Ordination of the Seventy at Magadan

163:1.1The sev­enty were or­dained by Je­sus on Sab­bath af­ter­noon, Novem­ber 19, at the Ma­g­a­dan Camp, and Ab­ner was placed at the head of these gospel preach­ers and teach­ers. This corps of sev­enty con­sisted of Ab­ner and ten of the for­mer apos­tles of John, fifty-one of the ear­lier evan­ge­lists, and eight other dis­ci­ples who had dis­tin­guished them­selves in the ser­vice of the king­dom.

163:1.2About two o’clock on this Sab­bath af­ter­noon, be­tween show­ers of rain, a com­pany of be­liev­ers, aug­mented by the ar­rival of David and the ma­jor­ity of his mes­sen­ger corps and num­ber­ing over four hun­dred, as­sem­bled on the shore of the lake of Gal­i­lee to wit­ness the or­di­na­tion of the sev­enty.

163:1.3Be­fore Je­sus laid his hands upon the heads of the sev­enty to set them apart as gospel mes­sen­gers, ad­dress­ing them, he said: “The har­vest is in­deed plen­teous, but the la­bor­ers are few; there­fore I ex­hort all of you to pray that the Lord of the har­vest will send still other la­bor­ers into his har­vest. I am about to set you apart as mes­sen­gers of the king­dom; I am about to send you to Jew and gen­tile as lambs among wolves. As you go your ways, two and two, I in­struct you to carry nei­ther purse nor ex­tra cloth­ing, for you go forth on this first mis­sion for only a short sea­son. Salute no man by the way, at­tend only to your work. When­ever you go to stay at a home, first say: Peace be to this house­hold. If those who love peace live therein, you shall abide there; if not, then shall you de­part. And hav­ing se­lected this home, re­main there for your stay in that city, eat­ing and drink­ing what­ever is set be­fore you. And you do this be­cause the la­borer is wor­thy of his sus­te­nance. Move not from house to house be­cause a bet­ter lodg­ing may be of­fered. Re­mem­ber, as you go forth pro­claim­ing peace on earth and good will among men, you must con­tend with bit­ter and self-de­ceived en­e­mies; there­fore be as wise as ser­pents while you are also as harm­less as doves.

163:1.4“And ev­ery­where you go, preach, say­ing, ‘The king­dom of heaven is at hand,’ and min­is­ter to all who may be sick in ei­ther mind or body. Freely you have re­ceived of the good things of the king­dom; freely give. If the peo­ple of any city re­ceive you, they shall find an abun­dant en­trance into the Fa­ther’s king­dom; but if the peo­ple of any city refuse to re­ceive this gospel, still shall you pro­claim your mes­sage as you de­part from that un­be­liev­ing com­mu­nity, say­ing, even as you leave, to those who re­ject your teach­ing: ‘Not­with­stand­ing you re­ject the truth, it re­mains that the king­dom of God has come near you.’ He who hears you hears me. And he who hears me hears Him who sent me. He who re­jects your gospel mes­sage re­jects me. And he who re­jects me re­jects Him who sent me.”

163:1.5When Je­sus had thus spo­ken to the sev­enty, he be­gan with Ab­ner and, as they knelt in a cir­cle about him, laid his hands upon the head of ev­ery man.

163:1.6Early the next morn­ing Ab­ner sent the sev­enty mes­sen­gers into all the cities of Gal­i­lee, Samaria, and Judea. And these thirty-five cou­ples went forth preach­ing and teach­ing for about six weeks, all of them re­turn­ing to the new camp near Pella, in Perea, on Fri­day, De­cem­ber 30.