Teacher-Brother Dave's initial comments: I am presenting some of my Topical Studies from the fully public domain, 2097 page, Fifth Epochal Revelation of Truth and with my added comments. The Revealed text is free of copyright, so you may freely share individually these supernal quotes with your friends and relatives. But my order of selections, font types for emphasis and my added comments are Copyright 2022 by Dave@PureChristians.org All Rights Reserved. Contact me first about using the whole Study or group of Studies.
[My added comments of explanation below are in these square brackets]
Topical Study number 139
"Our Needs and Requirements for Peace and Progress"
Part 8
Compiled August 05, 2022 by Dave@PureChristians.org
PAPER 102 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGIOUS FAITH
1. Assurances of Faith
102:1.1 (1118.4) The work of the Thought Adjuster [The will of God the Universal Father indwelling your mind and co-creating with your consent the higher soul reality you who will be resurrected into ever higher forms toward final Paradise perfection and eternal Residence !] constitutes the explanation of the translation of man’s primitive and evolutionary sense of duty into that higher and more certain faith in the eternal realities of revelation. There must be perfection hunger in man’s heart to insure capacity for comprehending the faith paths to supreme attainment. If any man chooses to do the divine will, he shall know the way of truth. It is literally true, “Human things must be known in order to be loved, but divine things must be loved in order to be known.” But honest doubts and sincere questionings are not sin; such attitudes merely spell delay in the progressive journey toward perfection attainment. Childlike trust secures man’s entrance into the kingdom of heavenly ascent, but progress is wholly dependent on the vigorous exercise of the robust and confident faith of the full-grown man.
102:1.3 (1119.2) Owing to the isolation of rebellion, [of Lucifer and others 200,000 years ago until Jesus Christ, in A.D 30 - on, removed them] the [continual] revelation of truth on Urantia [Earth] has all too often been mixed up with the statements of partial and transient cosmologies. Truth remains unchanged from generation to generation, but the associated teachings about the physical world vary from day to day and from year to year. Eternal truth should not be slighted because it chances to be found in company with obsolete ideas regarding the material world. ["flat earth theory", etc.] The more of science you know, the less sure you can be; the more of [true] religion you have, the more certain you are. [!!!]
2. Religion and Reality
102:2.5 (1120.2) Even the discoveries of science are not truly real in the consciousness of human experience until they are unraveled and correlated, until their relevant facts actually become meaning through encircuitment in the thought streams of mind. Mortal man views even his physical environment from the mind level, from the perspective of its psychological registry. It is not, therefore, strange that man should place a highly unified interpretation upon the universe and then seek to identify this energy unity of his science with the spirit unity of his religious experience. Mind is unity; mortal consciousness lives on the mind level and perceives the universal realities through the eyes of the mind endowment. The mind perspective will not yield the existential unity of the source of reality, the First Source and Center, [God the Universal Father in the fullest sense] but it can and sometime will portray to man the experiential synthesis of energy, mind, and spirit in and as the Supreme Being. [Our evolving God with us in time and space.] But mind can never succeed in this [total] unification of the [infinite] diversity of reality unless such mind is firmly aware of material things, intellectual meanings, and spiritual values; only in the harmony of the triunity of functional reality is there unity, and only in unity is there the personality satisfaction of the realization of cosmic constancy and consistency. [Cosmic consciousness !]
102:2.6 (1120.3) Unity is best found in human experience through philosophy. And while the body of philosophic thought must ever be founded on material facts, the soul and energy of true philosophic dynamics is mortal spiritual insight.
102:2.8 (1121.1) Again, there are other types of unstable and poorly disciplined souls who would use the sentimental ideas of religion as an avenue of escape from the irritating demands of living. When certain vacillating and timid mortals attempt to escape from the incessant pressure of evolutionary life, religion, as they conceive it, seems to present the nearest refuge, the best avenue of escape. But it is the mission of religion to prepare man for bravely, even heroically, facing the vicissitudes of life. Religion is evolutionary man’s supreme endowment, the one thing which enables him to carry on and “endure as seeing Him who is invisible.” Mysticism, however, is often something of a retreat from life which is embraced by those humans who do not relish the more robust activities of living a religious life [everywhere ! and] in the open arenas of human society and commerce. True religion must act. Conduct will be the result of religion when man actually has it, or rather when religion is permitted truly to possess the man. Never will religion be content with mere thinking or unacting feeling.
3. Knowledge, Wisdom, and Insight
102:3.1 (1121.3) Intellectual deficiency or educational poverty unavoidably handicaps higher religious attainment because such an impoverished environment of the spiritual nature robs religion of its chief channel of philosophic contact with the world of scientific knowledge. The intellectual factors of religion are important, but their overdevelopment is likewise sometimes very handicapping and embarrassing. Religion must continually labor under a paradoxical necessity: the necessity of making effective use of thought while at the same time discounting the spiritual serviceableness of all thinking. [True Spirit Realities in the soul must be realized as higher than just weak human intellect.]
6. The Certainty of Religious Faith
102:6.5 (1124.7) Convictions about God may be arrived at through wise reasoning, but the individual becomes God-knowing only by faith, through personal experience. In much that pertains to life, probability must be reckoned with, but when contacting with cosmic reality, certainty may be experienced when such meanings and values are approached by living faith. The God-knowing soul dares to say, “I know,” even when this knowledge of God is questioned by the unbeliever who denies such certitude because it is not wholly supported by intellectual logic. To every such doubter the believer only replies, “How do you know that I do not know?”
102:6.6 (1125.1) Though reason can always question faith, faith can always supplement both reason and logic. Reason creates the probability which faith can transform into a moral certainty, even a spiritual experience. God is the first truth and the last fact; therefore does all truth take origin in him, while all facts exist relative to him. God is absolute truth. As truth one may know God, but to understand — to explain — God, one must explore the fact of the universe of universes. The vast gulf between the experience of the truth of God and ignorance as to the fact of God can be bridged only by living faith. Reason alone cannot achieve harmony between infinite truth and universal fact.
102:6.8 (1125.3) To science God is a possibility, to psychology a desirability, to philosophy a probability, to religion a certainty, an actuality of religious experience. Reason demands that a philosophy which cannot find the God of probability should be very respectful of that religious faith which can and does find the God of certitude. Neither should science discount religious experience on grounds of credulity, not so long as it persists in the assumption that man’s intellectual and philosophic endowments emerged from increasingly lesser intelligences the further back they go, finally taking origin in primitive life which was utterly devoid of all thinking and feeling.
102:6.9 (1125.4) The facts of evolution must not be arrayed against the truth of the reality of the certainty of the spiritual experience of the religious living of the God-knowing mortal. Intelligent men should cease to reason like children and should attempt to use the consistent logic of adulthood, logic which tolerates the concept of truth alongside the observation of fact. Scientific materialism has gone bankrupt when it persists, in the face of each recurring universe phenomenon, in refunding its current objections by referring what is admittedly higher back into that which is admittedly lower. Consistency demands the recognition of the activities of a purposive Creator.
102:6.10 (1125.5) Organic evolution is a fact; purposive or progressive evolution is a truth which makes consistent the otherwise contradictory phenomena of the ever-ascending achievements of evolution. The higher any scientist progresses in his chosen science, the more will he abandon the theories of materialistic fact in favor of the cosmic truth of the dominance of the Supreme Mind. Materialism cheapens human life; the gospel of Jesus tremendously enhances and supernally exalts every mortal. [All humans are divinely beloved sons of God, types male and female !!] Mortal existence must be visualized as consisting in the intriguing and fascinating experience of the realization of the reality of the meeting of the human upreach and the divine and saving downreach. [as taught and lived by our United God-Man Creator Son and Son of Man Jesus Christ !]
7. The Certitude of the Divine
102:7.3 (1126.3) Those who would invent a religion without God are like those who would gather fruit without trees, have children without parents. [!!] You cannot have effects without causes; only the I AM [GOD Person] is causeless. The fact of religious experience implies God, and such a God of personal experience must be a personal Deity. You cannot pray to a chemical formula, supplicate a mathematical equation, worship a hypothesis, confide in a postulate, commune with a process, serve an abstraction, or hold loving fellowship with a law.
102:7.6 (1126.6) The God-knowing individual is not one who is blind to the difficulties or unmindful of the obstacles which stand in the way of finding God in the maze of superstition, tradition, and materialistic tendencies of modern times. He [or She] has encountered all these deterrents and triumphed over them, surmounted them by living faith, and attained the highlands of spiritual experience in spite of them. But it is true that many who are inwardly sure about God fear to assert such feelings of certainty because of the multiplicity and cleverness of those who assemble objections and magnify difficulties about believing in God. It requires no great depth of intellect to pick flaws, ask questions, or raise objections. But it does require brilliance of mind to answer these questions and solve these difficulties; faith certainty is the greatest technique for dealing with all such superficial contentions. [Atheists and secular humanists live shorter lives here and have more struggles than strongly God-conscious persons. Count the terrible costs of spiritual rebellion.]
102:7.7 (1127.1) If science, philosophy, or sociology dares to become dogmatic in contending with the prophets of true religion, then should God-knowing men reply to such unwarranted dogmatism with that more farseeing dogmatism of the certainty of personal spiritual experience, “I know what I have experienced because I am a son of I AM.” If the personal experience of a faither is to be challenged by dogma, then this faith-born son of the experiencible Father may reply with that unchallengeable dogma, the statement of his actual sonship with the Universal Father. [Eternally True !!!]
102:7.8 (1127.2) Only an unqualified reality, an absolute, could dare consistently to be dogmatic. Those who assume to be dogmatic must, if consistent, sooner or later be driven into the arms of the Absolute of energy, the Universal of truth, and the Infinite of love. [Jesus Christ is fully here with, and within, us faith-sons of God; and He is seeking and transforming all lost sons of God, and saving all who really desire eternal Life and final Spirit Perfection in The Family of God in Heaven and now on Earth !]
