Natural disasters. Calamities “Consider fire! What destructive power resides in this raging element when not kept in check during use! What destruction it wreaks! And there is no greater human benefactor than this fire, when used wisely. “Consider water, how dreadfully it rages when let loose over valleys and fields! Should I however annihilate it because in its unbound state it wreaks such havoc, bringing terrestrial man death and destruction? Say unto Me, could the Earth itself, together with everything it carries, exist without water? “Consider furthermore the natural weight of material bodies. What destruction an avalanche causes if dropping from the alps? And how a boulder grinds up everything it touches upon crashing. Would it not be better if I had given the Earth the weight of a feather? Then man could play with it like children with the ball. But who would then hold the Earth firmly together? And how could man, animal and plant maintain themselves upon the Earth without weight? From that you see how essential this evil attribute is to all bodies if they are to have an existence! “But just as the aforementioned is necessary for nature to be what it is – just so there have to be contrasts within the spiritual, so that the spirit through these hostile contradictions becomes that for which I have Myself destined it – namely the most perfect, eternal life-freedom! Because without compulsion there is no freedom, and without freedom there is no compulsion. All freedom therefore must go forth from compulsion, – which is eternal order under judgement – just like compulsion out of My arch-primordial freedom! “And hence you see here manifestations which in themselves are truly evil, but which for a certain period of time are as necessary for the winning and maintenance of spiritual freedom as are powerful lightning and hailstorm for the production and maintenance of life-air and the consequent destruction of all harmful and deadly vapours which, due to occasional overheating of the ground are driven from its entrails. I say unto you all this is essential, and one affects the other. “It is up to us to wisely lead back to their necessary order the diverse elements when they begin to predominate too much in their special characteristics. Once we have done this with the greatest care, everything shall again enter upon its regulated path, yielding the best fruits. “To extinguish a burning house is good work. One must likewise dam water and place proper foundations for weight, and replant the Earth after a powerful storm, whereupon everything re-enters its proper trails. But to solve everything with one stroke would mean the destruction of everything!” (From Hell to Heaven, chap. 91) (The Lord) "Look at the mountains full of forests and shrubs. Behold, these absorb a suitable number of all the nature spirits (electricity, magnetic fluid) compatible with them. Go and deforest all the mountains and you will soon become aware of the most dire consequences. Thereby great masses of free, very crude nature spirits will begin to more and more fill the atmosphere above the whole earth. Since these do not find a suitable abode and sphere of activity, they will begin to cluster in great masses and, driven by their hunger and thirst (assimilative instinct), cause the worst, all-devastating gales and ruin entire countries to such an extent that in a hundred, often a thousand years nothing will be growing there but here and there a moss plant. Thus there are to this very day on the wide world places extending for many leagues which are as bare of vegetation as the desolate, barren lime-stone on the shores of the Dead Sea in Lower Palestine into which the river Jordan is flowing. [02] Well, is that perhaps also My will? Oh no! Where men must have freedom of will and freedom of action so that they can become human beings also in spirit, I Myself do not interfere — no matter how foolishly they may act. All I do is allow them to reach, unperturbed, that which they have so eagerly striven for as if their life's happiness depended on it. It does not make any difference to Me whether the consequences are good or bad. What they create they get. Although I know what will happen afterwards, I can — and must — not intervene with My omnipotence; for if I do that, man ceases to be a man. He is then nothing else but an animated machine and can be of no value forever, either for himself or for Me. For he resembles a writer who is not capable of writing any syllable himself, but if he should write nonetheless, a scribe must guide his hand from A to Z; and if he has written an essay in this way, he nonetheless does not understand it. And even if he has written a hundred thousand letters in this way, he is nonetheless just as little a writer himself as the stylus with which he wrote. Just as little the man of this Earth would be a man if the free will was not left thoroughly untouched and likewise his acting. [03] The will can surely be directed through all sorts of doctrines and laws; but neither a doctrine nor any law can prevent the free will from carrying out what it wants to do. If the will of man wants to adopt a doctrine and a law as the guideline for his actions, he will in any case direct himself accordingly without any inner compulsion; but if he doesn’t