It is good to greet you again for an hour of evening's meditation. We have had a little touch of winter in the springtime. The Lord has provided much needed moisture for the thirsty soil.
Somehow tonight my thoughts turn back to the days of the beginning, before the fall of man, and the significance of the passage that tells how in the evening, in the cool of the day, the LORD came walking in the Garden to commune with man, and how that blessed privilege, in its full beauty and wonder, has been lost to man for so long. But how often, with the coming of the evening, the sounds of nature preparing for a night of rest, have you felt a certain loneliness, a certain longing, a certain restlessness and perhaps you did not know what to do with yourself, perhaps you sought some form of entertainment or deliberately engendered some pattern of action which would more or less cover up that deep longing of your soul. But there is with the coming of evening that inherent yearning in the hearts of all the children of men who have not shut out the urgings of the Spirit of God, the longing for the day when the LORD shall again come walking in the Garden in the cool of the day—a time of sweet communion, a time of rest from the physical activities of the day, a time that suggests unspeakable peace, a time when the depths of one's soul yearns for the beauty and the wonder of God's Love. In connection with this I would like to meditate with you tonight on some of the points we have touched in our Class work.
We have recognized that all of the Plan, the Program, designed to bring about the salvation of man, or the restoration of the world to the Divine Estate, since the days of the fall has been carried forward by the Priesthood—the Order of Melchizedek. In the Motherland, prior to its final submersion after the fall, the Naacal Sages were the Ministering Priests, the teachers, instructors, who were members of this Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. Every forward movement, every constructive thing, every blessing made manifest on earth since that time, without respect to person or place or creed, has been made manifest by reason of the working of this Priesthood. It was under the care of this Priesthood that preparations were made for our Master's coming, and He came as the Primary Focalization of this Priesthood. He was that Focalization before He came in the realm of men, and He still is.
Regardless of what church, what group, what color, what race, what belief, regardless of what sphere, religious or spiritual, or with respect to establishing governments or working out the Divine Pattern through nations or peoples, with respect to the opening up of the fields of knowledge and the development of understanding with respect to the laws of life, with respect to the inspiration essential to great inventions, all the developments, whether they are considered to be religious or industrial or scientific, all of the progress that man has known down to and including this day, including this hour which we share tonight, it has all, without any exception whatsoever, at any time, through any person or place, been under the influence, guidance, direction, of the Priesthood established after the Order of Melchizedek.
And we have taken note in our Class work of the fact that the First Sacred School was established, authorized, initiated, by Melchizedek, King of Salem, through Abram. And it is written that Melchizedek King of Salem brought forth bread and wine; and he was the Priest of the Most High God. “And Melchizedek blessed Abram and said, “Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth.” And as Melchizedek brought forth bread and wine, we are reminded of that evening hour of communication and communion that is spoken of as the Lord's last supper, when our Master used bread and wine in extending a blessing to His disciples. And all of this reminds us of that longing that is in the hearts of the children of men, that deep yearning.
If we speak of the Communion Service we are thinking of a pattern of communion that has for its basic purpose the recognition of the principles of life, the realities of being, as symbolized by the bread and the wine, and we see in this God's hand working to reestablish that which was known to Divine men and women when the LORD God came walking in the Garden in the cool of the day to commune with man. And our hearts have so often felt that yearning, that longing, that sweet, bitter loneliness—the bitter-sweet of the yearning for the restoration and the recognition of what was lost.
In this story of Abram we find many wonderful outlines which reveal the outworking of principle as it relates to us, the necessities of our lives and functions in learning to serve God. We have already meditated to some degree upon a passage which tells the story of how the Lord appeared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre, and Abraham sat in the tent door in the heat of the day—in the heat of the day. “And he lifted 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 we remember too, in this connection, how our Lord washed His disciples feet. Perhaps we will not take time tonight to read the whole story, but you will remember that it was after Abraham had entertained the Lord, provided food and allowed the three men, as it is put, to rest under the tree in the shade, in the heat of the day, that the Lord told Abraham that He was going down to see what the situation was with Sodom and Gomorrah. And we remember how Abraham interceded. In this we recognize the two primary aspects of application with respect to the One Law, or the fulfilment of the Two Great Commandments: first, to entertain the Lord; and secondly, to intercede for others—to love the Lord thy God with all that you are, and to love Thy neighbor as thyself.