8. The Evidences of Religion
102:8.1 (1127.5) The highest evidence of the reality and efficacy of religion consists in the fact of human experience; namely, that man, naturally fearful and suspicious, innately endowed with a strong instinct of self-preservation and craving survival after death, is willing fully to trust the deepest interests of his present and future to the keeping and direction of that power and person designated by his faith as God. That is the one central truth of all religion. As to what that power or person requires of man in return for this watchcare and final salvation, no two religions agree; in fact, they all more or less disagree. [There are now over 40,000 different and contending Christian, ecclesiastical run denominations and sects ! The True Religion, of and in Jesus, is freely available at all times and in all places ! That is the fast arriving, Jesusonian Christian personal God-conscious Religion !]
PAPER 103 THE REALITY OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
1. Philosophy of Religion
103:1.1 (1129.8) The unity of religious experience among a social or racial group derives from the identical nature of the God fragment [God's perfect, unchanging will or volition] indwelling the individual. It is this divine in man that gives origin to his unselfish interest in the welfare of other men. But since personality is unique — no two mortals being alike — it inevitably follows that no two human beings can similarly interpret the leadings and urges of the spirit of divinity which lives within their minds. A group of mortals can experience spiritual unity, but they can never attain philosophic uniformity. And this diversity of the interpretation of religious thought and experience is shown by the fact that twentieth-century theologians and philosophers have formulated upward of five hundred different definitions of religion. In reality, every human being defines religion in the terms of his own experiential interpretation of the divine impulses emanating from the God spirit that indwells him, and therefore must such an interpretation be unique and wholly different from the religious philosophy of all other human beings.
103:1.3 (1130.2) While your religion is a matter of personal experience, it is most important that you should be exposed to the knowledge of a vast number of other religious experiences (the diverse interpretations of other and diverse mortals) to the end that you may prevent your religious life from becoming egocentric — circumscribed, selfish, and unsocial.
4. Spiritual Communion
103:4.1 (1133.1) The characteristic difference between a social occasion and a religious gathering is that in contrast with the secular the religious is pervaded by the atmosphere of communion. In this way human association generates a feeling of fellowship with the divine, and this is the beginning of group worship. Partaking of a common meal was the earliest type of social communion, and so did early religions provide that some portion of the ceremonial sacrifice should be eaten by the worshipers. Even in Christianity the Lord’s Supper retains this mode of communion. The atmosphere of the communion provides a refreshing and comforting period of truce in the conflict of the self-seeking ego with the altruistic urge of the indwelling spirit Monitor. And this is the prelude to true worship — the practice of the presence of God which eventuates in the emergence of the brotherhood of man.
5. The Origin of Ideals
103:5.2 (1133.7) This idea-ideal of doing good to others — the impulse to deny the ego something for the benefit of one’s neighbor — is very circumscribed at first. Primitive man regards as neighbor only those very close to him, those who treat him neighborly; as religious civilization advances, one’s neighbor expands in concept to embrace the clan, the tribe, the nation. And then Jesus enlarged the neighbor scope to embrace the whole of humanity, even that we should love our enemies. [All humans are now in the Family of God -- as brothers and sisters, each equally loved by God !] And there is something inside of every normal human being that tells him this teaching is moral — right. Even those who practice this ideal least, admit that it is right in theory.
103:5.11 (1135.1) But man is not saved or ennobled by pressure. Spirit growth springs from within the evolving soul. Pressure may deform the personality, but it never stimulates growth. Even educational pressure is only negatively helpful in that it may aid in the prevention of disastrous experiences. Spiritual growth is greatest where all external pressures are at a minimum. “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” [Everywhere !] Man develops best when the pressures of home, community, church, and state are least. But this must not be construed as meaning that there is no place in a progressive society for home, social institutions, church, and state.
103:5.12 (1135.2) When a member of a social religious group has complied with the requirements of such a group, he should be encouraged to enjoy religious liberty in the full expression of his own personal interpretation of the truths of religious belief and the facts of religious experience. The security of a religious group depends on spiritual unity, not on theological uniformity. A religious group should be able to enjoy the liberty of freethinking without having to become “freethinkers.” There is great hope for any church that worships the living God, validates the brotherhood of man, and dares to remove all creedal pressure from its members. [True churches are always trans-denominational and trans-ecclesiastical. Millions now are small, home-family based, spiritual fellowship and study groups that are fast multiplying worldwide.]
6. Philosophic Co-ordination
103:6.1 (1135.3) Theology is the study of the actions and reactions of the human spirit; it can never become a science since it must always be combined more or less with psychology in its personal expression and with philosophy in its systematic portrayal. Theology is always the study of your religion; the study of another’s religion is psychology. [!!]
103:6.6 (1136.1) Always must man’s inner spirit depend for its expression and self-realization upon the mechanism and technique of the mind. Likewise must man’s outer experience of material reality be predicated on the mind consciousness of the experiencing personality. Therefore are the spiritual and the material, the inner and the outer, human experiences always correlated with the mind function and conditioned, as to their conscious realization, by the mind activity. Man experiences matter in his mind; he experiences spiritual reality in the soul but becomes conscious of this experience in his mind. The intellect is the harmonizer and the ever-present conditioner and qualifier of the sum total of mortal experience. Both energy-things and spirit values are colored by their interpretation through the mind media of consciousness.
103:6.11 (1137.1) Science must always be grounded in reason, although imagination and conjecture are helpful in the extension of its borders. Religion is forever dependent on faith, albeit reason is a stabilizing influence and a helpful handmaid. And always there have been, and ever will be, misleading interpretations of the phenomena of both the natural and the spiritual worlds, sciences and religions falsely so called.
103:6.14 (1137.4) When the philosophy of man leans heavily toward the world of matter, it becomes rationalistic or naturalistic. When philosophy inclines particularly toward the spiritual level, it becomes idealistic or even mystical. When philosophy is so unfortunate as to lean upon metaphysics, it unfailingly becomes skeptical, confused. In past ages, most of man’s knowledge and intellectual evaluations have fallen into one of these three distortions of perception. Philosophy dare not project its interpretations of reality in the linear fashion of logic; it must never fail to reckon with the elliptic symmetry of reality and with the essential curvature of all relation concepts. [Profound !]
103:6.15 (1137.5) The highest attainable philosophy of mortal man must be logically based on the reason of science, the faith of religion, and the truth insight afforded by revelation. By this union man can compensate somewhat for his failure to develop an adequate metaphysics and for his inability to comprehend the mota [higher philosophy] of the morontia. [Soul level reality]
7. Science and Religion
103:7.4 (1138.2) The union of the scientific attitude and the religious insight by the mediation of experiential philosophy is part of man’s long [possibly one trillion years up through just over one billion progressively higher Heavens !] Paradise-ascension experience. The approximations of mathematics and the certainties of insight will always require the harmonizing function of mind logic on all levels of experience short of the maximum attainment of [God] the Supreme.
8. Philosophy and Religion
103:8.5 (1140.5) The certainty of the God-knowing religionist should not be disturbed by the uncertainty of the doubting materialist; rather should the uncertainty of the unbeliever be mightily challenged by the profound faith and unshakable certainty of the experiential believer. [I am a divinely beloved son of God in Jesus ! and so are you ! my brother or sister !]
103:8.6 (1140.6) Philosophy, to be of the greatest service to both science and religion, should avoid the extremes of both materialism and pantheism. Only a philosophy which recognizes the reality of personality — permanence in the presence of change — can be of moral value to man, can serve as a liaison between the theories of material science and spiritual religion. [Ongoing personal and Epochal] Revelation is a compensation for the frailties of evolving philosophy.
9. The Essence of Religion
103:9.2 (1140.8) Religion has to do with feeling, acting, and living, not merely with thinking. Thinking is more closely related to the material life and should be in the main, but not altogether, dominated by reason and the facts of science and, in its nonmaterial reaches toward the spirit realms, by truth. No matter how illusory and erroneous one’s theology, one’s religion may be wholly genuine and everlastingly true. [!!]
103:9.11 (1142.2) Faith leads to knowing God, not merely to a mystical feeling of the divine presence. Faith must not be overmuch influenced by its emotional consequences. True religion is an experience of believing and knowing as well as a satisfaction of feeling.
Topical Study number 139
"Our Needs and Requirements for Peace and Progress"
Part 9
Compiled August 08, 2022 by Dave@PureChristians.org
PAPER 107 ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THOUGHT ADJUSTERS
1. Origin of Thought Adjusters
[Paper:Section.Paragraph (Page.paragraph # on this page)]
107:1.6 (1177.7) In their relationship to [us God-Man] fusion creatures they reveal a supernal love and spiritual ministry that is profoundly confirmative of the declaration that God is spirit. But there is much that takes place in addition to this transcendent ministry that has never been revealed to Urantia [Earth] mortals. Neither do we fully understand just what really transpires when the Universal Father gives of himself to be a part of the personality of a creature of time. Nor has the ascending progression of the [distant future, us] Paradise finaliters as yet disclosed the full possibilities inherent in this supernal partnership of man and God. In the last analysis, the Father fragments must be the gift of the absolute God to those creatures whose destiny encompasses the possibility of the attainment of God as absolute. [!!!]
4. Nature and Presence of Adjusters
107:4.2 (1180.5) The actual source of the Adjuster must be infinite, and before fusion with the immortal soul of an evolving mortal, the reality of the Adjuster must border on absoluteness. Adjusters are not absolutes in the universal sense, in the Deity sense, but they are probably true absolutes within the potentialities of their fragmented nature. They are qualified as to universality but not as to nature; in extensiveness they are limited, but in intensiveness of meaning, value, and fact they are absolute. For this reason we sometimes denominate the divine gifts as the qualified absolute fragments of the Father.
5. Adjuster Mindedness
107:5.2 (1181.5) Since Adjusters can plan, work, and love, they must have powers of selfhood which are commensurate with mind. They are possessed of unlimited ability to communicate with each other, that is, all forms of Monitors above the first or virgin groups. As to the nature and purport of their intercommunications, we can reveal very little, for we do not know. And we further know that they must be minded in some manner else they could never be personalized.
107:5.4 (1181.7) The type of mind postulated in an Adjuster must be similar to the mind endowment of numerous other orders of prepersonal entities which presumably likewise originate in the First Source and Center. Though many of these orders have not been revealed on Urantia, they all disclose minded qualities. It is also possible for these individuations of original Deity to become unified with numerous evolving types of nonmortal beings and even with a limited number of nonevolutionary beings who have developed capacity for fusion with such Deity fragments.
