The Essential Female Role

The  Essential  Female  Role

 

Martin Cecil  October 18, 1981 pm

The tabernacle of God is with men. There would be no adequate dwelling place possible on earth for God without men. It seems that often human beings have the right words, which they repeat. This is particularly so in the religious world, where many of the things that are said are true enough. There is indeed a need for human beings to come back to God, which is another way of saying to awaken to the truth—God didn't go anywhere. In spite of the many words that are spoken, so little has really happened. We presumably have seen something of this and we are not inspired. So there was a sufficient awakening to bring us into an awareness of the continuing presence of God and a recognition that we ourselves are rightly the tabernacle of God.

It is our desire, I am sure, to welcome God into His tabernacle that He might be wholly present. In our own experience He has as yet only been partially present; there is a wholeness to be known. “And ye shall know the truth,” not the truth about God or about anything, but know the truth because this is our total expression in life; then we know it.

We recognize that it is because God has been excluded from human experience, except in little dribs and drabs, that the world has been filled with violence and all the things that accompany violence. All the troubles in the world have been the result of excluding God from His tabernacle. The attitude has been: “God, stay out of the world and leave it to us.” The result of course is trouble. So much of human achieving, then, has been in this field of trouble. “Let us get rid of the trouble”—this would be a great achievement. “Let us set up an arrangement so as to eliminate war; let us find out all about everything so that we can eliminate disease.” This medical field is a great field for human achieving, isn't it? Virtually all attempts of achievement by human beings have been to get rid of the results of excluding God from His tabernacle. Obviously that is rather foolish. Perhaps we have awakened sufficiently to see its foolishness and have consequently undertaken to allow something else to happen, so that we stop contending with trouble, trying to make our mark on earth because of our success in eliminating trouble. We decided, I suppose, that the better approach would be to welcome God into His tabernacle so that there wouldn't be any trouble.

I speak these words now. They may seem to be quite familiar to you. You know about it; you maybe even know it to some extent; but most people on the face of the earth don't. There wouldn't be so much insistence upon unnecessary achievement if these things were known. Even though we may claim to know them ourselves we also have been engaged somewhat in trying to eliminate trouble, attempting to achieve something in this regard. But the trouble, as we recognize, results from the exclusion of God from His tabernacle. And if we acknowledge that we ourselves were designed to compose at least a part of His tabernacle, then this is the business of achieving that we should be about.

But what is the purpose of the tabernacle? That God might be on earth. The word being relates very particularly to this tabernacle. When God is in His tabernacle on earth then some achieving becomes possible. But the achieving wouldn't be to try to eliminate trouble; there would be no need for that. There is something else to be achieved. There is a purpose, a creative purpose, of which man is entirely ignorant at the moment, so that all his energies have been channeled into this business of trying to eliminate the trouble. What a waste of time; it can't be eliminated. We may succeed in mitigating suffering in some measure here or there, but the trouble continues. There is a continuing crisis of famine in the world, starving human beings. A great deal of effort is poured into the endeavor to feed everybody. Some get fed a little, and that of course is acceptable to them presumably; but then a lot don't, and starve in consequence. The solution never comes; the trouble never goes away; it gets worse, in fact, because there are more mouths to feed continually.

Let the tabernacle of God be present so that God may be in His tabernacle. There must be a place for the being of God. In speaking of man in his relationship to God, he is referred to Biblically as a woman. We see here the positive in God, the negative in man. Man's position obviously is to provide a setting, a home, a tabernacle, where God may be on earth; so mankind is cast in the role of a woman in relationship to God. We are aware of this positive-negative situation; it probably is part of our belief system. But the belief system doesn't mean too much until the truth is known, until there is the tabernacle in which God may have His being on earth. This brings it closer to home, because we have an awareness of the fact that man was made in the image of God, created male and female.

So the being of God on earth carries with it some implications that are more than this broad principle just mentioned, of the relationship between God and man. We begin to find some detail filling in here because the composition of mankind is male and female. If we see that mankind is to provide the place of being for God on earth then we may come to the point of discovering how that could be so, and it involves the male and female aspects of mankind. There are particular roles, one might say, to be played here to allow the truth to be known. If we don't play the roles, we continue to exclude God. Excluding God, there is a rather futile endeavor to achieve something great, mostly on the part of the male.

