The Passover at Jerusalem

142:5.1One of the great ser­mons which Je­sus preached in the tem­ple this Pass­over week was in an­swer to a ques­tion asked by one of his hear­ers, a man from Da­mas­cus. This man asked Je­sus: “But, Rabbi, how shall we know of a cer­tainty that you are sent by God, and that we may truly en­ter into this king­dom which you and your dis­ci­ples de­clare is near at hand?” And Je­sus an­swered:

142:5.2“As to my mes­sage and the teach­ing of my dis­ci­ples, you should judge them by their fruits. If we pro­claim to you the truths of the spirit, the spirit will wit­ness in your hearts that our mes­sage is gen­uine. Con­cern­ing the king­dom and your as­sur­ance of ac­cep­tance by the heav­enly Fa­ther, let me ask what fa­ther among you who is a wor­thy and kind­hearted fa­ther would keep his son in anx­i­ety or sus­pense re­gard­ing his sta­tus in the fam­ily or his place of se­cu­rity in the af­fec­tions of his fa­ther’s heart? Do you earth fa­thers take plea­sure in tor­tur­ing your chil­dren with un­cer­tainty about their place of abid­ing love in your hu­man hearts? Nei­ther does your Fa­ther in heaven leave his faith chil­dren of the spirit in doubt­ful un­cer­tainty as to their po­si­tion in the king­dom. If you re­ceive God as your Fa­ther, then in­deed and in truth are you the sons of God. And if you are sons, then are you se­cure in the po­si­tion and stand­ing of all that con­cerns eter­nal and di­vine son­ship. If you be­lieve my words, you thereby be­lieve in Him who sent me, and by thus be­liev­ing in the Fa­ther, you have made your sta­tus in heav­enly cit­i­zen­ship sure. If you do the will of the Fa­ther in heaven, you shall never fail in the at­tain­ment of the eter­nal life of prog­ress in the di­vine king­dom.

142:5.3“The Su­preme Spirit shall bear wit­ness with your spir­its that you are truly the chil­dren of God. And if you are the sons of God, then have you been born of the spirit of God; and whoso­ever has been born of the spirit has in him­self the power to over­come all doubt, and this is the vic­tory that over­comes all un­cer­tainty, even your faith.

142:5.4“Said the Prophet Isa­iah, speak­ing of these times: ‘When the spirit is poured upon us from on high, then shall the work of righ­teous­ness be­come peace, quiet­ness, and as­sur­ance for­ever.’ And for all who truly be­lieve this gospel, I will be­come surety for their re­cep­tion into the eter­nal mer­cies and the ev­er­last­ing life of my Fa­ther’s king­dom. You, then, who hear this mes­sage and be­lieve this gospel of the king­dom are the sons of God, and you have life ev­er­last­ing; and the ev­i­dence to all the world that you have been born of the spirit is that you sin­cerely love one an­other.”

142:5.5The throng of lis­ten­ers re­mained many hours with Je­sus, ask­ing him ques­tions and lis­ten­ing at­ten­tively to his com­fort­ing an­swers. Even the apos­tles were em­bold­ened by Je­sus’ teach­ing to preach the gospel of the king­dom with more power and as­sur­ance. This ex­pe­ri­ence at Je­ru­sa­lem was a great in­spi­ra­tion to the twelve. It was their first con­tact with such enor­mous crowds, and they learned many valu­able lessons which proved of great as­sis­tance in their later work.