“And the Lord appeared unto [Abraham] in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said. So do, as thou hast said.”
There is a very simple and beautiful story, portraying a right attitude on the part of a human being toward the Lord. Most of those who do pay any attention to the Lord are inclined to make demands upon Him: “O Lord, help me.” “O Lord, forgive me.” “Do something for me!” Why do you think we are assembled here in this room this evening? We might say to greet the Lord, to invite Him to pause with us while we are all together here, for an hour perchance. We would extend an invitation in this regard—we could hardly do so unless we were in position to provide what would be fitting for His care and comfort.
When human beings think of doing something along these lines it is usually seen in terms of some sort of a religious ceremony; one would perhaps have to go into the church, where the Lord would feel welcome. Having been in some churches, I have wondered a little on this score. But this relates to right attitude on the part of anyone, and the invitation should not only be extended on special occasions. We may have something of a setting here which reminds us of the rightness of extending an invitation. On some other occasions we may not think of it. If we have the attitude of welcome to the Lord, and a sense of responsibility with respect to the place into which we invite Him, then we are careful that all the immediate field of our responsibility should be such as to allow Him to be safe with us.
When He did come into the world there was, apparently, very little preparation made for His coming; there was no indication of an open welcome, and He Himself said that “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” There was no place on earth right and fitting and safe for Him. We have come to know that “The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” Therefore we are concerned, at least in our fields of responsibility, to make sure that He is welcome and safe. We would run to meet Him—provide enfoldment.
This is rather a reversed attitude for most people who have given any thought to the Lord. They say, “We want His enfoldment.” “We want His love.” “We want to feel that we belong to Him.” “We want to feel safe, and secure.” “Help me. Lord.” What self-centeredness! We are here this evening, together, to extend an invitation to the Lord, and we would wish to make very sure that the atmosphere that we provide, the setting that we provide, the provision of our offering, be acceptable to Him.
If we can sense something of this as relating to our immediate responsibility here and now, we should be able to see that the same invitation, in an individual, personal sense, should be constantly extended. Is it safe for the Lord to come into the kitchen? What would He find there? What would the spirit and the attitude, the words and the actions, of those present in that particular circumstance be? Is it safe for Him to come into our homes? into the office? the workshop? wherever?—wherever we may be present? Possibly some of the circumstances in the world where we may be do not seem to be particularly fitting; the behavior of those present is not such as to provide much of a welcome to the Lord—but I am not particularly thinking of somebody else but of what is true of us as individuals.
We have often spoken of human beings as revealing a good deal of self-centeredness. People get so wrapped up in what they happen to be doing—not necessarily in what they should be doing, but in their own feelings and emotional reactions that are occurring within themselves. Sometimes these things have very little to do with the particular job that is being undertaken; the mind is somewhere else and the emotions are involved. When this is the case, then there is forgetfulness that we are responsible, responsible for maintaining this open invitation. If the Lord is not welcome—and I'm sure you recognize that your attitudes on occasion are not a very open invitation to the Lord—then what foundation have you for living? There is something to be born now here, something coming down from God out of heaven to be welcomed, to be provided with a proper setting in which it may safely appear. We would provide such a setting in this moment. This requires something of us—to remember what we are about, for one thing—so that we're all here. I am sure that if it was the fact, in the usual human view of things, that the Lord Himself, in person, were to come in through this door here, we would be very alert, we would be very careful that we missed nothing, that we were right there! He is not likely to come through that door, so we feel, “Well, we'll wait awhile. Maybe He'll show up—but not tonight; therefore I don't need to be all here.”