Here in this story we have such a beautiful illustration of the fulfilment of the Law. If you wish to read it you will find it in chapter eighteen of the book of Genesis. But in this connection, tonight I wish to draw your attention to the eagerness with which Abraham welcomed the three men whom he saw, the three men representing the three phases of the human trinity as used to give release on earth, manifestation on earth, of the Divine trinity—the three phases of your own being, if you please, through which the reality of God’s Spirit is made manifest—but the eagerness with which Abraham welcomed the Lord, the diligence with which he entertained the Lord. In another place it is written that we should take heed lest ye entertain angels unawares.
Our first business, always, is to entertain the Lord. The deep yearning of our hearts—perhaps you have never understood it, perhaps you did not know why you felt that loneliness, that strange restlessness with the coming of the evening, but this is the reason; for back in the days before the fall we had the pleasure and the privilege of entertaining the Lord in the Garden, in a very real sense. And the LORD God came walking in the Garden in the cool of the day, in the evening; and there was the privilege of entertaining the Lord, the sweetest joys of heavenly days on earth. There was the process of entertaining His Spirit all through the day, tending and keeping the Garden which God planted eastward in Eden, keeping it in manifestation, not letting it go by into the past, into the west, without taking form.
Man has not tended that Garden nor kept it. For thousands of years it has been going past, moving from out of the future, out of the east, into the past, into the west, without ever finding form in the lives of men and women. Man was instructed to tend it and to keep it; for it is in that Garden that man has the privilege of entertaining the Lord. If there is the longing in our hearts at the coming of the cool of the day, if there is that yearning, it should make us more diligent in letting that Garden take form on earth so that we may have a place, a fit place to entertain the Lord in the outer sense. But even now, we have the privilege of entertaining the Lord in the inner sense, and this process of entertaining the Lord is the center of our meditation tonight, for it is only as you do consistently entertain the Lord that you can serve others. If you are not in the habit of entertaining the Lord you cannot, in any true sense, serve anyone else. Your life cannot, in any true sense, be of any value to anyone else nor to yourself. As we learn to actually entertain the Lord we begin to find ourselves in relationship to God and the expression of life on earth.
If you were to entertain the Lord tonight, in an outer physical sense, what would you do? Would you go bustling about trying to put up some hasty decorations or sweep some dust out of a corner or demonstrate what a good conversationalist you are, or take advantage of the opportunity to convince the Lord how smart you are, how much you know, or would you let your mind and heart, your spirit, come to rest and relax in the peace of His Presence?
Would you avoid presumption and would you just wait to see what He would like to say, what He would like to do? Would you not rest in the Lord and let go and enjoy the Spirit of Heaven made manifest by His Presence? And if He spoke, if He should open His mouth and say something to you, would you not find pleasure in receiving those words into your heart and meditating upon them? Could you pass through such an experience and not have something in your heart upon which to ponder, something to think about, something to keep sweet and sacred and holy in the depths of your own being, keeping sacred things sacred, keeping holy things holy, keeping sweet things sweet, and keeping heavenly things in the Divine Pattern of Being? This is so important if we would learn to commune with the Lord, to entertain the Lord.
We noticed Abraham's attitude here, for he ran to meet them. He gave an eager welcome. He began to serve. In the story, he ran unto the herd and fetched a calf tender and good, and he told Sarah to hurry in the baking of the bread, and he stood by them under the tree while they ate, ready to serve whatever need might appear. The eagerness, the openness of heart and mind, the unselfishness, the selflessness, with which he entertained the Lord. And then there creeps into our minds, our thoughts, memories of the time when the LORD of Heaven and Earth came into the world to visit for a little season, and how few there were who took advantage of the opportunity to entertain Him.
