Melchizedek
King of Salem
Priest Of The Most High God
YouTube Video
from Abram, Lot and Melchizedek — Bread and Wine
Uranda April 2, 1953 Class
Yesterday in our Class meditation we came to the point of briefly introducing the specific part of the story in which Melchizedek began to play a part in relationship to the life and work of Abram—Melchizedek, Priest of the Most High God, King of Salem. Salem, as you know, means peace: King of Peace—Priest of the Most High God. And we recognized that the Levites became the priesthood in the pattern of the children of Israel and were supposed to maintain a Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. From the Divine standpoint we can classify any true Priesthood as belonging to the Priesthood of the Order of Melchizedek. We recognize here the individual pattern of symbolism as it manifests in relationship to three beings. Perhaps if we look at this individual pattern first, it will help us to a deeper realization of the larger application in the Divine Plan.
We see Melchizedek as the symbol of the Father within, the focalization of God Being in relationship to yourself as an individual. We see Abram as representing your level of consciousness—your mind, where there is a pattern of awareness with respect to the things of God. We recognize that Lot symbolizes the tendencies in the individual human being to be subject to the feeling patterns, or subconscious reactions, in the sense of the physical, the outer pattern. We could correlate it with the physical body, where there tends to be a sense of lethargy. But it includes more than just the physical body, because we have to recognize the feeling pattern that was involved, and then we might note that the physical aspect has a phase of manifestation in relationship to all three. But it was Abram who had the awareness of God's direction. It was Abram who was concerned about building an altar unto the Lord. It was Abram who was particularly blessed by Melchizedek, King of Salem, who brought forth bread and wine and was the Priest of the Most High God.
I would like to particularly emphasize this text and remind you of what is called the Lord's Last Supper, because at that time there was bread and wine. In other words, the elements utilized specifically, at the point of the Last Supper, or what we now speak of as the Holy Communion Service, have a background in the written record extending to Melchizedek and Abram. So we must give consideration to the symbolism involved: bread and wine used in relationship to the specific expression of blessing. Why does anyone, as it is put in these days, take communion? It is on the basis of receiving a specific blessing. And the Lord's Supper, as it worked out just prior to the Master's experience in Gethsemane and all that followed, was also specifically a pattern of blessing to the disciples who participated. The bread and the wine. The bread represents physical substance of your own body or being. In the New Testament pattern it is mentioned specifically as unleavened bread. The specific emphasis on unleavened bread in relationship to the expression of God, as it was through Jesus for instance, or as it was through Melchizedek here, has to do with the recognition that when there is true response self-activity ceases, and the molding, the changing in the individual, comes through Divine action instead of through self-active determination.
The wine, the juice of the grape, is used all through the Bible as the symbol of life. Its symbolism here is that it signifies life. With respect to the physical body, you recognize that the bloodstream is the lifestream. The use of the word “blood” in the New Testament pattern became crystallized and a bit distorted; but when the Master said, “This is my blood,” He was talking about His lifestream, not about the idea that His blood as such had to pour out of His body. Actually, from the standpoint of the outworking of circumstance in an ordinary sense, there was not nearly as much actual loss of blood in connection with the Master's crucifixion as some might suppose. The blood was not drained out of His body. There was some loss of blood. But when He said, “This is my blood,” what did He mean? “This is my lifestream.” He was undertaking not to develop the picture as human beings have devised it; He was undertaking to bring them into a consciousness of the fact that they were members of His body, that He was including them, to whatever degree they responded, in the working of the lifestream which had its base in Himself. Until the Communion Service is seen on that basis there cannot be any true understanding of it or any true sharing of it.
The actual expression which the Master used at the time when He gave them the symbol of the bread was not that “This is my body” should be taken to mean that the bread as such was a part of His physical body, as people are inclined to believe, but that as He gave the bread, “this,” the human being or the disciple who received that bread as the symbol, was thereby included as a part of His body. He was saying “This is my body, this group of individuals”—including them as members of His body. You begin to see that He did not, in His original expression in that upper room, suggest that the wine as such was His blood or that the bread as such was His body, or that it should be conceived to be so, as in the popular concepts that have come down to us, but rather that He was using symbols to show those who participated that they were a part of His body: “This is my body.” So the secrets of the Communion Service have not been known or understood by the Christian churches, and the pattern of belief in connection with the Communion Service has not allowed the true expression, the true manifestation, of what the Master intended it to.
But wine is the symbol of the lifestream. What was the first step the Master took in relationship to His public ministry? At the marriage feast of Cana, He changed water to wine. Now you can believe whatever you wish to as to the actual fact that there was some water there and suddenly it became wine. It is not at all impossible. But that is not the point I am emphasizing. The point is that changing water to wine was His lifework, as it is mine: changing water, truth, to wine, the practical expression of life on earth. And the marriage feast? Why the marriage feast? Because His whole ministry was designed to bring heaven and earth together into oneness. In other words marriage was, and still is, used as a symbol of the union of heaven and earth. So the Master's first step in ministry was to reveal the purpose of His lifework. And unless you see that first step in relationship to the Lord's Supper—the final step before Gethsemane and the trial, etc—you cannot understand the final step. But changing water to wine, changing truth in the abstract sense, the elusive sense, into a practical expression of the lifestream on earth in and through you, individually and collectively, bringing you, the outer, into oneness with you, the inner, because heaven and earth must begin to be one in you before they can begin to be one around you. So this marriage feast, this pattern of union, has to do with the manifestation of oneness in you. That is the key, the secret of the meaning of that first miracle, as it is called. And the wine: the practical expression of life, the living lifestream made manifest on earth.