He did show up back along the way, some nineteen hundred years ago. He showed up on earth. Except for His immediate parents, very little was provided for Him and He was not particularly welcome. He seemed to cause people to be uncomfortable. This is not the usual picture that good Christians have of Jesus, is it? “It's so comforting to have Him around.” I wonder! I'm sure none of us would wish to have Him experience anything of that nature again; once was entirely enough. So, obviously, we have to provide a different setting, a setting of welcome, a state where He may rightly be entertained. [How To Meditategreatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2021/02/how-to-meditate_10.html]
When He was on earth He said something about “in an hour when you think not, the Lord comes.” This could mean unexpectedly, when we're not giving it any thought; and yet, here is the opportunity for His coming, if we were alert to it, if we were giving it a little thought. When Abraham saw these three men who represented the Lord, he ran to meet them. He bowed himself to the ground; he offered a spirit of hospitality, to provide all that was needed in that particular setting and situation, not asking for anything—no self-centeredness whatsoever. How little of this attitude there is in human beings toward the Lord! We are not here to get anything from Him.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the KING of GLORY shall come in. Welcome! The concern, rightly, is to provide that welcome, provide the essential setting. In the settings in which you find yourself during a day, would you wish the Lord to show up just after you had opened your mouth and said something? Would there be an enfoldment for Him?
“Welcome, Lord; this is your home”
“The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” Welcome! Come to be here, assured of protection, comfort, safety, the enfoldment of love. We are here this evening with one accord, to provide such a setting; but we are not likely to provide such a setting now, even though we may pay more particular attention to it, if we have not been providing that setting in all the areas of our daily experience. When human beings get emotionally involved in something, everything else tends to be blotted out; it makes very little difference if the emotion is a pleasurable one or an unpleasant one, the same thing happens. A person says, “Well, I like this, this is wonderful, this is really enjoyable.” For whom? “Well, for me, of course!” And the Lord is forgotten. He should always be present, shouldn't He?—with the two of us, the spiritual aspect and the material aspect of what we are. Here is a triangle, with the apex in the Lord; but when we get involved with each other emotionally, all this is forgotten.
Are there any situations into which the Lord would not be invited with an open heart? It's all right now, isn't it? We can invite Him now because we remember and this is our immediate concern, and we're not all wrapped up in each other or in the circumstances that press in upon us. Perhaps we can relax and, remembering, extend the invitation to the Lord: “Welcome, Lord, to my home, which is indeed your home; and may my words be sweet and right, my thoughts likewise, my feelings also, and my actions,” that the setting would be just right.
I wonder how many Christians who anticipate the second coming of Christ really have this attitude. They're so busy about their business that, “Oh, of course I believe in the second coming of Christ; He'll show up one of these days. But I have all these things to attend to; I'm involved in all this mass of stuff. I like some of it; most of it's not so hot, but I have to be busy about it anyway.” What a tremendous difference there is in one's own experience if one is providing the setting in which the Lord is welcome.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the KING of GLORY shall come in. He's right there! There is a Holy Place for Him, a Holy Place provided by what we are—our own expression. We can't have a Holy Place on earth without a physical body and a capacity of consciousness. What we are as human beings requires this, that there may be spiritual expression, that there may be a Holy Place. The Holy Place is right next to the Holy of Holies, as it was in the Tabernacle of old, with just a curtain in between—the veil. The Holy of Holies was an actual place in the Tabernacle—it had dimension, thereby symbolizing that it was a part of the dimensional world, representing the heaven of the now here—and the Holy Place into which that heaven might be received through the veil. Those who were encamped round about, the Israelites, were not all endeavoring to cram into the Holy of Holies, “Well, we need to get in there; that's the place to be.” No, they were in the encampment. They didn’t even cram into the Holy Place. There were some who belonged in the Holy Place—the Priesthood.
So it isn't a matter of getting through the veil, but of providing the setting for what is the other side of the veil to come here; and if it is to be a reality it isn't an on-again, off-again business. “Well, we'll just provide a setting in our services; that's good enough.” Then, on that basis there's no real setting in the service, because the setting is provided by those who are present, and if those who are present know nothing about the setting from the standpoint of their daily experience, what have they to offer on some special occasion when they come into the Chapel? This is what happens, mostly, in the Christian world, isn't it? Some people think it's the thing to do, to go to church on Sunday. What do they bring? What do they bring with them? Do they provide a setting? No, they expect the church to be the setting, and, coming into that setting, they expect to get something out of it—maybe a little bread and a little wine to make them feel good, to assure them that they must be of some value.
