evangelists, the seventy

• trained by learning and doing

148:1.1Pe­ter, James, and An­drew were the com­mit­tee des­ig­nated by Je­sus to pass upon ap­pli­cants for ad­mis­sion to the school of evan­ge­lists. All the races and na­tion­al­i­ties of the Ro­man world and the East, as far as In­dia, were rep­re­sented among the stu­dents in this new school of the proph­ets. This school was con­ducted on the plan of learn­ing and do­ing. What the stu­dents learned dur­ing the forenoon they taught to the as­sem­bly by the sea­side dur­ing the af­ter­noon. Af­ter sup­per they in­for­mally dis­cussed both the learn­ing of the forenoon and the teach­ing of the af­ter­noon.

• did not have everything in common like apostles

148:1.3The one hun­dred and more evan­ge­lists trained dur­ing this five months by the sea­side rep­re­sented the ma­te­rial from which (ex­cept­ing Ab­ner and John’s apos­tles) the later sev­enty gospel teach­ers and preach­ers were drawn. The school of evan­ge­lists did not have ev­ery­thing in com­mon to the same de­gree as did the twelve.

• 75 of 117 survived test; 1/3 deserted

149:7.3Of the 117 evan­ge­lists who par­tic­i­pated in this sec­ond preach­ing tour of Gal­i­lee, only about sev­enty-five sur­vived the test of ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence and were on hand to be as­signed to ser­vice at the end of the two weeks’ re­cess. Je­sus, with An­drew, Pe­ter, James, and John, re­mained at the Zeb­e­dee home and spent much time in con­fer­ence re­gard­ing the wel­fare and ex­ten­sion of the king­dom.

• 75 of 117 survived test; 1/3 deserted

153:5.2And now, on top of all of these wor­ries, when they reached home, Je­sus re­fused to eat. For hours he iso­lated him­self in one of the up­per rooms. It was al­most mid­night when Joab, the leader of the evan­ge­lists, re­turned and re­ported that about one third of his as­so­ciates had de­serted the cause. All through the evening loyal dis­ci­ples had come and gone, re­port­ing that the re­vul­sion of feel­ing to­ward the Mas­ter was gen­eral in Ca­per­naum. The lead­ers from Je­ru­sa­lem were not slow to feed this feel­ing of dis­af­fec­tion and in ev­ery way pos­si­ble to seek to pro­mote the move­ment away from Je­sus and his teach­ings. Dur­ing these try­ing hours the twelve women were in ses­sion over at Pe­ter’s house. They were tremen­dously up­set, but none of them de­serted.

• Abner in charge

163:1.1The sev­enty were or­dained by Je­sus on Sab­bath af­ter­noon, Novem­ber 19, at the Ma­g­a­dan Camp, and Ab­ner was placed at the head of these gospel preach­ers and teach­ers. This corps of sev­enty con­sisted of Ab­ner and ten of the for­mer apos­tles of John, fifty-one of the ear­lier evan­ge­lists, and eight other dis­ci­ples who had dis­tin­guished them­selves in the ser­vice of the king­dom.

163:1.2About two o’clock on this Sab­bath af­ter­noon, be­tween show­ers of rain, a com­pany of be­liev­ers, aug­mented by the ar­rival of David and the ma­jor­ity of his mes­sen­ger corps and num­ber­ing over four hun­dred, as­sem­bled on the shore of the lake of Gal­i­lee to wit­ness the or­di­na­tion of the sev­enty.

