Neville Goddard Lectures: “Time to Act”

03 Oct Neville Goddard Lectures: “Time to Act”

2/1/66

Tonight’s title is “Time to Act.” You’ll find this a very practical evening and yet it is based upon a mystical experience. If God has spoken, what in the world is more important than to listen to what he’s said and what he’s telling you?

But first, let me share with you an experience. It happened thirty-odd years ago. When I tell you I was taken in spirit I mean it literally. You may tell me the whole thing took place within me, and I would agree with that, for the whole vast world is contained within the Imagination of man. But you do have the sensation of travel, and so in this I had that sensation of an enormous journey. I was taken into a divine council. The first one that I stood before was infinite might. You may describe him as almightiness, the first word or the first expression of deity in scripture, El Shaddai. Then I was taken into, well, the area, a huge interior, a courtyard. The atmosphere was one of an ancient world, cobblestones, nothing modern about it. Then I saw, well, I called her a lady, like some angelic recorder, a recording angel; and she used a quill pen in an enormous ledger, the kind you see in great museums or art galleries or sometimes even in a private club, where you’re called upon to furnish your name. She simply looked at me, looked back at the ledger, and simply wrote.

Then I was taken before infinite love. He asked a very simple question, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” I answered automatically, as though I had no choice; it was simply a response. I said, “Faith, hope and love, these three abide; but the greatest of these is love” (1Cor.13:13). At that moment he embraced me; we became one being. And the words of Paul you can take literally, “He who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (1Cor.6:17). There were not two of us, just one body, one spirit; yet I did not lose my identity. Here I am one with infinite love. While we were in this embrace, sheer ecstasy, a voice rang out, came from out of space, and it said, “Down with the bluebloods.” At that moment I found myself standing before almightiness, the first one that I met when I entered that divine body. I could not find…it spoke, but I couldn’t detect any motion in his throat or his lips. He simply looked into my eyes and I heard what he thought, and he said to me, “Time to act!” with emphasis on act. With this I was whisked out, and there I found myself back in my room, hotel room on 49th Street.

The 82nd Psalm—considered by some scholars the most difficult of the 150, in fact, they say that they cannot grasp its meaning; they seem to have lost today all that it formerly meant when it was given to the world—“And God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment”(Ps.82:1). This is the one where you and I are called gods: “I say, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; but you shall die like men and fall like any prince’” (Ps.82:6). They say they can’t grasp the significance of this, that God could take his place in the divine council and in the midst of the gods hold judgment. I tell you, that Psalm was intended to be taken literally, for the day will come in the life of every man where he will have it fulfilled in himself, literally. He will stand in the presence of the risen Christ, infinite love, and you will know that God does meet among the gods. You will not feel that you are a stranger. You will feel that you not only know him but that you know them. There’s a feeling of intimacy as you enter this wonderful gathering, this assemblage.