In the world as it has been, the achieving aspect has obviously been dominant from the male standpoint. He has been trying to do great things to eliminate trouble from the world by producing it! He found that the female aspect of mankind wasn't too dependable, trustworthy, so let them have a little corner for themselves while the great male would do all the achieving on his own. In recent years this approach has begun to break down a bit, in the Western world at least, but I don't know that what has arisen by reason of that breaking down is any better than what was there before, because it is all basically the same endeavor to achieve by eliminating trouble. Now the trouble perhaps is double, because the ladies have projected themselves into the position of achieving too. All this is not going to accomplish anything very significant but nevertheless is a part of the changing scene.

Things are breaking down somewhat and we have a certain awareness of the reason for this, which isn't what most people think it is but relates to the matter of radiation, spiritual radiation, which is coming into specific focus on earth. However, that radiation is dependent upon God and His being on earth, and that necessitates the tabernacle, which is the responsibility of men. It is interesting that the translation should have spoken of men rather than man. “The tabernacle of God is with men.” Well I don't think it was meant to exclude women actually, but we could see something here in retranslating the words to say, “Women are with men,” because the female aspect has the primary responsibility of making space for being on earth. The male responsibility centers primarily in achieving. That is right. He has been trying to do it on the wrong basis but he has that responsibility in the true design; and the female has the responsibility for providing the place of being. So, as I say, the words, instead of being, “The tabernacle of God is with men,” could be: “Women are with men.”

The facility of Being is with the facility of Achieving

The two aspects are present in mankind. There is a reason why there are men and women, and the reason is something other than is usually supposed. I think the idea is that the human race needs to continue to be propagated; I think that there has been a little too much of that going on. But we have these two aspects, then, specifically indicated in this passage: “The tabernacle of God is with men.” The place of being, rightly, is provided by mankind for the achieving by mankind of the purposes of God.

Of course male and female aspects are present in both men and women. The male aspect, it is presumed, should be dominant in the male, and the female aspect dominant in the female. But if we are looking at these two particular aspects then the female aspect is responsible for the place of being. This relates to the matter of protection, as we were considering it before. Usually it is thought that men are supposed to be protecting women. This is a nice fiction, but in the true design what would one be protecting women from? The protection needful—which is only defined in terms of that word while the present state of mankind exists—relates to providing space for God.

It certainly is true that mankind has sought to eliminate God. Seldom is it seen as deliberate action, and yet the fact of the matter is, it is deliberate action. The very fact that Jesus, who provided the focus of the creative action of God on earth for a brief period, was rather quickly eliminated is an indication of what the attitude of human beings was then, and has been ever since. It might be said that those who were prime movers in the elimination of this particular man didn't know what they were doing. The Master Himself said something to that effect: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Nevertheless what they did deliberately was to eliminate, as they thought, the focus of God on earth. A lot of people have been weeping and wailing about that since, but in spite of their crocodile tears they have continued to do exactly the same thing.

Awakening, to whatever extent we have, it is our desire to provide the tabernacle for God. And this provision of protection, a safe place, a place into which nothing that defiles or works abomination or makes a lie may enter, is the primary responsibility of women. We have certain awareness of the symbolic portrayal of the sea of glass mingled with fire, the streets of gold in the holy city. Here is something absolutely clear, particularly in the emotional realm of the ladies. That does not say that something shouldn't also be clear in the emotional realm of men, certainly. But in this portrayal by which the truth may be known there is a very particular part to be played by women to protect the Word—we might put it that way—to do it as individuals, so that there is always a safe, protected place for that beautiful, fitting expression of God: space for God on earth. It is done individually and it is done together. The place where there has been the most disruption, crosscurrents of all kinds, has been in the hearts of women, between themselves. Of course usually men came into the picture too, as pawns, one might say, in the game. But what should be the golden streets of the city, the sea of glass mingled with fire, was to be provided, and is to be provided, primarily by women, that there may be a place of being for God, where He will not instantly be destroyed. Of course you can't destroy God, but you can destroy the experience of God, and this has been consistently done down through the ages.