6. Adjusters as Pure Spirits
107:6.4 (1182.6) We know that Thought Adjusters are spirits, pure spirits, presumably absolute spirits.But the Adjuster must also be something more than exclusive spirit reality. In addition to conjectured mindedness, factors of pure energy are also present. If you will remember that God is the source of pure energy and of pure spirit, it will not be so difficult to perceive that his fragments would be both. It is a fact that the Adjusters traverse space over the instantaneous and universal gravity circuits of the Paradise Isle.
107:6.7 (1183.2) Thought Adjusters have no relaxation from the time of their bestowal until the day of their release to start for Divinington upon the natural death of their mortal subjects. And those whose subjects do not pass through the portals of natural death do not even experience this temporary respite. Thought Adjusters do not require energy intake; they are energy, energy of the highest and most divine order. [When we finally fuse with our indwelling Thought Adjuster; we will never run out of unlimited energy !]
7. Adjusters and Personality
107:7.3 (1183.5) We have often speculated that Thought Adjusters must have volition [will] on all prepersonal levels of choice. They volunteer to indwell human beings, they lay plans for man’s eternal career, they adapt, modify, and substitute in accordance with circumstances, and these activities connote genuine volition. They have affection for mortals, they function in universe crises, they are always waiting to act decisively in accordance with human choice, [human personality will can dominate the pre-personality will of the Adjuster unless that human prefers to do God's perfect will !] and all these are highly volitional reactions. In all situations not concerned with the domain of the human will, they unquestionably exhibit conduct which betokens the exercise of powers in every sense the equivalent of will, maximated decision.
PAPER 108 MISSION AND MINISTRY OF THOUGHT ADJUSTERS
1. Selection and Assignment
108:1.1 (1185.3) When Adjusters are dispatched for mortal service from Divinington, they are identical in the endowment of existential divinity, but they vary in experiential qualities proportional to previous contact in and with evolutionary creatures. We cannot explain the basis of Adjuster assignment, but we conjecture that these divine gifts are bestowed in accordance with some wise and efficient policy of eternal fitness of adaptation to the indwelt personality. We do observe that the more experienced Adjuster is often the indweller of the higher type of human mind; human inheritance must therefore be a considerable factor in determining selection and assignment.
2. Prerequisites of Adjuster Indwelling
108:2.2 (1187.1) The Adjusters cannot invade the mortal mind until it has been duly prepared by the indwelling ministry of the [seven] adjutant mind-spirits and encircuited in the Holy Spirit. And it requires the co-ordinate function of all seven adjutants to thus qualify the human mind for the reception of an Adjuster. Creature mind must exhibit the [2nd highest] worship outreach and indicate [highest] wisdom function by exhibiting the ability to choose between the emerging values of good and evil — moral choice.
4. Relation to Other Spiritual Influences
108:4.2 (1190.3) [Important !] While not subordinate to, co-ordinate with, or apparently related to, the work of the universe of universes, though acting independently in the minds of the children of men, unceasingly do these mysterious presences urge the creatures of their indwelling toward divine ideals, always luring them upward toward the purposes and aims of a future and better life. These Mystery Monitors are continually assisting in the establishment of the spiritual dominion of [our Sovereign Creator Son Christ] Michael throughout the universe of Nebadon while mysteriously contributing to the stabilization of the sovereignty of the Ancients of Days in Orvonton. The Adjusters are the will of God, and since the Supreme Creator children of God also personally embody that same will, it is inevitable that the actions of Adjusters and the sovereignty of the universe rulers should be mutually interdependent. Though apparently unconnected, the Father presence of the Adjusters and the Father sovereignty of Michael of Nebadon must be diverse manifestations of the same divinity.
5. The Adjuster's Mission
108:5.5 (1191.6) The Mystery Monitors are not thought helpers; they are thought adjusters. They labor with the material mind for the purpose of constructing, by adjustment and spiritualization, a new mind for the new worlds and the new name of your future career. Their mission chiefly concerns the future life, not this life. They are called heavenly helpers, not earthly helpers. They are not interested in making the mortal career easy; rather are they concerned in making your life reasonably difficult and rugged, so that decisions will be stimulated and multiplied. The presence of a great Thought Adjuster does not bestow ease of living and freedom from strenuous thinking, but such a divine gift should confer a sublime peace of mind and a superb tranquillity of spirit.
108:5.10 (1192.5) If you have a personal guardian of destiny and should fail of survival, that guardian angel must be adjudicated in order to receive vindication as to the faithful execution of her trust. But Thought Adjusters are not thus subjected to examination when their subjects fail to survive. We all know that, while an angel might possibly fall short of the perfection of ministry, Thought Adjusters work in the manner of Paradise perfection; their ministry is characterized by a flawless technique which is beyond the possibility of criticism by any being outside of Divinington. You have perfect guides; therefore is the goal of perfection certainly attainable.
6. God in Man
108:6.2 (1193.1) No matter what the previous status of the inhabitants of a world, subsequent to the bestowal of a divine Son [Jesus Christ, our True God-Man Incarnated here !!] and after the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth upon all humans, [May 18, A.D. 30 - on, Jesus is fully here in Spirit; and He also lives in the souls of all truth-seekers and Living Truth-finders !] the Adjusters flock to such a world to indwell the minds of all normal human will creatures. Following the completion of the mission of a Paradise bestowal Son, these Monitors truly become the “kingdom of heaven within you.” Through the bestowal of the divine gifts the Father makes the closest possible approach to sin and evil, for it is literally true that the Adjuster must coexist in the mortal mind even in the very midst of human unrighteousness. The indwelling Adjusters are particularly tormented by those thoughts which are purely sordid and selfish; they are distressed by irreverence for that which is beautiful and divine, and they are virtually thwarted in their work by many of man’s foolish animal fears and childish anxieties. [Fear not ! God is around and within you in several ways !]
108:6.3 (1193.2) The Mystery Monitors are undoubtedly the bestowal of the Universal Father, the reflection of the image of God abroad in the universe. A great teacher once admonished men that they should be renewed in the spirit of their minds; that they become new men who, like God, are created in righteousness and in the completion of truth. The Adjuster is the mark of divinity, the presence of God. The “image of God” does not refer to physical likeness nor to the circumscribed limitations of material creature endowment but rather to the gift of the spirit presence of the Universal Father in the supernal [Godly, Heavenly] bestowal of the Thought Adjusters upon the humble creatures of the universes.
108:6.8 (1194.1) You humans have begun an endless unfolding of an almost infinite panorama, a limitless expanding of never-ending, ever-widening spheres of opportunity for exhilarating service, matchless adventure, sublime uncertainty, and boundless attainment. When the clouds gather overhead, your faith should accept the fact of the presence of the indwelling Adjuster, and thus you should be able to look beyond the mists of mortal uncertainty into the clear shining of the sun of eternal righteousness on the beckoning heights of the mansion worlds of Satania. [The name of our system, not the name Satan. Urantia is #606 of now 619 human inhabited worlds. At the end of this First, Grand Universe age, Satania will have 1000 inhabited worlds of the seven trillion of these worlds in the completed, Supreme-level, Grand Universe Age. Much more to be realized by us in the higher Ultimate and Absolute Ages of the Cosmos Infinite and Eternal !!!]
PAPER 109 RELATION OF ADJUSTERS TO UNIVERSE CREATURES
0. Introduction
109:0.1 (1195.1) The Thought Adjusters are the children of the universe career, and indeed the virgin Adjusters must gain experience while mortal creatures grow and develop. As the personality of the human child expands for the struggles of evolutionary existence, so does the Adjuster wax great in the rehearsals of the next stage of ascending life. As the child acquires adaptative versatility for his adult activities through the social and play life of early childhood, so does the indwelling Adjuster achieve skill for the next stage of cosmic life by virtue of the preliminary mortal planning and rehearsing of those activities which have to do with the [570 higher soul reality spheres] morontia career. Human existence constitutes a period of practice which is effectively utilized by the Adjuster in preparing for the increased responsibilities and the greater opportunities of a future life. But the Adjuster’s efforts, while living within you, are not so much concerned with the affairs of temporal life and planetary existence. Today, the Thought Adjusters are, as it were, rehearsing the realities of the universe career in the evolving minds of human beings. [All of that is usually super-conscious and not aware in the limited human conscious mind.]
1. Development of Adjusters
109:1.1 (1195.2) There must be a comprehensive and elaborate plan for the training and development of virgin Adjusters before they are sent forth from Divinington, but we really do not know very much about it. There undoubtedly also exists an extensive system for retraining Adjusters of indwelling experience before they embark upon new missions of mortal association, but, again, we do not actually know.
109:1.3 (1195.4) Actual living experience has no cosmic substitute. The perfection of the divinity of a newly formed Thought Adjuster does not in any manner endow this Mystery Monitor with experienced ministrative ability. Experience is inseparable from a living existence; it is the one thing which no amount of divine endowment can absolve you from the necessity of securing by actual living. Therefore, in common with all beings living and functioning within the present sphere of the Supreme, Thought Adjusters must acquire experience; they must evolve from the lower, inexperienced, to the higher, more experienced, groups.
5. Material Handicaps to Adjuster Indwelling
109:5.4 (1199.5) The great problem of life is the adjustment of the ancestral tendencies of living to the demands of the spiritual urges initiated by the divine presence of the Mystery Monitor. While in the universe and superuniverse careers no man can serve two masters, in the life you now live on Urantia every man must perforce serve two masters. He must become adept in the art of a continuous human temporal compromise while he yields spiritual allegiance to but one master; and this is why so many falter and fail, grow weary and succumb to the stress of the evolutionary struggle. [These many failures of almost all humans, here now on our our still very confused planet, do not mean eternal extinction, if that human actually desires a very long -- maybe a trillion year spiritual ascension Plan of God in love and mercy to gradually perfect us, and then make us an Eternal Paradise Resident in the Universal Family of God !]
