The Master's Proclamation
I Am The True Vine
Uranda July 14, 1946
Opening of the Summer Session on Sunrise Ranch
Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for this sweet hour of prayer wherein we may draw to a closer communion with Thee, in feeling Thy Nearness, under the Power of Thy Spirit and the sustaining strength of Thy Presence, not only tonight but in all walks of life, that we may ever, as instruments in Thy Hand, let Thy Artistry of Life be made manifest in the earth to Thy Glory and to the Blessing of all the children of men, IN the Christ. Aum-en
Tonight, I would like to consider with you words that are familiar, and yet are so full of meaning that though we were to consider them every night all summer, I do not think we would discover all that they convey. We recognize that it is the Spirit of the Word that counts. “The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.” If we merely consider the Word as something that we know already, it will not bring additional illumination. To the degree that we consider the Word as if we had never heard it before, to the degree that we recognize that there is a new Spirit in it, the fullness of which we have not known before, we will find, as we have found in the past, that the Word is always new.
When we think of the great privilege and opportunity we have of entering into the One Christ Body on earth in the real or true sense, the actuality of adoption, not merely a passing, emotional experience, but something that abides continually, something that is vivid and real, and brings forth fruit in the individual’s life, we naturally recognize that of all of the Words that we may consider, those Words which the Master Himself spoke, are most vividly pregnant with meaning; they are alive to us tonight.
As our starting point let us consider: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” How did He love those who heard Him speak? How does He love us? We may say that He gave His Life for us, yes, but more than that—that He lived for us; He lived a life that was a revelation of God. He proved by His Life that the things of God can be allowed practical expression in our daily living in the world, and so. He loved us enough to live for us. If we love Him truly, then we love Him enough to live for Him, and if we love one another as He loves us, then it is that we live for one another. This is the basis of discipleship, and we must experience discipleship before we can experience the adoption into Oneness in His Body on earth. There is a point where He spoke to His disciples and said, “Henceforth, I call you friends.” He was setting the vibration for the time when they might be received into His Body on earth, where they might provide, in fact, as many Members of the One Body, the expression of His Divine Being on earth; but they had first to be His disciples. Therefore, the standard of discipleship must be passed before we can hope, individually and collectively, to know what it really means to be adopted into the One Christ Body on earth. Individually we are living, not just for the Master, in the sense of someone in Heaven, but for one another. He loved us enough to live for us. We must love Him enough to live for Him. We must love one another enough to live for one another. That means that those personal things, those human things, which would make us say, “This we will cling to; this we will hold; thus far will we go and no farther in our living for others", stand as barriers. Suppose the Master had said, “I will live for you up to a certain point, but I will not suffer for you. I will not be scorned before the authorities of the world for you. I will not wear the crown of thorns for you, nor carry the Cross to Golgotha for you.” He did not set any limitation on His living for us, not even when it meant dying for us.
He says, “... as I have loved you ...” That is the way we are to love one another. His love for us made Him live for us, all the way that led to the Cross. The Victory in the Tomb, the coming forth and the Ascension, all signify the way in which He loved us, and so we must live for Him and we must live for each other.
If there be only one or two or three, among many, who undertake to so live, then there will be imposition. In one sense, I think I might properly say that, undertaking to so live while drawing you from out of the world to this time and place, there have been times when there was a great deal of imposition on me because you had not yet so learned to live. I do not say that in regret or in criticism, but only pointing out that it may be, as His disciples and as Members of His Body, that there will be times when you may, if you listen to the outer mind, think that you are being imposed upon for one cause or another. We know that there is no possibility of our being imposed upon to the degree that the world imposed upon Him. He so loved us that He lived for us. I do not think there is much danger of your being imposed upon as much as I have been. I have no regret, and there is no criticism in that; rather do I have great reward, because I see you coming into that place of living here and now where you live for one another, and living for one another, in the true living for Him, you begin to truly live for the Blessing of others in the world.
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” We have considered these Words before. Can you say honestly, from your heart, that they mean more to you tonight than they ever have before? We have there the standard of discipleship which must be fulfilled in us before we can hope to share in the adoption.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.”
Here we have another standard or measure of discipleship that blends with that which we considered a moment ago. We talk about the adoption or abiding, living in the One Christ Body on earth. He says, “Abide in me, and I in you.” When I was a young fellow about thirty years ago, those words sounded so strange to me. “Abide in me, and I in you.” That sounded like a peculiar statement, to say the least. If He had said that we were to abide in Him, that would be one thing, but for us to abide in Him and for Him, at the same time, to abide in us—that was the problem. Blessed Ones, it is still a problem. When that is fulfilled in us, we will have reached a point where we know what it is to be in the One Christ Body on earth. “Abide in me, and I in you.” It is really very simple, as all great and glorious Truths are.