Consider something of what might have been if instead of trying to get something from Him the people then living had been willing to give themselves to serving Him—if they had been less concerned about being served and more concerned about serving. Consider something of what the story would be if He had not been rejected, but if the people of the world had received Him and entertained Him and acknowledged Him, if they would have taken advantage of the opportunity to commune with the LORD as He came walking in the desolation of the earth in the cool of the day. We do not need to try to figure out just what would have happened but we can see that the story would have been very different. And think you that if man had so responded and received our Lord, our Lord could not have provided for man's salvation under that circumstance, that if man had received Him, He could have worked out the possibility of the restoration without the crucifixion?
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To entertain the Lord. What is the pattern of meditation? If the President of the United States was coming and we were going to entertain him, I am sure that each one here would be extremely diligent in having everything as nice as we could. There would be meditation on what would be pleasing to our President, how we could make him comfortable, and make his visit here a happy, profitable one. You would meditate upon that which he represents. How much more, then, should we meditate upon those things which would make it possible for us to entertain the Lord effectively. If you would know the sweetness of a deeper communion in spirit, can you hope for that experience just waiting for it, hoping that some day something will happen to you that will make you know the beauty and the wonder, the reality of God in relationship to the children of men? Blessed Ones, it will not appear by happenstance. If these things are to come into your life in a deeper sense, a larger sense, you must do something about it, you must invite it, you must prepare for it, prepare with confidence. How do you meditate? How do you function in relationship to spiritual communion? If you ignore your opportunities for spiritual communion, to the best of your capacities, do you think that the greater experience shall come to you?
How much time have you spent today, or within the last twenty-four hours, in actual, personal, individual meditation, in a manner which opens your heart and mind to the realities of communion? What have you done? What have you felt? What have you thought which carried the pattern of entertaining the Lord, or at least His Spirit, in your heart? What have you done to establish in your own consciousness an awareness of welcome to the Lord? In twenty-four hours, twenty-four priceless, precious, wonderful hours, how much time could you spare for the reality of true meditation? Now I know that there were many things which you had to think about which had no direct bearing on entertaining the Lord. That would be, I suppose, understandable in this world. You just had to think about some other things. Did you? We suppose so. Suppose all of these other things were necessary—I rather doubt it, but suppose they were—and you used only the time you wasted—I am not talking about the time of sleep, but the time that was wasted, or did you not waste any time? Was the working of your mind, the working of your heart, the feelings within yourself, were they revealing the Divine Pattern?
Did you work in meditation until there was not one slightest hint of resentment toward anyone or anything? Or, did you entertain resentment instead of the Spirit of the Lord? Did you work in loving meditation until no slightest hint of fear could be found in your heart or mind? Or did you spend your time entertaining the spirits of fear instead of the spirits of Love and Truth and Life? What spirits have you been entertaining, for you did entertain some? You cannot maintain consciousness and remain physically alive without entertaining spirits of some kind. What were they? Were they the spirits of heaven? Are you aware of anything in your heart which ought not to be there, or have you reached the point of being pure in heart? “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God”—the moment they are pure in heart. They do not have to wait till they are dead, until some hereafter. The moment any human being is pure in heart he sees God; in fact, if you consider the nature of your heart you will find out what your gods are, whether they are idols, whether they are things which are not worthy of your worship, or whether you have obeyed the commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
How do you meditate? What is the process of meditation? Did you ever take some text—most any text will do that appeals to you; you should select your own—but did you ever take any text, any statement that you knew was divinely inspired, any statement which you knew to be true, a short text preferably that is not so long but what you could learn it easily? Did you ever look at it, read it over, think about it, wonder about it, perhaps memorize it, and then about that time say, “Well, I can't figure it out”? Of course not, you are not supposed to. If you have reached the point of having looked at it, read it, thought about it, wondered about it, and memorized it, you have only started. That is not the finish. You have not yet begun to meditate at that point. No. If you are going to meditate you will not try to understand it, you will not take the text or the inspired words and treat them like a puppy would treat a rag doll, just to wool them around. You will not take them and try to understand them and struggle with them. That is not meditation. You will look at them. You will memorize them, yes, but not just to repeat them over and over. But you look at them and keep looking, and stop trying to understand them, and let your heart blend with the spirit in them, and keep looking, and look some more, and meditate, not repeating. Once you have memorized them you do not need to repeat them. Your mind may go over them gently, caressing each word like something much loved.
