Last Day at the Camp

178:1.1Je­sus talked to about fifty of his trusted fol­low­ers for al­most two hours and an­swered a score of ques­tions re­gard­ing the re­la­tion of the king­dom of heaven to the king­doms of this world, con­cern­ing the re­la­tion of son­ship with God to cit­i­zen­ship in earthly gov­ern­ments. This dis­course, to­gether with his an­swers to ques­tions, may be sum­ma­rized and re­stated in mod­ern lan­guage as fol­lows:

178:1.2The king­doms of this world, be­ing ma­te­rial, may of­ten find it nec­es­sary to em­ploy phys­i­cal force in the ex­e­cu­tion of their laws and for the main­te­nance of or­der. In the king­dom of heaven true be­liev­ers will not re­sort to the em­ploy­ment of phys­i­cal force. The king­dom of heaven, be­ing a spir­i­tual broth­er­hood of the spirit-born sons of God, may be pro­mul­gated only by the power of the spirit. This dis­tinc­tion of pro­ce­dure refers to the re­la­tions of the king­dom of be­liev­ers to the king­doms of sec­u­lar gov­ern­ment and does not nul­lify the right of so­cial groups of be­liev­ers to main­tain or­der in their ranks and ad­min­is­ter dis­ci­pline upon un­ruly and un­wor­thy mem­bers.

178:1.3There is noth­ing in­com­pat­i­ble be­tween son­ship in the spir­i­tual king­dom and cit­i­zen­ship in the sec­u­lar or civil gov­ern­ment. It is the be­liever’s duty to ren­der to Cae­sar the things which are Cae­sar’s and to God the things which are God’s. There can­not be any dis­agree­ment be­tween these two re­quire­ments, the one be­ing ma­te­rial and the other spir­i­tual, un­less it should de­velop that a Cae­sar pre­sumes to usurp the pre­rog­a­tives of God and de­mand that spir­i­tual homage and su­preme wor­ship be ren­dered to him. In such a case you shall wor­ship only God while you seek to en­lighten such mis­guided earthly rulers and in this way lead them also to the rec­og­ni­tion of the Fa­ther in heaven. You shall not ren­der spir­i­tual wor­ship to earthly rulers; nei­ther should you em­ploy the phys­i­cal forces of earthly gov­ern­ments, whose rulers may some­time be­come be­liev­ers, in the work of fur­ther­ing the mis­sion of the spir­i­tual king­dom.

178:1.4Son­ship in the king­dom, from the stand­point of ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion, should as­sist you in be­com­ing the ideal cit­i­zens of the king­doms of this world since broth­er­hood and ser­vice are the cor­ner­stones of the gospel of the king­dom. The love call of the spir­i­tual king­dom should prove to be the ef­fec­tive de­stroyer of the hate urge of the un­be­liev­ing and war-minded cit­i­zens of the earthly king­doms. But these ma­te­rial-minded sons in dark­ness will never know of your spir­i­tual light of truth un­less you draw very near them with that un­selfish so­cial ser­vice which is the nat­u­ral out­growth of the bear­ing of the fruits of the spirit in the life ex­pe­ri­ence of each in­di­vid­ual be­liever.

178:1.5As mor­tal and ma­te­rial men, you are in­deed cit­i­zens of the earthly king­doms, and you should be good cit­i­zens, all the bet­ter for hav­ing be­come re­born spirit sons of the heav­enly king­dom. As faith-en­light­ened and spirit-lib­er­ated sons of the king­dom of heaven, you face a dou­ble re­spon­si­bil­ity of duty to man and duty to God while you vol­un­tar­ily as­sume a third and sa­cred obli­ga­tion: ser­vice to the broth­er­hood of God-know­ing be­liev­ers.

178:1.6You may not wor­ship your tem­po­ral rulers, and you should not em­ploy tem­po­ral power in the fur­ther­ance of the spir­i­tual king­dom; but you should man­i­fest the righ­teous min­istry of lov­ing ser­vice to be­liev­ers and un­be­liev­ers alike. In the gospel of the king­dom there re­sides the mighty Spirit of Truth, and pres­ently I will pour out this same spirit upon all flesh. The fruits of the spirit, your sin­cere and lov­ing ser­vice, are the mighty so­cial lever to up­lift the races of dark­ness, and this Spirit of Truth will be­come your power-mul­ti­ply­ing ful­crum.