Here, He has given instruction to the many Members of His Body, the many individuals who are to be drawn into that Body, who are to form His Body on earth, and if you are in His Body, you are in Him. If you live in His Body on earth, you are in Him, and if you are a part of that Body, and He is, through His Spirit, incarnate in that Body, then He is in you. That is the state of Being for which we long—to be in Him, that is, in His Body, that He may be in us, that is, in His Body. That is the Goal that has been set out here, in the Master's Word, through all these centuries. Does the state of the world indicate that His Body has had real form and has been really operative in the world? I think not, because if His Body had had true form through the many Members, and had been really operative in the world, things could not be as they are; for now, in our so-called modern civilization, between a quarter and a third of the world's population is facing starvation. We have war and every kind of terrible thing that can be inflicted upon the world. That sort of thing is not the fruit of the Christ Body. He said that we are to bring forth fruit; that we will be purged, that we may bring forth more fruit, and then that we are to reach a point where we will bring forth much fruit.
When we have reached that point of blending in Him, so that we abide in Him and He in us. He says, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” And then comes the change from disciples to friends—“Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” What did He command? He said, “Abide in me, and I in you.” We are not doing what He commanded us to do unless we abide in Him and let Him abide in us.
“Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another.”
First—“Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you,” and then He says, “These things I command you.” “Abide in me, and I in you.” He is our friend, in any case, whether we are merely servants or friends. For myself, I would rather be His friend. What do you think? Is there anything greater, or more to be desired, anything for which the heart could more earnestly long, anything for which you could more deeply yearn than to be His friend? You know that I know what I am talking about when I speak of being His friend.
“And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of Truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.”
Notice, He did not say, “Because I die, ye shall live.” According to His Own Word, He says, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” Here the picture is enlarged—not just two-fold, but three-fold. He says, “At that day…”—that is, the day of the fulfillment of these things in you—“ye shall know.” Not hope, believe or wish but “Ye shall know that I am in my Father”—that is, that the One manifesting as Jesus ascended unto His Father. “And ye in me,” that is, that we have been gathered into the true formation of His Body on earth. He says, “Because I go unto my Father, these things shall be.” It was because He went unto His Father— Jesus ascended unto His Father—that it remains for those who are truly following Him, and love and live for Him, to become Members of His Body on earth. “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father…”—that we know; He ascended unto His Father—“…and ye in me.”
That we are learning to know, learning to be, and abide in, His Body on earth. “…and I in you.” That we know we shall experience when we let the Spirit of His Love so bring us together with one accord, in one place, that the expression of His Spirit through us into the world shall let it become an actualized reality. Could He have said it any more plainly, any more simply, that human beings might know the Way, the Truth and the Life? Could He have said it in any other way to make it more real, to make it more pointed, to make it more worthwhile? You know, as you are truly learning to be His friends, that it could not have been expressed in any way that would have been better for humanity or for you.
These are the things we are to know, and then He says, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” He does not say that it was those who were with Him at that time. He leaves it unlimited as to time or place. “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” At that point, it does not say just how He will manifest Himself to us, but only that He will.
We know that in the immediate sense, at least, without limiting the ultimate outworking, the way in which He manifests Himself to us is in the outpouring of His Spirit through His Body on earth, and that that outpouring is the Breath of Life in His Body, that He may do the greater works on earth. The questioning one said, “Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, and not unto the world?” Does that remain for you a question? No. Jesus answered, using the same simple words arranged a little differently. “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” This time it was not that just He would come, but We—He and the Father. “We will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” That is, in the One Christ Body, because if you are abiding in the One Christ Body and He is in His Body, then you are abiding with Him and He with you.
“He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
The work of the Comforter then, in part at least, is what? To function in His Name? Yes. To teach you all things? Yes. But also to bring to your remembrance all the things that He said. When we bring His words to remembrance, or when they are brought to remembrance by the Spirit, is it just that we remember the words, as words learned like a parrot, or do we each time have a deeper realization of the Love which He expressed through those words, a deeper realization of the Spirit of His Presence contained in those words, a deeper realization of the wonder-working power released through those words? The words of Jesus Christ Himself, if they are simply repeated as words, become empty and meaningless—the letter that killeth. Merely because He said some words and we can repeat them as words, does not give us life, and we can repeat those things without having remembrance; for remembrance is what? Is it just to remember that we heard some words read out of the Bible, or is He bringing about that remembrance that springs from the Divine Source to cause you to remember your LORD, to cause you to remember Him, to cause you to remember the things of Eternal Reality, to cause you to remember who you are?
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” He was before the beginning of the creation of this world. There are a lot of things to be brought to remembrance. “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.” What beginning—just the beginning of His Ministry three years before? It might go back further than that; and there again we read His Words, bringing them to remembrance, that the Spirit of His Word may burn in our hearts as He walks in the Way with us. What was it that the disciples said? “Did not our hearts burn within us when He walked in the Way with us?” Do you think that is limited to a half-hour’s journey with two or three disciples nearly two thousand years ago? When He walks in the Way with us, because we let Him here and now, His Words burn within us. Our hearts burn within us. It is the Fire of His Love which we feel and know, and if it were not for the Water of Truth in this world, present in you, the Fire of His Love would consume you.
The Fire of His Love is to cleanse and purify the world. The world is reserved unto judgment by Fire. What Fire? The Fire of the Christ Love, and only those who have the Water of Truth will be able to withstand that Fire. All others will be burned up, according to the Word. Then He says, “These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended.” He never wants us to be offended. He says, “But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? Nevertheless, I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.”
