His Final Hours

by W. Jeffrey Marsh

What you sincerely in your heart think of Christ will determine what you are, will largely determine what your acts will be.

To receive the testimony

of Jesus means, simply, to receive the Holy Ghost. Because the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are of one mind and one heart, to receive one is to receive the others.

“I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the

one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or . . . something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.”3

“Is there room enough in your heart for me?”

Like the wise men who searched diligently to find him, wise-hearted and spiritually minded individuals open that door and prepare the way by making his paths straight (Alma 7:19). That means such individuals remove any obstacles that would prevent God from coming into their lives.

“Never has anyone offered so much to so many in so few words as when Jesus said, ‘Here am I, send me.’”

We are truly saved by the “merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah” (2 Nephi 2:8), but it is not

cheap grace, for there is no exaltation without effort on our part (2 Nephi 25:23).

It is more than coincidence that the word plan never shows up in the entire Bible one single time. It is possible to read the Bible cover to cover and never know there is a specific plan for our salvation. Satan is thrilled to keep

God’s plan a secret from us. But after we understand the plan from the perspective of latter-day revelation, portions of it can be seen clearly throughout the Old and the New Testaments.

“In our preexistent state, in the day of the great council, we made a certain agreement with the Almighty. The Lord proposed a plan, conceived by him. We accepted it. Since the plan is intended for all men, we became parties to the salvation of every person under the plan. We agreed, right then and there, to be not only saviors for ourselves but measurably, saviors for the whole human family. We went into a partnership with the Lord. The working out of the plan became then not merely the Father’s work, and the Savior’s work, but also our work. The least of us, the humblest, is in partnership with the Almighty in achieving the purposes of the eternal plan of salvation.

“That places us in a very responsible attitude towards the human race. By that doctrine, with the Lord at the

head, we become saviors on Mount Zion, all committed to the great plan of offering salvation to the untold numbers of spirits. To do this is the Lord’s self-imposed duty, this great labor his highest glory. Likewise, it is man’s duty, self-imposed, his pleasure and joy, his labor, and ultimately his glory.”8

Missionary work

Elder Neal A. Maxwell reminds us, “Quickly forgotten by those who are offended is the fact that the Church is ‘for the perfecting of the saints’ (Eph. 4:12); it is not a well-provisioned rest home for the already perfected.”

that the Church is ‘for the perfecting of the saints’ (Eph. 4:12); it is not a well-provisioned rest home for the already perfected.”11

And in still another sense, we are the innkeeper, charged with the responsibility to “succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees” (D&C 81:5) until Christ returns again. We are our brothers’ keepers (Moses 5:34).

11. Maxwell, “‘Brother Offended,’” 38.

12. Welch, “Good Samaritan,” 50–116.

Among the first recorded words from Jesus in the premortal life are, “Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever” (Moses 4:2). The first recorded words from his mortal life are, “I must be about my Father’s business” (Luke

2:49). The last words he spoke from the cross were, “Father, it is finished,

thy will is done” (JST Matt...

The living water flowing from the temple can give life and heal all who are dead to the things of the Spirit (Ezekiel 47:1–9).

It is tragic that within the week some of the same voices that were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” would cry out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” (Luke 23:21). But their rejection of him was caused by more than a misunderstanding of prophecy. The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible makes it abundantly clear that personal transgression and failure to heed the call to repent was at the heart of their treachery

“When I am tempted to listen to hot, egotistic voices within my own heart; when it seems that love can never win but always loses; when it seem as though humility is ruthlessly trodden down by those who pass over it on their way to their own selfish ambitions; when it seems as though God cannot possibly triumph; when pity and love and mercy and kindness and tenderness are weakness; when it seems as though greatness is only possessed by those who know how to grab, and have the power to snatch at it, no matter what the cost to others—ah, yes, when voices sound in my own heart which say you must play for your own hand, you must think of number one, you must not let yourself be trodden down—when I am thus tempted, my God! may I hear in imagination the tinkling of water, poured into a basin, and see, as in a vision, the Son of God, washing the disciples’ feet.”3

To have a testimony is to know, to testify. But to be converted is to do, to become.

Here on earth we often withhold our love and deal it out as if there were only a limited supply. Gratefully, the Savior’s love is not contracted, and because of his new commandment, neither should ours be.