My Sheep Hear My Voice
Martin Exeter February 24, 1985
“Even if out of the five billion people there are five hundred that hear the voice,
that is all that is necessary.”
We have the opportunity of participating in a unified time, all brought to focus as you hear the sound of my voice. There is something beyond the sound of my voice. This is a form which we share, but we are quite familiar with the spirit which is so vibrantly present for all of us—the spirit of the living God—a constant thing which pervades our living day by day, but is brought to a particular sharpness of focus during an hour such as this. We have something to do together which carries impact and significance to all people who have the perception to be aware of it.
There was a man who lived in the world a long time ago. On one occasion he was questioned by his Master: “Do you love me?” At the time he was quick to reply that he did. The instruction was then forthcoming: “Feed my lambs.” Shortly thereafter the question was repeated again, twice. With growing impatience this man repeated his answer. The instruction from the Master was: “Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep.” This is very pertinent to our own experience, because in this particular story it related to something that had happened previously. This man had found himself in rather a tense situation, and because of fear he denied his Master three times. Probably his impatience at being asked the same question three times later was based in his own shame for what had occurred previously. If we are honest we would all admit that there have been occasions, by reason of fear and other human emotions, when we have denied the truth in our own living. Because we have done this, there is a continuing sense of shame. If we are at times impatient in various ways it likely springs from this sense of shame. This particular man was being offered the opportunity later to forgive himself, an opportunity which is available to all of us, if we will accept it. Some are rather self-righteous and suppose it is important that they should forgive other people for their sins against themselves. It isn’t so much that, as discovering how much we really need to forgive ourselves. We can’t forgive ourselves without admitting our shame.
The way forgiveness is received was indicated by the instruction that was given on that far-distant occasion: “Feed my lambs: feed my sheep; feed my sheep.” The lambs and the sheep represent those who would be willing to be fed the correct nourishment—spiritual nourishment: however we need to see more clearly what this implies. It might be said of sheep that they are vegetarians. It isn’t initially so much a matter of changing our diet, or urging other people to change theirs, as of providing the nourishment that is essential to those who are represented in this analogy as lambs and sheep. These creatures are indeed vegetarians. There are other animals that are not. Goats are vegetarians too. They eat a different kind of browse than that which is acceptable to sheep. And then, beyond them again, there are the wolves; their diet is not vegetarian as a rule. Utilizing these various animals as representative of people, we easily recognize that human beings in general have a variety of diets in this sense. They are only willing to eat certain food. I am not speaking of physical food in the ordinary sense. But human beings receive to themselves what they feel is necessary, first of all to their survival. Survival in the general sense is a very self-centered attitude. Who knows that one should continue to survive? One could usually think of quite a few people as to whom it might be beneficial if they didn’t. But that viewpoint is seldom turned toward oneself. There are a lot of other people that we could do without, but not this one!
The general attitude of human nature is to try to get what you want. We have become aware of the fact that there is some sort of a tide rising in the world which is causing some changes to come about in various ways, in the population principally. I don’t think that rising tide has as yet changed the general human attitude which centers in trying to get what you want. It may have an effect on the methods that are used to get what you want. But still that human nature stance persists. We need to be very conscious of this when we are observing the rising tide of change, so that we don’t get carried away with the idea that people everywhere are now becoming more spiritual. If it seems so, perhaps it is simply that it is now considered that one can get what one wants by spiritual means more effectively than one could get what one wanted by material means.
While the true state of man is an innocent state, this doesn’t prevent those concerned from seeing the way things are quite clearly. I don’t think any fundamental change has taken place in human beings yet anywhere! Maybe a little in us; we hope so anyway. It may be that the methods by which one gets what one wants are refined a bit, and what one wants may be refined a bit. People want satisfaction. They want peace of mind. They want less tension. They want better health. Why? So they can do the things they want to do with greater ease. There are all kinds of good things that people want. And the changes that are occurring would seem to relate to this refining of what one wants and the methods one uses to get what one wants. This is characteristic of human nature, but I’m sure we all recognize that the attitudes involved in all of this continue to be fatal. They don’t bring any answer whatsoever.
