The Decapolis Tour

159:3.1At Edrei, where Thomas and his as­so­ciates la­bored, Je­sus spent a day and a night and, in the course of the evening’s dis­cus­sion, gave ex­pres­sion to the prin­ci­ples which should guide those who preach truth, and which should ac­ti­vate all who teach the gospel of the king­dom. Sum­ma­rized and re­stated in mod­ern phrase­ol­ogy, Je­sus taught:

159:3.2Al­ways re­spect the per­son­al­ity of man. Never should a righ­teous cause be pro­moted by force; spir­i­tual vic­to­ries can be won only by spir­i­tual power. This in­junc­tion against the em­ploy­ment of ma­te­rial in­flu­ences refers to psy­chic force as well as to phys­i­cal force. Over­pow­er­ing ar­gu­ments and men­tal su­pe­ri­or­ity are not to be em­ployed to co­erce men and women into the king­dom. Man’s mind is not to be crushed by the mere weight of logic or over­awed by shrewd elo­quence. While emo­tion as a fac­tor in hu­man de­ci­sions can­not be wholly elim­i­nated, it should not be di­rectly ap­pealed to in the teach­ings of those who would ad­vance the cause of the king­dom. Make your ap­peals di­rectly to the di­vine spirit that dwells within the minds of men. Do not ap­peal to fear, pity, or mere sen­ti­ment. In ap­peal­ing to men, be fair; ex­er­cise self-con­trol and ex­hibit due re­straint; show proper re­spect for the per­son­al­i­ties of your pupils. Re­mem­ber that I have said: “Be­hold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any man will open, I will come in.”

159:3.3In bring­ing men into the king­dom, do not lessen or de­stroy their self-re­spect. While over­much self-re­spect may de­stroy proper hu­mil­ity and end in pride, con­ceit, and ar­ro­gance, the loss of self-re­spect of­ten ends in paral­y­sis of the will. It is the pur­pose of this gospel to re­store self-re­spect to those who have lost it and to re­strain it in those who have it. Make not the mis­take of only con­demn­ing the wrongs in the lives of your pupils; re­mem­ber also to ac­cord gen­er­ous rec­og­ni­tion for the most praise­wor­thy things in their lives. For­get not that I will stop at noth­ing to re­store self-re­spect to those who have lost it, and who re­ally de­sire to re­gain it.

159:3.4Take care that you do not wound the self-re­spect of timid and fear­ful souls. Do not in­dulge in sar­casm at the ex­pense of my sim­ple-minded breth­ren. Be not cyn­i­cal with my fear-rid­den chil­dren. Idle­ness is de­struc­tive of self-re­spect; there­fore, ad­mon­ish your breth­ren ever to keep busy at their cho­sen tasks, and put forth ev­ery ef­fort to se­cure work for those who find them­selves with­out em­ploy­ment.

159:3.5Never be guilty of such un­wor­thy tac­tics as en­deav­or­ing to frighten men and women into the king­dom. A lov­ing fa­ther does not frighten his chil­dren into yield­ing obe­di­ence to his just re­quire­ments.

159:3.6Some­time the chil­dren of the king­dom will re­al­ize that strong feel­ings of emo­tion are not equiv­a­lent to the lead­ings of the di­vine spirit. To be strongly and strangely im­pressed to do some­thing or to go to a cer­tain place, does not nec­es­sar­ily mean that such im­pulses are the lead­ings of the in­dwelling spirit.

159:3.7Fore­warn all be­liev­ers re­gard­ing the fringe of con­flict which must be tra­versed by all who pass from the life as it is lived in the flesh to the higher life as it is lived in the spirit. To those who live quite wholly within ei­ther realm, there is lit­tle con­flict or con­fu­sion, but all are doomed to ex­pe­ri­ence more or less un­cer­tainty dur­ing the times of tran­si­tion be­tween the two lev­els of liv­ing. In en­ter­ing the king­dom, you can­not es­cape its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties or avoid its obli­ga­tions, but re­mem­ber: The gospel yoke is easy and the bur­den of truth is light.

