FA).TH. By Chas. Fillmore. June 27, You will find on your order of service a further prayer

Transcription

1 il 0 f 1 i i.' i i 1.:-/ I 11,...., S r. \. FA).TH r By Chas. Fillmore June 27, You will find on your order of service a further prayer and ne ditation, which is, "I believe in the indwelling Spirit of truth, and through thought, purpose, and practice I hold fast to that faith." C : We every one of us have that central I AM identity and, the power to create conditions; that is, to bring it into mani- I2 O r LL 0 festation. Some of our critics tell us that we are exalting the O» ST 0t Iz 0O personality when we speak of the Spirit within, as if the lesser CO /1 contained the greater. We are dealing with Spirit--not facts And ' forms, not the three-dimensional varld but the great world of Mind, :

2 2. in which.the Spirit of truth is being created or formed in thos e who recognize it. So it is right and proper for us to make this affirmation: through thought, purpose, and practice we have faith in the indwelling Spirit of truth. Let us all join in this wonderful affirmation, then silently concentrate upon that inner spiritual I AM and awaken it. "Awake, thou that sleepest; and Christ shall give thee light." (Repeated statement three times). Amen. 4*4 0 4 * * The text of our lesson this morning, taken from the eleventh / 3. chapter of Hebrews is one that is usually credited to the Apostle Paul as the author, but somb of our modern critics claim that the author is not Paul but some one unknown. In ernmining these claims we see so many earmarks of the great Apostle in Hebrews that we cannot help standing with the early Bible compilers who place it with Paull s iritings. Paul was without question the pioneer of faith. He found it the open door to God 's kingdom, and he went so far as to assert that we really do not get any credit for our good works because faith was the only foundation upon which to build

3 4. the Mind of Christ. Thus we find in this letter to the Hebrews a faith that could only have emanated from Paul. After recitlng the exploits of numerous captives of war in the history of the Hebrews, Paul climaxes with this masterly pyramid of facts. (Mr. Fillmore then read from the eleventh chapter of Hebrews). You can see here faith is mentioned by Paul a "mastier hand," and,that hand is by inference with other Scripture in likeness of character plainly the work of the apostle. For example, this very familiar chapter of Hebrews 11 and the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthlans 5. which Paul writes in the same strain and the same binding up of testimony about love. You can Bee that this is paralleled by this chapter of Hebrews, but in the eulogy of love instead of faith. (Mr. Fill.more then read I Cor. 13). You can see then that Paul really is entitled to the authorship of Hebrews, and I think with our intuitive judgment we would readily see that no other hand could have written this book, which is really a summing up of the works of Paul. But our subject this morning is especially faith, and I would say 1

4 6. thnt faith runs the whole gamut of every experience of the spiritunl mnn. And with our many definitions of faith, how shall we get down to the one that brings us closest in contact with what we consider the invisible. Faith is a concentration of effort upon some specific object. We always have an object when we exercise faith. Some persons have no specific object ill life. They Simply drift from day today. They don't strive for efficiency in their work and consequently are not advanced. Instead of concentrating on the real values of life they fritter their time away on playing bridge, going 7. to parties, dances, and pictureshows, and a thousand other diversions that are so popular in this present world. Then the argument always is advanced that these things are not harmful, that they are a part of the pleasures of life, that God wants us all to have a good time. All this is admitted. But is there anything in this passing show--this world of the material man--which will develop faith, Lndividual strength of character, and bring forth the attributes of the Higher Mind or the Christ? Paul say that the one great object of existence was to manifest the Christ. "Forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching

5 8. forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize o f the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. " So without a definite object in life we are like Alice in Wonderland. Alice said to the strange cat that she met in the woods, "Would you please tell me which way I ought to go from here"? The cat said, "That depends a good deal on where you want to get." Then Alice answered, n I don't much care." 9. The old cat sald, "Then it doesn't matter which way you go.n But Alice said, "I want to get somewhere." The cat said, "Oh, you will be sure to get there." In other words, we are all sure to get somewhere, but the big question with most of us is, Where? So we understand that this power :., of our minds to bring forth begins at once to have a definite object..

6 10. in our life. Then we know that all the forces of mind and body will fall into cooperation with your highest idea, and the idea is 6f course that we shall attain the one object of man, and that is Christ. So with this higher principle, thinking about it, realizing it as the one foundation principle, or breaking into the invisible or the kingdom of the heavens, we should concentrate upon that thing that links us with invisible substance--not material substance but that which stands back of material substance. You will find in the work of Jesus Christ everything that He did nearly He emphas ized faith in 11. contact with substance. He told Peter, who represents faith, "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on the earth (substance) shall be bound - 3 I t or 1/ LL 0 in heaven (higher realm) and whatsoever thou shalt loose on the earth shall be loosed in heaven. So whatsoever any of us who are 0% ' exercising faith or this Peter quality of the mind are affirming in our faith consciousness will not only 'bind in the 00 0 earth, but the / higher will begin to respond. Here in the earth is the place in whic 1 every one of us are exercising our highest ability. We will never find k a better place. So we are told in this chapter of Hebrews that faith

