The Second Preaching Tour

149:5.1When Je­sus was vis­it­ing the group of evan­ge­lists work­ing un­der the super­vi­sion of Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, dur­ing their evening con­fer­ence Si­mon asked the Mas­ter: “Why are some per­sons so much more happy and con­tented than oth­ers? Is con­tent­ment a mat­ter of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence?” Among other things, Je­sus said in an­swer to Si­mon’s ques­tion:

149:5.2“Si­mon, some per­sons are nat­u­rally more happy than oth­ers. Much, very much, de­pends upon the will­ing­ness of man to be led and di­rected by the Fa­ther’s spirit which lives within him. Have you not read in the Scrip­tures the words of the wise man, ‘The spirit of man is the can­dle of the Lord, search­ing all the in­ward parts’? And also that such spirit-led mor­tals say: ‘The lines are fallen to me in pleas­ant places; yes, I have a goodly her­itage.’ ‘A lit­tle that a righ­teous man has is bet­ter than the riches of many wicked,’ for ‘a good man shall be sat­is­fied from within him­self.’ ‘A merry heart makes a cheer­ful coun­te­nance and is a con­tin­ual feast. Bet­ter is a lit­tle with the rev­er­ence of the Lord than great trea­sure and trou­ble there­with. Bet­ter is a din­ner of herbs where love is than a fat­ted ox and ha­tred there­with. Bet­ter is a lit­tle with righ­teous­ness than great rev­enues with­out rec­ti­tude.’ ‘A merry heart does good like a med­i­cine.’ ‘Bet­ter is a hand­ful with com­po­sure than a super­abun­dance with sor­row and vex­a­tion of spirit.’

149:5.3“Much of man’s sor­row is born of the dis­ap­point­ment of his am­bi­tions and the wound­ing of his pride. Al­though men owe a duty to them­selves to make the best of their lives on earth, hav­ing thus sin­cerely ex­erted them­selves, they should cheer­fully ac­cept their lot and ex­er­cise in­ge­nu­ity in mak­ing the most of that which has fallen to their hands. All too many of man’s trou­bles take ori­gin in the fear soil of his own nat­u­ral heart. ‘The wicked flee when no man pur­sues.’ ‘The wicked are like the trou­bled sea, for it can­not rest, but its wa­ters cast up mire and dirt; there is no peace, says God, for the wicked.’

149:5.4“Seek not, then, for false peace and tran­sient joy but rather for the as­sur­ance of faith and the sureties of di­vine son­ship which yield com­po­sure, con­tent­ment, and su­preme joy in the spirit.”

149:5.5Je­sus hardly re­garded this world as a “vale of tears.” He rather looked upon it as the birth sphere of the eter­nal and im­mor­tal spir­its of Par­a­dise as­cen­sion, the “vale of soul mak­ing.”