An address given by the Christ messenger Zodiac through the deep trance mediumship of Miss Winifred Moyes in the earlier part of the twentieth century.
(Note: This message was edited for a more general readership)
"MY children all, when you met together in this little room, when the hand was clasped, so then if you had eyes to see you would have witnessed a miracle taking place. Trivial things, so you think, common to every day, but when God is in the heart and mind, lo! through the power of the Holy Spirit links are made and these shall last throughout eternity. I bring in this point for one reason alone: I want you to be certain, every one, that God is ordering your going out and your coming in, and that when the heart is dedicated to Him then you can be certain that the guidance is as the Father wills and the protection is complete.
"Those of the world bound by the thoughts of others still less free than themselves, they think: 'Life is full of chance, we know not what will come tomorrow.' They know, perchance, that the day may hold sorrow or joy, but who is the constructor and controller of the events of daily life they know not, and they refuse to learn.
But I tell you, speaking under the guidance of the Master, that the Divine within chooses the sorrows and the joys, chooses its experiences and the lessons that must be learned. Long before the body was donned so the Divine spirit, with something of the God-power, aye, from the Creator Himself, the Divine spirit saw the future, saw the tests, saw the temptations which lay in front, and out of that purchased through the stage before, so in the measure of its release it chose the hard path, or if its release was limited, then, perforce, it had to take that which - alas and alas! - showed little of gain when the earthly span was o'er.
So, my children, this explains the measure of effort which the daily round, which the circumstances of your life have exacted and will exact; but oh, take from this the mighty joy that I am bidden to pass on from Love Himself.
"The wages of effort! How can I portray to you that which is of God, that which is of the Holy Spirit? Oh, little ones, the wages of effort cannot be reckoned in earthly terms, yet even around you day by day there are little symbols of the great reality, there are physical representations of that which is stored for you and shall be your own when the brief earth life is o'er. Once more I take you back over the Sacred Record to the prophets of old, to the humble servants of the Most High, and I ask you to ponder on the wages of effort that these drew out of the vibrations, their lot, their portion, and what awaited them when they were free.
Oh, how plain it is. In their own time they were held by much. It seemed to them that failures lay behind so thick and successes so few. They sought to pass on the message of light but the message of light in a measure was clouded by the density of the darkness that was around. They spake: 'Thus saith the Lord God Jehovah'; the few listened but the majority returned to the god of self and gave their all at this shrine; and today some still worship at the shrine of self and the precious years of what was meant to be freedom have been wasted, cast aside.
"The messengers of the Most High called to the people, they passed on warning. But the prophets, for the most part, suffered as only holy prophets can suffer. For mark you this, these were that which you name 'sensitives', and apart from the hostility they met on either side, at times the gift of vision was theirs. Before them they saw the nether worlds and something of the anguish which they held; aye, they suffered as all sensitives must suffer.
Yet forget not that although their fellow creatures upon the earth plane turned from them when they did not persecute them, such as these, out of that which they had sought to do, had proved themselves friends of God, and the friendship of the mighty Creator built up around them joys and beauties and strengths which indeed have to be experienced to be understood.
Oh, think of those of old, for indeed history is repeated again and again but with this great difference: The character of the temptation which assails the messenger of the Christ and the messenger of the Lord God Jehovah - the character of the temptation differs but the tests must be the same.
"My children, as I speak I am thinking of that one which you name Elijah, his lot; and I am thinking of that one who sought to wear his mantle and did so in little part. Ponder over the lives of such as these. Do you imagine that their gifts, their powers, their visions, were not bought at a tremendous price. These things cannot be told. There are those forms of suffering which cannot be put into words which the instrument must be willing to endure, but even in this - oh, how gloriously in this - comes the radiance of the love of God, and we know, because the Master has told us, that in our sorrows, in our trials, lo! the holy ones draw close.
"Forget not that a man or a woman untempted, untried, is as a child in their spiritual emancipation. Measure not spirituality by lack of temptation, but measure the gift of spiritual release by the multitude of temptations fought and overcome. For did not the Christ suffer all things and overcome all things, as direct reassurance to us? My children, the wages of effort are so great that I cannot portray them in earthly language, yet I remind you that those wages are in proportion only to the effort given forth, to that which the individual has suffered and is willing to suffer. Yet what is held out before us? Again your minds go back on the Sacred Record. In reading the narratives, the stories of the life of this one and that, instinctively you are conscious as to the degree of effort given forth by the one portrayed. You see here a mighty strength and there a weakness; a great, great courage and then a turning back on the path. But when the desire within was to rise to the highest and the best so the grace of God, as it were, swept away the follies and the frailties, and something was worked in which has brought to others renewed strength, greater endurance, and a fount of patience from which they can draw.