163:1.3Be­fore Je­sus laid his hands upon the heads of the sev­enty to set them apart as gospel mes­sen­gers, ad­dress­ing them, he said: “The har­vest is in­deed plen­teous, but the la­bor­ers are few; there­fore I ex­hort all of you to pray that the Lord of the har­vest will send still other la­bor­ers into his har­vest. I am about to set you apart as mes­sen­gers of the king­dom; I am about to send you to Jew and gen­tile as lambs among wolves. As you go your ways, two and two, I in­struct you to carry nei­ther purse nor ex­tra cloth­ing, for you go forth on this first mis­sion for only a short sea­son. Salute no man by the way, at­tend only to your work. When­ever you go to stay at a home, first say: Peace be to this house­hold. If those who love peace live therein, you shall abide there; if not, then shall you de­part. And hav­ing se­lected this home, re­main there for your stay in that city, eat­ing and drink­ing what­ever is set be­fore you. And you do this be­cause the la­borer is wor­thy of his sus­te­nance. Move not from house to house be­cause a bet­ter lodg­ing may be of­fered. Re­mem­ber, as you go forth pro­claim­ing peace on earth and good will among men, you must con­tend with bit­ter and self-de­ceived en­e­mies; there­fore be as wise as ser­pents while you are also as harm­less as doves.

163:1.4“And ev­ery­where you go, preach, say­ing, ‘The king­dom of heaven is at hand,’ and min­is­ter to all who may be sick in ei­ther mind or body. Freely you have re­ceived of the good things of the king­dom; freely give. If the peo­ple of any city re­ceive you, they shall find an abun­dant en­trance into the Fa­ther’s king­dom; but if the peo­ple of any city refuse to re­ceive this gospel, still shall you pro­claim your mes­sage as you de­part from that un­be­liev­ing com­mu­nity, say­ing, even as you leave, to those who re­ject your teach­ing: ‘Not­with­stand­ing you re­ject the truth, it re­mains that the king­dom of God has come near you.’ He who hears you hears me. And he who hears me hears Him who sent me. He who re­jects your gospel mes­sage re­jects me. And he who re­jects me re­jects Him who sent me.”

163:1.5When Je­sus had thus spo­ken to the sev­enty, he be­gan with Ab­ner and, as they knelt in a cir­cle about him, laid his hands upon the head of ev­ery man.

163:1.6Early the next morn­ing Ab­ner sent the sev­enty mes­sen­gers into all the cities of Gal­i­lee, Samaria, and Judea. And these thirty-five cou­ples went forth preach­ing and teach­ing for about six weeks, all of them re­turn­ing to the new camp near Pella, in Perea, on Fri­day, De­cem­ber 30.

• selection committee

163:2.1Over fifty dis­ci­ples who sought or­di­na­tion and ap­point­ment to mem­ber­ship in the sev­enty were re­jected by the com­mit­tee ap­pointed by Je­sus to se­lect these can­di­dates. This com­mit­tee con­sisted of An­drew, Ab­ner, and the act­ing head of the evan­ge­lis­tic corps. In all cases where this com­mit­tee of three were not unan­i­mous in agree­ment, they brought the can­di­date to Je­sus, and while the Mas­ter never re­jected a sin­gle per­son who craved or­di­na­tion as a gospel mes­sen­ger, there were more than a dozen who, when they had talked with Je­sus, no more de­sired to be­come gospel mes­sen­gers.

• went forth wholly unprovided for

163:4.123. Faith and trust. They must go forth on this short mis­sion wholly un­pro­vided for; they must trust the Fa­ther for food and shel­ter and all other things need­ful.

• possessed with zeal for kingdom

163:4.134. Zeal and ini­tia­tive. They must be pos­sessed with zeal and in­tel­li­gent en­thu­si­asm; they must at­tend strictly to their Mas­ter’s busi­ness. Ori­en­tal salu­ta­tion was a lengthy and elab­o­rate cer­e­mony; there­fore had they been in­structed to “salute no man by the way,” which was a com­mon method of ex­hort­ing one to go about his busi­ness with­out the waste of time. It had noth­ing to do with the mat­ter of friendly greet­ing.

• numbered 70 only by coincidence

163:4.17Al­though the Jews had a pe­cu­liar re­gard for the num­ber sev­enty, some­times con­sid­er­ing the na­tions of hea­then­dom as be­ing sev­enty in num­ber, and al­though these sev­enty mes­sen­gers were to go with the gospel to all peo­ples, still as far as we can dis­cern, it was only co­in­ci­den­tal that this group hap­pened to num­ber just sev­enty. Cer­tain it was that Je­sus would have ac­cepted no less than half a dozen oth­ers, but they were un­will­ing to pay the price of for­sak­ing wealth and fam­i­lies.

