Perspective of the King
Design in Heaven
Martin Exeter May 25, 1986 a.m. and p.m.
combined and condensed excerpt
This is an hour which concludes the Pacific Council which has been in session over the last several days. Any conclusion is always, at the same time, a beginning. In any beginning God creates. This may be so to the extent that we ourselves permit and participate in this creation. During this Council earthly things have been considered from a heavenly perspective. This has been possible to the extent that there has been repentance from considering earthly things from an earthly perspective. If it is necessary to repent from maintaining an earthly perspective with respect to earthly things in order to rise up sufficiently to view earthly things from a heavenly perspective, how then could heavenly things be considered?
To try to consider heavenly things from a heavenly perspective would not be any more fruitful than trying to understand earthly things from an earthly perspective. The human state of consciousness is always endeavoring to understand earthly things from an earthly perspective. Indeed there is the necessity of repenting from an earthly approach to a consideration of earthly things, in order that there might be some experience of resurrection to a heavenly level of understanding and a heavenly perspective of earthly things. This certainly has characterized the various considerations that have been brought to point during this Pacific Council. There is a greater sense of comfort and ease in considering earthly things from this perspective than there used to be. It has become more natural.
Here is evidence of a creative process at work in the experience of all concerned, and also a willingness to participate in this creative process a little less reluctantly than may have been the case in times past. Through experience we find out that it is a very delightful and satisfying experience to move in the cycles of resurrection. We have only done so to the extent that there has been a relinquishing of the earthly perspective of earthly things—defined by the word repentance. Repentance comes when there is the relinquishment of this earthly perspective of earthly things. It takes a rather deliberate stance to do this.
There has been a rising up in a general sense in this whole body of ministry, a rising up in repentance to the point where earthly things might be viewed from a heavenly standpoint. Let there be no sense of self-satisfaction in this, because it is only a beginning of participation in the creative process. There needs to be further repentance to occur in the relinquishing of the heavenly perspective of earthly things, because if one is involved with heaven in this way one cannot understand heavenly things—we cannot understand heavenly things until we are no longer involved in the heavenly perspective. This is not to say that the heavenly perspective has not freed up our awareness with respect to earthly things, but as long as we remain involved merely in that heavenly perspective we cannot understand heavenly things.
One considers whatever it is, at whatever level it is, rightly from a higher point. The things that are occurring in the earth can begin to be understood because there has been a rising up to a higher level which we call heavenly perspective. That is a step which has been taken by many of you, and others who are playing their part in this creative process. So there is the experience of resurrection to that extent. In order to be in position to consider heavenly things one must have risen to a level of perspective which is above the heaven. We could refer to this level of perspective as the perspective of the KING. It is the perspective of God brought to focus in relationship to the heaven and the earth—here is the comprehension of the wholeness, of the oneness, of heaven and earth.
If we merely examine the earth from the heavenly perspective, there is a state of separation being maintained between the heaven and the earth: now that we are up a bit higher we can look at the earth, apparently separate from the heaven; it isn't, after all, reflecting the heaven. How shall the earth reflect the heaven if we do not comprehend the heaven? If we merely stand in a higher position and look at the earth, we may pat ourselves on the back and say, “Well now I understand what's going on.” We don't really; we are just seeing things from a little different perspective. But the point has not been reached where there is true understanding. True understanding comprehends the whole—there is a consciousness of oneness.
So our concern is to continue in this cycle of repentance. We haven't finished yet! How quickly the tendency is to become self-satisfied, to assume that one has repented simply because there is a new perspective. This new perspective when it first begins to put in an appearance is remarkable, because it is unprecedented insofar as we are concerned. It is something new. This perspective from heaven sees something of a New Earth—we see the earth in a different way. But what about the New Heaven? To see the heaven in a new way requires a new stance which establishes a new point of perspective. This point of perspective, insofar as our own field of responsibility is concerned with respect to the heaven and the earth, is in the One we have referred to as the KING. Our stance must be the stance of the KING if heaven and earth are to be seen in the new, true perspective.
On this basis then there may be consideration of the heaven, because we are no longer involved in the heaven. Heaven and earth are the creation. But there is a Creator if there is a creation, and the stance of the Creator permits a true and accurate perspective with respect to the creation—which includes heaven and earth as one. A sense of separation between heaven and earth is bound to exist until the point of unifying perspective is experienced. Obviously there is a need during the process of resurrection to rise up through whatever is present between one's immediate positioning and the point to which one is rightly to come. One must pass through the intervening space, and this has been occurring.
