The Great Gospel of John
Volume 10
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord in Abila
- Chapter 56 -
The Lord in the house of the 10 Jewish families.
Escorted by the captain, I went to the eldest of the house, and there where also a few heads of family present who were worried and who looked at us to see what we would do after seeing that the house was an old ruin.
2
When I came to the eldest, he said: "You are welcome with us, Lord and Master, but what we can do in return for the great mercy that You are showing us will certainly not be welcome to You. Look at our house. And our clothes will clearly let You see our situation without having to say anything further about it."
3
I said: "Peace be with you. I know what your situation is, but your misery is for the greatest part your own fault, for by laziness and by having almost no more trust in God, the only Lord and Giver of all good gifts, no one will make much progress on Earth.
4
When you still had the means and the strength, you did nothing to improve your old house. You also did not bother about Jehovah and became acquainted with the blind teaching of the Greek sages by which you became much more miserable than you ever were before.
5
Now you became even slaves of the gentiles, and you rather must beg them for a little bread in return of hard work instead of being able to say to them: 'We have deserved it in the sweat of our face.' For it is difficult to serve those who do not believe in any God nor in the survival of the soul after the dead of the body, and thus they also do not believe in a reward in the great world of the beyond, and so they also do not have neighborly love, and they are even enemies of their own life.
6
Now in your greatest need you remembered the ancient Jehovah and begged Him for help, and that made Me come to you to help you, in front of the many very blind gentiles who also gave up the belief in their gods for the sake of their Diogenes. I am doing this so that they also will see that the ancient God is still alive and that He helps the one who believes in Him, who keeps His commandments, and expects, in a truthful and unshakable trust, the right help from Him.
7
Let Me see your old, very crumbling house, then we will see if we can stay overnight here and if what is damaged can be repaired. After that we will examine your provision rooms to see how much provision there still is."
8
The eldest said: "O great Lord and Master. This house must have had many big and smaller rooms before, but we hardly were able to use 7 of them, and even these are already heavily damaged. All the others are still full of all kinds of vermin and are mostly not even accessible anymore for humans. Also our provision rooms are for the moment in a very miserable state. Only one can still be used for half, but even that one is empty, except for a few moldy breadcrumbs. But let us follow Your will and still go and see, so that You, o great Lord and Master, can see with Your own eyes that this is our situation in the land of Gad and Ruben, whose descendants we are."
9
Then we walked through all the rooms of the big house, and it all looked like the elder had described.
10
However, when we were in the outer and last room, I said: "Now you will come to know God's power in Me, who am also a Son of man as far as My body is concerned. Look, we penetrated through debris of walls, pieces of pillars, thorny shrubs and all kinds of vermin up to this room. And now we will walk back through royally adorned, beautiful rooms that are provided with everything and in which one can well spend the night. I want it, and so be it."
11
I hardly had said that when the whole house was already completely changed, and when we then walked through all the rooms and chambers, nowhere any damage could be discovered.
12
The Jews of that house slapped their hands above their head and cried out in great joyful amazement: "That can only be done by the One who created Heaven and Earth! Therefore, all glory to You, o great God who gave such power to a human being!"
13
Then we visited the provision rooms that were also filled with everything men need to alleviate their hunger and thirst. Then the amazement was even greater, and from sheer astonishment they could not speak for a long time.