Final Admonitions and Warnings

181:2.1The Mas­ter had fin­ished giv­ing his farewell in­struc­tions and im­part­ing his fi­nal ad­mo­ni­tions to the apos­tles as a group. He then ad­dressed him­self to say­ing good-bye in­di­vid­u­ally and to giv­ing each a word of per­sonal ad­vice, to­gether with his part­ing bless­ing. The apos­tles were still seated about the ta­ble as when they first sat down to par­take of the Last Sup­per, and as the Mas­ter went around the ta­ble talk­ing to them, each man rose to his feet when Je­sus ad­dressed him.

181:2.2To John, Je­sus said: “You, John, are the young­est of my breth­ren. You have been very near me, and while I love you all with the same love which a fa­ther be­stows upon his sons, you were des­ig­nated by An­drew as one of the three who should al­ways be near me. Be­sides this, you have acted for me and must con­tinue so to act in many mat­ters con­cern­ing my earthly fam­ily. And I go to the Fa­ther, John, hav­ing full con­fi­dence that you will con­tinue to watch over those who are mine in the flesh. See to it that their pres­ent con­fu­sion re­gard­ing my mis­sion does not in any way pre­vent your ex­tend­ing to them all sym­pa­thy, coun­sel, and help even as you know I would if I were to re­main in the flesh. And when they all come to see the light and en­ter fully into the king­dom, while you all will wel­come them joy­ously, I de­pend upon you, John, to wel­come them for me.

181:2.3“And now, as I en­ter upon the clos­ing hours of my earthly ca­reer, re­main near at hand that I may leave any mes­sage with you re­gard­ing my fam­ily. As con­cerns the work put in my hands by the Fa­ther, it is now fin­ished ex­cept for my death in the flesh, and I am ready to drink this last cup. But as for the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties left to me by my earthly fa­ther, Joseph, while I have at­tended to these dur­ing my life, I must now de­pend upon you to act in my stead in all these mat­ters. And I have cho­sen you to do this for me, John, be­cause you are the young­est and will there­fore very likely out­live these other apos­tles.

181:2.4“Once we called you and your brother sons of thun­der. You started out with us strong-minded and in­tol­er­ant, but you have changed much since you wanted me to call fire down upon the heads of ig­no­rant and thought­less un­be­liev­ers. And you must change yet more. You should be­come the apos­tle of the new com­mand­ment which I have this night given you. Ded­i­cate your life to teach­ing your breth­ren how to love one an­other, even as I have loved you.”

181:2.5As John Zeb­e­dee stood there in the up­per cham­ber, the tears rolling down his cheeks, he looked into the Mas­ter’s face and said: “And so I will, my Mas­ter, but how can I learn to love my breth­ren more?” And then an­swered Je­sus: “You will learn to love your breth­ren more when you first learn to love their Fa­ther in heaven more, and af­ter you have be­come truly more in­ter­ested in their wel­fare in time and in eter­nity. And all such hu­man in­ter­est is fos­tered by un­der­stand­ing sym­pa­thy, un­selfish ser­vice, and un­stinted for­give­ness. No man should de­spise your youth, but I ex­hort you al­ways to give due con­sid­er­a­tion to the fact that age of­ten­times rep­re­sents ex­pe­ri­ence, and that noth­ing in hu­man af­fairs can take the place of ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. Strive to live peace­ably with all men, es­pe­cially your friends in the broth­er­hood of the heav­enly king­dom. And, John, al­ways re­mem­ber, strive not with the souls you would win for the king­dom.”

181:2.6And then the Mas­ter, pass­ing around his own seat, paused a mo­ment by the side of the place of Ju­das Is­car­iot. The apos­tles were rather sur­prised that Ju­das had not re­turned be­fore this, and they were very cu­ri­ous to know the sig­nif­i­cance of Je­sus’ sad coun­te­nance as he stood by the be­trayer’s va­cant seat. But none of them, ex­cept pos­si­bly An­drew, en­ter­tained even the slight­est thought that their trea­surer had gone out to be­tray his Mas­ter, as Je­sus had in­ti­mated to them ear­lier in the evening and dur­ing the sup­per. So much had been go­ing on that, for the time be­ing, they had quite for­got­ten about the Mas­ter’s an­nounce­ment that one of them would be­tray him.

