Brazen Impudence

Tonight’s title is “Brazen Impudence.” You’ll find that it pays off. Night after night we repeat certain ideas here. But it’s necessary to reiterate them and repeat them over and over, for a new idea will not become part of the common currency of thought until it’s really repeated over and over and man begins to live by it. Here we state that “Man is all Imagination. And God is man, and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of man is the Imagination, and that is God himself”. Now, I mean every word that I’ve just said…but it’s new. Man has been taught to believe that God exists outside of himself, so until this becomes a part of his thinking every moment of time when he hears the word God, out goes the mind to something that he has conceived God to be. But here, when I say “I am,” that’s God, that’s the Lord Jesus Christ of scripture, that’s Jehovah. Now you say “I am”…you go to bed at night and you put your head on the pillow, you are aware of being…that awareness of being, that’s God.471 ¶1

Now, tonight we’ll try to show you certain exercises that you really should practice. Here we come to this brazen impudence. In the 11th chapter of Luke it is said he was praying in a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray,” and then he gave the Lord’s Prayer, but that’s not what he’s teaching. He gave the Lord’s Prayer and you and I have it translated from the Latin. I’m told by Ferrar Fenton that the Latin tongue does not have the imperative passive mood of the first [...] to convey the meaning of the Savior. But if you take it from its original Greek that has the imperative passive mood, it’s an entirely different prayer, which is like this brazen impudence. For it seems to be this imperative passive mood is a standing order, something to be done absolutely and continuously. In other words, when we are told, “Thy will be done,” the imperative passive mood would be “Thy will must be being done.” When we are told, “Thy kingdom come,” it would be properly translated “Thy kingdom must be being restored.” It’s a standing order and the kingdom is being restored.471 ¶2

But that’s not what he’s teaching. He taught in the form of a parable and this is the story. “Which of you who has a friend would go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has come on a journey and I have nothing to set before him’; and he from within will say, ‘The door is locked. Do not bother me. My children are in bed with me; I cannot rise and get you anything.’ Yet I tell you, because he will not rise because he’s a friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him anything he needs’”. Well, the word translated importunity really means “brazen impudence.” He would not take no for an answer. Now, he’s teaching, mind you, a disciple how to pray. Well, he isn’t praying to some being on the outside, he’s praying within himself…he’s adjusting to himself…and he will not take no for an answer. He knows what he wants, he’s assuming that he has it, and he continues to assume that he has it until his assumption seems to take on all the necessary moods of reality. When it seems real to him, well then, he’s got it; but he will persist and persist in that assumption.471 ¶3

He’s trying to show us how to realize God in ourselves. It’s not on the outside…all in ourselves. Now he tells another story, that they should always pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge and he neither feared God nor regarded man; and in that city there was a widow and she came constantly asking him to vindicate her against her enemies. At first he refused. Then he said to himself, ‘Although I do no fear God nor regard man, this woman by her much coming bothers me, and so before she wears me out I will vindicate her’” . Again, the need for persistency in prayer.471 ¶4

Now, when you know how to pray, that’s when you really begin to forgive every being in this world. Because, one that you love dearly may be the instrument used by your persistency to aid the birth of your prayer, and he or she may be condemned in the act and pay society’s price while you escape, and you are the cause of his actions. I will share with you a very personal story. Every time I have told it I have been severely criticized for it, so I’m not saying tonight I’ll be exempt, but it is essential that you know it. I know that many years ago at the Fox Wilshire Theater when I was speaking for Dr. Bailes, Mrs. Bailes called me in and told me of the horrible reactions she got from this story. About a year later, there was a banquet at the Ambassador and I did not know that one of the ladies present was one of my most severe critics. But there she was, a lovely lady, and again she mentioned it to Mrs. Bailes, that I simply horrified her that I would use such a story from a spiritual platform. I used this story to illustrate a principle…I wasn’t bragging about the story. I was telling the story just to illustrate a principle, and I did say from the platform that I was the cause of that lady’s misfortune. Society blamed her and she paid the price, but I was the cause of her actions.471 ¶5

