The Sojourn at Tyre and Sidon

156:5.1On this Wednes­day af­ter­noon, in the course of his ad­dress, Je­sus first told his fol­low­ers the story of the white lily which rears its pure and snowy head high into the sun­shine while its roots are grounded in the slime and muck of the dark­ened soil be­neath. “Like­wise,” said he, “mor­tal man, while he has his roots of ori­gin and be­ing in the an­i­mal soil of hu­man na­ture, can by faith raise his spir­i­tual na­ture up into the sun­light of heav­enly truth and ac­tu­ally bear the no­ble fruits of the spirit.”

156:5.2It was dur­ing this same ser­mon that Je­sus made use of his first and only para­ble hav­ing to do with his own trade—car­pen­try. In the course of his ad­mo­ni­tion to “Build well the foun­da­tions for the growth of a no­ble char­ac­ter of spir­i­tual en­dow­ments,” he said: “In or­der to yield the fruits of the spirit, you must be born of the spirit. You must be taught by the spirit and be led by the spirit if you would live the spirit-filled life among your fel­lows. But do not make the mis­take of the fool­ish car­pen­ter who wastes valu­able time squar­ing, mea­sur­ing, and smooth­ing his worm-eaten and in­wardly rot­ting tim­ber and then, when he has thus be­stowed all of his la­bor upon the un­sound beam, must re­ject it as un­fit to en­ter into the foun­da­tions of the build­ing which he would con­struct to with­stand the as­saults of time and storm. Let ev­ery man make sure that the in­tel­lec­tual and moral foun­da­tions of char­ac­ter are such as will ad­e­quately sup­port the super­struc­ture of the en­larg­ing and en­nobling spir­i­tual na­ture, which is thus to trans­form the mor­tal mind and then, in as­so­ci­a­tion with that re-cre­ated mind, is to achieve the evolve­ment of the soul of im­mor­tal des­tiny. Your spirit na­ture—the jointly cre­ated soul—is a liv­ing growth, but the mind and morals of the in­di­vid­ual are the soil from which these higher man­i­fes­ta­tions of hu­man de­vel­op­ment and di­vine des­tiny must spring. The soil of the evolv­ing soul is hu­man and ma­te­rial, but the des­tiny of this com­bined crea­ture of mind and spirit is spir­i­tual and di­vine.”

156:5.3On the evening of this same day Na­than­iel asked Je­sus: “Mas­ter, why do we pray that God will lead us not into temp­ta­tion when we well know from your rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther that he never does such things?” Je­sus an­swered Na­than­iel:

156:5.4“It is not strange that you ask such ques­tions see­ing that you are be­gin­ning to know the Fa­ther as I know him, and not as the early He­brew proph­ets so dimly saw him. You well know how our fore­fa­thers were dis­posed to see God in al­most ev­ery­thing that hap­pened. They looked for the hand of God in all nat­u­ral oc­cur­rences and in ev­ery un­usual episode of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence. They con­nected God with both good and evil. They thought he soft­ened the heart of Moses and hard­ened the heart of Pharaoh. When man had a strong urge to do some­thing, good or evil, he was in the habit of ac­count­ing for these un­usual emo­tions by re­mark­ing: ‘The Lord spoke to me say­ing, do thus and so, or go here and there.’ Ac­cord­ingly, since men so of­ten and so vi­o­lently ran into temp­ta­tion, it be­came the habit of our fore­fa­thers to be­lieve that God led them thither for test­ing, pun­ish­ing, or strength­en­ing. But you, in­deed, now know bet­ter. You know that men are all too of­ten led into temp­ta­tion by the urge of their own self­ish­ness and by the im­pulses of their an­i­mal na­tures. When you are in this way tempted, I ad­mon­ish you that, while you rec­og­nize temp­ta­tion hon­estly and sin­cerely for just what it is, you in­tel­li­gently redi­rect the en­er­gies of spirit, mind, and body, which are seek­ing ex­pres­sion, into higher chan­nels and to­ward more ide­al­is­tic goals. In this way may you trans­form your temp­ta­tions into the high­est types of up­lift­ing mor­tal min­istry while you al­most wholly avoid these waste­ful and weak­en­ing con­flicts be­tween the an­i­mal and spir­i­tual na­tures.

