Call Upon Self

From the tenth chapter of the book of Romans, they ask this question: “And how can men call upon him? And how can they believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by preaching Christ.” Let us take it apart and show you what Paul is trying to say: how can men call upon him in whom they do not believe? So today there are a billion Christians in the world, and some fifteen million Jews, and we have the same God — but do we really call upon him? Do we know this God? How can man call upon him in whom they do not believe? Well, one billion Christians and fifteen million Jews will say, “I do believe in God.” Then how can you say I cannot call upon him? It’s because it’s not the true God — they do not believe in themselves. Man’s faith in God is measured by his confidence in himself, for the self of man is not God. God’s eternal name is I AM — that’s it. So when I use the word God, or I use the word Jehovah, or Lord, or Jesus Christ, and it arouses in you the distinct sense of an existing something outside of self, you have the wrong God, and you have not yet heard from this God — no one has preached it to you. That’s what he’s telling them, and therefore you cannot call upon him — nothing in which you do not believe. So today I may want this, that, or the other — must I pray to God for it? Or can I dare call upon the only true God, which is my own wonderful human imagination? Can I believe in that God? So how can I call upon him in whom I do not believe, and how can I believe in him of whom I have never heard? Or, today you can say to the billion Christians and the fifteen million Jews, they have not heard of that God. And how can I hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? You are not self-appointed. You are drafted. You are called, incorporated into the body of the Risen Lord, and sent. Then you will not preach from a theory — you will preach from your own inner experience, what you’ve experienced about God, and then you can tell it. Therefore faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the preaching of Christ — nothing else.877 ¶1

To preach today, from all the pulpits of the world, that we must become involved, find a way to change society, change the world — that’s not preaching Christ. He said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” Yet today all the pulpits are still simply saying we must become involved in changing society — that’s not preaching Christ.877 ¶2

Let us now turn to the great confession of faith, of the Jewish faith. It is called the Great Commandment. You’ll read it in the sixth chapter, the fourth verse of Deuteronomy, and then it goes on — I’ll quote the fourth and just a little bit of the remaining three. It is here: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is—” Now, what are we told? “Tell it, teach it fervently to your children. When you sit down, when you rise, talk about it. When you walk by the way, talk about it. When you retire at night and rise in the morning, let it be with you. Write it upon your heart. Wear it on your hand, between your eyes — make it a part of you.” Make what a part of you? That the Lord my God, that Lord is one. Now, all translations are really paraphrasing here. “Hear, O Israel” — the Lord, that means I AM. Our God, our I AM, is that one I AM. In the Hebrew text, the first word, which is “you shall hear,” Shema, which means to hear — Shema Israel — the last letter of the word “to hear” is enlarged; in other words, it is larger than the other letters in the word. And the word “one” — that too has a letter larger than the other letters in the word. So the two letters that stand out in the sentence, put them together, it’s ayin-dalet, and ayin-dalet means, in Hebrew, “witness.” They are calling man’s attention to the fact there’s something important here in what is called the Great Commandment: you shall be a witness to this statement, that the Lord our God, the Lord, is one Lord.877 ¶3

Then you are called — and you are called individually — and you are sent to experience the truth of this first and great commandment. So when you are called, you’ll read now the biography — in scripture, one called Jesus Christ. Then you are sent, and you will have that experience — it’s your biography. Then another is called, and he is sent, and he has the identical experience — it is his biography. And the whole vast world, everyone will be called and sent — everyone will have that identical experience. Therefore everyone is that one. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Now preach that — don’t talk about changing the world. Leave Caesar’s world alone, just as it is, and you go only to fulfill scripture. So when he comes into the world — meaning you, the individual — you will say, “For this I was born, for this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Thy word is true, and this is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”877 ¶4

