Teacher-Brother Dave's initial comments: I am presenting some of my Topical Studies from the fully public domain, 2097 page, Fifth Epochal Revelation of Truth and with my added comments. The Revealed text is free of copyright, so you may freely share individually these supernal quotes with your friends and relatives. But my order of selections, font types for emphasis and my added comments are Copyright 2014 by Dave@PureChristians.org All Rights Reserved. Contact me first about using the whole Study or group of Studies.
[My added comments of explanation below are in these square brackets]
Topical Study 87 "Embracing Spiritual Growth
by Sincerely Seeking to be Spirit-of-God-Led"
[Highlights of my Topical Studies 59, 65, 68, 74 and 82 done here earlier]
Compiled 6/26/2015 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Part 30 of many]
PAPER 194 BESTOWAL OF THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH, Cont.
2. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PENTECOST
[Paper:Section.Paragraph]
194:2.1 Jesus lived on earth and taught a gospel which redeemed man from the superstition that he was a child of the devil and elevated him to the dignity of a faith son of God. Jesus’ message, as he preached it and lived it in his day, was an effective solvent for man’s spiritual difficulties in that day of its statement. And now that he has personally left the world, he sends in his place his Spirit of Truth, who is designed to live in man and, for each new generation, to restate the Jesus message so that every new group of mortals to appear upon the face of the earth shall have a new and up-to-date version of the gospel, just such personal enlightenment and group guidance as will prove to be an effective solvent for man’s ever-new and varied spiritual difficulties. [Amen !]
194:2.2 The first mission of this Spirit is, of course, to foster and personalize truth, [important:] for it is the comprehension of truth that constitutes the highest form of human liberty. Next, it is the purpose of this Spirit to destroy the believer’s feeling of orphanhood. Jesus having been among men, all believers would experience a sense of loneliness had not the Spirit of Truth come to dwell in men’s hearts.
194:2.3 [Important !] This bestowal of the Son’s spirit effectively prepared all normal [and somewhat moral] men’s minds for the subsequent universal bestowal of the Father’s spirit (the Adjuster) upon all mankind. In a certain sense, this Spirit of Truth is the spirit of both the Universal Father and the Creator Son.
194:2.4 Do not make the mistake of expecting to become strongly intellectually conscious of the outpoured Spirit of Truth. The Spirit never creates a consciousness of himself, only a consciousness of [Jesus Christ] Michael, the Son. From the beginning Jesus taught that the Spirit would not speak of himself. The proof, therefore, of your fellowship with the Spirit of Truth is not to be found in your consciousness of this spirit but rather in your experience of enhanced fellowship with [Jesus Christ] Michael.
194:2.5 The Spirit also came to help men recall and understand the words of the Master as well as to illuminate and reinterpret his life on earth.
194:2.6 Next, the Spirit of Truth came to help the believer to witness to the realities of Jesus’ teachings and his life as he lived it in the flesh, and as he now again lives it anew and afresh in the individual believer of each passing generation of the spirit-filled sons of God. [!! Jesus not only lives and works within us; He is also his own Sovereign Deity Person doing as He wills -- that is God's will !]
194:2.7 Thus it appears that the Spirit of Truth comes really to lead all believers into All Truth, into the expanding knowledge of the experience of the living and growing spiritual consciousness of the reality of eternal and ascending sonship with God. [Tremendous ! Ever-increasing personal God-consciousness at all times and in all places !]
194:2.8 Jesus lived a life which is a revelation of man submitted to the Father’s will, not an example for any man literally to attempt to follow. This life in the flesh, together with his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection, presently became a new [very wrong] gospel of the ransom which had thus been paid in order to purchase man back from the clutch of the evil one — from the condemnation of an offended God. Nevertheless, even though the gospel did become greatly distorted, it remains a fact that this new message about Jesus carried along with it many of the fundamental truths and teachings of his earlier gospel of the kingdom. And, sooner or later, these concealed truths of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men will emerge to effectually transform the civilization of all mankind. [Let's work in the Spirit of Jesus to make this sooner ! Total transformation of all things human to a higher level in God's Light and Life !]
194:2.9 But these mistakes of the intellect in no way interfered with the believer’s great progress in growth in spirit. In less than a month after the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, the apostles made more individual spiritual progress than during their almost four years of personal and loving association with the Master. [about fifty times faster !!] Neither did this substitution of the fact of the resurrection of Jesus for the saving gospel truth of sonship with God in any way interfere with the rapid spread of their teachings; on the contrary, this overshadowing of Jesus’ message by the new teachings about his person and resurrection seemed greatly to facilitate the preaching of the good news.
194:2.10 The term “Baptism of the Spirit,” which came into such general use about this time, merely signified the conscious reception of this gift of the Spirit of Truth and the personal acknowledgment of this new spiritual power as an augmentation of all spiritual influences previously experienced by God-knowing souls.
194:2.11 Since the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, man is subject to the teaching and guidance of a threefold Spirit endowment: the Spirit of the Father, the Thought Adjuster; the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Truth; the Spirit of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. [All of these Coordinate Deity Spirits appear as One in human God-conscious experiences.]
194:2.12 In a way, mankind is subject to the double influence of the sevenfold appeal of the universe Spirit influences. The early evolutionary races of mortals are subject to the progressive contact of the seven adjutant mind-spirits of the local universe [Holy] Mother Spirit. As man progresses upward in the scale of intelligence and spiritual perception, there eventually come to hover over him and dwell within him the seven higher Spirit influences. And these seven spirits of the advancing worlds are:
194:2.13 1. The bestowed Spirit of the Universal Father — the Thought Adjusters.
194:2.14 2. The Spirit presence of the Eternal Son — the spirit gravity of the universe of universes and the certain channel of all spirit communion.
194:2.15 3. The Spirit presence of the Infinite Spirit — the universal Spirit-mind of all creation, the spiritual source of the intellectual kinship of all progressive intelligences.
194:2.16 4. The Spirit of the Universal Father and the Creator Son — the Spirit of Truth, generally regarded as the Spirit of the Universe Son.
194:2.17 5. The Spirit of the Infinite Spirit and the Universe Mother Spirit — the Holy Spirit, generally regarded as the Spirit of the Universe Spirit.
194:2.18 6. The mind-spirit of the Universe Mother Spirit — the seven adjutant mind-spirits of the local universe.
194:2.19 7. The Spirit of the Father, Sons, and Spirits — the new-name Spirit of the ascending mortals of the realms after the fusion of the mortal Spirit-born soul with the Paradise Thought Adjuster and after the subsequent attainment of the divinity and glorification of the status of the Paradise Corps of the Finality.
194:2.20 And so did the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth bring to the world and its peoples the last [The last, final, complete !!!] of the Spirit endowment designed to aid in the ascending search for God. [!!! Thank You Jesus ! our Creator Son and Universe Father and very Elder Brother in the Family of God !!!]
3. WHAT HAPPENED AT PENTECOST
194:3.1 Many queer and strange teachings became associated with the early narratives of the day of Pentecost. In subsequent times the events of this day, on which the Spirit of Truth, the New Teacher, came to dwell with mankind, have become confused with the foolish outbreaks of rampant emotionalism. [speaking in tongues -- glossolalia] The chief mission of this outpoured spirit of the Father and the Son [as one combined Spirit and also one with the Holy Spirit] is to teach men about the truths of the Father’s love and the Son’s mercy. These are the truths of divinity which men can comprehend more fully than all the other divine traits of character. The Spirit of Truth is concerned primarily with the revelation of the Father’s spirit nature and the Son’s moral character. The Creator Son, in the flesh, revealed God to men; the Spirit of Truth, in the heart, reveals the Creator Son to men. When man yields the “fruits of the spirit” in his life, he is simply showing forth the traits which the Master manifested in his own earthly life. When Jesus was on earth, he lived his life as one personality — Jesus of Nazareth. As the indwelling spirit of the “New Teacher,” the Master has, since Pentecost, been able to live his life anew in the experience of every truth-taught believer.
194:3.2 Many things which happen in the course of a human life are hard to understand, difficult to reconcile with the idea that this is a universe in which truth prevails and in which righteousness triumphs. It so often appears that slander, lies, dishonesty, and unrighteousness — sin — prevail. Does faith, after all, triumph over evil, sin, and iniquity? It does. And the life and death of Jesus are the eternal proof that the truth of goodness and the faith of the spirit-led creature will always be vindicated. They taunted Jesus on the cross, saying, “Let us see if God will come and deliver him.” It looked dark on that day of the crucifixion, but it was gloriously bright on the resurrection morning; it was still brighter and more joyous on the day of Pentecost. The religions of pessimistic despair seek to obtain release from the burdens of life; they crave extinction in endless slumber and rest. These are the religions of primitive fear and dread. The religion of Jesus is a new gospel of faith to be proclaimed to struggling humanity. This new religion is founded on faith, hope, and love.
