and earth, as he himself taught (Matthew 28 : 18 ), and to give up the
teaching that faith justifies people without the works of the Law, because
that teaching is wrong.
This document was read and copied by many people. Many of
them were using their own judgment in thinking and speaking about
what was in the document. After they had accepted what the document
said, however, they said to each other, “We should hear what our gover-
nors have to say about it.” They did hear their governors, but the gov-
ernors spoke against the document and expressed disapproval of it. The
governors of that community were in fact hard-hearted because of falsi-
ties they had absorbed in the previous world. Therefore after a brief
meeting with each other, the governors sent the document back to
heaven where it had come from.
After that happened there was some muttering, but many lay people
ended up changing their minds. Then the light of judgment about spiri-
tual things that those lay people had had, which had been brilliant up
until then, suddenly went out.
After they were warned again, but to no avail, I saw the community
sinking down. I did not see how far down it went. It was taken out of
sight of those who worship the Lord alone and who reject faith alone as
the means of justification.
[ 2 ] Several days later, however, I saw about a hundred people coming
up from the lower earth, where that little community had sunk. The
group came over to me.
One of them spoke and said, “Do you want to hear something amaz-
ing? When we sank down, we were in a place that looked like a pond.
Soon, however, it looked like dry ground. Afterward it became a little
town where many of us had homes.
“A day later we discussed among ourselves what to do. Many said
that we should go to the two governors of the church and politely point
out that their sending the document back to heaven where it had come
from caused all this to happen to us.”
They did in fact choose some people who went to the governors. The
person who was talking to me said that he had been part of that delegation.
“Then,” he continued, “someone among us who was very skillful and
wise spoke to the governors and said, ‘We believed that the church and reli-
gion existed among us more than among others, because we had been told
that we have the supreme light of the gospel. But some of us have been
§389 faith 475