I would carry forward the pattern of meditation which finds its centering in the words the Master taught men to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” One of the greatest patterns of misunderstanding in relationship to the meaning of our Master’s life on earth, centers in this particular subject of meditation. It is sad that so much that our Master did, so much that He taught, so much of the work that He accomplished on earth, should have been caused to be so meaningless for so long. And one of the great reasons for this rests in the wide-spread misunderstanding with respect to the meaning of intercession. The process of forgiving debts, trespasses, or sin, however one may classify it, is actually the work of intercession.
The popular idea, having some variation in concept, but the picture as it is painted, with various modifications, has Jesus constantly interceding an our behalf to keep the Father mollified, calmed down, sufficiently patient, so that He will not suddenly do some terrible thing to humanity. This basic concept actually shows a complete disregard for the nature of the Father and it shows a failure to understand the real nature of the Master’s life. His work and His teaching, God is love. God the Father is not trying to find some reason for wreaking vengeance upon human beings. God the Father is just as interested in saving human beings as our Lord Jesus Christ is interested in saving human beings from the disasters which they bring upon themselves.
I have used the expression God the Father to signify the higher focalization of deity to which the LORD of Lords responds. We remember the much quoted text, John 3: 16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” As many millions of people there are who know that text by heart, as many millions of times as it has been spoken, quoted, and repeated in various ways, the basic reality of its significance has been overlooked. For it was God the Father who sent our Lord and King into the earth, for a specific purpose. Generally speaking, human beings do not recognize getting ill, sick, and finally dying, as a part of perishing. By some strange quirk of human perverseness, lack of logic, the idea is advanced that God did not mean that people should be saved from getting sick, that they should be saved from their illnesses and thereby healed, or that they should be saved from physical death. The application is extended to a hereafter, but why should it not mean this present time? Theoretically at least, we recognize that it applies to us here, now, tonight.
If we take this text at its face value, we do not have to imagine that God the Father who so loved the world that He sent our Lord and King into the world, must be constantly mollified to keep that same God from destroying humanity, that our Lord returned to heaven or the inner planes of Being, must somehow be constantly interceding for each one of you. Once we see how illogical this concept is, it is easy to relinquish it and look at the facts and see the truth as it is. We remember that as the superficial pattern of response that has been engendered in the world was drawing away from our Lord while He was on earth. He recognized that with the breakdown of that response, it was inevitable that the pattern of world reaction should come in upon Him and that He would have to meet man's concerted effort brought to point by which man hoped to destroy God.
Man in the beginning set himself up to be as God, and since that time has devoted himself to destroying the manifestation of God on earth, preventing it wherever possible by reason of self-activity and patterns of self-determination which have become fixed in all the social orders that have ever been developed, in all the cultural programs that man has ever devised, fundamentally designed to prevent the manifestation of God on earth. But where these cultural programs and social orders have not succeeded in keeping divine action completely out of the earth, man has consistently, down through the centuries to and including our present day, sought to destroy any manifestation of God that should appear. And even among the Christians—not limiting it to some other religious pattern or background of belief—there has been a constant crucifixion of the Christ spirit as it has sought to manifest through human beings. The impulses of the spirit of God have been constantly and consistently rejected, and wherever any human being began to truly respond to the spirit of God, that person has, without exception, been subject to various patterns of persecution or resistance—anything, even lethargy, refusal to respond, just simply ignoring that which God would give; all of these phases of action designed to make any divine manifestation on earth to be of no effect.
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We have seen this pattern working out at various times in various ways in relationship to our own ministry. It is not something that is relegated to the dim and distant past. At the time the Master was on earth, there were thousands who were willing to follow Him to be fed by the loaves and the fishes, there were thousands who were willing to be entertained by His charming voice, they were willing to be enthralled by the spirit of His Presence and His being, as long as it seemed completely safe and as long as it seemed that they could get something from Him. And when the idea began to develop that perhaps He would set up a Kingdom and remove the rulers of that time from their earthly thrones, there were those who were willing to follow for a little way. But as soon as there was a little pressure, all of this interest in what our Master had done and said, was shown to be largely superficial. And those who had a short time before shouted, “Hosanna to our King,” quickly melted away into the shadows and very carefully hid themselves to avoid any possible detection. Those who had eaten of the loaves and the fishes, found it expedient to be far away. Those who had been healed by His hands, had business somewhere else.
