Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God,
King of Salem. Salem, as you know, means peace: King of Peace; priest of the
Most High God. The Levites became the priesthood in the pattern of the children
of Israel and were supposed to maintain a priesthood after the order of
Melchizedek. From the divine standpoint we can classify any true priesthood as
belonging to the priesthood of the order of Melchizedek.
"And
Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest
of the most high God."
Your function here in this School has for
its purpose the basic initiation into the priesthood after the order of
Melchizedek. There can be no true manifestation of spiritual power except on
the basis of the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. This is the
keynote, the key point, in relationship to the outworking of the whole divine
plan and pattern. And those who would share in the fulfilment of that divine
purpose on earth must, to some degree at least, begin to share the reality of
the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek.
Now, you begin to feel, the moment we
touch this point with respect to Melchizedek, the moment there is any
recognition of the reality of this priesthood, that to Melchizedek God was no
mystery, the divine pattern of being was no mystery—the focalization of
manifestation on earth where God was not mystery. And in the blueprint as
outlined in the Book of Revelation, the 10th chapter and the 7th verse, we
read: "But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall
begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to
his servants the prophets."
The mystery of God should be finished. God
has never sought to be a mystery to man, but man's refusal to know God has
caused God to be a mystery to man. Until we begin to realize that the ending,
or the finishing, of the mystery of God is a process that takes place within,
in you as an individual, you cannot have the joy of seeing the finishing of the
mystery of God. And while God is a mystery to you, you cannot know the fulness
of that which you should reveal on earth; for you came into the world to reveal
God, and you cannot reveal that which is a mystery, unknown to yourself.
Here, in the very beginning of the pattern
as we share it at this time, Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought forth bread
and wine, and he was the priest of the Most High God. And the pattern of our
purpose and goal is that the mystery of God should be finished. Only to the
degree that we today let that be the case, let that process work out in
ourselves as a unit, or as a body, or as members of that body, can we be
priests and priestesses after the order of Melchizedek. What does it mean to be
a priest? What does it mean to be a prophet? The true meaning of a prophet is
one who speaks the word of the Lord on earth. And to whatever degree you let
the spirit of God determine the words you speak you are a prophet. But there is
something higher and greater than being a prophet. We might note that one can
be a disciple without being a prophet; one can be a prophet without being a
priest.
We begin to recognize that it is not
enough merely to be a disciple, one who follows after; it is not enough merely
to be a prophet, one who speaks the word of the Lord on earth; it is necessary
that we enter the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek—not only to speak
the word of the Lord but to do the works of the Lord, to work out the divine
pattern on earth, to live the reality of that which is, to the world, the
mystery of God. And it is only as this reality of priesthood is made manifest
that we can have the manifestation of power necessary to the accomplishment of
the divine purpose on earth.
There have been quite a number of people
who have sensed something of the significance of Melchizedek, or the priesthood
after the order of Melchizedek. There are some so-called modern schools of
thought which claim to stem from that point but which, by their very attitudes
and actions, show that it is a forgery and nothing more. You may run into
people who think that they know something about Melchizedek and the order of
the priesthood. We would recognize that wherever truth is in expression, there
the influence of this priesthood is to be seen and felt to some degree. But the control pattern with respect to
humanity, and the design pattern with respect to the plan and purpose
individually and collectively, is carried over in focus to this present
period of time, which begins with Abram and extends to ourselves, from the
Motherland.
The focalization of the divine pattern as
it was working in the Motherland, the pattern of government, the manifestation
of the educational system and what we might call the religious or spiritual
life of the people, all came to focus in the priest of the Most High God. The
pattern of connecting that which was known in the garden of Eden, or in the
Motherland, with that which is known within the period of recorded history is
carried over to us, and made available to us, on this basis: Melchizedek, King
of Salem, priest of the Most High God. And that particular focalization, in manifestation,
of priesthood gave man the opportunity of returning to the divine estate.
The true purpose of the development of the
pattern of the children of Israel was to make possible the manifestation of
this priesthood, not for purposes of selfish nationalism but to the end that
through such a manifestation of priesthood the spirit and power of God could be
extended out to all humanity. The real purpose with respect to all of the
tribes of the children of Israel was to the end that the different tribes could
be different parts of the body, finding true expression and meaning in and
through the focalization of priesthood, by which the power and spirit of God should
extend to the whole earth.
Melchizedek established this pattern with
respect to Abram, outlined the plan and the purpose and the method—not all at
once but over a period of time—and carried the pattern through with respect to
Isaac and Jacob, who became Israel, and gave those who were at that time
responding to divine direction an opportunity to allow the full manifestation
of the divine plan in action in relationship to the physical world. This first
step in the dawn of history, in the unfolding of the divine plan, had to be on
the basis of reestablishing the First Sacred School, giving human beings an
opportunity to approach the process of development into the divine pattern on
what we might call the physical plane; that is, an outer, physical approach.
The Master refocalized, when He came into
the world, exactly the same thing. He did not undertake to change the pattern
around in some fashion. He did use the second plane approach instead of the
first plane approach. It was impossible to undertake to use the first plane
approach anymore; the conditions necessary for its use had passed, and humanity
had failed to carry through in it, so there was nothing more that could be done
about it except to use the next cycle in order to make the next plane approach.