181:2.7Je­sus now went over to Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, who stood up and lis­tened to this ad­mo­ni­tion: “You are a true son of Abra­ham, but what a time I have had try­ing to make you a son of this heav­enly king­dom. I love you and so do all of your breth­ren. I know that you love me, Si­mon, and that you also love the king­dom, but you are still set on mak­ing this king­dom come ac­cord­ing to your lik­ing. I know full well that you will even­tu­ally grasp the spir­i­tual na­ture and mean­ing of my gospel, and that you will do valiant work in its procla­ma­tion, but I am dis­tressed about what may hap­pen to you when I de­part. I would re­joice to know that you would not fal­ter; I would be made happy if I could know that, af­ter I go to the Fa­ther, you would not cease to be my apos­tle, and that you would ac­cept­ably de­port your­self as an am­bas­sador of the heav­enly king­dom.”

181:2.8Je­sus had hardly ceased speak­ing to Si­mon Ze­lo­tes when the fiery pa­triot, dry­ing his eyes, replied: “Mas­ter, have no fears for my loy­alty. I have turned my back upon ev­ery­thing that I might ded­i­cate my life to the es­tab­lish­ment of your king­dom on earth, and I will not fal­ter. I have sur­vived ev­ery dis­ap­point­ment so far, and I will not for­sake you.”

181:2.9And then, lay­ing his hand on Si­mon’s shoul­der, Je­sus said: “It is in­deed re­fresh­ing to hear you talk like that, es­pe­cially at such a time as this, but, my good friend, you still do not know what you are talk­ing about. Not for one mo­ment would I doubt your loy­alty, your de­vo­tion; I know you would not hes­i­tate to go forth in bat­tle and die for me, as all these oth­ers would” (and they all nod­ded a vig­or­ous ap­proval), “but that will not be re­quired of you. I have re­peat­edly told you that my king­dom is not of this world, and that my dis­ci­ples will not fight to ef­fect its es­tab­lish­ment. I have told you this many times, Si­mon, but you refuse to face the truth. I am not con­cerned with your loy­alty to me and to the king­dom, but what will you do when I go away and you at last wake up to the re­al­iza­tion that you have failed to grasp the mean­ing of my teach­ing, and that you must ad­just your mis­con­cep­tions to the re­al­ity of an­other and spir­i­tual or­der of af­fairs in the king­dom?”

181:2.10Si­mon wanted to speak fur­ther, but Je­sus raised his hand and, stop­ping him, went on to say: “None of my apos­tles are more sin­cere and hon­est at heart than you, but not one of them will be so up­set and dis­heart­ened as you, af­ter my de­par­ture. In all of your dis­cour­age­ment my spirit shall abide with you, and these, your breth­ren, will not for­sake you. Do not for­get what I have taught you re­gard­ing the re­la­tion of cit­i­zen­ship on earth to son­ship in the Fa­ther’s spir­i­tual king­dom. Pon­der well all that I have said to you about ren­der­ing to Cae­sar the things which are Cae­sar’s and to God that which is God’s. Ded­i­cate your life, Si­mon, to show­ing how ac­cept­ably mor­tal man may ful­fill my in­junc­tion con­cern­ing the si­mul­ta­ne­ous rec­og­ni­tion of tem­po­ral duty to civil pow­ers and spir­i­tual ser­vice in the broth­er­hood of the king­dom. If you will be taught by the Spirit of Truth, never will there be con­flict be­tween the re­quire­ments of cit­i­zen­ship on earth and son­ship in heaven un­less the tem­po­ral rulers pre­sume to re­quire of you the homage and wor­ship which be­long only to God.