want this, no power of the world and the heavens can force him – and neither must! For, as I said: Without free will man is no longer a man, but instead purely an animated machine, like the machines that the people will invent with time, which will perform the same artificial tasks that now hardly any person is in a position to do. But such a machine will nonetheless not be a human being, neither according to the form nor even less to the inner freely-working reality; for it has no free will and can therefore never perform any independent action. Whatever the human will has laid in it, it will perform, and never anything else. [04] But man can, out of himself, do whatever he likes, and no one can prevent him from doing it. Thus, man can do what he likes with the Earth that carries and nourishes his body; and only the consequences will teach him whether his will was good or evil. [05] Therefore every human being has reason and as a consequence of that, intellect. He can become enlightened through doctrine, worldly laws and every kind of experience and then choose spontaneously what is good, right and true and determine his course of action accordingly. With all this he suffers no coercion, since he himself chooses freely what he has recognized as good, right and true. [06] But we can experience only too tangibly day by day from hundreds of cases that people nonetheless very often spurn all they have recognized as good, just and true mostly out of temporal interests, and act to the contrary. And from this proceeds the fact that the freedom of human will cannot be endangered or restricted by anything. And so it is very possible that as time goes by people will be able to invent great things and also affect the nature of the Earth, so that in the end it will have to be quite considerably damaged. The consequences of this will certainly not be anything pleasant and will seem to be a certain punishment for the wrongly used will, but not wanted at all by Me, but instead brought forth through the will of man. [07] If the people want another Deluge, they only have to dig up the mountains and they will open the floodgates of the underground waters! If they want to see the whole Earth in flames, they only have to destroy all the forests, and the spirits of nature (electricity) will multiply so much that the Earth will suddenly be clothed in an ocean of fire and lightning! Would it then be Me who want to destroy the Earth through the fire?! Therefore teach the people to be wise, otherwise they themselves will bring the curse of judgment upon themselves! But I know that it will happen, and nonetheless I cannot and may not act against it through My omnipotence, but only through My teaching – do you understand that?” (THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN vol. 5, 109:1) Diseases. Suffering leading to death “01] Here one of the Jew-Greeks remarked by saying: “Lord, why can the anyway poor, mortal person only come to God through all kinds of pain and suffering? Could this also not happen through a healthy and suffering free life according to the recognized will of God?” 02] Said I: “Like man wants it; it depends mainly on himself. Even most of the life sicknesses are the result of all kinds of sins which a person already commits continuously from his youth until his old age and finally also out of a sort of habit. Some illnesses of a person are an inheritance of the parents and grandparents to their children and grandchildren, because in that case the parents and grandparents have already sinned. One then cannot accuse God if the people inflict all kinds of sicknesses, pain and suffering on themselves. One could say to Me: ‘If man is immediately taught by God what he has to do, to live and exist in the right order in the world, and he does not act accordingly, he obviously is guilty himself if he falls into all kind of suffering; if however, man has to learn everything from nature and by all kinds of adverse and often by bad experiences, then man is not guilty of his suffering and is then the most sorry-felt creature on earth!’ 03] Yes, I say Myself, man would be like that, if it would be so! However, that this is not the case, is proved by the creation of the first human couple in Paradise, who almost uninterruptedly were taught by God in all kind of things for more than a hundred years. And in addition God awakened during that early time period on earth on and on seers and prophets, who taught and revealed the will of God to the more and more worldly becoming people. 04] Under such circumstances no person could say that he was taught by nobody, how he has to live according to the will of God. But man began to cultivate himself and his earthly dwelling world quite considerable, build cities and erected one work of splendor after another, and in that way fell in love with their world and because of all the world they forgot about God and even became God-deniers. When a seer came, awakened by God, to these people, he was laughed at and nobody paid attention to the sense of his speech. 05] Now, such people had to learn their cleverness of course by all kinds of bitter experiences and laboriously had to determine some rules of life therefrom. These life rules, like for example now among the many heathens, were however to the biggest part already sins against the true, divine order, and from it necessarily all kinds of bodily and soul sicknesses had to become a common occurrence among the people. 