Apostle

Tonight’s subject is “An Apostle.” I really should have said The Apostle, but we let it go. In the epistle to the Hebrews we have this statement…and here Hebrews is completely anonymous, no one knows who wrote it. Scholars have speculated and thought it was Paul, and yet Paul is just as anonymous as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John…the whole Bible is anonymous. But in the epistle to the Hebrews, the 3rd chapter, he said, “Holy brethren, who share in a heavenly call, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession” . In this epistle the word apostle is applied only to Jesus, as if there were no other apostles. May I tell you, he’s right…whoever wrote it, he’s right. The word apostle means “one who is sent, not as a mere envoy but as one who is authorized to speak in the name of him who has sent him.” So throughout the gospel of John you read, “He who sees me sees him who has sent me” . Here we find the apostle. Without explaining why, we say just Paul, as though he were a person. Paul is a state as much as Abraham is a state. Well, we say Paul, and he lays it down as an indispensable qualification for apostleship, that is, to have seen the risen Christ. He said, “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” . That is the indispensable prerequisite for apostleship, to have seen the risen Christ.914 ¶1

So we read in the 52nd of Isaiah, “How beautiful are the mountains…how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns,’” because he speaks with authority. He stood in the presence of the risen Christ, and he was embraced and incorporated into the body of the risen Christ, who is Jehovah, and sent to tell the story of the risen Christ, called the gospel. The gospel is the Word of the risen Christ.914 ¶2

Here, this is the perspective in which the whole of life is understood. That you become a king, a financial giant, a brilliant person, a great scientist? These things mean nothing compared to standing in the presence of the risen Christ and having him embrace you and incorporate you. And although you come to earth clothed in a garment of flesh, no one sees you, but no one. There is no human eye that can see the thing that your really are. Because when you are once incorporated into his body let no man put us asunder. He who is joined to the Lord no man can put asunder. We are called, one by one, to be incorporated into this glorious body, and our lowly bodies are changed to be of one form with that wonderful, glorious body . You can talk about it and say all kinds of things, but who can see it?914 ¶3

So here, the apostle is simply the one man; and so in Hebrews it is only given to Jesus. It’s so difficult for man to believe that all could fit into one man, that we’re gathered one by one to be incorporated into one man, and that one man is Christ the Lord, and one man, Jesus. This is a strange, peculiar thing, but I’m telling you what I know from experience. I’m not speculating, I’m not theorizing…I tell you exactly what happened to me.914 ¶4

Thirty years before the birth from above, it was 1929, and we are told, two were in the field and one is taken, one is left. Two women in the mill and one is taken and one is left . Do not return to ask why. No one knows the secret of God’s elective love. All will be called, but the order in which they are called remains his secret. No one knows why we are called as we are called, in the order in which we are called. And so here it was in the summer of 1929, I was called, taken in Spirit into the presence of the risen Christ, answering a very simple question—because the answer was before you, you couldn’t fail—and having answered his simple question he embraced me. As he embraced me we fused. I was no longer this body; I am this body, this human form divine, the body of love. From it I can’t be sundered. There is no power in the world…I wouldn’t limit it to the earth…there’s no power in eternity that can sunder me from the body of Christ, for I have been incorporated into this body. Then he sent me into this world with the words, “Time to act!” It took thirty years and then the whole drama began to unfold within me.914 ¶5

So we are told in the end of the 3rd chapter of Luke, “Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age” …after the baptism with the Holy Spirit. For you are told, “I baptize with water, but there will come one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. He is the one on whom the dove will descend, that is, the Holy Spirit will descend. And I saw the Spirit descend upon him as a dove, and it remained upon him. He will baptize you with the holy Spirit” . In other words, he will baptize you with himself. Just as you are baptized in water, but you come out of the water, you’re not part of it. But when you are baptized with the Holy Spirit, you are actually absorbed into the body of the risen Christ. You don’t come out of it. So he who sees me sees him who sent me. But you don’t see me you see the mask I wear. So that moment on…but I wasn’t yet born from above. Yet I was baptized into it.914 ¶6

