The Heavenly Vision

Tonight’s subject is “The Heavenly Vision.” It is the most that can be asked or expected of a man that he be true to the vision he has seen. Paul, the greatest and possibly the most influential figure in the history of Christianity, was such a man. When brought in chains before the king he said, “Here I stand on trial for hope in the promise made by God to our fathers. Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?” . “O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision…and here I stand on trial, testifying and saying only what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass” . As he made his defense, Festus said, “Paul, you are mad; your great learning is turning you mad.” And Paul said, “I am not mad, but I am speaking the sober truth” . I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought through me.493 ¶1

Now, we have to find what he means by Christ. He said, “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God” . He had no little physical Christ: “From now on I regard no one from the human point of view; even though I once regarded Christ from a human point of view, I regard him thus no longer. So I have decided to know Jesus Christ and him crucified” . That’s all that he will know: “From now on, I will only know Jesus Christ and him crucified.” But Paul tells us we must bear in mind that this is a mystery. It’s a shocking mystery told so beautifully that unless you know or take the trouble to look up the words, taking nothing for granted, and looking up every word as you read it in scripture, you’re going to take it on the surface as one billion Christians have. We are supposed tonight to number a billion in the world. And if I used the word “crucified,” they would instantly see a man impaled upon a wooden cross, or maybe hanging on a tree; and that’s not what Paul meant. If you take a good concordance…I use James Strong’s Concordance…it’s exhaustive, every word in scripture is defined both in the Hebrew and the Greek. You will find this word only in the Greek. Here is the word…it’s made up of two words, the word “crucified.” The first is “union by association, companionship; completeness” and the second part of the word is “to extinguish passion,” so that is the purpose from the union.493 ¶2

He sees Christ as the creative power of God. Then he said, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” . Yes, I was bought with a price, he said. It doesn’t say to whom it was paid. But he completes the thought, “You were bought for a price; so glorify God in your bodies” . The price paid is union with Christ, and he gave you himself in that union. So he will transform your body into a body of glory.493 ¶3

But it is a creative act. You’ll find it all through scripture, “Who touched me? Someone has touched me, for I perceive that power has gone forth from me” . Now, look up the word “touch” and you will see it is “to set on fire.” It again is a euphemism for “to lie with a woman.” Here, “Someone touched me”…it’s a creative act. We think, as we read the story, here is a crowd, and a man called the Son of God—as he claimed—and someone knowing after twelve years with an issue of blood if she could but touch the garment, she would be healed…so she touched…and you will think a woman in a crowd touched a man. Christ is not a man; Christ is the creative power of God, expressed yes through man, but not in this physical world. It’s expressed supernaturally, for his Father is Spirit and therefore he is Spirit. So you can’t separate Christ the power of God from God. God and his creative power are one, but it takes a man as an agent to express the power of God.493 ¶4

Now we’ll come to this statement: “They said to him, ‘Tell us the parable that you’ve just told, tell us the parable of the sower.’ He said to them, ‘He who sows the good seed, he is the Son of man’” . The field is the world. The good seed means “the Sons of God.” But they are planted by the Son of man. So when the Son of man comes, he impregnates those that he called. He does it spiritually. It’s the most ecstatic thing in the world, the act of crucifixion. Far from a power that is, say, painful…no it is not painful! There is nothing on earth comparable in ecstasy to the act…it’s something entirely different. It is a spiritual act where the individual is called…and you’re told, “Let everyone that is called there remain with God.” It could be a washer woman—don’t change the job. You could be a carpenter—no need to change the job afterwards and join a monastery, go into a nunnery. Remain just where you are—a housewife, a mother, a father, a businessman, a doctor. Whatever you are when you are called, each one, let him there remain with God, and lock within himself the memory of what has happened. Don’t broadcast it to the world for they won’t understand it. They will condemn you and condemn you time and time again for talking such nonsense, because to the world it’s all nonsense.493 ¶5

