Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Coin of Heaven”

Now, I can refuse it, and the whole vast manifested world goes to show us what use or misuse we have made of the gift of God. Wars of twenty years are brought up in the same manner.

Back in 1919, my father was no prophet. He was a man of the world, living in a small little island in the West Indies. Around the table, I can vividly hear him now. He was a ship chandler and supplied the ships with all their needs, especially groceries. He sat at the table and said to my mother, his wife, and to all of us—that there would be another war in 20 years. Now, this was 1919. The soldiers were coming home from Europe after the First World War. Mother asked him, “Joseph, why do you say that? Look at our sons, they are all just ripe for war. If it’s going to happen in another 20 years, why do you say that?”

He said it would take place in 20 years, and he even named the opponents: Germany, Italy, and Japan. Japan was not in the First World War, and it had not been on Germany’s side, it had been on the side of the Allies. He named these three. He got it from the captains, from the stores, and from the officers of the ships he supplied. And he believed what they said and simply expressed what he had heard and he believed it. Well, the war broke out exactly 20 years later, on the 1st of September 1939, when England declared war on Germany as Germany moved into Poland.

Now here a small prophecy is simply that these words has come to pass. A simple little man in a little island, unknown to the world, and he is voicing something. He was not alone because it was only giving those two those things said to him aboard the ships, and that’s how man thought. And today man is thinking in the same way, misusing his one talent, which is his speech and his mind.

You could start now to counteract all the nonsense in the papers and all the nonsense on TV and radio by simply assuming that you are what you would like to be, ignoring everything that would oppose it, and dare to assume it to the point of self-conviction, that you believe it. And do you know it will come to pass, for this is the coin of heaven.

One morning back in 1954, I think it was. My wife awoke from this deep, deep sleep with an audio vision for the voice was speaking from the depths of herself and speaking to her, and these are the words: “You must stop spending your thoughts, your time, and your money. Everything in life must be an investment.” She came rushing into the living room, to the library, and there she took the dictionary out to see the difference in meaning between the word “spending” and “investing.”

And the difference was: to spend is to lay out without hope of return, while to invest is to expect return on equity. One is to not expect anything on what you do, and the other is to expect a return on equity. But they mentioned three things: you also have time that you must invest, not spend; your thoughts must be invested, not spent; and your money invested, and not spent. So you must stop spending your thoughts, your time, and your money. Everything in life must be an investment.

Now she wrote those words for me back in 1954, I think it was. It’s a vision, a perfect vision, for everyone to take hold of and apply. So I know what to do, and am I doing it? You read the morning paper, and then you’re disturbed, and you do not know the character spoken of, but you’re disturbed by the things read. And then you react, and you’re wasting your thoughts, your time at that moment. They may even force you to go out and do something concerning the money that you have. Someone is putting on pressure to get you to invest in a certain thing, and it is not an investment at all—it is a waste.

But at least you have control over your thought and over your time. But I give my time to reading the paper or some little trivia that someone suggests that I should read, or will I take it into the book of the Word of God and read God’s Word and take the word as I did today. I took the word “way” and then, as I took the word “way,” and I lead you into trade. Now listen to the word “trade,” it’s the same word. It’s directed, “Wherever the sole of your foot shall tread, I have given you.”