THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN
VOLUME 5
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus in the region of Caesarea Philippi. (cont.) Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 16
- Chapter 127 -
Love as the truest praise of God. The Lord's parables of the earth and of cultivation.
After a while our Mathael had gathered himself again and wanted to begin to declare to Me a very great dithyrambic praise.
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But I said to him: "Friend, what you want to say here openly I have known for a long time from Alpha to Omega; therefore, you may well leave that be! • I am not in favor of such profuse eulogies. The eulogy most pleasing to Me is that you love Me truly in the living depth of your heart.
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Once you are with your people, you can praise Me in great exaltation and I shall reward you with many gifts of grace for the heart, the soul and the spirit. But this is unnecessary here before Me, all the more so because all those present recognize Me, too, and, like you, do honor to Me.
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Believe Me: Since Noah nothing greater, more exalted and more worthy of God has been written and sung on earth than David's Psalms and the Song of Solomon. But this did not make David and Solomon dearer to Me. In the end, Solomon even lost My grace completely through his own fault, and it was not the Psalms that made David the man after God's heart but the fact that he recognized My will and of himself acted accordingly. But because he did that, his psalms also received a value before Me. So you see what it is that alone has value before Me. Do it, and you will honor and please Me most and your soul will truly benefit.
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But now My Roklus must come over here, for I see that he still has something on his heart and would like a closer explanation of it, which I will also give him. Roklus, come closer to Me, for I have some things to discuss with you!"
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When Roklus heard this call, he hurried quickly to Me and said, "Lord and Master, here stands before You Your last and most useless servant at Your service! Command, oh Lord, and I will immediately act accordingly most exactly! For I have heard Your previous words most exactly, I have checked them in the fire of life in my heart and found in them everything true to nature that You, oh Lord, have taught and most faithfully and clearly shown. Knowledge and realization must certainly be the first thing "but then immediately comes action; for all knowledge and realization has no value at all without action! I am now so completely convinced of this that all the wise men of the whole Earth could not bring me even a hair's breadth closer to another opinion. Therefore simply command, oh Lord, and I will hurry to put my hands to work!"
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"Yes, yes," I say, "Indeed we have a great task before us, and there are yet few workers! The harvest could be great, the seeds have become ripe; but there are only few reapers and harvesters. Therefore it is high time to put hands to work, so that the wheat will be brought into My barns, before the storms come and beat down and destroy the noble seeds of life and the birds then come and satisfy their ravenousness with them.
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Truly some cedars still stand in Lebanon, under whose branches Samuel once prayed. In those days these trees were still saplings full of power and luxuriance, and the raging storms tried in vain to cool their fury on them. Yet old age makes the sinews of his bleached life fragile and decayed! Therefore the old cedars of Lebanon indeed still have some power here and there in their branches and mock some storms with their healthy limbs; but more than two thirds of the branches have already fallen off, and those that still exist "hardly a third "are only half healthy and offer only the apes a needed shelter and a weak protection from the storms that are indigenous to Lebanon. Now you have an over-ripe seed to harvest and as an insightful forester Lebanon to be replanted anew with young cedars; but how can it be organized so as to be ready for the time of the great tempests? Do you understand Me well, My friend?"
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Roklus opens his eyes wide and says, "Lord, I have well understood that You this time have spoken purely in the Greek manner; but not a syllable of the actual meaning of Your words! Where then, oh Lord, do You have a field on Earth which is now full of ripe and harvestable wheat? Tell me where it is and tomorrow already a thousand reapers and harvesters will already very most actively cavort around to that place, and the coming storms will then have to rage on past the dry stubble!
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But what business of ours now is Lebanon, already very poor in cedars? Those who possess it should see how it should be reforested and the many apes can then jump around happily on the thick and still very strong branches and twigs of the old cedars of protection and seed of Samuel, David and Solomon! I think that it would be much better to busy ourselves with the true culture of man as far as possible and leave Lebanon in peace. In any case, I will take upon myself the field owned or just leased by You somewhere near Nazareth and tomorrow evening there will be no stalk standing any longer to be vulnerable to a coming storm on the open field! Therefore just command, oh Lord, and in a few hours I will immediately and easily put six thousand hands into action."