Foundation Stone

I think he was flying tonight, a very interesting one. Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians, “There is no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” There is no other foundation, and you read that and you wonder, what is he talking about? May I tell you, it’s just like saying there is no other foundation other than God and his son, for Jesus is the Lord and Christ is the son of the Lord, as it tells us in Revelation: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.” So “Jesus Christ” is, you see, the Father-Son relationship. So no other foundation, because any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.1164 ¶1

Now he tells us, do you not realize that Jesus Christ is within you? Now, in the scripture you will find a strange reversal of order. The normal order would be that birth precedes death — you were born and you’re moving towards the inevitable, which is death. But the Bible reverses it, and death precedes birth. And he tells us in his next letter to the Corinthians, we’re always carrying with us the death of Jesus in our body, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies.1164 ¶2

Now wait, this thing is going off, hasn’t it? You can’t hear me? But that all of a sudden that resistance is gone. Oh well, if you can hear me all right, I do not know how to do these things. I don’t know what the whole thing something to me right now, suddenly a window, however, better now. No, probably all right. All right, pretty all right.1164 ¶3

So let me go back and tell — at that point we’re always carrying with us the death of Jesus in our bodies, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. Now we are told a story in scripture: unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit. It must die in order to be made alive. Blake, in his wonderful poem of Jerusalem, said — unless I die, speaking now, and these are the words of the Lord speaking — unless I die, thou canst not live, but if I die I shall arise again, and thou with me. So God dies. He is within us, and we are carrying his death within our body, and he remains in the grave until he awakes within us, and when he awakes within us we awake as the Lord. So the foundation stone is Jesus Christ, and you cannot add any other foundation stone; there is no other foundation stone. Jesus being the Lord and Christ being his son. His son is David, and Jesus is your own wonderful I-AM-ness. When you say “I am,” that’s the Lord Jesus, and Christ is his son, who bears witness to the Father.1164 ¶4

The Father died, but the son also died, and then he sends his son into the world. You are acting in the world as John, as Jen, as Bill, as Philip, or anything — you do not know that that is the son in action. In the end the son will return a victor to his father, for whom he has undergone the entire adventure. How? When he stands before you, the severed head of the enemy of Israel is placed before his father. That was the father’s command to the son, and David returned with the severed head of the giant, and here the father looks at it and knows that David has fulfilled his will. So we are told, “I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my own heart, who will do all my will.” And Jesse means “Jehovah exists” — Jehovah means the self-existent, the eternal. The eternal is I AM. There is the son of I AM, and he stands before you, and here is the enormous head severed from the body that David brings and presents to his father, and that father knows his son has fulfilled his will. And that together is Jesus Christ. That relationship is in every child born of woman, and until it’s completely fulfilled the journey isn’t over. It is something that is completely imposed upon man, and when the individual fulfills the conditions imposed upon him, that individual is, in biblical terms, called righteous.1164 ¶5

And righteous is the crown, and Paul says, “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness,” for he said prior to this, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.” So, “Righteous Father, let them at last know that all is true that I have told them, that thou didst send me, that they may know that thou sent me, and that the name that I gave for thee is not mere poetry but fact.” And I gave you the name: his name is Father. It is Father, but you do not know — you are the Father — not until the son reveals you. And when you look at the son and know he is your son, then you will know you are the Father, and that son is David, and Jesus is the Father. “He who sees me has seen the Father.” How then, when you ask me to show you the Father — “I and the Father are one.” But now, in the office of the Son, I seem to be inferior to myself descended. So I will say, “I and my Father are one,” but “my Father is greater than I,” because in the office of the Son I am the Son, where I am both the Son and the center — I am returning to myself descended. And so I leave the world and go back to my Father. “But I and my Father are one,” having completed the work that my Father gave me to do. Now I return as the Father. This is a mystery, but a mystery is not a matter to be kept secret; it is a truth that is mysterious in character.1164 ¶6

Well, let me share with you an experience of a friend of mine who was here tonight, and the one of whom she speaks is here tonight — I will take the one of whom she speaks next Monday, that is her story. But the one who actually had this experience said, “When I gave this huge party and this lady was the honored guest, as I went up to her she was dressed in this lovely gown, in sort of a purple and she wore on her head a golden crown, and I said to her, ‘Why, that is exactly like mine,’ and she took off her crown and gave it to me. I could come and see, and I took her into a dressing room, and there on the dressing table was the little figurine, not more than four or six inches tall, with the same holes — that carved onyx, there was a white onyx — and there was the little prong that she took off her hair, that a big crown suddenly turned into something not bigger than a ring, and on the head of this little figurine was that identical golden crown, and it was my figurine and it was my crown. I took off my crown and placed hers on it, and I said to her, ‘You see, it is exactly the same crown.’” Now, she says, “I cannot tell whether I’ve replaced her crown or my crown on it — I only know it was the identical crown.”1164 ¶7