It came down finally, to His disciples. One of those disciples thinking to force the Master into a pattern of action, decided on some clever strategy, as he thought. He felt that the Master was not adequately utilizing His power, His opportunities. He felt that with a little political maneuvering, the cause of the earthly kingdom which he anticipated, would be advanced. And he became impatient with the Master. He felt that the Lord was not moving forward rapidly enough and He was not using sufficient wisdom in that maneuvering which would be necessary to the accomplishment of the end desired. The disciples, by and large, had failed to recognize the true nature and the true purpose of the Master’s life and ministry and teaching, even though they had walked with Him in the way for around three years. And so Judas proceeded to develop an idea which he thought would be very wise. To understand this pattern, you must realize that Judas did not intend, in fact had no inkling of an idea, that the Master would be crucified as a result of his action. If we imagine that he deliberately betrayed the Master on the basis of having Him crucified, the whole thing at once becomes pointless. We must realize that Judas, being the treasurer of the group, had the money that was available at the time, he carried the bag, he handled the money for Jesus and the disciples, and he did not imagine that he was sending his Lord to the cross when he started this bit of political maneuvering. He had it in his head, in firm conviction, that if the matter was put to a test, if an issue was forced, that Jesus would use His great power. He would be forced to use His great power to remove the mighty from their seats and the setting up of the earthly kingdom would be thereby hastened. And unless we recognize this scheming in the heart and mind of Judas, we cannot understand the nature of the man or the true nature of the events which took place at that time.
So Judas decided to do a little maneuvering on his own to force our Lord into using His power to overcome the rulers of that day. When Judas began to realize that our Master would not use His power in defense of Himself, that He would not use His power to keep these same rulers from torturing Him, spitting upon Him, and finally crucifying Him, Judas was terribly unhappy, sad, despondent, and there was a terrible self-reproach. If Judas had deliberately betrayed the Lord to be crucified, he would not have returned the money and gone out and hanged himself. That pattern of action is completely inexplicable unless we see the facts which are not generally known or recognized or considered. But actually, Judas was maneuvering to force the Lord to use the power which He had, to overthrow the governments of that time. He expected to compel Jesus Christ to defend Himself, and when he found that the Master would not do it, he saw the whole plan crumbling, he realized what he had done and remorse overcame him, and he hanged himself. A little later, after the betrayal, Peter denied Him, most followed afar off. But the most significant part of the outworking came before the actual betrayal, came before the mockery of the trial began. This was in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The Master took His eleven disciples, for one was busy about his own self-determination, so he was busy about his own business and he was not there. And the Master took His eleven disciples and went into the Garden that is called Gethsemane, and He established eight of those disciples in one group, the base of a pyramid, of a creative triangle. He took three of those disciples a little further on, a line nearer the top of the creative triangle, then He Himself went a little further and established a point as the apex of that creative triangle. Even then, with the thousands of His would-be followers scattered and turned away, there was still an opportunity for those eleven disciples to help hold the vibrational pattern. Eight forming the base of the creative triangle, three a little nearer the apex, and the Master Himself at the apex of the triangle. We can see the three points established in such a pattern from the Biblical record. But most of the disciples promptly went to sleep. Instead of watching with Him, holding the vibrational pattern, staying centered in Him, they went to sleep. Just as surely as Judas failed Him, those who went to sleep failed Him.