And yet, this is the way he raises the dead, for only Christ is raised from the dead. For Christ to be raised from the dead, he must penetrate man in whom then he will be raised, and that man in whom he has entered will be raised. So we are told, “We are born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” . But to be raised from the dead I must first have him penetrate me. And so that union with Christ is the most ecstatic thing in the world. In good time you are raised from the dead while you walk this earth and it all takes place within your own wonderful human Imagination. You are raised, and through the raising you are born from above, and then the whole drama unfolds within you. What drama? The drama as depicted in the gospels of one called Jesus Christ. For if he penetrates you and leaves the seed and the seed is the image of God. For he is called the sperma in Greek and the sperma is the male sperm; but this is a spiritual sperm bearing the image of God. When it completes itself within you, you bear it (as Mary)…then you, not another, you are raised, you are born from above, you come out unfolding within you everything said of Christ in scripture. So he now produces Sons for the kingdom…he being the Son of man produces through these acts Sons for the kingdom of God. There are different functions…those chosen for the Son of man.493 ¶6

Now he asks a question, “Who do the people say that the Son of man is?” And they answered, “Some say John the Baptist come again, others Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said, “But whom do you say…who do you say that I am?” Now he identifies himself with the Son of man, for he first asks the question concerning the Son of man and they brought in a physical state. “But who do you say that I am?” Then Peter answered, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And he said, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” . So here, the drama unfolds within; no man could have told him, he had to experience it. So, in Paul’s case, as in Peter’s case, their seat of authority was not in scripture as a dead written code but in experienced scripture. He experienced it and therefore he could answer from the depth of his own experience, “Thou art the Christ.” He now identifies the Son of man with the I AM with Christ. So this is the power of God that simply impregnates the chosen one. Eventually all will be called, in good time, and all will be raised through the impregnation of the Son of man, who is Christ, who is God…can’t separate them.493 ¶7

Now I know on the surface it shocks people. If anyone read that as I have just explained it to you and read it in a book supposed to be edifying, to lift us in this world, you would simply close the book and say that it’s pornographic. And yet, from beginning to end the Bible is not pornographic; it’s dealing only with the creative power of God and that’s all that it is.493 ¶8

Now, on this level, you can take the same creative power and use it in the world of Caesar, for it is your own wonderful human Imagination. In the world of Caesar I can conjure a scene which would imply the fulfillment of my dream, and if I am faithful to that vision though I myself conjured it, as Paul was to the heavenly vision, it will come to pass in the same way that his came to pass. Only his came upon him like some great catastrophic earthquake. It came suddenly and it always comes that way. You do not expect it. You don’t go to bed expecting it, because you can’t conjure it, it simply happens. It happened suddenly. But I can take now a scene, a scene that would imply the fulfillment of my desire, and if I am faithful to this scene, as I should be faithful to the heavenly vision, this scene implying the fulfillment of my dream will project itself upon the screen of space and I will realize that which I desire. I have done it unnumbered times and I teach others to do it. You simply take a scene, a simple scene, not a complex scene, any scene which if true would imply that I have realized my objective in this world. So if someone would congratulate me because they heard of my good fortune, well then, allow them in my Imagination to congratulate me. Don’t duck…accept the congratulations…as I would if they came to me in the flesh and congratulated me. Then be faithful to that vision.493 ¶9

If I need a more complex scene like two people discussing that which has happened to me, then allow me to eavesdrop as though I overheard what they’re discussing, and what they discuss would imply that I have realized my objective. Now let me not forget that scene. That scene is a vision conjured in my own Imagination. If I carry with me what I have seen knowing what it implies, what it implies will come to pass. For, its potency is in its implication and not the scene itself…what it implies.493 ¶10

