As you begin to function on the basis of the principles of reality, you learn to discern the factors which should come to focus in a cycle that is of comparatively short duration and you do not try to bring to focus in the present those factors which are of a larger cycle. You let them work out. One of the causes for difficulty, futility, failure, is this: until the human being learns to so function in the current of the spirit that he can discern what factors are properly to be brought to focus today and what factors are to be left alone to work out in a larger cycle, he will be tending to ignore the things that should come to focus today and he will be trying to bring to focus today things that should be left alone.
Now the human mind, with human intelligence, cannot learn to do this in self-activity—it simply cannot be done. There are no rules and regulations you can point to. In the ordinary sense, you can't put it on what is commonly called the scientific basis, that is, subject to the logic and reason of the intellect. But once you begin to let the spirit control, you find it is on a scientific basis, and that logic and reason recognize the reality as it manifests. So one of the things that you can do very effectively in relationship to your own progress is to watch—not trying to make something be thus and so, but just to watch and observe; be alert. Watch the cycles working out in relationship to yourselves, to whatever degree you can see them in relationship to one another. But particularly watch the cycles as they work out in the material which I present to you, because there, if you are alert, you can perceive the variations.
But learn to watch the vibratory factors, learn to perceive them. If you do not practice looking for them, watching them, you will never learn to see them. It takes alertness, observation, and it takes the process of letting. For here we see letting comes into two specific classifications: one, letting the vibratory factors of the larger cycle alone, letting them work on out; but the factors which are supposed to come to focus in the present, letting them have the proper vibratory pattern, the control and design patterns, so that they can manifest. You go through a process of letting in both cases. One, you let it work out further, let the cycle continue, leave it alone. Do not try to make it be thus and so. The others, you let them come to point in the present, you cooperate, you give them an opportunity of having controlled focalization.
This gives you an opportunityto have a little insight into the way in which human beings fail to receive God's blessings. Because, for some reason or other, whether they are struggling or being concerned about the larger cycle, or whether they are self-centered or functioning wrongly in some fashion, they will fail to cooperate in receiving into focalized pattern, in relationship to themselves, the vibratory factors that should come to focus. Now they are not going to just, by some magic means, gather to a point and manifest for you. There has to be some way of receiving them. You have to give them a contact point. If you are trying to get hold of vibratory factors that are beyond your reach, that you have no business playing with, you are going to be in trouble, or at least fail. But there are those factors each day in your life, right here and now, which are supposed to begin to come into focus. And unless you are so functioning that you can gather them in and let them have point in relationship to yourself, they are not going to come into form; they will pass on by. The thing is so scattered that it never appears.
The point is that we have something to do and we have to learn how to function in relationship to it. Now, at the moment I can tell, by the looks on some of your faces anyway, that this sounds a little ambiguous, a little—well, these are the things we are here to learn. Don't imagine that you are supposed to be able to so function overnight. But I want you to take a little look at it to see the principles involved, so that you could stop rejecting God's blessings which are coming your way, and start doing your part toward letting the vibratory factors come to focus as they are supposed to appear in your life in relationship to the Unit here, or in relationship to the Lord's service wherever the pattern may be working out.
All of this has a very definite bearing on the basic principles that we have been studying in relationship to history, because one of the great values in history as it has been introduced is to let you see how it was that human beings failed to receive blessings when they could have, when they should have, when they were provided; how human reactions or self-activity dissipated the vibratory factors that were supposed to come to point, instead of letting them come into focalization in relationship to the individuals then living. Unless you begin to see history on this basis you will not be able to gain the greatest possible comprehension of the lessons that are contained there.
Of course, you can always say that history teaches various things more or less on the surface, or to be intellectually observed. One of the things that tends to come into consciousness for anyone who really studies history is the idea that there are great cycles that work out and have within the whole scope of recorded history, that can be seen in relationship to the rise and fall of empires. A certain pattern would begin to take form, people would cooperate in it up to a certain point, then they'd begin to be lethargic and self-righteous and self-satisfied and so on. And you can see where the graph of the cycle begins to level out, and in that pattern you look at the historical factors and you see how these people were so self-content, they thought they were on top of the world and they were just going to stay there. And then, perhaps almost imperceptibly at first, there was a decline, beginning to go down, and then suddenly, generally, a plunge, and another cycle begins: the rise and fall of empires, the great cycles in history.
We can look at those great cycles—you probably have enough knowledge of history to see clearly the point I'm talking about at the moment—we can look at those and see how human beings precipitated those things. They were the ones that brought it about. We see a dangerous tendency, that has been in manifestation for some time in our own country, of a leveling off. There is a little rally at the present time; how well it's going to hold we shall see. But being called the greatest nation on earth, etc., taking some of our blessing and privileges and opportunities for granted, tending to be self-righteous and self-satisfied, feeling secure with industrial patterns and business, commerce; we've got the best of everything, etc—I'm not sure that that is true; to a certain extent it is, but not on the basis that is generally thought of—and all of this self-righteousness, and what do we begin to see? Self-satisfied, instead of the forward movement upward, a tendency to level off, a tendency to lose the moral fiber, the strength, the stamina, the pioneering spirit necessary to keep moving upward.