So the beginning of the Master's ministry on earth was with respect to changing water to wine, abstract truth into a living lifestream in relationship to humanity, on the basis of the oneness of the inner and the outer, heaven and earth. And He concluded His pattern of ministry with the Lord's Supper, using wine to symbolize the lifestream and extending the offer of that lifestream to all who would receive. Likewise here in the Old Testament we have the word, in the 18th verse of the 14th chapter of Genesis: “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.”
Your function here in this School has for its purpose the basic initiation into the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. There can be no true manifestation of spiritual power except on the basis of the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. This is the keynote, the key point, in relationship to the outworking of the whole Divine Plan and Pattern. And those who would share in the fulfilment of that Divine purpose on earth must, to some degree at least, begin to share the reality of the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. We cannot at this time undertake to unveil all of the mysteries involved in this Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek, but I would particularly draw your attention to the fact that here in the beginning of the pattern as it was with respect to the children of Israel we have the specific mention of the Priest of the Most High God. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2020/05/from-motherland-to-new-earth-state.html]
Now, you begin to feel, the moment we touch this point with respect to Melchizedek, the moment there is any recognition of the reality of this Priesthood, that to Melchizedek God was no mystery, the Divine Pattern of Being was no mystery—the focalization of manifestation on earth where God was no mystery. And in the blueprint as outlined in the Book of Revelation, the 10th chapter and the 7th verse, we read: “But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.” The mystery of God should be finished. God has never sought to be a mystery to man, but man's refusal to know God has caused God to be a mystery to man.
Until we begin to realize that the finishing of the mystery of God is a process that takes place within you as an individual, the process of achieving that which was signified by the Master's first step in public ministry, changing the abstract truth into the living wine of life at the marriage feast—the union of the inner and the outer, to let the inner, the power of God, have positive meaning on earth—until you begin to go through that process of letting water be changed to wine in you, you cannot have the joy of seeing the finishing of the mystery of God. And while God is a mystery to you, you cannot know the fulness of that which you should reveal on earth; for you came into the world to reveal God, and you cannot reveal that which is a mystery, unknown to yourself.
So here, in the very beginning of the pattern as we share it at this time, Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, and he was the Priest of the Most High God. And the pattern of our purpose and goal is that the mystery of God should be finished. Only to the degree that we today let that process work out in ourselves as a unit, or as a body, or as members of that body, can we be Priests and Priestesses after the Order of Melchizedek.
What does it mean to be a priest? What does it mean to be a prophet? Generally speaking, human consciousness limits the idea of a prophet more or less to the idea that a prophet was one who could foretell future events, he could prophesy, he could tell what was coming someday. While the revelation of the spirit of God through the individual may reveal something of that which is coming out of the east, a prophet is one who lets the Word of the Lord be spoken on earth. The true meaning of a prophet is one who speaks the Word of the Lord on earth. And to whatever degree you let the spirit of God determine the words you speak you are a prophet. But there is something higher and greater than being a prophet.
We might note that one can be a disciple without being a prophet; one can be a prophet without being a Priest. And we begin to recognize that it is not enough merely to be a disciple, one who follows after; it is not enough merely to be a prophet, one who speaks the Word of the Lord on earth— it is necessary that we enter the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek—not only to speak the Word of the Lord but to do the works of the Lord, to work out the Divine Pattern on earth, to live the reality of that which is, to the world, the mystery of God. And it is only as this reality of Priesthood is made manifest that we can have the manifestation of power necessary to the accomplishment of the Divine Purpose on earth.
There have been quite a number of people who have sensed something of the significance of Melchizedek, or the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. There are some so-called modern schools of thought which claim to stem from that point but which, by their very attitudes and actions, show that it is a forgery and nothing more. We would recognize that wherever truth is in expression, there the influence of this Priesthood is to be seen and felt to some degree. But the control pattern with respect to humanity, and the design pattern with respect to the Plan and purpose individually and collectively, is carried over in focus to this present period of time, which begins here with Abram and extends to ourselves, from the Motherland. The Focalization of the Divine Pattern as it was working in the Motherland, the pattern of government, the manifestation of the educational system and what we might call the religious or spiritual life of the people, all came to focus in the Priest of the Most High God. The pattern of connecting that which was known in the Garden of Eden, or in the Motherland, with that which is known within the period of recorded history is carried over to us, and made available to us, on this basis: Melchizedek, King of Salem, Priest of the Most High God. And that particular focalization, in manifestation, of Priesthood gave man the opportunity of returning to the Divine Estate.
