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More  Rebuke

Martin Cecil   August 28, 1977  p.m.

How very long it has been since the sons and daughters of God presented themselves before the Lord, and Lucifer came also among them—Lucifer, the Bright and Morning Star, the true mind of man revealing the light of God. For millennia now Satan has been ruling on earth through the consciousness of man and the population of the world has been in darkness. Look where we will we find human beings in darkness. We could say they do not have a clue as to what it is that is happening. In the sense of the true understanding of Lucifer they are unconscious. I’m sure that all of you have been very much aware of this in your associations with people in general. They go about their affairs in much the same old ruts and they are in darkness, unconscious. Here is the coma state of mankind.

This coma state has prevailed in the world for a long time waiting for the word of life to be spoken. The initial word of life is a rebuke. There are many who might say, “Well that’s not the word of life. That simply puts human beings down deeper into their darkness.” As long as Satan has dominion in the world there will continue to be need for rebuke. You have been learning that the rebuke need not put you down. Probably you’ve had experience of being put down by it but that was because of your own attitude, not because the rebuke was intended to put you down. The rebuke makes it possible for you to rise up, and you have been rising up to the point where you begin to sense identity with the one who delivers the rebuke. Then it is no more a rebuke to you but you recognize that it is a rebuke to other human beings because they persist in their association and identification in the human state of consciousness. It isn’t a matter of going around telling all and sundry about hell and damnation. There has to be a certain gentleness.

But we seek the opportunity of rebuking Satan quite forcefully when we can maneuver him out from hiding behind some human being. If in rebuking Satan forcefully we clobber a human being in the process, we have been inclined to see this as failure. We should have more ingenuity than that. If it is possible for me to begin to speak more forcefully to those who are gathered in the Chapel here, in the current of rebuke, it is only because there are more who are present who share with me in offering the rebuke. In other words Satan has to this extent been maneuvered out of the way so that together we might dispose of him by forceful rebuke. What a wonderful day this is as it becomes possible! You may have an awareness of how you have protected Satan, and perhaps some of you still do in various ways, so that you would not allow the angel of the Lord to get at him—you stood in between. Of course Satan is adept at maneuvering human beings so that this is the case. Then the angel of the Lord has to restrain the forceful action until the individual willingly gets out of the way.

We’ve often spoken of drawing a line on earth, something clear-cut. When there is something clear-cut in this way then Satan can be consumed in a moment. As he is consumed in a moment, insofar as our own experience is concerned, then the angel of the Lord is present and able to work the will of the Lord freely. As long as Satan is present with the human being in between it usually means that we have to wear kid gloves if the person in between is not to be destroyed.

There is no question that the power of God could deal instantly with the situation, but if He did who would be left? Satan can only be reached through human beings because they entertain him. Perhaps there begins to be a situation in the Chapel here in this moment when we could deal with Satan because we are with one accord in one place. So far it has never really been so. There were always those present who were spreading their coats so as to keep Satan on hand but not all that much visible. He has found hiding places. So when the sons and daughters of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan came also among them. More recently however we haven’t listened to his blatherings quite so much. At the time of Job, Satan was the only one who had anything to say, and so everything went his way. But now how is it? Would you say that the power of God could be brought to bear directly upon Satan in forceful rebuke without hurting you? I have always had to approach this necessity with the very greatest care. I have no desire to hurt anyone, but I don’t give a damn for Satan. If you do, then we are not quite in agreement yet and so there is no clear-cut line.

There is a verse in the Epistle of Jude in connection with the dispute that arose between the Archangel Michael and the devil about the body of Moses. The archangel didn’t bring a railing accusation against the devil. He simply said, “The Lord rebuke thee.” There was indication that rebuke is certainly the way to handle the situation. But I think in this story about the dispute over the body of Moses it is usually considered to be a dispute over the dead body of Moses. No, the dispute is over a living body. This dispute occupied about eighty years of Moses’ life, right up until the time when he returned into the land of Egypt and confronted Pharaoh. Even right at the end there, he was inclined to agree with the devil and present some excuses as to why he couldn’t do what he knew very well he was going to do. So the dispute is over a living body, in the sense that there is life still in the carcass.