When He, as Jesus, ascended to His Father, He made it possible for you and you and you and you to become a part of His Body on earth, but you could not be a part of His Body on earth as long as His personal body—in the sense that He was here as Jesus—as long as His personal body was on earth, could you? He could not have two bodies on earth, so it was expedient that He as Jesus should ascend, that all of us as One Body might share and know that which He knew. “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” He departed—therefore, we have the assurance of fulfillment through His Promise.
“And when he (the Spirit of Truth) is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of Judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; Of Judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.”
Three things—and those are the things about which I talk to you tonight. “And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin, because they believe not on me.” That is, they believe not on Jesus Christ. As we have considered the expression of the Spirit of Truth in the earth, we find that the world has been reproved of sin, and we find that the Way is clear whereby believing on Him is not just saying with the lips, “Yes, I believe on Jesus Christ.” Believing on Him is loving Him, keeping His commandments and letting His Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
So many who claim to believe on Him, do not do so. What was the standard of belief that He Himself set? He said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also.” Those who claim belief on Him and do not do His works do not truly believe, because He said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” He knew that the greater works would have to await the manifestation of His Body on earth through those who were responding, and those who would respond, and let themselves be directed and taught all things, and have all things brought to their remembrance—and so we see that belief on Him is more than lip service. We find the world reproved of righteousness. Why? “…because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more.” What does it mean to have the world reproved of righteousness? “…because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more.” Would any of you say that your understanding of that tonight is crystal clear? First, the world is reproved of sin and then of righteousness. Why?
Because He goes to His Father. He was ascending unto His Father. Under the influence of the Spirit, His Body was to continue on earth, not as one human being, but as many Members in One Body—belief on Him was to draw together from every nation, kindred and tongue on the face of the whole earth the Members of His Body, that in true belief on Him they might live for Him, and then His Body would continue on earth in the expression of the Spirit, in the manifestation of the Christ, and through that continued expression, under the direction of the Spirit, the world would continue to be reproved of sin and of righteousness. Now, the reason is clearer. He says, “…because I go unto my Father.” The reason is clearer, because His Body should continue to manifest—the many Branches of the One Vine.
But what does it mean to reprove the world of righteousness? What is reproof? Reproof is essentially a process of redirection. There has been a lack of righteousness; there has been a lot of so-called righteousness; there has been a lot of being content with about one-tenth of one per cent of the righteousness that ought to be. It seems to me that many so-called Christian lives are just about one-tenth of one per cent Christian. I am pointing out that the righteousness that is made manifest in the world—I do not care how earnest and sincere they think they are—is so far from the righteousness which ought to be. Jesus Christ established the righteousness of the actual doing of the Father's Will on earth, the actual expression of the Kingdom on earth here and now.
“Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.” In our consideration of Truth, under the inspiration of the Spirit, have you found these three specifications fulfilled? Jesus outlined three specifications. He gave certain specifications that we have already considered, that is, that the Spirit would teach you all things, lead you into all Truth, bring to remembrance whatsoever He had said, but here are three other specifications to be fulfilled of the Spirit, if the Spirit is the expression of which He spoke, namely, to reprove the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment.
“Of sin, because they believe not on me;
“Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;
“Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.”
Have these specifications been fulfilled through my Ministry in your own experience? Would you say, “Yes”? Have you found that it is so? Since that is so, and all of these points have been considered and dealt with in various ways throughout our consideration of Truth, under the inspiration of the Spirit, it follows, therefore, by the Master's own Word, that that which is required of you from this point onward is not dependent on blind faith or blind following. It is a matter concerning which—by the standard the Master Himself set in His Proclamation—He Himself gave proof that you are on the right Path, that you are moving in the right direction, under the right inspiration. Therefore, the outer mind in its wanderings and questioning has not much ground to stand on. You know that continued Love Response to Him, so that you love the LORD with all that you are in body, in mind and Spirit, and in the emotional realm, that is, in the heart, allows the expression of His Love through you to surely bring you to your place of adoption into the One Christ Body on earth.
“I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.”
Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for the blessed privilege of so responding in Love to Thee that we may be drawn into Thy Body on earth, and the expression of Thy Will shall shape and mould and make whole, until in Oneness of Spirit and Purpose we shall let that which is of Thee manifest in the fullness that is required to bring Thy Heaven to the children of men. And now, as you let go and let the Spirit express through you, you may share in our devotional period.
LORD and Master of us all, we thank Thee for the expression of prayer and devotion before Thee, both silent and audible, whereby Thy Radiance is allowed to flow forth, and we know that it reaches forth into the uttermost parts of the earth, that every man, woman and child who turns to Thee may know Thy Word, and, according to the day, so shall be the strength of each one, until in the glorious outworking of Thy Will it shall be that all who abide in Thy Body on earth shall share in the glorious Victory, and all that is not of Thee shall be cleansed away, IN the Christ. Aum-en. In the Peace of the LORD Jesus Christ let your Way be directed of the Spirit, now and always. Aum-en.
© emissaries of divine light