The true purpose of the development of the pattern of the children of Israel was to make possible the manifestation of this Priesthood, not for purposes of selfish nationalism but to the end that through such a manifestation of Priesthood the spirit and power of God could be extended out to all humanity. The real purpose with respect to all of the tribes of the children of Israel was to the end that the different tribes could be different parts of the body, finding true expression and meaning in and through the Focalization of Priesthood, by which the power and spirit of God should extend to the whole earth. Only to the degree that the children of Israel allowed that fulfilment was their outworking in history according to Plan or truly meaningful. We see a development in the outworking in that historical pattern which produced a selfish nationalism, an exclusiveness, a degeneracy in those who were given the privilege of Priesthood, so that it became something that was a far cry from that which God intended.
Now Melchizedek established this Pattern with respect to Abram, outlined the Plan and the purpose and the method—not all at once but over a period of time—and carried the pattern through with respect to Isaac and Jacob, who became Israel, and gave those who were at that time responding to Divine direction an opportunity to allow the full manifestation of the Divine Plan in action in relationship to the physical world. This first step in the dawn of history, in the unfolding of the Divine Plan, had to be on the basis of reestablishing the First Sacred School, giving human beings an opportunity to approach the process of development into the Divine Pattern on what we might call the physical plane; that is, an outer, physical approach. The full significance of that may not be immediately evident, but all of this that is recorded here with respect to the development of the children of Israel from Abram's time had that one theme for its purpose, and when we look back we see that the children of Israel failed miserably in fulfilling that purpose.
We begin to see that the Master refocalized, when He came into the world, exactly the same thing. He did not undertake to change the Pattern around in some fashion. He did use the Second Plane approach instead of the First Plane approach. It was impossible to undertake to use the First Plane approach anymore; the conditions necessary for its use had passed, and humanity had failed to carry through in it, so there was nothing more that could be done about it except to use the next cycle in order to make the next plane approach. And the Master Himself came into the world to do that. But again, just as with the children of Israel, the purpose was not recognized, the Plan was not accepted, and those who call themselves Christians have, in following out their own ideas and concepts with respect to these things, produced the same type of failure which was made manifest with respect to the children of Israel.
The children of Israel were finally taken into captivity and scattered. Have the so-called Christians been taken into captivity? The answer is obviously Yes—taken into captivity on a basis which has not allowed the manifestation of power, the reality of the Divine Priesthood. The disciples were supposed to become prophets, and as the cycle worked out and the day of Pentecost came, they began to function on the basis of speaking the Word of the Lord. If they had been content to wait for the Lord's direction, instead of impulsively using the current of power on the basis of their own choices, they would have become prophets, so that they could have actually expressed the Word of the Lord, and begun to see the Plan of God, the Plan that the Master brought into focalized manifestation on earth. And then they would have become, had they held steady, Priests after the Order of Melchizedek, and there would have been the manifestation of power, under the Divine Pattern, sufficient to influence every phase and department of life, extending into the spiritual influence or control in the world of government.
A little of this has of course gotten through now and again, shaping the Divine ordering of human events in order to make it possible for us to have this present opportunity. You are sharing the work of the Third Sacred School again being made manifest on earth. Humanity had failed to utilize the opportunity when the First Sacred School was being reestablished. The same is true with respect to the Second. Those opportunities are gone. Let us look back for a moment.
What was one of the great stumbling blocks to those who thought to follow Jesus at the time He was on earth? Human beings were then still trying to work things out on the basis of their concepts of the old order. The pattern as it appeared with respect to the First Sacred School had degenerated into a human pattern, as symbolized by the scribes and Pharisees. And they could not see on what basis there should be a New Pattern. Their subjection to the old pattern tended to make them reject the New Pattern. They did not realize that since the cycle had broken in relationship to that first pattern it was utterly useless. Jesus Christ Himself could not make that first pattern work under those vibrational conditions. That opportunity was lost, it was gone. It could not be reinstituted by any means whatsoever in heaven or on earth. It was gone. And they did not see that. They did not realize they simply had the empty shell of something far different from that which God had given to them.
Now we have something of the same pattern. Human beings today tend to have difficulty in letting go of the old pattern, and they try to make the pattern as they think it was with respect to Jesus work in this present time. It cannot be done. If Jesus Christ Himself came on earth He could not make it work on that basis. That opportunity was lost; the cycle was broken and there simply is no way by which that can be caused to work out to a point of fulfilment on that basis. It cannot be done. That cycle was broken, as surely as the cycle with respect to the First Sacred School. Now that does not mean that the truths that were contained in the teachings and presentations of the First or the Second were lost. No.
I have shown you that the focalization aspects were carried over and they were just the same in principle in the Second as they were in the First. And the same is true today. But the approach, the basis of attempting to work it out, which could have worked under the Master's leadership and with respect to the vibrational factors as they were at that time—that pattern could have worked but it didn't. Instead of actually working, there was a break in the pattern almost immediately, and there was the thousand years of the Dark Ages, the millennium. The Second Plane approach is what? Mental—with respect to consciousness, the working of the mind as such. And human beings are still today trying to use that same approach. They think they are getting somewhere with it. They are getting into trouble; that is all we will get into with it. But if they had carried through there would not have been any thousand years of the Dark Ages, when man's mind was bound in darkness.
