Something New Under The Sun
from Israel — God's Chosen One
Uranda August 5, 1952
In the history of the past we have the record of man's failures in relationship to God's plan of restoration. The precedent of failure has been reenacted an untold number of times; there is never anything new in the patterns of the unreal. There is never anything unique in the patterns of failure, and these cycles have been repeated with monotonous repetition down through thousands of years. But the precedents of victory are few, and those which we have are generally more or less incomplete. We have the pattern of victory which our Master established, providing the central essence of fulfilment on earth, and in relationship to that victory a few scattered manifestations of victory in part. The precedent with respect to real fulfilment is something which, from the standpoint of a group of people, even a small number, does not exist in history. In all history there is not one single precedent of victory for a group of people. Even under the Master's leadership it did not appear.
And so we have a rare privilege, a rare opportunity. This one thing which we have undertaken has not, in the period of recorded history, ever been accomplished. This achievement is, and will be, something new under the sun insofar as recorded history is concerned. The precedents of failure are repeated over and over again. There were various cycles of beginning, but never, for a group, the precedent of victory. You have been called out of the world, out of the patterns of the world distortion, to share the most important undertaking the world has ever known, an undertaking which our Master came into the world to make possible, an undertaking which has had a great deal of preparation from the standpoint of the Divine outworking, an undertaking which is unmatched, unequalled, in all history.
This should emphasize the vital importance of correct function in day-by-day living. It should emphasize the vital responsibility and the sacred privilege that is granted to you. Some of the patterns which are of vital importance to us were acted out in rich drama on the stage of the world a long time ago. These principles are of great importance to us, but in that dramatic enactment on the stage of the world there came not the conclusion of victory but of failure. There were steps of victory, they started moving toward victory, but they did not carry through.
There have been many beginnings with respect to correct function in the patterns of life, limited perhaps in some ways. The particular pattern of which I speak is that which was revealed on earth through the children of Israel. The word “Israel” means “chosen one of God” or “God's chosen one.” Whenever we read the word “Israel” we should not limit our thought to a specific group of people in the earth's history; we should not think of some particular race or creed, some people who were merely bound together by language or custom or belief. Israel—God's chosen one. That word, like so many others, has been sadly abused, and today it is used by man in a manner which disregards the meaning of the word. Israel, God's chosen one—God's Chosen One who came into the world to reveal the Way, the Truth and the Life. To follow Him is to become one of those who may be properly called the children of Israel.
There are many recorded events with respect to the original pattern of the children of Israel as it began under the direction of Melchizedek through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Three—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jacob became Israel. Man is a three-phase being. Three basic opportunities have been, and are, offered to man. Three opportunities to return to the Divine Pattern were given to man when he first fell. The three has figured in the pattern down through the whole period of recorded history over and over again, because we are functioning in a three-plane world insofar as the outer manifestation is concerned.
We have recognized the Divine Trinity. The opportunity that was brought into the world by Melchizedek through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was the first. The opportunity brought into the world by our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, was the second. We are now sharing the third—the third and the last opportunity offered to mankind. The first two opportunities have already been lost. The patterns established by those first two opportunities can no longer be worked out. The cycle was broken and the precedent of failure established in each case. This which you share is man's last opportunity. That should emphasize the importance of our right function, the importance of remembering always our privilege and responsibility.
Some may say, “But how do you know that it is the last opportunity?” There is evidence on every hand, and there is the sign of the prophet Jonas. But if I must of necessity point to this evidence and tell you the secret of the prophet Jonas in order to bring conviction to your heart and mind, then my words would be of little value in any case, and the time is not yet. The evidence can be seen for those who have eyes to see. The evidence can be heard for those who have ears to hear. And that is enough.
