Teacher-Brother Dave's Compilation of TOPICAL STUDIES from THE NEW EPOCHAL REVELATION OF TRUTH. Topical Study number 108 “Three" Then Seven, Infinity Studies [Part 13] Part 1 - on of Study 106 on "Worship" starts about 30% down this page; click this link: Topical Study 106 PAPER 84. Marriage and Family Life 0. Introduction [PAPER:Section.Paragraph (page, full paragraph number on that page) numbers] 84:0.3 (931.3) The home is basically a sociologic institution. Marriage grew out of co-operation in self-maintenance and partnership in self-perpetuation, the element of self-gratification being largely incidental. Nevertheless, the home does embrace all three of the essential functions of human existence, while life propagation makes it the fundamental human institution, and sex sets it off from all other social activities. 6. The Partnership of Man and Woman 84:6.5 (938.9) The differences of nature, reaction, viewpoint, and thinking between men and women, far from occasioning concern, should be regarded as highly beneficial to mankind, both individually and collectively. [“unisex” is impossible and delusional. Your male or female attitudes continue throughout all the higher Heavens and even in Eternal Paradise. A male-female couple is vastly more effective than two males or two females working in cooperation.] Many orders of universe creatures are created in dual phases of personality manifestation. Among mortals, Material Sons, and midsoniters, this difference is described as male and female; among seraphim, cherubim, and Morontia Companions, it has been denominated positive or aggressive and negative or retiring. Such dual associations greatly multiply versatility and overcome inherent limitations, even as do certain triune associations in the Paradise-Havona system. 8. Dangers of Self-Gratification 84:8.1 (942.2) The great threat against family life is the menacing rising tide of self-gratification, the modern pleasure mania. The prime incentive to marriage used to be economic; sex attraction was secondary. Marriage, founded on self-maintenance, led to self-perpetuation and concomitantly provided one of the most desirable forms of self-gratification. It is the only institution of human society which embraces all three of the great incentives for living. 84:8.6 Let man enjoy himself; let the human race find pleasure in a thousand and one ways; let evolutionary mankind explore all forms of legitimate self-gratification, the fruits of the long upward biologic struggle. Man has well earned some of his present-day joys and pleasures. But look you well to the goal of destiny! Pleasures are indeed suicidal if they succeed in destroying property, which has become the institution of self-maintenance; and self-gratifications have indeed cost a fatal price if they bring about the collapse of marriage, the decadence of family life, and the destruction of the home — man’s supreme evolutionary acquirement and civilization’s only hope of survival. 84:8.7 {Presented by the Chief of Seraphim stationed on Urantia. [Earth.]} [She is a high Paradise Primary Supernaphim down here ! That shows the seriousness of this planetary crisis of transition to higher moral and spiritual levels.] PAPER 92. The Later Evolution of Religion 0. Introduction 92:0.1 Man possessed a religion of natural origin as a part of his evolutionary experience long before any systematic [epochal] revelations were made on Urantia. But this religion of natural origin was, in itself, the product of man’s superanimal endowments. Evolutionary religion arose slowly throughout the millenniums of mankind’s experiential career through the ministry of the following influences operating within, and impinging upon, savage, barbarian, and civilized man: [All three are from the Holy Creative Mother Spirit, the co-equal Partner of our Father-Son Creator Jesus Christ Michael. Listed low to higher:] 92:0.2 #1. The adjutant of worship — the appearance in animal consciousness of superanimal potentials for reality perception. This might be termed the primordial human instinct for Deity. 92:0.3 #2. The adjutant of wisdom — the manifestation in a worshipful mind of the tendency to direct its adoration in higher channels of expression and toward ever-expanding concepts of Deity reality. 92:0.4 #3. The Holy Spirit — this is the initial supermind bestowal, and it unfailingly appears in all bona fide human personalities. This ministry to a worship-craving and wisdom-desiring mind creates the capacity to self-realize the postulate of human survival, both in theologic concept and as an actual and factual personality experience. 92:0.5 The co-ordinate functioning of these three divine ministrations is quite sufficient to initiate and prosecute the growth of evolutionary religion. These influences are later augmented by Thought Adjusters, [from Father] seraphim, [from Spirit] and the Spirit of Truth, [from and as Jesus here] all of which accelerate the rate of religious development. These agencies have long functioned on Urantia, and they will continue here as long as this planet remains an inhabited sphere. Much of the potential of these divine agencies has never yet had opportunity for expression; much will be revealed in the ages to come [over hundreds of billions of years] as mortal religion ascends, level by level, toward the supernal [heavenly] heights of morontia value and spirit truth. 