181:2.11“And now, Si­mon, when you do fi­nally see all of this, and af­ter you have shaken off your de­pres­sion and have gone forth pro­claim­ing this gospel in great power, never for­get that I was with you even through all of your sea­son of dis­cour­age­ment, and that I will go on with you to the very end. You shall al­ways be my apos­tle, and af­ter you be­come will­ing to see by the eye of the spirit and more fully to yield your will to the will of the Fa­ther in heaven, then will you re­turn to la­bor as my am­bas­sador, and no one shall take away from you the au­thor­ity which I have con­ferred upon you, be­cause of your slow­ness of com­pre­hend­ing the truths I have taught you. And so, Si­mon, once more I warn you that they who fight with the sword per­ish with the sword, while they who la­bor in the spirit achieve life ev­er­last­ing in the king­dom to come with joy and peace in the king­dom which now is. And when the work given into your hands is fin­ished on earth, you, Si­mon, shall sit down with me in my king­dom over there. You shall re­ally see the king­dom you have longed for, but not in this life. Con­tinue to be­lieve in me and in that which I have re­vealed to you, and you shall re­ceive the gift of eter­nal life.”

181:2.12When Je­sus had fin­ished speak­ing to Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, he stepped over to Mat­thew Levi and said: “No longer will it de­volve upon you to pro­vide for the trea­sury of the apos­tolic group. Soon, very soon, you will all be scat­tered; you will not be per­mit­ted to en­joy the com­fort­ing and sus­tain­ing as­so­ci­a­tion of even one of your breth­ren. As you go on­ward preach­ing this gospel of the king­dom, you will have to find for your­selves new as­so­ciates. I have sent you forth two and two dur­ing the times of your train­ing, but now that I am leav­ing you, af­ter you have re­cov­ered from the shock, you will go out alone, and to the ends of the earth, pro­claim­ing this good news: That faith-quick­ened mor­tals are the sons of God.”

181:2.13Then spoke Mat­thew: “But, Mas­ter, who will send us, and how shall we know where to go? Will An­drew show us the way?” And Je­sus an­swered: “No, Levi, An­drew will no longer di­rect you in the procla­ma­tion of the gospel. He will, in­deed, con­tinue as your friend and coun­selor un­til that day whereon the new teacher comes, and then shall the Spirit of Truth lead each of you abroad to la­bor for the ex­ten­sion of the king­dom. Many changes have come over you since that day at the cus­tom­house when you first set out to fol­low me; but many more must come be­fore you will be able to see the vi­sion of a broth­er­hood in which gen­tile sits along­side Jew in fra­ter­nal as­so­ci­a­tion. But go on with your urge to win your Jew­ish breth­ren un­til you are fully sat­is­fied and then turn with power to the gen­tiles. One thing you may be cer­tain of, Levi: You have won the con­fi­dence and af­fec­tion of your breth­ren; they all love you.” (And all ten of them sig­ni­fied their ac­qui­es­cence in the Mas­ter’s words.)

181:2.14“Levi, I know much about your anx­i­eties, sac­ri­fices, and labors to keep the trea­sury re­plen­ished which your breth­ren do not know, and I am re­joiced that, though he who car­ried the bag is ab­sent, the pub­li­can am­bas­sador is here at my farewell gath­er­ing with the mes­sen­gers of the king­dom. I pray that you may dis­cern the mean­ing of my teach­ing with the eyes of the spirit. And when the new teacher comes into your heart, fol­low on as he will lead you and let your breth­ren see—even all the world—what the Fa­ther can do for a hated tax-gath­erer who dared to fol­low the Son of Man and to be­lieve the gospel of the king­dom. Even from the first, Levi, I loved you as I did these other Galileans. Know­ing then so well that nei­ther the Fa­ther nor the Son has re­spect of per­sons, see to it that you make no such dis­tinc­tions among those who be­come be­liev­ers in the gospel through your min­istry. And so, Mat­thew, ded­i­cate your whole fu­ture life ser­vice to show­ing all men that God is no re­specter of per­sons; that, in the sight of God and in the fel­low­ship of the king­dom, all men are equal, all be­liev­ers are the sons of God.”

