These Things Transcend All Time
Uranda October
12, 1947 100 Mile House, B.C.
My
thoughts turn to some of the words of the Master tonight:
“Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things I have spoken
unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation:
but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” And we are, also, to overcome
the world.
I was thinking that, in the conclusion of the
activities of a Blessed day such as this, we might well again give thought to
the Master's Prayer at the time of the conclusion of His Ministry. The
conclusion of His Ministry was peculiarly the point where our Ministry begins.
The time that has elapsed since has no meaning in that. He had been outlining
the Principles of the One Vine and of the means by which we might let the Works
of the Father manifest. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall
ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing
in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that
your joy may be full... For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have
loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the
Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the
Father.” He had also outlined the Principles with respect to the Work of the
Comforter or Spirit of Truth. He had pointed the Way to Life. It remained for
those who should follow after to prove that Life, to experience it according to
His Word. And then, in the conclusion of that Ministry, He gave a prayer—a
prayer that is our beginning point.
“Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that
thy Son also may glorify thee”. He was, of course, the manifestation of the Son
of God, but He was returning to the Father and He had outlined the Plan by
means of which the Son, the only begotten Son of God, should continue on earth.
The interval of time that has elapsed before that Plan began to be of effect
should be, in our consideration, forgotten, as it were, that it may be
meaningless. The trials and the tribulations, the concepts, the efforts and the
failures of that interval must not be allowed to have meaning in relationship
to our function. From the standpoint of Reality, those things do not have
meaning. The connecting thread, the unifying Current, is not less strong
because of the passage of that time. Our attitude and our feeling and our
function should be as if we had heard these words for the first time a few days
ago, as if only a month ago He had stood with us upon the face of the earth, as
if it were but yesterday that the vibrant sound of His Voice fell on our ears,
as if we, in this flesh, had seen Him come forth Victoriously from the tomb, as
if we had, in person, shared His final words of admonition and instruction, as
if we had known that hour when He ascended to return no more until what He had
begun should have been finished in the hearts and lives of men.
The human mind is so inclined to feel the distance
of the intervening years, so that there is a loss in a consciousness of
personal contact. The Son is the One
Christ Body on earth, then and now. The meaning of the Word as He spoke it with
respect to His own manifestation is not to be construed as the only meaning,
for He spoke also of that Body that is—“Father,
the hour is come”. His was the hour of departing; ours is the hour of
beginning, of moving forward in fulfilment. The Father glorified the Son then.
He is just as capable of glorifying the Son now. “The hour is come. Glorify thy
Son”. Why? “That thy Son also may glorify thee”. The beginning and the end, or
the end and the beginning, are the same.
The point of His ending in Ministry is the point of
our beginning. He was here on earth. It seems but yesterday we heard Him speak.
It seems but the passage of a moment since His prayer first ascended as sweet
incense unto God. Time—these things transcend all time. It was but yesterday He
gave the Promise. Today we let that Promise be fulfilled. We remember how our
hearts were stirred at the sound of His Voice, and the passage of an hour or a
day cannot quiet that stirring or end that surge of consciousness of the Power
of God. It is now, in this hour, that the Spirit of His Word finds fulfilment in
our hearts. It is now, in this hour, that we let His Promise be fulfilled. The excitements
and the questionings, the fears and the doubts, have been stilled. We have ceased
trying to make it be so, for in the vibrant Power of His Love we are not
separate or apart and we know that the Father Himself loveth us because we have
loved Him, because we do love Him Who has walked the earth before us, Who has
revealed the Way, the Truth and the Life.
“The hour is come” for us to let the Father glorify
His Son, that the Son may glorify the Father. We trembled, and were sad, that
the hour had come when He should leave us, but we did not let such things
prevent fulfilment of His Word lest what He did should be in vain. The hour of
His going was the hour of our beginning, and it is so still, for though He went
He has not departed, for His Spirit lingers in our hearts and His Word is as
powerful as when it first fell from His lips, Words burned in letters of Fire
upon our hearts, memorable occasions that could never pass from mind. Yesterday
His hour came—today is our hour of fulfilment in beginning.
“Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that
thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that
he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life
eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast sent.” “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only
true God”, and the Christ, the only begotten Son—then Jesus—now the One Christ
Body Whom Thou hast sent. “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished
the work which thou gavest me to do”. How truly is that our point of beginning.
How seldom on this earth has the word reverberated in truth—“I have finished
the work”. We have seen in the world the feeble attempts at doing some bit of work—human
beings, like children, building castles in the sand to admire in one moment and
to destroy in the next, and then to delude themselves into feeling that they had
accomplished something. And how they brag about the mansions they builded in
the sand; but we consider other mansions, Mansions in the Father’s House.