And so it takes thirty years between the baptismal by the Holy Spirit and the beginning. It takes three and a half years for the unfolding of the drama. It begins with the resurrection. So we are told, “I, Paul, an apostle, not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised me from the dead.” That’s the first book. Not chronologically speaking, but by all judgment, all scholars agree this is the first book written in the New Testament: It is Paul’s letter to the Galatians. He begins it, “Paul an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead” . So he raises every one of us, because Jesus Christ is in man. If he were not in us, we couldn’t breathe, you’d have no life, for in him is life. Are you alive? Well, then you couldn’t possibly be alive were he not in you. So he raises you into the presence of the risen Christ and embraces, really, himself, for there is nothing but Jesus Christ buried in all these garments of flesh.914 ¶7

Now here this past week I received a lovely letter. She isn’t here tonight, but you can tell her. No, she is here, pardon me. She had this experience. This is all in a dream but remember, God speaks to man through the medium of dream. She’s in her home, the house is lit, and someone announces, “Come.” And she wonders, “Why should I come?” and he gave some vague explanation why she should come. So she went out into the street and the whole street is dark, not a light in sight, all the houses were dark. There’s not a street light.914 ¶8

So she goes to the intersection. All the houses now begin to be empty of people, and they all look like puppets. Their eyes are closed, and she could see behind and here was the emptiness behind the closed eyes. It was a cold night, she had no hat or coat and she felt comfortably warm. They came out completely bundled up, hats, scarves, coats, everything, and all in gray, and they themselves seemed gray. They looked just like puppets. And so at the intersection where she remained they all began to move up what she called a hill, really a steep street, from what she described in her letter. At the top of the hill, she began to separate herself from them, and she felt sorry for them, these strange, peculiar dead-like people. At the top was a man that she remembered in a previous dream. There was a light over his head and he spoke with tremendous authority. He had a head of hair that resembled a mane of a lion, only the top was cropped, very shortly cropped across the top. But it was cut in something like a lion’s mane. He said to all these people, “I will call each person’s name three times. If you cannot answer when I ask you for your name, you must remain with the group.” Well, it seemed like the height of nonsense. So he called the name of each and no one could answer. They were bewildered.914 ¶9

And she tried her best to tell them; she couldn’t voice it and she tried her very best. She said, “It’ so simple, only two little words.” But she couldn’t in any way convey to them what they should say, she couldn’t, and she knew she couldn’t. But she felt so sorry for all these puppets. They could not give voice to their name, and he called it three times to each one. And then, as the scene faded, feeling sorry for the entire bunch, she went up the street to the first house, and she entered it…and here was a receptionist, she was busy about something. And she was terribly concerned about these people and she wondered, “Where are they?” The receptionist, in the most cold, indifferent manner said, “Oh, they’re in that house up the street asleep.” She asked, “If they are asleep, why did you call them out? Why were they called out?” and the receptionist said, “It’s not their house. They are only in it, but it’s not their house”…a complete cold indifference about this. She knew that they were sound asleep in this place, and not a thing she could do about it. So she came out of this house, returned to her own home, and here was the light lit in her house. It was the only house lit in the entire street…and not a street light.914 ¶10

What a wonderful experience! It’s so difficult to tell man in whom the light is not yet lit; but everyone here, Christ is sleeping in us, everyone. So you are not quite the puppet that she saw. Well, that is life. But in everyone here he’s waking, waking, waking…on the verge of waking where the light is lit. One will come out and see the entire world round about and it’s dead. It’s a strange thing to say, but it really is. “Eternity exists and all things in eternity independent of Creation, which was an act of mercy.” No reason in the world why this thing here should be awakened as God, none. Only an act of mercy could do it.914 ¶11