181:2.15Je­sus then stepped over to James Zeb­e­dee, who stood in si­lence as the Mas­ter ad­dressed him, say­ing: “James, when you and your younger brother once came to me seek­ing prefer­ment in the hon­ors of the king­dom, and I told you such hon­ors were for the Fa­ther to be­stow, I asked if you were able to drink my cup, and both of you an­swered that you were. Even if you were not then able, and if you are not now able, you will soon be pre­pared for such a ser­vice by the ex­pe­ri­ence you are about to pass through. By such be­hav­ior you an­gered your breth­ren at that time. If they have not al­ready fully for­given you, they will when they see you drink my cup. Whether your min­istry be long or short, pos­sess your soul in pa­tience. When the new teacher comes, let him teach you the poise of com­pas­sion and that sym­pa­thetic tol­er­ance which is born of sub­lime con­fi­dence in me and of per­fect sub­mis­sion to the Fa­ther’s will. Ded­i­cate your life to the dem­on­stra­tion of that com­bined hu­man af­fec­tion and di­vine dig­nity of the God-know­ing and Son-be­liev­ing dis­ci­ple. And all who thus live will re­veal the gospel even in the man­ner of their death. You and your brother John will go dif­fer­ent ways, and one of you may sit down with me in the eter­nal king­dom long be­fore the other. It would help you much if you would learn that true wis­dom em­braces dis­cre­tion as well as cour­age. You should learn sagac­ity to go along with your ag­gres­sive­ness. There will come those su­preme mo­ments wherein my dis­ci­ples will not hes­i­tate to lay down their lives for this gospel, but in all or­di­nary cir­cum­stances it would be far bet­ter to pla­cate the wrath of un­be­liev­ers that you might live and con­tinue to preach the glad tid­ings. As far as lies in your power, live long on the earth that your life of many years may be fruit­ful in souls won for the heav­enly king­dom.”

181:2.16When the Mas­ter had fin­ished speak­ing to James Zeb­e­dee, he stepped around to the end of the ta­ble where An­drew sat and, look­ing his faith­ful helper in the eyes, said: “An­drew, you have faith­fully rep­re­sented me as act­ing head of the am­bas­sadors of the heav­enly king­dom. Al­though you have some­times doubted and at other times man­i­fested dan­ger­ous timid­ity, still, you have al­ways been sin­cerely just and em­i­nently fair in deal­ing with your as­so­ciates. Ever since the or­di­na­tion of you and your breth­ren as mes­sen­gers of the king­dom, you have been self-gov­ern­ing in all group ad­min­is­tra­tive af­fairs ex­cept that I des­ig­nated you as the act­ing head of these cho­sen ones. In no other tem­po­ral mat­ter have I acted to di­rect or to in­flu­ence your de­ci­sions. And this I did in or­der to pro­vide for lead­er­ship in the di­rec­tion of all your sub­se­quent group de­lib­er­a­tions. In my uni­verse and in my Fa­ther’s uni­verse of uni­verses, our breth­ren-sons are dealt with as in­di­vid­u­als in all their spir­i­tual re­la­tions, but in all group re­la­tion­ships we un­fail­ingly pro­vide for def­i­nite lead­er­ship. Our king­dom is a realm of or­der, and where two or more will crea­tures act in co-op­er­a­tion, there is al­ways pro­vided the au­thor­ity of lead­er­ship.

181:2.17“And now, An­drew, since you are the chief of your breth­ren by au­thor­ity of my ap­point­ment, and since you have thus served as my per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tive, and as I am about to leave you and go to my Fa­ther, I re­lease you from all re­spon­si­bil­ity as re­gards these tem­po­ral and ad­min­is­tra­tive af­fairs. From now on you may ex­er­cise no ju­ris­dic­tion over your breth­ren ex­cept that which you have earned in your ca­pac­ity as spir­i­tual leader, and which your breth­ren there­fore freely rec­og­nize. From this hour you may ex­er­cise no au­thor­ity over your breth­ren un­less they re­store such ju­ris­dic­tion to you by their def­i­nite leg­isla­tive ac­tion af­ter I shall have gone to the Fa­ther. But this re­lease from re­spon­si­bil­ity as the ad­min­is­tra­tive head of this group does not in any man­ner lessen your moral re­spon­si­bil­ity to do ev­ery­thing in your power to hold your breth­ren to­gether with a firm and lov­ing hand dur­ing the try­ing time just ahead, those days which must in­ter­vene be­tween my de­par­ture in the flesh and the send­ing of the new teacher who will live in your hearts, and who ul­ti­mately will lead you into all truth. As I pre­pare to leave you, I would lib­er­ate you from all ad­min­is­tra­tive re­spon­si­bil­ity which had its in­cep­tion and au­thor­ity in my pres­ence as one among you. Hence­forth I shall ex­er­cise only spir­i­tual au­thor­ity over you and among you.