Now it's our business, in part, to help maintain that pioneering spirit in relationship to our national program. It works here and in Canada, or wherever there is response to it. There must be something moving upwards. If we pause to consider the matter, just very briefly, we could see that the reason why England, as the center of the British Empire, has managed to stay up as well as it has, has been because of the outlying dominions where something of that upward swing was present, and it siphoned back to England. If England had been left more or less on her own, and the pattern had worked out as it did in England, it too would have reached the point of taking the great plunge before this. But the upward trend in the dominions held it up.
Now all the way back through history we see how God has given man opportunities, over and over again, which man has failed to utilize. He didn't take advantage of them. He started to perhaps, in some ways, and then let self-activity enter in. In recorded history we do not have any specific pattern which makes for easier examination and analysis in this regard than the experience of the Children of Israel. And it is this specific pattern which we begin to analyze in order to see what relationship that outworking has to us. And you will be surprised, if you have not already begun to see it, how closely those same principles, those same factors, show up in relationship to ourselves in this present day. We won't be studying history as something way back yonder. We'll see it in relationship to the present cycle, because the same basic factors are present in any case, and it is brought out into the pattern that you see on the basis of symbolism. And we begin to appreciate the meanings of the various symbolic factors. We begin to see how those things are in operation here and now, so that we are not relegating it merely to a story of the past.
Once you see the prehistoric pattern, see how man went through a process of rapid devolution, and gradually began to move upward again, we began to have a written record, the early Egyptian period, etc—we begin to see the dawn of history. And back in that period of the dawn of history, our attention comes to focus on a man called Abraham and his particular pattern of response, the things that began to work out in his life. I do not suppose that any of you ever think of Abraham without thinking almost in the same split second of Melchizedek. In any case, the very mention of the name Abraham should remind you instantly of Melchizedek—Melchizedek, King of Salem, meaning the Prince of Peace. The beginning pattern, initiated by Melchizedek, who according to the record was not as a man born—he was without beginning of years as we think of it, without end of days; the picture we have is of a Being who was not subject to birth and death or ascension, as we think of it, in relationship to this particularized pattern. And we recall that this King—the King of Salem, or Melchizedek—comes into the picture at a time when Abraham had some trouble. His brother Lot was not as responsive to the spirit of God as Abraham was, and he got into trouble. There was a raiding party, as was common in those days with respect to the various tribes that were beginning to take form, and each little group had its king, so there were all kinds of kings in those days. And one of these kings had come against Lot and carried off some of the people and the animals and goods. And the King of Salem went out to help. He cooperated with Abraham in bringing this king under control. They had a little battle, and the upshot was that the loot, or the plunder that had been taken, was restored. Now it's in that setting that we see the beginnings of this pattern.
It's interesting to note that the same cycle initiated with respect to the Orient has the same type of setting—two wholly different outworkings on the basis of the historical pattern, and with respect to the Biblical record we can see this one with respect to Abraham and Melchizedek—but, in the opening phases of the historical pattern as it relates to the Orient, we have a very similar story. And it opens in relationship to a very similar pattern of battle. If you know anything about the Bhagavad-Gita, you will appreciate what I have reference to. I am hoping to introduce you to The Song Celestial before too long. The version that we use was translated from the Sanskrit by Sir Edwin Arnold. He did a beautiful job, but just as we find is the case with respect to the Bible, so is it there—the centuries through which these records come to us, the manipulations of priesthood, etc, have obscured some of the specific meanings, some of the symbolism, some of the values, and some of them become, under this pattern, definitely misleading. So a number of years ago—just about ten, roughly speaking—I undertook to revise the significant portion of The Song Celestial, and it is that revised pattern of Sir Edwin Arnold's translation of the Bhavagad-Gita, which he called The Song Celestial, which we will use as opportunity affords.
But I wish to draw particularly to your attention now the fact that that story too begins on a battlefield. And when we come to the story of the Bhagavad-Gita we find that there is the Blind King; there is Arjuna, who would correspond in principle to Abraham; there is Krishna, who corresponds in principle to Melchizedek. And exactly the same principles, exactly the same laws, exactly the same processes, are portrayed in these two patterns—one with the setting, as you know it with respect to Abraham, and the other far away in the Orient, where it took form in the revelation of the laws and principles of God in a completely different place and setting and yet the same kind of setting. So we begin to note such similarities and see that these two revelations of Divine Principle and Law started in each case—though so widely separated—started on a battlefield.
Now what is the case with respect to you? When you begin to move into the pattern of the Divine Design, is there one of you that could say that the story with respect to your life did not begin on a battlefield? Didn't it begin on a battlefield with you? Certainly it did. Wasn't there a blind king—your own self-active mind? Wasn't there a Lot in the lot? Certainly. There is always some kind of a battle. It has various patterns in the background of your individual lives, but there was at least an internal conflict. There was a refusal to accept the realm of limitation roundabout. There was probably in you the contest between the Abraham side of your nature and the Lot side of your nature. If you look back, the Lot side wanted to be content with things as they are, more or less, and talked about how good it was to get settled down in the right kind of a pattern. And Abraham's side was the pioneer. Just settling down here like that, just the same as everyone else is doing, just having these creature comforts—that isn't going to bring the fulfilment of life. We need to lead on out into something more wonderful; we don't know what it is yet, but we have the assurance that there will be a revelation. We will begin to find the Way, the Truth and the Life. We will begin to know where we are going, why we are here, where we came from, what our purpose is, and how to to serve—to have our lives have meaning, so that we can accomplish that for which we came into the world.
