New World or No World
Martin Cecil February 16, 1969 100 Mile House, B.C.
[Reading from Second Peter, Chapter 3, Verses 3:13]
“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts.
“And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
“For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God” [the action of primary Cause working through the consciousness of human beings] “the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water.
“Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.”
This is a descriptive passage referring to the rise and fall of land masses relative to the ocean, something describable in allegorical terms as the “flood.” We recognize that there was a colossal catastrophe which disrupted the entire pattern of the world, including the climate, and massive sheets of ice formed over various parts. What had been before was obliterated, all a result of the working of the Law because man’s consciousness was not permitting the expression of true Cause but was responding to the environment, which brought the outworking cycle to a point of no return. The state of affairs was so far removed from the true pattern that it could not be restored to Divine Cause and purpose. The obliteration was not entire insofar as the human race was concerned because, after all, we’re still here—but a new start was required.
There is a point of no return, where the plunge becomes so precipitous that the crunch inevitably occurs. The civilization that man had built vanished from the face of the earth, now scarcely remembered. According to man’s sciences it did not exist, and is recalled in mythology, and in the Bible.
“But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word” [by the same working of primary Cause through the consciousness of human beings as they now are] “are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”
What is an ungodly man? We think of those evil people who live someplace else I suppose, but an ungodly human being is one who is not expressing the qualities of Divine Being, and it doesn’t matter how he may be judged according to human standards. The day of judgment is every day because we reap what we have sown, but it also moves beyond the point of no return to an ultimate climax. I would suggest that that point is long gone. There is no return for mankind in the world he has made; he cannot reform the world. It is either a question of obliteration or of a new world, and I would suggest that it is some of each. It doesn’t take a keen discernment to recognize the blank wall with which mankind is faced, nor that there is bound to be immense loss of life, as it is called. The human race finds it has painted itself into a corner. There are things that are coming, and in some measure already here, of catastrophic proportions.
I don’t wish to engender fear, because fear achieves nothing—constructive at least. It is obvious that there are those who sense the dissolution which is at hand. There are those who align themselves with the destructive forces which mankind itself has set in motion. Of course that doesn’t do them any good but it does play into the hands of the Lord because the harvest of man’s own sowing is at hand. The Law is at work and part of the fulfilment of Divine Purpose now is the obliteration of billions of human beings. Recognizing something of this, some may say, “How could there be a God of love to permit such a thing?”
God is a God of love, but love operates according to Law. The Law works according to the choices of human beings, and those choices have been long made. The generations of today find themselves in the position of reaping the whirlwind that was sown a wind. But mankind is one; we are part of the body of mankind and there is a need to face this fact. Instead of complaining about the harvest, we need to concern ourselves with what can be done in this situation which is, after all, the fulfilment of Divine Purpose—maybe not the way that it might have been.
I recall our Master’s words when He wept over Jerusalem. The way was open, the opportunity there, but rejected; and the house is left desolate because the nature of the causes that were set in motion must find their inevitable fulfilment if no opportunity was taken along the way to allow the direction of movement to be changed. The point of no return is passed and the world is faced with the inevitable by reason of man’s own choice, but not because of what God did. God offered every opportunity to the children of men. The day of judgment is here; it has always been here but it moves to a climax.
“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
It seemed for quite a while that there was a very slow movement, very slow change. It didn’t seem as though the harvest was really being reaped. Perhaps not consciously, the idea was that people were getting away with it. Not so. In these latter days the movement is much more rapid. Only a couple of “days” have passed since our Master was on earth.
“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise” [in other words, the Law works regardless of human time elements] “but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish” [if there is perishing it is the human choice] “but that all should come to repentance” [experience change]. There was an extended period of time, seventeen, eighteen hundred years, when there could have been a change, but there was not.
“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” [the inevitable result, however interpreted, of the seeds of ungodliness sown by mankind generation after generation].
“Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
“Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?”
The way this is written, it seems as though these godly people are going to be just sitting on one side and observing what is happening to all the ungodly, that the godly really don’t have much to do with it. This is not the case of course because it is only by reason of the godly people—in other words those who are permitting the Divine expression, true Cause, to appear on earth—that there can be a new world. If there are none of those, then there is no world insofar as mankind is concerned, because the very nature of the processes of obliteration would take the human race out of circulation. It is through the consciousness of men and women who are expressing Divine Being on earth that the true Cause is established and the true effects appear.
The heavens relate to the realm of Cause, the earth to the realm of effects. The realm of Cause in this world is the realm of man’s consciousness and it is evident that it is taking fire, mostly uncontrolled, which is destructive. Emotions run high, emotions control. There is an intensity of feeling building up in the consciousness of human beings everywhere. They have their causes and they feel so strongly about them. The fire is burning. Whether it is a destructive fire or a creative fire is the question.
The way it is burning in the consciousness of human beings in general is obviously destructive. It causes people to do insane things, to destroy, to tear down, to kill. This insanity is intensifying on earth, a fire out of control. By the same token, that fire is the creative force, the means by which there may be a new world. But for a new world to appear, the fire must be under control; in other words it must be love as it really is and not the distorted patterns that human beings espouse in their own consciousness. Some of those are hate, but it is a strange contradiction that very often human beings indulge in hate with the idea that the end results are going to be love. Destroy all the wicked people in the world—depending on where you sit as to who they are—and, having hated them to death, the world will be a lovely place. Ridiculous! The fire would burn itself out completely and the consciousness of man would be dissolved from the face of the earth.
But there is something else. There is the true fire which comes down from God out of heaven, the fire of true Cause, the fire of love. It works according to design and under control, according to the truth. It is the flaming sword which turns every way. Back of it is the reality of life, the meaning, the purpose and fulfilment of life, which only appears as the qualities of Divine Being permeate the consciousness of men and women. Then there is true Cause on earth where the creation needs to take place. Behold, I create all things new—a new consciousness, a new heaven; and the result of that, a new earth. “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
© emissaries of divine light