194:3.3 To Jesus, mortal life had dealt its hardest, cruelest, and bitterest blows; and this man met these ministrations of despair with faith, courage, and the unswerving determination to do his Father’s will. Jesus met life in all its terrible reality and mastered it — even in death. He did not use religion as a release from life. The religion of Jesus does not seek to escape this life in order to enjoy the waiting bliss of another existence. The religion of Jesus provides the joy and peace of another and spiritual existence [!!] to enhance and ennoble the life which men now live in the flesh. [!!] [We live in Spirit in the Family of God here and now on earth ! Joy ... Peace ... in the Vision of God in Jesus in Spirit ...]
194:3.4 If religion is an opiate to the people, it is not the religion of Jesus. On the cross he refused to drink the deadening drug, and his Spirit, poured out upon all flesh, is a mighty world influence which leads man upward and urges him onward. The spiritual forward urge is the most powerful driving force present in this world; the truth-learning believer is the one progressive and aggressive soul on earth. [Sacred and beautiful !!]
194:3.5 On the day of Pentecost the religion of Jesus broke all national restrictions and racial fetters. It is forever true, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” On this day the Spirit of Truth became the personal gift from the Master to every mortal. [to EVERY HUMAN !!] This Spirit was bestowed for the purpose of qualifying believers more effectively to preach the gospel of the kingdom, but they mistook the experience of receiving the outpoured Spirit for a part of the new gospel which they were unconsciously formulating.
194:3.6 Do not overlook the fact that the Spirit of Truth was bestowed upon all sincere believers; this gift of the Spirit did not come only to the apostles. The one hundred and twenty men and women assembled in the upper chamber all received the New Teacher, as did all the honest of heart throughout the whole world. [May 18, A.D. 30 and now and forever to each male or female faith-son of God !] This New Teacher was bestowed upon mankind, and every soul received him in accordance with the love for truth and the capacity to grasp and comprehend spiritual realities. At last, true religion is delivered from the custody of priests and all sacred classes and finds its real manifestation in the individual souls of men. [Note: "true religion"; today, many humans still falsely believe in a "royal family" or "first lady" or "upper class" or popes, priests, reverend ministers and other human-made religious hierarchy supposedly more in tune with God than you are ! All of that is a false religion of "favoritism". God loves all humans equally as his beloved sons in the Family of God ! It is up to each individual human to seek and follow God or not -- to be an eternal ascending son of God in Jesus Christ and in Spirit or not. Decide wisely.]
194:3.7 The religion of Jesus fosters the highest type of human civilization in that it creates the highest type of spiritual personality and proclaims the sacredness of that person. [Achieving secular "human rights" on earth has been largely a failure; what is needed is the teaching of our God-given Divine-Human rights; as we each are now Divinely beloved sons of God in Jesus !!]
194:3.8 The coming of the Spirit of Truth on Pentecost made possible a religion which is neither radical nor conservative; it is neither the old nor the new; it is to be dominated neither by the old nor the young. The fact of Jesus’ earthly life provides a fixed point for the anchor of time, [Before Christ (B.C.) and now each year (A.D.) in our Lord God Jesus !] while the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth provides for the everlasting [!! Yes !!] expansion and endless growth of the religion which he lived and the gospel which he proclaimed. The Spirit guides into all Truth; he is the Teacher of an expanding and always-growing religion of endless progress and divine unfolding. This New Teacher will be forever unfolding to the truth-seeking believer that which was so divinely folded up in the person and nature of the Son of Man. [Amen ! So very true !]
194:3.9 The manifestations associated with the bestowal of the “New Teacher,” and the reception of the apostles’ preaching by the men of various races and nations gathered together at Jerusalem, indicate the universality of the religion of Jesus. The gospel of the kingdom was to be identified with no particular race, culture, or language. This day of Pentecost witnessed the great effort of the Spirit to liberate the religion of Jesus from its inherited Jewish fetters. Even after this demonstration of pouring out the Spirit upon all flesh, the apostles at first endeavored to impose the requirements of Judaism upon their converts. [Even today, some parrot that they are "Judeo-Christians"; I am a Jesusonian Christian by choice ! I believe and teach from only the best 2% or less of the Jewish Old Testament; the New Testament is far better, continuing Spirit Revelation is superior to both.] Even Paul had trouble with his Jerusalem brethren because he refused to subject the Gentiles to these Jewish practices. No revealed religion can spread to all the world when it makes the serious [!] mistake of becoming permeated with some national culture or associated with established racial, social, or economic practices. [The human doctrines of "chosen-people" or "chosen-race" or "chosen nation" must be rapidly abandoned or more terrible wars will result without end.]
194:3.10 The bestowal of the Spirit of Truth was independent of all forms, ceremonies, sacred places, and special behavior by those who received the fullness of its manifestation. When the Spirit came upon those assembled in the upper chamber, they were simply sitting there, having just been engaged in silent prayer. The Spirit was bestowed in the country as well as in the city. It was not necessary for the apostles to go apart to a lonely place for years of solitary meditation in order to receive the Spirit. For all time, Pentecost disassociates the idea of spiritual experience from the notion of especially favorable environments.
194:3.11 Pentecost, with its spiritual endowment, was designed forever to loose the religion of the Master from all dependence upon physical force; the teachers of this new religion are now equipped with spiritual weapons. They are to go out to conquer the world with unfailing forgiveness, matchless good will, and abounding love. They are equipped to overcome evil with good, to vanquish hate by love, to destroy fear with a courageous and living faith in truth. Jesus had already taught his followers that his religion was never passive; always were his disciples to be active and positive in their ministry of mercy and in their manifestations of love. No longer did these believers look upon Yahweh as “the Lord of Hosts.” They now regarded the eternal Deity as the “God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.” They made that progress, at least, even if they did in some measure fail fully to grasp the truth that God is also the spiritual Father of every individual. [That is why Jesus here in Spirit calls us to dare to love all humans -- even all of our enemies !]
194:3.12 Pentecost endowed mortal man with the power to forgive personal injuries, to keep sweet in the midst of the gravest injustice, to remain unmoved in the face of appalling danger, and to challenge the evils of hate and anger by the fearless acts of love and forbearance. Earth has passed through the ravages of great and destructive wars in its history. All participants in these terrible struggles met with defeat. There was but one victor; there was only one who came out of these embittered struggles with an enhanced reputation — that was Jesus of Nazareth and his gospel of overcoming evil with good. The secret of a better civilization is bound up in the Master’s teachings of the brotherhood of man, the good will of love and mutual trust.
194:3.13 Up to Pentecost, religion had revealed only man seeking for God; since Pentecost, man is still searching for God, but there shines out over the world the spectacle of God also seeking for man and sending his Spirit to dwell within him when he has found him. [We are now living in a period of increased spiritual down-pressure and epochal Revelation ! Wonderful ! True peace and progress in Spirit is easier to realize and to share ! Thank you Jesus !]
194:3.14 Before the teachings of Jesus which culminated in Pentecost, women had little or no spiritual standing in the tenets of the older religions. After Pentecost, in the brotherhood of the kingdom woman stood before God on an equality with man. Among the one hundred and twenty who received this special visitation of the Spirit were many of the women disciples, and they shared these blessings equally with the men believers. No longer can man presume to monopolize the ministry of religious service. The [Jewish] Pharisee might go on thanking God that he was “not born a woman, a leper, or a Gentile,” but among the followers of Jesus woman has been forever set free from all religious discriminations based on sex. Pentecost obliterated all religious discrimination founded on racial distinction, cultural differences, social caste, or sex prejudice. No wonder these believers in the new religion would cry out, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” [Amen !]
194:3.15 Both the mother and brother of Jesus were present among the one hundred and twenty believers, and as members of this common group of disciples, they also received the outpoured Spirit. They received no more of the good gift than did their fellows. No special gift was bestowed upon the members of Jesus’ earthly family. Pentecost marked the end of special priesthoods and all belief in sacred families.
194:3.16 Before Pentecost the apostles had given up much for Jesus. They had sacrificed their homes, families, friends, worldly goods, and positions. At Pentecost they gave themselves to God, and the Father and the Son responded by giving themselves to man — sending their Spirits to live within men. This experience of losing self and finding the Spirit was not one of emotion; it was an act of intelligent self-surrender and unreserved consecration.
194:3.17 Pentecost was the call to spiritual unity among gospel believers. When the Spirit descended on the disciples at Jerusalem, the same thing happened in Philadelphia, Alexandria, and at all other places where true believers dwelt. It was literally true that “there was but one heart and soul among the multitude of the believers.” The religion of Jesus is the most powerful unifying influence the world has ever known.
194:3.18 Pentecost was designed to lessen the self-assertiveness of individuals, groups, nations, and races. It is this spirit of self-assertiveness which so increases in tension that it periodically breaks loose in destructive wars. Mankind can be unified only by the spiritual approach, and the Spirit of Truth is a world influence which is universal.