Let us take a brief look at the pages of history to see the meanings which are contained in relationship to ourselves here tonight. Melchizedek, King of Salem, opened the cycle long ago, and even today the door is open for those who would enter the Priesthood and become a priest or priestess after the order of Melchizedek. In the outworking of things—and there are many interesting points leading up to the time of the children of Israel in Egypt—those who were the children of the Chosen One of that day found themselves in bondage, in slavery, in the darkness of Egypt. By the hand of God, in a great deliverance, they were taken out of Egypt, and they crossed the Red Sea. These things, as they appeared in relationship to that group of people, must work out individually in you today. The pattern of fulfilment for the group is different. The basic principles revealed through that group apply to the individual tonight. The Red Sea, which blocks the way of escape from the bondage and darkness of Egypt, represents the limitations of your own physical body, your own body as such, which by itself is incapable of permitting passage to victory. But this same Red Sea, your body, responds to the Divine Word, the Divine command, the uplifted hand of Moses and Aaron, and it opens in the current of the spirit, allowing movement out of darkness, out of slavery and bondage, out of limitation, into the pattern of God's design for man. When the Red Sea of your own body is first opened, so that you can begin to pass over on dry land out of the realm of bondage, you find that you are in the wilderness. You cannot move—and this is true of every man, woman and child on the face of the earth—you cannot move out of Egypt, the bondage, the slavery, which has held you in darkness in time past, through the opening of the Red Sea, the opening of your own body to the working of the spirit of God and the control of God's will, directly into the promised land. It cannot be done. You must first cross the wilderness.
Some, because they do not see the promised land when they look across the Red Sea, imagine that it is better to remain in Egypt, in bondage, in slavery. Some imagine that it takes great courage to move out of the patterns of slavery, through the Red Sea and into the wilderness, that there may be movement toward the promised land and the Kingdom of God at hand on earth. To my mind it does not take great courage. One might say that the cowards are afraid even to start, lest they be overcome by Pharaoh, the king, which represents the self-activity of your own human mind. But it is not courage in any particular sense that makes it possible to move out of that realm of bondage. It is, rather, a simple recognition of basic truth, a simple recognition that it is utterly stupid to do otherwise; for to remain in bondage and in slavery in the darkness of Egypt has no future but labor by the sweat of the brow for a little time, decay, misery, degradation and death. In other words any individual who is offered the opportunity of movement out of that Egyptian darkness and slavery as it manifests in this day and who refuses the opportunity and the invitation is indeed stupid, for those who leave that Egyptian darkness have nothing to lose. Why should it take courage to leave behind slavery, degradation, where there is nothing to lose, in order to begin movement toward the promised land? Courage? Just a little sense is enough, just a little perception, to see how stupid it is to remain in slavery.
Once the Red Sea of your own body is opened to the working of the spirit of God, which correlates with the great wind, you pass over, out of bondage, into the wilderness, on dry land in an easy passage. But when the king of the self-active mind thinks to pursue with his hosts he is always caught amidst the waves and the Red Sea is not opened to him. He destroys himself by his effort. Your Pharaoh, the Pharaoh of your own self-active mind, will seek to pursue you once you begin to move out of bondage and darkness through the open Red Sea of your own body. If you become fearful because Pharaoh pursues, you will be in trouble; but if you remain steady under the leadership of your own spiritual perception in response to Center, Pharaoh and his hosts will be overwhelmed in the Red Sea and he will trouble you no more. Of course those who follow Pharaoh always become confounded—they are always destroyed in the Red Sea. For the self-active ones, for those who insist upon being a member of Pharaoh's host, there is no open passage through the Red Sea, and those who attempt to use the open passage provided for the children of God's Chosen One always find themselves overwhelmed and they cannot pass through.
This is something that works out in the life of each and every responding one, in one way or another. The principles are absolute for you, and having passed through the open Red Sea of your own body, you come into the wilderness of your own heart and mind. But you are not left alone there, for you have also your Moses and your Aaron, your spiritual perception and consciousness in heart and mind which, when they remain centered, guide you through. But the wilderness is of your own realm of consciousness extending into the subconscious mind, the barrenness of heart, the emptiness of spirit, and if you become fearful, facing the wilderness, you perish there in emptiness, even though you may have found the open way through the Red Sea of your own body. You must stay centered and clear the realm of your own awareness in heart and mind, whether it takes five minutes or ten days or ten years, or forty years for that matter.
