Awaken to Eternal Life or Awaken to Disaster
from Learning to Obey
Martin Cecil July 6, 1977 Class
There must be those on hand who understand the right use of the machinery which is composed of our own physical forms, minds and hearts. There is a need for establishing true habits — the habits of dominion. Indication is given through the temptations in the wilderness of the essential testings which allow these habits to be firmly set. We might for touch upon these temptations, recognizing that there were three of them. These three have a particular relatedness to the three Sacred Schools.
The things that emphasize themselves in these temptations are usually considered to be: the first one, “Command that these stones be made bread”; the second one, “Cast yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple”; and the third one is relative to “the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them”. In earthly orientation these would be the aspects that would tend to emphasize themselves, whereas the real emphasis should be placed upon the Positive Action of the One Law, not upon the endeavor to circumvent the Positive Action of the One Law. And yet in almost everything that human beings do the first consideration relates to the patterns of circumvention. What is really happening is not seen.
In these particular testings the emphasis should be upon living by the “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” by refusing to tempt the Lord thy God, and worshiping the Lord thy God. In the consciousness of human beings these seem to be rather impractical aspects of consideration. There are much more immediate demands upon us — to make these stones bread for instance. It seems so necessary. If we look at these things from the standpoint of the Sacred Schools, this would concern the First Sacred School. “Command that these stones be made bread.” Well the First Sacred School was very much under the influence of the Law and the Ten Commandments for instance. Human beings need to learn to obey. One comes to a point where one should be in position to allow the expression of the spirit of God and one has never developed a capacity to obey. One will be totally incompetent insofar as the expression of the spirit of God is concerned. The way to learn obedience relates to the development of the capacity to obey.
It wasn't to be supposed that the Law was the final word as it was presented to the children of Israel — it was the initial word essential to learning to obey. Then when the level is reached where the control should emerge from inside, it has something to emerge through. Otherwise there is nothing to emerge through and an older person will find him or herself in a position where they maybe long to serve the Lord and to let the spirit express, but they have no facility through which it may express, no capacity to be moved and controlled by the working of the spirit of God from within oneself.
Earthly heredity must be relinquished. Otherwise we could not possibly know God, seeing the state that human beings are in in the world and the fact that therefore there was no representation of God to any adequate degree for millennia. We are supposed to have accepted heavenly orientation and none of that stuff has any further meaning to us. It is no longer acceptable as the nature of the dominion that is working through us. If you do not develop a true capacity to obey, you develop a false capacity to obey and there is obedience to earthly heredity, and the expression in one's own experience is accordingly.
We need to know what the true nature of command is. The nature of command was seen in this first temptation: “Command that these stones be made bread.” “If you are the Son of God,” if you are an expression of God, then you have the right to command; but the idea of command is the human idea of command. “You do this to serve me. Stones, become bread so I can eat you.” And that is the general attitude of human beings. Try to impose, manipulate, so that what is present in your circumstance and environment may serve you. That is not the nature of God's dominion at all. The command of God to His creation is simply to be what you were created to be. Things are naturally the way they are on the basis of the commandment of God. He does not have to impose anything. Positive action results in negative reaction. Everything is the way it should be. Nothing has to be imposed.
In the First Sacred School the necessity was to develop a capacity to participate in the dominion of God. It is not the final thing, just the start, so that there may be further movement. That further movement was established through the Second Sacred School when the Master came on earth Himself. Out of the ability to obey comes the ability to agree. We learn to agree with the Lord, to agree with the Positive Action of the spirit of God. And we have capacity to allow that agreement to find expression on earth, having learned to obey. The word agreement would relate particularly to the Second Sacred School, the next step. We may see this with respect to what has been happening in our own experience — learn to obey. Without ever having learned that, one has no capacity to permit the expression of the spirit of God, because when the spirit of God begins to move through the person the individual will take it and start to use it this way and that way. He hasn't learned to agree with the spirit of God.
He can't learn to agree with the spirit of God if he has not learned to obey. Now this was very particularly brought out when the Master was speaking about calling His disciples friends rather than servants. The servant is the obedient one, the one who has learned to obey. Having learned to obey one can graduate into friendship, because one has the capacity to agree — agree with all one is. There are lots of people who have said they agreed but their actions did not indicate the fact of the matter. The Master's ministry was characterized by love simply because He is the Lord of love — that was His nature. And on the basis of love He offered the opportunity of emerging out of the Law, out of the level where one was merely learning to obey into a level where there could be proper agreement, friendship, where one was naturally doing what one should do. It was not an imposition anymore.
As long as you are identified with the Positive Action of the One Law you know things are going to change. What is now happening will not be what will happen. We need to learn to be identified with that Positive Action of the One Law. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” When he lives by every word proceeding out of the mouth of God there is the reaction to that and something comes out of the environment no doubt. This endeavor to impose upon the environment so that it may serve human beings is described as trying to make stones into bread. But the real command, which is the dominion of God on earth to all that is present around us, is to be what you were created to be. And when one begins to move with the creative process one begins to become consciously aware of what is happening in that creative process. If one is aware of what is happening in that creative process one may cooperate in it and the intelligence that is present in the mind may be used to this end. But we must learn to be servants first, that we may have the capacity to be friends, the capacity to experience agreement.