Let me emphasize something to you. What was the date with respect to the manifestation of this blueprint which we now use, the blueprint that relates to us today? According to the Biblical pattern it is listed at 96 AD. That is close enough to emphasize my point. It was not until long after the day of Pentecost, long after all these tangent patterns had come into manifestation and the break was beyond repair, that God made arrangements for the refocalization of the Divine Pattern, or the blueprint. He gave what we call the Book of Revelation, so it would be on hand, within manifestation, for the next cycle of outworking. That opportunity had been thrown away back there, and all of the intervening struggles to try to make that pattern work have proven futile. It had some semblance of effectiveness up to the beginning of, well, what we might call our national history. It was losing that semblance of meaningfulness long before that, because there was an overlapping in the vibrational factors. But the New Pattern had emerged to its reasonably full force, so that the overlapping vibrations from the old pattern were virtually gone by the turn of this century, and see what happened.
We have something new, something altogether different. Now it is the same truths, the same laws, the same basic purpose, but the approach is different, and must be different. However, the Christian world tries to make the approach on the basis of what they think the Master used, when they do not understand the Second Sacred School at all. They could have understood it if they had allowed the cycle that opened with what is called Pentecost to really work out and carry through, but they never gave themselves a chance to understand it, and the churches that have developed out of that have never given themselves a chance to understand it. I am not condemning them, but they are just simply utterly ignorant of what is meant, what the Divine Plan was then, and the human concepts of pattern derived out of that simply do not work, not in the sense that God intended. And any effort to still use that pattern of approach must fail, because God Himself would not try it. It would be impossible to God, because it would be an attempt on God's part to violate His own laws, to ignore the vibrational factors in the Cosmos, to ignore the natural cycles of the unfolding pattern of the Four Forces.
So we come to the Third. And the Third is what? The Third Sacred School has the approach on the spiritual expression plane basis. It is not as popular, in the outer sense, as either of the other two, a little more difficult in one sense, but we can, under this vibrational pattern, make a Third Plane approach and revitalize the factors of the Second and First plane patterns in relationship to ourselves. But if we try to make a physical approach; a mental approach—it does not solve the problem, and can't. Those approaches at that time, under those vibrational factors, would have allowed the development of awareness so that the Three-Plane Pattern could have come into manifestation under either one. Suppose the disciples had followed through and allowed that Pentecostal pattern to really unfold and become what it was supposed to be—then the factors that were with respect to the physical plane approach would have been reactivated and revitalized and drawn into alignment, and that which was of the Third Plane vibrational factors would have come into manifestation in relationship to it and there would have been alignment. But they didn't do it.
Now we cannot just arbitrarily reach out there and use one of these other approaches and get anywhere. Millions have tried it. If you want to waste time with it, that is your business, but it will not work. We use the Third Plane approach today, and it is the only way that will work, because we have an altogether different vibrational pattern than was present in the past, either at the time of the children of Israel or at the time of the Master. Once we begin to function correctly on the basis of the Third Plane approach, the Second and First Plane patterns become reactivated and drawn into alignment with respect to ourselves, because the mind and the body, individually speaking, begin to come under subjection to that. The alignment is established and you begin to be what you should be; you begin to have the manifestation of healing power, for instance. But this is the third step in the period of recorded history, to give man an opportunity of restoration. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2020/05/melchizedek-increase-grace-van-duzen.html]
The outline in Revelation relates to this Third Plane approach. Why do those who have been functioning on the basis of the First or Second Plane approaches find Revelation meaningless, virtually? Oh, they have concocted some ideas with respect to it, but it just simply does not mean a thing. When they try to interpret it on that basis it becomes fantastic nonsense. They could not do anything else with it. Not until we make the Third Plane approach can the Book of Revelation have any meaning, and under that approach it does have meaning—it is the Divine Blueprint.
Now suppose this cycle were broken. The only cycle that could be opened to humanity would be with respect to the Fourth. But if man has thrown away the First and Second, and then should throw away the Third, which is really the highest level contact that he can hope to make—if he throws this one away and has to be limited to the Fourth Plane approach, would he have any chance? Obviously not. In other words man has thrown away two opportunities, the third one is established, and if he throws that one away there is no more—it is finished. Now he is not going to throw it away; I am not suggesting that. There are going to be a few, somehow or other, to carry the pattern through. But that is what we are here for, and until we begin to let the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek have meaning in relationship to this Third Sacred School approach to the fulfilment of the Divine Pattern, we cannot hope to accomplish that to which we are called.
When you begin to see that our Lord, when He came on earth, was a Priest of the Most High God, after the Order of Melchizedek, you can begin to see that you cannot truly follow Him unless you too let that sensing of the Divine Pattern have meaning in your life, and unless we utilize the vibratory factors that are available to us today we cannot receive it. You try to receive it on the basis of the vibratory factors of the past cycles and it will not work—you cannot receive it. You may go into fantastic flights of fancy, as many have, but you will not receive it. You must receive the gifts of God on the basis of the vibrational factors.
And we remember that our present vibrational pattern is what? Air—Water—Air. And if we try to use the vibrational patterns at work at the time of the Master we fail; it will not work, not today. It could have worked then, under His leadership, but it cannot work today, under these vibrational factors, and I would not attempt to work it out. He could do it; I can't. I make no pretense of it. But I can, with the help of those who are willing to share it, I can work it out on the basis of the present vibrational factors, which utilize the elements that were allowed to come somewhat into manifestation in that First and Second Cycle and allowed to become meaningless. You can utilize those same elements and carry through to victory. And it is your choice. What shall it be?