181:2.18“If your breth­ren de­sire to re­tain you as their coun­selor, I di­rect that you should, in all mat­ters tem­po­ral and spir­i­tual, do your ut­most to pro­mote peace and har­mony among the var­i­ous groups of sin­cere gospel be­liev­ers. Ded­i­cate the re­main­der of your life to pro­mot­ing the prac­ti­cal as­pects of broth­erly love among your breth­ren. Be kind to my broth­ers in the flesh when they come fully to be­lieve this gospel; man­i­fest lov­ing and im­par­tial de­vo­tion to the Greeks in the West and to Ab­ner in the East. Al­though these, my apos­tles, are soon go­ing to be scat­tered to the four cor­ners of the earth, there to pro­claim the good news of the sal­va­tion of son­ship with God, you are to hold them to­gether dur­ing the try­ing time just ahead, that sea­son of in­tense test­ing dur­ing which you must learn to be­lieve this gospel with­out my per­sonal pres­ence while you pa­tiently await the ar­rival of the new teacher, the Spirit of Truth. And so, An­drew, though it may not fall to you to do the great works as seen by men, be con­tent to be the teacher and coun­selor of those who do such things. Go on with your work on earth to the end, and then shall you con­tinue this min­istry in the eter­nal king­dom, for have I not many times told you that I have other sheep not of this flock?”

181:2.19Je­sus then went over to the Al­pheus twins and, stand­ing be­tween them, said: “My lit­tle chil­dren, you are one of the three groups of broth­ers who chose to fol­low af­ter me. All six of you have done well to work in peace with your own flesh and blood, but none have done bet­ter than you. Hard times are just ahead of us. You may not un­der­stand all that will be­fall you and your breth­ren, but never doubt that you were once called to the work of the king­dom. For some time there will be no mul­ti­tudes to man­age, but do not be­come dis­cour­aged; when your life­work is fin­ished, I will re­ceive you on high, where in glory you shall tell of your sal­va­tion to se­raphic hosts and to mul­ti­tudes of the high Sons of God. Ded­i­cate your lives to the en­hance­ment of com­mon­place toil. Show all men on earth and the an­gels of heaven how cheer­fully and coura­geously mor­tal man can, af­ter hav­ing been called to work for a sea­son in the spe­cial ser­vice of God, re­turn to the labors of for­mer days. If, for the time be­ing, your work in the out­ward af­fairs of the king­dom should be com­pleted, you should go back to your for­mer labors with the new en­light­en­ment of the ex­pe­ri­ence of son­ship with God and with the ex­alted re­al­iza­tion that, to him who is God-know­ing, there is no such thing as com­mon la­bor or sec­u­lar toil. To you who have worked with me, all things have be­come sa­cred, and all earthly la­bor has be­come a ser­vice even to God the Fa­ther. And when you hear the news of the do­ings of your for­mer apos­tolic as­so­ciates, re­joice with them and con­tinue your daily work as those who wait upon God and serve while they wait. You have been my apos­tles, and you al­ways shall be, and I will re­mem­ber you in the king­dom to come.”

181:2.20And then Je­sus went over to Philip, who, stand­ing up, heard this mes­sage from his Mas­ter: “Philip, you have asked me many fool­ish ques­tions, but I have done my ut­most to an­swer ev­ery one, and now would I an­swer the last of such ques­tion­ings which have arisen in your most hon­est but un­spir­i­tual mind. All the time I have been com­ing around to­ward you, have you been say­ing to your­self, ‘What shall I ever do if the Mas­ter goes away and leaves us alone in the world?’ O, you of lit­tle faith! And yet you have al­most as much as many of your breth­ren. You have been a good stew­ard, Philip. You failed us only a few times, and one of those fail­ures we uti­lized to man­i­fest the Fa­ther’s glory. Your of­fice of stew­ard­ship is about over. You must soon more fully do the work you were called to do—the preach­ing of this gospel of the king­dom. Philip, you have al­ways wanted to be shown, and very soon shall you see great things. Far bet­ter that you should have seen all this by faith, but since you were sin­cere even in your ma­te­rial sight­ed­ness, you will live to see my words ful­filled. And then, when you are blessed with spir­i­tual vi­sion, go forth to your work, ded­i­cat­ing your life to the cause of lead­ing man­kind to search for God and to seek eter­nal re­al­i­ties with the eye of spir­i­tual faith and not with the eyes of the ma­te­rial mind. Re­mem­ber, Philip, you have a great mis­sion on earth, for the world is filled with those who look at life just as you have tended to. You have a great work to do, and when it is fin­ished in faith, you shall come to me in my king­dom, and I will take great plea­sure in show­ing you that which eye has not seen, ear heard, nor the mor­tal mind con­ceived. In the mean­time, be­come as a lit­tle child in the king­dom of the spirit and per­mit me, as the spirit of the new teacher, to lead you for­ward in the spir­i­tual king­dom. And in this way will I be able to do much for you which I was not able to ac­com­plish when I so­journed with you as a mor­tal of the realm. And al­ways re­mem­ber, Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Fa­ther.”