You cannot, by any means whatsoever, get out of the wilderness into which you enter until you let yourself cross the Jordan—the Jordan, the dividing line, the River of Life, the water of truth—the dividing line between the wilderness of a man's own barrenness into the promised land of God's true fulfilment for you. But when you enter that promised land you find not a ready-made realm of perfection according to your own standards and specifications and what you may have thought you told God to do and to prepare for you. You find a realm where there are problems, where you have a share in creativeness, where the kings of this world must be overcome and cast out, where the giants in the land are removed, where the walls of Jericho must fall, where the vineyards must be planted, where the fulfilments must be allowed to appear because you have entered into the Garden of God, the Kingdom of Heaven at hand, the Promised Land, and you tend it and keep it as God first ordained. Then, in season, it manifests, and the things which occupied this place where the Garden ought to be in you and round about you are cast out, removed, and that which is there that responds is made new, until the former things are passed away, that they may nevermore come into mind nor be remembered, and the Divine Pattern is allowed to manifest in its fulness, not just through one or two, or even a few, but through all who follow through.
Having entered the promised land, those who were called the children of Israel in that day began to compromise with the distortion patterns which they found round about. They failed to carry through, and that which the promised land should have made possible to them never truly appeared. Oh I know it carried through until they had the development and fulfilment and recognition in the then known civilized world which appeared at the time of Solomon, but that was not what God designed. All the way through it was a poor substitute, and as soon as it was put under pressure it failed. The kingdom was divided and there was a capital in Jerusalem and a capital in Samaria. They were scattered and taken into captivity, and the priests of Baal took over and the precedent of failure was built. There is very little that worked out in Canaan after the then children of Israel crossed the Jordan into the promised land which was according to the Divine Design. Most of it was greatly modified, even when it was good, and the rest was a complete distortion which never allowed the beauty and the wonder of God's plan to find a place in the record of man's history. Blessings which God had in store were thrown away. Almost from the time they first set foot upon that land, they began imposing their own human wills upon the pattern which God ordained, and that which worked out for the children of Israel was not the manifestation of the Divine Design. And so it failed.
After a time the Master came and opened the door once more, established the pattern by which man might know the victory. He set the Pattern himself, but again, those who were supposed to follow Him did not let His will be done on earth as it was in heaven. They did not follow His design, and impulsively the disciples dissipated the power that began manifesting on the Day of Pentecost, and the pattern of outworking since that time, with respect to those who call themselves Christians, has not been the fulfilment of God's will or the revelation of the Divine Design. It has not been the outworking which God designed, any more than it was with the children of Israel in Canaan.
And so once more we have an opportunity on earth to let God's will be done as it is in heaven—not under some modifications which the human will determines to be desirable or which it seeks to impose on God's Great Plan. While there have been those who have recognized my patience and gentleness, there have been those who felt that they had reason to rebel because I insist that any pattern designed by any human being which would, if followed, seek to impose the human will upon God's Plan must be rejected. I have been called hard, a dictator, etc., simply because I point to the fact that the human way is no good. It has been tried over and over again down through the centuries and does not work. It is not working in the world today. It will not work. We have the privilege of establishing the precedent in the world, the Precedent of Victory, but it cannot, will not, be done on the basis of human will and fancy, human desire. If it is done—and I am confident it will be—it will be because there are human beings who have sufficient sense to see that there is nothing to lose by leaving behind the world's pattern of darkness and bondage, slavery, and moving through the Red Sea, across the wilderness, and into the promised land.
Having entered the promised land, crossed the Jordan, the job is not done. The work is only begun. Why? Because the manifestation in form of that which is the Divine Design must follow. It cannot be humanly developed; it cannot be produced by human effort. Human function is essential to it, but it requires that human beings allow the things of God to take form on earth without human beings imposing their own limited visions and distorted concepts upon that Plan. When the things of God come forth they are not supposed to be distorted, ugly things, partial manifestations of blessing. We have had much of that, yes, but it cannot, must not, continue on forever. The thing that is to appear in form must be in harmony with the Divine Design, the Pattern, the Garden of God planted eastward in Eden, and we must let it appear. How can the Garden of God be restored to man?