6. The Composite Religions 92:6.18 (1011.16) The Christian religion is the religion about the life and teachings of Christ based upon the theology of Judaism, modified further through the assimilation of certain Zoroastrian teachings and Greek philosophy, and formulated primarily by three individuals: Philo, Peter, and Paul. [Not by Jesus ! A dim shadow of Jesus’ real Gospel !] It has passed through many phases of [mostly human, secular] evolution since the time of Paul and has become so thoroughly Occidentalized that many non-European peoples very naturally look upon Christianity as a strange revelation of a strange God and for strangers. 92:6.19 (1011.17) Islam is the religio-cultural connective of North Africa, the Levant, and southeastern Asia. It was Jewish theology in connection with the later Christian teachings that made Islam monotheistic. The followers of Mohammed stumbled at the advanced teachings of the Trinity; they could not comprehend the doctrine of three divine personalities and one Deity. It is always difficult to induce evolutionary minds suddenly to accept advanced revealed truth. Man is an evolutionary creature and in the main must get his religion by evolutionary techniques. PAPER 93. Machiventa Melchizedek [Melchizedeks are high Sons of God just one level under our Sovereign Creator Son of God Jesus. Lucifer was three levels under, Satan was four levels under, Caligastia the former iniquitous Planetary Prince of Urantia was five levels under Jesus. Human sons of God start out seven levels under Jesus, but have the highest Final Destiny potential. Sometimes the last shall be the first in the space-time universes. God the Universal Father in Paradise-Eternity loves all Sons and Daughters (all Angels) EQUALLY !!!] 2. The Sage of Salem 93:2.5 (1015.5) In personal appearance, Melchizedek resembled the then blended Nodite and Sumerian peoples, being almost six feet in height and possessing a commanding presence. He spoke Chaldean and a half dozen other languages. He dressed much as did the Canaanite priests except that on his breast he wore an emblem of three concentric [blue] circles, [on a white background]the Satania [our local system now being restored by Jesus] symbol of the Paradise Trinity. In the course of his ministry this insignia of three concentric circles became regarded as so sacred by his followers that they never dared to use it, and it was soon forgotten with the passing of a few generations. [The three blue, concentric Father, Son, Spirit circles each and all share one center and one white unending background] 3. Melchizedek's Teachings 93:3.3 (1016.5) The symbol of the three concentric circles, which Melchizedek adopted as the insignia of his bestowal, a majority of the people interpreted as standing for the three kingdoms of men, angels, and God. And they were allowed to continue in that belief; very few of his followers ever knew that these three circles were emblematic of the infinity, eternity, and universality of the Paradise Trinity of divine maintenance and direction; even Abraham rather regarded this symbol as standing for the three Most Highs of Edentia, as he had been instructed that the three Most Highs functioned as one. To the extent that Melchizedek taught the Trinity concept symbolized in his insignia, he usually associated it with the three Vorondadek rulers [two levels under Jesus] of the constellation of Norlatiadek. 10. Present Status of Machiventa Melchizedek [All paragraphs] 93:10.1 During the years of Machiventa’s incarnation the Urantia Melchizedek receivers functioned as eleven. When Machiventa considered that his mission as an emergency Son was finished, he signalized this fact to his eleven associates, and they immediately made ready the technique whereby he was to be released from the flesh and safely restored to his original Melchizedek status. And on the third day after his disappearance from Salem [Jerusalem here on earth] he appeared among his eleven fellows of the Urantia assignment and resumed his interrupted career as one of the planetary receivers of 606 of Satania. [our system of 619 human-inhabited planets] 93:10.2 Machiventa terminated his bestowal as a creature of flesh and blood just as suddenly and unceremoniously as he had begun it. Neither his appearance nor departure were accompanied by any unusual announcement or demonstration; neither resurrection roll call nor ending of planetary dispensation marked his appearance on Urantia; his was an emergency bestowal. But Machiventa did not end his sojourn in the flesh of human beings until he had been duly released by the Father Melchizedek and had been informed that his emergency bestowal had received the approval of the chief executive of Nebadon, Gabriel of Salvington. [the spiritual headquarters in the center of Jesus’ and our local universe of Nebadon. [probably meaning: Birth of soul] 93:10.3 Machiventa Melchizedek continued to take a great interest in the affairs of the descendants of those men who had believed in his teachings when he was in the flesh. But the progeny of Abraham through Isaac as intermarried with the Kenites were the only line which long continued to nourish any clear concept of the Salem teachings. 