194:3.19 The coming of the Spirit of Truth purifies the human heart and leads the recipient to formulate a life purpose single to the will of God and the welfare of men. The material spirit of selfishness has been swallowed up in this new spiritual bestowal of selflessness. Pentecost, then and now, signifies that the Jesus of history has become the divine Son of living experience. The joy of this outpoured Spirit, when it is consciously experienced in human life, is a tonic for health, a stimulus for mind, and an unfailing energy for the soul.
194:3.20 Prayer did not bring the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, but it did have much to do with determining the capacity of receptivity which characterized the individual believers. Prayer does not move the divine heart to liberality of bestowal, but it does so often dig out larger and deeper channels wherein the divine bestowals may flow to the hearts and souls of those who thus remember to maintain unbroken communion with their Maker through sincere prayer and true worship.
Topical Study 87 "Embracing Spiritual Growth
by Sincerely Seeking to be Spirit-of-God-Led"
[Highlights of my Topical Studies 59, 65, 68, 74 and 82 done here earlier]
Compiled 6/29/2015 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Part 31 of many]
PAPER 195 AFTER PENTECOST
Introduction
[Paper:Section.Paragraph]
195:0.1 The results of Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost were such as to decide the future policies, and to determine the plans, of the majority of the apostles in their efforts to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom. Peter was the real founder of the Christian church; Paul carried the Christian message to the Gentiles, and the Greek believers carried it to the whole Roman Empire.
195:0.2 Although the tradition-bound and priest-ridden Hebrews, as a people, refused to accept either Jesus’ gospel of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man or Peter’s and Paul’s proclamation of the resurrection and ascension of Christ (subsequent Christianity), the rest of the Roman Empire was found to be receptive to the evolving Christian teachings. Western civilization was at this time intellectual, war weary, and thoroughly skeptical of all existing religions and universe philosophies. The peoples of the Western world, the beneficiaries of Greek culture, had a revered tradition of a great past. They could contemplate the inheritance of great accomplishments in philosophy, art, literature, and political progress. But with all these achievements they had no soul-satisfying religion. Their spiritual longings remained unsatisfied.
195:0.3 Upon such a stage of human society the teachings of Jesus, embraced in the Christian message, were suddenly thrust. A new order of living was thus presented to the hungry hearts of these Western peoples. This situation meant immediate conflict between the older religious practices and the new Christianized version of Jesus’ message to the world. Such a conflict must result in either decided victory for the new or for the old or in some degree of compromise. History shows that the struggle ended in compromise. Christianity presumed to embrace too much for any one people to assimilate in one or two generations. It was not a simple spiritual appeal, such as Jesus had presented to the souls of men; it early struck a decided attitude on religious rituals, education, magic, medicine, art, literature, law, government, morals, sex regulation, polygamy, and, in limited degree, even slavery. Christianity came not merely as a new religion — something all the Roman Empire and all the Orient were waiting for — but as a new order of human society. And as such a pretension it quickly precipitated the social-moral clash of the ages. The ideals of Jesus, as they were reinterpreted by Greek philosophy and socialized in Christianity, now boldly challenged the traditions of the human race embodied in the ethics, morality, and religions of Western civilization.
195:0.4 At first, Christianity won as converts only the lower social and economic strata. But by the beginning of the second century the very best of Greco-Roman culture was increasingly turning to this new order of Christian belief, this new concept of the purpose of living and the goal of existence.
195:0.5 How did this new message of Jewish origin, [corrupted Christianity] which had almost failed in the land of its birth, so quickly and effectively capture the very best minds of the Roman Empire? The triumph of Christianity over the philosophic religions and the mystery cults was due to:
195:0.6 1. Organization. Paul was a great organizer and his successors kept up the pace he set.
195:0.7 2. Christianity was thoroughly Hellenized. It embraced the best in Greek philosophy as well as the cream of Hebrew theology.
195:0.8 3. But best of all, it contained a new and great ideal, the echo of the life bestowal of Jesus and the reflection of his message of salvation for all mankind.
195:0.9 4. The Christian leaders were willing to make such compromises with Mithraism that the better half of its adherents were won over to the Antioch cult.
195:0.10 5. Likewise did the next and later generations of Christian leaders make such further compromises with paganism that even the Roman emperor Constantine was won to the new religion.
195:0.11 But the Christians made a shrewd bargain with the pagans in that they adopted the ritualistic pageantry of the pagan while compelling the pagan to accept the Hellenized version of Pauline Christianity. They made a better bargain with the pagans than they did with the Mithraic cult, but even in that earlier compromise they came off more than conquerors in that they succeeded in eliminating the gross immoralities and also numerous other reprehensible practices of the Persian mystery.
195:0.12 Wisely or unwisely, these early leaders of Christianity deliberately compromised the ideals of Jesus in an effort to save and further many of his ideas. And they were eminently successful. [Important:] But mistake not! these compromised ideals of the Master are still latent in his gospel, and they will eventually assert their full power upon the world. [mainly because of Jesus here as He the Spirit of Truth; and we can help in this much-needed worldwide spiritual and moral transformation also !]
195:0.13 By this paganization of Christianity the old order won many minor victories of a ritualistic nature, but the Christians gained the ascendancy in that:
195:0.14 1. A new and enormously higher note in human morals was struck.
195:0.15 2. A new and greatly enlarged concept of God was given to the world.
195:0.16 3. The hope of immortality became a part of the assurance of a recognized religion.
195:0.17 4. Jesus of Nazareth was given to man’s hungry soul.
195:0.18 Many of the great truths taught by Jesus were almost lost in these early compromises, but they yet slumber in this religion of paganized Christianity, which was in turn the Pauline version of the life and teachings of the Son of Man. And Christianity, even before it was paganized, was first thoroughly Hellenized. Christianity owes much, very much, to the Greeks. It was a Greek, from Egypt, who so bravely stood up at Nicaea and so fearlessly challenged this assembly that it dared not so obscure the concept of the nature of Jesus that the real truth of his bestowal might have been in danger of being lost to the world. This Greek’s name was Athanasius, and but for the eloquence and the logic of this believer, the persuasions of Arius would have triumphed. [Athanasius, in A.D. 325 at the Council of Nicea, proclaimed the Eternal Truth that Jesus Christ is Coordinate (equal) with God the Paradise Father, and not subordinate. All of the fullness of God is in Jesus Christ Michael here as our Universe Sovereign Creator !]
4. THE EUROPEAN DARK AGES
195:4.1 The church, being an adjunct to society and the ally of politics, was doomed to share in the intellectual and spiritual decline of the so-called European “dark ages.” During this time, religion became more and more monasticized, asceticized, and legalized. In a spiritual sense, Christianity was hibernating. Throughout this period there existed, alongside this slumbering and secularized religion, a continuous stream of mysticism, a fantastic spiritual experience bordering on unreality and philosophically akin to pantheism. [Today, we have a rise in "New Age" "spiritualism" of all types as a revolt against church authority, and practices of immorality of both "church leaders" and "lay members" are increasing. The blight of Godless secular humanism is increasing. That will be covered in the latter parts of this important Paper.]
195:4.2 During these dark and despairing centuries, religion became virtually secondhanded again. The individual was almost lost before the overshadowing authority, tradition, and dictation of the church. A new spiritual menace arose in the creation of a galaxy of “saints” who were assumed to have special influence at the divine courts, and who, therefore, if effectively appealed to, would be able to intercede in man’s behalf before the Gods. [That abomination continues today in a very large worldwide Christian church !]
195:4.3 But Christianity was sufficiently socialized and paganized that, while it was impotent to stay the oncoming dark ages, it was the better prepared to survive this long period of moral darkness and spiritual stagnation. And it did persist on through the long night of Western civilization and was still functioning as a moral influence in the world when the renaissance dawned. The rehabilitation of Christianity, following the passing of the dark ages, resulted in bringing into existence numerous sects of the Christian teachings, beliefs suited to special intellectual, emotional, and spiritual types of human personality. And many of these special Christian groups, or religious families, still persist at the time of the making of this presentation. [in A.D. 1935. Today, in A. D. 2014, there are far more Christian denominations and sects than before. It is estimated that there are now about 40,000 different ones; and the vast majority are a serious distortion of the real Teachings of Jesus ! But there is now greater hope in spiritual power for positive changes to promote enhanced personal God-consciousness everywhere !]
195:4.4 Christianity exhibits a history of having originated out of the unintended transformation of the religion of Jesus into a religion about Jesus. It further presents the history of having experienced Hellenization, paganization, secularization, institutionalization, intellectual deterioration, spiritual decadence, moral hibernation, threatened extinction, later rejuvenation, fragmentation, and more recent [as of A.D. 1935] relative rehabilitation. Such a pedigree is indicative of inherent vitality and the possession of vast recuperative resources. And this same Christianity is now present in the civilized world of Occidental peoples and stands face to face with a struggle for existence which is even more ominous than those eventful crises which have characterized its past battles for dominance. [This Paper will soon cover this in great depth !]
195:4.5 Religion is now confronted by the challenge of a new age of scientific minds and materialistic tendencies. In this gigantic struggle between the secular and the spiritual, the religion of Jesus will eventually triumph. [Powerful and true words ! Amen !]
