The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 68 -
The educating of children.
When we were now sitting together and were cheerfully eating, drinking and discussing about all kinds of things, the big dogs in the garden started to bark loudly.
2
When it was brought to his attention, Lazarus said to Me: "Lord and Master, there are certainly uninvited guests approaching my Bethany. But it is good that You have given me those watchers. That protects us against troublesome visitors. But maybe we still have to go and see what is going on, because the animals are really making a lot of noise."
3
I said: "Just leave it, for I surely know what is going on outside. Do you not remember the Pharisees anymore who stayed at your place from last night until the morning? Look, they promised you to come back today to Bethany because of Me. Look, they and still a few others are coming near this place and want to come into this main house of yours, but it is not the time yet, and especially not because this morning they went again in the counsel and they think now again much differently than yesterday. There are a couple of fanatics with a big mouth with them. Therefore, they still can wait for a while before they can come in. But you can send one of your servants outside. He should take them to the inn for the foreigners. At evening we will then see what we will do."
5
But then Lazarus said: "I am really surprised about the Pharisees of yesterday that they again should think differently, because You yourself said that they probably were the last and only ones among the great number of temple servants who converted themselves to You. And we all had a lot of trust in it and we were very glad about it."
6
I said: "Do not doubt it and do not be afraid. We will also keep them, but right now they are still not completely converted. However, when the evening will come, they will have other and better ideas and then we will go to them. For the mean time, we will stay here cheerfully together, and there still will be a lot more about which we can change ideas with each other."
7
Lazarus and all the others were completely satisfied with this.
8
Then it became totally silent at our table. Only at the table of the young people, now and then a word was spoken, since the young men asked all kinds of things to Raphael and he always taught them very kindly.
9
We listened to them, and the 4 temple servants who were present and who joined us in Emmaus, as well as the 7 who joined us before on the Mount of Olives, said: "Such a teaching produces a lot of results. Because from such a teacher the youth can learn more in 1 hour than with another worldly teacher in 10 years. Lord, our women and children are also staying here in Bethany, lodging in a house of Lazarus. What would it be good for them if they also had such a teacher from the Heavens for only 1 hour."
10
I said: "That would indeed be very favorable for them, but they would not be able to absorb the teaching of such a teacher because their heart and their soul are stuffed up with too many worldly things. These young people however, have a very chaste spirit and they are morally unspoiled. Every sin is still strange to them and they went through a lot of need and misery and had to become used to all kinds of privation by which they also have become free of all lusts of which children of rich parents are subjected to. Their souls are sufficiently pure as of angels. By that, the godly Spirit can unfold itself in them unhindered. And see. That is then also the reason that already as children they can be taught by a very high angel, for only such very pure and entirely unspoiled souls can be taught directly by the angels from the Heavens. But with children as those of yours, at best it is only possible indirectly.
11
I say to you: if parents were capable to educate their children in such a way that these could keep their innocence and purity of soul until their 14th year, they also would be immediately given teachers and guides from the Heavens. But since in this time among the respected Jews this is now completely inexistent, the teachers from the Heavens have directly nothing to do with your children.
12
However, this was very often the case with the patriarchs, and from time to time it also happened in this and also in the previous century. The mother of My body and My foster father Joseph, and also the old Simeon, Anna, Zechariah, his wife Elisabeth and his son John and still a few others, were educated by the angels from the Heavens, and even in a direct way. But those who I mention here were educated by their parents since their birth in the greatest morality and purity of soul, and that was with your worldly children actually never the case.
13
It surely would be extremely good for the people, although it is not absolutely necessary for the attainment of bliss and eternal life, for with Me - and so also in Heaven - there is infinitely more joy about a sinner who does penance and truly changes his life, than about 99 righteous ones who never needed to do penance, as I already have told you before. Therefore, do what I am teaching you, then you will live, for I, who am saying this to you, am more than all the angels from the Heavens, and so is certainly also My teaching."
14
Now a scribe, whose wife and children were also in Bethany, said: "Lord, my wife and my 7 children had, as far as I know, always to live strictly according to the law, and the souls of the children are most probably still completely pure. I surely could let these bring here? They certainly would win a lot for their future life. What do You think about that, Lord?"
15
I said: "I still think that for your wife and your children, who are not as pure as you think, it is better when they stay today where they are, because tomorrow there is still another day and the day after tomorrow another one, and then it certainly will happen that I also will come together with the wives and children of all of you. And do not insist to Me on that anymore."
16
After these words of Mine they did not insist to Me anymore on such requests.