Spirit Carries Us Up
from The Design in Heaven
Martin Exeter May 25, 1986
The three disciples who ascended the high mountain with the Master became aware of something going on that they didn't yet really understand—the vision receded and was replaced by a bright cloud, but the specifics were obscured. However, out of the cloud came a voice saying, "This is my beloved Son … hear ye him." These words are spoken out of the cloud; we have heard them. This body, in which individually we play a part, plays that part because of these words. First, "This is my beloved Son," and then the part which is played extends the invitation to all who will receive it, "Hear ye him." The expression of character, the words spoken by reason of the presence of the Son of God, offer the way home to all mankind. This is not to say that all mankind will necessarily hear the voice and come home but there are those who do and will, but only when the character of the Son of God is in evidence and the Word is spoken. We know that this is a natural experience for all those who compose the body, the mind, the heart, of the Son of God on earth.
The hill of the Lord, the mountain itself, may be seen not so much as something up which we are supposed to scramble but the evidence of the design into which each one finds a natural place to be. This would indicate that there are different levels of understanding and scopes of vision insofar as those who compose this design in form are concerned. We're not all at the same level. This fact is not reason for self- or mutual condemnation. If those who begin to find themselves in this design remain self-centered they look inward. And because the design is comparable to a mountain there are those who are unseen because they are the other side of the mountain, unseen in the sense of the design but visible in the sense of the form. We are acquainted with one another. There are varying degrees of closeness in that acquaintanceship, various levels of friendship, but insofar as the design is concerned we do not necessarily see what someone else is responsible for or where that someone else is in the design. They may be invisible in that sense because they are the other side of the design, out of the range of our awareness in that regard.
If we see how this could be so, regardless of our association in form, then the foolishness and the uselessness of judgment becomes very plain: we're judging something that is totally invisible to us. This is likely to be the case with the majority of those of whom we have become aware as participating in the form of the mountain. We are all part of the same body but we are not aware necessarily, insofar as most others are concerned, where exactly they are and what exactly they are doing in the design. This reemphasizes the futility of judgment. How can you judge something you can't see? Judge not by the appearance; judge not by the outer form of manifestation. Just give thanks that there is a design and that all those who are participating in giving form to that design are a part of it. They don't need our opinions, for or against. We need natural space, each one, to fulfil the purpose of our presence in the design, without being harassed by the judgments of others. If we see that with respect to others, who might judge us as individuals, then we can also understand the reverse aspect of this situation, so that we are no longer interested in forming opinions about anyone.
The design is in heaven. We become aware of the nature of that design when we are at the Apex of our individual point of focus of spirit; then we fit into the design. There is no necessity to judge one another, to wonder about each other, to gossip about each other, because it is all fantasy. We do become aware of those who participate in the design of heaven close to us, and where they are close to us there is a basis of understanding—not that we need then to form opinions or make judgments but we become aware of the nature of the association. There are vastly more people present in this design than are the few who are close to us in the design. This does not make them any less a part of the design, and we are always most thankful that each one is present, but we never take an arrogant stance which assumes that it understands or knows what somebody else should be doing or where they should be in the design.
The positioning in the design is not established on the basis of the form of things; it is established in the heaven. Until we rise up sufficiently in identity to the Apex Point of our individual focus of spirit we cannot possibly comprehend the design in heaven. We are well versed in the fact that our attitudes should not be judgmental with respect to form: Judge not by the appearance. If we begin to become aware of the design in heaven, there could be no judgment there because the only way we can become aware of the design in heaven is to be at the point of Apex of the focus of spirit, so that the heaven is visible to us; and it is visible only through the eyes of the one who is at the Apex. Our awareness then of the design is that of the KING. He doesn't judge it; it's His design after all! One begins to share that outlook with the absolute knowing that it all fits together the way it should. It was designed to fit together.
