The Perean Mission Begins

165:3.1By the end of Jan­uary the Sab­bath-af­ter­noon mul­ti­tudes num­bered al­most three thou­sand. On Sat­ur­day, Jan­uary 28, Je­sus preached the mem­o­rable ser­mon on “Trust and Spir­i­tual Pre­pared­ness.” Af­ter pre­lim­i­nary re­marks by Si­mon Pe­ter, the Mas­ter said:

165:3.2“What I have many times said to my apos­tles and to my dis­ci­ples, I now de­clare to this mul­ti­tude: Be­ware of the leaven of the Phar­isees which is hypocrisy, born of prej­u­dice and nur­tured in tra­di­tional bond­age, al­beit many of these Phar­isees are hon­est of heart and some of them abide here as my dis­ci­ples. Pres­ently all of you shall un­der­stand my teach­ing, for there is noth­ing now cov­ered that shall not be re­vealed. That which is now hid from you shall all be made known when the Son of Man has com­pleted his mis­sion on earth and in the flesh.

165:3.3“Soon, very soon, will the things which our en­e­mies now plan in se­crecy and in dark­ness be brought out into the light and be pro­claimed from the house­tops. But I say to you, my friends, when they seek to de­stroy the Son of Man, be not afraid of them. Fear not those who, al­though they may be able to kill the body, af­ter that have no more power over you. I ad­mon­ish you to fear none, in heaven or on earth, but to re­joice in the knowl­edge of Him who has power to de­liver you from all un­righ­teous­ness and to pre­sent you blame­less be­fore the judg­ment seat of a uni­verse.

165:3.4“Are not five spar­rows sold for two pen­nies? And yet, when these birds flit about in quest of their sus­te­nance, not one of them ex­ists with­out the knowl­edge of the Fa­ther, the source of all life. To the se­raphic guard­i­ans the very hairs of your head are num­bered. And if all of this is true, why should you live in fear of the many tri­fles which come up in your daily lives? I say to you: Fear not; you are of much more value than many spar­rows.

165:3.5“All of you who have had the cour­age to con­fess faith in my gospel be­fore men I will pres­ently ac­knowl­edge be­fore the an­gels of heaven; but he who shall know­ingly deny the truth of my teach­ings be­fore men shall be de­nied by his guard­ian of des­tiny even be­fore the an­gels of heaven.

165:3.6“Say what you will about the Son of Man, and it shall be for­given you; but he who pre­sumes to blas­pheme against God shall hardly find for­give­ness. When men go so far as know­ingly to as­cribe the do­ings of God to the forces of evil, such de­lib­er­ate rebels will hardly seek for­give­ness for their sins.

165:3.7“And when our en­e­mies bring you be­fore the rulers of the syn­a­gogues and be­fore other high au­thor­i­ties, be not con­cerned about what you should say and be not anx­ious as to how you should an­swer their ques­tions, for the spirit that dwells within you shall cer­tainly teach you in that very hour what you should say in honor of the gospel of the king­dom.

165:3.8“How long will you tarry in the val­ley of de­ci­sion? Why do you halt be­tween two opin­ions? Why should Jew or gen­tile hes­i­tate to ac­cept the good news that he is a son of the eter­nal God? How long will it take us to per­suade you to en­ter joy­fully into your spir­i­tual in­her­i­tance? I came into this world to re­veal the Fa­ther to you and to lead you to the Fa­ther. The first I have done, but the last I may not do with­out your con­sent; the Fa­ther never com­pels any man to en­ter the king­dom. The in­vi­ta­tion ever has been and al­ways will be: Whoso­ever will, let him come and freely par­take of the wa­ter of life.”

165:3.9When Je­sus had fin­ished speak­ing, many went forth to be bap­tized by the apos­tles in the Jor­dan while he lis­tened to the ques­tions of those who re­mained.