And the Master Himself came into the world to do that. But again, just as with
the children of Israel, the purpose was not recognized, the plan was not
accepted, and those who call themselves Christians have, in following out their
own ideas and concepts with respect to these things, produced the same type of
failure which was made manifest with respect to the children of Israel.
The children of Israel were finally taken
into captivity and scattered. Have the so-called Christians been taken into
captivity? The answer is obviously Yes—taken into captivity on a basis which
has not allowed the manifestation of power, the reality of the divine
priesthood. The disciples were supposed to become prophets, and as the cycle
worked out and the day of Pentecost came, they began to function on the basis
of speaking the word of the Lord. If they had been content to wait for the
Lord's direction, instead of impulsively using the current of power on the
basis of their own choices, they would have become prophets, so that they could
have actually expressed the word of the Lord and begun to see the plan of God,
the plan that the Master brought into focalized manifestation on earth. And
then they would have become, had they held steady, priests after the order of
Melchizedek, and there would have been the manifestation of power, under the
divine pattern, sufficient to influence every phase and department of life,
extending into the spiritual influence or control in the world of government. A
little of this has of course gotten through now and again, shaping the divine
ordering of human events in order to make it possible for us to have this
present opportunity.
You are sharing the work of the Third
Sacred School again being made manifest on earth. Humanity had failed to
utilize the opportunity when the First Sacred School was being reestablished.
The same is true with respect to the Second. Those chances, those
opportunities, are gone. Now that does not mean that the truths that were
contained in the teachings and presentations of the First or the Second were
lost. The focalization aspects were carried over and they were just the same in
principle in the Second as they were in the First. And the same is true today. God
made arrangements for the refocalization of the divine pattern, or the
blueprint. He gave what we call the Book of Revelation, so it would be on hand,
within manifestation, for the next cycle of outworking.
We have something new, something
altogether different. Now it is the same truths, the same laws, the same basic
purpose, but the approach is different, and must be different. However, the
Christian world tries to make the approach on the basis of what they think the
Master used, when they do not understand the Second Sacred School at all. They
are just simply utterly ignorant of what is meant, what the divine plan was
then, and the human concepts of pattern derived out of that simply do not work,
not in the sense that God intended. And any effort to still use that pattern of
approach must fail, because God Himself would not try it. It would be
impossible to God, because it would be an attempt on God's part to violate His
own laws, to ignore the vibrational factors in the cosmos, to ignore the
natural cycles of the unfolding pattern of the four forces.
So we come to the Third. The Third Sacred
School has the approach on the spiritual expression plane basis. We can, under
this vibrational pattern, make a third plane approach and revitalize the
factors of the second and first plane patterns in relationship to ourselves. We
use the third plane approach today, and it is the only way that will work, because
we have an altogether different vibrational pattern than was present in the
past, either at the time of the children of Israel or at the time of the
Master. Once we begin to function correctly on the basis of the third plane
approach, the second and first plane patterns become reactivated and drawn into
alignment with respect to ourselves, because the mind and the body,
individually speaking, begin to come under subjection to that. The alignment is
established and you begin to be what you should be; you begin to have the
manifestation of healing power, for instance. But this is the third step in the
period of recorded history, to give man an opportunity of restoration. The
outline in Revelation relates to this third plane approach. Not until we make
the third plane approach can the Book of Revelation have any meaning, and under
that approach it does have meaning; it is the divine blueprint.
Now suppose this cycle were broken. The
only cycle that could be opened to humanity would be with respect to the fourth.
But if man has thrown away the first and second, and then should throw away the
third, which is really the highest level contact that he can hope to make—if he
throws this one away and has to be limited to the fourth plane approach, would
he have any chance? Obviously not.
In other words man has thrown away two
opportunities, the third one is established, and if he throws that one away
there is no more, it is finished. Now he is not going to throw it away; I am
not suggesting that. There are going to be a few, somehow or other, to carry
the pattern through. But that is what we are here for, and until we begin to
let the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek have meaning in relationship
to this Third Sacred School approach to the fulfilment of the divine pattern,
we cannot hope to accomplish that to which we are called.
And so when you begin to see that our
Lord, when He came on earth, was a priest of the Most High God, after the order
of Melchizedek, you can begin to see that you cannot truly follow Him unless
you too let that sensing of the divine pattern have meaning in your life, and
unless we utilize the vibratory factors that are available to us today we
cannot receive it. You try to receive it on the basis of the vibratory factors
of the past cycles and it will not work—you cannot receive it. You may go into
fantastic flights of fancy, as many have, but you will not receive it.
You must receive the gifts of God on the
basis of the vibrational factors, and we remember that our present vibrational
pattern is what? Air, water, air. And if we try to use the vibrational patterns
at work at the time of the Master we fail; it will not work, not today. It
could have worked then, under His leadership, but it cannot work today, under
these vibrational factors, and I would not attempt to work it out. But I can—with
the help of those who are willing to share it—I can work it out on the basis of
the present vibrational factors. You can utilize those same elements and carry
through to victory. And it is your choice. What shall it be?