178:1.7Dis­play wis­dom and ex­hibit sagac­ity in your deal­ings with un­be­liev­ing civil rulers. By dis­cre­tion show your­selves to be ex­pert in iron­ing out mi­nor dis­agree­ments and in ad­just­ing tri­fling mis­un­der­stand­ings. In ev­ery pos­si­ble way—in ev­ery­thing short of your spir­i­tual al­le­giance to the rulers of the uni­verse—seek to live peace­ably with all men. Be you al­ways as wise as ser­pents but as harm­less as doves.

178:1.8You should be made all the bet­ter cit­i­zens of the sec­u­lar gov­ern­ment as a re­sult of be­com­ing en­light­ened sons of the king­dom; so should the rulers of earthly gov­ern­ments be­come all the bet­ter rulers in civil af­fairs as a re­sult of be­liev­ing this gospel of the heav­enly king­dom. The at­ti­tude of un­selfish ser­vice of man and in­tel­li­gent wor­ship of God should make all king­dom be­liev­ers bet­ter world cit­i­zens, while the at­ti­tude of hon­est cit­i­zen­ship and sin­cere de­vo­tion to one’s tem­po­ral duty should help to make such a cit­i­zen the more eas­ily reached by the spirit call to son­ship in the heav­enly king­dom.

178:1.9So long as the rulers of earthly gov­ern­ments seek to ex­er­cise the au­thor­ity of re­li­gious dic­ta­tors, you who be­lieve this gospel can ex­pect only trou­ble, per­se­cu­tion, and even death. But the very light which you bear to the world, and even the very man­ner in which you will suf­fer and die for this gospel of the king­dom, will, in them­selves, even­tu­ally en­lighten the whole world and re­sult in the grad­ual di­vorce­ment of pol­i­tics and re­li­gion. The per­sis­tent preach­ing of this gospel of the king­dom will some day bring to all na­tions a new and un­be­liev­able lib­er­a­tion, in­tel­lec­tual free­dom, and re­li­gious lib­erty.

178:1.10Un­der the soon-com­ing per­se­cu­tions by those who hate this gospel of joy and lib­erty, you will thrive and the king­dom will pros­per. But you will stand in grave dan­ger in sub­se­quent times when most men will speak well of king­dom be­liev­ers and many in high places nom­i­nally ac­cept the gospel of the heav­enly king­dom. Learn to be faith­ful to the king­dom even in times of peace and pros­per­ity. Tempt not the an­gels of your super­vi­sion to lead you in trou­blous ways as a lov­ing dis­ci­pline de­signed to save your ease-drift­ing souls.

178:1.11Re­mem­ber that you are com­mis­sioned to preach this gospel of the king­dom—the su­preme de­sire to do the Fa­ther’s will cou­pled with the su­preme joy of the faith re­al­iza­tion of son­ship with God—and you must not al­low any­thing to di­vert your de­vo­tion to this one duty. Let all man­kind ben­e­fit from the over­flow of your lov­ing spir­i­tual min­istry, en­light­en­ing in­tel­lec­tual com­mu­nion, and up­lift­ing so­cial ser­vice; but none of these hu­man­i­tar­ian labors, nor all of them, should be per­mit­ted to take the place of pro­claim­ing the gospel. These mighty min­is­tra­tions are the so­cial by-prod­ucts of the still more mighty and sub­lime min­is­tra­tions and trans­for­ma­tions wrought in the heart of the king­dom be­liever by the liv­ing Spirit of Truth and by the per­sonal re­al­iza­tion that the faith of a spirit-born man con­fers the as­sur­ance of liv­ing fel­low­ship with the eter­nal God.

178:1.12You must not seek to pro­mul­gate truth nor to es­tab­lish righ­teous­ness by the power of civil gov­ern­ments or by the en­ac­tion of sec­u­lar laws. You may al­ways la­bor to per­suade men’s minds, but you must never dare to com­pel them. You must not for­get the great law of hu­man fair­ness which I have taught you in pos­i­tive form: What­so­ever you would that men should do to you, do even so to them.

