That would be completely in violation of the command that was given to me when I was sent from the presence of the risen Christ: “Down with the bluebloods,” all outside ceremony, but all of it, from the top to the bottom.40 ¶45

He is not reached that way. You don’t reach him by rising in the world of Caesar, where someone could raise you from the lowly state to a higher state, to a higher state, and finally to the highest in the eyes of man, because God does not judge from outward appearance. He who today wears the greatest robes, the most glorious robes, may not have a heart comparable to the heart of the one who cleans his shoes. And the Lord sees only the heart, not the outward appearance.40 ¶46

Now, when that heart comes to perfection, it’s automatic, and then David appears, and David who should be the father becomes the son. That’s the great mystery. How can a man become his own father’s father?40 ¶47

And that’s what happens, for “I am the root and the offspring of David.” Here is David…and I will raise up after you your son who will come forth from your body…your son…and I the Lord will be his father, and he will be my son. He comes out of David, so he should be David’s son. Yes, he does come out of David, he comes out of humanity. The whole vast conflict gives birth to this supernatural being coming back, the creative power of God. And that which was its father is now congealed into a single youth and it’s his son, not his father. So he who is David’s father becomes David’s son, and he who was the son of David becomes David’s father. It’s an automatic reversal of the process.40 ¶48

So he put into the mind of man eternity, David, who is nothing more than the complete concentration of all the generations of men. And then he fragmented that man—he was a single little unit among billions of men—and the struggle was on. He goes through all the hell of the world. In the end, having played it all and overcome it all, only through love, he arrives at the point where he begins to awaken and the whole vast mass of humanity once more becomes congealed and stands before him as a single youth and calls him Father. And the journey is over.40 ¶49

All he can do for the remaining days on earth is tell it to anyone who will hear it, that’s all. Some will hear it believing, some will say it’s insane, but tell it anyway. For, all I can tell you is what I have told you this night is true. I haven’t speculated, I’m not theorizing, I am telling you exactly what I have experienced.40 ¶50

These various states I have seen in my Imagination. One night I saw it so clearly. I was with Blake and he showed me the kind of a fall that I should take. Taking this fall, when I steadied myself, I came like a meteor through space. When I steadied myself and that fall came to a halt, here, in the distance stood a single man, a glorious man and his heart was like a ruby aflame. He was radiant and the heart was simply a burning ruby. As I approached him, why, the one man became a multitude of nations. And I saw it, saw this perfect vision of the one man fragmented into all the nations of the world, and yet seen at a distance one glorious man with a heart of a burning ruby.40 ¶51

So I tell you, I am not speculating. I’m speaking from experience: You are that man! And for a purpose beyond your present understanding, you created a scene, and became the fragmented man, the one man. Your end has already been predetermined, because it’s not based upon any effort on the part of a man here. It’s always been set up. He’s prepared the way for the return of himself. And when you return from this great tragedy, really you will be far greater than you were prior to that moment in eternity when you conceived the play. For there is no limit to the expansion of God; he only set a limit to his contraction. There’s no limit to expansion; he only set a limit to his opacity.40 ¶52

Now let us go into the Silence and in the world of Caesar use his law and conceive yourself to be the lady, to be the gentleman that you would like to be. In spite of what the world may think, dare to assume that you are now the one that you want to be. Now let us go.40 ¶53