You can find people coming around to receive something at our hands. We need to be sensible in recognizing why they do it, for the most part. Oh, they’re fine people, but they are still trying to get what they want. This is the way that humanity, both individually and collectively, destroys itself. A recognition of this has presumably exercised us to a certain extent so that we saw the need to let go of this human determination to try to get what we want, even though those wants seem to be very spiritual and very good. I think many who have become associated with EDL have tended to anticipate that by this means they would get what they wanted. Their wants were perhaps quite high-sounding, very spiritual wants: “I want to be an angel.” As long as you are wanting to be that, you’ll never be it. It’s useless to want what you already are. You want to have an angelic human nature—much the same, only with all these wonderful angelic characteristics. There has been a lot of effort put forth in this regard—emissaries trying to behave themselves as they thought emissaries should, angelically of course, but it is still the old syndrome.
The basic motivation is to get what one wants in human nature. One’s wants might be quite deeply buried. They come out of the past. They are the same sort of wants that people have had all down through the ages, distilled into our individual experience. Because they are our own we don’t think they are too bad, particularly if they can be spiritually colored. We are aware that there is a totally different state to be known. It isn’t a modified human nature state; it isn’t a spiritualized human nature state; it is a different state to what has been known in the human nature stance. We all initially find ourselves tarred with that brush, simply by reason of the fact that we were born of human nature parents into this human nature world. We still have the human nature approach, to start with at least, which expects to get better and better, until finally you land up perfect—not too quickly, please. But there is no idea of what it would mean to be perfect, only a human nature concept. The perfect state is the natural state of man.
If there has been a certain willingness in us to relinquish some of these human nature endeavors, we may discover that there is actually another state that doesn’t have an approach that is trying to get anything. There is no need to get anything, because what is necessary is already present, covered up by all these efforts to get what we think we want. Let’s not fool ourselves—we want to get what we want, and we have quite resounding phrases to describe what it is we want. As long we are trying to get it, it isn’t the truth in expression—just a modification of human nature, so as to make what is thought of as being better. We are not interested in better or worse, rightly. We are here to be what we are, and what we are is not warmed-over human nature. We talk of angelic nature, and it’s nice to have some words to describe something of which we do not have very much experience. There is something, and occasionally we touch it. It comes forth into expression, and that’s wonderful; but very shortly thereafter we likely revert into human nature again with our endeavors to become more spiritual—whatever that would be.
Finally, I would acknowledge, there are those who are beginning to emerge out of this fog—the mist thins somewhat, but as long as there is mist around there is human nature around. Then everything that finds expression is modified by the mist. We find factually, in our own experience, that there is mist hanging around, and that modifies our outlook in human nature ways—we tend to revert. As the mist clears, the truth is unveiled. It doesn’t look at all like anything that human nature has thought or hoped it would. This unveiling we have described in terms of a tone, and also in terms of the Word.
The Word is spoken on earth through the life of somebody or other; and if it is, there are those who hear it. I give all of you the benefit of the doubt, that if the Word has been spoken you heard it. You didn’t know what it was; you translated it in all kinds of different ways—emissary concepts and consequently conflict. But when the Word is spoken on earth those who are capable of hearing it hear it. Those who hear it would be described as lambs or sheep, in this analogy. If we ourselves heard the Word, and have aligned ourselves with it in some measure, so that we can speak it momentarily and spontaneously, without quoting like the scribes do, then immediately the Word is extended and there are those who will hear it. “Feed my lambs, feed my sheep,” by allowing this expression to be made available. It isn’t warmed-over spirituality according to the human view. It’s something fresh and new and momentary. And those who might be classified as lambs or sheep hear it.
