It is good to greet you again for an hour of evening's meditation. We have had a little touch of winter in the springtime. The Lord has provided much needed moisture for the thirsty soil.
Somehow tonight my thoughts turn back to the days of the beginning, before the fall of man, and the significance of the passage that tells how in the evening, in the cool of the day, the Lord came walking in the Garden to commune with man, and how that blessed privilege, in its full beauty and wonder, has been lost to man for so long. But how often, with the coming of the evening, the sounds of nature preparing for a night of rest, have you felt a certain loneliness, a certain longing, a certain restlessness and perhaps you did not know what to do with yourself, perhaps you sought some form of entertainment or deliberately engendered some pattern of action which would more or less cover up that deep longing of your soul. But there is with the coming of evening that inherent yearning in the hearts of all the children of men who have not shut out the urgings of the Spirit of God, the longing for the day when the Lord shall again come walking in the Garden in the cool of the day—a time of sweet communion, a time of rest from the physical activities of the day, a time that suggests unspeakable peace, a time when the depths of one's soul yearns for the beauty and the wonder of God's Love. In connection with this I would like to meditate with you tonight on some of the points we have touched in our Class work.
We have recognized that all of the Plan, the Program, designed to bring about the salvation of man, or the restoration of the world to the Divine Estate, since the days of the fall has been carried forward by the Priesthood—the Order of Melchizedek. In the Motherland, prior to its final submersion after the fall, the Naacal Sages were the Ministering Priests, the teachers, instructors, who were members of this Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. Every forward movement, every constructive thing, every blessing made manifest on earth since that time, without respect to person or place or creed, has been made manifest by reason of the working of this Priesthood. It was under the care of this Priesthood that preparations were made for our Master's coming, and He came as the Primary Focalization of this Priesthood. He was that Focalization before He came in the realm of men, and He still is.
Regardless of what church, what group, what color, what race, what belief, regardless of what sphere, religious or spiritual, or with respect to establishing governments or working out the Divine Pattern through nations or peoples, with respect to the opening up of the fields of knowledge and the development of understanding with respect to the laws of life, with respect to the inspiration essential to great inventions, all the developments, whether they are considered to be religious or industrial or scientific, all of the progress that man has known down to and including this day, including this hour which we share tonight, it has all, without any exception whatsoever, at any time, through any person or place, been under the influence, guidance, direction, of the Priesthood established after the Order of Melchizedek.
And we have taken note in our Class work of the fact that the First Sacred School was established, authorized, initiated, by Melchizedek, King of Salem, through Abram. And it is written that Melchizedek King of Salem brought forth bread and wine; and he was the Priest of the Most High God. “And Melchizedek blessed Abram and said, “Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth.” And as Melchizedek brought forth bread and wine, we are reminded of that evening hour of communication and communion that is spoken of as the Lord's last supper, when our Master used bread and wine in extending a blessing to His disciples. And all of this reminds us of that longing that is in the hearts of the children of men, that deep yearning.
If we speak of the Communion Service we are thinking of a pattern of communion that has for its basic purpose the recognition of the principles of life, the realities of being, as symbolized by the bread and the wine, and we see in this God's hand working to reestablish that which was known to Divine men and women when the Lord God came walking in the Garden in the cool of the day to commune with man. And our hearts have so often felt that yearning, that longing, that sweet, bitter loneliness — the bitter-sweet of the yearning for the restoration and the recognition of what was lost.
In this story of Abram we find many wonderful outlines which reveal the outworking of principle as it relates to us, the necessities of our lives and functions in learning to serve God. We have already meditated to some degree upon a passage which tells the story of how the Lord appeared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre, and Abraham sat in the tent door in the heat of the day—in the heat of the day. “And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, and said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree.” And we remember too, in this connection, how our Lord washed His disciples feet. Perhaps we will not take time tonight to read the whole story, but you will remember that it was after Abraham had entertained the Lord, provided food and allowed the three men, as it is put, to rest under the tree in the shade, in the heat of the day, that the Lord told Abraham that He was going down to see what the situation was with Sodom and Gomorrah. And we remember how Abraham interceded. In this we recognize the two primary aspects of application with respect to the One Law, or the fulfilment of the two Great Commandments: First, to entertain the Lord; and secondly, to intercede for others—to love the Lord thy God with all that you are, and to love Thy neighbor as thyself.