Now, if you can take it…if you can’t take it, well then, I’m not going to justify it. But, may I tell you, have you ever seen someone who has just given up alcohol or tobacco or meat or sex? Well, anyone who has just recently given up anything of this nature invariably condemns the state from which he has recently escaped. He feels too close to it to feel secure. So I’m not saying that this lady had a similar experience where she was the victim, I am not. But I do know these principles.471 ¶6

So here is the story. When I decided I wanted the girl who now bears my name for a wife, I applied this principle. I was terribly involved: I was married at the age of eighteen, I was a father at nineteen, and separated at nineteen, but never sought a divorce, just separation, and it was not a legal separation. It was the state of New York. But when I decided I wanted the present girl for my wife, I thought, now the principle is I sleep as though we were married. So in my hotel room I slept as though I slept in an apartment and she shared one bed and I shared the other, and I went sound asleep in that assumption. In those days, my dancing partner was living very well off of my income…why disturb the boat? So she told my wife that I was seeking a divorce and was looking for her and to make herself scarce, which she did. She left New York City and took up residence elsewhere in another state. Well, my dancing partner thought, now I have it made, my rent’s paid, food bought, clothes bought, and so we have him exactly where we want him…he can’t get a divorce, therefore he can’t marry the girl. She didn’t want me to marry my present wife. All I did was persist, I slept night after night in the assumption that she is my wife and she’s there, and I’m sleeping in this bed here.471 ¶7

One morning, less than a week, the phone rang. I answered. I didn’t rise early and it was quite early, maybe, 9:30. They got me to identify myself, I said, “Yes I’m Neville.” “Do you lecture?” I said, “Yes I lecture.” “How often?” I told her how often a week I lectured and where I lectured…they had the entire record. “Well, you’re a public character and we do not like to interfere with those who are in public, and it will be to your advantage to be in court next Tuesday morning at ten.” Well, I was sort of half sleepy anyway, and so I said, “All right, where is the court?” They gave me the street and the place and the court. So I hung up and after I hung up I said how stupid of me…some total stranger is pulling a joke and calls me up and tells me to be in court next Tuesday morning at ten. I have no reason to be in any court and they wouldn’t tell me why…just said be in court. So I thought nothing of it, and the next Tuesday morning at 9:30 I’m still unshaved, I’m not dressed, when the phone rings. Again, the same voice or similar voice getting all these answers again; she said, “I thought you said you’d be in court this morning.” So I said, “Well, how do I know who you are…you could be some prankster, disturbing my entire day by getting me out of bed, coming into court for no reason whatsoever.” Then she said, “It would be to your advantage as a public figure to be in court. Your wife is on trial this morning.”471 ¶8

Well, my wife’s on trial, so I went unshaved, no tie, just rushed on down to the court. The taxi got there just in time, really, as the judge was coming in. There were three judges on the bench. Then one whispered to an attendant, and he rose, and said, “Is Mr. Goddard in the audience?” I rose and said, “Yes, here I am.” He said, “Would you please take this place.” I came up and he said, “We aren’t going to swear you in, but maybe you can throw some light on this. Do you know this woman?” I said, “Yes, she is the mother of my son, she is my wife.” All right, “How long have you been separated?” So I told them fifteen, sixteen years. Now “This is what she’s accused of…lifting out a few dresses for which she didn’t pay, and they caught her, and here she is. Can you throw any light on it?” I said, “As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think she’s ever done this before. I don’t think she’ll ever do it again. I tell you we have a marvelous son, and please do nothing to her to reflect in any way upon my son. He lives with me. I don’t think she ever did it before or she’d ever do it again. If I can say something, she’s eight years my senior, and she may be passing through a certain emotional state which prompted her to do what she did. I don’t think she’ll do it again. If you must, sentence her, then please suspend it.” He said to me, “In all my years on the bench I have never heard an appeal like this. For one who if you had this honor you could have some tangible proof or evidence to get what you want, because she tells me you want a divorce.” Perfectly all right. He sentenced her to six months and then suspended it. She waited for me in the back and said, “Neville, that was a decent thing to do. Give me the subpoena.” I said, “I didn’t bring it with me.” We rode together in a taxi back to my hotel, and I did what I should not have done, for it’s not legal to actually serve your own, and I did. Went upstairs and got it, she waited for me, and I gave it to her.471 ¶9