163:6.1On Fri­day, De­cem­ber 30, while Je­sus was away in the near-by hills with Pe­ter, James, and John, the sev­enty mes­sen­gers were ar­riv­ing by cou­ples, ac­com­pa­nied by nu­mer­ous be­liev­ers, at the Pella head­quar­ters. All sev­enty were as­sem­bled at the teach­ing site about five o’clock when Je­sus re­turned to the camp. The evening meal was de­layed for more than an hour while these en­thu­si­asts for the gospel of the king­dom re­lated their ex­pe­ri­ences. David’s mes­sen­gers had brought much of this news to the apos­tles dur­ing pre­vi­ous weeks, but it was truly in­spir­ing to hear these newly or­dained teach­ers of the gospel per­son­ally tell how their mes­sage had been re­ceived by hun­gry Jews and gen­tiles. At last Je­sus was able to see men go­ing out to spread the good news with­out his per­sonal pres­ence. The Mas­ter now knew that he could leave this world with­out se­ri­ously hin­der­ing the prog­ress of the king­dom.

163:6.2When the sev­enty re­lated how “even the dev­ils were sub­ject” to them, they re­ferred to the won­der­ful cures they had wrought in the cases of vic­tims of ner­vous dis­or­ders. Nev­er­the­less, there had been a few cases of real spirit pos­ses­sion re­lieved by these min­is­ters, and re­fer­ring to these, Je­sus said: “It is not strange that these dis­obe­di­ent mi­nor spir­its should be sub­ject to you, see­ing that I be­held Sa­tan falling as light­ning from heaven. But re­joice not so much over this, for I de­clare to you that, as soon as I re­turn to my Fa­ther, we will send forth our spir­its into the very minds of men so that no more can these few lost spir­its en­ter the minds of un­for­tu­nate mor­tals. I re­joice with you that you have power with men, but be not lifted up be­cause of this ex­pe­ri­ence but the rather re­joice that your names are writ­ten on the rolls of heaven, and that you are thus to go for­ward in an end­less ca­reer of spir­i­tual con­quest.”

163:6.3And it was at this time, just be­fore par­tak­ing of the evening meal, that Je­sus ex­pe­ri­enced one of those rare mo­ments of emo­tional ec­stasy which his fol­low­ers had oc­ca­sion­ally wit­nessed. He said: “I thank you, my Fa­ther, Lord of heaven and earth, that, while this won­der­ful gospel was hid­den from the wise and self-righ­teous, the spirit has re­vealed these spir­i­tual glo­ries to these chil­dren of the king­dom. Yes, my Fa­ther, it must have been pleas­ing in your sight to do this, and I re­joice to know that the good news will spread to all the world even af­ter I shall have re­turned to you and the work which you have given me to per­form. I am might­ily moved as I re­al­ize you are about to de­liver all au­thor­ity into my hands, that only you re­ally know who I am, and that only I re­ally know you, and those to whom I have re­vealed you. And when I have fin­ished this rev­e­la­tion to my breth­ren in the flesh, I will con­tinue the rev­e­la­tion to your crea­tures on high.”

163:6.4When Je­sus had thus spo­ken to the Fa­ther, he turned aside to speak to his apos­tles and min­is­ters: “Blessed are the eyes which see and the ears which hear these things. Let me say to you that many proph­ets and many of the great men of the past ages have de­sired to be­hold what you now see, but it was not granted them. And many gen­er­a­tions of the chil­dren of light yet to come will, when they hear of these things, envy you who have heard and seen them.”

163:6.5Then, speak­ing to all the dis­ci­ples, he said: “You have heard how many cities and vil­lages have re­ceived the good news of the king­dom, and how my min­is­ters and teach­ers have been re­ceived by both the Jew and the gen­tile. And blessed in­deed are these com­mu­ni­ties which have elected to be­lieve the gospel of the king­dom. But woe upon the light-re­ject­ing in­hab­i­tants of Cho­ra­zin, Beth­saida-Ju­lias, and Ca­per­naum, the cities which did not well re­ceive these mes­sen­gers. I de­clare that, if the mighty works done in these places had been done in Tyre and Sidon, the peo­ple of these so-called hea­then cities would have long since re­pented in sack­cloth and ashes. It shall in­deed be more tol­er­a­ble for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judg­ment.”