"Because I dwell upon such as these, oh think not that I am comparing the lives of those in this same day in terms of disparagement. Far from that. Can you not realise that the pioneers today, those who are soldiers of Christ in the sense that they are willing to do battle themselves, those who are determined to answer to the call for volunteers, that all these in time to come will stand out in the pages of history again as example to others? What they did, what they suffered, what they tried to accomplish, that will be as a light to give direction to those who are seeking to find the way to God.
"The wages of sin is death! I have told you before that indeed that which you name 'sin' - which we name weakness - has the power to kill the Godlike qualities with which man is endowed. I have explained that there are countless thousands even as the dead. They know not what they are or where they are; they lie unconscious and time goes on. But when there is someone strong enough in love, patient enough in service, to awaken them, these, the children of the Most High, who have bartered their Divine heritage for a mess of pottage, these must take up those same lessons from which they turned when upon the earth plane, or in a garment less developed than the physical. The wages of sin is death - the death of beauty and power; the death of all that which links man to God. Yet forget not that these are the children of God, and it is the Father's Will that they should be drawn back into their Divine inheritance, and be as the angels of heaven.
"The wages of sin is death; the wages of effort is life! Oh, think you. You know so little of life, that which you name life to us is as a sleep, as a 'forgetting', yet by the tasks well done, by the raising of the heart and mind to God, by obedience to the Voice, by the determined will, many, when the earth stage is ended, pass into a life which is stupendous to them, and they indeed are glorious to behold. But the question comes - and come it must to each and every one whether upon the earth plane or in those conditions more evolved or less evolved than these - the question: How much are you prepared to do for the Christ within?
"Oh, little children, as I stand in your presence in this way and look back over the past, over to my life upon the earth plane, what do I see? That so little more would have made so great a difference! I have told you that when I taught in the Temple, passing on the word of God, seeking to train the minds of the young men of my day, oft as I spoke so the doubts came: 'Where is God?'. 'Is there a God?'. As I looked out over the city I saw there horror upon horror, I saw the poor starving for that little which would have kept life in the physical garment; I saw disease rampant; I saw the powerful breaking the bodies of their brothers and sisters; I saw toil in a way inconceivable to the mind of man today, and out of the anguish within so I cried: 'Where is God?'. What anguish was mine! I sought the path laid down by our father Abraham, I forbade the body and I controlled the mind; but the enemy was around in forms so numerous that a God seemed like an idle dream, a fable of the past.
And then the Master came! How can I portray the joy of that sweet meeting? Out of my sorrow so I stepped into joy, out of my twilight into the radiance of Love Himself! He stood before me and in His eyes I read all the promises of old fulfilled. The Master passed me by yet I held the Master then and for evermore.
"These things, dear children, are forgotten again and again. You today have your Christ, you have that which you name 'the law' which insists on a measure of protection over the weak, over the helpless; but in that far off time earthly power held the reins in a pitiless grip, and those who had sought to find their God sought and, so it seemed to the mind of the body, found Him not. Into those conditions so the Beloved came, and His lot testifies to all that which man must face if he would help to cleanse his world.
Aye, but have I not told you before that the little group of followers drank the cup yet no bitterness was theirs? For drop by drop so we were linking ourselves to the Master, and the only ones who had sorrow were those who out of the weakness within turned back from the Cross and chose the world instead. For forget not this: No man who has once looked on Love can forget. There were those amongst us who failed when the test came, but their anguish was ten thousand times greater than the anguish of Calvary, whatever character or nature 'Calvary' might represent to the individual soul. Those who turned back on the path suffered in a way you cannot understand, for they had looked on Love and Love had bought them at a terrible price.
"Little ones, I bring you back to the wages of effort. I come not into your presence and say: 'Take the steep path and all will be well', in the sense that the world means 'well'; but I say to you: 'Take the steep path and whatever may betide, however many the enemies within and without, if you go on the protection shall be complete'. Step by step, life in something of its real sense shall be made your own life and liberty and peace and holiness, for this is the law of God.
"So I lead your thoughts away from the prophets of old, away from my own life, and I focus your attention on the present, for I say that the call has come for those with the brave hearts and the determined will to, as it were, enter the arena of physical life, and even though the physical garment may be threatened, to give forth to the idle crowd the message of the Christ.
