The Interlude Visit to Jerusalem

147:8.1That night, long af­ter the usual lis­ten­ers had re­tired, Je­sus con­tin­ued to teach his apos­tles. He be­gan this spe­cial in­struc­tion by quot­ing from the Prophet Isa­iah:

147:8.2“‘Why have you fasted? For what rea­son do you af­flict your souls while you con­tinue to find plea­sure in op­pres­sion and to take de­light in in­jus­tice? Be­hold, you fast for the sake of strife and con­tention and to smite with the fist of wicked­ness. But you shall not fast in this way to make your voices heard on high.

147:8.3“‘Is it such a fast that I have cho­sen—a day for a man to af­flict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bul­rush, to grovel in sack­cloth and ashes? Will you dare to call this a fast and an ac­cept­able day in the sight of the Lord? Is not this the fast I should choose: to loose the bonds of wicked­ness, to undo the knots of heavy bur­dens, to let the op­pressed go free, and to break ev­ery yoke? Is it not to share my bread with the hun­gry and to bring those who are home­less and poor to my house? And when I see those who are naked, I will clothe them.

147:8.4“‘Then shall your light break forth as the morn­ing while your health springs forth speed­ily. Your righ­teous­ness shall go be­fore you while the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then will you call upon the Lord, and he shall an­swer; you will cry out, and he shall say—Here am I. And all this he will do if you re­frain from op­pres­sion, con­dem­na­tion, and van­ity. The Fa­ther rather de­sires that you draw out your heart to the hun­gry, and that you min­is­ter to the af­flicted souls; then shall your light shine in ob­scu­rity, and even your dark­ness shall be as the noon­day. Then shall the Lord guide you con­tin­u­ally, sat­is­fy­ing your soul and re­new­ing your strength. You shall be­come like a wa­tered gar­den, like a spring whose wa­ters fail not. And they who do these things shall re­store the wasted glo­ries; they shall raise up the foun­da­tions of many gen­er­a­tions; they shall be called the re­builders of bro­ken walls, the re­stor­ers of safe paths in which to dwell.’”

147:8.5And then long into the night Je­sus pro­pounded to his apos­tles the truth that it was their faith that made them se­cure in the king­dom of the pres­ent and the fu­ture, and not their af­flic­tion of soul nor fast­ing of body. He ex­horted the apos­tles at least to live up to the ideas of the prophet of old and ex­pressed the hope that they would pro­gress far be­yond even the ide­als of Isa­iah and the older proph­ets. His last words that night were: “Grow in grace by means of that liv­ing faith which grasps the fact that you are the sons of God while at the same time it rec­og­nizes ev­ery man as a brother.”

147:8.6It was af­ter two o’clock in the morn­ing when Je­sus ceased speak­ing and ev­ery man went to his place for sleep.