I have mentioned before that women do have a responsibility for protecting the hearts of men. Why should this be so? Because men have a particular responsibility in the field of achieving, and their ability to achieve what needs to be achieved is made into an impossible task if there is a constant furor going on in the vicinity of their emotional realm. Men know, and women know too, that the women have become experts in producing and sustaining such a furor, nullifying the value of male achievement and preventing the tabernacle of God from being known in experience on earth. So here, in considering these things in these terms, we have an understanding, a growing understanding, of the design of things, the design of things not merely to be looked at but to be experienced.

Male Achieving in the true sense is impossible without Female Being

Because this has been lacking so much on earth men have attempted to achieve many things, and boast about it a good deal, but we understand that it has been worthless. In order to achieve what they have achieved there was at least the necessity for some dependable women; or on the other hand homosexuality came into the picture, where men for their achieving found greater dependability in another man than they could find in a woman. So all kinds of distorted states of affairs have been produced which nowadays it seems many want to legalize, to make permanent. I don't think any of us should be interested in that but in allowing the true design to appear; that is the only satisfactory experience anyway. In that design male and female are required and they have their respective roles to play. There is a certain amount of overlapping of course. It is only because there is overlapping that oneness is possible.

We begin to become aware of the roles that are necessary and presumably, under the dominion of the spirit of God, begin to make sure that those roles are played. We don't fiddle around playing games anymore; we get down to business. And the primary business is that there should be a sea of glass clear as crystal, a sea of glass mingled with fire, which indicates that there is a certain passion present—not a cold, icy sea of glass. That is about what most human beings apparently have thought was possible: Let the water get frozen and we can walk on it! But this sea of glass, these streets of gold, provide a foundation from which achieving may spring, and what men are designed to achieve then becomes possible. Of course it becomes possible to them when they forget about their human ambitions as they have been heretofore and begin to let their achieving be incorporated into the purposes of God. This all comes about naturally as women provide the protection and the foundation that is necessary for that achieving. There are men, obviously, who are desirous of achieving on this basis. They are emasculated until there are women who provide what is necessary from the standpoint of the required protection and foundation.

Our concern is with those men and women who associate themselves with these things. This would presently be a very small percentage of the total population of the earth. But when I speak of these things I am speaking presumably to those who have some understanding and who are capable of allowing that understanding to be translated into experience. So here we are together to allow this to occur.

All this relates to the matter of letting the Word be made flesh. The flesh is usually thought of simply in terms of the human form, initially the form of Jesus. But there was more to the form of Jesus, and to all the rest of us too for that matter, than physical flesh. There are other levels of flesh; at least they could be so described. There is what might be called mental flesh, emotional flesh. These various levels of flesh, which cannot in fact be separated from each other, may be imbued, and rightly should be imbued, by what has been referred to as the Holy Spirit. Presently these levels of flesh have been imbued only by an unwhole spirit, which comes out as an unholy spirit, and we have the mess and the confusion in the realms of being and achieving that are present in the world now. There is the necessity of substance—we have spoken of it as flesh—at all levels, so that the whole of spirit, the spirit of God, may be accommodated. When this is so, we find rather naturally that the substance of our being is far more than the flesh of our physical bodies. In the consciousness of most people the fact of being has been limited to the physical body, so that there is fear of death, for instance, death of the physical flesh, physical body, because all the eggs are in that basket. But that isn't all there is to a person; we are aware of this.