5. THE MODERN PROBLEM
195:5.1 The twentieth century has brought new problems for Christianity and all other religions to solve. The higher a civilization climbs, the more necessitous becomes the duty to “seek first the realities of heaven” in all of man’s efforts to stabilize society and facilitate the solution of its material problems.
195:5.2 Truth often becomes confusing and even misleading when it is dismembered, segregated, isolated, and too much analyzed. Living truth teaches the truth seeker aright only when it is embraced in wholeness and as a living spiritual reality, not as a fact of material science or an inspiration of intervening art.
195:5.3 Religion is the revelation to man of his divine and eternal destiny. Religion is a purely personal and spiritual experience and must forever be distinguished from man’s other high forms of thought, such as:
195:5.4 1. Man’s logical attitude toward the things of material reality.
195:5.5 2. Man’s aesthetic appreciation of beauty contrasted with ugliness.
195:5.6 3. Man’s ethical recognition of social obligations and political duty.
195:5.7 4. Even man’s sense of human morality is not, in and of itself, religious.
195:5.8 Religion is designed to find those values in the universe which call forth faith, trust, and assurance; religion culminates in worship. Religion discovers for the soul those supreme values which are in contrast with the relative values discovered by the mind. Such superhuman insight can be had only through genuine religious experience.
195:5.9 [A significant warning:] A lasting social system without a morality predicated on spiritual realities can no more be maintained than could the solar system without gravity. [A tremendous statement of and in Truth ! Immoral nations are now disintegrating from within because of human lust, greed, power hunger, selfishness, secularism, and atheism.]
195:5.10 Do not try to satisfy the curiosity or gratify all the latent adventure surging within the soul in one short life in the flesh. Be patient! be not tempted to indulge in a lawless plunge into cheap and sordid adventure. Harness your energies and bridle your passions; be calm while you await the majestic unfolding of an endless career of progressive adventure and thrilling discovery. [Review: Word search here for "This is the way." and then "The goal of eternity is ahead!" that we shared here earlier from this mighty Revelation of Truth.]
195:5.11 In confusion over man’s origin, do not lose sight of his eternal destiny. Forget not that Jesus loved even little children, and that he forever made clear the great worth of human personality. [You and I may each know in Spirit: "I am a son of I AM; I am Certain by the spiritual Revelation of Jesus Christ and God the Universal Infinite Paradise Father as One here in Spirit worldwide and universe-wide upon all humans and living within all normal, moral humans who are seeking some truth, beauty and goodness!]"
195:5.12 As you view the world, remember that the black patches of evil which you see are shown against a white background of ultimate good. You do not view merely white patches of good which show up miserably against a black background of evil. [Imagine two grains of black pepper somewhere in a huge mountain of pure white snow; and that would be more realistic in the big picture of final Paradise perfection Destiny !]
195:5.13 When there is so much good truth to publish and proclaim, why should men dwell so much upon the evil in the world just because it appears to be a fact? The beauties of the spiritual values of truth are more pleasurable and uplifting than is the phenomenon of evil. [All evils and sins ultimately self-destruct.]
195:5.14 In religion, Jesus advocated and followed the method of experience, even as modern science pursues the technique of experiment. We find God through the leadings of spiritual insight, but we approach this insight of the soul through the love of the beautiful, the pursuit of truth, loyalty to duty, and the worship of divine goodness. But of all these values, love is the true guide to real insight.
6. MATERIALISM
195:6.1 Scientists have unintentionally precipitated mankind into a materialistic panic; they have started an unthinking run on the moral bank of the ages, but this bank of human experience has vast spiritual resources; it can stand the demands being made upon it. Only unthinking men become panicky about the spiritual assets of the human race. When the materialistic-secular panic is over, the religion of Jesus will not be found bankrupt. The spiritual bank of the kingdom of heaven will be paying out faith, hope, and moral security to all who draw upon it “in His name.”
195:6.2 No matter what the apparent conflict between materialism and the teachings of Jesus may be, you can rest assured that, in the ages to come, the teachings of the Master will fully triumph. In reality, true religion cannot become involved in any controversy with science; it is in no way concerned with material things. Religion is simply indifferent to, but sympathetic with, science, while it supremely concerns itself with the scientist.
195:6.3 The pursuit of mere knowledge, without the attendant interpretation of wisdom and the spiritual insight of religious experience, eventually leads to pessimism and human despair. A little knowledge is truly disconcerting. [Many humans today seem to mainly think and operate on a trivial secular physical temporal survival level.]
195:6.4 At the time of this writing [about A.D. 1935 -1938] the worst of the materialistic age is over; the day of a better understanding [of total reality of physical facts, intellectual meanings and true spiritual Values, and all being united in progressive, living, personal experience !] is already beginning to dawn. The higher minds of the scientific world are no longer wholly materialistic in their philosophy, but the rank and file of the people still lean in that direction as a result of former teachings. But this age of physical realism is only a passing episode in man’s life on earth. Modern science has left true religion — the teachings of Jesus as translated in the lives of his believers — untouched. All science has done is to destroy the childlike illusions of the misinterpretations of life.
195:6.5 Science is a quantitative experience, religion a qualitative experience, as regards man’s life on earth. Science deals with phenomena; religion, with origins, values, and goals. To assign causes as an explanation of physical phenomena is to confess ignorance of ultimates and in the end only leads the scientist straight back to the first great cause — the [Infinite, Eternal and] Universal Father of Paradise. [and as best Revealed in the supernal Life and Teachings and ever-spiritual Presence of our Universe Sovereign Creator Son of God Jesus Christ Michael !]
195:6.6 The violent swing from an age of miracles to an age of machines has proved altogether upsetting to man. The cleverness and dexterity of the false philosophies of mechanism belie their very mechanistic contentions. The fatalistic agility of the mind of a materialist forever disproves his assertions that the universe is a blind and purposeless energy phenomenon. [If human life were part of a universe with "no purpose", then there would be no desire to win an argument, or to go to a more beautiful location, or to imprison serial murdering sociopaths ! Everything would be equally indifferent and purposeless. That would be, to me, spiritual insanity to really believe and live that sick philosophy.]
195:6.7 The mechanistic naturalism of some supposedly educated men and the thoughtless secularism of the man in the street are both exclusively concerned with things; they are barren of all real values, sanctions, and satisfactions of a spiritual nature, as well as being devoid of faith, hope, and eternal assurances. One of the great troubles with modern life is that man thinks he is too busy to find time for spiritual meditation and religious devotion. [Very true ! and we can practice the loving Presence of our Father-Son-Spirit God just as and just where we now are, and at all times ! No need for smoke pots around an alter in a big church empire building and with talking of priests in an obsolete language ! You can also conceive of hundreds of other inconsistencies within human-designed "organized religions" of oppressive rigidity and false control. Jesus Christ lives with and within us; and he grants -- to each and all of us -- true spiritual liberty to personally seek and find our loving and merciful Father God -- without end ! Eternally !]
195:6.8 Materialism reduces man to a soulless automaton and constitutes him merely an arithmetical symbol finding a helpless place in the mathematical formula of an unromantic and mechanistic universe. But whence comes all this vast universe of mathematics without a Master Mathematician? Science may expatiate on the conservation of matter, but [true] religion validates the conservation of men’s souls — it concerns their experience with spiritual realities and eternal values.
195:6.9 The materialistic sociologist of today surveys a community, makes a report thereon, and leaves the people as he found them. Nineteen hundred years ago, unlearned Galileans surveyed Jesus giving his life as a spiritual contribution to man’s inner experience and then went out and turned the whole Roman Empire upside down. [!!!]
195:6.10 But religious leaders are making a great mistake when they try to call modern man to spiritual battle with the trumpet blasts of the Middle Ages. Religion must provide itself with new and up-to-date slogans. Neither democracy nor any other political panacea will take the place of spiritual progress. False religions may represent an evasion of reality, but Jesus in his gospel [that all humans are now divinely beloved sons of God with potential for eternal Life finally in all-perfect, eternal, infinite Paradise in and with GOD the Father-Infinite I AM !!] introduced mortal man to the very entrance upon an eternal reality of spiritual progression. [Allow Jesus to expand your reality into ever higher values and even into profound God-consciousness and Destiny Realizations ...]
...
195:6.14 The fact of the absolute mechanism of Paradise at the center of the universe of universes, in the presence of the unqualified volition of the Second Source and Center, [the Eternal Son in a larger sense; the second Deity person in the existential Paradise Trinity] makes forever certain that determiners are not the exclusive law of the cosmos. Materialism is there, but it is not exclusive; mechanism is there, but it is not unqualified; determinism is there, but it is not alone.