So there was the Lot side of you, to whatever degree it tended to have an influence, and there was the Abraham side of you. We could examine the same picture as it is revealed in the Bhagavad-Gita. But there is the Arjuna side of you. And just as there was the Melchizedek to reveal the way at the time of Abraham, there was a Krishna to reveal the way at the time of Arjuna. Always, whenever human beings have been ready to respond to God and let the will of God be done on earth, and they were ready to yield to the will of God, to leave behind the old patterns, always there has been provision by which the things of God might become known to those who would receive them, and we have two outstanding illustrations of this.
And if these two patterns had been allowed to work out—the one in the near East, as it extended out into the Occident, and the other in the Orient—it would not have been necessary for our LORD to come on earth. If either one of these patterns had held, if either one of them had been allowed to work out the way it should have, it would not have been necessary for the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings to come into the world and face the things He did. It was perfectly possible, it was a Divine opportunity extended to man, it was a wonderful invitation. But man didn't let it work out in either case.
And so finally there was the manifestation of the pattern, the same principles all over again, the same type of thing all over again, in what we call the New Testament story. For the land was under subjection to the Roman rule; there was the pattern of conflict and unrest; there was Herod the King; and there was Jesus Christ. Exactly the same thing in principle, in revelation, the laws of being, all over again—a different focalization of them but exactly the same laws and principles. And outside of the particular facts with respect to the Master as a Being, did He bring into the world any truth, did He reveal to man any knowledge that had not already been offered to man? Many would be inclined to say, “Yes, He surely did,” but is it so? No. It had already been revealed to man; it was already available to man, but man wasn't taking advantage of it. He re-focalized it, revitalized it, but outside of the newness of the reality of His Own Being in manifestation on earth, and the application as it was established with respect to Himself, there was nothing new in it, because it had all been given before. And once we begin to see that and realize it—and you will see it as we go along—you begin to see that it was not God's design, it was not arbitrarily required by God that our Lord and King Himself should come into the world and face the things He did. It was unnecessary. And so, perhaps the best way to make this beginning is to actually read some of the story, let you see how it worked out.
“And Tera’n took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
“Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
“And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
“And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
One of the first things we note here is the necessity for the human capacity to accept, in relationship to oneself, a Great Promise. The tendency in human beings is to say, “Well, that can be for someone else, somewhere else”—but to receive for oneself a great promise? Why, what arrogance for me to even think that such a thing could be me! Now if God produced a great person over there or something, and gave us a leader, I would be happy to follow. But for me? Just to think, me? No, no, no.” But he accepted a great promise in relationship to himself. There was no outer evidence of the fulfilment of the promise but there was the willingness to do his part; not arrogance or foolhardiness—but not holding back, not refusing to have a share in God's givingness, not refusing to let himself be the means by which something could come on earth. He didn't always function in absolute perfection perhaps, but he accepted a great promise in relationship to himself, when everything made it look as if he was simply having a pipe dream. It was ridiculous; it was fanciful.
It takes a greatness inside, for a human being to accept a great promise in relationship to himself without becoming egotistical, arrogant and self-active on the one hand, or without rejecting it in a false pattern of humility on the other hand. There's the Central Way. Most people reject the blessings of God because they are so humble. Humility is necessary, true humility—but the false pattern of humility has been used by the adversary to defeat many, many people. Oh, it's necessary to be humble before God, yes. But a false pattern of humility has made so many people refuse to accept the great promises in relationship to themselves. And what did Abram start with but a promise? What was there in the pattern round about him, in the uncertainties of the world at that time, the tribal feuds and all the rest of it? What kind of character, what kind of capacity, what kind of a quality would that be? Something quite remarkable, don't you think? that under those circumstances a man had the capacity to accept a great promise in relationship to himself when there was no outer evidence to indicate that he was doing anything but having a foolish dream. It looked like everything was against him. But that is the spirit of the true pioneer, and the quality of a man or a woman who will dare to accept a great promise as having meaning to himself or herself. It's easy enough to set it aside. It's easy enough to spoil it with arrogance, egotism, on the one hand, or to reject it in the false pattern of humility. So few there have been in the world who had what it took to walk in the Central Way, to be balanced. Because if you do walk in that Central Way, there will be those who will take the attitude that you are arrogant, that you are an egotist.