Now, who was the cause of her misfortune? She lived in a different state. She came to New York City and did the act and they caught her there, so it was tried in New York State in the city. So I say, every being in this world will serve your purpose…so in the end you forgive all. “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” She moved under compulsion to do what she did. So I told this story as I’ve just told it only to illustrate a principle. You don’t need to ask anyone to aid you in the answer of a prayer for the simple reason God is omnipotent, omniscient. And because he is omniscient and he’s in you as your wonderful I-am-ness, where would you ask and who would you ask? They are all your servants; they’re slaves, bidding and doing your will. Know what you want, construct a scene which would imply the fulfillment of your dream, and then enter it. Actually go right into it and stay there. The next night do the same thing. Now, if your imaginal construct agrees sufficiently well with that which it is used, I would say, to illustrate, well then, your fancy becomes fact. If it doesn’t, all right, throw the whole thing out and start all over again. Costs you nothing.471 ¶10

So you construct a scene. In my case, a simple scene…she is there and I am here…and I am not in my hotel room. I’m married now living a better life in an apartment. I went sound asleep, and in one week I had all that I needed to start action for divorce. So that’s what the Bible teaches and that’s what I teach. It is my textbook. “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will”. That’s the story. He sets no limit to the power of belief, no limit to the possibilities of prayer. But it calls for, I would say, brazen, brazen impudence—you don’t take no for an answer.471 ¶11

Try it! When I say you are all Imagination, I mean it! I’m standing here on the platform, it would take me a split second, eyes open or shut, to imagine I’m standing on the outside looking from that angle at the building…looking at this building from that angle; or one split second to be in London and view the world from London. You say, well, that’s all hallucination, that’s all in your Imagination.471 ¶12

All right, now let me share this one with you. I was in New York City when I heard that my nephew, he’s seventeen years old, was in a terminal state of cancer, my sister’s oldest child. I knew how she felt…she was desperate. What could I do to comfort her, to show her that man is not flesh and blood, that man is spirit? While in New York City I went to my bedroom, closed the door; before that I told my wife not to disturb me, leave me alone until I came out. I went in and I assumed that I was in my father’s home in Barbados where my sister lived, the old family house. I assumed I was on the bed where I knew Billy would be. I assumed that when my sister entered that room she could not see her son Billy, she could only see her brother Neville. I lost myself in the assumption that my sister Daphney entered the room, looked startled, came forward, looked equally startled, and then left the room. When I was satisfied that I saw her and she saw me and couldn’t see her son, then I broke it, and came out and joined my wife and a friend who had come to cocktails. This friend said to me, “You know, Neville, you look very heavy…you’re always so light and gay, and now you seem so heavy, so heavy in spirit.” So I told her what I had just done. It didn’t impress her. That was simply one of those things that Neville does, as she would say.471 ¶13

Well, about ten days later it so happened that she was at home when I received a letter from my sister, Daphney, and in the letter Daphney said, “Nev, I don’t understand it” giving the day, giving the hour coinciding with mine in New York City…allowing the difference of one hour because of the time difference. She said, “I went into Billy’s room and I was startled to see you. I knew you were in New York City and yet here you are on Billy’s bed. I went over to the bed and I couldn’t see my son Billy…looked and looked and looked as I did and couldn’t see him. I’m looking at you and you are looking at me. So I turned around, I must confess, a bit half afraid, a bit scared, and so I went back into the outer room…and when I came back I could see Billy.” By then I had departed. If I am all Imagination, I must be where I am in Imagination, I must be. I can stay there until I give it sensory vividness, until I give it the tones of reality. And if I can be seen by my sister 2,000 miles away across water…for that’s the Caribbean and I’m in New York City and I don’t yet walk on water, so here, I’m there. And all of a sudden she is seeing her brother; she can’t see her son.471 ¶14