The Garden of God is vibrational, spiritual, already available; it is at hand. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. The control pattern and the control power are at hand. The vibrational factors of the Divine Design are at hand. But the form of these things must yet be made. That is where man comes into the picture. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and has been down through the centuries, but man must so function under the Law as to allow the form an opportunity of manifestation, through which the vibrational factors of the Kingdom of Heaven at hand may appear. Our responsibility out here is to give form to that which is invisible, that it may have form on earth. Form cannot be arbitrarily produced without regard to the vibrational factors present in the realm of the substance which is to be used. The body of man is filled with vibrational factors imposed upon it by the self-active mind and the impure human heart, and until these vibrational factors which do not belong in the Divine Design are cast out the form cannot be the means by which the Divine Design appears.
Your body is not only the Red Sea; it is likewise the promised land. Your body is the wilderness too, and when you cross the wilderness you come to the River Jordan, and when you cross the River Jordan you find that your body is likewise the promised land. First your body is the land of Egypt, filled with darkness, slavery, bondage, degradation, that which leads to death. Then, beginning to awaken to the things of God, your body becomes the Red Sea through which the spirit of God begins to work, that you may pass out of the state of Egypt, into the state of the wilderness. Your body is the Red Sea, your body is the wilderness, and your body is the promised land. Egypt, the Red Sea, the wilderness—you see, there are only three steps to the promised land. Again the three. But your body does not become the manifestation of the Promised Land on the basis of the Divine Design until you let God's will be done, until the kings, the vibrational factors which have so long held control, are cast out. Just as the kings who were present in that day had to be cast out of the promised land, so do the kings which have held sway in you for so long have to be cast out. So must these kings, these vibrational factors which have controlled, distorted, prevented the fulfilment of yourselves as human beings, as Divine men and women, be cast out, before the vibrational factors of the kingdom of heaven at hand are received into the form of your body.
So here we have the various steps. There is the pattern of Egypt, which we see out in the world and which some of you perhaps can remember if you look back far enough. And there is the pattern of the Red Sea. How many of you have passed through the Red Sea? Then your body is the pattern of the wilderness. Have any of you ever been in the wilderness? I wonder. If so, were you merely wandering about, or did you perchance come to Mount Sinai? Did you come to the River Jordan, and did you cross the River Jordan into the promised land? Or did you listen to the ten spies who said, “It cannot be done; there are giants in the land; we cannot do it”? Then, did you wander in the wilderness and decide to perish there, wishing you had remained with the fleshpots in Egypt? Oh, there are those who say that there are giants in the land—and there are; we do not deny it. But of what concern are the giants to us if we are letting our Father's will be done on earth as it is in heaven? When you enter the promised land and your body becomes the promised land, do you think that, presto, in a minute, it is going to be everything you thought in advance it ought to be? If you do you will find yourself scurrying back across the Jordan into the wilderness to perish there, or you will perish in battle perchance.
The Promised Land. When you enter it, when your body becomes the promised land for yourself, it is not yet in manifestation a revelation of Deity, of the Kingdom of Heaven that is at hand. It is merely the substance that is ready to be used, ready to be cleansed of the vibrational factors which have ruled it for so long, ready to have the Canaanites cast out, ready to let the Divine Pattern take form. But some there are who feel that it would not be right to cast out all of the Canaanites, the vibrational factors that have been present in the body for so long. After all, they have had squatter's rights for so long. Where would they go, and by what sword would they be slain? The Sword of Truth. And if you leave some of them alive and say, “I will just incorporate these; I am sure God will not mind. This vibrational pattern is pretty good, this is a nice king; I will let him live and I will let his people mingle with mine,” what then? The children of Israel tried that and they wrote on the pages of history, in the pages of time, a record of failure. What will be for us? The old vibrational factors, which were but a distortion, must be cast out and the whole must yield to the Divine Pattern, the Divine will, Divine control. And so this story of the outworking of the children of Israel of that day has vital meaning for those who would be the children of the Chosen One of this day.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