But who really goes into a church to make sure that there is a setting there for the Lord because they are present?—not because of the building, not because of all the embellishments of the building, but because of the people. If there is a setting here, it is because of you. We have a beautiful room, and we thank God for that; it's better than sitting out in the snow, and it makes it easier for us to provide the setting. But the setting is provided by people or it isn’t provided; and if the setting isn't there, if the gates aren't open, then the KING of GLORY doesn't come in.
Those who truly love the Lord never leave the Holy Place. Does that mean they never go out of the church, or the chapel, or wherever? No, simply because they are the ones who provide the setting of the Holy Place, if there is such a setting. If one is providing that setting, one will provide it everywhere, no matter where one is, and you would never allow anything that defiles, works abomination, or makes a lie, to enter in. Could the spirit of resentment prevail in the right setting? Of course not! Could words of complaint and criticism be expressed in the right setting? Of course not! It couldn't be done; it wouldn't be possible. Some people think it's such a chore to be a right person. It isn't a chore; if one is providing the right setting, one couldn't help but be a right person, and the ill attitudes which arise in human experience simply couldn't remain. If they did put in an appearance they would be gone very quickly, by reason of one's own attitude: “Get thee hence!” This setting should be the setting of our lives twenty-four hours a day, and when it is, the KING of GLORY comes in, to this extent.
There is a certain requirement if He is to fully come, and that requirement includes many people in whom this Holy Place is maintained. If the many people required are not present, then only a partial coming in is experienced. We recognize the reality of a Body of Many Members, through which the Lord comes on earth. That Body must be sufficiently developed, sufficiently mature, if it is to really happen. There are some rather fanciful pictures of Jesus as a boy, even as a baby, blessing everybody. How ridiculous—handing out miracles! He was a baby human being for a while, a young boy for a while, a youth for a while, all necessary to the development of the physical capacities and the capacities of mind and heart, the capacity of spiritual expression, all to be developed so that the KING of GLORY might come in—a whole body, in the individual sense. Well, this was, as we know, representative of a larger Body, the True Body which is composed of many people; and that larger Body has to grow, has to pass through these various levels of development, to come to an adequate maturity for the KING of GLORY to come in adequately, to be revealed adequately. But there is something revealed all along the way, and this development occurs as there are those who take seriously the matter of accepting responsibility for providing a setting which is described by the words “Welcome, Lord.” Then the Tabernacle of God is with men, and because of that, the former things can pass away.
This evening, surely, our hearts are yielded and open in that beautiful attitude portrayed in the little story which I read about Abraham. Welcome, Lord, into the atmosphere of my life! Welcome, Lord, into the atmosphere that is provided by all of us here together this evening!
The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
There is a design! Ascending into the hill of the Lord we may stand in His Holy Place, because we retain nothing in the expression of our lives which would not be fitting as a setting for the Lord. And when this is the experience, then the blessing from the Lord is received, and righteousness from the God of our salvation. That is the state, and the KING of GLORY comes in.
Is it not the longing of our hearts that it should be so? What hope is there for the children of men unless it happens? And who shall let it happen, if not those who are consciously aware of the way it happens?—and being consciously aware, assume the responsibility for the happening? Not for making it happen; there's no need to make it happen. Just let it happen, because the invitation is extended and it's a genuine one—not just when I happen to think of it. If we love the Lord, we would be willing to care for Him, to protect Him, so that if it should be that He came in person, He would be safe. But we want to make very sure that He would be safe before He comes in person. Welcome, Lord, to our home, the home in which we dwell constantly, wherever we are, whatever we are doing. That is the home because we are present. And it is a true home, a true setting, for the Lord whom we love. [Body Of The High Priestgreatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-body-of-high-priest.html]
So it is we walk always on holy ground. No matter what's going on around us, we walk on holy ground. In a practical sense we can't help it; the earth is the Lord's. But we know it's holy ground, and our attitudes are accordingly. And so, with you, I thank God for the privilege we have had this evening of sensing more vividly the nature of our responsibility. What a delightful responsibility! What more wonderful thing could be imagined than to provide the invitation to the Lord, than to be willing and delighted to entertain the Lord always!
