Neville Goddard – Acts Of God (Full Audio Lecture & Transcript)
If I say to you that it was Jesus himself and not the crowd who was conscious of the mighty acts of God, would you think of another? I hope not. By Jesus, I simply mean your own wonderful “I Am,” this that is Jesus. So I mean the individual who has experienced these mighty acts of God. Acts for his redemption is not an individual outside of you, but your own wonderful “I Am.” That’s when you say “I am,” that is God, and that is Jesus.
Here for the last three or four weeks, they’ve been running a series of questions in the L.A. Times on Saturday in the religious section. The editor started it by asking a question, “How long should a sermon be?” Many of them said 3 minutes, for the span of interest cannot be held. They cannot be attentive beyond, say, 3 minutes. Well, some stretch it to five. And then this past Saturday, John Charles Thomas Jr., you’re familiar with the name, the great singer. Now, whether he is a junior or this is his son, I do not know. But he wrote a very sweet letter and said he could take 15 minutes if it’s well prepared and if the man who speaks it is convinced of what he says. If he really believes what he’s talking about and he’s prepared his thought, 15 minutes would be perfectly all right. But he added this much. He had a sermon that disturbs, the sermon that in some strange way moves the individual, disturbs him, like the comfort person, the complacent person. It is almost certain that that preacher has an outside source of income. Now, that you may take it for the whole vast world. Fortunately, my heavenly father saw that my earthly father could supply me with that outside source of income, that I did not have to take what I would have to take. Would I not free of Caesar’s will?
For when I first came into the city back in 1945, I was confronted with just such a picture. I had already spent quite a thousand dollars to come here. I brought my family of four, really three, and my wife, niece, and we lived in the Gord Hotel. And I think the room was $40 a day. That is a suite, because we’re four of us, two little girls, my wife and myself. And we ate in hotels and lived normally. But it was quite an expensive journey and we came across the country by train in those days, because planes were not flying, not commercially as they are today. And so the journey on a train for three and a half days across the country. And then here, and he tried overnight to shut me up because I was controversial. That I said that I do not believe in the historicity of Jesus, not as is described by the priesthoods of the world, but as I get it out of the Bible. Yes, but not. And he said, “Well, as far as I’m concerned, I teach the historicity of Jesus, and so you cannot take my platform or any of my groups.” And he had dozens scattered around the area where I was already contracted to speak.
So John Charles Thomas was quite true. When this man learned that I was not dependent on his little dimes to go back to New York just as I came, he relented. He relented too late, though. After I took one of those that really represented him and gave her all the money that he could have made, he went through the ceiling. It was only money. It wasn’t historicity at all. It was a matter of money. He thought I would disturb those who gave to him generously. And so if you disturb the complacent, the comfortable, who support the churches, because there are some to sleep 3 minutes, so they can’t go beyond 3 minutes. 5 minutes, that’s too much, but then they’re snoring. Ask anyone what is the text of today’s sermon and they can’t tell you. But it was something to do. You are seen in church, and therefore you were a holy man, like the chap who just dropped out of the skies with $500,000 extorted. He was a Sunday school teacher, a very good member of the church, a junior in the university, Brigham Young’s University, and undoubtedly a very bright lad. But he could extort $500,000 from the company. Of course, he only had time enough to spend $30 of it. They got him, and they got the almost the $500,000.
But to come back to the substance of it all, when you take the pulpit, you are almost warned not to trade on toes, not to trade on anything, just leave it asleep. And if you don’t, well then, out you go and we will simply call a meeting and bring in another one, another preacher who will not disturb. And if he doesn’t have an outside source of income, he will have to toe the mark. Well, that is life in this world. Fortunately, he who sent me sought to it, “I would not have the toe the mark.” But when he embraced me and he was infinite love, and then sent me and told me, “Done with the ‘Blue Bloods,’ ” in other words, with all protocol, with all ceremony, with all that is now given off in the form of Christianity, or religion for that matter. Done with it by ignoring it, and go all out and tell exactly what you are going to experience. And so I began to experience God’s plan of redemption. And so I was bold enough to go out and tell it just as it happened to me.
