The Urantia Book Fellowship


Dr. Sadler's Charge to the Seventy?

(Editor's note: The original of this document has a date of September 15 with illegible year handwritten in upper left corner. The rest of the document is typed. Selected paragraphs from this document have been presented to the readership over the years as having been communications from the revelators. But note the glaring indications otherwise such as the comment, "I share with you the frailties of human nature . . ." and the reference to Urantia Brotherhood, an organization which did not even exist at the time when the 70 was formed as a study group.)


"As individuals and as a group you are setting yourselves apart - you are joyously dedicating yourselves to the performance of special, and to a certain extent, unrevealed service. You are a selected group of Volunteer 'soldiers of the circles'. You have enlisted in this training corps for wholehearted service in behalf of the Urantia Book. And now by these simple ceremonies you are being inducted into the order of Urantia Teacher-leaders, commonly known as the Seventy.

"You have been selected for the work of this corps because of your many years of membership in the Urantia Brotherhood and because you have been faithful and diligent students of the Urantia Papers. You are familiar with the philosophy of these papers and you have subscribed to a wholehearted belief in their teachings.

"You have pledged faithfulness and loyalty to the work of this teacher-leader corps. I share with you the frailties of human nature, but I also join you in these pledges of faith, devotion, and loyalty to the purposes and work of this special group of Volunteer Urantians.

"In the effort to impress you with the sacredness of the responsibilities you are assuming as you are mustered into this corps of spiritual service, it is farthest from my mind to lay any grievous burdens upon your souls, for this very religion which we believe and reverence is a religion of supernal joy and supreme liberty. We labor not as servants of a king, but rather as the liberated sons of a loving heavenly Father.

"Jesus told his disciples that they who would be first - become leaders in the Kingdom - must become servers of all. He became a man among men - partook of our mortal nature - before he assumed sovereignty of his self-created universe.

"I adjure you that your being set apart for some special service does not signify that you are in any respect different from your fellow Urantians who have not been thus chosen. On this occasion humility and not pride should characterize our acceptance of the responsibilities and obligations of the tasks to which we are now formally dedicating our energies of mind, soul, and body.

"I exhort you to achieve a peculiar and trusting type of camaraderie - a deep group loyalty that will be suspicion proof and confidence dominated.

"May you always be free from doubts as to the certainty of your calling and destiny, but if doubts ever do come, then I commend to you the example of the Apostle Thomas, who when he had once expressed his fears and doubts, was always the first to accept the group leadership, always saying: "Come on fellows, let's go."

"And now with sublime satisfaction, I formally receive and most heartily welcome you into this Urantia corps of teacher-leaders. And thus is your inauguration completed and confirmed as you now enroll your names in the membership book of the Seventy - the Urantia Corps of Teacher-Leaders."