181:2.21Then went the Mas­ter over to Na­than­iel. As Na­than­iel stood up, Je­sus bade him be seated and, sit­ting down by his side, said: “Na­than­iel, you have learned to live above prej­u­dice and to prac­tice in­creased tol­er­ance since you be­came my apos­tle. But there is much more for you to learn. You have been a bless­ing to your fel­lows in that they have al­ways been ad­mon­ished by your con­sis­tent sin­cer­ity. When I have gone, it may be that your frank­ness will in­ter­fere with your get­ting along well with your breth­ren, both old and new. You should learn that the ex­pres­sion of even a good thought must be mod­u­lated in ac­cor­dance with the in­tel­lec­tual sta­tus and spir­i­tual de­vel­op­ment of the hearer. Sin­cer­ity is most ser­vice­able in the work of the king­dom when it is wed­ded to dis­cre­tion.

181:2.22“If you would learn to work with your breth­ren, you might ac­com­plish more per­ma­nent things, but if you find your­self go­ing off in quest of those who think as you do, in that event ded­i­cate your life to prov­ing that the God-know­ing dis­ci­ple can be­come a king­dom builder even when alone in the world and wholly iso­lated from his fel­low be­liev­ers. I know you will be faith­ful to the end, and I will some day wel­come you to the en­larged ser­vice of my king­dom on high.”

181:2.23Then Na­than­iel spoke, ask­ing Je­sus this ques­tion: “I have lis­tened to your teach­ing ever since you first called me to the ser­vice of this king­dom, but I hon­estly can­not un­der­stand the full mean­ing of all you tell us. I do not know what to ex­pect next, and I think most of my breth­ren are like­wise per­plexed, but they hes­i­tate to con­fess their con­fu­sion. Can you help me?” Je­sus, putting his hand on Na­than­iel’s shoul­der, said: “My friend, it is not strange that you should en­counter per­plex­ity in your at­tempt to grasp the mean­ing of my spir­i­tual teach­ings since you are so hand­i­capped by your pre­con­cep­tions of Jew­ish tra­di­tion and so con­fused by your per­sis­tent ten­dency to in­ter­pret my gospel in ac­cor­dance with the teach­ings of the scribes and Phar­isees.

181:2.24“I have taught you much by word of mouth, and I have lived my life among you. I have done all that can be done to en­lighten your minds and lib­er­ate your souls, and what you have not been able to get from my teach­ings and my life, you must now pre­pare to ac­quire at the hand of that mas­ter of all teach­ers—ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. And in all of this new ex­pe­ri­ence which now awaits you, I will go be­fore you and the Spirit of Truth shall be with you. Fear not; that which you now fail to com­pre­hend, the new teacher, when he has come, will re­veal to you through­out the re­main­der of your life on earth and on through your train­ing in the eter­nal ages.”

181:2.25And then the Mas­ter, turn­ing to all of them, said: “Be not dis­mayed that you fail to grasp the full mean­ing of the gospel. You are but fi­nite, mor­tal men, and that which I have taught you is in­fi­nite, di­vine, and eter­nal. Be pa­tient and of good cour­age since you have the eter­nal ages be­fore you in which to con­tinue your pro­gres­sive at­tain­ment of the ex­pe­ri­ence of be­com­ing per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in Par­a­dise is per­fect.”