7 12. is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. " "Things" are emphasized. If you want to make the great demonstration in the material world, with faith as the substance idea, or that idea that will mould :the substance invisible and bring it into manifestation. So we are told in the third verse of Hebrews 11: "By faith we unders tand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God,so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear." So we find that this faith principle is a mighty principle in doing all kinds of great works--great spiritual works. Jesus taught His followers that they 13. were healed--the body was healed through faith. "Thy faith shall make thee whole." Life really is one of the dominant ideas in restoring the body to its primal perfection. So we find that we run over the different characters 1.n our morning lesson, and we find that they represent different activities of faith. For example, Abel made a better or more acceptable offer to God than Cain--Why? Because he represents the spiritual side of man. Cain is the flesh. His neme means poss Ds lion, that self'ishness of the natural; while Abel represents principle, that spiritual quality. We find here that Cain was banished

8 14. into earthly activity and yet the Scripture says that he mustn' t be to slain. So the body is part of our mind activity. We have/get into a consciousness that the body is also part of the great idea of Godof man--godis perfection of man. So we don't ignore the body, but raise ' it up. "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God translated him: for he hath had witness borne 'to him that *Exxxx:rlighilltm before his translation he had been well-pleasing unto God." That question has often come up, and the inference here is that 15. Enoch attained immortality before Jesus Christ. But Paul says that Christ is the "first-fruits of them that are asleep." He does not say he was taken to heaven. He doubtless oassed into what we call the astral realms, the ether, as Elijah did, but that ian't heaven. He had to.come back again. So Enoch wasn't perfected as Jesus Christ. So we find that faith is not only the key to the kingdom of the heavgns, but it is the power that makes possible the unity of consciousness between God and man. We must believe that God IS. We often

9 16. if God is closer than hands and feet,as the poet says,why God does not make His presence in our lives more pldinly conscious. We should remember right here that God is Mind and we are mind, and we cannot ignore the mind. It is through ideas that we come into manifestation. God is the great idea. We must awaken these ideas in ourselves so that we can say to this inner consciousness: "I do have faith in thee as my indwelling life and substance. " Get your faith in contact with the substance idea--then all these outer things shall begin to form. You w111 f ind that Jesus. Christ unif ormly had this substan ce in contact 17. with what He did. He blasted the fig tree. It was substance that He worked on. So in all of our work we f ind that we must speak the Word with an exalted idea. I say, I have faith in God. What kind of a God? The God of Spirit. And this brings us to that place where we must exercise our faith to the limit, and not be afraid of a personal grip on these things. Jesus Christ laid the law down in its broadest aspect. "Whosoever shall not d oubt in his he art, but shall believe that all things are possible to him, shall.receive." Here is unlimited power of expression,

10 nlimited power of mind. So we need to bring our faith right 1nto direct action with the universal Mind in all of its activities. Now we are given here Noah as one of the activities of faith. He listened to the Lord. The Lord warned him of events to come. Noah means rest. That means that faith is not only active, but passive. Sometimes you get a wonderful realization of faith by resting in the God Mind. Just rest in the quiet peace of God, and your faith in that God Mind will be rewarded. "Be still, and know that I am God." So faith again is a silent quality. 19. We have Abel as one who through faith launched out into untried and unknown land. There he found his action. So our faith is going right out into the deep. We must have faith in things we can't see or realize. The faith again is associated with belief (Isaac)--he has given us an example of faith. Isaac means belief. So we should take the thought that God is the great peace of mind, an inward peace, and have faith in this for the realization of this faith. Sometimes we heve to sacrifice some physical blessings--like Abraham was told to sacrifice the thing that he loved 1 most. But when he was willing to take that step, all at once

11 20. he found the ram, and that was to be sacrificed instead of his beloved son. It was to be the sacrifice of some sense quality, and he c me to the realization that nothing is ever taken away, but lifted up to]iigher planes of action. So we shall never loose anything. Everything that we get out of this world is good if we handle it in the right way. So in the handling of faith, remember that. there is no limit to its capacity; and above all that if we are aiming to get something very material, something physical, faith is the keynote to that situation. Have 21. faith in it, have faith in God working in His spiritual world in all of its activities, and you open up something there that you didn't realize existed. 22 ; Let us this morning give thanks to God for the opening up in e. LI LU rel US of this inner spiritual mind in everything that happens. We get a new impetus, and new faith--a faith in God, in ourselves, in man. We are getting somewhere when we believe in ourselves as co t1 sons of God. We are stirring up the e] 7 cells of our bodies, coming z2 or LL 0 0Q I Z 00 out of negation, into the peaceful place of spiritual ascendancy.