195:6.15 The finite universe of matter would eventually become uniform and deterministic but for the combined presence of mind and Spirit. The influence of the cosmic mind constantly injects spontaneity into even the material worlds. [The universe is not running down - no entropy - on a large scale, the universe is perfecting, evolving, growing ever more Real ! A living worm is more advanced than an atom; a human is much more advanced than a turtle; and so on; our real Spirit cosmos has purpose and life ! "Enthusiasm" means "God within (the Thought Adjuster, the pure Essence of God) and within God !" (as one combined Father-Son-Spirit Reality here !)]
195:6.16 Freedom or initiative in any realm of existence is directly proportional to the degree of spiritual influence and cosmic-mind control; that is, in human experience, the degree of the actuality of doing “the Father’s will.” And so, when you once start out to find God, that is the conclusive proof that God has already found you. [!!! "You are My beloved son: Be you perfect; even as I AM perfect."]
195:6.17 The sincere pursuit of goodness, beauty, and truth leads to God. And every scientific discovery demonstrates the existence of both freedom and uniformity in the universe. The discoverer was free to make the discovery. The thing discovered is real and apparently uniform, or else it could not have become known as a thing. [Profound !!]
Topical Study 87 "Embracing Spiritual Growth
by Sincerely Seeking to be Spirit-of-God-Led"
[Highlights of my Topical Studies 59, 65, 68, 74 and 82 done here earlier]
Compiled 7/01/2015 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Part 32 of many]
PAPER 195 AFTER PENTECOST, Cont.
7. THE VULNERABILITY OF MATERIALISM
[Paper:Section.Paragraph]
195:7.1 How foolish it is for material-minded man to allow such vulnerable theories as those of a mechanistic universe to deprive him of the vast spiritual resources of the personal experience of true religion. ...
195:7.4 Paradise values of eternity and infinity, of truth, beauty, and goodness, are concealed within the facts of the phenomena of the universes of time and space. But it requires the eye of faith in a Spirit-born mortal to detect and discern these spiritual values.
195:7.5 The realities and values of spiritual progress are not a “psychologic projection” — a mere glorified daydream of the material mind. Such things are the spiritual forecasts of the indwelling Adjuster, the Spirit of God living in the mind of man. And let not your dabblings with the faintly glimpsed findings of “relativity” disturb your concepts of the eternity and infinity of God. And in all your solicitation concerning the necessity for self-expression do not make the mistake of failing to provide for Adjuster-expression, the manifestation of your real and better self. [The Divine Thought Adjuster is God's will within you ! and destined to eventually fuse with and Be You !! What a wonderful Gift from God, as well as your unchanging, absolutely unique, God the Universal Father-given personality !]
195:7.7 The partially evolved mental mechanism of mortal man is not overendowed with consistency and wisdom. Man’s conceit often outruns his reason and eludes his logic. [Sad, but true. But our imperfect, limited human minds can be uplifted and reinforced with the perfect Mind of our Good Master Jesus living in our super-conscious, God-seeking souls!]
195:7.14 The very claim of materialism implies a supermaterial consciousness of the mind which presumes to assert such dogmas. A mechanism might deteriorate, but it could never progress. Machines do not think, create, dream, aspire, idealize, hunger for truth, or thirst for righteousness. They do not motivate their lives with the passion to serve other machines and to choose as their goal of eternal progression the sublime task of finding God and striving to be like him. Machines are never intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, ethical, moral, or spiritual. [but like man, they are prone to failure ... This computer that I am again using, was down and out for four days; it could not resurrect itself; rather, it took much human human effort and knowledge of computer hardware and software to fix it, after an irrational period of cussing at it and thinking of kicking it of course. Ha ha]
195:7.16 In a high civilization, art humanizes science, while in turn it is spiritualized by true religion — insight into spiritual and eternal values. Art represents the human and time-space evaluation of reality. Religion is the divine embrace of cosmic values and connotes eternal progression in spiritual ascension and expansion. The art of time is dangerous only when it becomes blind to the Spirit standards of the divine patterns which eternity reflects as the reality shadows of time. True art is the effective manipulation of the material things of life; religion is the ennobling transformation of the material facts of life, and it never ceases in its spiritual evaluation of art.
195:7.18 Any scientific interpretation of the material universe is valueless unless it provides due recognition for the scientist. No appreciation of art is genuine unless it accords recognition to the artist. No evaluation of morals is worth while unless it includes the moralist. No recognition of philosophy is edifying if it ignores the philosopher, and religion cannot exist without the real experience of the religionist who, in and through this very experience, is seeking to find God and to know him. Likewise is the universe of universes without significance apart from the I AM, the infinite God who made it and unceasingly manages it. [Thank You our True and Wonderful Father God !]
195:7.20 Science lives by the mathematics of the mind; music expresses the tempo of the emotions. Religion is the spiritual rhythm of the soul in time-space harmony with the higher and eternal melody measurements of Infinity. [Beautiful and profoundly spiritual !] Religious experience is something in human life which is truly supermathematical.
195:7.21 In language, an alphabet represents the mechanism of materialism, while the words expressive of the meaning of a thousand thoughts, grand ideas, and noble ideals — of love and hate, of cowardice and courage — represent the performances of mind within the scope defined by both material and spiritual law, directed by the assertion of the will of personality, and limited by the inherent situational endowment. [worth reading again and reflecting more]
195:7.22 The universe is not like the laws, mechanisms, and the uniformities which the scientist discovers, and which he comes to regard as science, but rather like the curious, thinking, choosing, creative, combining, and discriminating scientist who thus observes universe phenomena and classifies the mathematical facts inherent in the mechanistic phases of the material side of creation. Neither is the universe like the art of the artist, but rather like the striving, dreaming, aspiring, and advancing artist who seeks to transcend the world of material things in an effort to achieve a spiritual goal.
195:7.23 The scientist, not science, perceives the reality of an evolving and advancing universe of energy and matter. The artist, not art, demonstrates the existence of the transient morontia world intervening between material existence and spiritual liberty. The religionist, not religion, proves the existence of the Spirit realities and divine values which are to be encountered in the progress of eternity.
8. SECULAR TOTALITARIANISM
195:8.1 But even after materialism and mechanism have been more or less vanquished, the devastating influence of twentieth-century secularism [and maybe worse today!] will still blight the spiritual experience of millions of unsuspecting souls.
195:8.2 Modern secularism has been fostered by two world-wide influences. The father of secularism was the narrow-minded and godless attitude of nineteenth- and twentieth-century so-called science — atheistic science. The mother of modern secularism was the totalitarian medieval Christian church. Secularism had its inception as a rising protest against the almost complete domination of Western civilization by the institutionalized Christian church.
195:8.3 At the time of this revelation, [circa A.D.1935] the prevailing intellectual and philosophical climate of both European and American life is decidedly secular — humanistic. For three hundred years Western thinking has been progressively secularized. Religion has become more and more a nominal influence, largely a ritualistic exercise. The majority of professed Christians of Western civilization are unwittingly actual secularists.[sad, but true !]
195:8.4 It required a great power, a mighty influence, to free the thinking and living of the Western peoples from the withering grasp of a totalitarian ecclesiastical domination. Secularism did break the bonds of church control, and now in turn it threatens to establish a new and godless type of mastery over the hearts and minds of modern man. The tyrannical and dictatorial political state is the direct offspring of scientific materialism and philosophic secularism. Secularism no sooner frees man from the domination of the institutionalized church than it sells him into slavish bondage to the totalitarian state. Secularism frees man from ecclesiastical slavery only to betray him into the tyranny of political and economic slavery. [and that is now in a state of severe worldwide crisis !]
195:8.5 Materialism denies God, secularism simply ignores him; at least that was the earlier attitude. More recently, secularism has assumed a more militant attitude, assuming to take the place of the religion whose totalitarian bondage it onetime resisted. Twentieth-century secularism tends to affirm that man does not need God. But beware! this godless philosophy of human society will lead only to unrest, animosity, unhappiness, war, and world-wide disaster.
195:8.6 Secularism can never bring peace to mankind. Nothing can take the place of God in human society. But mark you well! do not be quick to surrender the beneficent gains of the secular revolt from ecclesiastical totalitarianism. Western civilization today enjoys many liberties and satisfactions as a result of the secular revolt. The great mistake of secularism was this: In revolting against the almost total control of life by religious authority, and after attaining the liberation from such ecclesiastical tyranny, the secularists went on to institute a revolt against God himself, sometimes tacitly and sometimes openly.
195:8.7 To the secularistic revolt you owe the amazing creativity of American industrialism and the unprecedented material progress of Western civilization. And because the secularistic revolt went too far and lost sight of God and true religion, there also followed the unlooked-for harvest of world wars and international unsettledness.
195:8.8 It is not necessary to sacrifice faith in God in order to enjoy the blessings of the modern secularistic revolt: tolerance, social service, democratic government, and civil liberties. It was not necessary for the secularists to antagonize true religion in order to promote science and to advance education.