It is not only those who deliberately fight against God in a pattern of self-determination that tend to defeat the manifestation of God on earth, but those who are so asleep, so lethargic, that they do not respond, no aliveness can be stirred into them, no sense of responsibility. They are ready to go to sleep and let God do it. Here in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Master began a most remarkable pattern of intercession. His followers had turned away. One of His disciples was out betraying Him, and ten of the disciples were asleep. Do not imagine that all went to sleep. Someone was there to write the record, someone was there who knew what happened. If they had all been asleep do you think the Master would have appeared to one of those disciples or to someone else and said, “Well now, while all you were asleep, this happened to me, that happened to me, I was sweating, as it were, blood etc., while I was going through this agony up here. I must tell you all about it because you were all asleep and you did not see it." Can you see the Master doing any such thing? No. The very fact that there is a record proves that they were not all asleep, but most of them were asleep, failing our Lord on earth. In the face of this, it would have been so easy for our Lord to find reasons to be discouraged. He had helped so many people, He had ministered such long hours, He had done so many things. He had spoken so many words, and here He was, alone and neglected. He had so many reasons to be discouraged. One of His disciples was out to betray Him, and there, a little ways away, He could hear the snores of disciples who were supposed to be serving with Him. They were asleep. Yes, He had plenty of reason to be discouraged. If He had been functioning on the basis of the ordinary human pattern. He would have said, “It is not worth it. Let them all go to … wherever they were headed for!”
The pattern of reaction out of the world was rushing in upon Him because those who were supposed to hold the pattern with Him were afar away or asleep. He was left defenseless. There was no one of those who were asleep or of those who were far away who had any real realization of what they were doing. And so, that hour passed. In the agony of facing the vibratory patterns of the world, the mental and emotional pressures of human reactions, human rejections, human failures, in the face of that monstrous ingratitude, there was no judging, there was no condemnation, there was no resentment, there was the same spirit and attitude which found expression from His lips later upon the cross, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” This attitude of forgiveness, this attitude of refusing to respond to all that man had done, all the rejection, allowed Him to remain perfectly centered in God the Father.
Now for those of you who may not have heard me speak along this line before, I must interject a parenthetical statement which will be clarified later on. There are those who believe that Jesus on the cross said, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” He did not make any such statement. The words, as nearly as they were understood, are given in the Bible. How many times do we find that to be the case? We find it here because those who heard were not sure of the translation, they were not sure of what He had said. The words contained in the record, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” was translated by hearers who understood some Hebrew, because it seemed to them, the only thing that it could suggest to them, was the opening line of one of the Psalms where the Psalm expresses the idea, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” But we must remember that the language then used was the Aramaic. It was the common language of the people, and Hebrew as such, was not generally used among the people at that time. And the Master spoke some words in the Mother tongue, the tongue that was used in the Garden of Eden before the beginning of the Tower of Babel, and because those who stood near, generally speaking, did not hear plainly what He said, they did not understand what He said, they jumped to the unfounded conclusion that He said, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Such a thought did not cross His mind, such an attitude never entered His heart. The expression that came from His lips was a recognition that darkness was covering His face and that His work on earth was done. Not once in the whole pattern did He veer from the attitude of, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” And it was because of this that He remained perfectly centered in God and was a channel through which the power of God was made manifest. If, as He was losing consciousness, He had said, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” His body would not have come forth from that tomb, there would have been no resurrection. It would have been a failure on His part. And to this day there are millions who count themselves to be His followers who believe that He said something which if He had said it, it would have meant that He had failed. But He did not fail. If He had given way to resentment, or if He had felt that He was somehow separated from God, lost His attunement with God, He would not have been a channel for the manifestation of the power of God. So, in the attitude of forgiveness He was interceding for man. During this cycle, beginning in the Upper Room, continuing through the Garden of Gethsemane, and on through the mockery of the trial and to the cross, the Master was interceding. But what is intercession?