“I have finished the work which thou gavest me to
do”—and in season the Son shall again speak these words, but before those words
may be truly spoken once more, there must truly be the beginning, the opening
up, that comes through the surging Power of His Spirit as we hear again, in
memory, His Word, “And now, O Fatter, glorify thou me with thine own self with
the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name
unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest
them me; and they have kept thy word.” That was but yesterday, surely. It is but
a dream that some did not keep His Word. There must now be fulfilment which
gives meaning to His faith when He spoke that Word, that when these words sound
in memory, and stir within our hearts, they shall not be as a mockery, a symbol
of the faith of the Son of God that found no answering heart on earth, but a
symbol of the faith of the Son of God that finds fulfilment here and now in His
Son on earth.
“And they have kept thy word. Now they have known
that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given
unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have
known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst
send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou
hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine;
and I am glorified in them.” Yes, the intervening time when these words remained
unfulfilled is surely but a dream. Twas only yesterday He spoke, and today His
Word finds fulfilment. Today we prove His faith was not in vain.
“And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I
am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the
world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom
thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in
the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and
none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be
fulfilled. And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that
they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” What was His joy? It was the
joy of Oneness with the Father. It was the joy of Being the Son on earth. That
is the joy that must be fulfilled in us, the joy of Oneness with the Father,
the joy of Being the Son.
“And these things I speak in the world, that they
might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world
hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the
world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou
shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not
of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast
sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.” That is
His Word. His Word is true, and we let it be so in us in this hour, and
forevermore, for as the Father sent Him into the world, even so has He sent us
into the world.
“And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they
also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but
for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may
be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in
us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou
gavest me I have given them”—“And the glory which thou gavest me I
have given them”. It is glory to be the Son on earth. “And the glory which thou
gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them,
and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may
know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am”—not
where I shall be, where I am.
He, the Son of God, stood on earth in the hour of
fulfilment. He had finished the work. That was where He was in the hour of
fulfilment. And He said, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me,
be with me where I am”—and so it is His Will that we should stand in that
Oneness of the Son in the hour of fulfilment. “That they may behold my glory.
Which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and
these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy
name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in
them, and I in them.”
Beloved LORD, we thank Thee that it is so, and we
thank Thee for the Holy Privilege of sharing Thy Fulfilment on earth, IN the
Christ. Aum-en.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
from
The Focus of Spirit in Form
Martin Exeter June 16, 1985 a.m.
“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels
fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels. And prevailed
not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.” These are pertinent words. They are couched in
terms of battle; there is a contest. This contest occurs in heaven. There are
plenty of battles going on on earth, near and far, involving a good deal of bloodshed
on the world scene. But this contest is in heaven. Terms used in human language
are the only ones available to describe what occurs in heaven. We see this
seeming battle in terms of a contest. Clearly, human beings on earth have been
governed and motivated by what is described here as the dragon. This contest between
the truth and this temporary creature, well known in the experience of human
beings the world around, needs to be brought to a conclusion at some point.
We have had an awareness of this as related to
ourselves personally, for here is the first place where the conclusion may be known.
We have presumably assumed the responsibility of knowing that, recognizing the
larger application which naturally and inevitably follows what is known personally.
It may be said by each one of us that nothing changes in the world of mankind
until it has first changed in me. As long as we have any other viewpoint them
this, our presence on earth is futile and meaningless. We merely add to the
chaos, the confusion, the destruction.
So our very integrity requires us to accept
responsibility in this matter, that we may, as individuals and together, let
the dragon be cast out of the heaven, which should be a holy place but is not
when the dragon is present. It is the place of motivation in the expression of
one’s own living. This has been a self-centered
motivation. Which one of us could say that satan, this
dragon, has been cast out of our own personal heaven entirely? I doubt, if
there is honesty, we would make any such claim. It isn’t a matter of making
claims anyway; it is simply a matter of letting it happen, and that is all that
matters.
The dragon is not cast out of heaven by the power
and might of reaction toward what is imagined to be the evil around us or even in
us. To struggle and fight, in the way that human beings tend to do, fastens the
dragon more firmly in position. He welcomes a battle, because he
has our lifeblood then. In such case one is being controlled by the dragon. He
says fight, and we fight. Human beings everywhere follow the dragon’s orders
with great respect, apparently, and so they fight. They fight individually within
themselves, but fighting with oneself also spills over into fighting with
others. There is a great deal of fighting in the world obviously; and it isn’t
getting any less, is it? So-called terrorists are rampant the world around, at
the moment seemingly more particularly in some places than others but they are
present everywhere where human beings are. And people are inclined to fight at
the drop of a hat. Fighting is always manipulative. It is deemed necessary to
keep evil under control; but if it is, it hasn’t done a very good job of it.