There has been a release in consciousness which has allowed this new perspective of the earth to be encompassed, first of all in vision, outlook, attitude, but then also in action. If it merely remains a thing of mind and emotions the state of separation still exists. But rising up we come through the heaven, as we came through the earth, to the Apex Point, where there may be participation in the outlook and attitude of the KING toward the creation, which is an extension of Himself. It becomes therefore an extension of oneself if one rises up to that point of Apex, which is the focus centered in the KING.
When the Master was on earth He provided what He Himself referred to as the Way, the Truth and the Life, so that there might be opportunity for all to rise up to the true point of perspective which is established by reason of man. There is indication in three of the Gospels of an occasion when, as it is put in the seventeenth Chapter of Matthew, He took Peter, James and John, three of the disciples, up into a high mountain. Reference here is to rising up to a new level of perspective in which these three men were invited to share. This wasn't just for them but simply to open the door through them to the whole of mankind, to rise up once more to the point of true perspective. This occasion would subsequently be referred to as the transfiguration, an incomprehensible story to most, certainly to the three disciples who were on hand. When it happened Peter didn't know what to say. It didn't occur to him that he might just keep his mouth shut. If one doesn't know what to say, why not keep one's mouth shut?
Regardless of whatever the reaction of the disciples might have been, something was established to open the door wide, not only between heaven and earth but through to this Supreme Point of Apex above the heaven, from which real perspective is made possible. Anywhere below that point there is a modified perspective—somewhat inaccurate, untrue. This perspective from the mountain peak will be a perspective which is all-inclusive, 360 degrees. Anywhere else but at that point the perspective will be restricted. Ascending the mountain there is only a one-sided perspective. Only when you come to the peak can it be complete. Man belongs at the peak.
From the standpoint of our own experience, if we are honest we know that we do not have the peak experience. This should not be a matter of self-condemnation, because certainly there is whatever is required to bring one to the peak. We have described that as the creative process relative to our own experience. So there has been a movement which we have known individually, and have shared to whatever extent collectively, rising up into the heaven, so that we might have a heavenly perspective. There has been at times a certain sense of self-satisfaction that one has a heavenly perspective which most other people don't have, so that makes one rather superior to most other people. But it hasn't accomplished anything if by reason of such an attitude we sit down on the mountainside and go no further. Then we might as well have stayed in the plain.
Our concern is to participate in the creative process, which is not going to drop us off at any point. If we are participating in it we are carried by it and we rise up to a point where we have a heavenly perspective of earthly things. We look out over the plains from the mountainside and like most human beings there usually is the thought: “My, isn't this a wonderful view; I should build my house here!” Well we are responsible for a great deal more than sitting and admiring the view. If you are going to continue in the ascent you have to turn around with your back to the view. One may pause a little for breath occasionally and sit down and look at the view, and the view may help to restore energy and make it easily possible to continue the ascent, but let us never become fascinated by the view.
There is a creative process which will carry us to the mountaintop, and incidentally, from the mountaintop the intent is not to sit there and admire the view any more than it was during the processes of ascent. The view is magnificent and any way one turns there it is, but it is there because there is something to be done by reason of the continued working of the creative process. One's encompassment of the view is for a purpose, not merely self-satisfaction. This way of describing the continued working of the creative process may give a sense of what it is that is the ongoing necessity: for one thing, never to indulge in an attitude of self-satisfaction.
Stay humble. It's not difficult if one has a constant awareness of the fact that there is a continuing necessity for repentance. We don't have it made yet, and if that is the fact, then obviously there are some things still to be relinquished, those factors present in oneself which do not belong. That is repentance. We have had the personal necessity of relinquishing elements that we have come to recognize are not on Tone, various factors in our own experience and expression which do not reveal the quality, the nobility of character of the KING. We do not as yet have the required understanding of the character of the KING, but we know enough at the point where we may be on the mountainside. We don't know enough from the standpoint of standing on the peak. So there need be no self-judgment, but there must be a relinquishment of those things in one's own character, in one's own attitude and expression of living, which obviously do not characterize the KING. So there is repentance, repentance, repentance, as these things come into view, not for the purpose of mulling over them but merely for the purpose of relinquishing them. As we do so we find ourselves becoming lighter—an emissary of divine light. As there is repentance one comes free of these things, one becomes aware of what has been dishonest in one's own attitude.
