Glory To God In The Highest

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Glory  To  God  In  The  Highest

Uranda   June 26, 1953  Class

Gradually the pattern is unfolding so that you can begin to perceive with the eye of your heart the beautiful reality of the divine design, and seeing it, you begin to relax into it, you begin to let its control have meaning. You can, on the basis of faith—not seeing clearly—when there is trust, begin to let control have meaning, but the fulness of control in the reality of truth appears when you have begun to see for yourself the beauty of the divine design. Until you do begin to see for yourself, there tends to be a feeling that you are going to lose something, that something is somehow being taken away from you, or that you are being forced into some type of pattern where you lose your independence. Independence to be a dying soul is not of much value.

When we enter into the glorious liberty of the children of God as living souls, we find that we have the privilege of living in the kingdom that is at hand and are no longer enjoying (?) the seeming privilege of being independent in a prison cell from which the only release will be death. And so you are beginning to see the beauty of the divine design, and relaxing into it you begin to let control have meaning. And you are finding that gradually your questions are either answered or they tend to become unimportant. Have any of you noticed that? Your questions are either answered or they tend to become unimportant.  In season all things are made clear. But you must learn to see for yourself, and you are learning to see with the eye of the heart, with the guardian angel of the mind, the conscious mind, at work in you.

This morning I would like to direct your attention to one of the outstanding keys to a realization of reality that can be found in scripture or Holy Writ anywhere, an outstanding key which has, from the standpoint of its true purpose and meaning, been virtually ignored. As long as we ignore the keys, we cannot use them to unlock the doors and let the things of God come in. It is not a matter of you climbing up, it is not a matter of you opening your prison door and going out of it. It is a matter of opening the door—you have to do that; you have to use the key—but you let the Master in, and when He comes in He begins to prepare a place for you, He begins to make the place over; not just an ordinary re-modeling, but the former things are caused to pass away. “Behold, I make all things new.” Instead of imagining that you must somehow escape from a prison, you let the prison be rebuilt into a mansion, a mansion of soul, in which the things of heaven are present and made manifest.

This particular key was given to man at the time our Master's body was born on earth in the form of a babe. There were many remarkable revelations of the reality of Shekinah at the time of the Master's birth, but the central key is the angels' song. The central key is the angels' song: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Let us look at this expression from the standpoint of reality, with the eye of the heart. “Glory to God in the highest.”

What is the glory? The Shekinah cloud of glory. “Glory to God in the highest.” That carries to the highest focalization of Deity, going beyond the range of human consciousness or awareness. “Glory to God in the highest.” And the expression was made in relationship to those who dwell on earth. So if there was a recognition of “Glory to God in the highest,” we see with the eye of the heart how there was a great cone, shall we say—or what we have illustrated by the use of the word tent—a great cone allowed to settle down over the earth, the base of it enfolding the earth as in a net, and the point of it extending upward to God in the highest.

And what is it that shapes this? What is it that gives it form? Glory—the Shekinah cloud of glory. And it was brought to the earth, enfolding man, centered on earth in the babe that was born. And “Glory to God in the highest,” signifies that the cloud of glory, made manifest to man through the form of the babe that was to become a man, extended to God in the highest, that there was no break, no point of separation, no veil, except the inability of human beings to see. The cloud of glory, the Shekinah, extended to the earth, enfolding the earth and carrying to God in the highest. Glory all the way. The Shekinah cloud of glory here—and all the way to God in the highest.

And then, following, when that is a reality, what does follow? “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth”—enfolded in the Shekinah glory something begins to manifest—peace on earth.” “Peace on earth, good will toward men.” The coming of the Master was the supreme gesture from God, the zenith of God's gift of love to man; and only in relationship to love can there be peace; and it is clearly indicated it was on earth— the supreme gesture of goodwill.

Instead of seeing God as an avenging God, seeing God as a bloodthirsty God, seeing God as One who is always looking for a chance to torture human beings, instead of seeing God as One who had somehow conceived in His own mind the idea that He would not forgive human beings until His own Son was sent into the world and slain on the cross, we see that at the time of the Master's birth the divine expression, the angels' song, conveyed to man the supreme gesture of love and goodwill. If there is goodwill, can we say that in the pattern of that goodwill there is a desire to get even, to make people pay for their sins, to make people suffer, etc.? No.