So here, in this wonderful story of the heavenly vision he saw the creative act of God. He saw individuals being raised as he was raised, and having been raised then singled out to play the part. For God needs man as an agent to express anything in this world. There isn’t an error but it needs a man to express it; there isn’t a truth but it needs man to express it. So anything in this world that has to expressed, it takes man as the agent to express it. So in the creative act of God it takes man. But not man here. This is a shadow world; everything here is reduced as though we are simply completely encased and insulated. So anything we think thrills us here is nothing compared to when this garment is taken off and you are Spirit and you are performing the act of God.493 ¶11

For, God remains invisible, but you glorify him. How do I glorify him? It is “glorify God in my body.” Well, we’re told that his image called Christ radiates the glory of God and is the express image of his person. Well, you radiate the glory of God and radiating it you impregnate…but it’s all done selectively, it isn’t done haphazardly.493 ¶12

The night I was called I had no idea that I would be called…the year was 1929…and here I am called and taken into the presence of the risen Christ. The words I thought…I used them automatically. But I thought these words as I read them in scripture prior to this moment were the words of Paul, only to discover that what we thought were the words of Paul were the words of God, before they were the words of Paul. Well, when he said, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought in me,” therefore, these words that he spoke were the words of Christ.493 ¶13

So you’re taken into the presence of the risen Christ, the embodiment of this creative power, and all that you see is love, infinite love, there’s nothing but love. You can’t think of one thing in the world when you stand in his presence other than love. He asks you a simple question, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” You answer automatically, “Faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” . At that moment he embraces you and you fuse…that is union if you be man. Here is a complete fusion with the risen Lord! And I can’t tell you the thrill when you are one with the spirit and body of the risen Lord.493 ¶14

Then, while you are there, something rings out in the heavens, a command, and then you are taken instantly before a being that seems to radiate infinite power, nothing but power. You do not feel compassion in it, you do not feel love in it; you just feel power, sheer power. He tells you, “Time to act!” He doesn’t move his lips, he thinks, but you hear words. As he thinks you hear the words he thinks, for his lips are not moving. His eyes are staring right upon yours. He actually looks into your eyes and you hear what he is thinking. You hear the most distinct words “Time to act!” Then you are propelled out of that divine assemblage and find yourself back in this little body that’s insulated. You, like Mary, ponder what has happened. You can’t quite unravel it.493 ¶15

Because at that age, when I was twenty-four in 1929, and I knew nothing of the mysteries, so I wondered what on earth has happened this night? Yet my room…there was no reason for it, no moonlight, no light from outside, it’s four in the morning, and my room is filled with light, an unearthly light that had no source that I knew of in this world and there it remained for the longest time. Just the whole room is flooded with light. Here I am on my bed awake, it’s four in the morning, with the memory of what just has happened. And I dwelt upon it and dwelt upon it and finally in good time the mystery unraveled itself within me.493 ¶16

That was the beginning, and thirty years later—as we are told, “And when he was about thirty years of age, he began his ministry” —thirty years later comes the resurrection within me and the birth from above. So that pregnancy took thirty years before it ripened and came to fulfillment in me.493 ¶17

So here, that vision I cannot…if you took me now before any person in this world that had the power to hurt, to be cruel in their hurting me, I would still have to be faithful to the vision. He could take me apart; I would still have to remain faithful to the vision, even in time of trouble, even in time of the hurt. So, Paul was faithful to the vision. He said, “O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” Well, the word Agrippa means “a wild horse tamer.” Here, the mind is symbolized as a horse in scripture and here is a wild mind; because Festus said, “Why, you are mad, Paul; your great learning is turning you mad.” He said, “I’m not mad; I’m speaking the sober truth.”493 ¶18