And to do it, God buried himself within me and took upon himself this form, the form of a slave. He slept and shared with me then as he made me alive horrible dreams, nightmares, horrors, the wars, the conflicts of the world. Then one day he awakes and calls me into his risen state, and embraces me, and sends me back to experience thirty years later the drama as foretold in the gospel: The resurrection, the birth; the discovery of the fatherhood of God through his son calling me Father; then the tearing of the curtain of the temple, which is my body, and lifting me up into Zion; and then the descent of the dove upon me. But in the meanwhile, surrounding me with all kinds of signs and wonders, all kinds of heavenly visions, wonderful visions, and all related to scripture. Not necessarily part of these great four…these great four stand out of them all…but there are others not recoded in scripture that will come to you, and you’ll experience them.914 ¶12

So when you are sent, you are in the eyes of the world if they will accept it, an apostle. And yet, there is only the apostle. God only sends himself, he can’t send another. After you are incorporated into his body and sent, how could he send another when you cannot be sundered from that body of love? You can’t be separated from the body of the risen Christ after you have been called and embraced and incorporated into the body of Christ. So, “How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of him who brings good news, good tidings, publishes salvation, and says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’” So I can say to Zion, the whole vast world: Your God reigns, he is raised, he’s resurrected, and he is gathering us all, one by one, into his body. So in the end, “There is only one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all” .914 ¶13

So in the end, there is only one God, one name, one king, all gathered, and you are he. Not some little thing down on the lower level, but one. There is no one who is outcast…but we are gathered. The secret remains the secret of the risen Christ. When this little garment is taken off for the last time, which is the next time I take it off, I will know the secret of the call, because I am one then, not veiled, but unveiled with the risen Christ. But that secret remains his secret. No one here while he still remains veiled though he’s been called and incorporated, he does not know the secret of the order in which we are called. So I can’t tell anyone that you’re going to be called next or you are next. I can only tell you from your visions and your experiences.914 ¶14

Now another friend of mine who is here tonight, he said that many, many years ago, approximately ten years ago, he was driving a car and suddenly there was nothing but light. He said, “I can’t say there was light and myself, no, just light…and infinity falling in little, little kinds of light, all light falling. What I saw falling…the other night when you spoke of the serpent, of these diamond-headed serpents and trailing the little vertebrae, I didn’t see that. To me the head was a grain and then a tadpole like tail. But everything was light, nothing but light. I heard and knew within me, ‘All is one.’ Then I became aware that, after all, I am driving a car…and there’s going to be a ditch…and how will I turn off? By some reflex action I simply stopped the car, and the light subsided. As the cars went by, angry looks on the people as they passed me. Then I said to them, whether I shouted it audibly or not, I did say to them, everything’s all right! and I knew everything was all right, in spite of their angry looks as they looked at me. By some reflex action I stopped it, stopped the car. But everything was light.”914 ¶15

May I tell him, he’s here tonight, you can, you can do it now, but it’s better during the day. I can do it any time, day or night. But tomorrow go to the window and don’t look at the building across, don’t look at the sky, just look into space. Not an object in space but something in space and you’ll see infinity falling, these little, as you called them, tadpoles. They do look like tadpoles until you arrest one. You can arrest it. You arrest one and you’ll see exactly what I’ve told you, a diamond head trailing a perfect vertebra. You can hold him as long as you want. And you say they were not liquid. No, they are not liquid but they’re moving, or they appear to move in a fluid. They appear to be in a fluid, just like little tiny fish in a bowl, and you see their motion. They move in the same way. You say tadpole? It is just like a tadpole moving. But you can arrest one or you can arrest a dozen. So pick one…follow him quickly. Because he makes a peculiar dart, you think you can’t follow him but you can. He goes in all directions. Well, pick one and hold him. Leave all the other millions alone. There are millions. You can’t count them. Take one and follow him. He seems to go out of sight for a moment, don’t let him go. Hold him in your mind’s eye. He’ll stop, as you arrest him he’ll stop, and you’ll see exactly what I tell you, a little diamond head, brilliant diamond, and he’s actually trailing a vertebrae.914 ¶16

