The Perean Mission Begins

165:5.1That evening af­ter sup­per, when Je­sus and the twelve gath­ered to­gether for their daily con­fer­ence, An­drew asked: “Mas­ter, while we were bap­tiz­ing the be­liev­ers, you spoke many words to the lin­ger­ing mul­ti­tude which we did not hear. Would you be will­ing to re­peat these words for our ben­e­fit?” And in re­sponse to An­drew’s re­quest, Je­sus said:

165:5.2“Yes, An­drew, I will speak to you about these mat­ters of wealth and self-sup­port, but my words to you, the apos­tles, must be some­what dif­fer­ent from those spo­ken to the dis­ci­ples and the mul­ti­tude since you have for­saken ev­ery­thing, not only to fol­low me, but to be or­dained as am­bas­sadors of the king­dom. Al­ready have you had sev­eral years’ ex­pe­ri­ence, and you know that the Fa­ther whose king­dom you pro­claim will not for­sake you. You have ded­i­cated your lives to the min­istry of the king­dom; there­fore be not anx­ious or wor­ried about the things of the tem­po­ral life, what you shall eat, nor yet for your body, what you shall wear. The wel­fare of the soul is more than food and drink; the prog­ress in the spirit is far above the need of rai­ment. When you are tempted to doubt the sure­ness of your bread, con­sider the ravens; they sow not nei­ther reap, they have no store­houses or barns, and yet the Fa­ther pro­vides food for ev­ery one of them that seeks it. And of how much more value are you than many birds! Be­sides, all of your anx­i­ety or fret­ting doubts can do noth­ing to sup­ply your ma­te­rial needs. Which of you by anx­i­ety can add a hand­breadth to your stature or a day to your life? Since such mat­ters are not in your hands, why do you give anx­ious thought to any of these prob­lems?

165:5.3“Con­sider the lilies, how they grow; they toil not, nei­ther do they spin; yet I say to you, even Sol­o­mon in all his glory was not ar­rayed like one of these. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive to­day and to­mor­row is cut down and cast into the fire, how much more shall he clothe you, the am­bas­sadors of the heav­enly king­dom. O you of lit­tle faith! When you whole­heart­edly de­vote your­selves to the procla­ma­tion of the gospel of the king­dom, you should not be of doubt­ful minds con­cern­ing the sup­port of your­selves or the fam­i­lies you have for­saken. If you give your lives truly to the gospel, you shall live by the gospel. If you are only be­liev­ing dis­ci­ples, you must earn your own bread and con­tribute to the sus­te­nance of all who teach and preach and heal. If you are anx­ious about your bread and wa­ter, wherein are you dif­fer­ent from the na­tions of the world who so dili­gently seek such ne­ces­si­ties? De­vote your­selves to your work, be­liev­ing that both the Fa­ther and I know that you have need of all these things. Let me as­sure you, once and for all, that, if you ded­i­cate your lives to the work of the king­dom, all your real needs shall be sup­plied. Seek the greater thing, and the lesser will be found therein; ask for the heav­enly, and the earthly shall be in­cluded. The shadow is cer­tain to fol­low the sub­stance.

165:5.4“You are only a small group, but if you have faith, if you will not stum­ble in fear, I de­clare that it is my Fa­ther’s good plea­sure to give you this king­dom. You have laid up your trea­sures where the purse waxes not old, where no thief can de­spoil, and where no moth can de­stroy. And as I told the peo­ple, where your trea­sure is, there will your heart be also.

165:5.5“But in the work which is just ahead of us, and in that which re­mains for you af­ter I go to the Fa­ther, you will be griev­ously tried. You must all be on your watch against fear and doubts. Ev­ery one of you, gird up the loins of your minds and let your lamps be kept burn­ing. Keep your­selves like men who are watch­ing for their mas­ter to re­turn from the mar­riage feast so that, when he comes and knocks, you may quickly open to him. Such watch­ful ser­vants are blessed by the mas­ter who finds them faith­ful at such a great mo­ment. Then will the mas­ter make his ser­vants sit down while he him­self serves them. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you that a cri­sis is just ahead in your lives, and it be­hooves you to watch and be ready.

165:5.6“You well un­der­stand that no man would suf­fer his house to be bro­ken into if he knew what hour the thief was to come. Be you also on watch for your­selves, for in an hour that you least sus­pect and in a man­ner you think not, shall the Son of Man de­part.”

165:5.7For some min­utes the twelve sat in si­lence. Some of these warn­ings they had heard be­fore but not in the set­ting pre­sented to them at this time.