When we assume the position where we belong, at the focus of spirit from the individual standpoint, then we begin to be able to discern what it is that is present in the heaven. The design emerges into the heaven first, and because we are where we belong we are quite content with the design which is emerging because it is our own. It isn't something that somebody is imposing upon us; it is something that is extending, because we are present, into the heaven to establish what is properly present in the heaven, thereafter to be reflected in the earth. "Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?" To know the ordinances of heaven one must be at the point of the focus of spirit in one's own experience. The Master Himself when He was on earth said something about that: "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you"—there's plenty of room—"I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."
This is the focus point of spirit with respect to each one. That focus point is not separate from the Supreme One. It all turns out to be the same focus point. You only discover that when you're in it. The human mind would like to speculate about it, try to figure it out, try to make it reasonable to itself. Get thee hence, satan! so that there may be a willingness to let the experience come of the way things are. It's futile to try to make them some other way. It could never be done, as witness the fact that human beings generation after generation for thousands of years have been trying to do it and never succeeded in changing anything. It still remains the way it is.
We have had a certain willingness to let the way it is be unveiled in our own experience, and that has happened to the extent that we had relinquished our own designs, our own self-determinations. So there began to be a little room for heaven to come. As this has happened we haven't really seen what the heaven is, but we have been able to see with a new perspective what the earth is, simply because we have come out of the earth to that extent. One can only comprehend something when one is at a level above it. Involved in it, you can't understand it. And in spite of all the cleverness of human minds they have never been able to understand it, as witness the fact that everything is only explainable theoretically. Nobody knows. And, very conveniently, one can have one's own theory if one is sufficiently individualistic. Most people don't have their own theories; they accept somebody else's; but it's all nonsense.
So there is this change of perspective. It comes not because of our brilliance of mind, certainly; not by reason of any technique that we have undertaken; not by reason of any human effort whatsoever, but because we have been taken up by spirit. And we have been taken up just to the extent that we were willing to go up. If we held onto the weights of human nature we didn't go up much; but relinquishing those, the Lord takes us into a high mountain. We find ourselves in the high mountain; we find ourselves in the spiritual design, the heavenly design. But the ascension continues if we are willing to let it be so. We come again to the place that is prepared and to the knowing that where I am, I am also! A natural state of affairs.
As that outlook from the Apex Point is sustained we begin to know the ordinances of heaven and there's no great shakes in setting the dominion thereof in the earth. It is the natural creative process. But it only happens within the range of human experience to the extent that the ordinances of heaven are known. One can't figure out the ordinances of heaven by any mental effort whatsoever, or as long as we're simply involved in the heaven. We rise up together because spirit carries us up. When you're learning the responsibilities of mountaineering you're told never to look down. The same thing is true here: you start looking down again, and down you go. Look at what is happening now where you are; deal with that. The mountain will take care of itself. And while the view may be spectacular it is wise to refrain from looking at it, which is looking down, until you are accustomed to the acceptance of responsibility with respect to what is happening right where you are, right next to you.
A passage from Isaiah says the Lord will be merciful to those who receive Him, and God will abundantly pardon. That is an indication that forgiveness may be received, and forgiveness is defined as the Kingdom of Heaven. To receive this because one is in one's right place and right mind is to receive forgiveness. A consciousness in this regard causes the experience of an awareness of the ordinances of heaven.
We abide together in the design at the Apex Point of our particular focus of spirit. That is a part of the design, and we see how that design emerges into the heaven, coming down from God through the heaven into the earth. But the place where we belong is the place of God: above the heaven, above the earth. We are learning to come to that place and, coming to it, to abide there. To abide there it's important not to look down, not to stop to admire the scenery, but to attend to one's own business exactly where one is and in the character and the authority of the Supreme One.
I delight to be able to speak of these things in this particular setting this evening because of the available substance which is present. Because you attend to business wherever you may be in any moment you maintain the substance; and the creative process which is at work continues to accomplish whatever is needful with respect to each one and by reason of each one. I thank God that there are those whose presence finds focus at the Apex Point of the individual expression of the spirit of the living God continuously.
© emissaries of divine light
