The Cycles of Restoration
Uranda November 30, 1952
Twenty
thousand years ago man fell. He broke the pattern of his relatedness to God,
and we have a long history of misery and suffering and sorrow and death, every
sort of ill condition. The recorded history of the world is full of it. Is it
time for the kingdom of God to have meaning on earth? Or should this regime,
this pattern, this situation that is in the world, be allowed to continue for a
still longer time? Actually, in the cosmic scheme of things, it is not going to
continue for a long time. The world is coming face to face with a choice.
Man,
intellectually moving out far beyond his spiritual understanding and moral
fiber, is setting up conditions with atom bombs, etc., which will destroy him
from the earth unless there is a recognition of spiritual principles, an
acceptance of the spiritual facts of life, which will allow the divine pattern
to have meaning, which will eliminate the selfishness and self-centeredness,
the decay in moral fiber which threatens the very existence of humanity today.
This is in fact the third and last opportunity.
An
opportunity was given to the world in the days of Melchizedek, in the days of
Abraham. That was the first in the period of recorded history. Another
opportunity was brought to the world by the Master Himself. And this, now, is
the third and last opportunity. Three times. When man first fell, using the
allegorical portrayal as it is given in Genesis, three times the Lord offered
Adam and Eve an opportunity to repent. Three times they rejected that
opportunity. They could have repented and been forgiven and received back again
into the divine pattern then, if they had been willing to do so. Man is a
three-plane being. There is no basis on which more than three opportunities can
be given. The opportunity from the standpoint of the physical factors of life
was given in relationship to the children of Israel, a large group, a nation, a
geographical place and all the rest of it. But that opportunity was rejected by
mankind. The next one came from the standpoint of the second plane, or the
mind. That too was rejected.
We can look
out into the world today and see what calls itself Christianity. Oh, there are
many fine people in it, many good people, and there is a lot of good done, but
that pattern of so-called Christianity has not changed things in nearly two
thousand years, and there is no hope of the pattern of Christianity, so called,
as it is in the world, ever establishing the kingdom of God on earth. And those
who call themselves Christians do not expect any such fulfilment. They are all
going to go up to heaven somehow or other, and someday God is going to give it
on a silver platter and it will be here; it will come floating down out of the
sky and no one will have to make any effort. It will be handed out on a silver
platter to those who are fortunate enough to die in the right way, at the right
time. But that is a false hope; it will not work.
The dominion
of God on earth was lost through man and it must be restored through man. Our
Master came into the world to make that possible, to establish the victory and
reveal the way of the restoration on earth—not in some hereafter, not something
coming floating down out of the sky to establish the kingdom of God, but the
things of God coming down out of heaven into man, into his body, mind and
heart, to establish dominion, control, something different from what has ruled
for twenty thousand years.
If any one of
you were content with the conditions as they are in the world, and as they have
been in the world for all these years, all these millennia, you would not be
here. No, the very fact of your presence in this room establishes the fact that
you recognize that these conditions in the world need to change. They must be
changed, but if they are to change there must be dominion, there must be
control, there must be some means by which the change shall be worked out. This
is in fact—whether anyone likes to face it or not, or is willing to face it or
not—this is the third and last opportunity. There is no basis left on which man
could receive another opportunity. Anything more would be simply repetition of
what has already been rejected, and it would be the same old story in the same
old way.
The Third
Sacred School, under the influence of which you sit here in this room, has been
brought back into manifest form on earth by the decree of our Lord and King, to
provide the approach on the spiritual expression plane of being, and to make it
possible for you, and anyone else on the face of the earth, regardless of race,
color or creed, to share in the restoration. But if this chance be lost, there
will be no more. Man has no real awareness of the fourth-dimensional approach
if he has not received it on these three dimensional patterns. He is a
three-dimensional creature fundamentally; that is, as far as he knows. There is
the fourth-dimensional aspect in each one, but how many of you would like to
get up and tell me what that means? If you would like to try to tell me
anything about it I could soon prove to you that you know nothing about it. A
fourth-dimensional approach would be utterly useless to humanity.
The other two
approaches have been made. This is the third and last one. That is the meaning
of my ministry on earth, the meaning of its form, the meaning of its purpose.
If the other two approaches to the problem are to have any meaning, if they are
not to become merely part of history, something that was done in vain, this
approach must work. This approach could not be made until the other two
approaches had been attempted. Either one of the other two could have worked.