Yesterday in our Class meditation we came to the point of briefly introducing the specific part of the story in which Melchizedek began to play a part in relationship to the life and work of Abram—Melchizedek, Priest of the Most High God, King of Salem. Salem, as you know, means peace: King of Peace—Priest of the Most High God. And we recognized that the Levites became the priesthood in the pattern of the children of Israel and were supposed to maintain a Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. From the Divine standpoint we can classify any true Priesthood as belonging to the Priesthood of the Order of Melchizedek. We recognize here the individual pattern of symbolism as it manifests in relationship to three beings. Perhaps if we look at this individual pattern first, it will help us to a deeper realization of the larger application in the Divine Plan.
We see Melchizedek as the symbol of the Father within, the focalization of God Being in relationship to yourself as an individual. We see Abram as representing your level of consciousness—your mind, where there is a pattern of awareness with respect to the things of God. We recognize that Lot symbolizes the tendencies in the individual human being to be subject to the feeling patterns, or subconscious reactions, in the sense of the physical, the outer pattern. We could correlate it with the physical body, where there tends to be a sense of lethargy. But it includes more than just the physical body, because we have to recognize the feeling pattern that was involved, and then we might note that the physical aspect has a phase of manifestation in relationship to all three. But it was Abram who had the awareness of God's direction. It was Abram who was concerned about building an altar unto the Lord. It was Abram who was particularly blessed by Melchizedek, King of Salem, who brought forth bread and wine and was the Priest of the Most High God.
I would like to particularly emphasize this text and remind you of what is called the Lord's Last Supper, because at that time there was bread and wine. In other words, the elements utilized specifically, at the point of the Last Supper, or what we now speak of as the Holy Communion Service, have a background in the written record extending to Melchizedek and Abram. So we must give consideration to the symbolism involved: bread and wine used in relationship to the specific expression of blessing. Why does anyone, as it is put in these days, take communion? It is on the basis of receiving a specific blessing. And the Lord's Supper, as it worked out just prior to the Master's experience in Gethsemane and all that followed, was also specifically a pattern of blessing to the disciples who participated. The bread and the wine. The bread represents physical substance of your own body or being. In the New Testament pattern it is mentioned specifically as unleavened bread. The specific emphasis on unleavened bread in relationship to the expression of God, as it was through Jesus for instance, or as it was through Melchizedek here, has to do with the recognition that when there is true response self-activity ceases, and the molding, the changing in the individual, comes through Divine action instead of through self-active determination.
The wine, the juice of the grape, is used all through the Bible as the symbol of life. Its symbolism here is that it signifies life. With respect to the physical body, you recognize that the bloodstream is the lifestream. The use of the word “blood” in the New Testament pattern became crystallized and a bit distorted; but when the Master said, “This is my blood,” He was talking about His lifestream, not about the idea that His blood as such had to pour out of His body. Actually, from the standpoint of the outworking of circumstance in an ordinary sense, there was not nearly as much actual loss of blood in connection with the Master's crucifixion as some might suppose. The blood was not drained out of His body. There was some loss of blood. But when He said, “This is my blood,” what did He mean? “This is my lifestream.” He was undertaking not to develop the picture as human beings have devised it; He was undertaking to bring them into a consciousness of the fact that they were members of His body, that He was including them, to whatever degree they responded, in the working of the lifestream which had its base in Himself. Until the Communion Service is seen on that basis there cannot be any true understanding of it or any true sharing of it.
The actual expression which the Master used at the time when He gave them the symbol of the bread was not that “This is my body” should be taken to mean that the bread as such was a part of His physical body, as people are inclined to believe, but that as He gave the bread, “this,” the human being or the disciple who received that bread as the symbol, was thereby included as a part of His body. He was saying “This is my body, this group of individuals”—including them as members of His body. You begin to see that He did not, in His original expression in that upper room, suggest that the wine as such was His blood or that the bread as such was His body, or that it should be conceived to be so, as in the popular concepts that have come down to us, but rather that He was using symbols to show those who participated that they were a part of His body: “This is my body.” So the secrets of the Communion Service have not been known or understood by the Christian churches, and the pattern of belief in connection with the Communion Service has not allowed the true expression, the true manifestation, of what the Master intended it to.
But wine is the symbol of the lifestream. What was the first step the Master took in relationship to His public ministry? At the marriage feast of Cana, He changed water to wine. Now you can believe whatever you wish to as to the actual fact that there was some water there and suddenly it became wine. It is not at all impossible. But that is not the point I am emphasizing. The point is that changing water to wine was His lifework, as it is mine: changing water, truth, to wine, the practical expression of life on earth. And the marriage feast? Why the marriage feast? Because His whole ministry was designed to bring heaven and earth together into oneness. In other words marriage was, and still is, used as a symbol of the union of heaven and earth. So the Master's first step in ministry was to reveal the purpose of His lifework. And unless you see that first step in relationship to the Lord's Supper—the final step before Gethsemane and the trial, etc—you cannot understand the final step. But changing water to wine, changing truth in the abstract sense, the elusive sense, into a practical expression of the lifestream on earth in and through you, individually and collectively, bringing you, the outer, into oneness with you, the inner, because heaven and earth must begin to be one in you before they can begin to be one around you. So this marriage feast, this pattern of union, has to do with the manifestation of oneness in you. That is the key, the secret of the meaning of that first miracle, as it is called. And the wine: the practical expression of life, the living lifestream made manifest on earth.