Here in this story we have such a beautiful illustration of the fulfilment of the Law. If you wish to read it you will find it in chapter eighteen of the book of Genesis. But in this connection, tonight I wish to draw your attention to the eagerness with which Abraham welcomed the three men whom he saw, the three men representing the three phases of the human trinity as used to give release on earth, manifestation on earth, of the Divine trinity—the three phases of your own being, if you please, through which the reality of God’s Spirit is made manifest—but the eagerness with which Abraham welcomed the Lord, the diligence with which he entertained the Lord. In another place it is written that we should take heed lest ye entertain angels unawares.
Our first business, always, is to entertain the Lord. The deep yearning of our hearts—perhaps you have never understood it, perhaps you did not know why you felt that loneliness, that strange restlessness with the coming of the evening, but this is the reason; for back in the days before the fall we had the pleasure and the privilege of entertaining the Lord in the Garden, in a very real sense. And the Lord God came walking in the Garden in the cool of the day, in the evening; and there was the privilege of entertaining the Lord, the sweetest joys of heavenly days on earth. There was the process of entertaining His Spirit all through the day, tending and keeping the Garden which God planted eastward in Eden, keeping it in manifestation, not letting it go by into the past, into the west, without taking form.
Man has not tended that Garden nor kept it. For thousands of years it has been going past, moving from out of the future, out of the east, into the past, into the west, without ever finding form in the lives of men and women. Man was instructed to tend it and to keep it; for it is in that Garden that man has the privilege of entertaining the Lord. If there is the longing in our hearts at the coming of the cool of the day, if there is that yearning, it should make us more diligent in letting that Garden take form on earth so that we may have a place, a fit place to entertain the Lord in the outer sense. But even now, we have the privilege of entertaining the Lord in the inner sense, and this process of entertaining the Lord is the center of our meditation tonight, for it is only as you do consistently entertain the Lord that you can serve others. If you are not in the habit of entertaining the Lord you cannot, in any true sense, serve anyone else. Your life cannot, in any true sense, be of any value to anyone else nor to yourself. As we learn to actually entertain the Lord we begin to find ourselves in relationship to God and the expression of life on earth.
If you were to entertain the Lord tonight, in an outer physical sense, what would you do? Would you go bustling about trying to put up some hasty decorations or sweep some dust out of a corner or demonstrate what a good conversationalist you are, or take advantage of the opportunity to convince the Lord how smart you are, how much you know, or would you let your mind and heart, your spirit, come to rest and relax in the peace of His Presence?
Would you avoid presumption and would you just wait to see what He would like to say, what He would like to do? Would you not rest in the Lord and let go and enjoy the Spirit of Heaven made manifest by His Presence? And if He spoke, if He should open His mouth and say something to you, would you not find pleasure in receiving those words into your heart and meditating upon them? Could you pass through such an experience and not have something in your heart upon which to ponder, something to think about, something to keep sweet and sacred and holy in the depths of your own being, keeping sacred things sacred, keeping holy things holy, keeping sweet things sweet, and keeping heavenly things in the Divine Pattern of Being? This is so important if we would learn to commune with the Lord, to entertain the Lord.
We noticed Abraham's attitude here, for he ran to meet them. He gave an eager welcome. He began to serve. In the story, he ran unto the herd and fetched a calf tender and good, and he told Sarah to hurry in the baking of the bread, and he stood by them under the tree while they ate, ready to serve whatever need might appear. The eagerness, the openness of heart and mind, the unselfishness, the selflessness, with which he entertained the Lord. And then there creeps into our minds, our thoughts, memories of the time when the LORD of Heaven and Earth came into the world to visit for a little season, and how few there were who took advantage of the opportunity to entertain Him.