So Paul, in making the statement he does, does not say “a crown” — he uses the definite article: “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.” There’s only one crown, and all will wear it when the son returns from that condition imposed upon him, to destroy all gods other than the God. So any belief in a god outside of your own wonderful human imagination, your own wonderful I AM — that’s the false god. So David brings down all the false gods. So when he goes to face the great Goliath, and Saul will put upon him all the armaments of man, he said, “I cannot wear these, I’m not accustomed to these,” and he goes only with the Spirit of the Lord. He said, “I come in the name of the God of Israel” — no other gods would he wear. And then he brings down the giant, and takes the giant’s sword, and severs his head, and brings the head back. Then he stands before Saul, and here is that enormous head.1164 ¶8

And may I tell you, that is literally true in spirit, for when I saw him — and he stood before me, here before me — was it the enormous head of the giant, completely severed from its body, and here is my son David leaning against the door, an open door. They let out — it is the most beautiful pastoral scene, and here was David leaning against it, and the head before him, and I am looking at my son, just drinking in his beauty and looking at the accomplished fact that my son had completed — that man — to do my will. And my will was to destroy all the enemies of Israel, and he brought back their head, which symbolized all the false gods of the world.1164 ¶9

The day will come, you’re going to have this experience. Browning — whether he actually had the experience or was inspired by the sixteenth chapter and the seventeenth chapter of the first book of Samuel — but he wrote a poem called “Saul.” It is the story of David telling Saul about the coming of Messiah, and David’s change before Saul. And he said also, of faith: “Like my face shall receive thee, a mane, light to thee shall love and be loved by thee forever. A hand like this hand shall throw open the doors of new life to thee — see the Christ stand!” And David is looking into the face of Saul and telling Saul, who was demented, “Look at me and see the Christ stand.” But Saul had not yet been transformed. You and I are so, before we meet David and know he is the Christ — he is our son, and it takes the son to reveal us as God the Father. So the whole vast world is King Saul, in a state — well, is demented — because he’s forgotten who he is; he is suffering from amnesia, as all of us are, until that moment in time when the journey is over and David stands before us and reveals us as God the Father.1164 ¶10

So Paul is right: no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit, and who is the Christ? The Son of the Living God, the son of the Lord. So if he is Father, then there is a son. I thought, “there’s a son — where is that son?” I will tell — of the decree of the Lord, he said unto me, “Thou art my son, today have I begotten thee.” To whom did he speak? He spoke to David, and David stands before you. In the end of the journey, when you were born, the burden — the allotted span — at the very end these exposures will take place within your own wonderful skull, for the drama began in the great skull, the human skull, and it will come to its climax and its fulfillment in the great sepulchre.1164 ¶11

The whole thing is within the skull of man, and this is the dream of life, and you and I are dreaming it. It is God in man dreaming the dream of life, and the son is executing the dream. So the son goes through hell in this world, he’s put through all the furnaces of affliction, but he always obeyed the Father’s will: “I have found in David a man after my own heart, who will do all my will,” and he is the son of the self-existent, the Living God, called in scripture Jesse, which means “Jehovah exists.”1164 ¶12

And one day you’re going to have it, and when it happens to you — I mean, I tell you, so many within the sphere are happening now, it’s all coming up, like my friend’s story of the crown — it’s happened to her, the one of whom she speaks, it has happened to her, many are happening, and suddenly it will happen in many, like a hatching-out phase. The hen lays eggs over a period of time, but when the time of hatching comes, they all hatch out within a matter of the same day, yet it took her days to gather her nest together. And so she puts down a dozen, or maybe two dozen eggs if she’s big enough for it, and then but don’t wait for any twenty-one days where it took her to gather them together — no, in one twenty-four hours they all break and come out, yet they were all laid at different times.1164 ¶13

So here, in this glorious story, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit.” And so God died — God literally dies in becoming man, and man is his sepulchre, and he so becomes man that he actually unites with man, and man thinks that he is alone and that no one cares, and yet the one who was suffering all the time is the God in him, and his son who is doing all the work.1164 ¶14