156:5.5“But let me warn you against the folly of un­der­tak­ing to sur­mount temp­ta­tion by the ef­fort of sup­plant­ing one de­sire by an­other and sup­pos­edly su­pe­rior de­sire through the mere force of the hu­man will. If you would be truly tri­umphant over the temp­ta­tions of the lesser and lower na­ture, you must come to that place of spir­i­tual ad­van­tage where you have re­ally and truly de­vel­oped an ac­tual in­ter­est in, and love for, those higher and more ide­al­is­tic forms of con­duct which your mind is de­sirous of sub­sti­tut­ing for these lower and less ide­al­is­tic habits of be­hav­ior that you rec­og­nize as temp­ta­tion. You will in this way be de­liv­ered through spir­i­tual trans­for­ma­tion rather than be in­creas­ingly over­bur­dened with the de­cep­tive sup­pres­sion of mor­tal de­sires. The old and the in­fe­rior will be for­got­ten in the love for the new and the su­pe­rior. Beauty is al­ways tri­umphant over ug­li­ness in the hearts of all who are il­lu­mi­nated by the love of truth. There is mighty power in the ex­pul­sive en­ergy of a new and sin­cere spir­i­tual af­fec­tion. And again I say to you, be not over­come by evil but rather over­come evil with good.”

156:5.6Long into the night the apos­tles and evan­ge­lists con­tin­ued to ask ques­tions, and from the many an­swers we would pre­sent the fol­low­ing thoughts, re­stated in mod­ern phrase­ol­ogy:

156:5.7Force­ful am­bi­tion, in­tel­li­gent judg­ment, and sea­soned wis­dom are the es­sen­tials of ma­te­rial suc­cess. Lead­er­ship is de­pen­dent on nat­u­ral abil­ity, dis­cre­tion, will power, and de­ter­mi­na­tion. Spir­i­tual des­tiny is de­pen­dent on faith, love, and de­vo­tion to truth—hunger and thirst for righ­teous­ness—the whole­hearted de­sire to find God and to be like him.

156:5.8Do not be­come dis­cour­aged by the dis­cov­ery that you are hu­man. Hu­man na­ture may tend to­ward evil, but it is not in­her­ently sin­ful. Be not down­cast by your fail­ure wholly to for­get some of your re­gret­table ex­pe­ri­ences. The mis­takes which you fail to for­get in time will be for­got­ten in eter­nity. Lighten your bur­dens of soul by speed­ily ac­quir­ing a long-dis­tance view of your des­tiny, a uni­verse ex­pan­sion of your ca­reer.

156:5.9Make not the mis­take of es­ti­mat­ing the soul’s worth by the im­per­fec­tions of the mind or by the ap­petites of the body. Judge not the soul nor eval­u­ate its des­tiny by the stan­dard of a sin­gle un­for­tu­nate hu­man episode. Your spir­i­tual des­tiny is con­di­tioned only by your spir­i­tual long­ings and pur­poses.

156:5.10Re­li­gion is the ex­clu­sively spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence of the evolv­ing im­mor­tal soul of the God-know­ing man, but moral power and spir­i­tual en­ergy are mighty forces which may be uti­lized in deal­ing with dif­fi­cult so­cial sit­u­a­tions and in solv­ing in­tri­cate eco­nomic prob­lems. These moral and spir­i­tual en­dow­ments make all lev­els of hu­man liv­ing richer and more mean­ing­ful.

156:5.11You are des­tined to live a nar­row and mean life if you learn to love only those who love you. Hu­man love may in­deed be re­cip­ro­cal, but di­vine love is out­go­ing in all its sat­is­fac­tion-seek­ing. The less of love in any crea­ture’s na­ture, the greater the love need, and the more does di­vine love seek to sat­isfy such need. Love is never self-seek­ing, and it can­not be self-be­stowed. Di­vine love can­not be self-con­tained; it must be un­selfishly be­stowed.

156:5.12King­dom be­liev­ers should pos­sess an im­plicit faith, a whole-souled be­lief, in the cer­tain tri­umph of righ­teous­ness. King­dom builders must be un­doubt­ing of the truth of the gospel of eter­nal sal­va­tion. Be­liev­ers must in­creas­ingly learn how to step aside from the rush of life—es­cape the ha­rass­ments of ma­te­rial ex­is­tence—while they re­fresh the soul, in­spire the mind, and re­new the spirit by wor­ship­ful com­mu­nion.