So the beginning of the Master's ministry on earth was with respect to changing water to wine, abstract truth into a living lifestream in relationship to humanity, on the basis of the oneness of the inner and the outer, heaven and earth. And He concluded His pattern of ministry with the Lord's Supper, using wine to symbolize the lifestream and extending the offer of that lifestream to all who would receive. Likewise here in the Old Testament we have the word, in the 18th verse of the 14th chapter of Genesis: “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.”
Your function here in this School has for its purpose the basic initiation into the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. There can be no true manifestation of spiritual power except on the basis of the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. This is the keynote, the key point, in relationship to the outworking of the whole Divine Plan and Pattern. And those who would share in the fulfilment of that Divine purpose on earth must, to some degree at least, begin to share the reality of the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. We cannot at this time undertake to unveil all of the mysteries involved in this Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek, but I would particularly draw your attention to the fact that here in the beginning of the pattern as it was with respect to the children of Israel we have the specific mention of the Priest of the Most High God. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2020/05/from-motherland-to-new-earth-state.html]
Now, you begin to feel, the moment we touch this point with respect to Melchizedek, the moment there is any recognition of the reality of this Priesthood, that to Melchizedek God was no mystery, the Divine Pattern of Being was no mystery—the focalization of manifestation on earth where God was no mystery. And in the blueprint as outlined in the Book of Revelation, the 10th chapter and the 7th verse, we read: “But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.” The mystery of God should be finished. God has never sought to be a mystery to man, but man's refusal to know God has caused God to be a mystery to man.
Until we begin to realize that the finishing of the mystery of God is a process that takes place within you as an individual, the process of achieving that which was signified by the Master's first step in public ministry, changing the abstract truth into the living wine of life at the marriage feast—the union of the inner and the outer, to let the inner, the power of God, have positive meaning on earth—until you begin to go through that process of letting water be changed to wine in you, you cannot have the joy of seeing the finishing of the mystery of God. And while God is a mystery to you, you cannot know the fulness of that which you should reveal on earth; for you came into the world to reveal God, and you cannot reveal that which is a mystery, unknown to yourself.
So here, in the very beginning of the pattern as we share it at this time, Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, and he was the Priest of the Most High God. And the pattern of our purpose and goal is that the mystery of God should be finished. Only to the degree that we today let that process work out in ourselves as a unit, or as a body, or as members of that body, can we be Priests and Priestesses after the Order of Melchizedek.
What does it mean to be a priest? What does it mean to be a prophet? Generally speaking, human consciousness limits the idea of a prophet more or less to the idea that a prophet was one who could foretell future events, he could prophesy, he could tell what was coming someday. While the revelation of the spirit of God through the individual may reveal something of that which is coming out of the east, a prophet is one who lets the Word of the Lord be spoken on earth. The true meaning of a prophet is one who speaks the Word of the Lord on earth. And to whatever degree you let the spirit of God determine the words you speak you are a prophet. But there is something higher and greater than being a prophet.
We might note that one can be a disciple without being a prophet; one can be a prophet without being a Priest. And we begin to recognize that it is not enough merely to be a disciple, one who follows after; it is not enough merely to be a prophet, one who speaks the Word of the Lord on earth— it is necessary that we enter the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek—not only to speak the Word of the Lord but to do the works of the Lord, to work out the Divine Pattern on earth, to live the reality of that which is, to the world, the mystery of God. And it is only as this reality of Priesthood is made manifest that we can have the manifestation of power necessary to the accomplishment of the Divine Purpose on earth.
There have been quite a number of people who have sensed something of the significance of Melchizedek, or the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. There are some so-called modern schools of thought which claim to stem from that point but which, by their very attitudes and actions, show that it is a forgery and nothing more. We would recognize that wherever truth is in expression, there the influence of this Priesthood is to be seen and felt to some degree. But the control pattern with respect to humanity, and the design pattern with respect to the Plan and purpose individually and collectively, is carried over in focus to this present period of time, which begins here with Abram and extends to ourselves, from the Motherland. The Focalization of the Divine Pattern as it was working in the Motherland, the pattern of government, the manifestation of the educational system and what we might call the religious or spiritual life of the people, all came to focus in the Priest of the Most High God. The pattern of connecting that which was known in the Garden of Eden, or in the Motherland, with that which is known within the period of recorded history is carried over to us, and made available to us, on this basis: Melchizedek, King of Salem, Priest of the Most High God. And that particular focalization, in manifestation, of Priesthood gave man the opportunity of returning to the Divine Estate.
The true purpose of the development of the pattern of the children of Israel was to make possible the manifestation of this Priesthood, not for purposes of selfish nationalism but to the end that through such a manifestation of Priesthood the spirit and power of God could be extended out to all humanity. The real purpose with respect to all of the tribes of the children of Israel was to the end that the different tribes could be different parts of the body, finding true expression and meaning in and through the Focalization of Priesthood, by which the power and spirit of God should extend to the whole earth. Only to the degree that the children of Israel allowed that fulfilment was their outworking in history according to Plan or truly meaningful. We see a development in the outworking in that historical pattern which produced a selfish nationalism, an exclusiveness, a degeneracy in those who were given the privilege of Priesthood, so that it became something that was a far cry from that which God intended.