So in the fourteenth Psalm and the fifty-third Psalm, “The fool says in his heart, there is no God.” Blake answers that — “nor son of God, that does of human imagination whole; design, body, are all a delusion. But I know thee, O Lord, then thou arisest upon my very eyes, even in this dungeon and this iron chain, thou also sufferest with me, although I be bound.” And then the divine voice answers, “Fear not, I am with thee always, only believe in me, that I have power to raise from death thy brother who sleepeth in Albion.” O trembling shade! So here man is — so he never leaves; he can’t leave you, because your very breath is the Spirit of God. Your awareness is God. Your wonderful, glorious human imagination, that is God, that is the divine body of the Lord Jesus.1164 ¶15

Now you are allowed to misuse it, if you will, as you do. He forgives you for all the misuse, but his son executes — the misuse. So you misuse it, and the son fulfills the order, and in the end, even though he goes to hell in this world, all the fires, in the end he will destroy the enemies of Israel. The false gods are the only enemies that man has in this world. You believe that he can take from you, she can take from you, they can take from you, the dictator can enslave you, and all he has to say is, “Because I will it.” “Why should I do these things?” you say to the dictator. “Because I determined that.” Now you’ll chop off that head, you’ll have no external dictator, no external god — only the God who dwells within you, and that God is your own wonderful human imagination. When you say “I am,” that’s God, that’s Jesus, that’s the Lord, and when you imagine something, it has to be executed — that is then the Christ, the Son of God, who executes it, and they suffer together. And you say, “But I am suffering” — but that is his name, “I AM,” suffering. So Blake said, “Thou also sufferest with me.” Sure, because “I AM” suffering, that’s his name, but I misused the power, which is the power of God. And what is the power of God? Scripture tells us it is Christ — Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.1164 ¶16

So he brings into this world only one foundation, and that foundation is already placed in man. You may build upon it, as Paul said, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or stubble, but it’s all going to be tried in the fire, and if it’s consumed you will suffer loss, but you yourself will be saved, but only as through fire. So you build on it — this is all metaphorical, you don’t build a building of gold or silver or precious stones, these are all metaphorical expressions. You can build something that could withstand the fire, like gold — there you can put it in and it melts, but it still remains gold. You put water into it, it’ll burn and turn to ash, it will not remain — wood will not, but gold will remain gold even in this molten state, then you can cast it into any form after you bring it into the molten state. Same is true of silver, and gold will not in any way tarnish; if it turned green in material it still remains gold. So build upon this foundation — gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or stubble — but remember, the fire is going to try it, and if it is consumed by the fires of experience you will suffer loss, but you yourself will be saved, because you are an immortal being; you cannot be destroyed. No one can destroy you, you are immortal. If you drop this very moment, you are restored to light in a world terrestrial just like this.1164 ¶17

But those who are here, and those I’ve spoken to, north and in the east and other places — they are actually being gathered now, and the journey is coming to an end. And so, though they came at different moments, in my time, just like the eggs of the hen, they came at different moments in her time, but when the time of hatching came, they all hatched together, and yet they came into the world seemingly at different moments in time. So I’ve met one at one moment, one year, another year, another year, scattered over years, but now the time is coming to a head for the hatching, and so it doesn’t really matter — the hatching is on, and they’ll all come out together, just a little while in between one and the others, but they’re all coming to fruition now.1164 ¶18

So Browning was right — whether he actually had the vision or he was inspired by the sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of the first book of Samuel, I do not know; he only said in his volume that they inspired him, he didn’t say he actually had the experience, but he is so close to it — if he did not have it prior to having written that, as he did there: “Here a face like my face shall receive thee, and a man just like to me shall love thee, and thou shalt love forevermore, and a hand like this hand shall throw open the door of new life to thee” — and then he stands before him and he makes the statement, “See the Christ,” and he is telling you he is the anointed, as told us in the sixteenth chapter of First Samuel and the eighty-ninth Psalm: “With my holy oil have I anointed him,” for when he asked that all the sons be brought before him, the sons of Jesse, and they marched the tall, handsome one first, and surely he is the Lord’s chosen one, and the Lord said, “No, I have rejected him. Do not judge from appearances, do not judge from the height of his stature, for man judges from the outward appearance, but I judge from the heart.” So he was rejected, in spite of his majestic figure, and he was, undoubtedly, from all descriptions of him, a tall, handsome, wonderful man that you would have thought would be the selected one to be his anointed king. Then came the second, and came the third, and then he moved the sons before Samuel, and Samuel said he did not choose him either. Then Samuel asked the father, “Are these all your sons?” And he said, “No, the youngest is keeping the sheep.” He said, “Go and fetch him, he shall not sit down until he comes.” And they brought him from the fields, they brought him, little David. When David entered, the Lord said to Samuel, “This is he — arise and anoint him.” And then he took the horn of oil and anointed him, and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that moment forward, never departed. He is the anointed of the Lord — the Anointed One is the Messiah. He is the Messiah, and Messiah and Christ are the same word — one is Hebraic and one is Greek. So the Greek “Christ” and the Hebrew “Messiah” are the same, the chosen, the elect of God.1164 ¶19

