The Lord Has Chosen You
from Jehovah
Martin Cecil June 20, 1958
Surely the need for true, stable,
understanding leadership is just as evident today as it was in Moses’
experience, that there might be found some on earth who cannot, by any device
that may be brought to bear, be caused to betray the Lord, to be swayed or
influenced to deny the expression of the spirit of God through oneself, to fail
to be true to that glorious vision which we, above all people in the earth,
have been privileged to share. What provocation is capable of making any one of
you assume an attitude, speak a word, allow the manifestation of an act, that
you know, because of the vision which you have shared, is wrong? And how
quickly, if for a moment you should be so unwise as to allow wrong patterns of
response to be engendered in you, how quickly do you recognize it and, being
honest, repent? There are those who have tended to delay in repentance, and as
we move in the intensified cycles of service it becomes increasingly dangerous
to do so. I have emphasized this point over and over again.
I do not think that a
consideration of my past services over the months and the years would reveal
that I have failed to make clear, abundantly clear, that the laws of God work,
and that if we dedicate ourselves to the Lord and are so foolish, so unwise, as
to violate His laws, we will receive the results speedily of so doing. If we
expect the power of God to work constructively, to accomplish the purposes of
God on earth quickly, then we must recognize that we are also placing ourselves
in position so that if we should be so unwise as to contend with the Lord, we
will find that the intensification of His power, working through the
established laws of His Being, will bring forth that which is not so pleasing,
also quickly. So we are not, most assuredly, playing children's games.
We are engaged in a ministry which
is in fact something deeply serious. Human concepts, human ideas, human
desires, human patterns of any kind, cannot provide constructive direction in
that which we do. Only the spirit of God can be trusted. Only those human
beings who participate in the leadership that is provided by the spirit of God
in action through human beings can be trusted. God is trustworthy and
dependable, and if we are His servants we serve Him who is dependable and
trustworthy. Because we serve such a Lord we ourselves become dependable and
trustworthy in the expression of His spirit. And we cannot escape. I have known
human beings to maintain an attitude which would allow them, from the
standpoint of their own view, to move out from a position of pressure—to quit.
Those who are servants of the Lord can never do that. Nothing can cause them to
break the pattern of their integrity. Those who are honest, true to God, cannot
escape from the Lord. Let us remember that you did not choose the Lord. The
Lord chose you. So when we begin to realize these things there is no escape. Is
that a difficult thing? To me it is a wonderful thing, that there should be no
escape from the Lord. Coming to the point of realizing that we cannot get away
from the Lord, surely should be cause for the greatest possible rejoicing. Interesting,
isn't it? The Lord has chosen you, and without betraying everything that is
most precious and holy and sacred, without betraying yourselves, without
betraying the Lord, you cannot escape.
We have seen how the Lord so
carefully trained Moses, how the circumstances of his life were worked out,
cycle after cycle, so that he might come to the point of fulfilling the purpose
for which he was on earth. Of course the initial part of his conscious
recognition of these things came when he began to study into the records which
he found pertaining to God, the Story of Creation, the Principles of Being, the
Divine Plan. He saw these things and began to understand them. He also had the
ability to remember his people in Egypt, and how it was necessary for them to
come out of Egypt if the Lord's purposes were to be fulfilled. He saw the needs
and he understood the way by which those needs might be filled, and it all came
to focus in himself. So it has also been with you. You have been shown these
things also. You have been brought to this time and place, step by step. You
can, if you will, look back over the experience of your own lives and see how
it has been all leading forward, in the unfolding cycles of God's purposes, to
this hour. Because you have the vision, because you see also the need out there
in the world, you find yourself in the same position as Moses did.
What was it that brought you here
to this place, to this hour? It was a recognition of something that you felt,
something that carried a certain authority to you, something that carried a
conviction. You may have been inclined to doubt it at times, to question, even
to rebel, but you found you could not escape. There was that which carried a
conviction of authority, something you sensed, not something you had all
figured out. Only those come and stay who are aware of this something which
carries authority. Our Master made the statement that His sheep would hear His
Voice, and so it is. His sheep hear His Voice, but His Voice must be carried on
earth to His sheep. Those who hear His Voice come. Some others may come too,
but if they do not hear His Voice they will not stay.