God himself comes into this world, into human history, in the person of Jesus Christ. He not only came, he comes — he is forever coming, the same being coming, for he is buried in everyone in this world. So God himself came, and comes, into human history in the person of Jesus Christ. And then you tell it — that exactly what happened to you is exactly what is claimed in scripture happened to one called Jesus Christ. But now that’s your story — you don’t change your earthly name; you remain John, you remain Jack, you remain Ethel, whatever you are — but you know who you really are. You can tell it to a limited number, but you don’t go and bring it on the crowd; they would not accept it, they would not believe it, because they have their own prefabricated misconception of this eternal story.877 ¶5

So how can man call upon him in whom they do not believe? But I’m asking you to believe in yourself, for the true self of man is Jesus Christ. Before you have the actual experience of Jesus Christ, I am asking you to believe in yourself, for the self of man is Jesus Christ. And before you actually awaken him within you as your very being, you can still call upon him — call upon him and prove to your own satisfaction it is the only one you can really call upon and get results. You can preach now and call upon anything on the outside — you aren’t going to get results. How would you feel if now you were the man that you would like to be? Would it work? We’ll try it. How would you feel now if you had what you’d like to hear? Well, they tried it.877 ¶6

And then he wrote me a letter — I got it this week; he’s here tonight. But she found herself in a very large class, and I was giving the instructions — it was a time of testing. Many of you present tonight were present in her vision — but she was only concerned with her answer to the question. And I came by and gave her a piece of paper and drew a straight line, and the question was this: “What is the most important thing in me?” She said, “That’s easy.” No — I didn’t say what is the most important thing in me — the question is, “What is the most important thing in me?” You contemplate it as though it’s coming from within you; the teacher appeared as coming from without, and he appeared as the teacher — now on the platform. It was never she who was asking the question, never taking the exam — but she was the one, and she had to contemplate this from within herself: what is the most important thing in me? Now she answered, and she wrote in big capital letters: “I AM.” He said, “That’s right — go to the top of the class, straight A.” Then she had a further vision that same night, and everyone had the same theme, I AM. Then she had another one, and she thought her mother was against her getting married, and she was in doubt, and this individual who lifted her up — she rested her head upon his shoulder and she began to weep because she felt that the mother didn’t want her ever to get married. And he said to her, “Your faith is your love.” “Is that right? Your faith is your love.”877 ¶7

Let me give you the last words on the cross. You read them in the Book of Luke: “Into thy hand I commit my spirit.” The completed birth — in the thirty-first Psalm, it happens in this manner: after you make the statement “into thy hands I commit my spirit” comes the words, “thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” These are the words: “Into thy hands I completely commit my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord.” “Thank you, O God” — this is the cross on which he’s crucified. He redeemed me by proving to me that his word is true. “Thy word is true.” He told me I would actually prove to my own satisfaction that we are one — that he and I are one, that he is the father of David, and therefore if he is the father of David, and he and I are one, I must have the satisfaction of knowing I am the father of David. But he tells me, “A son honors his father.” This thing I hear, “Father, where is my honor?” Now you tell me we are one, and now prove to me that we are one — and then David comes, and I know there’s no uncertainty of what I’m seeing and knowing — he is my son. So he proves that first and greatest commandment: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” The I AM we speak of as the Lord Jehovah, and my I AM — there are not two, we are one I AM, and I shall be a witness to it. So he takes the two letters and simply enlarges them, and puts the two letters together, and therefore the word is “witness.” And so I will now be a witness to the truth of his great commandment, that we really are one. “So for this I was born, for this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Thy word is true.”877 ¶8

Do I say God himself not only came, but comes, into human history in the person of Jesus Christ? You come down to the whole story — he only leads things into the world — Jesus Christ, he is the one that is sent. Now he tells you, in the very end, in the previous chapter of the Book of John, “As the father has sent me, even so send I you” — after I return to the father and we are one, you will be brought and you shall stand before me, and I’ll send you into the world, for we are one. And so the one thing is always Jesus Christ — so in the office of the sent, he seems to be less than he really is as the center, but the sender and the sent are one. He is not inferior as to his essential being, only as to the office — that is, but not as to himself, the sender.877 ¶9