The Master did not have to come into the world. That first approach could have
worked, but human beings refused to let it work. The pattern was broken and the
opportunity irrevocably lost. It cannot be reinstituted.
The efforts
of the Jewish people in the land of Israel reveal futile effort. That approach
cannot be reinstituted. If they wish to have a national home in that sense, I
have no quarrel with it, as long as it is fair to the Arabs and a few other
people. But the point is: Those previous efforts cannot be reinstituted. The
Master instituted His cycle. He was the only one who could do it. This cycle
would not be possible without that, but that was rejected and the thousand
years of the Dark Ages followed. And it was not until that thousand years was
past that the serpent of the human mind was released from its prison; for it
was bound in the bottomless pit of knowledge. Look at the Dark Ages. How much
progress in knowledge was there in that period? Maybe a little, but the serpent
of the human mind was certainly bound. And that thousand years was the period
of the Dark Ages, extending from approximately 300 AD to approximately 1300 AD
It was in the 14th century that the art of printing began to develop in Europe,
and that begins the emergence out of the Dark Ages period.
Man was
loosed in the bottomless pit of knowledge and has been gaining ever-increasing
momentum in his search for knowledge. He has gone to a tremendous extreme, and
the more knowledge that man gets in the bottomless pit the more he entangles
himself in his own limitations. There was a time when many good people imagined
that if we just had education for everyone, if everyone were literate, could
read and write, it would not be long until there would be friendly
understanding between the nations, between the people. But it did not work; it
never will work. Why? The mere fact that man, with his mental capacity, has
been loosed in the bottomless pit of knowledge, does not mean that man can find
his way out. We have noted, before, the tremendous advance in knowledge in the
past fifty years, since the turn of this century, and what has this advance in
knowledge done? Has it brought man to a place where there is nothing to fear,
where there is peace, where there is understanding, where there is no
suffering? Has disease been conquered? Or are we building hospitals at a
feverish rate? Are our mental institutions jammed to overflowing? Was there
ever a time in all recorded history where there was so much fear and unrest and
difficulties? You know the answer.
Man's search
in that bottomless pit of knowledge has not, and will not, produce the result.
But under the influence of the outworking of the divine pattern man's search in
the bottomless pit of knowledge has produced the condition which will allow
this opportunity to have meaning, if human beings will let it, if they will
honestly face the question, “Whom shall we serve?”, if they will honestly
accept the true answer, “The Lord, he is the God.” But as long as human beings
follow after their own fancies and serve as the prophets of Baal—the
self-active pattern of man—this fulfilment cannot come. Whether anyone believes
it or not is beside the point, whether anyone likes it or not is beside the
point—this is the third and final opportunity. Otherwise humanity is doomed to
oblivion.
But this
opportunity is not going to be completely rejected. It could be wisely
accepted. Human beings, however, have become so used to the old patterns that they
resist change. They do not like anything that is different from what it was.
They say, as it is put in the Epistle of Peter, “Where is the promise of his
coming?” Those who sit in the scorner's seat say, “Where is the promise of his
coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were
from the beginning.” They themselves acknowledge the indictment against them.
They declare their own indictment: “All things continue as they were.” Look at
history. Did you ever examine ancient Egyptian history to see the patterns of
human nature? to see how human beings acted and reacted in the patterns of
life? If you ever examined ancient Egyptian history you will see it. You do not
have to go back that far. You will find it in Greece or the Roman Empire. You
could even come up to more modern times. But has human nature changed? The
answer emphatically is No! For the human beings who live today and pride
themselves on being so modern, so civilized, act in exactly the same pattern
that they did in the days of ancient Egypt, and as they have through the
intervening period. Oh there have been ups and downs, but it is the same thing—and
has been, over and over again, generation after generation.
Is that going
to continue forever? No. Is God going to let man's self-activity defeat His
plan and purpose forever? No. Whether it shall be a small handful of human
beings or whether it shall include millions is a question which human beings
themselves must answer, but there must be, will be, and are, those who will
accept this opportunity. Presumably you are here to share in this opportunity.
Will you do it? Is the Lord your God? Or do you insist on serving Baal part of
the time? You have a responsibility. Remember, at the conclusion of our morning
meditation I introduced this subject—the responsibility and the privilege—and I
pointed out then that it is utterly impossible for anyone to reject the
responsibility and enjoy the privilege. It cannot be done.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
