At Caesarea-Philippi

157:2.1On Mon­day, Au­gust 8, while Je­sus and the twelve apos­tles were en­camped in Ma­g­a­dan Park, near Beth­saida-Ju­lias, more than one hun­dred be­liev­ers, the evan­ge­lists, the women’s corps, and oth­ers in­ter­ested in the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom, came over from Ca­per­naum for a con­fer­ence. And many of the Phar­isees, learn­ing that Je­sus was here, came also. By this time some of the Sad­ducees were united with the Phar­isees in their ef­fort to en­trap Je­sus. Be­fore go­ing into the closed con­fer­ence with the be­liev­ers, Je­sus held a pub­lic meet­ing at which the Phar­isees were pres­ent, and they heck­led the Mas­ter and oth­er­wise sought to dis­turb the as­sem­bly. Said the leader of the dis­turbers: “Teacher, we would like you to give us a sign of your au­thor­ity to teach, and then, when the same shall come to pass, all men will know that you have been sent by God.” And Je­sus an­swered them: “When it is evening, you say it will be fair weather, for the heaven is red; in the morn­ing it will be foul weather, for the heaven is red and low­er­ing. When you see a cloud ris­ing in the west, you say show­ers will come; when the wind blows from the south, you say scorch­ing heat will come. How is it that you so well know how to dis­cern the face of the heav­ens but are so ut­terly un­able to dis­cern the signs of the times? To those who would know the truth, al­ready has a sign been given; but to an evil-minded and hyp­o­crit­i­cal gen­er­a­tion no sign shall be given.”

157:2.2When Je­sus had thus spo­ken, he with­drew and pre­pared for the evening con­fer­ence with his fol­low­ers. At this con­fer­ence it was de­cided to un­der­take a united mis­sion through­out all the cities and vil­lages of the De­capo­lis as soon as Je­sus and the twelve should re­turn from their pro­posed visit to Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi. The Mas­ter par­tic­i­pated in plan­ning for the De­capo­lis mis­sion and, in dis­miss­ing the com­pany, said: “I say to you, be­ware of the leaven of the Phar­isees and the Sad­ducees. Be not de­ceived by their show of much learn­ing and by their pro­found loy­alty to the forms of re­li­gion. Be only con­cerned with the spirit of liv­ing truth and the power of true re­li­gion. It is not the fear of a dead re­li­gion that will save you but rather your faith in a liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in the spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties of the king­dom. Do not al­low your­selves to be­come blinded by prej­u­dice and par­a­lyzed by fear. Nei­ther per­mit rev­er­ence for the tra­di­tions so to per­vert your un­der­stand­ing that your eyes see not and your ears hear not. It is not the pur­pose of true re­li­gion merely to bring peace but rather to in­sure prog­ress. And there can be no peace in the heart or prog­ress in the mind un­less you fall whole­heart­edly in love with truth, the ide­als of eter­nal re­al­i­ties. The is­sues of life and death are be­ing set be­fore you—the sin­ful plea­sures of time against the righ­teous re­al­i­ties of eter­nity. Even now you should be­gin to find de­liv­er­ance from the bond­age of fear and doubt as you en­ter upon the liv­ing of the new life of faith and hope. And when the feel­ings of ser­vice for your fel­low men arise within your soul, do not sti­fle them; when the emo­tions of love for your neigh­bor well up within your heart, give ex­pres­sion to such urges of af­fec­tion in in­tel­li­gent min­istry to the real needs of your fel­lows.”