But it’s a shocking truth and they could not believe this is what God spoke to the prophets, because they had an entirely different interpretation of the promise he made to Abraham: That in his old age, in spite of his old age he would give him a son; when the womb had ceased to be after the way of woman, Sarah would conceive and bear. It’s all an allegory, a beautiful allegory as Paul tells us in his one letter to the Galatians. Well, if that is an allegory and that is the origin of all humanity, for he’s the father of multitudes, well then, all things must be an allegory, for all things run true to their origins. If the origin is an allegory, well, no matter how you bring it down, culminating in Jesus Christ, that too has to be. But it doesn’t mean it’s untrue. It is a great truth told in the form of an allegory. Now try to find out the fictitious character and discover its meaning. Then, when you find the meaning, hold onto it until vision either confirms it or causes you to modify it. It might cause you to modify it.493 ¶19

But bear in mind, it is an allegory: The two wives, the two sons, one born of a free woman, one born of a slave. Well, the free woman is called Sarah and the child born is called Isaac; therefore it is spiritually born, it’s not something of the flesh. And so, the whole vast story of scripture is a creative act. It begins that she in spite of age, he in spite of age, will be blessed with that which is a child of God. Well, if I am blessed with a child of God, begetting a Son of God, then I must be his bride. I must be his emanation yet his wife ’til the great sleep of death is past.493 ¶20

So here, in this wonderful story of his heavenly vision, he remained faithful, not wavering for one moment even though they tortured him. So they brought him time and again before some tribunal, because he too was a very learned man, one of the Pharisees. Born a Roman, but he was also a Jew, so he could claim whatever suited him. “I’m a Jew,” and when the Jews began to persecute him, “I’m a Roman.” Well, they could not take a Roman citizen and persecute him. So he had everything. But in spite of his great learning, when the vision possessed him he could not do other than simply talk about the vision. He was one used in the capacity of Christ…which is simply the one who expresses the creative power of God.493 ¶21

Having seen it, he wrote these lovely stories concerning the crucifixion. “I decided to know nothing whatever but Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Well, the average person sees a man impaled upon a cross, and it isn’t that at all. Here, it means union, union in order to really extinguish passion. Here, he’s filled…he’s now the sower planting seed, sowing seed, and he selects; it’s all very selective. The one selected need not and should not scream it from the housetops…any more than Mary in the 2nd chapter of Luke. When this was told her, what did she do? She locked it within her heart and pondered on these things, and she simply kept her secret until it was fulfilled. Not a little physical child being born, for that little child you meet in the mystery is only a sign of your own birth from above. But you couldn’t be born from above except through the resurrection of Christ within you. So that man is born again through the resurrection of Christ, and Christ has to be within him to rise within him. Only that which is now in me could rise within me; only that which descended can ascend. So the seed descends into man, and then when it matures, well then, Christ rises in man, and as he rises in man, man himself is born from above.493 ¶22

No, it doesn’t make sense on this level at all. For man, like the speaker, was taught by his mother, by the Sunday school teacher, a story, the Christian story and that he believed implicitly. Then came the night of the shock…for I still believed it up to that time. I heard it, I believed it, I never once questioned the historicity of Jesus Christ, never once questioned the physical reality of the being. Then to discover that Christ was the power of God buried in me, waiting for that moment in time, for the fullness of time, when it would explode within me and erupt and then I am he. So as we are told, “Unless you believe I am he, you die in your sins” . I didn’t see how literally true that was until the night he erupted within me to discover I am he. So, if I am he, well then, I do not know whether I will be singled, picked out to play the part until that moment in time when I was called to play that part. And it’s all done on a high spiritual plane; hasn’t a thing to do with this plane here at all, nothing. So let no one think it’s done here. If anyone has it here, that’s not it. If anyone thinks in terms of any physical act, that’s not it. It’s not here at all; it’s all done within man.493 ¶23

So here, “Who has touched me?” We go back into the Old Testament…and Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord, to discover afterward it was the Lord; and the Lord touched him on his thigh and the thigh shrank . Well now, go back and read the story carefully, and then do not take one word in that passage for granted. Take the word thigh and look it up, and you’ll be shocked when you see what is being revealed to man but in a beautiful, wonderful manner that will not shock the so-called good people of the world. They couldn’t stand it. What you just heard this night, if you’re here for the fist time, you may be shocked. If you’re not here for the first time, then you’re not shocked, for you’ve been trained gradually to receive it.493 ¶24