What’s the difference between a lamb and a sheep? A lamb is younger of course. Lambs have a slightly different diet to the mature sheep. There is this provision available which fits the diet of the lamb as well as of the sheep. The point is that those who are in this classification hear. The instruction wasn’t—and we’ll find out that it wasn’t an instruction anyway—the seeming instruction wasn’t to feed all the animals; just the sheep and the lambs, because all the other animals continue to exist on a different diet. The diet which is suitable to the lambs and the sheep is not suitable to any of the other animals. This is the idea that is being conveyed. So you don’t try to feed a wolf grass. You don’t imagine that a wolf should be eating grass; you don’t try to force it down the wolf’s throat. There is no need to force anything. Provide the nourishment of tone of one’s own living and the lambs and the sheep will hear it. Others won’t hear it. Don’t imagine that you can make them hear it. It proves itself out.
The point is that, awakening to the truth of one’s own expression, you don’t have to be instructed; you just express the truth of you. And you are in the process of discovering increasingly what that is. You discover to the extent that you are no longer trying to get any kind of satisfaction at all for yourself—anything. Human beings do not, for the most part, have this sort of attitude, because human nature demands that you get what you want. In order to get what you want you have to think a little bit about the things that you imagine you lack. “I don’t have enough love. I need to get more love.” And so various methods are devised in order to get people to give me what I want. I’ve noticed myself that I keep running into the endeavor on the part of people to please me. In other words they're saying, “You should be trying to get what you want”—speaking to me, trying to seduce me. Your attitude toward others will tend to be the attitude that you would like others to have toward you, and if you’re still on this kick of trying to get what you want, you will want other people to please you. If you want other people to try to please you, you demonstrate this by trying to please them: “I’ll scratch your back; you scratch mine.” Can we not come absolutely clear of this? There is a tremendous industry in the world these days of counseling. Why? Well because there are masses and masses of people who are trying to get what they want—maybe, oh, just an explanation. It never satisfies. Stop trying to get an explanation! It won’t be of any value if you get it.
There are some people on earth who might be included in the lamb and sheep classification, who hear the Word. My sheep hear my Word. If you’re not my sheep you won’t hear my Word. Very straightforward. Don’t try to convert the world to sheepdom. It is a matter of finding the sheep, because these are the ones who then give form to the body of the shepherd; and the shepherd speaks by reason of his body. The shepherd needs a body, the body of incarnation. The Son of Man comes in His glory, because He has a body available for use, so that the voice may resound on earth and all the lambs and the sheep perk up their ears. But never imagine that everybody around is going to do that, because, as we note from our own experience, most are inclined to try to get what they want. But when that voice of truth is heard it is very compelling and, momentarily at least, you forget what you want. That may have happened when Jesus called His disciples. They were busy fishing, trying to make a living no doubt, getting what they thought they wanted. But when they heard the Word all that endeavor to get what they wanted just simply vanished, and they forsook all that and came and followed Him—they didn’t really do it on a consistent basis, as most of us haven’t.
When we first heard the voice, maybe we … “Oh! Isn’t that tremendous!” And we began forming concepts about it. But it wasn’t our concepts that woke us up; it was the sound of the voice. We were sufficiently sheep-like or lamb-like to be able to hear it, and we were filled with enthusiasm, with zeal, for a little while. But then the old getting-what-one-wants idea reasserted itself. And probably you wandered in the wilderness for a while, maybe even forty years. Let’s not wait too long. “My sheep hear my voice.” That is the only thing that is important. It doesn’t have to be explained; it can’t be explained. It doesn’t have to be clothed in intellectual arguments for those who hear the voice. No. That’s it! Then, afterward, they may begin to doubt a little, and there will always be someone who will assist you in your doubts, as you may have discovered.