163:6.6The next day be­ing the Sab­bath, Je­sus went apart with the sev­enty and said to them: “I did in­deed re­joice with you when you came back bear­ing the good tid­ings of the re­cep­tion of the gospel of the king­dom by so many peo­ple scat­tered through­out Gal­i­lee, Samaria, and Judea. But why were you so sur­pris­ingly elated? Did you not ex­pect that your mes­sage would man­i­fest power in its de­liv­ery? Did you go forth with so lit­tle faith in this gospel that you come back in sur­prise at its ef­fec­tive­ness? And now, while I would not quench your spirit of re­joic­ing, I would sternly warn you against the sub­tleties of pride, spir­i­tual pride. If you could un­der­stand the down­fall of Lu­cifer, the in­iq­ui­tous one, you would solemnly shun all forms of spir­i­tual pride.

163:6.7“You have en­tered upon this great work of teach­ing mor­tal man that he is a son of God. I have shown you the way; go forth to do your duty and be not weary in well do­ing. To you and to all who shall fol­low in your steps down through the ages, let me say: I al­ways stand near, and my in­vi­ta­tion-call is, and ever shall be, Come to me all you who la­bor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am true and loyal, and you shall find spir­i­tual rest for your souls.”

163:6.8And they found the Mas­ter’s words to be true when they put his promises to the test. And since that day count­less thou­sands also have tested and proved the surety of these same promises.

• Jesus told to work in disregard of what might happen

171:3.2Je­sus met Ab­ner at Hes­h­bon, and An­drew di­rected that the labors of the sev­enty should not be in­ter­rupted by the Pass­over feast; Je­sus ad­vised that the mes­sen­gers should go for­ward with their work in com­plete dis­re­gard of what was about to hap­pen at Je­ru­sa­lem. He also coun­seled Ab­ner to per­mit the women’s corps, at least such as de­sired, to go to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over. And this was the last time Ab­ner ever saw Je­sus in the flesh. His farewell to Ab­ner was: “My son, I know you will be true to the king­dom, and I pray the Fa­ther to grant you wis­dom that you may love and un­der­stand your breth­ren.”

• unseen messengers by sides of

175:1.8“This af­ter­noon my apos­tles stand here be­fore you in si­lence, but you shall soon hear their voices ring­ing out with the call to sal­va­tion and with the urge to unite with the heav­enly king­dom as the sons of the liv­ing God. And now I call to wit­ness these, my dis­ci­ples and be­liev­ers in the gospel of the king­dom, as well as the un­seen mes­sen­gers by their sides, that I have once more of­fered Is­rael and her rulers de­liv­er­ance and sal­va­tion. But you all be­hold how the Fa­ther’s mercy is slighted and how the mes­sen­gers of truth are re­jected. Nev­er­the­less, I ad­mon­ish you that these scribes and Phar­isees still sit in Moses’ seat, and there­fore, un­til the Most Highs who rule in the king­doms of men shall fi­nally over­throw this na­tion and de­stroy the place of these rulers, I bid you co-op­er­ate with these el­ders in Is­rael. You are not re­quired to unite with them in their plans to de­stroy the Son of Man, but in ev­ery­thing re­lated to the peace of Is­rael you are to be sub­ject to them. In all these mat­ters do what­so­ever they bid you and ob­serve the es­sen­tials of the law but do not pat­tern af­ter their evil works. Re­mem­ber, this is the sin of these rulers: They say that which is good, but they do it not. You well know how these lead­ers bind heavy bur­dens on your shoul­ders, bur­dens griev­ous to bear, and that they will not lift as much as one fin­ger to help you bear these weighty bur­dens. They have op­pressed you with cer­e­monies and en­slaved you by tra­di­tions.