"The message of the Christ is Life Everlasting, the message of the Christ is one of warning as well as one of glorious hope; for 'what a man sows that must he reap'. Oh, think you of your brothers and sisters, of those around so careless, so unheeding of the tomorrow of time. What of these? Can you stand aside and see them piling up agony for the next stage to come! Ah no, the Divine within conquers the mind of the body. The Christ within - borrowing something of power from the great Missionary of mankind - will not let you rest. What of the world? What of man's bonds and snares? All this is a link with the Master. The hate that you may draw to you is as nought in comparison to the hate arraigned against the Christ; and the Master waits - waits as He has waited over the centuries - for His representatives to arise and give forth the simple truth: 'I go to prepare a place for you', 'Where I am there thou shalt be if thou art faithful, if thou wilt endure unto the end'.
"Oh, my children, the responsibility is so terrible that indeed my heart is well nigh broken over that which I see in front. There are those men and women whom the world calls 'good', but many have concentrated on the saving of their own souls and have forgotten their fellows. These, when sight is made their own, will find to their horror not freedom but bondage. The wages of effort are not forthcoming for them. Aye, in the measure that they sought God for themselves and not for others, in that measure so they have denied the Christ within. Seek for the lost and seek until they are found. Take no thought of the morrow for yourself but give out of your gifts, for tomorrow is in God's most merciful hands.
"So, my children, I come to you individually and to all those who will read my words and I say, commanded by the Christ, that this day once more the call goes forth: Choose! What is your choice? God needs your help, the great Controlling Spirit of all life has bound Himself by His own laws, the chief of which is service to others; and God works on unceasingly for man's release. But although within that Fount of Love there is the illimitable treasure for others, yet we cannot take unless we are willing. God is controlled by man in regard to the bestowal of His gifts. Man in his ignorance cries out: 'God is responsible for my sorrows and even for my crimes'; and the Father, out of His unbounded love, sends to the one who regards Him with hate such grace that even as he denies his Maker so his Maker is entreating his friendship.
"This is God! The God of men's minds, ah, that bears little resemblance to the One so kind. We, out of our weakness and our littleness, presume to build up a God with weakness, with the desire for vengeance. The great eternal Father, because we are His own, He seeks and seeks for His children, and one day the lost will be found.
"The wages of effort! One aspect alone, dear children, is this priceless gift of redeeming others; for we are of God, and the Father delights to give to us of His own powers. In the measure that we strive, in the measure that we are willing to deny the lesser self for the sake of the stronger self, so we pass among our fellows and we are saviours of men, redeemers of those who have wandered far from the one true fold; and out of the effort, out of the striving, out of the rising up after temptation and failure, so the wages - Life - are made our own. Life in the God sense; Life in some resemblance to the Christ Himself!
"So, then, hesitate not by the way, but in your new-found strength draw upon the Fount of Strength; bid your fears and doubts depart and choose the steep road, the difficult road, the hard road, the road of temptation and enemies innumerable, for that was the road the Master chose Himself. And the wages of effort shall be passed on to you in a form so glorious, so Godlike, that the past will not only seem worth while but before you will be the vista of the future - God's work.
"Take with you this thought: That only by effort could we have met together and have had this gift of the Holy Spirit to draw upon. Then let your thoughts go on from that to this great and mighty truth: That in your power it lies to have gifts like unto God. The way is clear. Only out of that which you give forth by effort, by stretching out for those things which are pure and holy, only in the measure that your greater self controls and guides and uses the lesser self, can you claim those things which it is the Father's Will shall be your own for ever and ever.
So then commune within, be practical in the God-sense, hold before you earth and spirit values, pray that you may see with unclouded eye, and then make your choice for Christ. And forget not that in the degree that your road varies from the Christ road, in that degree must your gifts be lesser than the gifts of the Master. In the measure that you follow in His steps so, promised by God, you shall release within the powers of the Christ, and demonstrate in this world of sense the Holy Spirit at work in the hearts and minds of men. For remember that you cannot strive, you cannot work for God, without inspiring others. That which you do is built up in the earth conditions and those who pass your way - although no word is said - are strengthened by that which you have given out by effort from yourself. So, then, my children, with joyful hearts, with a courage high, take the steep road and reap the blessing that it brings.
"I bless you in the name of the Father with illumination, with consciousness as to your high destiny, and with a love so great in your heart for Christ that you will do His work in His sweet way. Farewell!"
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