There is a facility composed of substance which, when it is all present, can accommodate the Holy Spirit: the whole of being that comes to focus in the individual, and that comes to focus collectively, that there may be achieving. If there is to be radiation there must be the place from which the radiation comes. We speak of that place when we use the word God, the place of being out of which springs the Word of achieving. Being and achieving both are present with respect to the tabernacle of God. The tabernacle, the word tabernacle, is descriptive of all these levels of flesh, substance, for which man is responsible, that God may have a place of being and a place of achieving. So we share the responsibility as men and women for allowing the design to be made known because we live, not to be theorized about but that we may participate in the creative process by which the Will of God is done in earth as it is in heaven. In this regard, also, the first statement in the Lord's Prayer is: “Thy kingdom come”—the place of being come, because unless there is a place of being there is no place from which to proceed with the achieving.

Man as a whole provides a place of being for God. Man as a whole provides a place of achieving for God. And this is a very coordinated business; it isn't just by chance that things happen. And we have male and female in the picture, so that there might be the reality of being brought to focus and the reality of achieving brought to focus, working together as one, because if either one is missing nothing happens. This flesh facility, both male and female, rightly becomes increasingly imbued by the spirit of God in its wholeness. This has been called the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, but it can only pour out when there is the facility for that pouring. Here is our combined responsibility. And as this total flesh, of which the physical flesh is only a small part, is imbued with the Holy Spirit, obviously a transformation occurs. It is a state that hasn't been known heretofore because there hasn't been substance at all levels to let it happen. But when it does happen the occurrence is described by using the word resurrection.

If you have imagined that your physical body is all-important, then what are you going to experience if you don't have it anymore? If the total identity is wrapped up with the physical form, as it has tended to be with human beings, and the physical form vanishes, the identity vanishes. But if there is a recognition that there is far more than the physical form involved—there is flesh at levels which are beyond the comprehension of human minds at the present time, or human hearts for that matter—then as these levels are present the substance is full. Then they become the Holy Ghost; in other words they are filled with the Holy Spirit, which is the basis for one's own identity. And the whole range of substance begins to be transmuted when it is all present so that the Holy Spirit can work fully through it.

That transmutation in season also includes, as the end product shall we say, transmutation of the flesh of the physical body. Now what all that means is unknown, and I am not talking about it to inform you of anything but to awaken you to the creative process by which the essential substance may be present and the experience of transmutation, of resurrection, may be known. We have experienced some of it already. There has been a changing in our emotional experience, in our mental understanding. We see things differently, we feel things differently; there is to that extent the experience of resurrection.

And while resurrection is occurring, behold, there is a new world too; the world is a different place from what we thought it was before. We begin to understand, know, what it is that is happening. And it is all under control, we might say. It is all happening under the hand of God. But now we participate with God in extending His hand, His view, His understanding on earth, and all things are thereby made new. That is the achievement that is necessary. Thinking about all things being made new, I suppose usually it is thought, “Well we are getting rid of all these old things, the mess that is on earth. It is going to be changed around sometime, somehow, and it won't be a mess anymore.” But making all things new relates to the true process of achievement, a creative process which has nothing to do with the mess that human beings have made on earth. If all achieving was designed to clear up that mess, what would we do after the mess was cleared up? No, there is something else far greater to be achieved, and we move into that achievement on the basis of the fact that there is a foundation of being established.

The foundation of being relates to the wiping away of all tears from their eyes, no more death, etc.—all this in the field of being. This is the fact in being. It doesn't have to be achieved; it is so; and when the tabernacle of God is present so that God is present it is known to be so, so that all the nightmares vanish away. That is all they were. The reality of being is known and the reality of achieving is brought forth.

Holy, holy, holy. There must be that holy place of being, and it is the primary responsibility of the ladies to make sure that it is always there. It is the essential female role, which has been sadly neglected in favor of all kinds of other roles. Let the role of being be played so that there is a sea of glass mingled with fire—lively people—and there are golden streets upon which to walk for the achieving. Then behold, by reason of that achieving, all things are continually made new; nothing ever gets old. Rejoice that it is so, and open the doors to a knowing of the truth so that the experience of resurrection becomes a present reality.

Lillian Cecil — Martin, the hearts of women, our hearts, welcome the Lord, that there might be those beautiful streets of gold, the gold symbolizing love.

And our hearts tonight are very open to you in love, that there might be the accomplishment of God's purposes again on earth.

Martin Cecil — So let it be

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