1912 Watch Tower - A2Z.org

for Jesus to have expounded the Divine Plan, and tohave opened the eyes of the understanding of the people,and their deaf ears; but this work could not be accomplishedto any extent until after He had ascended up onhigh, and had appropriated the merit of His sacrifice tothe justification of believers. Hence it was that Jesussaid to His disciples, "Greater works than these shall yedo, because I go to My Father."And so it is today that the followers of Jesus arepermitted to do greater things than He did, greater thanany of those miracles, because it is surely a greatermiracle to open the mental eyes than to open the physical;to unstop the mental ears is more wonderful thanto open the physical ears; to cause the dumb to singpraises to God in the spirit of their minds is still greaterwork than the giving of natural speech. It is not thatwe can do greater works than Jesus of ourselves, northat we could do as great, for without Him we could donothing. As it was Jesus who did the cures accomplishedby His Apostles when He sent them forth to healthe sick and to cast out devils, so it is Jesus now who isdoing these greater things through His consecratedpeople.ANOTHER MULTITUDE MIRACULOUSLY FEDThe account in the conclusion of this lesson, of thefeeding of four thousand people with seven loaves, andthe taking up of seven hampers of fragments, was anothermanifestation of Jesus' power, or as He wouldexpress it, of the Divine power in Him. When the fivethousand were fed, five loaves and two fishes were used,and they were gotten from a small boy. In this casethe disciples themselves had seven loaves, and gave theirall for the feeding of the multitude, and all had sufficient;and the fragments, according to the Master's direction,were again collected.It is worthy of note that in both cases the Masterdisplayed frugality and encouraged economy on the partof His followers. No doubt it would have been just aseasy for Him to have created more delicate viands andin great variety. The loaves used then were the sameas are used in Palestine today by the natives; they areabout the size of our large buns and are made of theentire wheat, ground. Many of the strong natives ofEgypt and Palestine seem to live almost exclusively onthis bread, about two such small loaves constituting ameal. Quite possibly some of us would find ourselvesequally healthy and strong on similarly plain food. Itis for us to exercise faith in God and to partake of ourdaily bread with grateful hearts; there will be a blessingin it, however plain.====================R5104 : page 296