6. The Persistence of True Values
109:6.2 (1200.2) As related to fusion candidates, if a Mystery Monitor is deserted by the mortal associate, if the human partner declines to pursue the ascending career, when released by natural death (or prior thereto), the Adjuster carries away everything of survival value which has evolved in the mind of that nonsurviving creature. If an Adjuster should repeatedly fail to attain fusion personality because of the nonsurvival of successive human subjects, and if this Monitor should subsequently be personalized, all the acquired experience of having indwelt and mastered all these mortal minds would become the actual possession of such a newly Personalized Adjuster, an endowment to be enjoyed and utilized throughout all future ages. A Personalized Adjuster of this order is a composite assembly of all the survival traits of all his former creature hosts. [Every human or higher Personality is unique and eternal; they can not die or change. God's Adjusting will is also eternal and unchanging. But you identify with, and are also: soul, mind, and body which can evolve or eternally die. Choose wisely to ever strive to seek and to follow God in Jesus and as One in Spirit here always with us !]
PAPER 110 RELATION OF ADJUSTERS TO INDIVIDUAL MORTALS
1. Indwelling the Mortal Mind
110:1.1 (1203.3) Adjusters should not be thought of as living in the material brains of human beings. They are not organic parts of the physical creatures of the realms. The Thought Adjuster may more properly be envisaged as indwelling the mortal mind of man rather than as existing within the confines of a single physical organ. And indirectly and unrecognized the Adjuster is constantly communicating with the human subject, especially during those sublime experiences of the worshipful contact of mind with spirit in the superconsciousness.
110:1.5 (1204.3) The Adjuster remains with you in all disaster and through every sickness which does not wholly destroy the mentality. But how unkind knowingly to defile or otherwise deliberately to pollute the physical body, which must serve as the earthly tabernacle of this marvelous gift from God. All physical poisons greatly retard the efforts of the Adjuster to exalt the material mind, while the mental poisons of fear, anger, envy, jealousy, suspicion, and intolerance likewise tremendously interfere with the spiritual progress of the evolving soul.
2. Adjusters and Human Will
110:2.1 (1204.5) When Thought Adjusters indwell human minds, they bring with them the model careers, the ideal lives, as determined and foreordained by themselves and the Personalized Adjusters of Divinington, which have been certified by the Personalized Adjuster of Urantia. [Jesus Christ's Adjuster, the Chief of all Adjusters in our large local Universe of Nebadon, made and evolving by our Sovereign Son of God and Son of man Jesus Christ Michael !] Thus they begin work with a definite and predetermined plan for the intellectual and spiritual development of their human subjects, but it is not incumbent upon any human being to accept this plan. You are all subjects of predestination, but it is not foreordained that you must accept this divine predestination; you are at full liberty to reject any part or all of the Thought Adjusters’ program. It is their mission to effect such mind changes and to make such spiritual adjustments as you may willingly and intelligently authorize, to the end that they may gain more influence over the personality directionization; but under no circumstances do these divine Monitors ever take advantage of you or in any way arbitrarily influence you in your choices and decisions. The Adjusters respect your sovereignty of personality; they are always subservient to your will. [We can desire and pray: "Not my will, but our Father, Your Will be done ... to me and by me ...evermore ..."
110:2.2 (1204.6) They are persistent, ingenious, and perfect in their methods of work, but they never do violence to the volitional selfhood of their hosts. No human being will ever be spiritualized by a divine Monitor against his will; survival is a gift of the Gods which must be desired by the creatures of time. In the final analysis, whatever the Adjuster has succeeded in doing for you, the records will show that the transformation has been accomplished with your co-operative consent; you will have been a willing partner with the Adjuster in the attainment of every step of the tremendous transformation of the ascension career.
3. Co-operation with the Adjuster
110:3.6 (1206.4) You must not regard co-operation with your Adjuster as a particularly conscious process, for it is not; but your motives and your decisions, your faithful determinations and your supreme desires, do constitute real and effective co-operation. You can consciously augment Adjuster harmony by:
110:3.7 (1206.5) #1. Choosing to respond to divine leading; sincerely basing the human life on the highest consciousness of truth, beauty, and goodness, and then co-ordinating these qualities of divinity through wisdom, worship, faith, and love.
110:3.8 (1206.6) #2. Loving God and desiring to be like him—genuine recognition of the divine fatherhood and loving worship of the heavenly Parent.
110:3.9 (1206.7) #3. Loving man and sincerely desiring to serve him—wholehearted recognition of the brotherhood of man coupled with an intelligent and wise affection for each of your fellow mortals.
110:3.10 (1206.8) #4. Joyful acceptance of cosmic citizenship—honest recognition of your progressive obligations to the [evolving with, and as us here, God the] Supreme Being, awareness of the interdependence of evolutionary man and evolving Deity. This is the birth of cosmic morality and the dawning realization of universal duty.
5. Erroneous Concepts of Adjuster Guidance
110:5.6 (1208.5) In varying degrees and increasingly as you ascend the [seven soul levels] psychic circles, sometimes directly, but more often indirectly, you do communicate with your Adjusters. But it is dangerous to entertain the idea that every new concept originating in the human mind is the dictation of the Adjuster. More often, in beings of your order, that which you accept as the Adjuster’s voice is in reality the emanation of your own intellect. This is dangerous ground, and every human being must settle these problems for himself in accordance with his natural human wisdom and superhuman insight. [It is dangerous to become a fanatic -- material, mental, moral, religious, or spiritual ! Stay positive and always grounded in Reality !]
7. The Attainment of Immortality
110:7.5 (1212.6) When the evolving soul and the divine Adjuster are finally and eternally fused, each gains all of the experiencible qualities of the other. This co-ordinate personality possesses all of the experiential memory of survival once held by the ancestral mortal mind and then resident in the morontia soul, and in addition thereto this potential finaliter embraces all the experiential memory of the Adjuster throughout the mortal indwellings of all time. But it will require an eternity of the future for an Adjuster ever completely to endow the personality partnership with the meanings and values which the divine Monitor carries forward from the eternity of the past.
110:7.6 (1213.1) But with the vast majority of Urantians the Adjuster must patiently await the arrival of death deliverance; must await the liberation of the emerging soul from the well-nigh complete domination of the energy patterns and chemical forces inherent in your material order of existence. The chief difficulty you experience in contacting with your Adjusters consists in this very inherent material nature. So few mortals are real thinkers; you do not spiritually develop and discipline your minds to the point of favorable liaison with the divine Adjusters. The ear of the human mind is almost deaf to the spiritual pleas which the Adjuster translates from the manifold messages of the universal broadcasts of love proceeding from the Father of mercies. The Adjuster finds it almost impossible to register these inspiring spirit leadings in an animal mind so completely dominated by the chemical and electrical forces inherent in your physical natures. [Do not pollute your soul and mind and body with mind-altering drugs, tobacco, becoming overweight, lack or sleep, fears and worries, and media with immoral sex, horror and violence ! Pray and worship more, and serve God and mankind in greater love, mercy, wise ministry, truth, beauty and goodness !
110:7.7 (1213.2) Adjusters rejoice to make contact with the mortal mind; but they must be patient through the long years of silent sojourn during which they are unable to break through animal resistance and directly communicate with you. The higher the Thought Adjusters ascend in the scale of service, the more efficient they become. But never can they greet you, in the flesh, with the same full, sympathetic, and expressionful affection as they will when you discern them mind to mind on the [next, higher, soul reality] mansion worlds.
Topical Study number 139
"Our Needs and Requirements for Peace and Progress"
Part 10
Compiled August 10, 2022 by Dave@PureChristians.org
PAPER 111 THE ADJUSTER AND THE SOUL
1. The Mind Arena of Choice
111:1.1 (1216.2) Though the work of Adjusters [God the Father's Tremendous Gift of His will -- a Thought Adjuster (Divine Mystery Monitor) indwelling all normal humans and cocreating with your will the higher soul reality you who may survive physical death and continue to ascend !!] is spiritual in nature, they must, perforce, do all their work upon an intellectual foundation. Mind is the human soil from which the spirit Monitor must evolve the morontia soul with the co-operation of the indwelt personality.
111:1.2 (1216.3) There is a cosmic unity in the several mind levels of the universe of universes. Intellectual selves have their origin in the cosmic mind much as nebulae [huge galaxies in the trillions recently discovered !] take origin in the cosmic energies of universe space. On the human (hence personal) level of intellectual selves the potential of spirit evolution becomes dominant, with the assent [cooperative will] of the mortal mind, because of the spiritual endowments of the human personality together with the creative presence of an entity-point of absolute value [your Thought Adjuster] in such human selves. But such a spirit dominance of the material mind is conditioned upon two experiences: This mind must have evolved up through the ministry of the seven adjutant mind-spirits, and the material (personal) self must choose to co-operate with the indwelling Adjuster in creating and fostering the morontia self, the evolutionary and potentially immortal soul.
111:1.5 (1216.6) Mortal mind is a temporary intellect system loaned to human beings for use during a material lifetime, and as they use this mind, they are either accepting or rejecting the potential of eternal existence. Mind is about all you have of universe reality that is subject to your will, and the soul — the morontia self — will faithfully portray the harvest of the temporal decisions which the mortal self is making. Human consciousness rests gently upon the electrochemical mechanism below and delicately touches the spirit-morontia energy system above. Of neither of these two systems is the human being ever completely conscious in his mortal life; therefore must he work in mind, of which he is conscious. And it is not so much what mind comprehends as what mind desires to comprehend that insures survival; it is not so much what mind is like as what mind is striving to be like that constitutes spirit identification. It is not so much that man is conscious of God as that man yearns for God that results in universe ascension. What you are today is not so important as what you are becoming day by day and in eternity. [!!! The Absolute of time is Eternity ! The Absolute of space is Paradise ! The Absolute of You is GOD !]
111:1.9 (1217.4) [Important !] Mind is your ship, the Adjuster is your pilot, the human will is captain. The master of the mortal vessel should have the wisdom to trust the divine pilot to guide the ascending soul into the morontia harbors of eternal survival. Only by selfishness, slothfulness, and sinfulness can the will of man reject the guidance of such a loving pilot and eventually wreck the mortal career upon the evil shoals of rejected mercy and upon the rocks of embraced sin. With your consent, this faithful pilot will safely carry you across the barriers of time and the handicaps of space to the very source of the divine mind and on beyond, even to the Paradise Father of Adjusters. [What an eternal Destiny in the Family of God our wonderful Father-Friend we each have !!!]