When the shepherd has a body on earth to speak the Word, to sound the voice, then His sheep hear His voice. It’s useless to speculate as to how many sheep there might be around. One would be inclined to think very few. The only reason for hearing that voice is that one might be unified into the body of the shepherd, that the shepherd might be on earth and that his voice might come through loud and clear. If the Word of truth is spoken far and wide it is not because it is anticipated that, far and wide, people are going to pay any attention, but the sheep will. Even if out of the five billion people there are five hundred that hear the voice, that is all that is necessary. It may be a sad commentary on the rest of the population of the earth, but everything is based on hearing that voice. People either do or they don’t. You know that. You have spoken to people. You may have waxed eloquent! You thought that even a stone would be moved, and the individual just sits there—never heard a word.
Most of the words that people think they hear are the words that are encouraging them to get what they want. So much of what is called response relates to that. There are a few—indeed a very precious few—who hear the voice of the Master. The others are hopeful that they can get something out of what they think they hear to produce what they want. What they want may be the kingdom of heaven. But it’s at hand, isn’t it? That is indicating that there is absolutely no need to want it, because it is there, if you stop wanting it. But the habit is strong and human beings very quickly think they are being badly done by if their wants are not being fulfilled. People have come around the Emissary ministry expecting their needs to be filled, and stayed a while, but because they didn’t hear the voice, just thought that they were going to get something—whoosh! away they go.
This idea of trying to love everybody so that they would participate in the kingdom on earth is ridiculous. Oh yes, there is love. Love has been available for everybody all down through the ages. And yet, people think they don’t have it and they want it. Can we move with assurance, without wants? “Oh I feel so badly today, just desolate inside. I need somebody to come and remind me that I’m really an angel, and I shouldn’t be feeling this way. I want to feel better.” Ah, you want. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
So we move together because we hear the voice. That is the only basis. We need no explanation; we need no comfort; we don’t need anything, because we don’t want anything. And we find that everything that we are is already present. If we thought there was a lack it was because what we are had not been expressed, not because someone else didn’t express what they are. That’s fine for them; but if you are to know the truth, you must express the truth—it’s the only way it can be done. Such a simple thing seems so difficult for wanting human minds to comprehend. So we share in acknowledging these things and seeing that the only thing that is required on earth is to feed the lambs and the sheep—for each one of us individually to do that, because that is the expression of the truth of our own living and we are not trying to give people what they think they want.
You find people flocking in to try to get what they want. We are not interested in giving them what they want at all, just in providing the nourishment of the voice, the Word, the tone, so that the individual who comes around—not knowing why he’s come around really—may have the opportunity of hearing that voice. You may smooth people down a little vibrationally, so that they will feel comforted somewhat, and stay around long enough so that if they are capable of hearing the voice they may do so. If they are not capable of hearing the voice, you will very shortly find out, and away they go. That’s fine, we don’t object to that; we don’t feel that we are successful or failing on the basis of how many people come around. How do we know who is going to hear the voice? Our responsibility is just to provide it. That’s all. Those who are capable of coming home will do so; they won’t be able to prevent themselves from doing so. “My sheep hear my voice.”
There are those throughout the world who have that capability. It is our responsibility to make sure that the voice penetrates everywhere. The gospel is preached in the whole world, just so that the voice may be heard. Those who can hear it will come; those who don’t hear it will go. But let us not be fooled by what we may have heretofore imagined was response when all it was was the concept in that individual's mind that if he stuck around long enough he was going to get what he wanted. Do any of you have that idea? “Just stick around a little longer and you’ll get what you want.” No you won’t. But you may participate in the process of sounding that voice in all the world, that the end may come—the end of human nature. Good riddance! How exactly that comes is not for us to speculate about. We can see some possibilities, but we are here to do what we are here to do. Let’s do it.
It is a joy to sound that tone, to speak the Word in oneness of spirit, because we don’t want anything. One might say that one wants to speak the Word, but it isn’t a want; one just does it. So we do it together, in our living, moment by moment, that there may be that resounding tone on earth, capable of being heard by any who are capable of hearing it. And if there are more people who are not capable of hearing it, well that is all right too. It isn’t for those. It is for those who have ears to hear and hearts to understand.
© emissaries of divine light
