From Father Paul: December 1, 1973
This morning I’m going to take our lesson from the fourth chapter of the Book of Activity, and beginning with the first verse:
“For let it be known that I, the Master Jesus, do hereby declare that no more shall the sorrows of the past age be celebrated, but the victory.”
It is the time and it is appropriate, and it is something which we must get used to, is the accepting, the celebrating and the acting in accordance with the victory; because we will be and we are being victorious over the darkness and those that promote it and promulgate it. We are not his emissaries of sorrow. We are his emissaries of victory, for we are going to change the source of that wisdom which shall bring the Christ and the light of the Christ to man. We are not here as, you might say, missionaries to convert everybody. We are not particularly – we are not too much interested really in whether you’re Mohammedan or whether you’re Buddhists, but we are interested in whether you have the light of the Christ; and this is our purpose. And in this we are going to be victorious. In this we hold the rod of power and the Word to bring it into existence. We are coming into the time of worship, adoration, and we are going to celebrate those things which were considered the time of sorrow, but we are not going to celebrate them as a sad thing.
There’s a difference between those things which are sorrowful and those things which are sad. A sad thing is when we have defeat. A sorrowful thing is something that you go through and experience that isn’t always what you would call a joyful thing, from the standpoint of the world as it looks upon it, but it contains within it the victory. And that’s what we’re going to celebrate in this coming six months is the victory of Christ over the darkness, the wrongdoing and the misconceptions of the world, of those people who have not been brought into the knowledge and the wisdom of our Creator. We are going to try to bring this about so that these people will not have the suffering that they have had right along. We are going to attempt to bring the light to them, and we are going to – if they wish to accept it – and we’re going to bring enough of it so that they’re going to have to make that decision one way or another. It will be their time of decision, and it is almost the same as, you might say, the beginning of a judgment, but we are not going to personally have that to do. They will be their own judges.
It brings a great deal of satisfaction to me this morning to be able to bring this message. I have avoided it for a long time, I guess unconsciously; it probably wasn’t the time. But I want to bring it also in a personal way. Instead of your going through all those sort of changes, and all these sometimes miseries, you might say, and as they used to call them when you had some slight illness, a cold or something like that, you had “the miseries”. You didn’t have a cold, you had the miseries. And that’s an old southern expression, in fact, if I remember correctly. Well, we just don’t want any more miseries! We are not going to have the miseries. We’re going to have the victory, and that’s where we’re going to watch for from now on. This to me is a, this is a chapter of the book that’s totally dedicated to victory, getting things done and going on and doing the next.
“But you shall celebrate the victory of my Father through the Christos.”, through the great Christ.
The fact that His source and power and His love is becoming victorious through the Christ, the great Christ, and through our Lord Jesus who took upon this great mission and brought the atonement to us, this is what we are especially going to think of during this coming six months. Because if we get to be victory-minded we can’t help but draw to us those who would walk that path and don’t mind being happy. Because there are so many people that just can’t stand to be successful, you know, and that’s one thing they’re going to have to learn to do in this order. They’re going to have to learn to be victorious. They’re going to have to learn to be happy and like it. And this sounds strange, but it is not. It is a reality that they have been with the sorrows in the past age so much, in the Piscean age, that these have gotten to be a habit with them.
You see somebody get up in the morning and if they’re very close in the house or where you’re living, and the first thing they do is kind of open one eye and then they look at you, you know, and you say, “Well, good morning, John. How are you this morning?” and they say, “Uh, pretty good.” What a way to start the day.
“For wouldst thou give unto man defeat when the first-begotten Son of God returns this day?” And you know this little passage here is pretty good, a pretty potent thing. “For wouldst thou give unto man defeat when the first-begotten Son of God returns this day?” In other words, if you were to see the great power descending, of the Christ, and Jesus the emissary was to appear in some form, I don’t know what form, but was to appear, would you teach sadness, would you teach defeat, would you teach sorrow?
Well, I can remember back quite a few years ago when the end of the second world war people just went wild in the streets because the war was finished. Now, this was a victory. Not the kind that we’re looking for, but it was a victory and they were joyous over it. Now I wonder what kind of joy and celebration that we can key ourselves to in this day. We have gotten to the point where it doesn’t bother us too much to look happy, anyway. Now I wonder how far and how deep that is within us, that same happiness; and is it just a facial expression that we’ve gotten? Well, that’s better than the other, that I grant you, but let’s get it down a little deeper than that and let us look forward to that one point, and that reality of victory.