So in the end, that Shema, that great confession of faith of the Hebrew, was for all time forever and forever. But man has completely misunderstood it, and they think an Israelite is a descendant of Abraham after the flesh — not so at all. An Israelite is simply the elect, the chosen, of any race of any nation. And when you are called, you are incorporated into the body of the Risen Lord, and then you are, at the moment, one who is sent — that’s Jesus Christ — but you don’t know it yet, and you’ll go through all the suffering that you’ve gone through before. And then you will know: “Was it not necessary for Christ to suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” So what does he ask for, after he has accomplished the work that he was sent to do? He said, “I have finished, I have accomplished the work thou gavest me to do; now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory that I had with thee before the world was” — we were one before, only separated for a purpose. “But we were one before — return unto me the glory that was mine before the world was.”877 ¶10

And now he’s going to send everyone within his world — we are all given a certain number to call when we are sent. And then when the one disappears, he returns to the source, which is the father, and then he calls them one by one, and then they are incorporated into the source, which is himself — he is one with the Risen Lord. And he’s sending them with no promise that they would not suffer, no promise that they will escape anything in the world of Caesar. He didn’t send him to change the world of Caesar and to become involved, as all the preachers of the world today are teaching we must become involved. No — you’re sent to preach Christ, nothing else. But what would it matter if you owned the whole vast world and didn’t know the plan of redemption? What would it matter if you owned everything in this world and knew nothing of the plan of redemption? You know nothing of him that you could call about. “And how can men call upon him in whom they have not believed?” Because they were never told of that one. “And how can they believe in him of whom they have never heard?” They never heard about it. “But how can they hear about it without a preacher, and how can men preach unless they are sent?” Because you can’t make some little ism — as they do all over the world. We have so many isms today, little man-made isms, not based upon anything of the revelation of Christ. They’ll call it Christianity, they’ll call it by this name, that name, the other name — all referring to Christianity, not one knowing anything about Christ. If you dare to remind them that Christ in you is the hope of glory, they say, “Yes, but—” and “but” covers a multitude of nonsense.877 ¶11

Christ in you is the hope of glory — do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless, of course, you fail to meet the test. “Examine yourselves, to see whether you’re holding to the faith.” What faith? Did you hear about it? Do you believe it? Do you believe he is in you, and that with him all things are possible? Well then, call upon him. You can’t now deny that you heard about it. I will tell you, from my own experience: I am sent. And so you are hearing it from one who has been sent to tell you. I will not say I am in this world to teach economics — I know nothing about it, I wasn’t sent to this world to teach anything other than to preach Christ. I danced for a living for eleven years, but I couldn’t teach you one dance step — I’m not a dancer. You do far, far better going to someone else who is an expert. I wasn’t sent to do anything but to preach Christ, and to tell you who he is. And I tell you, he is your own wonderful human imagination. And I tell you, the only Christ of scripture is buried right this very moment in everyone that is seated in this room tonight — completely buried. And he’s going to rise in you, not as another, but rise in you as you, and everything said of him in scripture you are going to experience, and you will know that scripture is all about you. In the role of the book, it is all about me — and what was said of him, instead of “you,” after you’ve had the experience.877 ¶12

Then you will be called, having completed the work, and you’ll be brought into the presence of the most high, and you return to the source. But before — after the disappearance of the one who is talking to you now — you will be called and sent. “As the father sent me into the world, so send I you” — but wait until I go, wait until I disappear, for there’s no place for me to go save back to the source, and I am one with the Risen Lord. I’ll call you one by one, and one by one you will be incorporated into the source. May I tell you, the form of God is a living form, a truly molding form, that fashions the individual he calls into himself, into the likeness of himself. It’s a living, molding form — not just something on the outside. When you enter it, you are molded into the likeness of the being that you fuse with. It’s a molding form. Everyone will be molded into the identical form, and that form is God the Father. So in the end, there is only one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all, and everyone is going to have it.877 ¶13