How often I have been classified as an egotist because I refused to relinquish the position that I have a Mission on earth, I have a message to give, I have a purpose, something that is important to the whole of humanity. How often I have been called egotistical because, in the false pattern of humility, I wouldn't deny the Commission. When I received that Commission was there any outer evidence that we'd ever reach a point where I would have the privilege of standing here talking to you? The extent to which that has reached out into the world already means something. And we share it. But it takes that something that causes an individual to accept a great promise as having meaning in relationship to himself in actual fact, so that he is ready to act upon it. Not just to say, “Well now. I'll wait and see if such-and-such a thing works out or someday perhaps, somehow,” but to act upon it when from every outer standpoint it appears that you are just plain fanciful, ridiculous—to dare to do in the face of that type of situation.
The Lord told him—Get thee out of thy country. “Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house.” Now for anyone who is going to amount to anything on earth, that's the finest advice that can be given, whether to Abram or somebody else. It was the advice the Lord gave. And anyone who wants to really serve God on earth had better do it, because as long as one stays in the pattern of kinfolk, as ordinarily established, he will become subject to the old patterns, the old situations. Of course sometimes you can take mother and dad along. I managed that for Kathy's sake, but it was quite a struggle! Kathy: “And you finally won!” [Great laughter from Uranda.]
“Get thee out of thy country.” That doesn't necessarily mean that you have to move from the United States to Canada, or somewhere. But you have to make a change. You're not going to do it in the old pattern because, well, it would just be asking too much. You've got to dare to make a move. “Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house.” Now there is instruction that applies to any man or womanwho finds himself stirred of the spirit of God out there in the world. And it is our business to help establish a place to which those aspiring souls may come and turn, that they may not just go wandering through the patterns of life seeking and never finding. But there are many of all ages out there in the world pattern today who are hearing that call. Some of them are beginning to act upon it. Some of them are just getting conditioned to the idea. But they are ready to come and be with us, not necessarily geographically, but from the standpoint of sharing in the working of God's Plan on earth. And so the word today, just as surely as it was then, the Word the Lord if you please, is “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee.” That is a promise to you. You have accepted it or you wouldn’t be here. For some of you it was a little difficult perhaps, and for some of you not so difficult—but if you hadn't been ready and willing!
“And I will make of thee a great nation.” Now that doesn't necessarily have to mean that you will have to be the original parent that produces a great nation after so many generations—No! That is more or less the way it worked out with Abram, but we are not Abram. We are ourselves, right here. “And I will make of thee a great nation.” All of those who so respond, who are willing to dare to move out of old patterns and into the new, whoever they are, wherever they are, “I will make of thee a nation,” and that promise applies for us today and the people who awakening, just as surely as it did to Abram. And what does He say “And I will bless thee.” Not perhaps—I will. Once we begin to move in that pattern, as you have done or you wouldn't be here, once you begin to share, in a true sense, that Divine outworking—“I will bless thee.”
Of course, you have to learn how to receive the blessing. And it is the thing you have to learn how to help others learn, because human beings simply do not know how to receive the blessings of the Lord, and that is the difficulty. So when you learn to receive them, and you can inspire others to receive those blessings, you are serving. And those who are responding to that call, which is sounding in the world today as surely as it did at the time of Abram, begin to see the pattern of service to the Glory of God and the blessing of the children of men to which you are called. So few? Yes. But as we hold it steady and do our part it will open, and there are many who are ready to become a part of this Great Nation. Not a great nation in the sense of entering into competition with the United States or Canada or Great Britain or someone else, no. A Great Nation in the sense of a body of human beings who are willing to serve God on earth, to let the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven. “And I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.” Now, when you are blessed, you are supposed to become a blessing. What did the Master say? “He that would be great among you, let him be the servant of all”—the same principle exactly that God had expounded to Abram way back there, the same principle. “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
My question is, today: Are you man enough, are you woman enough, to receive that promise in relationship to yourself, in this day, in this time, in this hour? Because it is offered to you just as surely as it was offered to Abram. It may not look like you can do anything about it, but how about accepting a Great Promise in relationship to youself, in this hour?
This promise: that you shall be blessed
and that you may be a blessing to others;
that you may let this have meaning in your life now.
Because if it was of any value at the time of Abram, as he was then known, it is of value to you in this moment. And it applies to you just as surely as to Abram, if you will let yourself do your part in this moment, in this hour, in relationship to this Cycle of the Divine Plan. Because it's the same promise today as it was then, for the same purpose. It is not a changed pattern. Oh, it may manifest differently, yes, but just the same laws, the same promise, the same principles, the same God, all for the same purpose. And we are the ones who are on earth and have a chance to take a look at it.
Are you man enough, woman enough,
to receive a Great Promise from God Himself to you now?
Somebody made the comment, “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.” But who was it that said that? Paul, in Hebrews 9:22. This is a rather big subject, and if, in my summary, some phase or aspect of it is not developed enough to make it clear, I wish to clear it, because I am going to undertake to deal with it as concisely as I can. Blood is the life stream of the body, isn’t it? Without that blood there can be no life. The first miracle that Jesus performed in the beginning of His Ministry, according to the Biblical record, was the changing of the water into wine. That was His first miracle, the inception of His Ministry, at the marriage of Cana, according to the Bible. That was not by happenstance. Water is the symbol of Truth; wine is the symbol of the blood, which is to say, the life stream. The life stream, which makes possible the Spiritual Expression of Life, is not just the physical blood but what we call the Christ Radiation—that is, the life forces in Spiritual Essence, which are made available to human beings from God Being. When we recognize that Jesus revealed the Father, or revealed Deity and the expression of Divinity on earth, we recognize that He was allowing the expression on earth of those Divine Essences which make possible the true living of life; but we also recognize that when He incarnated from His Heavenly Estate into the world of man, He sacrificed Himself; by that very act, in undertaking to come down into the world simply as a human being and to function in the world of men under the circumstances that existed, He was shedding His blood—shedding His life stream into the world body of mankind or humanity.