So I say to you, you said you were partly illumined, you feel you were, I tell you you were. That happened to me and it came through light back in 1926 in the city of Larchmont in New York. I retired early. It was Prohibition days…I wasn’t drinking in those days…I went to bed quite early. I was reading a book, The Life of Buddha, and as I read The Life of Buddha I must have fallen asleep, and the book fell on my chest. A thing I rarely do is read in bed. When I go to bed, I go to bed for the purpose of sleeping. But this night I was told by my host, who was the manager of the club, that he didn’t think it wise for me, his guest, to join the members and the children of the members of the club; that they did not like it because after all he was employed by the club, and I was his guest, and I should not mingle with the members of the club. And so I did not go down. I remained upstairs in my room and took this book and I was reading it. In 1926 I was twenty-one years of age. I had the bed light on, and the whole thing fell upon my chest, because when I woke the next morning it was nine. I was in a trance from possible nine at night to nine in the morning. I hadn’t moved. Usually when I sleep I turn side to side as we all do in the course of the night. But this night, the bed was completely, I would say, unwrinkled twelve hours later. I hadn’t moved. I was reading…at some moment it fell upon my chest, and as it fell there I went into a trance.914 ¶17

In this trance there was nothing but light, infinite light—no stars, no moon, nothing but light, and I am light. I am all there is in the entire universe, and I am light. So when you read in John, “I am the light of the world” , that is not conjured through reasoning, it is not the result of some philosophic contemplation, it’s revelation. It happened. So I can say to him, you were at that moment illumined…driving down, and suddenly everything is light. And when you told the passersby, “Everything is alright…all is light…and all is one” you’re right. All is one. So don’t be concerned, you actually saw it.914 ¶18

Now he asked me, “Please,” said he, “I used to be called one of the most responsible men imaginable. I was brought up to do things and to hold my own, and to do and be responsible. I think I am a doer and I am responsible, but recently I think I’ve become a little bit irresponsible, because all of my values with which I was raised have crumbled. You said in one of your books that when all of the things you held so precious and so dear collapse around you…then you led them to the scriptures.” Which you can, you can find it, the 13th chapter, I think it’s the 13th of Mark, which shows you the whole thing crumbled about you . And he said, “Here, I feel myself irresponsible, because today I don’t think I have to do anything to achieve my objective. Now that is not something I was raised to do. I had to work, I had to do, I had to actually do things. Now here all of a sudden having proved this law I feel that I don’t have to do as I was raised to do. I don’t feel that I have to work as I was raised to work. I feel I can actually bring these things to pass, and it’s the most cleansing feeling, so free,” he tells me in this letter. “Please explain some night when it suits you, what is man’s duty, what is his responsibility; and is this something more than you’ve said in the past, that whenever you use your Imagination lovingly on behalf of another you are mediating God to man, and that is what we should do? And please, if it is something other than that explain it, and if there isn’t, well, then let it go.”914 ¶19

May I tell you, you know the law. I’m speaking to him; I’m speaking to all of you. What must I do to be doing the will of God? That question is asked and the answer is, “Believe in him whom he has sent” . Believe in him. Believe in Neville? No, believe in him whom he has sent. You read it in the gospel. What do I read in the gospel? “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it and you will” . That’s doing the will of God if you believe it and apply it. You mean I do nothing? Well, just try it. That’s doing the will of God.914 ¶20

If today someone gets a fortune and it comes out of the nowhere, not one person knowing the source of the fortune because he had the fortune says, “Oh, you know who we saw today? [...] very rich person, and so and so.” So they go through the world looking upon all these people who have things and they don’t trace it as to where they got it. Our present governor of…is it Arkansas?…Winthrop Rockefeller, and someone said in the campaign against him he was born rich and he does not understand the poor, doesn’t know anything about the poor. He said in rebuttal, “I have had nothing to do with either of them. I was born rich. I didn’t know a thing about it. I’ve never known poverty. I’ve had nothing to do with that either. So are you going to condemn me because I was born rich and because I have never really known poverty?” So they elected him to the governorship. He never knew it…so he is born rich.914 ¶21