So I tell you, I will not attempt to tell you anything in this world but Christ. I am a novice when it comes to economics; I am a novice when it comes to politics — just a babe in the woods concerning anything outside of Christ. And so if I ever get off on a limb and try to give you any advice concerning what people ought to do, forget it — that’s all done. When it comes to the story of Christ, I cannot go wrong, for I only speak from experience, not speculating, not theorizing. Let them talk about Christ on the outside, and I simply smile — that is not Christ at all. He came here tonight in the body of everyone who entered this room, and I’m trying to convince you that he’s with you all — to call upon him in the spirit, call upon him under all circumstances. And you can’t deny you’ve heard of him, and you’ve heard of him from the one that he sent. “And so faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes from preaching Christ” — nothing else to talk about. “So the word became flesh, and dwelt” — well, I say “dwells” — “in us, and we behold his glory.” I tell you, it is only beyond the wildest dreams of mortal man, when you see it, what you really are. And one day you will see it, and clothed in that body of glory, everything is transformed into beauty. But everything — you couldn’t go into hell and remain there for one second in disorder, in some unlovely state; everything is completely transformed as you walk by, closed in that garment of glory. So heaven is not a realm, heaven is a party — the body of glory I’m clothed in — no matter where you go, if you make your bed in hell, hell itself becomes heaven. Things long dead burst into flower, the very desert begins to bloom if you walk by, because they cannot remain dead where you are the Living God, the immortal you.877 ¶14

So you came down into the world of death, and you left behind you your blood, but by coming down and being victorious in the world of death, you’re overcoming the entire world of death. You rise from it enhanced beyond your wildest being, by reason of your conflict in the world of death — it was an adventure. I know what a glorious pension. So let no one tell you you did wrong, but do begin to stir yourself and call upon him. Don’t pray to any external God — pray to him. And you pray to him by communing with self. Be still upon your bed and commune with your own heart, your soul, and what you want. Dare to appropriate — dare to actually appropriate the feeling of the wish fulfilled.877 ¶15

Years ago, when I wrote my book, Your Faith Is Your Fortune, in the flyleaf I made this statement, that faith in God is measured by his confidence in himself. Well, it’s gone into many, many printings, but no revision. So the last one that came out — I forget what number that is, and I mentioned it this week — a lady who was present, she hasn’t been back since, said, “Have you revised it?” I said, “No, I see no reason for revision, I wouldn’t change one word of it.” You could add to it, but why add to it? The whole thing is based upon “I AM He” — that’s the entire story of Your Faith Is Your Fortune. So why would I change it? It is simply stating, over and over, page after page, that basic fact, that “I AM” is the only reality — “Hear, O Israel, the I AM, our I AM, that I AM, is one” — as the story of the faith of Israel. So how would I change it, and why should I change it? You could add all kinds of nonsense to it, but the book was written — I would say — in less than forty-eight hours.877 ¶16

It was a very brilliant surgeon in New York City, a brilliant surgeon who became a victim of his own practices, and it was found out he was writing the name of his patients and then actually going to the drugstore himself and filling the order, and he became a victim of heroin, taking his own. And then they caught him, and then they asked me if I would keep him for two weeks in a hotel suite. I said I would. But may I tell you, I hardly slept in those two weeks — he was as mad as mad people could ever be, not violently mad, but mad. I closed my eye for a second, he’s in the hall summoning the street — we lived on the twenty-fourth floor — he was getting the elevator, in the mood, and now he would go to the street — now they’re going to get him. So there I was, completely out of my mind, as they were, from sheer exhaustion, and the words were pouring through me as I wrote that book. On long yellow pages I wrote, word after word, as though being dictated, word after word as it was dictated. When I turned it over for correction, there was little he could find — seven occasional thoughts, why do we not use another word here instead of a repetition of this word — and if I agreed with him, I would change it, but it was practically not necessary to change that book.877 ¶17

When I took it down to Harper’s, they wanted to publish it. They said, “We have an enormous sale of the Bible, and I doubt that this is going to help the sale of the Bible — to put our name to it, they will question our right to publish this book.” And then the head of the department of philosophy said it is unethical, but he would like to publish it himself, and he wondered if they would give him permission. So he got permission from the publisher to publish it himself and use their sales force to sell it. After considering it for another six weeks, he thought that was unethical, because he was the head of the department of religion and philosophy. And then, finally, when they all turned it down, I published it myself. And so it’s gone into, I think, fifteen printings, but no change in the format — I saw no reason for any revision of the book.877 ¶18