As he said, “I have told you earthly things and you wouldn’t receive it. If you will not receive the things I tell you of the earth, how will you receive the things that I tell you of heaven?” For what images will I use that…well, you can’t find images here to describe the heavenly state. So I can’t find any images here. You say, “Tell me what heaven is like?” But all you can say to that is, “Do you not know that eyes have not seen, nor ears heard, nor has it entered into the hearts of men, the things already prepared for those who love the Lord?” . So what image would one use from earth in order to describe things that cannot be seen by mortal eyes and that cannot be understood by the mortal mind? It can’t be done and so you have to be silent and therefore in the eyes of those who ask the question be ignorant. All they can say is he doesn’t know. Well, I can say you can’t find anything here.493 ¶25

If I tell you of the night of the union in the actual crucifixion, I couldn’t describe the ecstasy. I could not describe that moment. I can tell you of the throng that I led in procession to the house of God. I can tell you of the woman at my right who asked the question of the voice; for the voice came out of nowhere and said, “And God walks with them.” She said, “If God walks with us, where is he?” The voice replied, “At your side.” She took it literally and turned to her left—she could have turned to her right but she turned to her left—looked into my face and became hysterical. It struck her so funnily that she said, “What? Neville is God?” and the voice came back, and all heard it, “Yes, in the act of waking.” Then the voice spoke from within me and no one heard it but myself, and the voice said, “I laid myself down within you to sleep and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed…” and I knew exactly the end of the sentence “…he’s dreaming that he’s I.” I became so emotional at that moment I was sucked into this body on the bed…my hands were vortices, my head a vortex, my side a vortex, and the soles of my feet vortices. Here were six vortices. But I can’t tell you the ecstasy! Far from pain, it was just the extreme opposite of the most intense pain. If you can imagine such opposites, it was such ecstasy…as I simply came back into this body knowing the vision.493 ¶26

I have not been able to forget it. I shan’t forget it, for he is buried within me. And then because he was buried within me, in due time he rose within me, leaving me encased still in this insulated body until that moment in time when he calls me to return to the glory that was mine before he sent me. So my rank is then restored at the end…it could come tonight, it could come next year, it could come in years to come…when I do not know. I only know that when that moment comes, he calls and no power on earth can stop it. So I will answer the bell when it calls and I will simply return to the rank that was mine. I came to play just the part in this drama of man.493 ¶27

So here, the heavenly vision is the most glorious thing…what man really is! He’s destined to awake one day as God. He will awake one day as God, because God will select him prior to that moment of awakening, and he will have a mystical experience that will be sheer ecstasy. The proof of it and what will be the purpose of it will come later when he’s risen and when he’s born from above. Then if he is the teacher, the apostle, whatever he is, he will simply play his part until that moment in time when the insulation is taken off and men will speak of him as dead. But far from dead…he is in the kingdom. He has not gone through the little gate called death to find himself restored to a life similar to this in a world terrestrial, doing all the thing we do here.493 ¶28

That’s the normal passage of death, so everyone who dies finds himself there. If you’re 100, you find yourself there not born again through the womb of woman. No, you find yourself there a young man, a young girl, twenty years old. And there you marry and there you die just as you do here. There you slave just as you do here, and all the things you do here you do in that terrestrial world, for it’s a part of this world. It’s not another world; it is just like this world until that moment in time when Christ rises within you.493 ¶29

From that moment on you are a son of the resurrection and therefore you die no more. No more passages through the little gate called death. From that moment on you are in an entirely different age, with a body of glory, which was the price paid by Christ. He gave the money to no one: the price was the seed of God…that was the price, and you received it and that saves you because the seed was planted in you. For he was the sower and you were the field, and the purpose of planting in you that seed was so that you will become a son of the kingdom. It’s waiting for unnumbered sons, as promised to Abraham, more than the stars of the heavens, more than the sands of the sea. So in the end all will be saved.493 ¶30