So it is not by reaction to circumstances around
us, or within us, which often generates self-righteousness and poisonous
judgment—the dragon thrives on all of this, as should be obvious enough for
anyone who has the ability to observe—it is not by the might and the power of
such reaction, it is not by physical force or mental manipulation, that
unholiness is cast out of the holy place. It is by my spirit—it is by what we would refer to as spiritual expression that the job is done.
Undoubtedly there is a contest. If we are
concerned with what may be called a holy motivation we would naturally eschew
the reactive attitude.
There has been and is concern, no
doubt, that this rather mucky state of affairs should be cleaned up, that there
might be a trustworthy focus of spirit on earth in form. There always has been
a trustworthy focus of spirit—that’s not the question. The question is as to whether
there might be a trustworthy focus of spirit first of all in human form. As
this does appear then there is war in heaven, and the dragon with his angels
are cast out of heaven. This self-centered motivation no longer
controls when there is the experience of holiness in the place of motivation.
So we seek to permit this state of affairs to be as it should be. The
unholiness cast out of what should be the holy place makes space for holiness.
What is needful is that there might
be the essential focus of spirit in form on earth. That essential focus has
always been present in spirit, but there has been a reluctance on the part of
human beings to provide any form for it, except, as we have noted, the structured
forms which are already in place. We have heard the principle that the spirit
creates its own forms. It does, when there are those who are willing to let
spirit do it, who are willing to relinquish that structured state, to let it be
destroyed, unstructured.
This isn’t necessarily a matter of violence. It is
only when one hangs on to the structures that violence puts in an appearance, because
the process of life is unstructuring the structured. And if we try to hang on
to the structured, we get
unstructured! Life compels it. There is nothing wrong with that—it’s just
perfect that it should be that way. It seems rather foolish to hang on to this manipulative
attitude which insists upon maintaining the structures which
engender judgment and self-righteousness.
We are not alone in having structures. Everybody
has them, and everybody is insisting that the spirit should work through their
particular brand of structures. Of course the spirit is not particularly
interested in conforming to this requirement, but while the structures are
present there is no place else for spirit to work except through those structures;
however in the process it unstructures the structures. If one participates in the
endeavor to sustain the structures, one is incorporating those structures into
oneself, and life moving in oneself will unstructure them and we fall apart. Of
course! That’s what should happen! So we are concerned to let this focus of
spirit take form by reason of our presence on earth. That’s easily said, but
it’s not so easily done if we insist upon maintaining our structures. It can’t
be done.
Over many years the focus of spirit has been
emerging in the creation of its own form. This form first relates to human
beings, to human flesh. The emergence of this focus of spirit has permitted some
human flesh to be assembled, not just in one place but anywhere, everywhere, to
provide a facility for the unhindered action of spirit. The action of spirit is
constantly being hindered by human insistence upon their particular brand of
structures. As there is a willingness to relinquish this, to free up, so to
speak, then spirit begins to have a channel through which to operate. And this operation
comes on the basis of focus.
Anyone who has any experience of spiritual
expression knows that attention comes to focus; it isn’t a scattered thing. It
comes to focus in the expression of the Word. It comes to focus in me in this moment,
so that what is to be said may be said. If I am vaguely floundering around,
hopeful that something that I say may be useful, I don’t think any of you would
be listening. The point is that it comes to focus. It comes to focus in this
particular setting here, because there is a flesh facility for it to happen. It
couldn’t come to focus otherwise. If no one was standing at this lectern I
wonder how long we would all be sitting around. It comes to focus because there
is a point of focus in form. Spirit has a focus in form.
There is a point of focus. Let us not imagine that
focus is merely spirit. It is spirit, it always has been spirit, there always
has been a focus there. We can’t make it so because it already is so. That
focus is there. But the focus has been lacking on earth and, incidentally, the
dragon—human nature—the dragon always
undertakes to scatter abroad, always divides to conquer, so to
speak. Whenever something is drawn to focus of spirit in form the dragon is always
right there to destroy it. How? By scattering it. There was great success in
this regard with respect to the Israelites of old; they were scattered abroad.
Triumph for the dragon! It happened again at the time of the Master on earth. There
was a point of focus in form. Those who had the opportunity of sharing that
focus and allowing the form of it to expand never let it happen. So there was a
scattering abroad. It did momentarily come to focus again on that day of Pentecost
long ago, but it didn’t last. They all went out with their brilliant ideas and
their great understanding, and all the rest, to convert the world. That is not what is required, ever! What is
required is to let this point of focus take form; and the dragon will always
try to scatter it abroad. One has only to read history to understand that; it
should be quite obvious to any intelligence other than those who are subject to
the dragon.