Because I have what we call in Barbados a “hind claw.” When you find people chasing through the night to catch crabs and the crab can run as fast as the individual behind him and he can run in every direction just as fast, forward, backward, sideways, anything. And they’re going to make a one-dish out of crab meat. Well, the crab can go to a precipice, it could be 70 feet tall and right below is the ocean. And that crab can go just as fast as a man can run and disappear. But he isn’t falling. He has a “hind claw” and he simply holds on and simply buries himself and hides himself. If the man goes one second beyond his speed into the water 70 feet below, he goes. So we speaking Barbados of having a “hind claw” that you can run and break your neck, but you aren’t going to break it if you have a “hind claw.” So let them try to get you off the pulpit, get you off the stage, all these things. And if you really are sent, it will be prepared for you. You will have the “hind claw,” you will have that outside source of income so you can speak boldly and tell exactly what is happened to you.
Now, Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. They are not two religions. It’s one, it’s the tree and its fruit. And Christianity is based upon the affirmation that a series of events happened in which God revealed himself in action for the salvation of man. And when did it happen and where do you know it all happened in the Jewish synagogue? The entire Old Testament is written by Jews. 90% of the New Testament is written by the Jew. The New Testament is telling you what happened in the synagogue. Why in the synagogue? Men began to experience the fulfillment of their own wonderful prophecy and then they told it. Now, you will say, “Well, how did the one that is now symbolized as the one who told it? He was not the only one.” It happened as it’s happening here. Many of us are happening now. If I preceded you by a few years, what does it matter if I am the voice, but many of you are actually coming forward with the identical experiences. So we will form the single unit. Jesus is only a name given. The word Jesus is “I am.” It’s Jehovah. Jehovah is salvation. So in man, man is having this experience.
Now, did he have an outside source of income? Or may I tell you, you read the eighth chapter, the second and third verses of the Book of Luke. If I said to the average Christian in the world that he was supported by rich women, that’s slapped me. That boxed my ears. All I would have to say to them, “Go back to your Bible and read the eighth chapter, the second and third verses.” If you are not familiar with scripture, may I quote it for you? First of all, Luke mentions three by name. Mary who was called Magdalene. Well, Magdalene was a lady of the evening. He said he came to the sinners. He came to the harlots. He came to the tax collectors. These were his friends. Those that the world calls sinners. So Mary Magdalene is mentioned first. Then came Johanna and then came Susanna. And then Luke adds, “And many others,” not just others, “and many others gave to him of their means.” Now, the King James version has it “him,” which is a right translation of the Greek. The modern translation to modify it under pressure of the editors of the present day use the word “them,” trying to include disciples and followers, which it is not. The Greek word is “him.” It was to “him” that they gave of their means, and three women are mentioned, and then “and many others.” So he had an outside source of income, if you take it on this level. But you’ve got to take it on an entirely different level when we come to speak of Jesus. Jesus is simply the individual who has experienced God’s mighty acts of redemption.
Now, let us go back to the beginning of Luke. First he starts with the events. Here first of all were “events.” These things that have been “accomplished among us.” Now, the word translated “among” really should be translated “within.” It’s the same word that we read in the same book, in the 17th chapter. The “Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” So these things have been accomplished “within,” not “among,” but “within.” But nevertheless, we start with the events. And here are the first four verses: “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, as they were dictated to us by those who were ministers of the word, who were eyewitnesses from the beginning, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely from the very beginning, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things that have been told you.” You’ve heard these things. They’re all things that man only heard from those who had experienced it. Can you believe it? Now, all this happened in the synagogue. It did not happen on the outside. These are all Jews who knew their Bible. But they’re not scholars. They were not brilliant minds. They were not the Sanhedrin. They were men who simply it happened within them as told us in the Book of Daniel. He will give it to the loneliest of men. He is not coming to give it to the so-called wise men of the world and those that are known, but to the loneliest of men, he will give it. So here are men and women in whom the thing began to unfold like a tree being ripe and suddenly the blossom unfolds and here we see the fruit. And they began to describe their experiences and knowing scripture well enough, they could pinpoint the events that were foreshadowed in the old. And here there. Now, there’s no New Testament. But they know they brought the Old Testament and the only Testament to fruition, and so they began to tell their story. So here we find first the “events,” then we find the “oral tradition.” So people heard what the few experienced. And then they are the preachers who told the word. Then came the committing of the oral tradition to the written word, because it has to be recorded because those who actually heard it from those who experienced it are dying off. And so it’s time to record for posterity what actually we heard. So now it’s committed to the written word.