195:8.9 But secularism is not the sole parent of all these recent gains in the enlargement of living. Behind the gains of the twentieth century are not only science and secularism but also the unrecognized and unacknowledged spiritual workings of the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. [Our Master Jesus Christ is fully here in Spirit, lovingly leading and guiding all Truth-seekers and Truth-lovers worldwide into All Truth ! See John 16:7-16]
195:8.10 Without God, without religion, scientific secularism can never co-ordinate its forces, harmonize its divergent and rivalrous interests, races, and nationalisms. This secularistic human society, notwithstanding its unparalleled materialistic achievement, is slowly disintegrating. [Caution !] The chief cohesive force resisting this disintegration of antagonism is nationalism. And nationalism is the chief barrier to world peace.
195:8.11 The inherent weakness of secularism is that it discards ethics and religion for politics and power. You simply cannot establish the brotherhood of men while ignoring or denying the fatherhood of God.
195:8.12 Secular social and political optimism is an illusion. Without God, neither freedom and liberty, nor property and wealth will lead to peace.
195:8.13 The complete secularization of science, education, industry, and society can lead only to disaster. During the first third of the twentieth century humans on earth killed more human beings than were killed during the whole of the Christian dispensation up to that time. And this is only the beginning of the dire harvest of materialism and secularism; still more terrible destruction is yet to come. [WWII then happened ! Other terrible wars without end will continue until more humans want Spirit-led self-control, higher purpose and abiding peace in the perfecting worldwide Family of God !]
9. CHRISTIANITY’S PROBLEM
[Very important !]
195:9.1 Do not overlook the value of your spiritual heritage, the river of truth running down through the centuries, even to the barren times of a materialistic and secular age. In all your worthy efforts to rid yourselves of the superstitious creeds of past ages, make sure that you hold fast the eternal truth. But be patient! when the present superstition revolt is over, the truths of Jesus’ gospel will persist gloriously to illuminate a new and better way.
195:9.2 But paganized and socialized Christianity stands in need of new contact with the uncompromised teachings of Jesus; it languishes for lack of a new vision of the Master’s life on earth. A new and fuller revelation of the religion of Jesus is destined to conquer an empire of materialistic secularism and to overthrow a world sway of mechanistic naturalism. Earth is now quivering on the very brink of one of its most amazing and enthralling epochs of social readjustment, moral quickening, and spiritual enlightenment.
195:9.3 The teachings of Jesus, even though greatly modified, survived the mystery cults of their birthtime, the ignorance and superstition of the dark ages, and are even now slowly triumphing over the materialism, mechanism, and secularism of the twentieth century. And such times of great testing and threatened defeat are always times of great revelation. [We are all blessed to live in an epoch of greater spiritual Revelation ! Amen !]
195:9.4 Religion does need new leaders, spiritual men and women who will dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings. [Yes !] If Christianity persists in neglecting its spiritual mission while it continues to busy itself with social and material problems, the spiritual renaissance must await the coming of these new teachers of Jesus’ religion who will be exclusively devoted to the spiritual regeneration of men. And then will these Spirit-born souls quickly supply the leadership and inspiration requisite for the social, moral, economic, and political reorganization of the world. [The Living Truth of and in Jesus Christ must be widely shared: Each and every human being living on earth is now a divinely beloved son of God with God-given Divine-human rights ! Teaching just secular human rights will continue to be a failure.]
195:9.5 The modern age will refuse to accept a religion which is inconsistent with facts and out of harmony with its highest conceptions of truth, beauty, and goodness. The hour is striking for a rediscovery of the true and original foundations of present-day distorted and compromised Christianity — the real life and teachings of Jesus. [There are now millions of printed and internet copies of this mighty Fifth Epochal Revelation free to peruse and share. Billions of copies will be needed in the next decades of augmented spiritual progress worldwide. A soon-coming world standard language of English (expanded somewhat) will help.]
195:9.6 Primitive man lived a life of superstitious bondage to religious fear. Modern, civilized men dread the thought of falling under the dominance of strong religious convictions. Thinking man has always feared to be held by a religion. When a strong and moving religion threatens to dominate him, he invariably tries to rationalize, traditionalize, and institutionalize it, thereby hoping to gain control of it. [Letting God's Spirits above and within you control your lower nature leads to much spiritual joy, inner peace, outer progress and higher happiness.] By such procedure, even a revealed religion becomes man-made and man-dominated. Modern men and women of intelligence evade the religion of Jesus because of their fears of what it will do to them — and with them. And all such fears are well founded. The religion of Jesus does, indeed, dominate and transform its believers, demanding that men dedicate their lives to seeking for a knowledge of the will of the Father in heaven and requiring that the energies of living be consecrated to the unselfish service of the brotherhood of man.
195:9.7 Selfish men and women simply will not pay such a price for even the greatest spiritual treasure ever offered mortal man. [even a personal Revelation of your final spiritual Destiny as an eternalized and ever-progressing son of God in Jesus ! and other sacred Gifts !] Only when man has become sufficiently disillusioned by the sorrowful disappointments attendant upon the foolish and deceptive pursuits of selfishness, and subsequent to the discovery of the barrenness of formalized religion, will he be disposed to turn wholeheartedly to the gospel of the kingdom, the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. [That transformation I see as coming in ever faster ! It is much needed !]
195:9.8 The world needs more firsthand religion. Even Christianity — the best of the religions of the twentieth century — is not only a religion about Jesus, but it is so largely one which men experience secondhand. They take their religion wholly as handed down by their accepted religious teachers. What an awakening the world would experience if it could only see Jesus as he really lived on earth and know, firsthand, his life-giving teachings! Descriptive words of things beautiful cannot thrill like the sight thereof, neither can creedal words inspire men’s souls like the experience of knowing the presence of God. But expectant faith will ever keep the hope-door of man’s soul open for the entrance of the eternal spiritual realities of the divine values of the worlds beyond. [Our living faith is also a free Gift from our loving Father God !]
195:9.9 Christianity has dared to lower its ideals before the challenge of human greed, war-madness, and the lust for power; but the religion of Jesus stands as the unsullied [pure, clean] and transcendent spiritual summons, calling to the best there is in man to rise above all these legacies of animal evolution and, by grace, attain the moral heights of true human destiny.
195:9.10 Christianity is threatened by slow death from formalism, overorganization, intellectualism, and other nonspiritual trends. The modern Christian church is not such a brotherhood of dynamic believers as Jesus commissioned continuously to effect the spiritual transformation of successive generations of mankind.
195:9.11 So-called Christianity has become a social and cultural movement as well as a religious belief and practice. The stream of modern Christianity drains many an ancient pagan swamp and many a barbarian morass; many olden cultural watersheds drain into this present-day cultural stream as well as the high Galilean tablelands [of and from our Sovereign Creator Son of God and Son of man who is Jesus Christ here in Spirit !] which are supposed to be its exclusive source. [God the Universal Father states: "This is my beloved Son; (Jesus Christ) give heed to (obey and follow only) Him !"]
Topical Study 87 "Embracing Spiritual Growth
by Sincerely Seeking to be Spirit-of-God-Led"
[Highlights of my Topical Studies 59, 65, 68, 74 and 82 done here earlier]
Compiled 7/03/2015 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Part 33 of many]
PAPER 195 AFTER PENTECOST, Cont.
10. THE FUTURE
[Paper:Section.Paragraph]
195:10.1 [Very important !] Christianity has indeed done a great service for this world, but what is now most needed is Jesus. The world needs to see Jesus living again on earth in the experience of Spirit-born mortals who effectively reveal the Master to all men. [I now share in the Spirit of Truth: Beloved human sons of God: Behold our loving Father God in and as our True God-Man Jesus Christ here in Spirit ! For the time is now at hand to realize and be the divinely beloved son of God in Jesus that you now are !!] It is futile to talk about a revival of primitive Christianity; you must go forward from where you find yourselves. Modern culture must become spiritually baptized with a new revelation of Jesus’ life and illuminated with a new understanding of his gospel of eternal salvation. And when Jesus becomes thus lifted up, he will draw all men to himself. [See John 12:32 !!] Jesus’ disciples should be more than conquerors, even overflowing sources of inspiration and enhanced living to all men. Religion is only an exalted humanism until it is made divine by the discovery of the reality of the presence of God in personal experience. [!!]
195:10.2 The beauty and sublimity, the humanity and divinity, the simplicity and uniqueness, of Jesus’ life on earth present such a striking and appealing picture of man-saving and God-revealing that the theologians and philosophers of all time should be effectively restrained from daring to form creeds or create theological systems of spiritual bondage out of such a transcendental bestowal of God in the form of man. In Jesus the universe produced a mortal man in whom the spirit of love triumphed over the material handicaps of time and overcame the fact of physical origin.
195:10.3 Ever bear in mind — God and men need each other. They are mutually necessary to the full and final attainment of eternal personality experience in the divine destiny of universe finality.
195:10.4 “The kingdom of God is within you” was probably the greatest pronouncement Jesus ever made, next to the declaration that his Father is a living and loving Spirit. [The Paradise Universal Father-Infinite I AM ...]