“For thou livest with the shadows of my being, and I do glorify my Father as I did in the days of old.” I think we ought to think of that a little bit: “For thou livest with the shadow of my being, and I do glorify my Father as I did in the days of old.”
Now what is a shadow? A shadow is an image that is created by some object or some force through having the light shine upon it and leaving a space where the light does not show. The light does not show, but all around it and beyond it the light is, but in that shadow you have exactly the image of that which is standing between you and the source of the light. Well, now, that’s all right with me if the Christ or the Father’s shadow – I can stand in the shadow of the Father, I think that’s getting pretty close, because if I can see His image I’m going to be in pretty good shape. I’m not going to be worried at all. For this is the way, in long years gone past, we took people with us, our squires and our people, into battle. They always stood your back so that you could, they could work and operate and fight in your shadow, because you were a trained one for battle. It’s always nice to have somebody at your back anyway.
“For thou livest with the shadow of my being.” In other words, it’s getting pretty close now. “And I do glorify my Father,” and he’s talking about himself, the Master Jesus Christ. “As I did in the days of old.” In other words, we are coming into the days of miracles, to the days of the wonders of his emissary, our Lord Jesus.
“For wouldst thou have me belittle my Master and great Lord from whom I took my power?” In other words, the Master is saying to us, “I, too, have a Master; it is my Father in heaven. And wouldst you have me not glorify Him so I get in the way of my plans to bring Him greater glory, greater joy, and greater experience through these people here on earth? For I came to earth bringing His glory and His power with me, and if you’ll just help me so that I can fulfill this, what I started on Calvary, this will bring the victory which we are seeking.”
“Wouldst thou now defeat my work and my gift I gave to you on Calvary?”
He’s saying: “Are you going to take advantage of the atonement? Are you going to take advantage of the confessional? Are you going to take advantage of the power and the Word which I gave to you, and the gifts? For these are the things which I brought with me from my Father in heaven. Wouldst thou now defeat my work when I have gotten it this far? And my gifts I gave you on Calvary? I gave them to you, now all you’ve got to do is use them. You don’t have to create them, you don’t have to bring them into existence; they’re there. You’ve got them. I’ve given them to you. They’re there for you to use. They’re there for you to give thanks to the Father in heaven for that which He permitted me to bring to you as a gift.”
For as a little very interesting little thing here: when Jesus was born, the Wise Men, the three great kings, brought to him gifts. And when he came to earth, he brought gifts of the great King. Very interesting parallel, for he gave to us all the gifts that his Father had given him, and some more, some more. For he said, “ Of all these things which I do, so shall ye do also, and even greater than these.” So he did bring to us not only the gifts that he was endowed with, but others from his Father. And these gifts are up to us to use so that he can fulfill this mission which he has taken upon himself.
“Gifts which I gave to you on Calvary.” See, he had to let go of all of these things. He gave them in the upper room just before he left for Calvary, but he had to let go of all these things himself because he was going to, he was returning to another level of operation where these gifts were not really essential. So he left them for us to use. He told us about them. He showed us all through the Testament how they operated and how they could be used, and now he is telling us and giving to us the opportunity of total victory over ourselves. And this is the thing which many – this very simple thing that many fail to recognize. It’s the total victory over ourselves because when we are victorious over that we are victorious over all.
“For it shall be set in the records of this holy order …” What, the Holy Order of Mans? No, this holy order, “the Way of glory!” This is the Way. “I am the Way.” The Way of glory, glory unto the Creator, that each one as they enter that Way, as they take up that Way, they are victorious over themselves. They are the possessors of the light. They are the possessors of the Christ. They are the possessors of the tools. They have been taught to use them. They have been taught how to use them for him, to bring this glory to earth. They have been taught how to use the tools, if they have listened, to straighten out the troubles of earth and to teach his little ones, his elite and those outside, the Way of Life, the Path of glory.
“For it shall be set in the records of this holy order the Way of glory.” This is the path of victory, not of defeat. This is the path of light, not of sorrow. This is the path of joy, not of sadness.
Go ye forth and let nothing stand in your way.