But there are degrees in the kingdom as there are degrees on earth. Not everyone is an apostle, not everyone is a teacher, not everyone is a miracle worker. There are ranks as there are in the army. And so, the highest rank is the apostle…and that one is the one that he calls, selects and sends. When he sends him, he sends himself, for he who sees the sender or the thing sent or the one sent, also sees the sender. He said, “He who sees me sees him who sent me. If you knew me, you would know my Father, for I and my Father are one. Therefore, he who sees me has seen the Father” . For he is a father, planting the seed of the Father; therefore, the apostle is one not only who is sent, but he is sent in the name of the one who sends him. Therefore, the one who sent him is God. So he could say, “He who sees me sees him who sent me. He who sent me is God the Father; but I know my Father and ye know not your God.”493 ¶31

So the heavenly vision, if you ever have it, and the chances are many of you have had it…and all will have it…and when you have it, there is no torture in the world that can cause you to forget the heavenly vision. No matter what it is, you cannot turn aside from the vision. It will lead you.493 ¶32

So everything on earth remains as it is, but your values change. You have no desire to possess anything here, because you know you possess it all. King Agrippa had everything and possessed nothing; Paul had nothing and possessed everything. So what did he want when he possessed all? As told us in the 50th Psalm, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the earth is mine and all within it,” and so I would simply slay and eat, “for the cattle on a thousand hills is mine and all within in it” . It’s all mine, because mine are thine and thine are mine. So what could you give to one in whom Christ rose? When he knows, he doesn’t want to have things. He enjoyed things…he wants just enough to pay Caesar his taxes. “They’re Caesar’s? Well, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”…but he has no boundless ambition to pile up things.493 ¶33

So tonight, if you have a concordance, and if you don’t but are serious about it, I suggest you either get one or one day go to the library and borrow it, and then take any passage and take not one word for granted. Simply look it up. It is James Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance. Every word in scripture, both the Old and New, is there with the original meaning. Because you know words change their meaning. So even in our modern day there are words today that you wouldn’t use, and yet my mother used them without any offense to anyone. Yet today because of the change of meaning we do not use the word. We simply omit it or take some other word. Yet when mother was raised as a girl, these words were perfectly normal in her day. Well, if in so short a period of time the meanings of words change, what would they over a period of 2,000 years? So those possibly who heard the word “crucify” understood what Paul meant when they read his letter, but coming down through the years when priesthoods organized the great truth, they changed the meaning of the word. We see now mentally, a man impaled.493 ¶34

So when he spoke to the Galatians, he said, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” . You’re seeing a man of flesh? It was portrayed like a stage play, and man dramatizes the power of God, so he stepped upon the stage like a moving picture and here you see a man but know it is an allegory. Distinguish between what you are seeing and what it intends to tell you. And when you discover the fictitious character, well then, extract its meaning, and abide by the meaning. So it’s portrayed as crucified. It means by definition “union by association, companionship, completeness,” plus the second part of the word “to extinguish passion.” That was the purpose of the union. And then in that extinguishing of passion the seed is planted and that seed is the image of the living God. That is your redemption: Because you cannot be born from above, which is essential to enter the kingdom of God, unless first in you rises Jesus Christ. So he’s redeemed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Redeemed in what way? He is born from above, born anew it is said. So when man is born anew, it is because in him Christ rose; and Christ could not rise in you if he is not first in you. Nothing can emerge from man that wasn’t first submerged. So Christ has to descend. And that is a descent when the being who has already been raised and selected for that part plants the seed; that’s a descent of the image of God. “Nothing can ascend but that which first descended” . Now let us go into the Silence.493 ¶35