93:10.4 This same Melchizedek continued to collaborate throughout the nineteen succeeding centuries with the many prophets and seers, thus endeavoring to keep alive the truths of Salem until the fullness of the time for Michael’s appearance on earth. 93:10.5 Machiventa continued as a planetary receiver up to the times of the triumph of [our Jesus Christ] Michael on Urantia. Subsequently, he was attached to the Urantia service on Jerusem [not Jerusalem here, Jerusem is the spiritual headquarters of our system] as one of the four and twenty directors, only just recently having been elevated to the position of personal ambassador on Jerusem of the Creator Son, bearing the title Vicegerent Planetary Prince of Urantia. It is our belief that, as long as Urantia remains an inhabited planet, Machiventa Melchizedek will not be fully returned to the duties of his order of sonship but will remain, speaking in the terms of time, forever a planetary minister representing Christ Michael. 93:10.6 As his was an emergency bestowal on Urantia, it does not appear from the records what Machiventa’s future may be. It may develop that the Melchizedek corps of Nebadon have sustained the permanent loss of one of their number. Recent rulings handed down from the Most Highs of Edentia, and later confirmed by the Ancients of Days of Uversa, [HQ of our superuniverse Orvonton] strongly suggest that this bestowal Melchizedek is destined to take the place of the fallen Planetary Prince, Caligastia. If our conjectures in this respect are correct, it is altogether possible that Machiventa Melchizedek may again appear in person on Urantia and in some modified manner resume the role of the dethroned Planetary Prince, or else appear on earth to function as vicegerent Planetary Prince representing Christ Michael, who now actually holds the title of Planetary Prince of Urantia. [Jesus is our actual Planetary Prince of Peace ! Among his many higher Titles] While it is far from clear to us as to what Machiventa’s destiny may be, nevertheless, events which have so recently taken place strongly suggest that the foregoing conjectures are probably not far from the truth. 93:10.7 We well understand how, by his triumph on Urantia, Michael became the successor of both Caligastia and Adam; how he became the planetary Prince of Peace and the second Adam. [Adam and Eve were our first biological uplifters who partly succeeded.] And now we behold the conferring upon this Melchizedek of the title Vicegerent Planetary Prince of Urantia. Will he also be constituted Vicegerent Material Son of Urantia? Or is there a possibility that an unexpected and unprecedented event is to take place, the sometime return to the planet of Adam and Eve or certain of their progeny as representatives of Michael with the titles vicegerents of the second Adam of Urantia? 93:10.8 And all these speculations associated with the certainty of future appearances of both Magisterial and Trinity Teacher Sons, in conjunction with the explicit promise of the Creator Son to return sometime, make Urantia a planet of future uncertainty and render it one of the most interesting and intriguing spheres in all the universe of Nebadon. It is altogether possible that, in some future age when Urantia is approaching the era of light and life, after the affairs of the Lucifer rebellion and the Caligastia secession have been finally adjudicated, we may witness the presence on Urantia, simultaneously, of Machiventa, Adam, Eve, and Christ Michael, as well as either a Magisterial Son or even Trinity Teacher Sons. 93:10.9 It has long been the opinion of our order that Machiventa’s presence on the Jerusem corps of Urantia directors, the four and twenty counselors, is sufficient evidence to warrant the belief that he is destined to follow the mortals of Urantia on through the universe scheme of progression and ascension even to the Paradise Corps of the Finality. [!] We know that Adam and Eve are thus destined to accompany their earth fellows on the Paradise adventure when Urantia has become settled in light and life. 93:10.10 Less than a thousand years ago [1030 - 1130 A.D.] this same Machiventa Melchizedek, the onetime sage of Salem, was invisibly present on Urantia for a period of one hundred years, acting as resident governor general of the planet; and if the present system of directing planetary affairs should continue, he will be due to return in the same capacity in a little over one thousand years. [very soon, maybe A.D. 2030 - on] 93:10.11 This is the story of Machiventa Melchizedek, one of the most unique of all characters ever to become connected with the history of Urantia and a personality who may be destined to play an important role in the future experience of your irregular and unusual world. 