So a body of flesh provides the initial facility
through which the focus of spirit may find expression. This body of flesh has
been growing over the years, but it still operates on the same basic principles
as were there in the first place. Nothing has changed in that regard. But this
body of flesh is not separate from what we would call the environment. If one were
to take a holier-than-thou attitude and say, “Well we are so holy that we can’t
be connected at all with this environment around us; we are going to retire
into some monastic facility somewhere and be holy,” we would at the same time
be absolutely useless. No. There is a flesh body including, I trust, the
individual flesh bodies of all of us here this morning. But we are not isolated
from our environment. And this focus is reflected in the body; it is reflected
in the immediate environment. There is no separation.
We are here to provide what is necessary through
the focus, which includes the whole developing body wherever it may reside on
the face of the earth, but brought to focus in the core. And the core has a
facility in which it resides. I don’t think any of us are interested in
destroying our physical bodies or permitting anyone else to do it. We are here
for a purpose in the flesh. It’s vital. It has
ramifications for the whole world. It isn’t just a little thing. There is a
core position. We know what is going on. What is happening by the action of
spirit is all that concerns us; and we know the action of spirit will bring forth
what is needful if there is a facility through which it can be done, and that
facility is a form.
It is through spiritual expression that things are
handled. Let us not be so foolish as to imagine that we can throw out any of
the fundamental, basic principles which are part of the truth which we already
know. None of them can be, and one of the essential principles is that there
should be a focus of spirit on earth. Isn’t that right? Isn’t it the lack of
that focus on earth that has thrown the world into chaos? Now it’s reemerging,
so we are concerned to let it keep on reemerging. And it reemerges in very practical,
sensible ways, so that anything can be dealt with easily from the standpoint of
spirit.
Everything is properly
governed by spirit, because the dragon is cast out of heaven. There is no more
scattering motivation, but a willingness to let everything come to point in
spirit. The first means by which the spirit has its way is through the focus of
form. However it’s looked at, the principles of truth which we know so well
work. Let’s let them work! What is there to be afraid of? Just let the spirit motivate, control. Let the holy
place be holy. And this is our responsibility.
We share a focus of spirit in a particular sense, allowing
the spirit to move through our own awareness, our own understanding, with
greater effectiveness. In our continuing expression of spirit, both as individuals
and as a body, the control on earth might come again into the hands of the Lord
because He once more may be incarnate on earth. It is His action which is rightly
our action, His thought which is rightly our thought, His Word which is rightly
our Word. So is it brought on earth.
Get thee hence, satan, out of the holy place, that
the holy place may be holy for His, the Lord’s, dwelling on earth in the flesh.
Here is the flesh—where else is it? Flesh originates out of the earth. It doesn’t
come out of the heaven; but the spirit incarnate in that flesh comes out of the
heaven. So we share today agreement that this flesh body should always accept
and receive spirit into living expression, moment by moment, the quality and
the character of the Lord. His blessing then is extended into the affairs of
men, so that where there is a willingness on the part of whoever is concerned, the
affairs of men may be aligned with the affairs of the Lord. So would we ever
let it be in whatever way is presented to us, both as individuals, as groupings
here or there, and as the body of the Lord in wholeness. What a joyous
privilege, what a wonder this is! We would let that wonder abide in our heaven,
that it may be reflected in the earth.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
Continuity
Of Integrity
An Increase
from
Moment Of Truth #2
Martin
Cecil September 6, 1981
Something came to point after our comment period at my house
which I would like to introduce to you and expand upon. It relates very much to
all that has been happening over the ages and what is now coming to a time of
climax and fulfilment. I mentioned that Job was the oldest book in the Bible.
There is a story here which carries considerable significance. There is also
the story of the failure of human beings recorded at the beginning of the Book
of Genesis. That story, and the story at the beginning of the Book
of Job, are a portrayal of two aspects of the same thing. We usually
hear about Adam and Eve because that failure has been emphasized in human
consciousness, chiefly through the subconscious sense of shame and guilt. So
the failure is apparent by reason of Adam and Eve. While initially it may have
involved just two people, it shortly involved considerably more, until now the
whole human race is in this state of failure. Something different, however, is
portrayed with respect to Job. Job represents those who kept their integrity.