There is another word that could be used relative to the Second Sacred School, this second aspect of outworking, and that is integrity. We keep our integrity and to the extent that we do this we are in agreement with all who keep their integrity. In the second testing we were advised not to tempt the Lord. This is the point: Do not try to get the Lord to agree with you. “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” — thou shalt not try to get the Lord to agree with you. Thou shalt find out what it means to agree with the Lord. This has been the general attitude of human beings hasn't it, in relationship to spiritual things. “We'll figure out what should be done and then we'll go to the Lord and ask His blessing.” The very fact that one feels it necessary to ask the Lord for a blessing is indication that one is doing one's own thing.
Agreement — not getting agreement from the Lord but giving agreement to the Lord. As there begins to be the reality of agreement because there is something beginning to spring forth from within oneself through one's capacity to obey, then there can be the expectation of meeting the third test in the right way. If that hasn't been done then of course all the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them are at least intriguing. Maybe we can manipulate them in some way to be useful to the Lord. But our concern is not with the external circumstance primarily — our concern is with what is happening from the standpoint of the Positive Action of the One Law, what is happening from the standpoint of spiritual expression. What is it that is occurring in the circumstances around us from the standpoint of spirit?
We don't need to become involved in the results which are making themselves evident around us. Human beings imagine that by becoming involved in those results they are going to trace it some way back to spirit, find out what the spirit is that is moving. But it doesn't work that way. One can never reach spirit by the efforts of the human mind. Spirit is already in expression but we have not provided much facility for our experience of what that expression is. We have been too busy with our own affairs.
We are coming into agreement with the spirit of God as we begin to sense the reality of it. We are not out of the world; we are in the world. We see the glories of that world around us, if we look upon them as glories, but it is not these things that tell us what to do. We have no desire to possess these things. We see all that is present in the world around us as being the evidence presently of man's failure, but we also see the potential of the revelation of the True Design of God on earth and we are concerned with that True Design which is initially a spiritual design. It has not yet come out in form — it will when the Positive Action of the One Law is allowed to operate through human beings. Then the truth is reflected in form.
For that truth to emerge in a balanced way many changes must occur, all things made new. We worship God, not the world around us. God is All in all insofar as we are concerned. Because of that the reality of fulfilment is known. The First Sacred School — obedience. The Second Sacred School — agreement. And the Third Sacred School — fulfilment. Now, insofar as the world was concerned there was failure in the First Sacred School, there was failure in the Second Sacred School.
The victory that is possible in the Third Sacred School is not for this world. The Master indicated with respect to His disciples that they were not of this world even as He was not of this world. This world has had its chance. It has had its chance to allow what is present in this world to be transformed to permit the true world to appear. But the opportunities of transformation were rejected. “Behold, I make all things new.” Something else is to emerge. The new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven — various ways it has been described. It is not a pattern of evolution as human beings might think of it. It might have been a pattern of evolution if there had been success in the First Sacred School and success in the Second Sacred School — that would lead to success in the Third Sacred School for the world. That is not possible anymore.
Our concern is to provide the means whereby not the world but some human beings in the world may come out of the old state so that the old world can perish because there is a facility available by which the new world can appear. We find a very different state of consciousness may begin to emerge when this is actually known, because whatever may have been said heretofore the endeavor has certainly been to try to patch up the world that is now here, to make some improvements. But it is a new state altogether that is to come, to emerge. “Thy kingdom come.” Not that this kingdom now present be made over. “Thy kingdom come.”
I suppose it could be said to be a transformation, something entirely new certainly — but it is not of this world. As the Master said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” And those who are His friends are not of this world. They are the Angels of God who stand on earth and who move the unfolding creative design in the direction it should go, providing a facility to which people may come who are ready to leave the woes — which is the state of Babylon — come out of that into the new state. We are here to provide the facility by which this may be done. There are those who are moving unconsciously and it is with these that we are mostly concerned. Because they are moving they may in season awaken to what is happening, awaken from the dust of the earth — there is going to be lots of dust around — awaken from the dust of the earth to eternal life. Others will awaken to disaster. It will be disaster to them; it is disaster to anyone who is of this world because this world is a disaster area.
Moment by moment in our living we have the opportunity of meeting these points of testing, of proving the victory, that we may share the responsibility of the Angels of God on earth. He sends His angels. There has been some imagination on this score but it is a very practical business. The angels come in the flesh — it is the only way they can come. And because the angels are present and doing what they are here to do, the dominion of God is reestablished, the divine command is re-spoken, and all things are caused to behave the way they were created to behave — and anything that will not behave that way is dissolved. That is the way it is. There is no need to speculate about it, because we are going to see how it works, and we see how it works when we are the Angels of God present to cause it to work, to allow the Positive Action of the Law to be effective at the level where human beings are.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