93:10.12 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.] PAPER 95. The Melchizedek Teachings in the Levant 3. Evolution of Moral Concepts 95:3.3 (1045.6) Thousands of years before the Salem gospel penetrated to Egypt, its moral leaders taught justice, fairness, and the avoidance of avarice. Three thousand years before the Hebrew scriptures were written, the motto of the Egyptians was: “Established is the man whose standard is righteousness; who walks according to its way.” They taught gentleness, moderation, and discretion. The message of one of the great teachers of this epoch was: “Do right and deal justly with all.” The Egyptian triad of this age was Truth-Justice-Righteousness. Of all the purely human religions of Urantia none ever surpassed the social ideals and the moral grandeur of this onetime humanism of the Nile valley. PAPER 96. Yahweh—God of the Hebrews 1. Deity Concepts among the Semites 96:1.8 (1053.6) 5. Elohim. [plural Deity. In Genesis 1, “Let Us … Our ...” is “Elohim” the Gods, not God, singualar “Eloah”]  In Kish and Ur there long persisted Sumerian-Chaldean groups who taught a three-in-one God concept founded on the traditions of the days of Adam and Melchizedek. This doctrine was carried to Egypt, where this Trinity was worshiped under the name of Elohim, or in the singular as Eloah. The philosophic circles of Egypt and later Alexandrian teachers of Hebraic extraction taught this unity of pluralistic Gods, and many of Moses’ advisers at the time of the exodus believed in this Trinity. But the concept of the trinitarian Elohim never became a real part of Hebrew theology until after they had come under the political influence of the Babylonians. PAPER 99. The Social Problems of Religion 4. Transition Difficulties 99:4.6 During the psychologically unsettled times of the twentieth century, [and continuing today] amid the economic upheavals, the moral crosscurrents, and the sociologic rip tides of the cyclonic transitions of a scientific era, thousands upon thousands of men and women [now many millions] have become humanly dislocated; they are anxious, restless, fearful, uncertain, and unsettled; as never before in the world’s history they need the consolation and stabilization of sound religion. In the face of unprecedented scientific achievement and mechanical development there is spiritual stagnation and philosophic chaos. 99:4.7 There is no danger in religion’s becoming more and more of a private matter — a personal experience — provided it does not lose its motivation for unselfish and loving social service. Religion has suffered from many secondary influences: sudden mixing of cultures, intermingling of creeds, diminution of ecclesiastical authority, changing of family life, together with urbanization and mechanization. [Worldwide today, especially in dictatorial countries, small, private, home-family spiritual fellowship and study groups are replacing the ecclesiastical dominated larger churches. “Priesthood of all believers in Jesus !”] 99:4.8 Man’s greatest spiritual jeopardy consists in partial progress, the predicament of unfinished growth: forsaking the evolutionary religions of FEAR without immediately grasping the revelatory religion of LOVE. Modern science, particularly psychology, has weakened only those religions which are so largely dependent upon fear, superstition, and emotion. [Psychology originally meant “study of soul”. Few Western world psychologists today know of, or believe in, soul. Some in Europe do.] 99:4.9 Transition is always accompanied by confusion, and there will be little tranquillity in the religious world until the great struggle between the three contending philosophies of religion is ended: 99:4.10 #1. The spiritistic belief (in a providential Deity) of many religions. 99:4.11 #2. The humanistic and idealistic belief of many philosophies. 99:4.12 #3. The mechanistic and naturalistic conceptions of many sciences. 99:4.13 And these three partial approaches to the reality of the cosmos must eventually become harmonized by the revelatory presentation of religion, philosophy, and cosmology which portrays the triune existence of spirit, mind, and energy proceeding from the Trinity of Paradise and attaining time-space unification within the Deity of the Supreme. PAPER 100. Religion in Human Experience 2. Spiritual Growth 100:2.3 (1095.7) Religion can progress to that level of experience whereon it becomes an enlightened and wise technique of spiritual reaction to the universe. Such a glorified religion can function on three levels of human personality: the intellectual, the morontial, [soul] and the spiritual; upon the mind, in the evolving soul, and with the indwelling spirit. [of God living always within you !] PAPER 101. The Real Nature of Religion 2. The Fact of Religion 101:2.8 (1106.7) Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience. Science yields knowledge; religion yields happiness; philosophy yields unity; revelation confirms the experiential harmony of this triune approach to universal reality. 101:2.12 (1107.2) Revelation as an epochal phenomenon is periodic; as a personal human experience [Auto-Revelation] it is continuous. [!!] Divinity functions in mortal personality as the Adjuster gift of the Father, as the Spirit of Truth of the Son, and as the Holy Spirit of the Universe Spirit, while these three supermortal endowments are unified in human experiential evolution as the ministry of the Supreme. [a phase of the Existential Paradise Trinity who can Experience with and as us in all the Grand Universe of 700,000 Universes. The Supreme Deity allows us to Exist and to grow into Final Spirit Perfection. The Supreme may be thought of as our Spirit Mother in this long Supreme Age.] 3. The Characteristics of Religion 101:3.1 Religion is so vital that it persists in the absence of learning. It lives in spite of its contamination with erroneous cosmologies and false philosophies; it survives even the confusion of metaphysics. In and through all the historic vicissitudes of religion there ever persists that which is indispensable to human progress and survival: the ethical conscience and the moral consciousness. 