Consider something of what might have been if instead of trying to get something from Him the people then living had been willing to give themselves to serving Him—if they had been less concerned about being served and more concerned about serving. Consider something of what the story would be if He had not been rejected, but if the people of the world had received Him and entertained Him and acknowledged Him, if they would have taken advantage of the opportunity to commune with the LORD as He came walking in the desolation of the earth in the cool of the day. We do not need to try to figure out just what would have happened but we can see that the story would have been very different. And think you that if man had so responded and received our Lord, our Lord could not have provided for man's salvation under that circumstance, that if man had received Him, He could have worked out the possibility of the restoration without the crucifixion?
To entertain the Lord. What is the pattern of meditation? If the President of the United States was coming and we were going to entertain him, I am sure that each one here would be extremely diligent in having everything as nice as we could. There would be meditation on what would be pleasing to our President, how we could make him comfortable, and make his visit here a happy, profitable one. You would meditate upon that which he represents. How much more, then, should we meditate upon those things which would make it possible for us to entertain the Lord effectively. If you would know the sweetness of a deeper communion in spirit, can you hope for that experience just waiting for it, hoping that some day something will happen to you that will make you know the beauty and the wonder, the reality of God in relationship to the children of men? Blessed Ones, it will not appear by happenstance. If these things are to come into your life in a deeper sense, a larger sense, you must do something about it, you must invite it, you must prepare for it, prepare with confidence. How do you meditate? How do you function in relationship to spiritual communion? If you ignore your opportunities for spiritual communion, to the best of your capacities, do you think that the greater experience shall come to you?
How much time have you spent today, or within the last twenty-four hours, in actual, personal, individual meditation, in a manner which opens your heart and mind to the realities of communion? What have you done? What have you felt? What have you thought which carried the pattern of entertaining the Lord, or at least His Spirit, in your heart? What have you done to establish in your own consciousness an awareness of welcome to the Lord? In twenty-four hours, twenty-four priceless, precious, wonderful hours, how much time could you spare for the reality of true meditation? Now I know that there were many things which you had to think about which had no direct bearing on entertaining the Lord. That would be, I suppose, understandable in this world. You just had to think about some other things. Did you? We suppose so. Suppose all of these other things were necessary—I rather doubt it, but suppose they were—and you used only the time you wasted—I am not talking about the time of sleep, but the time that was wasted, or did you not waste any time? Was the working of your mind, the working of your heart, the feelings within yourself, were they revealing the Divine Pattern?
Did you work in meditation until there was not one slightest hint of resentment toward anyone or anything? Or, did you entertain resentment instead of the Spirit of the Lord? Did you work in loving meditation until no slightest hint of fear could be found in your heart or mind? Or did you spend your time entertaining the spirits of fear instead of the spirits of Love and Truth and Life? What spirits have you been entertaining, for you did entertain some? You cannot maintain consciousness and remain physically alive without entertaining spirits of some kind. What were they? Were they the spirits of heaven? Are you aware of anything in your heart which ought not to be there, or have you reached the point of being pure in heart? “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God”—the moment they are pure in heart. They do not have to wait till they are dead, until some hereafter. The moment any human being is pure in heart he sees God; in fact, if you consider the nature of your heart you will find out what your gods are, whether they are idols, whether they are things which are not worthy of your worship, or whether you have obeyed the commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
How do you meditate? What is the process of meditation? Did you ever take some text—most any text will do that appeals to you; you should select your own—but did you ever take any text, any statement that you knew was divinely inspired, any statement which you knew to be true, a short text preferably that is not so long but what you could learn it easily? Did you ever look at it, read it over, think about it, wonder about it, perhaps memorize it, and then about that time say, “Well, I can't figure it out”? Of course not, you are not supposed to. If you have reached the point of having looked at it, read it, thought about it, wondered about it, and memorized it, you have only started. That is not the finish. You have not yet begun to meditate at that point. No. If you are going to meditate you will not try to understand it, you will not take the text or the inspired words and treat them like a puppy would treat a rag doll, just to wool them around. You will not take them and try to understand them and struggle with them. That is not meditation. You will look at them. You will memorize them, yes, but not just to repeat them over and over. But you look at them and keep looking, and stop trying to understand them, and let your heart blend with the spirit in them, and keep looking, and look some more, and meditate, not repeating. Once you have memorized them you do not need to repeat them. Your mind may go over them gently, caressing each word like something much loved.