It is as there is the
acknowledgment of this truth, so that the individual's expression into life
proceeds from the source of I AM, that the authority of the Lord is made
manifest on earth, God in action on earth. So we see that the primary purpose
is to let His Voice manifest on earth, and when we do that, the rest will take
care of itself. Those who hear His Voice will come. And those who do not hear
His Voice will not come, or if they do they will not stay. When the Voice of
the Lord is heard on earth His sheep hear it, His sheep know that it is the Voice
of the Lord. They believe the Voice of the Lord when they hear it. So Moses,
when he went down into Egypt, gave expression to the Voice of the Lord, and
because he did so, he was received by the elders of his people—the chosen ones.
But without that there would have been nothing. To go down in the strength of a
man and try to convince would have accomplished nothing. It must be the
reality, it must be the Voice of the Lord, it must carry the authority in
actual fact, if the job is to be done. And this is that to which you are
called: that the expression of your lives may carry the Voice of the Lord's
authority. And the elders of the children of Israel will hear and respond—they
will come.
There are those who still sleep,
and those who sleep do not hear the Voice until they awaken. If the Voice
becomes powerful enough it will awaken those who sleep, it will be sufficient
to awaken the dead—the Voice of the Lord, the Voice of Many Waters, the Voice as
of the sound of a Great Trumpet, speaking on earth, God in action on earth. And
the action of the Lord achieves His purposes. The chosen ones come, and those
who refuse to be chosen go. That is the way it is—not humanly determined. There
is no need to judge. All there is need for is the Voice of the Lord. And the
chosen ones hear the Voice and come, and in turn begin to share in letting that
Voice have greater volume. Those who do not hear the Voice, though they may temporarily
come, will not stay. This is the Lord's way, and it is marvelous, wonderful in
our eyes. We would not question it. We would not try to make it be some other
way. We would not imagine that by some great human effort it would work out
better some other way. It will not. We need to be content and let it be God's
way because we trust God, because we know it is the only way that works. We
cannot reject it without rejecting the Lord. And if we reject the Lord we
reject all hope for ourselves or for anyone else, insofar as we are concerned.
There may be the reality of God in
action on earth and the Lord shall be known consequently by His name Jehovah,
God in action on earth. No longer simply God Almighty, up in heaven somewhere,
but Jehovah—God in action on earth, the Word of the Lord spoken on earth, the
spirit of the Lord made manifest on earth. God's action achieves the
purposes of God. And the Voice swells in volume and there is an awakening, and
others come to share in the ministry of Jehovah on earth, God in action on
earth. This is your commission, each and every one, that to which you are
called and chosen and ordained. God in action on earth.
Some have imagined that if God was
in action on earth, instantly everything would be changed. God never attempts
to do the impossible. He works according to His laws, He is governed by the
principles of His own Being; the essential requirements must be there. In the
end, of course, everything will be fulfilled. God has patience and time, but He
works it out step by step, never violating the laws of His own Being, never
violating His own principles. And when God acts through you, so is it also
through you, and you are true to your vision, true to that which you know, and
you reject everything that seeks to cause you to violate your integrity, that
which you know to be right, that which you have experienced by reason of the Voice
of the Lord which carries authority to you. You no longer give any authority
whatsoever to the whisperings of the serpent of your own mind, or the mind of
any other who has accepted the control of the adversary.
As you do yield to that one
authority you change; you do not stay the same. There is a constant process of
unfolding and there should ever be a delight in knowing what one has not known
before in relationship to oneself. The patterns of your being in the outer
sense must change, every one, and they will change in the right way when the
individual is true to the vision which he has. The vision will change, his
attitude will change, his ways of doing things will change—the way he speaks,
the way he acts. The manner in which some people cling to their patterns of
function would seem to indicate that they imagine they are already perfect.
What foolishness! They need to change altogether. You do not know what shall
be. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love and serve him.” But
if you uphold and maintain these patterns of human being, how can the
expression of Divine Being appear? And how can the Voice of the Lord be caused
to manifest? Because God is in action on earth through you. He does not have
much of a chance, does He, if you insist upon remaining simply the human being
you have thought yourself to be. That is not what you are.
The Word of the Lord is I AM THAT
I AM
Would you limit the expression, the manifestation, of the Being of
the Lord through you? He is what you are. You as a human being are not what you
are. But you may, if you will, let the changes come so that that which
manifests through you is a revelation of what He is. And how wonderful a
revelation that should be. Individual, yes, because you are individual, but not
individual in the sense of a limited, constricted, crystallized human being. A
revelation of the glorious freedom of the children of God, who live and move
and have their being together in God, a part of the Being of God, giving
expression individually to the manifold aspects, the infinite aspects, of God
in action on earth—Jehovah.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