When He came to the final act of His Ministry before the crucifixion, which was what we call the Lord's Supper, we find that that final act of His Ministry has a peculiar correspondence to the first act of His Ministry. He changed water into wine, water the symbol of Truth into the living expression of Life—truth in the abstract, recognized by man, but not a living, vital thing that had practical expression in the world of man—and He, by His Life and Ministry, changed that abstract truth into a vital, living thing, so His first miracle was a key to His Life and Ministry because that was what He did, not just at the marriage at Cana, but all through His Life expression He was changing abstract truth into the living wine of Life, into the life stream—and the manifestation of His whole Life and Ministry and His whole Teaching is essential to salvation, not just the fact that He was crucified. Then, in His final act of Ministry, where He took the wine and the unleavened bread—we recognize that leavened bread would indicate that the bread contained that in it which made it self-active—it is unleavened bread, meaning that the self-activity of man must be relinquished, which could be put to Divine uses, and the unfermented juice of the grape is what He used as the wine, which carries the same significance—if fermented wine is used in relationship to the sacraments, it is a continuation of self-activity, which defeats the thing which He was revealing. It has to be the sweet juice of the grape.
He was revealing the Father, and revealing the Way by which we could come into Oneness with the Father so that we also could reveal the Father. He said, “This bread is my flesh.” That unleavened bread was a symbol, and the wine was a symbol. I have not time tonight to develop the whole picture, but it was very fully developed during the Summer Session. Here, in John 15, He said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.”
We find that He had been teaching intensively the manner in which His Body should continue on earth. The disciples were supposed to he the continuation of His Body on earth, or what we call the One Christ Body, and through a consideration of John 14, 15, 16, and 17 especially, we find that those four chapters are dealing with the formation and manifestation of the Christ Body. “I am the Vine … abide in Me.” Oneness.
He expected His disciples to be His Body on earth through which He could continue to accomplish His purposes on earth after His Ascension. They failed to do that. They did not carry through, but that was His intention, that was His teaching. Then, when we recognize His intention that they should be His Body, the idea that He was just talking about the bread itself, when He said “This is my Body”, is seen to be extremely limited. The disciples to whom He spoke, the group of individuals to whom He was speaking, were to be His Body, and the bread was simply a symbol of that Body. As He took that to His lips, into His body, and each one there took it, that bread ceased to be a thing of itself, losing its identity as bread. Just so were they supposed to be received into His Body, so that they would lose their identity, in the sense of being scattered segregations, and become members of that One Body, so that as branches of that Body they could let the works be done on earth. Just so, when they took the wine, it symbolized the life stream, the living expression of the Christ Life on earth, which was to continue to manifest through His One Body on earth, but the disciples failed to let that Body come into formation, and that Body has not been in formation until now, and it is only beginning to manifest as a nucleus now. There is just beginning to be a recognition of what Jesus meant that His disciples should do. But they failed and did not let John head the development. Peter plunged out and started doing this, that and the other thing.
Jesus particularly stated that His place of leadership was transferred to John. He never authorized Peter to take any place of leadership. He authorized John, and they ignored John, and John was the only one who understood what was to be done in the Christ Body. The failure of Christianity, as meaning the true teachings of Christ, was very marked after the ascension of Jesus. They had so prostituted the teachings of Christ that just three hundred years afterward, the dark ages came in—just to illustrate my point. When He said, “This is my Body”, He was illustrating the fact that this was the symbol of that which they were to be, and as they partook of it they were to come into the One Body to continue His work on earth. What is the first great fallacy of the Roman Catholic Church? The word, “Peter” means “stone”, not “rock”—it means “a little stone”. He says, “Thou art Peter” but “upon this rock”—which He was Himself—“I will build my Church".” He said, “You are a little stone.” Alright. But “upon this rock” which He Himself was, He built the church. He never gave Peter authorization at all, but He did give John authorization.
“Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing by, whom He loved, He saith unto His mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy mother!” (John 19: 25-27) In other words, He put John in His place on earth. From there on John was supposed to fill the place which He was vacating on earth. He had been her son up to that point, but He put John into the place of His mother’s son. One of the last things He did was to delegate His place and authority on earth to John, but the failure of the disciples to let John fulfill that Divine Commission caused them to go off on all kinds of tangents. They were following afar off. They did not even hear the Commission. They were afraid to get that close. And Peter had just denied Him three times.