4. The Inner Life
111:4.11 (1220.10) This is the problem: If freewill man is endowed with the powers of creativity in the inner man, then must we recognize that freewill creativity embraces the potential of freewill destructivity. And when creativity is turned to destructivity, you are face to face with the devastation of evil and sin — oppression, war, and destruction. Evil is a partiality of creativity which tends toward disintegration and eventual destruction. All conflict is evil in that it inhibits the creative function of the inner life — it is a species of civil war in the personality.
5. The Consecration of Choice
111:5.6 (1221.7) This choosing of the Father’s will is the spiritual finding of the spirit Father by mortal man, even though an age [this first, Supreme Age might be a trillion years or longer, the higher Ultimate and Absolute ages of Eternal Paradise Infinity !] must pass before the creature son may actually stand in the factual presence of God on Paradise. This choosing does not so much consist in the negation of creature will — “Not my will but yours be done” — as it consists in the creature’s positive affirmation: “It is my will that your will be done.” And if this choice is made, sooner or later will the God-choosing son find inner union (fusion) with the indwelling God fragment, while this same perfecting son will find supreme personality satisfaction in the worship communion of the personality of man and the personality of his Maker, two personalities whose creative attributes have eternally joined in self-willed mutuality of expression — the birth of another eternal partnership of the will of man and the will of God. [Our Perfect Example of this eternal Partnership is the beautiful and True Life and Teachings of our Sovereign God-Man Union Creator Son Jesus Christ Michael ! "Michael" is a high Title which means: HE Who IS Just Like GOD !
6. The Human Paradox
111:6.2 (1222.1) The courage required to effect the conquest of nature and to transcend one’s self is a courage that might succumb to the temptations of self-pride. The mortal who can transcend self might yield to the temptation to deify his own self-consciousness. The mortal dilemma consists in the double fact that man is in bondage to nature while at the same time he possesses a unique liberty — freedom of spiritual choice and action. On material levels man finds himself subservient to nature, while on spiritual levels he is triumphant over nature and over all things temporal and finite. Such a paradox is inseparable from temptation, potential evil, decisional errors, and when self becomes proud and arrogant, sin may evolve.
111:6.3 (1222.2) The problem of sin is not self-existent in the finite world. The fact of finiteness is not evil or sinful. The finite world was made by an infinite Creator — it is the handiwork of his divine [Eternal and Creator] Sons — and therefore it must be good. It is the misuse, distortion, and perversion of the finite that gives origin to evil and sin.
111:6.7 (1222.6) The expansion of material knowledge permits a greater intellectual appreciation of the meanings of ideas and the values of ideals. A human being can find truth in his inner experience, but he needs a clear knowledge of facts to apply his personal discovery of truth to the ruthlessly practical demands of everyday life.
111:6.8 (1222.7) It is only natural that mortal man should be harassed by feelings of insecurity as he views himself inextricably bound to nature while he possesses spiritual powers wholly transcendent to all things temporal and finite. Only religious confidence — living faith — can sustain man amid such difficult and perplexing problems.
7. The Adjuster's Problem
111:7.3 (1223.5) Why do you not aid the Adjuster in the task of showing you the spiritual counterpart of all these strenuous material efforts? Why do you not allow the Adjuster to strengthen you with the spiritual truths of cosmic power while you wrestle with the temporal difficulties of creature existence? Why do you not encourage the heavenly helper to cheer you with the clear vision of the eternal outlook of universal life as you gaze in perplexity at the problems of the passing hour? Why do you refuse to be enlightened and inspired by the universe [cosmic consciousness] viewpoint while you toil amidst the handicaps of time and flounder in the maze of uncertainties which beset your mortal life journey? Why not allow the Adjuster to spiritualize your thinking, even though your feet must tread the material paths of earthly endeavor?
PAPER 112 PERSONALITY SURVIVAL
2. The Self
112:2.6 (1228.1) In all concepts of selfhood it should be recognized that the fact of life comes first, its evaluation or interpretation later. The human child first lives and subsequently thinks about his living. In the cosmic economy insight precedes foresight.
112:2.11 (1228.6) As mind pursues reality to its ultimate analysis, matter vanishes to the material senses but may still remain real to mind. When spiritual insight pursues that reality which remains after the disappearance of matter and pursues it to an ultimate analysis, it vanishes to mind, but the insight of spirit can still perceive cosmic realities and supreme values of a spiritual nature. Accordingly does science give way to philosophy, while philosophy must surrender to the conclusions inherent in genuine spiritual experience. Thinking surrenders to wisdom, and wisdom is lost in enlightened and reflective worship.
5. Survival of the Human Self
112:5.2 (1232.3) That which comes from the Father is like the Father eternal, and this is just as true of personality, which God gives by his own freewill choice, as it is of the divine Thought Adjuster, an actual fragment of God. Man’s personality is eternal but with regard to identity a conditioned eternal reality. Having appeared in response to the Father’s will, personality will attain Deity destiny, but man must choose whether or not he will be present at the attainment of such destiny. In default of such choice, personality attains experiential Deity directly, becoming a part of the Supreme Being. The cycle is foreordained, but man’s participation therein is optional, personal, and experiential.
112:5.3 (1232.4) Mortal identity is a transient time-life condition in the universe; it is real only in so far as the personality elects to become a continuing universe phenomenon. This is the essential difference between man and an energy system: The energy system must continue, it has no choice; but man has everything to do with determining his own destiny. The Adjuster is truly the path to Paradise, but man himself must pursue that path by his own deciding, his freewill choosing.
112:5.6 (1233.2) Though the cosmic circles of personality growth must eventually be attained, if, through no fault of your own, the accidents of time and the handicaps of material existence prevent your mastering these levels on your native planet, if your intentions and desires are of survival value, there are issued the [loving and merciful] decrees of probation extension. You will be afforded additional time in which to prove yourself.
112:5.9 (1233.5) This does not mean that human beings are to enjoy a second opportunity in the face of the rejection of a first, not at all. But it does signify that all will creatures are to experience one true opportunity to make one undoubted, self-conscious, and final choice. The sovereign Judges of the universes will not deprive any being of personality status who has not finally and fully made the eternal choice; the soul of man must and will be given full and ample opportunity to reveal its true intent and real purpose.
6. The Morontia [Soul] Self
112:6.6 (1236.4) There are no influences in the local universe career comparable to the seven adjutant mind-spirits of human existence. The morontia mind must evolve by direct contact with cosmic mind, as this cosmic mind has been modified and translated by the creative source of local universe intellect — the Divine Minister. [The Holy Spirit in the Bible. She is the source of all seven of the adjutant mind-spirits]
112:6.7 (1236.5) Mortal mind, prior to death, is self-consciously independent of the Adjuster presence; adjutant mind needs only the associated material-energy pattern to enable it to operate. But the morontia soul, being superadjutant, does not retain self-consciousness without the Adjuster when deprived of the material-mind mechanism. This evolving soul does, however, possess a continuing character derived from the decisions of its former associated adjutant mind, and this character becomes active memory when the patterns thereof are energized by the returning Adjuster.
112:6.8 (1236.6) The persistence of memory is proof of the retention of the identity of original selfhood; it is essential to complete self-consciousness of personality continuity and expansion. Those mortals who ascend without [Father-fused] Adjusters are dependent on the instruction of seraphic associates for the reconstruction of human memory; otherwise the morontia souls of the Spirit-fused mortals are not limited. The pattern of memory persists in the soul, but this pattern requires the presence of the former Adjuster to become immediately self-realizable as continuing memory. Without the Adjuster, it requires considerable time for the mortal survivor to re-explore and relearn, to recapture, the memory consciousness of the meanings and values of a former existence.
7. Adjuster Fusion
112:7.6 (1238.1) On the evolutionary worlds, selfhood is material; it is a thing in the universe and as such is subject to the laws of material existence. It is a fact in time and is responsive to the vicissitudes thereof. Survival decisions must here be formulated. In the morontia state the self has become a new and more enduring universe reality, and its continuing growth is predicated on its increasing attunement to the mind and spirit circuits of the universes. Survival decisions are now being confirmed. When the self attains the spiritual level, it has become a secure value in the universe, and this new value is predicated upon the fact that survival decisions have been made, which fact has been witnessed by eternal fusion with the Thought Adjuster. And having achieved the status of a true universe value, the creature becomes liberated in potential for the seeking of the highest universe value — God.
PAPER 113 SERAPHIC GUARDIANS OF DESTINY
2. The Destiny Guardians
113:2.3 (1242.6) All angelic assignments are made from a group of volunteering seraphim, and these appointments are always in accordance with human needs and with regard to the status of the angelic pair — in the light of seraphic experience, skill, and wisdom. Only seraphim of long service, the more experienced and tested types, are assigned as destiny guards. Many guardians have gained much valuable experience on those worlds which are of the non-Adjuster fusion series. Like the Adjusters, the seraphim attend these beings for a single lifetime and then are liberated for new assignment. Many guardians on Urantia [Earth] have had this previous practical experience on other worlds.
113:2.8 (1243.5) Seraphic tasks may be unremitting, but either of the angelic pair can discharge all ministering responsibilities. Like cherubim, seraphim usually serve in pairs, but unlike their less advanced associates, the seraphim sometimes work singly. In practically all their contacts with human beings they can function as individuals. Both angels are required only for communication and service on the higher circuits of the universes.
5. Seraphic Ministry to Mortals
113:5.4 (1246.3) In the life of the flesh the intelligence of angels is not directly available to mortal men. They are not overlords or directors; they are simply guardians. The seraphim guard you; they do not seek directly to influence you; you must chart your own course, but these angels then act to make the best possible use of the course you have chosen. They do not (ordinarily) arbitrarily intervene in the routine affairs of human life. But when they receive instructions from their superiors to perform some unusual exploit, you may rest assured that these guardians will find some means of carrying out these mandates. They do not, therefore, intrude into the picture of human drama except in emergencies and then usually on the direct orders of their superiors. They are the beings who are going to follow you for many an age, and they are thus receiving an introduction to their future work and personality association.
113:5.5 (1246.4) Seraphim are able to function as material ministers to human beings under certain circumstances, but their action in this capacity is very rare. They are able, with the assistance of the midway creatures and the physical controllers, to function in a wide range of activities in behalf of human beings, even to make actual contact with mankind, but such occurrences are very unusual. In most instances the circumstances of the material realm proceed unaltered by seraphic action, although occasions have arisen, involving jeopardy to vital links in the chain of human evolution, in which seraphic guardians have acted, and properly, on their own initiative.
