Last Visit to Northern Perea

166:3.1As Je­sus and the twelve vis­ited with the mes­sen­gers of the king­dom at Gerasa, one of the Phar­isees who be­lieved in him asked this ques­tion: “Lord, will there be few or many re­ally saved?” And Je­sus, an­swer­ing, said:

166:3.2“You have been taught that only the chil­dren of Abra­ham will be saved; that only the gen­tiles of adop­tion can hope for sal­va­tion. Some of you have rea­soned that, since the Scrip­tures re­cord that only Caleb and Joshua from among all the hosts that went out of Egypt lived to en­ter the prom­ised land, only a com­par­a­tively few of those who seek the king­dom of heaven shall find en­trance thereto.

166:3.3“You also have an­other say­ing among you, and one that con­tains much truth: That the way which leads to eter­nal life is straight and nar­row, that the door which leads thereto is like­wise nar­row so that, of those who seek sal­va­tion, few can find en­trance through this door. You also have a teach­ing that the way which leads to de­struc­tion is broad, that the en­trance thereto is wide, and that there are many who choose to go this way. And this proverb is not with­out its mean­ing. But I de­clare that sal­va­tion is first a mat­ter of your per­sonal choos­ing. Even if the door to the way of life is nar­row, it is wide enough to ad­mit all who sin­cerely seek to en­ter, for I am that door. And the Son will never refuse en­trance to any child of the uni­verse who, by faith, seeks to find the Fa­ther through the Son.

166:3.4“But herein is the dan­ger to all who would post­pone their en­trance into the king­dom while they con­tinue to pur­sue the plea­sures of im­ma­tu­rity and in­dulge the sat­is­fac­tions of self­ish­ness: Hav­ing re­fused to en­ter the king­dom as a spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, they may sub­se­quently seek en­trance thereto when the glory of the bet­ter way be­comes re­vealed in the age to come. And when, there­fore, those who spurned the king­dom when I came in the like­ness of hu­man­ity seek to find an en­trance when it is re­vealed in the like­ness of di­vin­ity, then will I say to all such self­ish ones: I know not whence you are. You had your chance to pre­pare for this heav­enly cit­i­zen­ship, but you re­fused all such prof­fers of mercy; you re­jected all in­vi­ta­tions to come while the door was open. Now, to you who have re­fused sal­va­tion, the door is shut. This door is not open to those who would en­ter the king­dom for self­ish glory. Sal­va­tion is not for those who are un­will­ing to pay the price of whole­hearted ded­i­ca­tion to do­ing my Fa­ther’s will. When in spirit and soul you have turned your backs upon the Fa­ther’s king­dom, it is use­less in mind and body to stand be­fore this door and knock, say­ing, ‘Lord, open to us; we would also be great in the king­dom.’ Then will I de­clare that you are not of my fold. I will not re­ceive you to be among those who have fought the good fight of faith and won the re­ward of un­selfish ser­vice in the king­dom on earth. And when you say, ‘Did we not eat and drink with you, and did you not teach in our streets?’ then shall I again de­clare that you are spir­i­tual strangers; that we were not fel­low ser­vants in the Fa­ther’s min­istry of mercy on earth; that I do not know you; and then shall the Judge of all the earth say to you: ‘De­part from us, all you who have taken de­light in the works of in­iq­uity.’

166:3.5“But fear not; ev­ery one who sin­cerely de­sires to find eter­nal life by en­trance into the king­dom of God shall cer­tainly find such ev­er­last­ing sal­va­tion. But you who refuse this sal­va­tion will some day see the proph­ets of the seed of Abra­ham sit down with the be­liev­ers of the gen­tile na­tions in this glo­ri­fied king­dom to par­take of the bread of life and to re­fresh them­selves with the wa­ter thereof. And they who shall thus take the king­dom in spir­i­tual power and by the per­sis­tent as­saults of liv­ing faith will come from the north and the south and from the east and the west. And, be­hold, many who are first will be last, and those who are last will many times be first.”

166:3.6This was in­deed a new and strange ver­sion of the old and fa­mil­iar proverb of the straight and nar­row way.

166:3.7Slowly the apos­tles and many of the dis­ci­ples were learn­ing the mean­ing of Je­sus’ early dec­la­ra­tion: “Un­less you are born again, born of the spirit, you can­not en­ter the king­dom of God.” Nev­er­the­less, to all who are hon­est of heart and sin­cere in faith, it re­mains eter­nally true: “Be­hold, I stand at the doors of men’s hearts and knock, and if any man will open to me, I will come in and sup with him and will feed him with the bread of life; we shall be one in spirit and pur­pose, and so shall we ever be breth­ren in the long and fruit­ful ser­vice of the search for the Par­a­dise Fa­ther.” And so, whether few or many are to be saved al­to­gether de­pends on whether few or many will heed the in­vi­ta­tion: “I am the door, I am the new and liv­ing way, and whoso­ever wills may en­ter to em­bark upon the end­less truth-search for eter­nal life.”

166:3.8Even the apos­tles were un­able fully to com­pre­hend his teach­ing as to the ne­ces­sity for us­ing spir­i­tual force for the pur­pose of break­ing through all ma­te­rial re­sis­tance and for sur­mount­ing ev­ery earthly ob­sta­cle which might chance to stand in the way of grasp­ing the all-im­por­tant spir­i­tual val­ues of the new life in the spirit as the lib­er­ated sons of God.