Intercession is not trying to stop God from passing some judgment upon a human being. Human beings have acted as if Jesus had to work to keep God the Father, who sent Him into the world (the God who is love), that Jesus had to intercede with God to keep God from bringing judgment upon human beings—which is not the case at all. Intercession is that polarity in God which stays centered in God, which keeps ill actions from producing their results in the human being who commits the wrong action; not interceding in the sense of withstanding God's judgment, but in the sense of holding so centered that wrong reactions on the part of others are not allowed to produce, in any immediate sense at least, the results which they otherwise would produce. If you meet any situation in the attitude, truly, of “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” you are sharing in intercession. Jesus Christ in heaven cannot intercede on earth.
If there is any intercession at work today, it must be here on earth. There is not, and cannot be, a pattern of intercession in heaven, because the ill conditions which are coming upon human beings are the result of their own action, the result of the things they themselves have done, the things for which they themselves are responsible. And intercession is not with respect to some future thing. Intercession is with respect to the vibratory patterns at work in this moment in connection with wrong actions on the part of others—any other, whoever, wherever it may be. An intercession makes null and of no effect, it nullifies, the power of evil in the moment when the evil is active, not after it is all done. When the power of evil has acted and the deed is done, there is no intercession, because then it is finished, it cannot be stopped. It is while the cycle is in process that intercession counts. And intercession is not in heaven, in the sense of something separate from the world. Intercession is here.
The spirit of our Lord and King in the Inner Planes can have meaning on earth in relationship to intercession at this time, in this moment or in any other, only to the degree that human beings on earth yield themselves in body and mind and heart to His spirit, letting themselves be members of His Body, branches of the One Vine, so that His spirit can act on earth through human beings now, to produce intercessory function, to produce a pattern of vibratory current, an attitude, a centering, which can nullify wrong actions. Because intercession is just that: nullifying the results of wrong or evil action. But if there is to be a nullification, if there is to be any true intercession, that nullification must take place during the cycle of the evil action. After the cycle is completed in any given case, there is nothing to stop—it is done. Out of that something else may spring, another cycle, another vibratory pattern, and that new vibratory pattern may be dealt with by intercession, by nullifying it. But in any case, with respect to any cycle, the process of nullification must work during the cycle itself, not after it is completed, because then there is nothing you can do. And if the spirit of intercession in our Lord and King, which was so gloriously manifest on earth when He was here, is to have any meaning in these days, it must be because human beings have so yielded themselves to Him, in body and mind and heart, that His spirit can work through them as members of His Body, by reason of which that nullifying power of intercession may work on earth here and now. That which is in heaven cannot have meaning on earth except as it comes to earth through human beings.
And this is just as true of intercession as it is of anything else which must come down from God out of heaven into the world. Looking forward to some results in some hereafter, looking forward to some intercessory work after one is dead, is of no avail. It is not needed then. It is on earth here, now, that it is needed. That God Being did not sin no matter what the human being may have done. The focalization of deity in any human being did not ever sin. You may say, “But what of Stalin?” The focalization of deity in Stalin did not ever at any time sin. The impulse of the spirit through that focalization of deity was without a single exception, to counteract the evil action. The God Being in any human being has never at any time sinned. And that God Being whether in yourself or some loved one or some friend or someone far away, that God Being is eternal and has eternal identity. That focalization of deity did not in any case sin no matter how sinful the human being may have been. According to the Master's word, there is only one sin. There may be various patterns of evil action resulting from this one sin. But we must remember that in actual fact, there is only one sin according to the word of Jesus Christ our Lord and King, and He said that “When the Spirit of Truth should come, he would reprove the world of sin—the one sin—of sin because they believe not on me.”
The God Being, the focalization of deity in you or in anyone else, has always, without a moment's break, recognized the focalization in the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings. Not once did any God Being in any human being at any time, break from that pattern. The focalization of deity in you believes in Jesus Christ, our Lord and King. The focalization of deity in every man, woman and child on the face of the earth, without a single exception, is perfectly centered in believing in the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, and that is without exception, that has been true regardless of race or color or creed. It is true regardless of what the human being believes or does not believe. The focalization of deity in every human being who has over lived on the face of the earth has been centered in that God Being who was made manifest on earth through the body of Jesus, and that God Being has been all the way through, without a single exception, the focalization of deity for all the God Beings who have had anything to do with this world, whether the inner planes of it or the outer planes of it.