181:2.26And then Je­sus went over to Thomas, who, stand­ing up, heard him say: “Thomas, you have of­ten lacked faith; how­ever, when you have had your sea­sons with doubt, you have never lacked cour­age. I know well that the false proph­ets and spu­ri­ous teach­ers will not de­ceive you. Af­ter I have gone, your breth­ren will the more ap­pre­ci­ate your crit­i­cal way of view­ing new teach­ings. And when you all are scat­tered to the ends of the earth in the times to come, re­mem­ber that you are still my am­bas­sador. Ded­i­cate your life to the great work of show­ing how the crit­i­cal ma­te­rial mind of man can tri­umph over the in­er­tia of in­tel­lec­tual doubt­ing when faced by the dem­on­stra­tion of the man­i­fes­ta­tion of liv­ing truth as it op­er­ates in the ex­pe­ri­ence of spirit-born men and women who yield the fruits of the spirit in their lives, and who love one an­other, even as I have loved you. Thomas, I am glad you joined us, and I know, af­ter a short pe­riod of per­plex­ity, you will go on in the ser­vice of the king­dom. Your doubts have per­plexed your breth­ren, but they have never trou­bled me. I have con­fi­dence in you, and I will go be­fore you even to the ut­ter­most parts of the earth.”

181:2.27Then the Mas­ter went over to Si­mon Pe­ter, who stood up as Je­sus ad­dressed him: “Pe­ter, I know you love me, and that you will ded­i­cate your life to the pub­lic procla­ma­tion of this gospel of the king­dom to Jew and gen­tile, but I am dis­tressed that your years of such close as­so­ci­a­tion with me have not done more to help you think be­fore you speak. What ex­pe­ri­ence must you pass through be­fore you will learn to set a guard upon your lips? How much trou­ble have you made for us by your thought­less speak­ing, by your pre­sump­tu­ous self-con­fi­dence! And you are des­tined to make much more trou­ble for your­self if you do not mas­ter this frailty. You know that your breth­ren love you in spite of this weak­ness, and you should also un­der­stand that this short­com­ing in no way im­pairs my af­fec­tion for you, but it lessens your use­ful­ness and never ceases to make trou­ble for you. But you will un­doubt­edly re­ceive great help from the ex­pe­ri­ence you will pass through this very night. And what I now say to you, Si­mon Pe­ter, I like­wise say to all your breth­ren here as­sem­bled: This night you will all be in great dan­ger of stum­bling over me. You know it is writ­ten, ‘The shep­herd will be smit­ten and the sheep will be scat­tered abroad.’ When I am ab­sent, there is great dan­ger that some of you will suc­cumb to doubts and stum­ble be­cause of what be­falls me. But I prom­ise you now that I will come back to you for a lit­tle while, and that I will then go be­fore you into Gal­i­lee.”

181:2.28Then said Pe­ter, plac­ing his hand on Je­sus’ shoul­der: “No mat­ter if all my breth­ren should suc­cumb to doubts be­cause of you, I prom­ise that I will not stum­ble over any­thing you may do. I will go with you and, if need be, die for you.”

181:2.29As Pe­ter stood there be­fore his Mas­ter, all atrem­ble with in­tense emo­tion and over­flow­ing with gen­uine love for him, Je­sus looked straight into his moist­ened eyes as he said: “Pe­ter, ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, this night the cock will not crow un­til you have de­nied me three or four times. And thus what you have failed to learn from peace­ful as­so­ci­a­tion with me, you will learn through much trou­ble and many sor­rows. And af­ter you have re­ally learned this need­ful les­son, you should strengthen your breth­ren and go on liv­ing a life ded­i­cated to preach­ing this gospel, though you may fall into prison and, per­haps, fol­low me in pay­ing the su­preme price of lov­ing ser­vice in the build­ing of the Fa­ther’s king­dom.

181:2.30“But re­mem­ber my prom­ise: When I am raised up, I will tarry with you for a sea­son be­fore I go to the Fa­ther. And even this night will I make sup­pli­ca­tion to the Fa­ther that he strengthen each of you for that which you must now so soon pass through. I love you all with the love where­with the Fa­ther loves me, and there­fore should you hence­forth love one an­other, even as I have loved you.”

181:2.31And then, when they had sung a hymn, they de­parted for the camp on the Mount of Olives.