There are those who have complained about the fact that I bring these things up. To those who participate in this process of repentance easily and naturally, speaking of the things that need to be relinquished is a relief: Let's let them go, now we see them! I doubt if they would ever be seen if we didn't give them some consideration: “Look at this heavy ingot of lead that is in your knapsack.” People resist that, fight against it: “Don't tell me what is in my knapsack!” Here we see why there is a necessity to refer to the weights. If everyone was willing now to be completely honest I would never refer to them again. That's a promise! But as long as they are there I am going to refer to them, and if you don't like it, that is up to you, but it will have no influence upon me at all. There are those who have over the years attempted to tell me what I should do and how I should do it. They don't even know what they themselves should do or how they should do it, so how can they tell me? Nothing that can be brought to bear on me will change my expression from being what is needful in the moment. I make that statement and put myself on the spot thereby, but I think we all need to put ourselves on the spot in this way. As long as we can keep little excuses: “Give me a little more time; I will strengthen up and somewhere along the way I will be strong enough so that I can do it.” One can do what needs to be done now; and what needs to be done now is what relates to one's state of consciousness now, not to something in the future. There will be things in the future, but what is it now?
So we share in rising up to the mountaintop. Now the three disciples in the story were taken by Jesus to the mountaintop; they couldn't go on their own. And even when they were there they didn't know it, there was no comprehension of what the outlook was from the mountaintop. That was all right at that point because they were willing anyway to ascend the mountain with the Master, which was the process of opening a door for everybody. They were uncomprehending. In one of the stories it says that they were very heavy with sleep. This was a forerunner to the occasion in the Garden of Gethsemane. They were heavy with sleep, so whatever the experience was seemed to them like a dream. They didn't talk about it much afterwards; they must have said something because somebody wrote about it. But the person who wrote about it didn't know what it was, and those who participated in it at the time didn't know what it was, so it is not unexpected that it wouldn't make much sense to anyone else later. But here was a very natural thing: rising up to the mountaintop, the place where man belongs, where there is a consciousness of the expression of spirit and an awareness then, by reason of that expression, of what that spirit is.
It was described in the story in symbolical terms. There was Jesus, and Moses and Elias [Elijah of the Old Testament] talking with Him. This is an interpretation that somebody made and it has its base in the truth of the matter, which was and is that the Spirit of God is the Spirit of Love, the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Life in communion—they were talking together—in oneness, just One Spirit. But there were three of the disciples there, which had its significance also, although not in their conscious awareness. But Peter, rather an emotional chap, couldn't keep quiet. He felt it was incumbent upon him to say something, so he said something inane. A bright cloud covered the scene, and so the awareness that had been momentarily touched was lost. I am not saying there was something wrong with that. It was all that could happen at that time, and it did establish the point where true perspective may be known, the point where man belongs; at the peak, the point where it is clear that heaven and earth are one and that the Creator, oneself, is one with his or her creation.
So there is repentance continually required, that there may be a rising up through the heaven to the point where there may be an examination of heavenly things, and in doing so there will at the same time be an examination of earthly things, because heaven and earth are one. But from the standpoint of heavenly perspective alone the earth seems to be a separate place. One can see things going on in the earth from a new perspective but it does not include the things that are going on in the heaven yet. Only when one rises up to the peak where the identity is with the KING can the whole picture be seen and the whole of one's expression be included in the creative process. Here is a part of the experience continuing to unfold. Whether individually we understand it or not is beside the point. It is understood from the standpoint of that Apex Point on the mountaintop.
The three disciples who ascended the high mountain with the Master became aware of something going on that they didn't yet really understand. And when there was the endeavor, particularly on the part of Peter, to articulate some sort of an understanding, 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 as the evidence of the design into which each one finds a natural place to be. 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. 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, 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, then the foolishness 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. So 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. 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. 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. And 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. 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 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. 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.
So there is this change of perspective. It comes 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. The LORD takes us into a high mountain. We find ourselves IN the high mountain; we find ourselves in 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, there I am also! 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.
We rise up together because spirit carries us up. 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. 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 into the earth, 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 attend to one's own business exactly where one is, and in the character and the authority of the Supreme One. 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