Did you ever go over a passage of inspired words mentally, spiritually, caressing every word with all the love of your being, just meditating, holding each word like you would hold a little angel from heaven close to your breast? Did you ever look at each word like a loving parent looks at a baby, not trying to figure anything out, just looking? Did you not ever look at a baby and just look, not trying to dream any dream of what the child shall be, not wondering anything, just looking and enjoying the looking? Did you not? If you have never had a baby of your own to do that, any child will do. Did you not? If you have not, you have not learned how to meditate. Just to look and to love, and then to caress mentally and open your heart and enfold without any effort to understand. Do not try to understand. What is there to understand? What are you concerned about? You are supposed to be meditating, not trying to understand. If you are trying to understand you are certainly are not meditating. No. Just to enfold and to caress with your heart and your mind, and to look at it some more, and to consider—not just for an hour, not just for a day—perhaps for many days, and perhaps sooner or later you will pick up some other inspired passage. Do not try to exhaust all the potential in any passage when you meditate upon it. If you try to get everything out of it you will have nothing.
If you take any passage and try to get everything out of it you will have nothing when you get through. You will ruin it all. If you are going to entertain the spirits of God in your heart you cannot be entertaining the spirits which are in opposition to God all the time. You will have to make a choice. And if you would entertain the Lord in your heart you must entertain His Spirit first. Until His Spirit is at home in your heart do you think He would be? That loneliness, that yearning, that longing, which you have known, was it not the sweet desire for such communion, for such meditation? Was it not a recognition that when you truly love the Lord and open your heart to Him you will begin to know the true spirit of the words: The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the flowers appear on the earth, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair, one and come away.
Come away from what? Come away from those things which are dark and forbidding, unwholesome and unreal. Come away into the joys of the heavenly atmosphere which you can let appear on earth. If you are busy producing the wrong atmosphere, what think you? Could you enjoy the right atmosphere? Do you expect someone else to force it upon you, to provide it for you, to surround you with it so that you can’t get away from it? Do you think that then you would enjoy it and know it? As you meditate, you find that the next step in meditation is to let the spirit of that upon which you meditate find expression in your life.
You will not be trying to get anything—not even trying to get understanding—when you meditate. You will be finding the way to let the spirit of that on which you meditate have expression in your thoughts, in your words, in your actions—to watch your attitudes, and to see wherein they fail to reveal the spirit of your meditation; and if you find that which is contrary to your meditation you will deliberately consider it and let it changed and molded to the pattern of your heavenly meditation. There is nothing on the face of the earth in the unreal realm which can withstand the reality of heavenly meditation allowed to have expression in your life, so that you will be giving form to that which shall be provision for the LORD on earth. You will be doing what Abraham did, inviting the Lord to come to your tent, to your house, to your heart. And if you prepare no calf, tender and good—what does the calf symbolize? Your mind—your self-active mind is supposed to be tender and good for the Lord’s use. It ceases self-activity. You prepare the bread. You invite the Lord to rest under your tree, the tree of your life. And you entertain the Lord, and you prepare to receive Him. You receive His Spirit and give it expression in form, in physical function in living on earth. You begin to let the Garden of God have form in your life, in your thought and words and deeds, in your attitudes—for in meditation you are not trying to get understanding, or anything else. You are practicing the art of letting heavenly things take for because you live.
So many people practice, deliberately practice, how they can give form to something mean and ugly, how they can say something to hurt someone, how they can “get even,” as they say; how they can give body to their resentments—on all of these things they meditate. But how about that meditation wherein you give deliberate thought to giving form in your life to the things of the spirit of God, that there may ne a sweet communion in your soul, and that you may begin to keep sacred things sacred, that you may let all resentment be cast out, and that in loving God and entertaining the Lord and His Spirit on earth you may love your neighbor as yourself. And so, in the giving—in the giving of yourself—in the spirit of your meditation you shall live and be a blessing to the children of men. And only as you are a blessing can you glorify our Father in heaven.