On the one hand there were those who kept their integrity, and
on the other there were those who lost it. Because there were those who kept
their integrity the possibility of restoration has remained a very real
potential. In fact this restoration has been anticipated. This of course is portrayed
in the Book of Job. There were thirty-eight chapters of mess, and
then the fulfilment came. It came because Job had kept his integrity. He was
asked by his wife to curse God and die, but he wouldn’t. He didn’t follow this
female suggestion. The suggestion of course was to lose his integrity. After
all, he was badly afflicted. There seemed to be every valid reason for him to
curse God and die, but he would not do that.
There have been those down through the ages, who were
represented in this story by Job, individuals who kept their integrity in spite
of everything. We have various outstanding examples of this, coming to a point
of culmination in the One called Jesus. He would not curse God and die, so He
lived. Simple! I know from my own experience that there have been a great many
people who have, in their various ways, suggested to me that I curse God and
die. So far I haven’t done it. Usually that suggestion has been brought by a
female, as it was in the story of Job and as it was also in the story of Adam
and Eve. Adam lost his integrity. Job retained his. Because that integrity was
retained, there has been a continuity of integrity present among the children
of men ever since, as well as a very broad continuity of the loss of integrity.
So we come to this present time when the sea of glass clear as
crystal has begun to re-emerge so that God might speak out of the whirlwind and
claim attention. This thread of continuity, maintained by those who have kept
their integrity, has been so slight that most of the time it went unnoticed.
But it was there, just as it was in Job, so that the time might come when there
was sufficient substance present for the radiation of the spirit of God to
become known in a direct, conscious sense. Something is called to remembrance
on this basis, by the Spirit of Truth. We and others have shared that
remembrance to a certain extent, either by hearsay, which is one thing, or by
actual personal experience, which is another.
When Job finally came back into position to receive what the
Lord was offering, and had been offering all along, it turned out to be
considerably more than it was at the time when the human failure first put in
an appearance. This is an interesting thing to note. I suppose there are those
who have thought of it in terms of God being particularly pleased with Job
because he kept his integrity, and so He was going to reward him accordingly.
But that is a human nature portrayal, if there ever was one. It doesn't happen
that way.
An apt analogy of what occurred would be seen in an orchestra
who were originally being conducted according to the score that was present,
and bringing forth a beautiful symphony. But then the human failure occurred
and one by one the orchestra members dropped to sleep, so gradually there was nothing
left but the conductor. Rather a tiresome position for the conductor to be
in—wearying, to say the least. All the orchestra members were asleep, but the
score was there; the conductor went on. From time to time perhaps an orchestra
member would stir in his slumber, wake up a little, look at the score, trumpet
out a few notes and go to sleep again. This wasn’t a very satisfactory
symphony, certainly, and would give a peculiar impression. And those who heard
the sound in their sleep would probably be quite critical of it, not realizing
that it was that way because they were asleep. Finally the time comes when the
responsible members of the orchestra begin to awaken, pick up their instruments
and play. But obviously, in the intervening years, as it has proved to
be—millennia in fact—the conducting has continued. There has been continued
movement, in other words, even though nobody was aware of it. But becoming
aware of it and awakening, the orchestra members find that the score is what it
is now, not what it was then.
Very often people are inclined to try to look back to what the
true state was. They’re not very successful in finding anything that has much
meaning, but even if they were successful, what would be the point? That was
played long ago. It has moved on since then, and something else is to be
played. There has been an increase, an expansion, a movement, occurring in all
this blank space when human beings have been asleep. So when the awakening
comes they pick up their instruments and play the score as it now is. And that
is something else. There is consequently an increase. From the standpoint of
this score it isn’t a repetition, over and over and over endlessly, throughout
eternity. No—something new, something fresh, something building upon what went
before. As the awakening comes, there we are. As is portrayed in Job, he had
twice as much as he had before. This is rightly what is now occurring.
Continuing a bit with that analogy, as various orchestra members
do awaken and play their instruments there is rather an imbalanced sound,
because the whole orchestra isn't awake yet. So what’s the answer to that one?
Shall we all go to sleep until everybody wakes up? Do you think everybody would
ever wake up on that basis? Maybe they will wake up because of the apparently
discordant sound. “Oh dear,” they say, “now I had better put my instrument to
work too, and we'll begin to have a real symphony.” Looking at it this way we
can see the absolute futility of judgment. There is simply the individual
matter of awakening. As individuals we can only awaken for ourselves. We can't
awaken for anybody else. We’ve been told this before, I believe, almost ad
nauseam; but it is true, strangely enough. And it’s not so strange, is it?
It’s obvious. But the habits of slumber seem to die hard. So we awaken and, in
awakening, we begin to become aware of the score and of the conductor.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