We have the body of mankind these days—there is life still in the carcass. So there is a dispute as to whether this body of mankind shall be for the use of the Lord or for the use of the devil. Of course the devil has had his own way for a long time and there was little evidence of any real dispute in the matter. But now perhaps the picture is changing some because of all of us here, and others. We are reaching a point where we begin to understand what this business of rebuke is all about. It has been a long time coming. We are rebuking the devil over the body of mankind in this dispute, that the dominion that the devil has been exercising by reason of human beings on earth may be finished. It’s about time—it bas been going on for quite a while. Don’t you agree? But it is quite a serious business. It isn’t a matter of playing games.

Human beings in their present state have remained very childish. The whole state of mankind has been childish, and it has been evil. “Deliver us from evil”; deliver us from childishness, deliver us from the lack of true maturity, spiritual maturity. “Deliver us from evil”—that is said to be the Lord’s prayer. It is rather a prayer of human beings to the Lord. But how shall there be a deliverance from the evil of this incomplete and childish state? Only as there is a means of extending the rebuke, only as there is a means by which the Archangel may rebuke the devil in this dispute over the body of mankind.

The means by which the devil has held the body of mankind is through the consciousness of that body. The body itself has no particular choice in the matter. It goes whichever way the consciousness goes. So this dispute takes place in the consciousness of the body of mankind, the consciousness which has been the realm of dominion of the devil. There is indication at one point in the Book of Revelation that there was war in heaven. The consciousness of mankind is supposed to be the realm where heaven may abide. It has been the realm where heaven has been absent and in varying degrees hell has been present. It has never been completely hell in the consciousness of mankind because at that point mankind and the consciousness of mankind would have ceased to exist. There has been complete hell individually speaking, so that the individual has vanished, but the devil has held sway in the consciousness of mankind. So if there is to be salvation from this state the line must be drawn in the consciousness of mankind. Here is the field of confrontation with the devil.

We can’t wage a holy war of some kind physically speaking and gain a victory. A victory over what? That gives the victory to the devil. No, the realm of warfare, if you want to put it that way, is the consciousness of mankind where the devil has held sway, and his rule may be disputed when the Archangel is provided with the means by which he may enter the consciousness of mankind. He has been kept out so far but we are beginning to recognize our responsibility of providing the means for His entrance into the consciousness of mankind. We do it together, but we do it individually, and we have noted that it is an individual matter of meeting the issue in the moment, of rebuking the devil when he puts in an appearance in our own immediate experience in consciousness.

This is war in heaven—described that way in the Book of Revelation. There is war in heaven in the sense that there is a dispute over the body of mankind. This dispute is beginning to put in an appearance. There was no dispute for a long time. There were little forays into the consciousness of mankind here and there along the way—we know something about that—but this is it. We could say, this is it or else. So there is war in heaven. Michael and His angels fought—I trust some of those angels are sitting here; there are others in other places—against the dragon and his angels. You know what happened, what must happen, if the Archangel is present with his angels. The dragon doesn’t have a chance, because the action takes place at a level that the dragon is incapable of reaching; he is ambushed from above. There is war in heaven. Michael and His angels are fighting against the dragon and the dragon is fighting with his angels; but the dragon and his angels prevail not. That is a foregone conclusion if Michael and His angels are on hand to get the job done. They “prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven,” that is in the level of control in human consciousness. The control passes into the hands of Michael and his angels.

As this actually happens then the job is finished in fact, even though there may be a period of time when it is proving itself out, because obviously there are a lot of things to happen. “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him.” And we see these frantic endeavors going on in the world to try to solve all these knotty problems. All that happens is the knots get tighter, nothing is solved; everybody is trying to mind everybody else’s business. But if there are the angels of the Lord present, minding the Lord’s business, there is a force in the world which cannot be successfully prevented from doing what it will do. And all the angels of the Lord in human form have a part to play in this.