156:5.13God-know­ing in­di­vid­u­als are not dis­cour­aged by mis­for­tune or down­cast by dis­ap­point­ment. Be­liev­ers are im­mune to the de­pres­sion con­se­quent upon purely ma­te­rial up­heavals; spirit liv­ers are not per­turbed by the episodes of the ma­te­rial world. Can­di­dates for eter­nal life are prac­ti­tion­ers of an in­vig­o­rat­ing and con­struc­tive tech­nique for meet­ing all of the vi­cis­si­tudes and ha­rass­ments of mor­tal liv­ing. Ev­ery day a true be­liever lives, he finds it eas­ier to do the right thing.

156:5.14Spir­i­tual liv­ing might­ily in­creases true self-re­spect. But self-re­spect is not self-ad­mi­ra­tion. Self-re­spect is al­ways co-or­di­nate with the love and ser­vice of one’s fel­lows. It is not pos­si­ble to re­spect your­self more than you love your neigh­bor; the one is the mea­sure of the ca­pac­ity for the other.

156:5.15As the days pass, ev­ery true be­liever be­comes more skill­ful in al­lur­ing his fel­lows into the love of eter­nal truth. Are you more re­source­ful in re­veal­ing good­ness to hu­man­ity to­day than you were yes­ter­day? Are you a bet­ter righ­teous­ness rec­om­mender this year than you were last year? Are you be­com­ing in­creas­ingly artis­tic in your tech­nique of lead­ing hun­gry souls into the spir­i­tual king­dom?

156:5.16Are your ide­als suf­fi­ciently high to in­sure your eter­nal sal­va­tion while your ideas are so prac­ti­cal as to ren­der you a use­ful cit­i­zen to func­tion on earth in as­so­ci­a­tion with your mor­tal fel­lows? In the spirit, your cit­i­zen­ship is in heaven; in the flesh, you are still cit­i­zens of the earth king­doms. Ren­der to the Cae­sars the things which are ma­te­rial and to God those which are spir­i­tual.

156:5.17The mea­sure of the spir­i­tual ca­pac­ity of the evolv­ing soul is your faith in truth and your love for man, but the mea­sure of your hu­man strength of char­ac­ter is your abil­ity to re­sist the hold­ing of grudges and your ca­pac­ity to with­stand brood­ing in the face of deep sor­row. De­feat is the true mir­ror in which you may hon­estly view your real self.

156:5.18As you grow older in years and more ex­pe­ri­enced in the af­fairs of the king­dom, are you be­com­ing more tact­ful in deal­ing with trou­ble­some mor­tals and more tol­er­ant in liv­ing with stub­born as­so­ciates? Tact is the ful­crum of so­cial lever­age, and tol­er­ance is the ear­mark of a great soul. If you pos­sess these rare and charm­ing gifts, as the days pass you will be­come more alert and ex­pert in your wor­thy ef­forts to avoid all un­nec­es­sary so­cial mis­un­der­stand­ings. Such wise souls are able to avoid much of the trou­ble which is cer­tain to be the por­tion of all who suf­fer from lack of emo­tional ad­just­ment, those who refuse to grow up, and those who refuse to grow old grace­fully.

156:5.19Avoid dis­hon­esty and un­fair­ness in all your ef­forts to preach truth and pro­claim the gospel. Seek no un­earned rec­og­ni­tion and crave no un­de­served sym­pa­thy. Love, freely re­ceive from both di­vine and hu­man sources re­gard­less of your deserts, and love freely in re­turn. But in all other things re­lated to honor and adu­la­tion seek only that which hon­estly be­longs to you.

156:5.20The God-con­scious mor­tal is cer­tain of sal­va­tion; he is un­afraid of life; he is hon­est and con­sis­tent. He knows how bravely to en­dure un­avoid­able suf­fer­ing; he is un­com­plain­ing when faced by in­es­cap­able hard­ship.

156:5.21The true be­liever does not grow weary in well-do­ing just be­cause he is thwarted. Dif­fi­culty whets the ar­dor of the truth lover, while ob­sta­cles only chal­lenge the ex­er­tions of the un­daunted king­dom builder.

156:5.22And many other things Je­sus taught them be­fore they made ready to de­part from Tyre.

156:5.23The day be­fore Je­sus left Tyre for the re­turn to the re­gion of the Sea of Gal­i­lee, he called his as­so­ciates to­gether and di­rected the twelve evan­ge­lists to go back by a route dif­fer­ent from that which he and the twelve apos­tles were to take. And af­ter the evan­ge­lists here left Je­sus, they were never again so in­ti­mately as­so­ci­ated with him.