Now, Luke sees what has been committed, for he said, “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us.” Now, he does not criticize those who made the attempt. But he said, “It seemed good to me also, having studied all things closely from the very beginning, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed.” Now, Theophilus means “one who loves God.” It means you or you would not be here tonight. You are in search of God. And so he’s speaking to you when he speaks or writing it for Theophilus, one who loves God, who is in search of God. He does not condemn or in any way criticize those predecessors who attempted the narrative. He simply claims that he has a better arrangement of the source material and not necessary a greater, I would say, chronological exactitude. He does not put it in a chronological manner. No one does in scripture. I think I have given you a far greater chronological picture than anyone I have ever seen in print. I have told you exactly how it happened to me and the spaces in between from the moment of the awakening within me which is resurrection and the birth coming the same night, 139 days later for the discovery of the son who reveals me as father. Then 123 days after that for the spitting of the curtain of the temple, and I am the temple, for my whole body was split. And then another 298 days, no, 2 years beyond that, bringing it through 1,260 days. And here I’ve given you exactly one after the other. Chronologically is not really important. But I do feel that having been sent to do what I am doing and must do and will do, that it was important. For one night on my bed I wondered, “How long did it really take?” I know what came first and what came second and what came third. And I marked them all in my Bible. So I marked them all in the Bible and put the date down. And a voice said to me, “Count them up.” So I got off of my bed, went to my living room, turned on the light, took my Bible and took the days, and I went over and over and over and each time it came out 1,260 days, which is the day numbered in the Book of Daniel. “If your name is written in the Book of Life, then what does it matter?” It takes 1,260 days. Well, I went in and I looked at it. I took my calendar. I went through the entire thing. I could hardly believe I’m seeing correctly. I went over the whole thing again the next day, that same thing. And as often as I’d go over it came out to 1,260 days. And I know that no one saw these mighty events of God in me but I myself. So in scripture, if you read it correctly, no one but the individual who have experienced it.
Now, here is the earliest of the gospels, the book is Mark. It’s the baptism. And he’s coming out as it is said, “He saw the heavens open.” Didn’t say the crowd did. “He saw the heavens open and the spirit descending upon him in bodily form as a dove.” Yes, there is a voice. In my case there was a voice. And the earliest clerical tradition has it that the voice of God is like the sound of the voice of the dove. It’s called “bath kol” (b a t h q l), the echo of the voice of God. And when it comes down and descends upon you and smothers you with affection and your whole body is completely filled with love. Pardon me. No one but you and the voice. But the voice is now personified as a woman, the daughter of the voice of God. And she said to me, which is not recorded in scripture, “They,” meaning the dove, “avoid man because man gives off an awful odor, a horrible, horrible odor, a most offensive odor. But he loves you and he penetrated that ring of offense to demonstrate his love for you.” Well, now the odor that I give off and you give off is not because we are carnivorous and eat meat, because the vegetarian stinks as much. They all do. It’s not that. It is simply the thoughts we entertain. You and I entertain the most horrible thoughts in the course of a day. And man lives not by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And God is “I am.” So every idea that I entertain is proceeding out of me. And when I entertain these things, I am feeding upon them and they give off the most offensive odor. And the dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit, avoids man until that moment that is so compelling he has to penetrate that ring of offense and come down upon that one and gives his seal of approval. So this story opens up with this statement in Luke, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.” You read it in the early chapters of Luke. He comes out of the water. What may I tell you? You don’t see water. But the dove floats. Well, a dove can’t float. It’s not given like a duck or any bird of that nature. It doesn’t have a web foot. And yet when I looked at the dove, said 20 feet above me, it simply was stationary in a crystal clear atmosphere. As he said, “The heavens open.” “He saw the heavens open.” And here is a dove floating, actually floating. Because only if it floated could it remain so stationary. And his eye on my eye, the most affectionate look. And then I raised my hand like Noah in the ark and I raised it and my index finger on the left hand went out automatically. And the duck descended through this crystal clear area and then lit on my finger. And I brought it to my face and it smothered me in love and kisses and affection. And while he actually smothering me with affection, the whole thing dissolved. No one saw it. But the voice of the daughter, which is the echo of God, she it was who stood on my left who told me of the offense that man gives off and how his love was so overpowering that he penetrated that ring of offense to demonstrate his love for me and then he came down in bodily form upon me.