And to David he said, “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.” And so I’m telling you what I know, not from studying scripture and trying to extract something through some scholarly effort, no, but all by revelation — it happened to me.1164 ¶20

I never would have known it in all the years of studying and reading scripture, it just happened. And what a shock to me when I discovered that I am the Father — a father — the David is my son. I have a son, and my son — although I trust my wife to tell me that I did sire him, and I believe it a hundred percent, I’ve never doubted it — yet I know more surely that David is my son than I know that my son, Joseph Neville Goddard, is my son. And yet I do not doubt that he — my son — but I have no uncertainty as to the relationship between David and myself.1164 ¶21

And so, if the son makes you free, you are free indeed, for no one is free until the son sets him free, for he is the father enslaved until he finds his son. And when the son returns, having accomplished all that the father willed him to do, he comes back as a victor, for he has actually done everything that the father willed him to do, and it was quite a journey he traveled, and quite a furnace he went through. But he comes out as the Son of God. He went into this wonderful three-dimensional world, and he was the son — as told you in the story of Daniel, and they threw three into the furnace, and when they looked they saw four, and the form of the fourth was like the Son of God. It’s the presence of the Son of God that makes it live and keeps alive the three-dimensional world — were he not in it, if all be of that surface, everything would turn into simply a shadow world. But it is, anyway, his presence in it gives it a cubic reality, and so wherever he is, they take on solid cubic reality. So he was thrown into the furnace, our three-dimensional world, and made it alive and kept it alive.1164 ¶22

And then the king said, “We will worship only the God of Israel, from here on all other gods must now take the back seat, and from now on we worship only the God of Israel.”1164 ¶23

Well, who is the God of Israel? “I AM” — there is my name forever. Go and tell them “I AM” hath sent thee. This is my name throughout all generations, and by this name I must be known. But man finds it difficult to keep the “I AM” — he addresses God as “thou art,” and speaks of him as “he is,” when his name forever and forever is “I AM.” “Call all my sons from afar, and my daughters from the end of the earth, all those who are called by my name.” Now, his name is not Jehovah, his name is not Jesus, his name is not “the Lord,” his name is not “God” — his name is “I AM,” that’s his name. But you do not know, until the son stands before you, that you are the one spoken of in scripture as Jehovah, as the Lord, as God, as Jesus. Only when he stands before you, and the relationship is completed, do you know who you really are. Then the crown of righteousness is yours, so you have fought the good fight, you have finished the race, and you have kept the faith — henceforth there is laid up for you the crown of righteousness. That same crown that my friend saw on the head of the little figurine, and said it is the same crown that I have. And proving it, she brings her into the dressing room, and here is the little figurine, and all the robes, the pose of the rover, identical with that which she was wearing, and the crown became the size of a ring. So she took off the crown from the figurine and placed the crown given her by Mary on the figurine, and it fitted — it was perfect, identical crown, so she couldn’t tell whether she’d replaced her own crown or Mary’s crown was left on it, because it’s only one crown — not a crown, the crown of righteousness.1164 ¶24

So in the very end, when man actually fulfills the conditions imposed upon him by this relationship of Father-Son, Jesus Christ, he is called righteous.1164 ¶25

Not everyone in this world is going to experience it, but everyone — so I say to you, I know you’re going to, and those who are not here present in the flesh, they’re going to too, for he sent me for a purpose. Only a certain number — any individual who is called and sent is called upon to bring back — not the world. “I pray not for the world,” he said, “but for those whom thou gavest me, for they were thine, and thou gavest them me.”1164 ¶26