178:1.13When a king­dom be­liever is called upon to serve the civil gov­ern­ment, let him ren­der such ser­vice as a tem­po­ral cit­i­zen of such a gov­ern­ment, al­beit such a be­liever should dis­play in his civil ser­vice all of the or­di­nary traits of cit­i­zen­ship as these have been en­hanced by the spir­i­tual en­light­en­ment of the en­nobling as­so­ci­a­tion of the mind of mor­tal man with the in­dwelling spirit of the eter­nal God. If the un­be­liever can qual­ify as a su­pe­rior civil ser­vant, you should se­ri­ously ques­tion whether the roots of truth in your heart have not died from the lack of the liv­ing wa­ters of com­bined spir­i­tual com­mu­nion and so­cial ser­vice. The con­scious­ness of son­ship with God should quicken the en­tire life ser­vice of ev­ery man, woman, and child who has be­come the pos­ses­sor of such a mighty stim­u­lus to all the in­her­ent pow­ers of a hu­man per­son­al­ity.

178:1.14You are not to be pas­sive mys­tics or col­or­less as­cetics; you should not be­come dream­ers and drifters, supinely trust­ing in a fic­ti­tious Prov­i­dence to pro­vide even the ne­ces­si­ties of life. You are in­deed to be gen­tle in your deal­ings with erring mor­tals, pa­tient in your in­ter­course with ig­no­rant men, and for­bear­ing un­der provo­ca­tion; but you are also to be valiant in de­fense of righ­teous­ness, mighty in the pro­mul­ga­tion of truth, and ag­gres­sive in the preach­ing of this gospel of the king­dom, even to the ends of the earth.

178:1.15This gospel of the king­dom is a liv­ing truth. I have told you it is like the leaven in the dough, like the grain of mus­tard seed; and now I de­clare that it is like the seed of the liv­ing be­ing, which, from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion, while it re­mains the same liv­ing seed, un­fail­ingly un­folds it­self in new man­i­fes­ta­tions and grows ac­cept­ably in chan­nels of new adap­ta­tion to the pe­cu­liar needs and con­di­tions of each suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tion. The rev­e­la­tion I have made to you is a liv­ing rev­e­la­tion, and I de­sire that it shall bear ap­pro­pri­ate fruits in each in­di­vid­ual and in each gen­er­a­tion in ac­cor­dance with the laws of spir­i­tual growth, in­crease, and adap­ta­tive de­vel­op­ment. From gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion this gospel must show in­creas­ing vi­tal­ity and ex­hibit greater depth of spir­i­tual power. It must not be per­mit­ted to be­come merely a sa­cred mem­ory, a mere tra­di­tion about me and the times in which we now live.

178:1.16And for­get not: We have made no di­rect at­tack upon the per­sons or upon the au­thor­ity of those who sit in Moses’ seat; we only of­fered them the new light, which they have so vig­or­ously re­jected. We have as­sailed them only by the de­nun­ci­a­tion of their spir­i­tual dis­loy­alty to the very truths which they pro­fess to teach and safe­guard. We clashed with these es­tab­lished lead­ers and rec­og­nized rulers only when they threw them­selves di­rectly in the way of the preach­ing of the gospel of the king­dom to the sons of men. And even now, it is not we who as­sail them, but they who seek our de­struc­tion. Do not for­get that you are com­mis­sioned to go forth preach­ing only the good news. You are not to at­tack the old ways; you are skill­fully to put the leaven of new truth in the midst of the old be­liefs. Let the Spirit of Truth do his own work. Let con­tro­versy come only when they who de­spise the truth force it upon you. But when the will­ful un­be­liever at­tacks you, do not hes­i­tate to stand in vig­or­ous de­fense of the truth which has saved and sanc­ti­fied you.

178:1.17Through­out the vi­cis­si­tudes of life, re­mem­ber al­ways to love one an­other. Do not strive with men, even with un­be­liev­ers. Show mercy even to those who de­spite­fully abuse you. Show your­selves to be loyal cit­i­zens, up­right ar­ti­sans, praise­wor­thy neigh­bors, de­voted kins­men, un­der­stand­ing par­ents, and sin­cere be­liev­ers in the broth­er­hood of the Fa­ther’s king­dom. And my spirit shall be upon you, now and even to the end of the world.

178:1.18When Je­sus had con­cluded his teach­ing, it was al­most one o’clock, and they im­me­di­ately went back to the camp, where David and his as­so­ciates had lunch ready for them.