So he fulfilled the 61st chapter of Isaiah, “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, he has anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor, and to open the prison doors of those who are enslaved.” And then he closed the book and returned it to the attendant. And then all the eyes were upon him because of what he had said. And in a matter of moments they were stoning him to death. So he disturbed the complacency of people. So when you take the platform and you in any way disturb the comfortable, those who are complacent, those who are now quite satisfied with their prefabricated misconception of scripture, they don’t want any disturbance. And you disturb them and they’ll warn you, “You won’t get a salary. You’ll be out.” But if they learn that you have an outside source of income, then they respect you. That’s all the respect anyway, much. What caused this man to take this $500,000? Was it not the love of money? And someone imitating him within 24 hours, so they caught him. They said he was but an imbecile, but he was asking for another 500,000 because how easy it was to get it. So they got them both. One had mapped the whole thing out and he thought it the perfect crime. They could never find this. He did everything he thought was the right thing and seemingly betrayed by his intimate friend who knew his secret. Can’t you see scripture? His closest friend betrayed him. No one can betray you who does not have your secret. And so his closest friend and his sister-in-law betrayed him for reasons not get told, but they couldn’t stand it. And so we are told in scripture, “His closest friend, he who dipped into the dish with me, betrayed me.” Only my intimate friend to whom I reveal my secret could ever betray me. No one knows the secrets of a man but the spirit of man. No one knows the secrets of God but the spirit of God. So if God reveals his secret, only the one to whom he revealed it could betray. And he had has to be his closest friend. That’s the story.
So he writes a narrative around these events. So you can tell all kinds of things around the series of events and they aren’t very many. They are mighty acts by which God unveils himself in the individual for the salvation of that individual. And the salvation of the individual is to reveal him as God himself. So this story of Jesus Christ, if I could only get you to feel. I will break it right into two and speak of Jesus as “Lord” and Christ as his “son.” But man hasn’t been taught it that way. Yet you will write it one day. I have given it to you from the platform and now you have it on tape. That’s all right. But I still feel the written word is more lasting. This is a wonderful electronic age and you can put it on if you have the machine. But the written word, when you have it written so at leisure you can just simply turn back and read it. One day, someone is going to write it just as I have told it and now record it on cassette. But you’ll take it from the cassette and one of you will have the ability to write it. And he claimed he simply took the oral traditions. For he followed them closely from the very beginning. And having seen what others attempted to do, for “inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us,” and how they came. They came by the oral tradition, the preachers of the word that they heard. “Then having followed all things closely from the very beginning, it seemed good to me also to write an orderly account for you Theophilus, you lover of God, that you may know the truth concerning these things of which you have been informed.” And so he writes the book of Luke and the book of Acts with no bragging, claiming that he is better than. He claims is simply a better arrangement of the oral traditions. Who Luke is, no one knows. They’re all anonymous. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are anonymous names. No one knows who they are. But they were those who were qualified to write the oral traditions. For it all came down in that manner. But then when those who heard it from the source in the beginning are approaching the point of dying from this section of time and leaving it, it naturally behooves someone to recall it if it’s worth recording. And so he thought it worth recording in the written form. And so he recorded it in our gospel called Luke. So that’s how it’s done.