Remember that the work to which you are called is intercessory work. You have absolutely no business seeking to have a part in God’s ministry on earth unless your primary desire and determination is to share in the intercessory work on earth which finds its centering in our Lord and King. What are you doing when you give an attunement? You are beginning the work of intercession, to nullify the cycle of wrong function in body or mind or heart, to restore health which cannot be until that intercession has been allowed to have meaning right here on earth. The power of God to forgive sin and to intercede must manifest in you and through you if there is to be the manifestation of healing under your hands. For unless you, as a member of the body of God on earth are allowing the intercessory spirit of God to work through you, and unless you are letting God’s forgiveness work through you, what you attempt to do in giving an attunement will mean utterly and absolutely nothing. And here is the key point of the difference, for just holding your hands in some fashion or other, will not make of you a server. If you are going to serve it must be as a member of the Christ Body or the Body of God on earth, through which the intercessory work of God, God the Father, is allowed to manifest on earth now, because God the Father sent our Lord and King into the world to begin the manifest focalization of this intercessory work, and it was made manifest in every healing that resulted from the Master’s ministry. Every time He spoke a word that calmed the turmoils in a human heart, every time that a human being responded to Him enough to let the power of God have meaning, that was intercessory work and it was a process of forgiving sin. So only as we are members of His body, yielded to that same spirit, dedicated to that same purpose, can we now be of any value. Only as you learn to let the true spirit of intercession work through you in body and mind and heart, can you truly serve.
And so, blessed ones, we see how human beings have failed to recognize the Master’s attitude for what it was, when He said, “Turn the other cheek.” He was not talking about something weak. He was talking about something so strong, something so noble, something so full of character, that it would not yield to resentment under any provocation. And so, the power of God should manifest, interceding, nullifying the results of evil things that have been done, forgiving sin, changing the future for those who come to you. According to your response to my ministry, you are having your future changed. No one should come to Sunrise Ranch unless he or she expects the future to be changed, changed from the old pattern of the old cycles that are working, so that cycles that are at work may be nullified and brought to nought and so that new cycles may be established according to God's love in harmony with the truth and in the expression of life. And this is healing. We must see it in relationship to every phase and department of life, not just the physical body, but in the whole expression of being.
And so, blessed ones, as you learn to hold center, learn to have a true, positive, dynamic response to God, so that when something goes wrong you do not give way to it in resentment nor do you say inside of yourself, “Now outside I am going to remain calm. I am not going to say a word. No one is going to know what I really feel inside. I am going to hide it. I am going to see if what Uranda says will really work. I am going to see. I am just not going to say a word of resentment. I am going to keep myself under control so that I can see if this really works.” Blessed ones, it cannot be an outer submissive thing that says, “I am not going to give evidence of what I feel inside.” It must be something that changes what you feel inside so that there is no hint of resentment or judging or condemnation, for God has not made you to be a judge over your fellows, nor has He made you an executioner.
Your business is to nullify the evil things that are. Your business is to intercede. Your business is to forgive sin. And, blessed ones, only as you do this as members of God's Body on earth, do you have a part in our Lord's Kingdom on earth. There is no other way. And only so can you know the joy of truly serving, the joy of seeing the future of human lives changed. Every time there is a healing in any department of life, physically, mentally, emotionally, it is changing the future, for if an ill condition is going to continue you know what the results will be. But you intercede, you establish a new control pattern according to response, you forgive sin in the name of our Lord and King and the future is changed, the ill thing loses its power, the results of ill action are nullified and the current of God's creative power is made manifest, causing all things lovely, beautiful and glorious to appear, that you may truly know and realize to the depth of your being what it means to acknowledge our Lord and King and His hallowed name with the words, “Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory, forever.” So let it be.