But it isn’t such a grandiose part, at the start anyway. It is simply meeting the issue moment by moment in the living of one’s own personal life so that the rebuke is extended there. Because the angel does this it is being done within the range of the consciousness of mankind. The devil is in the process of being cast out of this particular area of control. There needs to be consideration on the part of each one presumably as to how much you still protect the devil, allowing him to push you around through your human consciousness, through your earthly consciousness, the consciousness that is the result of earthly heredity. Michael and His angels appear and are active in the consciousness of mankind when there are those who have acknowledged and have accepted heavenly heredity, have accepted that as being everything—nothing else is required. All the elements that are present in earthly heredity are going to be rebuked one by one. It needs 144,000 people to cover the field, to rebuke everything that needs to be rebuked. After all, there is quite a store of it, isn’t there, after all these millennia of earthly heredity. So the dragon is cast out to a level of function where he can still claim some vestiges of control.

“And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.” It has been going on day and night for ages. There is an inclination for human beings everywhere to align themselves with the accuser and accuse each other. “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb,” by spiritual expression in living, not by theorizing about it or spouting principles. “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony.” A goodly proportion of the words of testimony will be rebuke, won’t they—words of rebuke. There may be some other words too but if you are taking care of your own state of consciousness I’m sure there will be some quite frequent words of rebuke.

“And they loved not their lives unto the death.” Well we no longer presumably function in the human state of consciousness, loving to do that, because, for one thing, we recognize that it is going to kill us. If we keep on going that way we are dead. So we love not our lives unto the death anymore. We love life as it really is, and life as it really is is eternal, so there is no death involved. “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea,” those who are polarized in earthly heredity. This relates to physical experience and mental experience. Woe unto those who are subject to earthly heredity, “for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” We understand why he only has a short time and we see the wrath all over the place. There are some people who become fearful of the wrath; things are breaking down; law and order may collapse. We can speculate about a lot of things. There is always a lot of human trash who are waiting for an opportunity to have a free hand in the society which no longer exists; so there is always a great deal of concern when the matter of gun laws comes up, because most people feel that they have no other protection than by a gun. But if it gets to that point, that you have no other protection than a gun, you are in a bad way because someone else has got one too; and from our standpoint it would indicate a failure.

When the Archangel Michael and His angels have cast the devil out of heaven then the control is in heaven. There is the control. You have all experienced something of this control in a rather limited and restricted way thus far. There has been an enfoldment, a protection present. But as angels of the Lord we have in the kingdom the power, and the consequence of the expression of the power permits the evidence of glory. It is not a very glorious thing to anyone who comes up against that power but it is a very glorious thing from the standpoint of the achievement of Divine Purpose. The job gets done this way. We need to allow our spirit of rebuke to be so consistent in our own areas of responsibilities, which is done in our own consciousness, that we come to understand the operation of the creative power; we have experience of its working; we know the ordinances of heaven and we are capable of setting the dominion thereof in the earth.

If we move as we should, without delay, we find ourselves in position all along the way to handle whatever it is that arises; we have learned how to handle it. We handle it in our own consciousness. Some of this was certainly made vividly evident in the Master’s ministry on earth. While, necessarily, anything He did was dependent upon response, He nevertheless revealed mastery in many fields. What has been recorded has come to be looked upon as miraculous but it was natural on the basis of His mastery. What was achieved was achieved on the basis of what occurred in His own consciousness. Usually it is looked upon as though somehow He projected, zapped, someone and there was healing. Well there was a zapping all right, which extended to the person, but it was initiated in His own human consciousness, the level where the angel must work that it may be a heaven, a holy place. And this same operative principle related to His resurrection—the consciousness changes; the body changes.