159:3.8The world is filled with hun­gry souls who fam­ish in the very pres­ence of the bread of life; men die search­ing for the very God who lives within them. Men seek for the trea­sures of the king­dom with yearn­ing hearts and weary feet when they are all within the im­me­di­ate grasp of liv­ing faith. Faith is to re­li­gion what sails are to a ship; it is an ad­di­tion of power, not an added bur­den of life. There is but one strug­gle for those who en­ter the king­dom, and that is to fight the good fight of faith. The be­liever has only one bat­tle, and that is against doubt—un­be­lief.

159:3.9In preach­ing the gospel of the king­dom, you are sim­ply teach­ing friend­ship with God. And this fel­low­ship will ap­peal alike to men and women in that both will find that which most truly sat­is­fies their char­ac­ter­is­tic long­ings and ide­als. Tell my chil­dren that I am not only ten­der of their feel­ings and pa­tient with their frail­ties, but that I am also ruth­less with sin and in­tol­er­ant of in­iq­uity. I am in­deed meek and hum­ble in the pres­ence of my Fa­ther, but I am equally and re­lent­lessly in­ex­orable where there is de­lib­er­ate evil-do­ing and sin­ful re­bel­lion against the will of my Fa­ther in heaven.

159:3.10You shall not por­tray your teacher as a man of sor­rows. Fu­ture gen­er­a­tions shall know also the ra­di­ance of our joy, the buoy­ance of our good will, and the in­spi­ra­tion of our good hu­mor. We pro­claim a mes­sage of good news which is in­fec­tious in its trans­form­ing power. Our re­li­gion is throb­bing with new life and new mean­ings. Those who ac­cept this teach­ing are filled with joy and in their hearts are con­strained to re­joice ev­er­more. In­creas­ing hap­pi­ness is al­ways the ex­pe­ri­ence of all who are cer­tain about God.

159:3.11Teach all be­liev­ers to avoid lean­ing upon the in­se­cure props of false sym­pa­thy. You can­not de­velop strong char­ac­ters out of the in­dul­gence of self-pity; hon­estly en­deavor to avoid the de­cep­tive in­flu­ence of mere fel­low­ship in mis­ery. Ex­tend sym­pa­thy to the brave and coura­geous while you with­hold over­much pity from those cow­ardly souls who only half­heart­edly stand up be­fore the tri­als of liv­ing. Of­fer not con­so­la­tion to those who lie down be­fore their trou­bles with­out a strug­gle. Sym­pa­thize not with your fel­lows merely that they may sym­pa­thize with you in re­turn.

159:3.12When my chil­dren once be­come self-con­scious of the as­sur­ance of the di­vine pres­ence, such a faith will ex­pand the mind, en­no­ble the soul, re­in­force the per­son­al­ity, aug­ment the hap­pi­ness, deepen the spirit per­cep­tion, and en­hance the power to love and be loved.

159:3.13Teach all be­liev­ers that those who en­ter the king­dom are not thereby ren­dered im­mune to the ac­ci­dents of time or to the or­di­nary catas­tro­phes of na­ture. Be­liev­ing the gospel will not pre­vent get­ting into trou­ble, but it will in­sure that you shall be un­afraid when trou­ble does over­take you. If you dare to be­lieve in me and whole­heart­edly pro­ceed to fol­low af­ter me, you shall most cer­tainly by so do­ing en­ter upon the sure path­way to trou­ble. I do not prom­ise to de­liver you from the wa­ters of ad­ver­sity, but I do prom­ise to go with you through all of them.

159:3.14And much more did Je­sus teach this group of be­liev­ers be­fore they made ready for the night’s sleep. And they who heard these say­ings trea­sured them in their hearts and did of­ten re­cite them for the ed­i­fi­ca­tion of the apos­tles and dis­ci­ples who were not pres­ent when they were spo­ken.