Transcript proofread by Zane Maser, Iwihub.com    Artwork: Inez Marques

pdf-49px  245A Esoteric Meaning Of Easter, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday

Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter: Esoteric Meaning 4/5
1959 Maui Advanced Work
Joel S. Goldsmith
Tape 245A

As you read Scripture, be sure that you read not pages and pages and pages but that you read only passages, whether the passage is one sentence or whether the passage is an entire story, like the story of Elijah in the wilderness and his experiences of being fed, or Moses’ experience in the wilderness of carrying the Hebrews through, or Jesus’ experience at one point or another in his ministry. And then, meditating, cogitating, contemplating, and asking for inner light on the esoteric meaning of those passages. And then, you will find it.

I illustrate that by telling you that for many, many years I could not understand the 91st Psalm. The reason was that what stood out to me I guess, above all other things, was that none of these things will come nigh thy dwelling place. And that didn’t make sense, because they did come nigh my dwelling place; and I saw them come nigh your dwelling place, too; and all the other people that I met in the world and read about. And then I’d go back to the 91st Psalm, and “but there’s something wrong here. There’s something wrong here. It isn’t true. It isn’t true this Psalm. It isn’t true.” It says, “None of these things will come nigh thy dwelling place,” but they do. But, you see, when the time came when I understood that there was an inner meaning, and I prayed, “What is the inner meaning? What does this mean? What does this mean?”

Then, one day, like great big electric lights, the first words stood out, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high.” Oh, now, there’s a 91st Psalm with a different meaning. Why yes, it does say that a thousand will fall at your left and ten thousand at your right. It doesn’t promise immunity to everybody. It only promises immunity to “he that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high.” Ah, now, you see, you have an inner meaning. You have something now to contemplate, because you know that you aren’t safe from the snare and the pit. You just aren’t safe from it, until inwardly you make agreement, “I am not living in a material world of time and space. I live, and move, and have my being in God. I am that man who has his being in Christ. I live with God. I walk with God. I hold my mind steadfast in God. I acknowledge Him in all my ways. In quietness and in confidence, I rest in the assurance of God’s presence—God in me and I in God.”

Ah, now, you see, with that in your mind day in and day out, day in and day out, you are abiding in the Word and letting the Word abide in you. And in the 15th Chapter of John, the Master says, “If you let this word abide in you, you will bear fruit richly.” But he goes on to say, “If you do not abide in this word and let this word abide in you, you will be as a branch of a tree that is cut off and withereth.” No one has the right to feel safe or secure in this world, unless they are living in that Word and letting that Word abide in them, unless they are living and moving and having their being in God realization, unless they are acknowledging God in all their ways, unless they are releasing their life into God, unless they say with Paul, “I can do all things through Christ, not of my own self, of my own self I bear witness to a lie, but by virtue of Christ.”

Do you see why the Master said that “the way is straight and narrow and few there be that enter,” because the world hopes that by going to church on Sunday, it can enter into God’s grace. It isn’t so, and Scripture is very clear about that. It is, “Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on God. Acknowledge him in all thy ways, and he will give thee rest. Abide in the word and let the word abide in you.” Dwell, live, move have your being in the secret place of the most high; then, you are not of the earth earthy. You are now abiding in the secret place of the most high, in God, in Spirit, where the human mind and its activities cannot reach you, where the laws of matter do not function; and, so, you find yourself free. You don’t find yourself instantly a hundred-percent free. You still have periods of sickness, and even periods of lack, or periods of temptations to sin, and maybe even some falling by the wayside and actually sinning.

Everybody stumbles. Everyone stumbles—some physically, some mentally, some morally, some financially. The sin is to stumble and stay down. But to pick oneself up and start over again is the spiritual way, for the Master provided for that by saying, “Forgive seventy times seven.” And if you are supposed to forgive seventy times seven, remember that the heavenly Father is supposed to forgive seven thousand times seventy thousand seventy thousand. Without limit, the Father forgives. But, our function is to bring ourselves to that, so if overnight you don’t find yourself in that land of milk and honey, remember that it took Moses forty years to get there. Remember that it took Elijah quite a long time before he found the seven thousand who had not bowed their knees to Baal and who were saved out for him. It took Jesus three years to accomplish his spiritual ministry and even then he had to encounter actual death before he could experience resurrection and ascension.