What is the natural result when human beings allow themselves to be enfolded in the Shekinah cloud of glory that extends all the way to Highest God? First there begins to be a sense of peace—peace on earth, from which peace had been banished for so long and from which it was again banished. Peace on earth, the result of the working of God's love within the Shekinah cloud of glory. And then goodwill. Goodwill from God in the highest, through the Shekinah, to all the children of men. Goodwill: the willingness to let all differences be past, to let all wrongs be as if they had not been.

This is not the message of a bloodthirsty God through His angels, His avenging angels, to the cringing cowards dwelling on earth. This is the message of a God of love, who does not require any blood sacrifice. This is the message of Highest God to the children of men through the Shekinah cloud of glory made manifest on earth and centered on earth in the body of a babe. Peace on earth.

And the angels sang the song even though there was no room in the inn for Him. People were so busy there celebrating, they were so busy with important affairs, that there was no room in the inn, no bed available to Mary. They were busy with such busy business. And the angels sang the song even though they had to move the ox from the stalls and put in a little fresh hay in the manger to make a place for the birth of the babe—the lowliest place. And still, even though that was all that man could provide for the coming of the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, there was still the angels' song, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” No judgment, no condemnation, the open invitation to come—to come and let the beauties of the kingdom of heaven be revealed in the lives of the children of men.

In conjunction with this there were other evidences. This song the angels sang was heard by the shepherds who tended their flocks. And there we have again the pattern of the shepherd. Suppose a good shepherd is herding his sheep and one of the sheep wanders off a bit, gets over in a dangerous place and the shepherd brings it back. Suppose one of the little lambs is straggling behind.  Does the shepherd come along with the staff and start beating it, and say, “Get up in there where you belong or I will beat you to death.  I will have your blood if you do not get in there”?  And one of the sheep wanders aside a bit. No, God is not like that.  Human beings have attributed to God their own dastardly attitudes and conceive God to be as limited as they themselves are, and they have built their concept of religion on that basis. And instead of seeing the glorious significance of the angels' song, they have continued to weave the patterns of assumption and belief on the basis that prevents God's love from being received, His power from manifesting, His truth from being known.

And so human beings have continued to die. Remember, God did not curse man.  God did not require that anyone should die at any time, under any circumstance, and least of all did He require that His Son should die. And once you begin to see that God did not require the death of any human being anywhere at any time, that God did not produce the condition which would cause death, that He did not require the death of our Lord on earth, or His body—once you begin to actually see these things, the truth of the matter, you can begin to have a new attitude toward life and toward God.

The angels' song to the children of men was, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” And where is there in that the death sentence for God's Son on earth? The patterns of religion and belief and worship, and their supposed way of salvation—all figments of fancy, assumption, pure and simple—have deluded human beings.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” The shepherd, the pattern of the shepherd—not concerned about punishing the sheep.  What was the parable the Master gave? the ninety-and-nine that were safe in the fold, and one had wandered away. And the shepherd went out and found it and carried it back to bring it healing and restore it to its place in the fold. We cannot understand life, the magic of life, the principles of living, or even how to give an attunement, until we see that.

Seeing it, we begin to recognize that the wise men who followed the star came to the place where the Master was born directed of the spirit of God. And what was the star? First we have the pattern with the shepherds—the glory, the Shekinah cloud of glory. And then come the wise men—wisdom, the sense of the fitness of things, a function in relationship to the mind, to the truth. And what do we see?  The wise men following the star. And the star is what? The light that glows. The cloud of glory, the light that glows, and then the fire of love. And within the fire One like unto the Son of God. The Shekinah pattern of Being was established in relationship to the Master's birth, and He used it all the way through His ministry. He talked about it. He revealed it over and over again.

He said, “Let your light so shine before men”—the light that glows. “Love the Lord thy God”—the Shekinah fire, the light that glows, the Shekinah cloud of glory—let these things manifest in you. He said it so many times, so many ways. The Shekinah fire of love in the manifestation of the divine pattern on earth. The Master said, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," free to live, to move and to have your being in the Shekinah of our God. And so shall you share the victory and do your part toward finishing the work which you came to do.

© Emissaries of Divine Light