195:10.5 In winning souls for the Master, it is not the first mile of compulsion, duty, or convention that will transform man and his world, but rather the second mile of free service and liberty-loving devotion that betokens the Jesusonian reaching forth to grasp his brother in love and sweep him on under spiritual guidance toward the higher and divine goal of mortal existence. Christianity even now willingly goes the first mile, but mankind languishes and stumbles along in moral darkness because there are so few genuine second-milers — so few professed followers of Jesus who really live and love as he taught his disciples to live and love and serve.
195:10.6 The call to the adventure of building a new and transformed human society by means of the spiritual rebirth of Jesus’ brotherhood of the kingdom should thrill all who believe in him as men have not been stirred since the days when they walked about on earth as his companions in the flesh. [We Spirit-transformed humans can continue to help build a spiritually transformed world according to God's will and in loving brotherhood service !]
195:10.7 No social system or political regime which denies the reality of God can contribute in any constructive and lasting manner to the advancement of human civilization. But Christianity, as it is subdivided [over 40,000 different denominations and sects and that number continues to increase fast] and secularized today, presents the greatest single obstacle to its further advancement; especially is this true concerning the Orient. [Our Living Master Jesus Christ is calling all Christians and others into greater spiritual UNITY, not mere dogmatic intellectual UNIFORMITY !]
195:10.8 Ecclesiasticism [Having mere human church leaders and clergy "authority" over the (lower status, untrained ) "lay" members] is at once and forever incompatible with that living faith, growing spirit, and firsthand experience of the faith-comrades of Jesus in the brotherhood of man in the spiritual association of the kingdom of heaven. The praiseworthy desire to preserve traditions of past achievement often leads to the defense of outgrown systems of worship. The well-meant desire to foster ancient thought systems effectually prevents the sponsoring of new and adequate means and methods designed to satisfy the spiritual longings of the expanding and advancing minds of modern men. Likewise, the Christian churches of the twentieth century stand as great, but wholly unconscious, obstacles to the immediate advance of the real gospel — the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
195:10.9 Many earnest persons who would gladly yield loyalty to the Christ of the gospel find it very difficult enthusiastically to support a church which exhibits so little of the spirit of his life and teachings, and which they have been erroneously taught he founded. Jesus did not found the so-called Christian church, but he has, in every manner consistent with his nature, fostered it as the best existent exponent of his lifework on earth.
195:10.10 If the Christian church would only dare to espouse the Master’s program, thousands of apparently indifferent youths would rush forward to enlist in such a spiritual undertaking, and they would not hesitate to go all the way through with this great adventure. [If over-organized, institutionalized Christianity fails, countless small, independent, home-family-based Christian Fellowship (cell) groups will form; and then each will probably divide into two or three new groups when the regular Spirit-dedicated attendance attains about twelve or fifteen members. True, personal, God-conscious religion/spirituality at all times and in all places, with and under Jesus, is coming increasingly to earth ! Amen ! ]
195:10.11 Christianity is seriously confronted with the doom embodied in one of its own slogans: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” The non-Christian world will hardly capitulate to a sect-divided Christendom. The living Jesus is the only hope of a possible unification of Christianity. The true church — the Jesus brotherhood — is invisible, spiritual, and is characterized by unity, not necessarily by uniformity. Uniformity is the earmark of the physical world of mechanistic nature. Spiritual unity is the fruit of faith union with the living Jesus. The visible church should refuse longer to handicap the progress of the invisible and spiritual brotherhood of the kingdom of God. And this brotherhood is destined to become a living organism in contrast to an institutionalized social organization. It may well utilize such social organizations, but it must not be supplanted by them.
195:10.12 But the Christianity of even the twentieth century must not be despised. It is the product of the combined moral genius of the God-knowing men of many races during many ages, and it has truly been one of the greatest powers for good on earth, and therefore no man should lightly regard it, notwithstanding its inherent and acquired defects. Christianity still contrives to move the minds of reflective men with mighty moral emotions.
195:10.13 But there is no excuse for the involvement of the church in commerce and politics; such unholy alliances are a flagrant betrayal of the Master. And the genuine lovers of truth will be slow to forget that this powerful institutionalized church has often dared to smother newborn faith and persecute truth bearers who chanced to appear in unorthodox raiment.
195:10.14 It is all too true that such a church would not have survived unless there had been men in the world who preferred such a style of worship. Many spiritually indolent souls crave an ancient and authoritative religion of ritual and sacred traditions. Human evolution and spiritual progress are hardly sufficient to enable all men to dispense with religious authority. And the invisible brotherhood of the kingdom may well include these family groups of various social and temperamental classes if they are only willing to become truly Spirit-led sons of God. But in this brotherhood of Jesus there is no place for sectarian rivalry, group bitterness, nor assertions of moral superiority and spiritual infallibility.
195:10.15 These various groupings of Christians may serve to accommodate numerous different types of would-be believers among the various peoples of Western civilization, but such division of Christendom presents a grave weakness when it attempts to carry the gospel of Jesus to Oriental peoples. These races do not yet understand that there is a religion of Jesus separate, and somewhat apart, from Christianity, which has more and more become a religion about Jesus.
195:10.16 The great hope of earth lies in the possibility of a new revelation of Jesus with a new and enlarged presentation of his saving message which would spiritually unite in loving service the numerous families of his present-day professed followers. [Yes !!]
195:10.17 Even secular education could help in this great spiritual renaissance [re-Birth !] if it would pay more attention to the work of teaching youth how to engage in life planning and character progression. The purpose of all education should be to foster and further the supreme purpose of life, the development of a majestic and well-balanced personality. There is great need for the teaching of moral discipline in the place of so much self-gratification. Upon such a foundation religion may contribute its spiritual incentive to the enlargement and enrichment of mortal life, even to the security and enhancement of life eternal.
195:10.18 Christianity is an extemporized religion, and therefore must it operate in low gear. High-gear spiritual performances must await the new revelation and the more general acceptance of the real religion of Jesus. But Christianity is a mighty religion, seeing that the commonplace disciples of a crucified carpenter set in motion those teachings which conquered the Roman world in three hundred years and then went on to triumph over the barbarians who overthrew Rome. This same Christianity conquered — absorbed and exalted — the whole stream of Hebrew theology and Greek philosophy. And then, when this Christian religion became comatose for more than a thousand years as a result of an overdose of mysteries and paganism, it resurrected itself and virtually reconquered the whole Western world. Christianity contains enough of Jesus’ teachings to immortalize it. [!! Very true and important ! Yes, a more Spirit-led and more true Living Personal Christianity will eventually become the one universal living religion worldwide !! This is God's perfect will for all humans on earth - to seek and to follow in love and service only our Eternal Sovereign Savior Jesus Christ ! (aka Jesus Christ Michael). If added divine visitations of made-visible Sons of God and high Angels are required, our loving Universe Creator Father-Son God Jesus Christ Michael will send them here as needed. Jesus is always fully here in Spirit; if we were far more advanced in Spirit Vision, we would always percceive him in our God-seeking souls and Spirit-led minds ! Only Spirit can Reveal Spirit to Spirit ...]
195:10.19 If Christianity could only grasp more of Jesus’ teachings, it could do so much more in helping modern man to solve his new and increasingly complex problems.
195:10.20 Christianity suffers under a great handicap because it has become identified in the minds of all the world as a part of the social system, the industrial life, and the moral standards of Western civilization; and thus has Christianity unwittingly seemed to sponsor a society which staggers under the guilt of tolerating science without idealism, politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without restraint, knowledge without character, power without conscience, and industry without morality. [Let us help transform this needy world -- one Divine-human son of God at a time that all humans are, potentially or Actually !]
195:10.21 The hope of modern Christianity is that it should cease to sponsor the social systems and industrial policies of Western civilization while it humbly bows itself before the cross it so valiantly extols, there to learn anew from Jesus of Nazareth the greatest truths mortal man can ever hear — the living gospel of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. [Amen !! Please peruse often this mighty Epochal Revelation of Truth, and continue to pray and worship God, and live and share this very important Paper, or portions of it, with others, and in Joy, Peace and continual Progress !]
PAPER 196 THE FAITH OF JESUS
Introduction
196:0.1 Jesus enjoyed a sublime and wholehearted faith in God. He experienced the ordinary ups and downs of mortal existence, but he never religiously doubted the certainty of God's watchcare and guidance. His faith was the outgrowth of the insight born of the activity of the divine presence, his indwelling Adjuster. His faith was neither traditional nor merely intellectual; it was wholly personal and purely spiritual.
196:0.2 The human Jesus saw God as being holy, just, and great, as well as being true, beautiful, and good. All these attributes of divinity he focused in his mind as the "will of the Father in heaven." Jesus' God was at one and the same time "The Holy One of Israel" and "The living and loving Father in heaven." The concept of God as a Father was not original with Jesus, but he exalted and elevated the idea into a sublime experience by achieving a new revelation of God and by proclaiming that every mortal creature is a child of this Father of love, a son of God. [Yes, Jesus teaches us in Spirit that each and every human on earth is a divinely beloved son of God with potential for eventual perfection and eternal life ! That is the real Gospel (Good News) of Jesus Christ that all humans on this world most need to know, believe and daily live !!]