Yesterday in our Class meditation we came to the point of briefly introducing the specific part of the story in which Melchizedek began to play a part in relationship to the life and work of Abram—Melchizedek, Priest of the Most High God, King of Salem. Salem, as you know, means peace: King of Peace; Priest of the Most High God. And we recognized that the Levites became the Priesthood in the pattern of the children of Israel, were supposed to maintain a Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. From the Divine standpoint we can classify any true priesthood as belonging to the Priesthood of the Order of Melchizedek.
It was Abram who was particularly blessed by Melchizedek, King of Salem, who brought forth bread and wine and was the Priest of the Most High God. I would like to particularly emphasize this text and remind you of what is called the LORD's Last Supper, because at that time there was bread and wine. In other words, the elements utilized specifically, at the point of the Last Supper, or what we now speak of as the Holy Communion Service, have a background in the written record extending to Melchizedek and Abram. “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.”
Your function here in this School has for its purpose the basic initiation into the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. There can be no true manifestation of spiritual power except on the basis of the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. This is the keynote, the key point, in relationship to the outworking of the whole Divine Plan and Pattern. And those who would share in the fulfilment of that Divine purpose on earth must, to some degree at least, begin to share the reality of the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. We cannot at this time, in relationship to our Class considerations, undertake to unveil, shall we say, all of the mysteries involved in this Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek, but I would particularly draw your attention to the fact that here, in the beginning of the pattern as it was with respect to the children of Israel, we have the specific mention of the Priest of the Most High God.
Now you begin to feel, the moment we touch this point with respect to Melchizedek, the moment there is any recognition of the reality of this Priesthood, that to Melchizedek God was no mystery, the Divine Pattern of Being was no mystery—the focalization of manifestation on earth where God was not mystery. And in the blueprint as outlined in the Book of Revelation, the 10th chapter and the 7th verse, we read: “But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.” The mystery of God should be finished.
God has never sought to be a mystery to man, but man's refusal to know God has caused God to be a mystery to man. Until we begin to realize that the ending, or the finishing, of the mystery of God is a process that takes place within, in you as an individual, you cannot have the joy of seeing the finishing of the mystery of God. And while God is a mystery to you, you cannot know the fulness of that which you should reveal on earth; for you came into the world to reveal God, and you cannot reveal that which is a mystery, unknown to yourself. So, here, in the very beginning of the pattern as we share it at this time, Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, and he was the Priest of the Most High God. And the pattern of our purpose and goal is that the mystery of God should be finished. Only to the degree that we today let that be the case, let that process work out in ourselves as a unit, or as a Body, or as members of that Body, can we be Priests and Priestesses after the Order of Melchizedek.
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What does it mean to be a priest? What does it mean to be a prophet? Generally speaking, human consciousness limits the idea of a prophet more or less to the idea that a prophet was one who could foretell future events, he could prophesy, he could tell what was coming, someday. While the revelation of the spirit of God through the individual may reveal something of that which is coming out of the east, a prophet is one who lets the Word of the Lord be spoken on earth. The true meaning of a prophet is one who speaks the Word of the Lord on earth. And to whatever degree you let the spirit of God determine the words you speak you are a prophet. But there is something higher and greater than being a prophet.
We might note that one can be a disciple without being a prophet; one can be a prophet without being a priest. And we begin to recognize that it is not enough merely to be a disciple, one who follows after; it is not enough merely to be a prophet, one who speaks the Word of the Lord on earth; it is necessary that we enter the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek—not only to speak the Word of the Lord but to do the works of the Lord; to work out the Divine Pattern on earth, to live the reality of that which is, to the world, the mystery of God. And it is only as this reality of Priesthood is made manifest that we can have the manifestation of power necessary to the accomplishment of the Divine purpose on earth.
There have been quite a number of people who have sensed something of the significance of Melchizedek, or the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. There are some so-called modern schools of thought which claim to stem from that point but which, by their very attitudes and actions, show that it is a forgery and nothing more. You may run into people who think that they know something about Melchizedek and the Order of the Priesthood; there are those who have studied certain courses of lessons and gone through various steps according to their concepts, who imagine that they are functioning in that field. We would recognize that wherever truth is in expression, there the influence of this Priesthood is to be seen and felt to some degree.