Now, I have been sent to clarify points. I feel my entire mission is to tell you who Christ really is and Christ is David. If the whole vast world rose in opposition tonight and if I were physically nailed, it would make no difference. I would not enjoy the pain, naturally. But if that was what I had to pay, I would willingly pay. But I could not recant. I could not recant what I have experienced. That David of biblical fame is the Christ. He is the anointed of the Lord. He is the Son of God and the only one that can reveal God to you. And he isn’t going to say, “That is your father.” He’s going to look at you, and the minute he looks at you, you know who the father is, because you know you are his father and he is God’s son. And you know that and there is no doubt in your mind as to who he is and therefore who you are, because you know the relationship. And that’s what I’ve been sent to tell you. And so in the not distant future this garment will come off. You will have a record. Others will have an oral tradition. And someone will have the ability to tell it and the power to tell it. But in this present state, my heavenly father, the depth of my own being, saw it fit to give me an outside source of income, that I could tell it and that I could not be shunted from here to there because I am disturbing the slumbers of the complacent and the wealthy and the very comfortable people of the world. Don’t think for one second it hasn’t happened and happens and will happen forever.
One lady in New York City, she hated Bishop Manning. He was the bishop of St. Thomas, 53rd Street and 5th Avenue. And she left $2 million and her will was, “It goes to St. Thomas if Bishop Manning is dead or if he is still alive, it goes to St. Luke’s Hospital.” Well, St. Luke’s is owned by the Episcopal church. So it doesn’t really matter. You give it to St. Thomas or you give it to St. Luke’s. So she left a will that if it is if he is still alive, that thing then St. Thomas does not get it. If he is dead, he’ll get it. If he is alive, St. Luke’s gets it. Now, here one day I was dining at the University Club in New York City and my friend who was my host took me to the window. And I looked out through the window and I saw this enormous wall. And I said, “What am I supposed to see?” He said, “Just what you’re seeing. Do you see anything?” I said, “Well, just a wall, a plain wall that goes all the way up to the height of some building that is there.” But he said, “That building that it hides is St. Thomas’s Church and that is a spite wall built by John D. Rockefeller the First.” He too had an argument with the bishop, Bishop Manning. And to spite him, he built on his own land a wall that completely covered all the beautiful glass windows, these beautiful colors that face North in New York City. And he left a will that even to this day, which is now the fourth generation after his death, they cannot break that will. So you go into St. Thomas today and you see beautiful tapestries hanging where if you could remove the tapestry and the wall to get the light through, you see the most beautiful, wonderful glass that is there. You can only see the birth that faces the west and that which goes south. But the northern view is completely blocked out by the “spite wall” by a man who considered himself a very religious man. He was against prohibition, against spoken, against all things, and he was a devout Baptist. But not necessarily about to the point. He would not go and analyze all kinds of soil. And only he knew figures backwards and so he could just multiply it and multiply it into billions. And so he thinks that is spirituality. And that wall still is there in New York City. And you go to that lovely church. I’ve gone in many a time at Vespers just to hear the organ, a beautiful organ. And some great organist is always playing. So you’re going especially in the winter months when winter sets early around 4:00, it’s all dark. And quite often around four, I would go in to St. Thomas and just sit in the back and hear that beautiful organ and look to the setting sun, because just before it was set, we got from that Western view that enormous burst through those beautiful colors that is over the altar. And I could get a bit from the south. But the north all hidden by these tapestries. But at least I thoroughly enjoy the beautiful music that came from the organ. So this is what everyone confronts in this world of Caesar.