He made His Christ Life available to the world. It was not by happenstance that the cross was used in connection with the world’s rejection of him, because unless we realize that the cross symbolizes the human body, it has no real significance. It is in the human body that that refusal to let the Christ Life manifest is found, and it was set in Golgotha, the place of the skull. The self-activity of human minds, the Golgotha of today, is the place where our Lord is, each day, crucified on earth afresh. If we remember that, the whole picture begins to take on its proper proportions and the mere fact that He died on the cross is not what it is thought to be in the Christian churches. They do not even know what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is. They say it is because He died on the cross, but the only Gospel Jesus authorized was to go preach that “the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Have they done it? No. Of all of the missionaries that have gone around the world, I challenge you to show me one who has taught this Gospel of the Kingdom. Where is he? I never heard of him.
“And He saith unto them, but whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” (Matthew 16:15-13). “Peter” means “a little stone”, and He did not mean He was going to build His Church on a little stone. All the way through the Bible Jesus was pictured as the Rock of Reality. Upon the Rock of Jesus Christ will He build His Church, not upon the little stone of Peter.
This is Matthew’s gospel, and John, who knew more about it than anybody else, does not even record the incident. In connection with the same point, in John 6: 68-70: “Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” It was the twelve to whom He was speaking. Now it is assumed, by the way Matthew puts it here, in Chapter 16, Verse 19: “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” That it is supposed to be simply the Master's word to Peter—actually, it is not; it is deliberately used to engender and foster a false idea. It must be recognized that Jesus was speaking to the twelve, or, one being a devil, to the eleven, so it was His Body on earth, not just Peter, that should have the keys of the Kingdom, and when we recognize that, that it is His Body on earth that has those keys now, then we are beginning to understand the application of the teaching of Jesus Christ.
Let us read John 20: 19-23 — “Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto then, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he showed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” Here we have the word of Jesus after His resurrection saying that the Body of those who should receive the Holy Spirit would have power to remit sin. This is the Master's final and official statement on this important point.
Let me carry out this thought. Peter said he would never deny the Lord, as we read in Matthew 26: 33-34. “Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. Jesus said unto him. Verily, I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.” And even after that great warning, he did it! Then, there is another misrepresentation, because after the Master was resurrected, before His ascension, Peter had denied the Master three times, and we read in John 21: 14-17: “This is now the third time that Jesus showed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead. So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord: thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.” That text has been used to still further the idea that it was Peter who was supposed to take the leadership, but there, what the Master was doing was forgiving him, and allowing him to accept a clearing on the three denials. Three times Peter had denied Him and all that text means is that Peter should then be willing, if he loved Him, to function correctly in the One Body, and in that text Jesus was simply washing away the tragedy of the three denials, if he would serve properly, which he did not do. He tried to take the reins—impulsive Peter.
"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou vast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst wither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whilst thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God.” (John 21: 18-19). That is, what the Master was really doing was saying that, in spite of those three assertions by Peter that he loved Him, the Master recognized that still Peter would not do what he was supposed to do. “And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me. Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.” If that is not telling him to mind his own business! At that time, if Jesus had intended Peter to be in charge of all the disciples, He would certainly have answered that question, but He plainly refused to recognize Peter’s authority over John in any way.
And after the Ascension, if you take the picture that Jesus gave before His crucifixion, His final teachings to them as contained in John 14, 15, 16 and 17, and then note the course they followed afterward, you will see they absolutely ignored the leadership Jesus established. Impulsive Peter took the reins in his hands; and then, because Paul sees a vision—where did he go to get his understanding? To the disciples, who had lived with Jesus? To John? No, into the wilderness for three years, and then he proceeds to teach his theories about the teaching of Jesus, and his whole approach to it is faulty because he did not know.
Now, here is one of the most important texts to be found in the Bible from the standpoint of understanding what happened after the Master’s ascension and what is essential to the outworking now. One of the last things He said before His final prayer of intercession was, “I have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now.” He had given them all they could understand then, and more, and their actions afterwards proved He was right. “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.”
When it is realized that the pattern He revealed was only an outline, and that the expression of the expansion concerning it was yet to be made manifest, in perfect coordination with the outline, then we can begin to realize its meaning. For instance, when the day of Pentecost came, which was supposed to be merely a beginning of a series of spiritual experiences which would let them come into an understanding of the truth, the first time they experienced an outpouring where they should begin to know the truth, impulsive Peter straightway runs out and starts using the power he had, which started persecutions which did not need to be and brought failure. If he had let a series of Pentecostal days manifest so that they could have learned to function as a Body, then the fruit would have been the fruit of God, but he took the current of the Spirit that was given to them which was to let them learn how to function as a Body, and ran out and started casting pearls before swine, and there was no other real day of Pentecost. It went down from there—although that was meant to be the starting point upward. Peter was trying to tell people something they were not ready to receive. That engendered the persecutions that came. The way John knew how to handle it, that would not have been. It would have been a gradual outworking. They would not have had those great mass meetings that divided the currents and brought defeat. It would be just as foolish for someone who is just getting oriented in the One Christ Body to refuse to take any further direction and go out here and start some big campaign. It would just ruin it. It would not work.