PAPER 114 SERAPHIC PLANETARY GOVERNMENT
1. The Sovereignty of Urantia
114:1.3 (1251.2) There is little likelihood that any marked change will be made in the government of Urantia during the present dispensation unless the vicegerent Planetary Prince [Machiventa Melchizedek under Jesus Christ] should arrive to assume his titular responsibilities. It appears to certain of our associates that at some time in the near future the plan of sending one of the twenty-four counselors to Urantia to act as governor general will be superseded by the formal arrival of Machiventa Melchizedek with the vicegerent mandate of the sovereignty of Urantia. As acting Planetary Prince he would undoubtedly continue in charge of the planet until the final adjudication of the Lucifer rebellion and probably on into the distant future of planetary settlement in light and life. [Jesus Christ is also our Planetary Prince of Urantia !]
[The early Papers of this Part IV are mostly off-topic on this study; so I will just include a few paragraphs that may be of interest. Then you may desire to read more paragraphs.]
PART IV. The Life and Teachings of Jesus Papers 120 - 196 pages 1323 - 2097
PAPER 121 THE TIMES OF MICHAEL'S BESTOWAL
8. Previous Written Records
121:8.3 (1341.4) 1. The Gospel by Mark. John Mark wrote the earliest (excepting the notes of Andrew), briefest, and most simple record of Jesus’ life. He presented the Master as a minister, as man among men. Although Mark was a lad lingering about many of the scenes which he depicts, his record is in reality the Gospel according to Simon Peter. He was early associated with Peter; later with Paul. Mark wrote this record at the instigation of Peter and on the earnest petition of the church at Rome. Knowing how consistently the Master refused to write out his teachings when on earth and in the flesh, Mark, like the apostles and other leading disciples, was hesitant to put them in writing. But Peter felt the church at Rome required the assistance of such a written narrative, and Mark consented to undertake its preparation. He made many notes before Peter died in A.D. 67, and in accordance with the outline approved by Peter and for the church at Rome, he began his writing soon after Peter’s death. The Gospel was completed near the end of A.D. 68. Mark wrote entirely from his own memory and Peter’s memory. The record has since been considerably changed, numerous passages having been taken out and some later matter added at the end to replace the latter one fifth of the original Gospel, which was lost from the first manuscript before it was ever copied. This record by Mark, in conjunction with Andrew’s and Matthew’s notes, was the written basis of all subsequent Gospel narratives which sought to portray the life and teachings of Jesus.
121:8.13 (1343.2) The memoranda which I have collected, and from which I have prepared this narrative of the life and teachings of Jesus — aside from the memory of the record of the Apostle Andrew — embrace thought gems and superior concepts of Jesus’ teachings assembled from more than two thousand human beings who have lived on earth from the days of Jesus down to the time of the inditing of these revelations, more correctly restatements. The revelatory permission has been utilized only when the human record and human concepts failed to supply an adequate thought pattern. My revelatory commission forbade me to resort to extrahuman sources of either information or expression until such a time as I could testify that I had failed in my efforts to find the required conceptual expression in purely human sources.
PAPER 122 BIRTH AND INFANCY OF JESUS
3. Gabriel’s Announcement to Mary
122:3.1 (1346.4) One evening about sundown, before Joseph had returned home, Gabriel appeared to Mary by the side of a low stone table and, after she had recovered her composure, said: “I come at the bidding of one who is my Master [Christ Michael !] and whom you shall love and nurture. To you, Mary, I bring glad tidings when I announce that the conception within you is ordained by heaven, and that in due time you will become the mother of a son; you shall call him Joshua, and he shall inaugurate the kingdom of heaven on earth and among men. Speak not of this matter save to Joseph and to Elizabeth, your kinswoman, to whom I have also appeared, and who shall presently also bear a son, whose name shall be John, and who will prepare the way for the message of deliverance which your son shall proclaim to men with great power and deep conviction. And doubt not my word, Mary, for this home has been chosen as the mortal habitat of the child of destiny. My benediction rests upon you, the power of the Most Highs will strengthen you, and the Lord of all the earth shall overshadow you.”
4. Joseph’s Dream
122:4.1 (1347.3) Joseph did not become reconciled to the idea that Mary was to become the mother of an extraordinary child until after he had experienced a very impressive dream. In this dream a brilliant celestial messenger appeared to him and, among other things, said: “Joseph, I appear by command of Him who now reigns on high, and I am directed to instruct you concerning the son whom Mary shall bear, and who shall become a great light in the world. In him will be life, and his life shall become the light of mankind. He shall first come to his own people, but they will hardly receive him; but to as many as shall receive him to them will he reveal that they are the children of God.” After this experience Joseph never again wholly doubted Mary’s story of Gabriel’s visit and of the promise that the unborn child was to become a divine messenger to the world.
122:4.2 (1347.4) In all these visitations nothing was said about the house of David. Nothing was ever intimated about Jesus’ becoming a “deliverer of the Jews,” not even that he was to be the long-expected Messiah. Jesus was not such a Messiah as the Jews had anticipated, but he was the world’s deliverer. His mission was to all races and peoples, not to any one group.
8. The Birth of Jesus
122:8.1 (1351.5) All that night Mary was restless so that neither of them slept much. By the break of day the pangs of childbirth were well in evidence, and at noon, August 21, 7 B.C., with the help and kind ministrations of women fellow travelers, Mary was delivered of a male child. Jesus of Nazareth was born into the world, was wrapped in the clothes which Mary had brought along for such a possible contingency, and laid in a near-by manger.
122:8.2 (1351.6) In just the same manner as all babies before that day and since have come into the world, the promised child was born; and on the eighth day, according to the Jewish practice, he was circumcised and formally named Joshua (Jesus). [Jesus Christ is NOT 1/2 Divine and 1/2 human !! Jesus' Incarnate body was made by both Joseph and Mary; no "virgin birth ! The Greek Bible text there is "young woman" or "Maiden". The Divine Creator Son of God Christ Michael has Two Parents in the Paradise Trinity: God the Universal Father and God the Eternal Son ! Jesus Christ has Two Eternal Deity Parents and two human body parents: Joseph and Mary.]
10. Herod Acts
122:10.3 (1354.2) When, after more than a year of searching, Herod’s spies had not located Jesus, and because of the suspicion that the babe was still concealed in Bethlehem, he prepared an order directing that a systematic search be made of every house in Bethlehem, and that all boy babies under two years of age should be killed. In this manner Herod hoped to make sure that this child who was to become “king of the Jews” would be destroyed. And thus perished in one day sixteen boy babies in Bethlehem of Judea. But intrigue and murder, even in his own immediate family, were common occurrences at the court of Herod.
Topical Study number 139
"Our Needs and Requirements for Peace and Progress"
Part 11
Compiled August 12, 2022 by Dave@PureChristians.org
THE URANTIA BOOK
PAPER 123 THE EARLY CHILDHOOD OF JESUS
2. The Fifth Year (2 B.C.)
[Paper:Section.Paragraph (Page.paragraph # on this page)]
123:2.1 (1357.5) In something more than a year after the return to Nazareth the boy Jesus arrived at the age of his first personal and wholehearted moral decision; [early, at only age four and a half !] and there came to abide with him a Thought Adjuster, a divine gift of the Paradise Father, which had aforetime [4,000 years ago this emergency Son of God was here,] served with Machiventa Melchizedek, thus gaining the experience of functioning in connection with the incarnation of a supermortal being living in the likeness of mortal flesh. This event occurred on February 11, 2 B.C. Jesus was no more aware of the coming of the divine Monitor than are the millions upon millions of other children who, before and since that day, have likewise received these Thought Adjusters to indwell their minds and work for the ultimate spiritualization of these minds and the eternal survival of their evolving immortal souls.
3. Events of the Sixth Year (1 B.C.)
123:3.6 (1360.1) During this year Joseph and Mary had trouble with Jesus about his prayers. He insisted on talking to his heavenly Father much as he would talk to Joseph, his earthly father. This departure from the more solemn and reverent modes of communication with Deity was a bit disconcerting to his parents, especially to his mother, but there was no persuading him to change; he would say his prayers just as he had been taught, after which he insisted on having “just a little talk with my Father in heaven.”
6. His Eighth Year (A.D. 2)
123:6.9 (1365.4) Because of this difference of opinion between Joseph and Mary, Nahor requested permission to lay the whole matter before Jesus. Jesus listened attentively, talked with Joseph, Mary, and a neighbor, Jacob the stone mason, whose son was his favorite playmate, and then, two days later, reported that since there was such a difference of opinion among his parents and advisers, and since he did not feel competent to assume the responsibility for such a decision, not feeling strongly one way or the other, in view of the whole situation, he had finally decided to “talk with my Father who is in heaven”; and while he was not perfectly sure about the answer, he rather felt he should remain at home “with my father and mother,” adding, “they who love me so much should be able to do more for me and guide me more safely than strangers who can only view my body and observe my mind but can hardly truly know me.” They all marveled, and Nahor [a Jewish Rabbi who wanted to indoctrinate young Jesus at Jerusalem !] went his way, back to Jerusalem. And it was many years before the subject of Jesus’ going away from home again came up for consideration.
PAPER 124 THE LATER CHILDHOOD OF JESUS
1. Jesus' Ninth Year (A.D. 3)
124:1.5 (1367.1) Mary endeavored to influence Joseph to permit Jesus to model in clay at home, provided he promised not to carry on any of these questionable activities at school, but Joseph felt impelled to rule that the rabbinical interpretation of the second commandment should prevail. [No images, no art !] And so Jesus no more drew or modeled the likeness of anything from that day as long as he lived in his father’s house. But he was unconvinced of the wrong of what he had done, and to give up such a favorite pastime constituted one of the great trials of his young life.