So I’m telling you what I know from experience — then I did not know the promise, I only knew the law; that’s all based upon law. But then came the fulfillment of the promise, when he called me in 1929, embraced me, I fused with him, and then he sent me. And then, in the fullness of time, when he sent me to accomplish, unfolded within me — he only sent me to fulfill his word. So, as we are told in the nineteenth of Revelation, he was actually in a robe, and the robe was dipped in blood, and the name by which he was called is the Word of God. He is the living word interpreting the written word. So now you are the living word — he sends you, and you go into the world, and in the fullness of time the written word unfolds within you, becomes a living word, and you know how true the word of God is. So he said, “Thy word is true,” of God. Now his last words for those who followed him, at the very end, he said, “As the father has sent me, even so send I you” — and so they were all brought one by one; and then he is one with the father — not he and the father, he is the father. And then he said, and then in time you become one with the father, and then you will send, and it goes on and on until the whole vast world is redeemed.877 ¶19

So why not preach this — morning, noon, night? But they cannot preach it, because they have not yet been sent — they’re speculating. And this thing that you brought — a moral code, you can bring any moral code — “in him there is no condemnation, in Christ Jesus there is no condemnation.” So you are what you are — he doesn’t try to make you anything other than what you are; he receives you as you are. And this one is something else, receives him just as he is; that one is something else, receives him just as he is. He’s only telling you of the plan of redemption, how, inspired by what you’ve done, what you are doing, and what you are made — this is the plan by which you will return to the source. And in returning to the source, all is forgiven — a call of forgiveness — they know not what they do.877 ¶20

So my friend was perfectly right in answering that question that I asked her: “What is the most important thing about me?” And she contemplated it, and she knew instantly, and then she wrote her answer on the paper in big bold letters: “I AM” — that’s the most important thing about me. I must first be, before I can be anything in this world. For me, not knowing that, the most important thing about me is that I have a million dollars, or that I have a certain wonderful social background, or a certain financial background, or intellectual background, or something else — he takes the thing made in spite of the things that make. Give us the thing made before the maker, and the maker is the only important thing in the world. So “I AM” is the maker — “I AM that I AM,” that’s the maker. So she answered correctly in the class, and she mentioned in her letter to me — a few were here tonight who were present, but she did not know what you wrote down; she only knew what she wrote down on that paper. But it was a test: what is the most important thing about me? She wrote, “I AM.”877 ¶21

When you read it tomorrow, if you read it — and I wish you would read it — and you turn to that tenth chapter of Romans, only a few verses, the fourteenth through the seventeenth, and then read how man cannot call upon him, because they do not believe in him, and then they haven’t heard about it, and then they haven’t — no one who has been sent has informed them, who would talk about him with real intelligence. They can speculate, but they do not know him, or they have not been sent. And then he tells you how it comes — they come through hearing. So in that other letter, you know, to the Galatians, he said, “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” You heard the story, and you accepted it on faith, from one who was sent — for he tells you he was sent, therefore he is telling you he is the Lord Jesus Christ, for only the Lord Jesus Christ is sent. So he tells them, in that same letter to the Galatians, “Did you not accept me as Jesus Christ, and if need be, would you not have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me? Now what has happened to you, who has bewitched you, that now you are turning from the spirit that you heard, and turning to the flesh, and seeing him now as something after the flesh, and not the spirit, of which I told you?”877 ¶22

Well, I tell you, he dwells in you as your own wonderful human imagination — that is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is buried in everyone in the world, and in every one of the world he will rise. And when he rises in a man, that man is transformed, for that man is the one who is rising, and he is the Lord Jesus Christ. Then he will return to himself, the father, and those who heard him, who believed him, who followed him, he will call — in due time he’ll call them, when he is once established as the father, incorporate them into himself, and send them, and they will fulfill scripture, for man is only sent to fulfill the word of God. So do not get away from that foundation stone, which is the Shema: tell it to your children, he said, diligently, and when you awake — that’ll be with you when you sit down, talk about it, when you walk by the way, talk about it, carry it on your heart, between your eyes, write it on your heart, and let it be forever with you — no debate — that there is no other God. “I am the Lord thy God.” “I AM.” Nobody sent you — “I AM. I AM has sent me to you.” There is no other being.877 ¶23