So tomorrow, have a little fun and ask the complacent and ask those who are completely asleep if Jesus had any porters and they will tell you, “Oh no, he could bring gold out of the fish’s mouth. He could do all these things and why would he want anything other than the the ability to do these things?” And then just casually opened the Book of Luke to the eighth chapter and have him or have her read the second and third verses, that “they gave him of their means and many others.” And they named three and one was a harlot. She had a wonderful clientele and gave generously to one who set her free instead of condemning her for her profession. He let her go. And then he took that one commandment from the 10 and any man. He uses that in the sermon of the month. “Any man who looks lustly on a woman has already committed the act in his heart with her.” So then he said to her, “What man is without sin?” So, “Go my dear.” And so she continued to go her way and reward him generously if you take it on that level. But on all these levels you can take scripture, for the ark is built on three levels. And you have your physical level, your psychological level and your spiritual level. I am trying to raise you to the spiritual level where these mighty acts take place within us. And when they take place within us, they are seen by no one but the individual in whom they took place. So the doubt comes down and who sees it? No one of the crowd. And so you’re split into and who sees it? No one but you. You see David and who sees it? Just you. You come back and you tell the story how you rose within a grave and you came out of that grave with an innate wisdom as to what to do and no one saw you do it. Will they believe you? I said to my dentist, I told the whole story to him one day. He said, “Do your brothers remember it?” He had to bring it down to this level. For my three brothers were the witnesses to the event as told you by tradition in scripture. The three who witness, the three kings, were brothers. In my case they were my brothers, Cecil, Victor, and Lawrence. And the three kings in the Book of Matthew were considered brothers. And so tradition has it that way. In my case they were brothers and they came from afar, 5,000 miles away. But certainly they came in spirit. And they have no knowledge in this conscious little world of Caesar of the part they played in my awakening, none whatsoever. I told them when I went home. I got the ear of the one who flung the child, but I didn’t get the ear of the others. They thought, “Well, it’s Neville. He still dreaming. He was dreaming when he was a child. He is still dreaming.” Still the same mystical child doing what he did when he was a child. He hasn’t changed at all. So leave them to themselves. My brother Lawrence, before he departed this world, he had experience and he questioned me seriously when I went home and would ask me certain passages of scripture. “Can you quote say the first verse of Hebrews when I did the first of Luke and the first of this, the first of that?” And he was so surprised, “How can you do this?” I said, “Because I love the book. Sometimes, Lawrence, I feel I wrote it. I feel I so love it. I feel sometimes I inspire it because I am now awakening to remember it. And I’m actually having the experiences of all that is there. And so I can’t deny the feeling sometimes that possesses me that I inspired it. Well, because if he who is the father of David inspired the book, I certainly must because I am the father of David.” But Lawrence took that under consideration. And then a year later he was gone from this section of time. The other two are still with us and they are businessmen and very successful businessmen and they have no time for this. “I am Neville and they are what they are and they allow me to be what I am.” But it was so set up in the beginning with my heavenly father that he’s going to send me into this world to do what I have to do and do I must and do I will. And knowing what happens to the preacher when he steps on the toes of the sleeping ones who contribute to his income, they can fire him overnight. He saw to it that I would not be fired. And all the thing that struck me so forcefully when I first came here, when this man with all of these degrees, all self-imposed because where did he get them? He gave them all to himself. And then he dared to tell me that I must not teach from his platform the non-historicity of Jesus. And I told him that I know from experience that he is the only reality in the world but not secularly so. It’s not secular history that our evangelists were writing. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, they themselves are unknown. And they were not writing secular history. They were writing theology. They were not writing as historians, as biographers. They were putting down things that no mortal eye could see and building around it the most glorious story that it could enter into lonely minds just like yours. And so you believe in the historicity and he wouldn’t bet an eye to take from you what was in your pockets if you didn’t have them nailed down. And I’m not criticizing him, I’m just telling what I know from experience I went through that with him.