Now, I didn’t save Billy, he died. He was riddled with it. But it did convince her that her son Billy is not flesh and blood. If her brother in New York City could appear to her in Barbados, there is something that departs this body that cannot go to death. There is an immortal you that cannot go to eternal death in that which cannot die. And that’s what I gave my sister that day…the conviction of a reality in man (her son Billy) that will survive that moment when the doctor will say to her, “Mrs. Batterson, he is gone.” Gone where? Restored, a young lad just like that, in a world terrestrial just like this, in a garment like before, a wonderful garment, to continue a journey that was set up in the beginning for him. And that journey was for one purpose, to form in him the image of God, and that image is Jesus Christ. So when Christ is formed in Billy, well then, Billy will awake as Jesus Christ, the one being that is God.471 ¶15

But now I say, practice it. Tonight when you go home, sit in the living room and assume that you are now not looking at one angle, you are at the other angle looking at this angle. Sit where you can’t be seen. In New York City I had my telephone in the hallway. And my big chair where I sat and read all through the day…I would sit in that chair and assume that I’m at the telephone. Then, I would assume at the telephone I’m looking into the living room, but you couldn’t see it because it could not be seen from the telephone. And make it natural. You get so easy, in a split second you can be in any part of the world. And if, like my sister, there is a sensitive present where you imagine yourself to be, you’ll be seen. And they will say, “I had a strange experience, I saw John, I saw Bob, I saw so-and-so.”471 ¶16

You might become so [...] a part of it you even forget that you did it. I do it all the time. There are those here tonight…one lady when I was in New York City, she didn’t know I was in New York City, she thought I was in Barbados; and when she saw me the last time before I went to Barbados…not this last time, the previous one…I was painfully thin, down to 138, emaciated, and she thought of me and hoped I was feeling better and looked better. As she thought of me, instantly I am in her living room standing before her, brown from the sun in Barbados, in a grey suit—which I did not own when I left here, a business grey, which I bought on my way back in New York City—and I said to her, “There is no time” and vanished. Well, she’s accustomed to these things, therefore, she was not afraid, she wasn’t startled.471 ¶17

So I say to you, don’t limit yourself to the little body of flesh and blood. You are not flesh and blood. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” You must one day put it down and that which puts it down is the immortal you; that is your own wonderful human Imagination that is God. And when you learn to live this way, may I tell you, it becomes so exciting…your days are so full; you’re never alone. They say, “What do you do, Neville, you spend all day home reading the Bible?” Yes and meditating…close your eyes and you’re elsewhere. Close your eyes and you’re just traveling, and that’s fun. Not only is it fun but it’s educational. It expands you. It makes you become more and more aware of the infinite being that you really are.471 ¶18

So here, the one lesson that he gave in these two stories is the lesson of persistence. So you pray tonight, get down on your knees and pray to whom? You aren’t going to be answered. Go to bed with a loving wonderful thought, clear conscience. He isn’t seeing you on your knees. You just go to bed and dare to assume that you are now the man, the woman, that you want to be, and that those you love are what you want them to be, and go sound asleep in that assumption as though it were true. If you sleep as if it were true, that’s the road to success. You bring things into being by this manner. So tonight if it’s not for yourself then for another. You’ll find that someday, too, you might be paying a price when someone else is treading in the winepress. Because who knows who is treading in the winepress that starts the subtle change in men’s minds? I know that my first wife didn’t. Had she known for one moment that that meant my freedom and her disgrace, do you think she would have done it? She moved under compulsion and I was the compelling force. So I could forgive. So in the end, you forgive everyone for everything he’s ever done, because you might have been the one who was the cause of what they did.471 ¶19

So as Blake said, “Why stand we here trembling around, calling on God for help and not ourselves in whom God dwells?” Why call on any God when he dwells within you…he actually became you. He’s not pretending that he’s you; he actually became you. So when you walk the earth, don’t confine yourself, which is confining God, to the one little garment which he had to wear when he became a slave. He became a slave in this world of slavery, but don’t limit him to that little garment. You don’t need the help of any person in this world. You need no intermediary between yourself and self, and that self is God.471 ¶20