Now tonight, you’ll doubtless want something — nothing wrong with that. Call upon him, but the true one — don’t ask any being on the outside. Call upon him, and he is your own wonderful human imagination. Well, how do I call upon my imagination to get a better job, or an increase of funds? By daring to assume that I have it — I assume that I am already the man that I would be, and fall asleep in that assumption, and rise tomorrow in the same assumption. That which I formerly desired to be, I no longer desire, because I am it, and then I walk in it. In the fullness of time, they project themselves on the screen of space, and I become — and you will not have to violate any of your code, may I tell you — not one of your wonderful ethical codes by which you live do you have to violate; it will all come into your world just as I’m telling you, because he is in control of everything.877 ¶24

Another lady wrote me once, she said, “I was in this huge, huge place, at the back of the room there was a man, and I knew that years, years, ages and ages ago I loved him, and he loved me — I knew it. But in the interval I had gone into other fields, other loves. And then came this return of memory, and he haunted me, and I knew that he was in control of all the actions of everyone in that room, and everyone that I’ve ever encountered. And I came to the end, and I knew he was the one I originally loved. Now I still love him, and I couldn’t get away from his love, and yet I’ve gone through all these things to return to the original love, and here was this man controlling everything in my world, and I return to my original love.” What a wonderful, wonderful vision — a true vision. Well, that’s true of every one of us — we go into the world, sent into the world, before the true sending we depart from our love and go through hell, go through all the things of the world, then comes that moment when he calls us back, and then he embraces — he’s really true love — and then you send it to fulfill now what he was playing in the beginning, and you go and you fulfill it, and now you ask him to return unto you the glory that was yours before there was one — the glory that you had with him before the world was — and he returns it, because you and he are one.877 ¶25

So when you read about the Word, does anyone tell you of something on the outside of you? “The Word became flesh, and dwells in us” — walking among us, he dwells in us, and that being in you, you can call by any other name, but if you call it by any name that causes you to have a sense of an existing something outside of you, then that name is not the name. You’ve got to get to the point where it is only you that you can call upon. You can call upon any being in the world, but only the true Lord — and that true Lord is your own wonderful human imagination. That’s what I’m trying to get over, night after night, to anyone who will hear.877 ¶26

I know, years ago, my wife said to me, before I had the promise revealed to me, before I had experienced that — I was only working on the law — and she said, “You know, the one unfortunate thing about you is that you don’t have faith in anyone but yourself.” Well, she was perfectly right. And then my dancing partner, when she knew that Bill and I would get married, she said, “I hope she understands that you’re always reading the Bible.” I hope she could take that, because my dancing partner couldn’t take that interest in the Bible, because — to encourage him — she said, “You’d better brush yourself up on things like the Bible if you want to really know what you are; dress yourself up like the Bible” — because then she would examine me. But long before that she said, “Well, you have no faith in anyone but yourself,” and she was perfectly right. I could not turn to the left or the right, because I knew I had found him, and he was my own consciousness, my I AM, and I could not turn to anything on the outside.877 ¶27

And then came that wonderful blessing of blessings, when his information, which I didn’t understand, came into birth, and then the whole thing unfolded within me. And then I realized that the book was all about me — it’s my biography — and that Jesus Christ not only came, but he comes into human history in the person of Jesus Christ, though your name is John, or Mary, or Jan, or whatever these names are, but he comes into your personal history. But in the person of Jesus Christ, it’s God himself who came, and who is coming, and he continues to come into human history in the person of Jesus Christ. So they’re waiting for him to come — they’ll wait forever if they look for him on the outside. He can only come to the individual, and Jesus Christ comes to us as one unknown.877 ¶28