September 30, 2016

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

September 27, 2016

The Focus of Spirit in Form

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 spiritit 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 spiritthat’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 thatit’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

September 24, 2016

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