But the control pattern with respect to humanity, and the design pattern with respect to the plan and purpose individually and collectively, is carried over in focus to this present period of time, which begins here with Abram and extends to ourselves, from the Motherland. The focalization of the Divine Pattern as it was working in the Motherland, where the pattern of government, the manifestation of the educational system and what we might call the religious or spiritual life of the people, all came to focus in the Priest of the Most High God. The pattern of connecting that which was known in the Garden of Eden, or in the Motherland, with that which is known within the period of recorded history is carried over to us, and made available to us, on this basis: Melchizedek, King of Salem, Priest of the Most High God—and that particular focalization, in manifestation, of Priesthood gave man the opportunity of returning to the Divine Estate.
The true purpose of the development of the pattern of the children of Israel was to make possible the manifestation of this Priesthood, not for purposes of selfish nationalism but to the end that through such a manifestation of Priesthood the spirit and power of God could be extended out to all humanity. The real purpose with respect to all of the tribes of the children of Israel was to the end that the different tribes could be different parts of the Body, finding true expression and meaning in and through the Focalization of Priesthood, by which the power and spirit of God should extend to the whole earth. Only to the degree that the children of Israel allowed that fulfilment was their outworking in history according to Plan or truly meaningful. We see a development in the outworking in that historical pattern which produced a selfish nationalism, an exclusiveness, a degeneracy in those who were given the privilege of Priesthood, so that it became something that was a far cry from that which God intended.
Now Melchizedek established this Pattern with respect to Abram, outlined the Plan and the Purpose and the Method—not all at once but over a period of time—and carried the Pattern through with respect to Isaac, and Jacob, who became Israel, and gave those who were at that time responding to Divine Direction an opportunity to allow the full manifestation of the Divine Plan in action in relationship to the physical world. This first step in the dawn of history, in the unfolding of the Divine Plan, had to be on the basis of reestablishing the First Sacred School, giving human beings an opportunity to approach the process of development into the Divine Pattern on what we might call the physical plane—that is, an outer, physical approach. The full significance of that may not be immediately evident, but all of this that is recorded here with respect to the development of the children of Israel from Abram's time had that one thing for its purpose, and when we look back we see that the children of Israel failed miserably in fulfilling that purpose. We will examine something of the steps of outworking later on.
But once we begin to see that the Master refocalized, when He came into the world, the Master refocalized exactly the same thing. He did not undertake to change the Pattern around in some fashion. He did use the Second Plane approach instead of the First Plane approach. It was impossible to undertake to use the First Plane approach anymore; the conditions necessary for its use had passed, and humanity had failed to carry through in it, so there was nothing more that could be done about it except to use the next cycle in order to make the next plane approach. And the Master Himself came into the world to do that.
But again, just as with the children of Israel, the Purpose was not recognized, the Plan was not accepted, and those who call themselves Christians have, in following out their own ideas and concepts with respect to these things, produced the same types of failure which were made manifest with respect to the children of Israel. The children of Israel were finally taken into captivity and scattered. Have the so-called Christians been taken into captivity? The answer is obviously “yes”—taken into captivity on a basis which has not allowed the manifestation of power, the reality of the Divine Priesthood. The disciples were supposed to become prophets, and as the cycle worked out and the day of Pentecost came, they began to function on the basis of speaking the Word of the Lord. If they had been content to wait for the Lord's direction, instead of impulsively using the current of power on the basis of their own choices, they would have become prophets, so that they could have actually expressed the Word of the Lord and begun to see the Plan of God, the Plan that the Master brought into focalized manifestation on earth. And then they would have become, had they held steady, Priests after the Order of Melchizedek, and there would have been the manifestation of power, under the Divine Pattern, sufficient to influence every phase and department of life, extending into the spiritual influence or control in the world of government.