So, on the tenth day of October in 1966, when I was commissioned to bear the burden only for a time, when I stood in a room — just about, not quite this size but square, like this — and I sat on the ground facing twelve men, and I was teaching them the word of God, and suddenly one rose and hurriedly left the room. There’s only one entrance into the room, and he left it to my left. As he did this I knew exactly what he was about to do — I knew he was able to tell the authorities what I was teaching. I was speaking of a king that was not of this world, and a kingdom that was not of this world, and he left and went to the door. He had no sooner gone through the door than a very tall, handsome man, beautifully attired, entered, and all of us rose — those who were seated, and I was seated, we all rose to attention because of his authority and stood at attention. And he walked down like a soldier, straight down, then he turned at right angles and walked across the other side, and he turned at right angles and walked down to the middle, and then he turned and walked and faced me. And as he faced me, he turned to his attendant, who gave him a mallet and a wooden stake, and he hammered it into my shoulder, blow after blow — I felt every blow that went in, but it didn’t hurt, I could feel the impact and hear the blow. And then he returned the mallet to the attendant. Then the attendant gave him a knife, a sharp knife, and he made one circular motion across my shoulder and severed the entire sleeve from my shoulder. Then he took the end of it this way and pulled it, and detached it, and discarded it, leaving my arm, from here to my fingertips, bare — the whole thing was where my right arm then he stretched himself up this way and he embraced me and kissed me on my right cheek, on the side here, and I in turn kissed him on his right cheek. And then, as I did this, the scene began to dissolve, and I was looking at that discarded sleeve — there was a little tiny baby blue, I mean the shade of baby blue, made of the finest material. Then the whole scene dissolved.1164 ¶27

And then we read in Isaiah, “Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” — the arm being the power and the might of God. Then, as we’re told, it was laid upon his shoulder, in Isaiah, and on it was placed all the burdens of Israel, for a time. So for a certain length of time the burden has been placed together, those that are — the seeds that fell into the ground, that they may be made alive. And so, unless it falls into the ground and dies it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit. And so the whole thing is now ripe for those that he sent me to gather together, and now my departure can’t be too long delayed. I’m sixty-seven, and the normal time is threescore and ten, and I do not think I’ll reach threescore and ten.1164 ¶28

I have no choice in the matter, because I’ll go on time — I came in on time and I’ll go on time. But it is certainly not my desire to reach threescore and ten, but to do the job — yes, I have got to do the job, and I fear I’ve done it. And so the hatching out will take place, and, oh, even though they came at different intervals of time, when the hatching begins, they all hatch out together — that’s what happens in the little nest. Now let us go into the silence. Good.1164 ¶29

Now, before we take the questions, I must tell you that this past Wednesday my wife saw her doctor, and he tells us she is not planned to leave the area before July — he would try his best to make it June, but he said, “I work cautiously and slowly.” So she starts the series of operations — she’s having plastic surgery after a very severe operation on her throat, where she lost her voice, to removal of a tumor, so they had to remove the larynx, and now that is over, but now the closing of the hole is on, and most of it is closed. There’s just two things — the stitching closed, plus plastic surgery, and it means seven more operations.1164 ¶30

And so on the twenty-sixth will be the first one of the seven, the first six is simply gathering the skin that they will need and rotating it — as they take it from one section they rotate it and bring it up. So the seventh will be the completed one, and he is hopeful that he will be able to do it in June, but she cannot leave before July. So I’ve asked, myself, to explain one month, the month of May, and so they were very happy that I would remain one more month.1164 ¶31

So I am telling you now, I will be here for the month of May. If — if she cannot move, I still don’t think I will speak in June, I’ll take it off myself, but the month of May, I know she can’t make it, and she can’t go — well, maybe for the first three, maybe the whole month of June, from what he told my wife. But they start the series of the gathering of the skin on the twenty-sixth of this month, and then there are intervals between — she comes home for ten days and she goes back for another period, then she comes home for another — and so that is the story. So I’ve asked the club, and they willingly and gladly extended the month of May, so I will be here on Mondays and Fridays through the month of May. Beyond that I have no plans — if she can go early June, which seems most unlikely, I think I’ll still take off the month of June and be ready to go just as fast as I can after — gives us the green light.1164 ¶32

Are there any questions? I’m coming back sometime in the winter — how long I’ve involved at it, I do not know, really, I have no plans. I’m buying a one-way ticket, but I will come back because I’m keeping my home here.1164 ¶33