So don’t run from this city in the hope of finding something more comfortable elsewhere. The one person you’re going to carry with you is yourself, so you can run from here to the ends of the earth and you carry self. So resolve it here! You know what you want? Well then, don’t compromise. Know exactly what you want. When you know then assume that you have it. How would you see the world if it were true? What would the world look like? And then see if you can’t construct a scene which would imply that you have it. If your mental construct comes close to that which it is used to illustrate, well then, your little dream, the day dream becomes a fact.471 ¶21

When it becomes a fact, what does it matter what others think about your principle…it proves itself in performance. And you can share it with another and have them share it with another, and keep on sharing this principle with the whole vast world. Because in the end we are one, anyway, we aren’t two. Without loss of identity—you do not lose your individuality—yet in the end we are one, and that one is the Lord Jesus Christ: One body, one Lord, one Spirit, one God and Father of all. All will awake…and in the end all will be the Lord Jesus Christ.471 ¶22

Don’t be ashamed to claim it. For man’s concept of the Lord Jesus Christ is a very puny little thing, some little thing on the outside. These monstrous little pictures that they have of him—that’s not the Lord Jesus Christ! When you see him, he’s just like you, just like you.471 ¶23

A friend of mine wrote me this week…it’s a sweet vision. I don’t think she thinks much of it, but I’ll tell her it’s a truly great vision. One page, and for this lady one page is really a tremendous accomplishment, because this lady will go into eight, ten and twelve pages…and, of course, I love them because she does tell me much. But this is one page. “I saw a man in white, white robes, up on a hill and a temple. He was building a canopy over the entrance of that temple and he was using twelve inch stripes to build it. So I went into the canopy and looked up, and it was translucent green, beautiful. I remarked how radiantly beautiful it was. As I looked at it, it was you, Neville, and yet it was Michelangelo. I said to myself, it can’t be, you can’t be two. You can’t be Neville and be Michelangelo, and yet you are both. Well, I let it rest there. He said, ‘I have been working on this throughout eternity, and it still remains invisible for others to see.’ I felt he desired to have recognition, so I took these stripes and I wove them across him and formed a kind of basket. And then it was you again and you thanked me and said, ‘Great work!’ I knew either you or he or both wanted recognition for a work that had been taking eternity. Then I woke.” She added, “Isn’t that an odd thing.”471 ¶24

Well, may I tell you, if you can write, you take the story of the resurrection. It has never been told in a living form. Put it in the living form. It’s been told throughout the centuries and it still remains dead, like his Pieta made of marble or his David made out of marble. Let David become alive in the mind of those who see the play…who David really is as against the Pieta on the mother’s lap. So take the story. I say it’s public property. I don’t want one penny from you if you have the ability to tell it. Take a normal man, fifty years old, doing a normal job in the city, any city, lay it in any city. Need not be American, could be an Italian, French, a Japanese anyone in the world. He has brothers, he has sisters and he has friends, and he has to work to feed and clothe himself and his family.471 ¶25

One night like all other nights in the fifty years as he walks the earth, he goes to bed to find it’s a different night. In the wee hours of the morning an unearthly vibration awakens him, and when he awakens he awakens in his skull and not in his bed as he had throughout the years, to discover he is resurrected from the grave, from the dead. All the imagery concerning the birth of God comes before him…this simple man that his little community knew and liked. He was not a big man, not anyone highly publicized, just a normal man, and it happened in him, the entire drama.471 ¶26

Well then, dramatize that and put it into a half-hour TV, or put it into a play, and let Michelangelo’s great labor become alive. So I have made it alive because I have experienced it. So you saw correctly: The two widely separated in time are closely woven in the tapestry of life. He labored with his tremendous know-how of the human form and he could work in all these different media. And I came along to find it happening in me, without the ability to mold a stick; and yet a babe, an unearthly babe, and people and a grave, and everything in this world that even he in his giant days could not have produced with his hands all happened by exploding from within. So show them, show them this wonderful story as it really is as against the story that we have heard for 2,000 years.471 ¶27

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *471 ¶28

Now are there any questions, please?471 ¶29