We are not working according to the methods of man, but according to the methods of God, and the same methods outlined by the Master before His ascension have to be put to work now or it is nothing. They should have been working incognito, as it were, so that their function would not have been swept over and engulfed by world reaction, before the members were ready to meet it. The world reaction just buried it. There were persecutions and they were all put in a bad spot. The Master had already gained the victory—they did not have to go through all of that. There would have been opposition, but they would have been in position to meet it. As it was they were not in position to meet it. So Peter and Paul were the ones who came mighty close to wrecking the work of Christ on earth. It has taken 1900 years to get to a point where we can start what should have been started then.
We have covered a lot of ground. Fully amplifying all these points would take many services. I praise the Lord because when these things are realized we begin to be in position to do something. Until they are realized, the great distinctions between the Right Way and the way that was followed in the days when Peter took the reins, cannot be seen, and until they are seen, the people are going to go right on making the same mistakes that Peter and the others made. You take the Bible, and the teachings of the Third Sacred School, and it is all there.
I might add to our consideration here, when the other disciples refused to follow through on the plan that Jesus inaugurated and refused to recognize the place of John in the plan, and impulsive Peter usurped that place of leadership, John had to follow the way which Jesus took. I do not mean he refused to raise his voice to try to clear the situation, but he kept still after that and said not a word. If he had not done that, this cycle would not have come. On the Isle of Patmos, he wrote the Book of Revelation and reopened the way for this cycle of manifestation, but if he had not carried through there, and set the pattern as revealed in Revelation, there would not have been any way to build any salvation out of the wreckage that Peter and Paul had wrought. That would have been complete failure. John did speak up but they would not listen, even to the extent of there being no record. Luke wrote the book of Acts, and he furthered the leadership of Peter and Paul. Luke, you see, was not even a disciple, and yet he wrote one of the gospels.
In one sense the disciples had a better chance than we have, but that rested entirely in the acceptance of the leadership which Jesus ordained, but it was rejected and there is not one church outside of ours that accepts it. So their whole chance of success depended upon their accepting the leadership which Jesus authorized. At that time, they had been used to the leadership of Jesus, and then there was the strong, impulsive nature of Peter that was always pushing itself forward, and it took Jesus Himself to keep him in his place; and John could not arbitrarily take the leadership and force them to accept it, so it was a matter of accepting the transfer of leadership to John on the part of Jesus, and when they refused it there was no means at that time whereby that leadership could manifest, because we cannot use force. We cannot use force to compel acceptance today, or at any time. So, the important difference that really makes it easier now than it was then is because this leadership is recognized, and it is not a matter of transferring leadership, so in that sense it puts it on a different basis.
The important thing is that you have learned to know Jesus Christ better than the disciples did then. Why did Jesus love John? Because John loved Jesus, and because John understood Him, and the rest did not, so those in the School today know Jesus better and understand Him more fully than the disciples did the night of the Lord’s supper; that is, the disciples as a whole, and it is not until we know and understand Jesus Christ and recognize what His Life and Ministry meant, and realize that what He said is true: “Lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world”—that is, the end of the world of evil—that we understand what the gospel of the Kingdom was and is. Why, Peter himself did not stop to remember what it was Jesus told all of them to preach. Right after the ascension Peter started teaching them a gospel which was nothing like the one Jesus authorized them to teach. When there is a recognition of Jesus Christ, of Who He is, of what the real Gospel is, of what His Life and teaching is, of what it means to reveal that Gospel as it is in Reality, and of the Way by which that Kingdom that is at hand may come into manifestation for us, then we know the true purpose of Jesus’s Life and Ministry.
Francis — You must be a prophet or something. I have never heard anyone speak like you except Martin here, and he is one of your disciples. I have never heard the Bible revealed like you do it, and I have heard it so many times. It is almost completely a new book.
Uranda — But it is all done, all accomplished, and all achievement is possible through the Love and Power of Jesus Christ. The honor and glory are His, and while I appreciate recognition of my Ministry, the greatest recognition of it and the most pleasing for me, is the recognition of Him, and the proof that that Ministry means anything is the manifestation of an increased Love for Him.
You know, I wonder if I could convey something to you. It is a little difficult sometimes for human beings to comprehend—and it is certainly difficult to put into words—but when I talk about Jesus and His Life and His Ministry and His teaching, it is not just talking about the Bible. Mention was made about the disciples that were there. When there is the proper attunement between the outer form and the Father within, that which is of the Father may be made manifest. When I say “I”, I am not talking about this outer form which came into manifestation forty years ago. I am talking about that which IAm within the form. “The Father Who dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.”
“The words I speak unto you I speak not of myself.” The reason my Ministry has meaning for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see is because that is just as true of me as it was of Jesus, and only from the standpoint of that Inner Reality, can there be appreciation of what I mean, or what I feel, or what it is I am seeking to convey—that it is not just the words of a human being. Unless there is a recognition of that, as far as that Inner Reality is concerned, no one can realize that I stood there at the cross when He was crucified. I am not talking about a record from the Bible. I am talking about something that I saw, something that I shared and experienced, I am talking about days and months and years of living with Him while He was on earth, and there should begin to be some comprehension of the fact that all that I have done in Ministry is primarily because I love Him—because I want all praise and honor and glory to go to Him. He, the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, went through that mockery of the trial, and went to the cross under the world’s rejection, and His disciples followed afar off, so that when He was on the cross there was only one disciple there. There was only one disciple standing by Him when He was on the cross—and I was there; and concerning that, after His Resurrection, the third and last time He was with the disciples, He made that statement, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.”
