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 143 -
The Lord's advice to Roklus.
At this Roklus now heads hurriedly over to Me once again and brings his familiar somewhat awkward affair to Me very openly.
2
And I say to him, "Well, well, as I see, you are already beginning to see a little how any sort of fraud sooner or later must spread certain embarrassment to a person in any case! Therefore I say to you all: Only the fullest truth at any cost; for this lasts the longest and never spreads any particular embarrassment to anyone!
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It can of course be and it even is so that from such people who only eke out their lives and reputations with fraud very much hate and fear the truth and therefore also persecute it with fire and sword! But what good is all this evil activity to the persecutor of all such truth?! Only too soon the truth breaks through and its enemies lie ashamed and despised by everyone and shunned in a puddle, from which there will only be a resurrection with difficulty! Well, your affair is a little foolish and cannot so easily be set aside so that a world exam could be spared you totally! But there is nonetheless a means to pass this with the necessary honor.
4
You made the nation wise to the fact that the gods had given you the power to rule over the solar and lunar eclipses. But now tell the people that gods have stopped existing and ruling and that the one, true, great God, to whom all the heathens have also built a temple under the name 'to the unknown, great God' has now come into this world Himself, even physically, and has taken such power of yours and will from now on rule and direct everything Himself and entrust no one any longer with the leading of the planets and worlds!
5
At this the people will certainly raise their eyebrows, and some will think that you have kept your position badly and have sinned. Again others will think that they sacrificed too little. Still others, a little more clearly thinking, will say: They are giving their position back to the great, unknown God very easily; for they had only made it their own in order to keep the blind people all the more easily in check "and the gods who are supposed to have given them such power were the rulers of Rome! But now a truthful man has probably risen secretly who has threatened them and so they are now laying the divine position easily into the lap of the great, only true God, which they in truth have never possessed as entrusted by God. But since they now are already so honest and admit this openly, so it is to be expected that they will admit even more things openly, which will be very good, since we will get behind some truth thereby. The wind which drove them to this must obviously be a good one! Thus the clearer-thinking will think and at the same time secretly laugh behind their hands.
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The Pharisees will also rejoice quite secretly and say to the people: See, Jehovah Himself must have done this to these most annoying heathens through a powerful prophet; he has forced them to become traitors of themselves to the people!
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But then say: 'Here for once the Pharisees have spoken the truth! This powerful prophet however is no other than the prophet of Nazareth who is already very well known to you! Jesus is His name, and on Earth He is a son of the very well-known carpenter Joseph "who was only his adoptive father, however "born to Mary, the virgin, likewise well-known far and wide, from the house of Joachim and Anna in Jerusalem! And it is the same man who at Easter of this year drove all the disdainful money-changers and sellers from the temple with whips in the hand. But this prophet is obviously more than a prophet! John, the Baptist in the desert known to them all, bore a correct witness of Him which will also be very familiar to them.
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'And this messenger of God certainly took away from you the power you made yourselves over the sun, moon and stars, but in return entrusted you with a much more important and greater position in truth. And this high position consists of this, that you all should now announce to the people in all seriousness and in all truth and say that the kingdom of God is near now and that everyone who believes in the name Jesus shall have true, eternal life!'
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If you will speak thus, you will stop up the mouths of the Pharisees very appropriately who were until now indeed your greatest enemies, and they will wisely avoid wasting another word over your received power over the solar and lunar eclipses, and all the more so since they will know well that you from now on stand under the protection of Rome!
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Now I have hopefully made this clear enough to you, and you will also see that you will not have anything further to fear! But since you now have the advice and the insight, now go over there and announce it also to your friends and companions! "Or do you have something else in the background that still bothers you?"
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Roklus says: "No, Lord and Master of eternity, now nothing more bothers me, and my heart is full of cheer! For now I am quite safe with my institute, and the black-skirts shall rejoice over the weather that we will make for them!"
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I say: "Very good; but now go over and announce it to your friends and brothers, so that they also will have part in your joy! But it will nonetheless cost you all much effort and work, of which you can be fully assured. But where there is no battle, there is also no victory, and where there is no victory, there is also no joy in victory which all people value as the highest thing! Therefore above all courage and endurance, and the victory will not get lost along the way! For this I stand here as of course most certainly the most believable witness and the very most certain guarantor! "Or do you not consider that to be satisfactory?"
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Roklus says, "Who should that not satisfy who know You as I know You? I tell You here nothing but my very innermost thanks and now immediately go to my companions and will bring them up to date with this truest gospel."
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With this he bows and hurries cheerfully to his companions, whom in the meantime the curiosity about the good or bad way of information had already very much begun to trouble.