Did you ever go over a passage of inspired words mentally, spiritually, caressing every word with all the love of your being, just meditating, holding each word like you would hold a little angel from heaven close to your breast? Did you ever look at each word like a loving parent looks at a baby, not trying to figure anything out, just looking? Did you not ever look at a baby and just look, not trying to dream any dream of what the child shall be, not wondering anything, just looking and enjoying the looking? Did you not? If you have never had a baby of your own to do that, any child will do. Did you not? If you have not, you have not learned how to meditate. Just to look and to love, and then to caress mentally and open your heart and enfold without any effort to understand. Do not try to understand. What is there to understand? What are you concerned about? You are supposed to be meditating, not trying to understand. If you are trying to understand you are certainly are not meditating. No. Just to enfold and to caress with your heart and your mind, and to look at it some more, and to consider—not just for an hour, not just for a day—perhaps for many days, and perhaps sooner or later you will pick up some other inspired passage. Do not try to exhaust all the potential in any passage when you meditate upon it. If you try to get everything out of it you will have nothing.
If you take any passage and try to get everything out of it you will have nothing when you get through. You will ruin it all. If you are going to entertain the spirits of God in your heart you cannot be entertaining the spirits which are in opposition to God all the time. You will have to make a choice. And if you would entertain the Lord in your heart you must entertain His Spirit first. Until His Spirit is at home in your heart do you think He would be? That loneliness, that yearning, that longing, which you have known, was it not the sweet desire for such communion, for such meditation? Was it not a recognition that when you truly love the Lord and open your heart to Him you will begin to know the true spirit of the words: The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the flowers appear on the earth, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair, one and come away.
Come away from what? Come away from those things which are dark and forbidding, unwholesome and unreal. Come away into the joys of the heavenly atmosphere which you can let appear on earth. If you are busy producing the wrong atmosphere, what think you? Could you enjoy the right atmosphere? Do you expect someone else to force it upon you, to provide it for you, to surround you with it so that you can’t get away from it? Do you think that then you would enjoy it and know it? As you meditate, you find that the next step in meditation is to let the spirit of that upon which you meditate find expression in your life.
You will not be trying to get anything—not even trying to get understanding—when you meditate. You will be finding the way to let the spirit of that on which you meditate have expression in your thoughts, in your words, in your actions—to watch your attitudes, and to see wherein they fail to reveal the spirit of your meditation; and if you find that which is contrary to your meditation you will deliberately consider it and let it changed and molded to the pattern of your heavenly meditation. There is nothing on the face of the earth in the unreal realm which can withstand the reality of heavenly meditation allowed to have expression in your life, so that you will be giving form to that which shall be provision for the LORD on earth. You will be doing what Abraham did, inviting the Lord to come to your tent, to your house, to your heart. And if you prepare no calf, tender and good—what does the calf symbolize? Your mind—your self-active mind is supposed to be tender and good for the Lord’s use. It ceases self-activity. You prepare the bread. You invite the Lord to rest under your tree, the tree of your life. And you entertain the Lord, and you prepare to receive Him. You receive His Spirit and give it expression in form, in physical function in living on earth. You begin to let the Garden of God have form in your life, in your thought and words and deeds, in your attitudes—for in meditation you are not trying to get understanding, or anything else. You are practicing the art of letting heavenly things take for because you live.
So many people practice, deliberately practice, how they can give form to something mean and ugly, how they can say something to hurt someone, how they can “get even,” as they say; how they can give body to their resentments—on all of these things they meditate. But how about that meditation wherein you give deliberate thought to giving form in your life to the things of the spirit of God, that there may ne a sweet communion in your soul, and that you may begin to keep sacred things sacred, that you may let all resentment be cast out, and that in loving God and entertaining the Lord and His Spirit on earth you may love your neighbor as yourself. And so, in the giving—in the giving of yourself—in the spirit of your meditation you shall live and be a blessing to the children of men. And only as you are a blessing can you glorify our Father in heaven.