101:3.2 Faith-insight, or spiritual intuition, is the endowment of the cosmic mind in association with the Thought Adjuster, which is the Father’s gift to man. Spiritual reason, soul intelligence, is the endowment of the Holy Spirit, the Creative Spirit’s gift to man. Spiritual philosophy, the wisdom of spirit realities, is the endowment of the Spirit of Truth, the combined gift of the bestowal Sons [our Sovereign Creator Son Jesus Christ Michael] to the children of men. And the co-ordination and interassociation of these spirit endowments constitute man a spirit personality in potential destiny. 101:3.3 It is this same spirit personality, in primitive and embryonic form, the Adjuster possession of which survives the natural death in the flesh. This composite entity of spirit origin in association with human experience is enabled, by means of the living way provided by the divine Sons, to survive (in Adjuster custody) the dissolution of the material self of mind and matter when such a transient partnership of the material and the spiritual is divorced by the cessation of vital motion. 101:3.4 Through religious faith the soul of man reveals itself and demonstrates the potential divinity of its emerging nature by the characteristic manner in which it induces the mortal personality to react to certain trying intellectual and testing social situations. Genuine spiritual faith (true moral consciousness) is revealed in that it: 101:3.5 #1. Causes ethics and morals to progress despite inherent and adverse animalistic tendencies. 101:3.6 #2. Produces a sublime trust in the goodness of God even in the face of bitter disappointment and crushing defeat. 101:3.7 #3. Generates profound courage and confidence despite natural adversity and physical calamity. 101:3.8 #4. Exhibits inexplicable poise and sustaining tranquillity notwithstanding baffling diseases and even acute physical suffering. 101:3.9 #5. Maintains a mysterious poise and composure of personality in the face of maltreatment and the rankest injustice. 101:3.10 #6. Maintains a divine trust in ultimate victory in spite of the cruelties of seemingly blind fate and the apparent utter indifference of natural forces to human welfare. 101:3.11 #7. Persists in the unswerving belief in God despite all contrary demonstrations of logic and successfully withstands all other intellectual sophistries. 101:3.12 #8. Continues to exhibit undaunted faith in the soul’s survival regardless of the deceptive teachings of false science and the persuasive delusions of unsound philosophy. 101:3.13 #9. Lives and triumphs irrespective of the crushing overload of the complex and partial civilizations of modern times. 101:3.14 #10. Contributes to the continued survival of altruism in spite of human selfishness, social antagonisms, industrial greeds, and political maladjustments. 101:3.15 #11. Steadfastly adheres to a sublime belief in universe unity and divine guidance regardless of the perplexing presence of evil and sin. 101:3.16 #12. Goes right on worshiping God in spite of anything and everything. Dares to declare, “Even though he slay me, yet will I serve him.” 101:3.17 We know, then, by three phenomena, that man has a divine spirit or spirits dwelling within him: first, by personal experience — religious faith; second, by revelation — personal and racial; and third, by the amazing exhibition of such extraordinary and unnatural reactions to his material environment as are illustrated by the foregoing recital of twelve spiritlike performances in the presence of the actual and trying situations of real human existence. And there are still others. 101:3.18 And it is just such a vital and vigorous performance of faith in the domain of religion that entitles mortal man to affirm the personal possession and spiritual reality of that crowning endowment of human nature, religious experience. 5. Religion Expanded by Revelation 101:5.5 (1110.8) Both science and religion start out with the assumption of certain generally accepted bases for logical deductions. So, also, must philosophy start its career upon the assumption of the reality of three things: 101:5.6 #1. The material body. 101:5.7 #2. The supermaterial phase of the human being, the soul or even the indwelling spirit. 101:5.8 #3. The human mind, the mechanism for intercommunication and interassociation between spirit and matter, between the material and the spiritual. 101:5.11 (1111.1) Personally revealed religions are sponsored by the bestowal spirits representing the three persons of the Paradise Trinity and are especially concerned with the expansion of truth. Evolutionary religion drives home to the individual the idea of personal duty; revealed religion lays increasing emphasis on loving, the golden rule. The next part of this study, will be published here Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2019 at about 8:00 PM CDT (new Study material here usually each Mon. Wed. and Fri. at 8:00 PM CDT)] Past TOPICAL STUDIES 93 and 94 Past TOPICAL STUDY 1-on Spiritual High-Lights of Jesus Christ Spiritual High-Lights of the Fifth Epochal Revelation FIFTH EPOCHAL REVELATION (full text and my added comments) INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES (shorter, with some FER)