A little of this has of course gotten through now and again, shaping the Divine ordering of human events in order to make it possible for us to have this present opportunity. You are sharing the work of the Third Sacred School again being made manifest on earth. Humanity has failed to utilize the opportunity when the First Sacred School was being reestablished. The same is true with respect to the Second. Those chances, those opportunities, are gone. Let us look back for a moment. What was one of the great stumbling blocks to those who thought to follow Jesus at the time He was on earth? Human beings were then still trying to work things out on the basis of their concepts of the old order. The pattern as it appeared with respect to the First Sacred School had degenerated into a human pattern, as symbolized by the scribes and Pharisees, for instance. And they could not see on what basis there should be a New Pattern. Their subjection to the old pattern tended to make them reject the New Pattern. They did not realize that no matter what should be, no matter how many human beings were responding or trying or anything else, since the cycle had broken in relationship to that first pattern it was utterly useless. Jesus Christ Himself could not make that first pattern work under those vibrational conditions. That opportunity was lost, it was gone. It could not be reinstituted by any means whatsoever in heaven or on earth. It was gone. And they did not see that. They did not realize they simply had the empty shell of something far different from that which God had given to them.
Now we have something of the same pattern. Human beings today tend to have difficulty in letting go of the old pattern, and they try to make the pattern as they think it was with respect to Jesus work in this present time. It can’t be done. If Jesus Christ Himself came on earth He could not make it work on that basis. That opportunity was lost; the cycle was broken, and there simply is no way by which that can be caused to work out to a point of fulfilment on that basis. It can’t be done. That cycle was broken, as surely as the cycle with respect to the First Sacred School. Now that does not mean that the truths that were contained in the teachings and presentations of the First or the Second were lost. No, because I have shown you that the focalization aspects were carried over, and they were just the same in principle in the Second as they were in the First—and the same is true today. But the approach, the basis of attempting to work it out, which could have worked under the Master's leadership and with respect to the vibrational factors as they were at that time—that pattern could have worked, but it didn't. Instead of actually working, there was a break in the pattern almost immediately, and there was the thousand years of the Dark Ages, the millennium. The Second Plane approach is what? Mental, with respect to consciousness, the working of the mind as such. And human beings are still today trying to use that same approach. They think they are getting somewhere with it. They are getting into trouble; that is all we’ll get into with it. But if they had carried through there would not have been any thousand years of the Dark Ages, when man's mind was bound in darkness.
Let me emphasize something to you. What was the date with respect to the manifestation of this blueprint which we now use, the blueprint that relates to us today? According to the Biblical pattern it is listed at 96 AD. That’s close enough for all practical purposes, perhaps not quite accurate but close enough to emphasize my point. It was not until long after the day of Pentecost, long after all these tangent patterns had come into manifestation and the break was beyond repair, that God made arrangements for the refocalization of the Divine Pattern, or the blueprint. He gave what we call the Book of Revelation, so it would be on hand, within manifestation, for the next cycle of outworking. That opportunity had been thrown away back there, and all of the intervening struggles to try to make that pattern work have proven futile. It had some semblance of effectiveness up to the beginning of, well, what we might call our national history. It was losing that semblance of meaningfulness long before that, because there was an overlapping in the vibrational factors. But the New Pattern had emerged to its reasonably full force, so that the overlapping vibrations from the old pattern were virtually gone by the turn of this century, and see what happened.
We have something new, something altogether different. Now it is the same truths, the same laws, the same basic purpose, but the approach is different, and must be different. And as long as the Christian world tries to make the approach on the basis of what they think the Master used, when they do not understand the Second Sacred School at all—they could have understood it if they had allowed the cycle that opened with what is called Pentecost to really work out and carry through, but they never gave themselves a chance to understand it, and the churches that have developed out of that have never given themselves a chance to understand it. I am not condemning them, but they are just simply utterly ignorant of what is meant, what the Divine Plan was then, and the human concepts of pattern derived out of that simply do not work, not in the sense that God intended. And any effort to still use that pattern of approach must fail, because God Himself would not try it. It would be impossible to God, because it would be an attempt on God's part to violate His own laws, to ignore the vibrational factors in the Cosmos, to ignore the natural cycles of the unfolding pattern of the Four Forces.