Now Melchizedek established this Pattern with respect to Abram, outlined the Plan and the purpose and the method—not all at once but over a period of time—and carried the pattern through with respect to Isaac and Jacob, who became Israel, and gave those who were at that time responding to Divine direction an opportunity to allow the full manifestation of the Divine Plan in action in relationship to the physical world. This first step in the dawn of history, in the unfolding of the Divine Plan, had to be on the basis of reestablishing the First Sacred School, giving human beings an opportunity to approach the process of development into the Divine Pattern on what we might call the physical plane; that is, an outer, physical approach. The full significance of that may not be immediately evident, but all of this that is recorded here with respect to the development of the children of Israel from Abram's time had that one theme for its purpose, and when we look back we see that the children of Israel failed miserably in fulfilling that purpose.
We begin to see that the Master refocalized, when He came into the world, exactly the same thing. He did not undertake to change the Pattern around in some fashion. He did use the Second Plane approach instead of the First Plane approach. It was impossible to undertake to use the First Plane approach anymore; the conditions necessary for its use had passed, and humanity had failed to carry through in it, so there was nothing more that could be done about it except to use the next cycle in order to make the next plane approach. And the Master Himself came into the world to do that. But again, just as with the children of Israel, the purpose was not recognized, the Plan was not accepted, and those who call themselves Christians have, in following out their own ideas and concepts with respect to these things, produced the same type of failure which was made manifest with respect to the children of Israel.
The children of Israel were finally taken into captivity and scattered. Have the so-called Christians been taken into captivity? The answer is obviously Yes—taken into captivity on a basis which has not allowed the manifestation of power, the reality of the Divine Priesthood. The disciples were supposed to become prophets, and as the cycle worked out and the day of Pentecost came, they began to function on the basis of speaking the Word of the Lord. If they had been content to wait for the Lord's direction, instead of impulsively using the current of power on the basis of their own choices, they would have become prophets, so that they could have actually expressed the Word of the Lord, and begun to see the Plan of God, the Plan that the Master brought into focalized manifestation on earth. And then they would have become, had they held steady, Priests after the Order of Melchizedek, and there would have been the manifestation of power, under the Divine Pattern, sufficient to influence every phase and department of life, extending into the spiritual influence or control in the world of government.
A little of this has of course gotten through now and again, shaping the Divine ordering of human events in order to make it possible for us to have this present opportunity. You are sharing the work of the Third Sacred School again being made manifest on earth. Humanity had failed to utilize the opportunity when the First Sacred School was being reestablished. The same is true with respect to the Second. Those opportunities are gone. Let us look back for a moment.
What was one of the great stumbling blocks to those who thought to follow Jesus at the time He was on earth? Human beings were then still trying to work things out on the basis of their concepts of the old order. The pattern as it appeared with respect to the First Sacred School had degenerated into a human pattern, as symbolized by the scribes and Pharisees. And they could not see on what basis there should be a New Pattern. Their subjection to the old pattern tended to make them reject the New Pattern. They did not realize that since the cycle had broken in relationship to that first pattern it was utterly useless. Jesus Christ Himself could not make that first pattern work under those vibrational conditions. That opportunity was lost, it was gone. It could not be reinstituted by any means whatsoever in heaven or on earth. It was gone. And they did not see that. They did not realize they simply had the empty shell of something far different from that which God had given to them.
Now we have something of the same pattern. Human beings today tend to have difficulty in letting go of the old pattern, and they try to make the pattern as they think it was with respect to Jesus work in this present time. It cannot be done. If Jesus Christ Himself came on earth He could not make it work on that basis. That opportunity was lost; the cycle was broken and there simply is no way by which that can be caused to work out to a point of fulfilment on that basis. It cannot be done. That cycle was broken, as surely as the cycle with respect to the First Sacred School. Now that does not mean that the truths that were contained in the teachings and presentations of the First or the Second were lost. No.
I have shown you that the focalization aspects were carried over and they were just the same in principle in the Second as they were in the First. And the same is true today. But the approach, the basis of attempting to work it out, which could have worked under the Master's leadership and with respect to the vibrational factors as they were at that time—that pattern could have worked but it didn't. Instead of actually working, there was a break in the pattern almost immediately, and there was the thousand years of the Dark Ages, the millennium. The Second Plane approach is what? Mental—with respect to consciousness, the working of the mind as such. And human beings are still today trying to use that same approach. They think they are getting somewhere with it. They are getting into trouble; that is all we will get into with it. But if they had carried through there would not have been any thousand years of the Dark Ages, when man's mind was bound in darkness.