The only one of the disciples that could bring this, of which the Bible is a record, back into a vivid expression of Reality, was the only one who stood by Him when He was on the cross. When I say these things I am not saying them because it is anything special to me that they be recognized, because it is not. It makes no difference to my Reality, one way or the other. It only means that unless that is recognized, and unless the spirit of that which I am seeking to convey is appreciated from that standpoint, the true reality of the Master cannot be comprehended, the true significance of His life cannot be realized, because it is not just someone talking about it theoretically, someone taking the Bible and reading it and deciding that it means this, that or the other thing. It is something that IS. As you have recognized that there is not anyone else on earth who has opened the Bible to you as I have, there must be that recognition that it is only because there is, from the Inner standpoint, a recognition of my sharing that with Him, before there can be a comprehension of what He means to us today, so that what He did will not be in vain.
This portrayal in these four chapters I have been talking about [John 14, 15, 16 and 17] of what was supposed to be the manifestation of His Body on earth, the means by which He could continue to function on earth in outer form, the means by which the necessary works could be accomplished, cannot be understood just from an intellectual, outer standpoint, or someone’s thinking or reading. There have been brilliant men down through centuries who have had these same passages to read and study. They have gotten certain things out of them, but though they read them and studied them and preached about them, they did not make manifest that fundamental Reality which the Master Himself was seeking to convey to mankind. He came into the world and did these things, and lived among us because He loved humanity, because He loved each man, woman and child upon the face of the earth. He manifested His Love for us in many ways, and when, in the recognition of that Love for us, we learn to really love Him, then we can begin to be a part of His Body on earth, and being a part of His Body on earth in actuality, we can begin to let His Love work through us into the world.
Human beings approaching it from an intellectual standpoint, cannot comprehend that depth of love, let alone let it work through themselves into the world, and unless that love becomes such a living, vital, constant and utterly complete, thing, so that it is that which fills our expression and holds us in oneness with Him, our words will continue to be just words and will accomplish no more than what a lot of other good people have accomplished.
I recognize that my saying some of these things does not prove that they are true, and yet if my Ministry and my expression of the Word, and my portrayal of Him, do not prove it, I do not know what could. I could not help you to know Him unless I knew Him. It is because I know Him as He was, and as He is, that I can help you to come to know Him. I have outlined these things because there cannot be a true realization of the fact that I know Him unless there begins to be an understanding of these truths, and the more vividly the individual knows that I know Him, the easier will it be for me to introduce the individual to the LORD of Lords, so that each one can know Him, and so that these things can be such vital, living realities in relationship to us right now, no longer separated by two thousand years—something that is just as real and just as vital for us as it possibly could have been for those disciples; and in fact it must be a lot more vital and real than it was for any of those disciples, save one. And unless that vividness can be conveyed to the One Christ Body, so that it is just as real as it was to John, then there is no means whereby this outworking can take place now.
We have got to know Him and love Him. Time, in that sense, has utterly no meaning—because if the Master had ascended yesterday it could have no more meaning than it does. Until we get away from this tendency of thinking of ourselves as being separated from Him by 1900 years, it cannot be done. It must be just as if He had walked every step of the way here with us, or as if we had with Him then, and then the possibilities of fulfilment for us are really greater than they were for the disciples after He returned to the Father. That is why, while I appreciate your recognition of my Ministry, it really makes me feel very uncomfortable when you express so lovingly—and I am not criticizing you for it—unless the praise and honor and glory go to Him. Yes, I know, it goes to Him through me, but I have said these things because I have tried to convey to you how I feel about it so that you emphasize in those recognitions the love and response to Him. I am not finding fault—please understand—but I am just trying to convey how I feel about it.
Now let me add this. Let us remember that mankind is still crucifying Him on the cross of human self-activity in the body and mind, just as surely as they were back then. When we begin to see these things as they really are and we begin to become a part of His Body in that true sense, then we find that as we look into the world of unreality we are all standing at the foot of the cross. We begin to realize that this world is still crucifying Him; and that until we, in oneness, come to stand at the foot of the cross and begin to carry it on from there, as He intended, it is as nothing, because all of the sermons and preachings and everything else that could be accomplished by an intellectual consideration of the Bible, even though the individuals loved God sincerely—all these things—until they transcend time and space and distance, and it is recognized here, we cannot fulfil that in which the disciples failed then.
What I am seeking to bring into manifestation as rapidly as possible is to go back to the point before the failures, right back to the foot of the cross, and go from there without regard to any of the rest of it, and unless we can do that, as branches of the One Vine, we are not going to succeed. These are partial truths man has used, and you can work from now till doomsday and get nowhere. We have got to stop trying to build on the cycles that have gone and let the thing come into manifestation the way it should have come into manifestation then, and set new precedents, and once we get that going He will be able to do the works and get it done—but that is the only way.