3. The Eleventh Year (A.D. 5)
124:3.4 (1370.2) On Wednesday evening, June 24, A.D. 5, Jude was born. Complications attended the birth of this, the seventh child. Mary was so very ill for several weeks that Joseph remained at home. Jesus was very much occupied with errands for his father and with many duties occasioned by his mother’s serious illness. Never again did this youth find it possible to return to the childlike attitude of his earlier years. From the time of his mother’s illness — just before he was eleven years old — he was compelled to assume the responsibilities of the first-born son [with eventually eight younger brothers and sisters] and to do all this one or two full years before these burdens should normally have fallen on his shoulders.
124:3.10 (1371.3) At the end of this eleventh year Jesus was a vigorous, well-developed, moderately humorous, and fairly lighthearted youth, but from this year on he was more and more given to peculiar seasons of profound meditation and serious contemplation. He was much given to thinking about how he was to carry out his obligations to his family and at the same time be obedient to the call of his mission to the world; already he had conceived that his ministry was not to be limited to the betterment of the Jewish people.
4. The Twelfth Year (A.D. 6)
124:4.4 (1372.1) It was a trying experience for Joseph and Mary to undertake the rearing of this unprecedented combination of divinity and humanity, and they deserve great credit for so faithfully and successfully discharging their parental responsibilities. Increasingly Jesus’ parents realized that there was something superhuman resident within this eldest son, but they never even faintly dreamed that this son of promise was indeed and in truth the actual creator of this local universe [Nebadon] of things and beings. Joseph and Mary lived and died without ever learning that their son Jesus really was the Universe Creator incarnate in mortal flesh.
5. His Thirteenth Year (A.D. 7)
124:5.6 (1373.6) As Jesus heard these plans discussed from time to time, he became increasingly sure that he would never go to Jerusalem to study with the rabbis. But he little dreamed of the tragedy, [the accidental death of his human father, Joseph !] so soon to occur, which would insure the abandonment of all such plans by causing him to assume the responsibility for the support and direction of a large family, presently to consist of five brothers and three sisters as well as his mother and himself. Jesus had a larger and longer experience rearing this family than was accorded to Joseph, his father; and he did measure up to the standard which he subsequently set for himself: to become a wise, patient, understanding, and effective teacher and eldest brother to this family—his family—so suddenly sorrow-stricken and so unexpectedly bereaved.
6. The Journey to Jerusalem
124:6.15 (1376.1) On the day before the Passover Sabbath, flood tides of spiritual illumination swept through the mortal mind of Jesus and filled his human heart to overflowing with affectionate pity for the spiritually blind and morally ignorant multitudes assembled for the celebration of the ancient Passover ["angel of death"] commemoration. This was one of the most extraordinary days that the Son of God spent in the flesh; and during the night, for the first time in his earth career, there appeared to him an assigned messenger from [our Nebadon spiritual headquarters, named] Salvington, commissioned by Immanuel, [another High Son of God,] who said: “The hour has come. It is time that you began to be about your Father’s business.”
124:6.16 (1376.2) And so, even ere the heavy responsibilities of the Nazareth family descended upon his youthful shoulders, there now arrived the celestial messenger to remind this lad, not quite thirteen years of age, that the hour had come to begin the resumption of the responsibilities of a universe. This was the first act of a long succession of events which finally culminated in the completion of the Son’s bestowal on Urantia and the replacing of “the government of a universe on his human-divine shoulders.”
124:6.17 (1376.3) As time passed, the mystery of the incarnation became, to all of us, more and more unfathomable. We could hardly comprehend that this lad of Nazareth was the creator of all Nebadon. Neither do we nowadays understand how the spirit of this same Creator Son and the spirit of his Paradise Father are associated with the souls of mankind. [The Father-Son Union Spirit of All Truth is Nebadon omnipresent and fully here with us and within all normal humans !] With the passing of time, we could see that his human mind was increasingly discerning that, while he lived his life in the flesh, in spirit on his shoulders rested the responsibility of a universe.
124:6.18 (1376.4) Thus ends the career of the Nazareth lad, and begins the narrative of that adolescent youth—the increasingly self-conscious divine human—who now begins the contemplation of his world career as he strives to integrate his expanding life purpose with the desires of his parents and his obligations to his family and the society of his day and age.
PAPER 125 JESUS AT JERUSALEM
0. Introduction
125:0.2 (1377.2) Women seldom went to the Passover feast at Jerusalem; they were not required to be present. Jesus, however, virtually refused to go unless his mother would accompany them. And when his mother decided to go, many other Nazareth women were led to make the journey, so that the Passover company contained the largest number of women, in proportion to men, ever to go up to the Passover from Nazareth. Ever and anon, on the way to Jerusalem, they chanted the one hundred and thirtieth Psalm. [All human men and all human women arer equally spiritually classified as sons of God ! The many types of angels are all classified as the daughters of God.]
125:0.6 (1378.1) Though many of the temple rituals very touchingly impressed his [Jesus'] sense of the beautiful and the symbolic, he was always disappointed by the explanation of the real meanings of these ceremonies which his parents would offer in answer to his many searching inquiries. Jesus simply would not accept explanations of worship and religious devotion which involved belief in the wrath of God or the anger of the Almighty. [Jesus also rejected all blood sacrifice and atonement doctrines !!] In further discussion of these questions, after the conclusion of the temple visit, when his father became mildly insistent that he acknowledge acceptance of the orthodox Jewish beliefs, Jesus turned suddenly upon his parents and, looking appealingly into the eyes of his father, said: “My father, it cannot be true—the Father in heaven cannot so regard his erring children on earth. The heavenly Father cannot love his children less than you love me. And I well know, no matter what unwise thing I might do, you would never pour out wrath upon me nor vent anger against me. If you, my earthly father, possess such human reflections of the Divine, how much more must the heavenly Father be filled with goodness and overflowing with mercy. I refuse to believe that my Father in heaven loves me less than my father on earth.” [Powerful Spiritual Truths !]
125:0.7 (1378.2) When Joseph and Mary heard these words of their first-born son, they held their peace. And never again did they seek to change his mind about the love of God and the mercifulness of the Father in heaven.
2. Jesus and the Passover
125:2.6 (1380.1) Throughout the Passover week, Jesus kept his place among the new sons of the commandment, and this meant that he must seat himself outside the rail which segregated all persons who were not full citizens of Israel. Being thus made conscious of his youth, he refrained from asking the many questions which surged back and forth in his mind; at least he refrained until the Passover celebration had ended and these restrictions on the newly consecrated youths were lifted.
5. The Third Day in the Temple
125:5.1 (1382.3) Jesus’ third day with the scribes and teachers in the temple witnessed the gathering of many spectators who, having heard of this youth from Galilee, came to enjoy the experience of seeing a lad confuse the wise men of the law. Simon [a friend and teacher of young Jesus] also came down from Bethany to see what the boy was up to. Throughout this day Joseph and Mary continued their anxious search for Jesus, even going several times into the temple but never thinking to scrutinize the several discussion groups, although they once came almost within hearing distance of his fascinating voice.
125:5.2 (1382.4) Before the day had ended, the entire attention of the chief discussion group of the temple had become focused upon the questions being asked by Jesus. Among his many questions were:
125:5.3 (1382.5) #1. What really exists in the holy of holies, behind the veil?
125:5.4 (1382.6) #2. Why should mothers in Israel be segregated from the male temple worshipers?
125:5.5 (1382.7) #3. If God is a father who loves his children, why all this slaughter of animals to gain divine favor—has the teaching of Moses been misunderstood?
125:5.6 (1382.8) #4. Since the temple is dedicated to the worship of the Father in heaven, is it consistent to permit the presence of those who engage in secular barter and trade?
125:5.7 (1382.9) #5. Is the expected Messiah to become a temporal prince to sit on the throne of David, or is he to function as the light of life in the establishment of a spiritual kingdom?
125:5.8 (1383.1) And all the day through, those who listened marveled at these questions, and none was more astonished than Simon. For more than four hours this Nazareth youth plied these Jewish teachers with thought-provoking and heart-searching questions. He made few comments on the remarks of his elders. He conveyed his teaching by the questions he would ask. By the deft and subtle phrasing of a question he would at one and the same time challenge their teaching and suggest his own. In the manner of his asking a question there was an appealing combination of sagacity and humor which endeared him even to those who more or less resented his youthfulness. He was always eminently fair and considerate in the asking of these penetrating questions. On this eventful afternoon in the temple he exhibited that same reluctance to take unfair advantage of an opponent which characterized his entire subsequent public ministry. As a youth, and later on as a man, he seemed to be utterly free from all egoistic desire to win an argument merely to experience logical triumph over his fellows, being interested supremely in just one thing: to proclaim everlasting truth and thus effect a fuller revelation of the eternal God.
6. The Fourth Day in the Temple
125:6.6 (1384.2) It should be remembered that Jesus was supposed to be a young man. He had finished the regular schooling of a child, had been recognized as a son of the law, and had received consecration as a citizen of Israel. And yet his mother more than mildly upbraided him before all the people assembled, right in the midst of the most serious and sublime effort of his young life, thus bringing to an inglorious termination one of the greatest opportunities ever to be granted him to function as a teacher of truth, a preacher of righteousness, a revealer of the loving character of his Father in heaven.
125:6.7 (1384.3) But the lad was equal to the occasion. When you take into fair consideration all the factors which combined to make up this situation, you will be better prepared to fathom the wisdom of the boy’s reply to his mother’s unintended rebuke. After a moment’s thought, Jesus answered his mother, saying: “Why is it that you have so long sought me? Would you not expect to find me in my Father’s house since the time has come when I should be about my Father’s business?”
125:6.11 (1384.7) Upon reaching home, Jesus made a brief statement to his parents, assuring them of his affection and implying that they need not fear he would again give any occasion for their suffering anxiety because of his conduct. He concluded this momentous statement by saying: “While I must do the will of my Father in heaven, I will also be obedient to my father on earth. I will await my hour.”
PAPER 126 THE TWO CRUCIAL YEARS
0. Introduction
126:0.1 (1386.1) Of all Jesus’ earth-life experiences, the fourteenth and fifteenth years were the most crucial. These two years, after he began to be self-conscious of divinity and destiny, and before he achieved a large measure of communication with his indwelling Adjuster, were the most trying of his eventful life on Urantia. It is this period of two years which should be called the great test, the real temptation. No human youth, in passing through the early confusions and adjustment problems of adolescence, ever experienced a more crucial testing than that which Jesus passed through during his transition from childhood to young manhood.