Let me emphasize something to you. What was the date with respect to the manifestation of this blueprint which we now use, the blueprint that relates to us today? According to the Biblical pattern it is listed at 96 AD. That is close enough to emphasize my point. It was not until long after the day of Pentecost, long after all these tangent patterns had come into manifestation and the break was beyond repair, that God made arrangements for the refocalization of the Divine Pattern, or the blueprint. He gave what we call the Book of Revelation, so it would be on hand, within manifestation, for the next cycle of outworking. That opportunity had been thrown away back there, and all of the intervening struggles to try to make that pattern work have proven futile. It had some semblance of effectiveness up to the beginning of, well, what we might call our national history. It was losing that semblance of meaningfulness long before that, because there was an overlapping in the vibrational factors. But the New Pattern had emerged to its reasonably full force, so that the overlapping vibrations from the old pattern were virtually gone by the turn of this century, and see what happened.
We have something new, something altogether different. Now it is the same truths, the same laws, the same basic purpose, but the approach is different, and must be different. However, the Christian world tries to make the approach on the basis of what they think the Master used, when they do not understand the Second Sacred School at all. They could have understood it if they had allowed the cycle that opened with what is called Pentecost to really work out and carry through, but they never gave themselves a chance to understand it, and the churches that have developed out of that have never given themselves a chance to understand it. I am not condemning them, but they are just simply utterly ignorant of what is meant, what the Divine Plan was then, and the human concepts of pattern derived out of that simply do not work, not in the sense that God intended. And any effort to still use that pattern of approach must fail, because God Himself would not try it. It would be impossible to God, because it would be an attempt on God's part to violate His own laws, to ignore the vibrational factors in the Cosmos, to ignore the natural cycles of the unfolding pattern of the Four Forces.
So we come to the Third. And the Third is what? The Third Sacred School has the approach on the spiritual expression plane basis. It is not as popular, in the outer sense, as either of the other two, a little more difficult in one sense, but we can, under this vibrational pattern, make a Third Plane approach and revitalize the factors of the Second and First plane patterns in relationship to ourselves. But if we try to make a physical approach; a mental approach—it does not solve the problem, and can't. Those approaches at that time, under those vibrational factors, would have allowed the development of awareness so that the Three-Plane Pattern could have come into manifestation under either one. Suppose the disciples had followed through and allowed that Pentecostal pattern to really unfold and become what it was supposed to be—then the factors that were with respect to the physical plane approach would have been reactivated and revitalized and drawn into alignment, and that which was of the Third Plane vibrational factors would have come into manifestation in relationship to it and there would have been alignment. But they didn't do it.
Now we cannot just arbitrarily reach out there and use one of these other approaches and get anywhere. Millions have tried it. If you want to waste time with it, that is your business, but it will not work. We use the Third Plane approach today, and it is the only way that will work, because we have an altogether different vibrational pattern than was present in the past, either at the time of the children of Israel or at the time of the Master. Once we begin to function correctly on the basis of the Third Plane approach, the Second and First Plane patterns become reactivated and drawn into alignment with respect to ourselves, because the mind and the body, individually speaking, begin to come under subjection to that. The alignment is established and you begin to be what you should be; you begin to have the manifestation of healing power, for instance. But this is the third step in the period of recorded history, to give man an opportunity of restoration. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2020/05/melchizedek-increase-grace-van-duzen.html]
The outline in Revelation relates to this Third Plane approach. Why do those who have been functioning on the basis of the First or Second Plane approaches find Revelation meaningless, virtually? Oh, they have concocted some ideas with respect to it, but it just simply does not mean a thing. When they try to interpret it on that basis it becomes fantastic nonsense. They could not do anything else with it. Not until we make the Third Plane approach can the Book of Revelation have any meaning, and under that approach it does have meaning—it is the Divine Blueprint.
Now suppose this cycle were broken. The only cycle that could be opened to humanity would be with respect to the Fourth. But if man has thrown away the First and Second, and then should throw away the Third, which is really the highest level contact that he can hope to make—if he throws this one away and has to be limited to the Fourth Plane approach, would he have any chance? Obviously not. In other words man has thrown away two opportunities, the third one is established, and if he throws that one away there is no more—it is finished. Now he is not going to throw it away; I am not suggesting that. There are going to be a few, somehow or other, to carry the pattern through. But that is what we are here for, and until we begin to let the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek have meaning in relationship to this Third Sacred School approach to the fulfilment of the Divine Pattern, we cannot hope to accomplish that to which we are called.
When you begin to see that our Lord, when He came on earth, was a Priest of the Most High God, after the Order of Melchizedek, you can begin to see that you cannot truly follow Him unless you too let that sensing of the Divine Pattern have meaning in your life, and unless we utilize the vibratory factors that are available to us today we cannot receive it. You try to receive it on the basis of the vibratory factors of the past cycles and it will not work—you cannot receive it. You may go into fantastic flights of fancy, as many have, but you will not receive it. You must receive the gifts of God on the basis of the vibrational factors.
And we remember that our present vibrational pattern is what? Air—Water—Air. And if we try to use the vibrational patterns at work at the time of the Master we fail; it will not work, not today. It could have worked then, under His leadership, but it cannot work today, under these vibrational factors, and I would not attempt to work it out. He could do it; I can't. I make no pretense of it. But I can, with the help of those who are willing to share it, I can work it out on the basis of the present vibrational factors, which utilize the elements that were allowed to come somewhat into manifestation in that First and Second Cycle and allowed to become meaningless. You can utilize those same elements and carry through to victory. And it is your choice. What shall it be?