But may I tell you, that pales into insignificance compared to what you inherit: You inherit the creative power of God! Not a billion dollars or the city of Los Angeles, that’s nothing! Or the earth itself, that’s nothing. You inherit the creative power and the wisdom of God. That’s your inheritance. Well now, God speaks to me objectively through his written Word. And no one knows the authors, really, it is all God. Whatever you desire, believe you have received it and you will. Now must I go about the old training, saying I’ve got to do something and work for it?914 ¶22

The money that I have today, did I really work for it? I earn, the little that I do earn, and it’s barely expenses compared to my expenses. Every night I come here that it rains and just a few people come, the club doesn’t tell me, “You know, only a few came last night, therefore, we’re going to give you a refund.” I pay my rent in advance, and, may I tell you, it’s a considerable rent. It’s all paid in advance. I put it out. The L. A. Times when they send me the bill they give me an ad, but they send me a bill and I must pay it. I send out notices, 1500 notices. I go to the post office and buy the envelopes and the stamps. That’s all paid for whether you come or not. But the money that I have, may I tell you, I didn’t do anything to earn, didn’t raise a finger. My father gave it to me, and it grows and grows like a lovely, wonderful fortune. My only satisfaction is that I have a little family to whom I would willingly tomorrow give it. If I go this night, I go relieved that they don’t have any pressure, none whatsoever. It’s adequate, more than adequate to take care of all of their earthly needs that money can supply.914 ¶23

Money can’t supply everything in this world. It can’t buy friendship, can’t buy understanding. It can’t buy all the real things in this world…it can’t buy them at all. How can it buy artistry? How can it buy all the lovely things in the world? If all the Rockefellers in the world came together, and put them in the forts, and put them in all the wealth of the world, and put them into a composite picture, and you stand in here, they could not together buy what I have received standing in the presence of the risen Christ. What money in this world would you need to buy the embrace of Christ and to be incorporated into his body, forever and forever, never again to be sundered from it? Is there any wealth in this world that could actually come near? You can’t buy that. So you see there’s so much that money cannot buy. Now, they would not be interested in what I’m telling you tonight. They would be so far removed from what I tell you concerning this night, the real realm.914 ¶24

And yet on the earthly realm I didn’t raise one finger to get it. I had it. I did not work another hour in my life to live and live graciously, with any home I want, in any part of the Sterling area, with a full complement of servants. I can afford it and not in any way reduce my way of living, in fact, augmenting it. But I don’t touch it. I live normally in this world from here.914 ¶25

So I say to this gentleman, what is one’s duty? What is one’s responsibility? “Believe in him whom he has sent”…that is your duty. To go out in one grand manner and dare to assume that you are the man that you want to be…just let it happen. Just let it happen. It will happen if you dare to live in the assumption that things are as you desire them to be. So that is my advice to all. If it seems insane, may I tell you it isn’t.914 ¶26

The greatest…or one of the great visionaries of the world, William Blake, they thought him insane, too. He wasn’t insane. The other day I was reading one of his…some little comment on him, and they thought the man insane because of his pictures. I have a lovely collection of his pictures at home, so I was going through these pictures what they called the insane ones and, oh, if they only knew how true they are! I told you the other day that we’re all rooted in hell, the region of fear, and we aspire to heaven, the realm of hope, and when these two are synchronized it results in vision. Well, Blake in his Gates of Paradise, the 13th plate, here is obviously someone that’s dead. You don’t see the face. You see the feet and you see what, undoubtedly, is the body on the bed and there are two figures at the head, concealing the face, you can’t see the face. One is fear and one is just full of hope on the two sides next to the head. Then at the foot of the bed but rising is the Ancient of Days. He calls it, Fear and Hope Equals Vision. But in the actual words that he uses to describe this particular plate, he uses just two little lines of twelve words: “But when once I did descry the Immortal Man that cannot die.”914 ¶27