So we come to the Third—and the Third is what? The Third Sacred School has the approach on the Spiritual Expression Plane basis. It is not as popular, in the outer sense, as either of the other two; a little more difficult in one sense, but we can, under this vibrational pattern, make a Third Plane approach and revitalize the factors of the Second and First Plane patterns in relationship to ourselves. But if we try to make a physical approach—look how many people are still doing that—they are going to make a physical approach and solve the problem, but they never do. Then there are those who are going to make a mental approach to solve the problem, but is it working? Certainly not. Oh, they have gained a lot of knowledge as such, but it does not solve the problem, and can't.
Now those approaches at that time, under those vibrational factors, would have allowed the development of awareness so that the Three-Plane Pattern could have come into manifestation under either one. In other words, suppose the disciples had followed through and allowed that Pentecostal Pattern to really unfold and become what it was supposed to be. Then the factors that were with respect to the physical plane approach would have been reactivated and revitalized and drawn into alignment, and that which was of the Third Plane vibrational factors would have come into manifestation in relationship to it, and there would have been alignment. But they didn't do it. Now we cannot just arbitrarily reach out there and use one of these other approaches and get anywhere. We can try it. Millions have tried it. If you want to waste time with it, that is your business, but it will not work.
Now, we use the Third Plane approach today, and it is the only way that will work, because we have an altogether different vibrational pattern than was present in the past, either at the time of the children of Israel or at the time of the Master. Once we begin to function correctly on the basis of the Third Plane approach, the Second and First Plane patterns become reactivated and drawn into alignment with respect to ourselves, because the mind and the body, individually speaking, begin to come under subjection to that. The alignment is established and you begin to be what you should be; you begin to have the manifestation of healing power, for instance. But this is the Third step in the period of recorded history, to give man an opportunity of restoration.
The outline in Revelation relates to this Third Plane approach. Why do those who have been functioning on the basis of the First or Second Plane approaches find Revelation meaningless, virtually? Oh, they have concocted some bright ideas with respect to it, but it just simply doesn’t mean a thing. When they try to interpret it on that basis it becomes fantastic nonsense. They could not do anything else with it. Not until we make the Third Plane approach can the Book of Revelation have any meaning, and under that approach it does have meaning; it is the Divine Blueprint. Now suppose this cycle were broken. The only cycle that could be opened to humanity would be with respect to the Fourth. Now if man has thrown away the First and Second, and then should throw away the Third, which is really the highest level contact that he can hope to make—if he throws this one away and has to be limited to the Fourth Plane approach, would he have any chance? Obviously not.
In other words, man has thrown away two opportunities, the third one is established, and if he throws that one away there is no more, it is finished. Now he isn’t going to throw it away; I am not suggesting that. There are going to be a few, somehow or other, to carry the Pattern through. But that’s what we’re here for, and until we begin to let the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek have meaning in relationship to this Third Sacred School approach to the fulfilment of the Divine Pattern, we cannot hope to accomplish that to which we are called.
And so, when you begin to see that our LORD, when He came on earth, was a Priest of the Most High God, after the Order of Melchizedek, you can begin to see that you cannot truly follow Him unless you too let that sensing of the Divine Pattern have meaning in your life. And unless we utilize the vibratory factors that are available to us today we cannot receive it. You try to receive it on the basis of the vibratory factors of the past cycles and it will not work—you can’t receive it. You may go into fantastic flights of fancy, as many have, but you will not receive it.
You must receive the gifts of God on the basis of the vibrational factors, and we remember that our present Vibrational Pattern is what? Air—Water—Air. And if we try to use the vibrational patterns at work at the time of the Master we fail; it won’t work, not today. It could have worked then, under His leadership, but it can’t work today, under these vibrational factors, and I wouldn’t attempt to work it out. He could do it. I can't. I make no pretense of it. But I can, with the help of those who are willing to share it, I can work it out on the basis of the present vibrational factors, which utilize the elements that were allowed to come somewhat into manifestation in that First and Second cycle and allowed to become meaningless. You can utilize those same elements and carry through to victory. And it is your choice. What shall it be?