So Michael and His angels, being present in the heaven, within the human consciousness of mankind, provide the control point with respect to what occurs in the whole body of mankind. Now the devil still has some leeway a little lower down the line. He throws his weight around. He has great wrath because he knows he has but a short time, and the shorter the time we give him the better. The days are shortened for the elect’s sake because the elect are present to shorten the days. They will certainly need to be shortened, so we need to be on the ball quickly. In this fashion we discover within the range of human consciousness all that we are here to do. What we have been looking at with respect to the matter of rebuke is in a sense just a first step in doing what has to be done and we use this step because it is available to us immediately, and I think we have reached a point where we can begin to understand what the step is.

“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Perfection and righteousness go hand in hand. Perfection is revealed when there is an angel on hand who is capable of making right use of everything just the way it is; not requiring some arbitrary perfection with respect to everything, because that is a human concept anyway—it doesn’t mean anything. The perfection is the perfection of the expression of the angel rightly handling everything that comes up, even the things that are evil, incomplete, childish, in the state of one’s own consciousness. The evil doesn’t prevent perfection, because the perfection is the right handling of the evil. No one can ever find an excuse with respect to circumstances. Be ye therefore perfect in expression, in handling things. And it doesn’t matter what comes up.

Everything is going to come up to be handled in your own consciousness. If there is a problem in someone else’s consciousness and that person comes to you in order for this problem to be handled you can’t handle it without letting it into your own consciousness, can you? If you just sit there and say, “I don’t want to hear it,” you are not going to be able to do anything about it. So it has to come into your own consciousness and it is there that you handle it. It is not as though you can say to the person in whom the problem is, “Well you do this, that and the other thing and it will be all right.” You handle it in your own consciousness so that you may provide an open door for that individual by which he may begin to take responsibility for handling it in his own consciousness. This was the inspiration that the Master offered, because if ultimately anything was to happen for the other person that person had to take the responsibility for the happening. As the Master put it, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.”

So we are called to be perfect because we rebuke all the evil things that come up. That is part of the business of being perfect, being right, making right use of this thing that came up. People imagine that they have to go here or there to find out what it would be to be perfect, to be divine. It doesn’t matter where a person is; there are always things to be rightly used arising in consciousness. So do it, that’s all. Stop fussing about being here or there—it makes no difference. Those who put so much store by the circumstances as though there were some intrinsic importance in them, so that they go chasing after different circumstances, find that it becomes progressively more difficult to face the thing in their own consciousness. They have been running away from it and they have been using the circumstances to run away from it. The chance to understand is with the experience now, whatever it is. If you don’t use that you are not going to use something else somewhere else. A person can spend his whole life chasing shadows and die in his sins. That is disobedience.

So we rejoice in the opportunity of being perfect, of allowing right use to be made of everything that arises in our consciousness. This is only possible to the angel. So we must accept the attitude, the outlook, the fact of being the angel; and one can only accept that for oneself. When it is accepted the rebuke is offered naturally where it is needed. While I have emphasized rebuke, because it is really the first thing, as we are successful in rebuking what may be present we find that the rebuke pushes those things further away from us so that we have more space to be occupied by other aspects of the required creative action. But if the space isn’t there, we can’t let the required creative action come into it and we don’t know what it is. We always have to do something to let something happen.

It is the rebuke that gives you more space in which to work, more space for the angel to come forth, more space for the creative action in the heaven, in the holy place, a greater awareness of the ordinances of heaven that are present in any given moment, and an increased ability to set those ordinances in the earth. All this comes through experience, through actually letting it happen, not through thinking about it or meditating upon it, or arguing about it, discussing it with somebody, which occupies so much of human consciousness, doesn’t it? That is when the devil has dominion. So let us accept the role of one who rebukes, that we may increase available space within our own consciousness to encompass what needs to be encompassed in the creative expression of ourselves on earth.

© Emissaries of Divine Light