2. The Death of Joseph
126:2.1 (1388.1) All did go well until that fateful day of Tuesday, September 25, [A.D. 8] when a runner from Sepphoris brought to this Nazareth home the tragic news that Joseph had been severely injured by the falling of a derrick while at work on the governor’s residence. The messenger from Sepphoris had stopped at the shop on the way to Joseph’s home, informing Jesus of his father’s accident, and they went together to the house to break the sad news to Mary. Jesus desired to go immediately to his father, but Mary would hear to nothing but that she must hasten to her husband’s side. She directed that James, then ten years of age, should accompany her to Sepphoris while Jesus remained home with the younger children until she should return, as she did not know how seriously Joseph had been injured. But Joseph died of his injuries before Mary arrived. They brought him to Nazareth, and on the following day he was laid to rest with his fathers.
126:2.2 (1388.2)Just at the time when prospects were good and the future looked bright, an apparently cruel hand struck down the head of this Nazareth household, the affairs of this home were disrupted, and every plan for Jesus and his future education was demolished. This carpenter lad, now just past fourteen years of age, awakened to the realization that he had not only to fulfill the commission of his heavenly Father to reveal the divine nature on earth and in the flesh, but that his young human nature must also shoulder the responsibility of caring for his widowed mother and seven brothers and sisters—and another yet to be born. This lad of Nazareth now became the sole support and comfort of this so suddenly bereaved family. Thus were permitted those occurrences of the natural order of events on Urantia which would force this young man of destiny so early to assume these heavy but highly educational and disciplinary responsibilities attendant upon becoming the head of a human family, of becoming father to his own brothers and sisters, of supporting and protecting his mother, of functioning as guardian of his father’s home, the only home he was to know while on this world.
126:2.3 (1388.3) Jesus cheerfully accepted the responsibilities so suddenly thrust upon him, and he carried them faithfully to the end. At least one great problem and anticipated difficulty in his life had been tragically solved—he would not now be expected to go to Jerusalem to study under the rabbis. It remained always true that Jesus “sat at no man’s feet.” He was ever willing to learn from even the humblest of little children, but he never derived authority to teach truth from human sources. [Today we still have the spiritual menace of ecclesiastical authorities --Temple Tycoons ! There should be no humans, and no "saints" between God and you ! God's perfect and eternal will indwells you and all normal-minded humans !]
126:2.4 (1388.4) Still he knew nothing of the Gabriel visit to his mother before his birth; he only learned of this from John on the day of his baptism, at the beginning of his public ministry.
126:2.5 (1388.5) As the years passed, this young carpenter of Nazareth increasingly measured every institution of society and every usage of religion by the unvarying test: What does it do for the human soul? does it bring God to man? does it bring man to God? While this youth did not wholly neglect the recreational and social aspects of life, more and more he devoted his time and energies to just two purposes: the care of his family and the preparation to do his Father’s heavenly will on earth.
3. The Fifteenth Year (A.D. 9)
126:3.5 (1389.8) This year Jesus was much troubled with confused thinking. Family responsibility had quite effectively removed all thought of immediately carrying out any plan for responding to the Jerusalem visitation directing him to “be about his Father’s business.” Jesus rightly reasoned that the watchcare of his earthly father’s family must take precedence of all duties; that the support of his family must become his first obligation. [Yes, the normal nuclear human family with children is the prime foundation for social, moral and spiritual advancements worldwide. It must be strengthened fast or nations will collapse !]
126:3.6 (1390.1) In the course of this year Jesus found a passage in the so-called Book of Enoch which influenced him in the later adoption of the term “Son of Man” as a designation for his bestowal mission on Urantia. He had thoroughly considered the idea of the Jewish Messiah and was firmly convinced that he was not to be that Messiah. He longed to help his father’s people, but he never expected to lead Jewish armies in overthrowing the foreign domination of Palestine. He knew he would never sit on the throne of David at Jerusalem. Neither did he believe that his mission was that of a spiritual deliverer or moral teacher solely to the Jewish people. In no sense, therefore, could his life mission be the fulfillment of the intense longings and supposed Messianic prophecies of the Hebrew scriptures; at least, not as the Jews understood these predictions of the prophets. Likewise he was certain he was never to appear as the Son of Man depicted by the Prophet Daniel.
126:3.7 (1390.2) But when the time came for him to go forth as a world teacher, what would he call himself? What claim should he make concerning his mission? By what name would he be called by the people who would become believers in his teachings?
126:3.8 (1390.3) While turning all these problems over in his mind, he found in the synagogue library at Nazareth, among the apocalyptic books which he had been studying, this manuscript called “The Book of Enoch”; and though he was certain that it had not been written by Enoch of old, it proved very intriguing to him, and he read and reread it many times. There was one passage which particularly impressed him, a passage in which this term “Son of Man” appeared. The writer of this so-called Book of Enoch went on to tell about this Son of Man, describing the work he would do on earth and explaining that this Son of Man, before coming down on this earth to bring salvation to mankind, had walked through the courts of heavenly glory with his Father, the Father of all; and that he had turned his back upon all this grandeur and glory to come down on earth to proclaim salvation to needy mortals. As Jesus would read these passages (well understanding that much of the Eastern mysticism which had become admixed with these teachings was erroneous), he responded in his heart and recognized in his mind that of all the Messianic predictions of the Hebrew scriptures and of all the theories about the Jewish deliverer, none was so near the truth as this story tucked away in this only partially accredited Book of Enoch; and he then and there decided to adopt as his inaugural title “the Son of Man.” And this he did when he subsequently began his public work. Jesus had an unerring ability for the recognition of truth, and truth he never hesitated to embrace, no matter from what source it appeared to emanate.
126:3.11 (1391.1) After all, could it be possible that his mother was right? In most matters, when differences of opinion had arisen in the past, she had been right. If he were a new teacher and not the Messiah, then how should he recognize the Jewish Messiah if such a one should appear in Jerusalem during the time of his earth mission; and, further, what should be his relation to this Jewish Messiah? And what should be his relation, after embarking on his life mission, to his family? to the Jewish commonwealth and religion? to the Roman Empire? to the gentiles and their religions? Each of these momentous problems this young Galilean turned over in his mind and seriously pondered while he continued to work at the carpenter’s bench, laboriously making a living for himself, his mother, and eight other hungry mouths.
4. First Sermon in the Synagogue
126:4.1 (1391.5) With the coming of his fifteenth birthday, Jesus could officially occupy the synagogue pulpit on the Sabbath day. Many times before, in the absence of speakers, Jesus had been asked to read the Scriptures, but now the day had come when, according to law, he could conduct the service. Therefore on the first Sabbath after his fifteenth birthday the chazan arranged for Jesus to conduct the morning service of the synagogue. And when all the faithful in Nazareth had assembled, the young man, having made his selection of Scriptures, stood up and began to read:
126:4.2 (1391.6) “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the meek, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to set the spiritual prisoners free; to proclaim the year of God’s favor and the day of our God’s reckoning; to comfort all mourners, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy in the place of mourning, a song of praise instead of the spirit of sorrow, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, wherewith he may be glorified.
126:4.3 (1392.1) “Seek good and not evil that you may live, and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you. Hate the evil and love the good; establish judgment in the gate. Perhaps the Lord God will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
126:4.4 (1392.2) “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil and learn to do good; seek justice, relieve the oppressed. Defend the fatherless and plead for the widow.
126:4.5 (1392.3) “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, to bow myself before the Lord of all the earth? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousands of sheep, or with rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? No! for the Lord has showed us, O men, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to deal justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?
126:4.6 (1392.4) “To whom, then, will you liken God who sits upon the circle of the earth? Lift up your eyes and behold who has created all these worlds, who brings forth their host by number and calls them all by their names. He does all these things by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one fails. He gives power to the weak, and to those who are weary he increases strength. Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness, for I am the Lord your God. And I will hold your right hand, saying to you, fear not, for I will help you. [That Sermon of Jesus applies equally to God the Universal Father on Paradise and to our Creator Son of God Jesus Christ ! God the Father fully indwells Jesus Christ. See Jesus Christ: See God the Paradise Father ! They are fully One in Spirit Union !]
126:4.7 (1392.5) “And you are my witness, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen that all may know and believe me and understand that I am the Eternal. I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no savior.”
126:4.8 (1392.6) And when he had thus read, he sat down, and the people went to their homes, pondering over the words which he had so graciously read to them. Never had his townspeople seen him so magnificently solemn; never had they heard his voice so earnest and so sincere; never had they observed him so manly and decisive, so authoritative.
5. The Financial Struggle
126:5.1 (1392.8) Gradually Jesus and his family returned to the simple life of their earlier years. Their clothes and even their food became simpler. They had plenty of milk, butter, and cheese. In season they enjoyed the produce of their garden, but each passing month necessitated the practice of greater frugality. Their breakfasts were very plain; they saved their best food for the evening meal. However, among these Jews lack of wealth did not imply social inferiority.
126:5.2 (1392.9) Already had this youth well-nigh encompassed the comprehension of how men lived in his day. And how well he understood life in the home, field, and workshop is shown by his subsequent teachings, which so repletely [perfectly complete in all possible situations] reveal his intimate contact with all phases of human experience.
126:5.3 (1392.10) The Nazareth chazan continued to cling to the belief that Jesus was to become a great teacher, probably the successor of the renowned Gamaliel at Jerusalem. [No. Jesus was, and IS fully our God with us ! and our Very Elder Brother ! and more, continuing to be Spirit Revealed in unending stages !]
126:5.4 (1393.1) Apparently all Jesus’ plans for a career were thwarted. The future did not look bright as matters now developed. But he did not falter; he was not discouraged. He lived on, day by day, doing well the present duty and faithfully discharging the immediate responsibilities of his station in life. Jesus’ life is the everlasting comfort of all disappointed idealists.
126:5.12 (1394.1) With the close of this fifteenth year Jesus completed the traversal of that dangerous and difficult period in human existence, that time of transition between the more complacent years of childhood and the consciousness of approaching manhood with its increased responsibilities and opportunities for the acquirement of advanced experience in the development of a noble character. The growth period for mind and body had ended, and now began the real career of this young man of Nazareth.