196:0.3 Jesus did not cling to faith in God as would a struggling soul at war with the universe and at death grips with a hostile and sinful world; he did not resort to faith merely as a consolation in the midst of difficulties or as a comfort in threatened despair; faith was not just an illusory compensation for the unpleasant realities and the sorrows of living. In the very face of all the natural difficulties and the temporal contradictions of mortal existence, he experienced the tranquility of supreme and unquestioned trust in God and felt the tremendous thrill of living, by faith, in the very presence of the heavenly Father. And this triumphant faith was a living experience of actual Spirit attainment. Jesus' great contribution to the values of human experience was not that he revealed so many new ideas about the Father in heaven, but rather that he so magnificently and humanly demonstrated a new and higher type of living faith in God. Never on all the [millions of human-inhabited] worlds of this universe, in the life of any one mortal, did God ever become such a living reality as in the human experience of Jesus of Nazareth. [Now our Master Jesus is the fullness of God here to all in His large Created Universe of Nebadon ! And He, Jesus, the Spirit of All Truth, is here with us to lovingly lead us eternally into and with God the Universal Father on Paradise !]
196:0.4 In the Master's life on earth, this and all other worlds of the local creation discover a new and higher type of religion, religion based on personal spiritual relations with the Universal Father and wholly validated by the supreme authority of genuine personal experience. This living faith of Jesus was more than an intellectual reflection, and it was not a mystic meditation.
196:0.5 Theology may fix, formulate, define, and dogmatize faith, but in the human life of Jesus faith was personal, living, original, spontaneous, and purely spiritual. This faith was not reverence for tradition nor a mere intellectual belief which he held as a sacred creed, but rather a sublime experience and a profound conviction which securely held him. His faith was so real and all-encompassing that it absolutely swept away any spiritual doubts and effectively destroyed every conflicting desire. Nothing was able to tear him away from the spiritual anchorage of this fervent, sublime, and undaunted faith. Even in the face of apparent defeat or in the throes of disappointment and threatening despair, he calmly stood in the divine presence free from fear and fully conscious of spiritual invincibility. Jesus enjoyed the invigorating assurance of the possession of unflinching faith, and in each of life's trying situations he unfailingly exhibited an unquestioning loyalty to the Father's will. And this superb faith was undaunted even by the cruel and crushing threat of an ignominious death.
196:0.6 In a religious genius, strong spiritual faith so many times leads directly to disastrous fanaticism, to exaggeration of the religious ego, but it was not so with Jesus. He was not unfavorably affected in his practical life by his extraordinary faith and Spirit attainment because this spiritual exaltation was a wholly unconscious and spontaneous soul expression of his personal experience with God.
196:0.7 The all-consuming and indomitable spiritual faith of Jesus never became fanatical, for it never attempted to run away with his well-balanced intellectual judgments concerning the proportional values of practical and commonplace social, economic, and moral life situations. The Son of Man was a splendidly unified human personality; he was a perfectly endowed divine being; he was also magnificently co-ordinated as a combined human and divine being functioning on earth as a single personality. Always did the Master co-ordinate the faith of the soul with the wisdom-appraisals of seasoned experience. Personal faith, spiritual hope, and moral devotion were always correlated in a matchless religious unity of harmonious association with the keen realization of the reality and sacredness of all human loyalties -- personal honor, family love, religious obligation, social duty, and economic necessity. [And Jesus continues today and forever to Be the SAME ONE God-Man Person !]
196:0.8 The faith of Jesus visualized all spirit values as being found in the kingdom of God; therefore he said, "Seek first the kingdom of heaven." Jesus saw in the advanced and ideal fellowship of the kingdom the achievement and fulfillment of the "will of God." The very heart of the prayer which he taught his disciples was, "Your kingdom come; your will be done." Having thus conceived of the kingdom as comprising the will of God, he devoted himself to the cause of its realization with amazing self-forgetfulness and unbounded enthusiasm. But in all his intense mission and throughout his extraordinary life there never appeared the fury of the fanatic nor the superficial frothiness of the religious egotist.
196:0.9 The Master's entire life was consistently conditioned by this living faith, this sublime religious experience. This spiritual attitude wholly dominated his thinking and feeling, his believing and praying, his teaching and preaching. This personal faith of a son in the certainty and security of the guidance and protection of the heavenly Father imparted to his unique life a profound endowment of spiritual reality. And yet, despite this very deep consciousness of close relationship with divinity, this Galilean, God's Galilean, when addressed as Good Teacher, instantly replied, "Why do you call me good?" When we stand confronted by such splendid self-forgetfulness, we begin to understand how the Universal Father found it possible so fully to manifest himself to him and reveal himself through him to the mortals of the realms.
196:0.10 Jesus brought to God, as a man of the realm, the greatest of all offerings: the consecration and dedication of his own will to the majestic service of doing the divine will. Jesus always and consistently interpreted religion wholly in terms of the Father's will. When you study the career of the Master, as concerns prayer or any other feature of the religious life, look not so much for what he taught as for what he did. Jesus never prayed as a religious duty. To him prayer was a sincere expression of spiritual attitude, a declaration of soul loyalty, a recital of personal devotion, an expression of thanksgiving, an avoidance of emotional tension, a prevention of conflict, an exaltation of intellection, an ennoblement of desire, a vindication of moral decision, an enrichment of thought, an invigoration of higher inclinations, a consecration of impulse, a clarification of viewpoint, a declaration of faith, a transcendental surrender of will, a sublime assertion of confidence, a revelation of courage, the proclamation of discovery, a confession of supreme devotion, the validation of consecration, a technique for the adjustment of difficulties, and the mighty mobilization of the combined soul powers to withstand all human tendencies toward selfishness, evil, and sin. He lived just such a life of prayerful consecration to the doing of his Father's will and ended his life triumphantly with just such a prayer. [Jesus' last words on the cross, said in a loud Voice were: "IT IS FINISHED! FATHER, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMEND MY SPIRIT."] The secret of his unparalleled religious life was this consciousness of the presence of God; and he attained it by intelligent prayer and sincere worship -- unbroken communion with God -- and not by leadings, voices, visions, or extraordinary religious practices.
196:0.11 In the earthly life of Jesus, religion was a living experience, a direct and personal movement from spiritual reverence to practical righteousness. The faith of Jesus bore the transcendent fruits of the divine Spirit. His faith was not immature and credulous like that of a child, but in many ways it did resemble the unsuspecting trust of the child mind. Jesus trusted God much as the child trusts a parent. He had a profound confidence in the universe -- just such a trust as the child has in its parental environment. Jesus' wholehearted faith in the fundamental goodness of the universe very much resembled the child's trust in the security of its earthly surroundings. He depended on the heavenly Father as a child leans upon its earthly parent, and his fervent faith never for one moment doubted the certainty of the heavenly Father's overcare. He was not disturbed seriously by fears, doubts, and skepticism. Unbelief did not inhibit the free and original expression of his life. He combined the stalwart and intelligent courage of a full-grown man with the sincere and trusting optimism of a believing child. His faith grew to such heights of trust that it was devoid of fear. [!!]
196:0.12 The faith of Jesus attained the purity of a child's trust. His faith was so absolute and undoubting that it responded to the charm of the contact of fellow beings and to the wonders of the universe. His sense of dependence on the divine was so complete and so confident that it yielded the joy and the assurance of absolute personal security. There was no hesitating pretense in his religious experience. In this giant intellect of the full-grown man the faith of the child reigned supreme in all matters relating to the religious consciousness. It is not strange that he once said, "Except you become as a little child, you shall not enter the kingdom." Notwithstanding that Jesus' faith was childlike, it was in no sense childish.
196:0.13 Jesus does not require his disciples to believe in him but rather to believe with him, believe in the reality of the love of God and in full confidence accept the security of the assurance of sonship with the heavenly Father. The Master desires that all his followers should fully share his transcendent faith. Jesus most touchingly challenged his followers, not only to believe what he believed, but also to believe as he believed. This is the full significance of his one supreme requirement, "Follow me." [I believe in and with my loving Sovereign Savior Jesus Christ Michael as both my Universe Creator Father and very Elder Brother; and thus I believe also in the Universal Father-Infinite I AM on Paradise ! This Infinite Father of All Reality and our loving and merciful Savior Jesus Christ Michael are fully One in Spirit Eternally ! In Jesus, God is fully Present here with us in Spirit !!]
196:0.14 Jesus' earthly life was devoted to one great purpose -- doing the Father's will, living the human life religiously and by faith. The faith of Jesus was trusting, like that of a child, but it was wholly free from presumption. He made robust and manly decisions, courageously faced manifold disappointments, resolutely surmounted extraordinary difficulties, and unflinchingly confronted the stern requirements of duty. It required a strong will and an unfailing confidence to believe what Jesus believed and as he believed.