The same man rises out of that, so he hid the face, because you will think your father died, your mother died, your child died, you’re going to see that image. No, you’re going to see Christ rise…there’s only Christ. There’s nothing but Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ is God. So you think you’re going to find some little thing there rising out just like him? No. So he conceals the face of the dead little garment. But who is the one? He comes nearer than anything that I have seen, for when I stood in the presence of the risen Christ, it’s not like that…it’s more glorious. Because you can’t paint it and you can’t draw it but he comes very close. But it’s not like that. And here rising from this dead garment is the Ancient of Days. When anyone dies, who rises?—the Ancient of Days. It was God who became man that man may become God, and his name is I AM. So you say, “Well, I am” and you drop all the other little garments because I AM is rising. Nothing dies, but nothing in eternity dies. But it has to be awakened. He’s sound asleep in all, and wakes one after the other, in this one, that one, the other one, and he awakens in all.914 ¶28

So the apostle is the one who has been embraced by him, incorporated into his body and sent. To be called implies to be sent. And you’re called one by one. I hadn’t the slightest idea in 1929, unschooled, unknown, uneducated, and sleeping in that little tiny room, not knowing where the next week’s rent would come from, not knowing anything…and to be called. Called out of the nowhere and there are billions in the world and I am called. So no one knows the actual secret of his elective love, it remains his secret. Read the 15th chapter of Corinthians—the order no one knows. But we are called in our own order.914 ¶29

So here, I thank the gentleman for his wonderful letter; and the lady for hers, a wonderful dream, it’s a true dream, and the experience is true. I can’t tell you what my thrill is to get your letters, for they’re all, really, coming to the surface of the awakening God. I can’t conceive of anyone coming here and coming over the months who is not on the verge of waking. I was not sent by some man. I wasn’t sent by some organization.914 ¶30

When you read in the papers that these people call themselves apostles…an apostle, as someone said in a certain …I would not call the name of the church, it’s a large church, almost three million members, and they have their twelve appointed by men. If you want to become president to that large group, all you have to do is live long enough to outlive the others. They call that apostles. And they actually claim that no one else but that very small little group of less than three million are eligible for the kingdom, and all converts are simply to much lower strata. What nonsense! And here they aspire to the highest secular office in our world…the strangest, peculiar thing. But what peculiar visions they seem to have…so unlike the gospel.914 ¶31

May I tell you, when he’s sent, you will know it. He will come for one purpose: An apostle is sent to witness to the Word of God. He can only witness if he experiences the Word of God. So he is sent, and he is bewildered. As you’re told in scripture, Paul was bewildered because he thought himself so unworthy…he persecuted. So he and everyone in the world you go berserk, you don’t believe in him, and then you turn completely around. You’re an atheist, you’re agnostic, you’re everything, and finally you’re called. Then everything you tried to rub out you will now protect with your life, and willingly sacrifice your life to not only protect what formerly you would have destroyed but to promote it. His whole life was devoted to the promotion of the very faith that he would have destroyed. Having gone through all the states of the world you reach that point…all of a sudden you’re called.914 ¶32

So don’t condemn anyone who tonight might think they are agnostic or they are atheist or they are this, forget it. They may be called tomorrow. After you’re called, what can you do? You’re bewildered. You never once believed that the risen Christ was a fact; that Christ is God, and God is man. You stand in the presence of the risen Christ and it’s man. It’s not some impersonal force, it’s man, and it’s nothing but love. He embraces you, then sends you. And you know that you cannot in eternity be sundered from that body of the risen Christ; it’s your body now. At that moment of the embrace your lowly body was changed to be one form with his glorious body.914 ¶33

No mortal eye can see him, so the longing is always, as Paul said, I long to depart and be with Christ—that wonderful form into which he was incorporated—but for your sakes, said he, the need is far greater that I stay on in the body. And when you stay on in the body, you only talk about the risen Christ and the gospel.914 ¶34

Now let us go into the Silence.914 ¶35

* * * [...] on Friday. I think we have four left before we close on the 16th of December. We’ll be closed until the 13th of February, and then we go through to the end, or the last week, I would say, of April; and then we are off until September. So we have four lectures left. Friday is the next, then we have two the following week, and then one our last week. So I hope I’ll be able to send out cards when I come back during the Christmas holiday, but remember the date if you are going to come between now and closing. We are reopening on the 13th of February; we’re closing here on the 16 of December. Good night. Thank you.914 ¶36