06] If God now wants to preserve the soul of such people for the everlasting life, He must help her through all kinds of bodily suffering, namely to such an extent, that such a too much to the world attached soul through some suffering and pain is more and more pulled away from the world, since otherwise she would be totally attracted to and consumed by matter and the world and its death and judgment. And see, this is the reason why now on earth people have to endure a lot of suffering! 07] But also we will have to suffer a lot for the spoilt people through their own fault. However, our suffering will not come over us based thereupon as if we would not have any knowledge about the pure divine order and as if our deeds would be contrary to it, but we will, through our suffering, make the blind seeing again, namely thereby, that they can see from us how little value we place on the life of this world, and what great value the life of the soul must have, if one reject all earthly advantages for the sake of it. And see, only therein will consist the first actual redemption of the people from death to life! - But now enough about all this! Since lunch is ready now, let us go into the house and consume it!” 08] However, the Jew-Greeks were not very happy about it, that they as the future proclaimers of My word had to suffer, yes even risk their lives for it. 09] But I said to them the famous words: “From now on it will be like that, that everyone who loves his life will lose it; however, who despises and flees his life, will keep it for everlasting!” {mt.10,39; 16,25 lk.09,24 mk.08,35} 10] Then the Jew-Greeks said: “What is this? Who can comprehend this?” 11] Said I: “It means this: To what use would it be for man if he with this earthly life would profit the whole world, but suffer harm in his soul? What can such a person give to safe his soul? Therefore man must use this bodily life for the sole purpose to attain the everlasting life of his soul. If a person does not use his bodily life for only that purpose, it is his own fault if he forfeits the life of his soul or at least weakens it to such an extent, that he afterwards in the beyond has for an exceedingly long time to do, to collect himself insofar, that he is able to go over in an only somewhat brighter and better spiritual life. Since for as long a soul clings to its bodily life and its advantages, she cannot be completely reborn in the spirit; a soul however who is not completely reborn in her spirit, cannot enter the true kingdom of God, because no atom of anything material can exist therein. - Now you know enough, therefore lets go into the house!” (THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN vol. 6, chap. 162) “[10] I said: “That for which you will ask the Father in My name, will also be given to you. For only the Father is good and has no pleasure in the suffering of people, but He also does not prevent that such things come over the people if they out of sheer love for the world forget the Father, do not have faith and direct themselves in that which must give them all kinds of misfortune. [11] Walk continuously on the ways that I have truly shown to you now, then you only will have little to suffer and your departure from this world will be easy. [12] Only those who by all kinds of attachments to this world have buried their soul too much in the flesh must finally mostly suffer bitterly, because such a soul must be detached from it with great force so that he would not completely go to ruin in his flesh, and this must then also produce heavy pains in the body. And this is then also good for the soul because through the pains and the suffering he will be purified of his fleshly lusts, and by that he will be able to make an easier progress and advance more surely in the beyond on the way of spiritual life. [13] However, people who are strongly attached to the world, who do not believe in a God, who moreover are enjoying a healthy life at a high age and finally are also dying a quick and painless death, have already received the reward of their life in this world, and in the beyond they hardly can expect any reward. Among such people there will be outer darkness and among them there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth.” (THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN vol. 8, chap. 16) I said: “I cannot say that you are completely wrong, for also I do certainly not agree with the manner on which the people are usually dying. But what can I do about it when men procured themselves such a bitter and unpleasant manner of dying? If only men would live according to the order that already was very clearly revealed to them since the very beginning, then there would be not one human being who would complain about the bitterness of death. [2] The patriarchs all died an easy and soft death, because when the angel called them, their souls left with great joy their body, which did not have to suffer any pain since their childhood years until old age, but mostly remained powerful and healthy. The final bodily death was also not a result of heavy suffering and pain, but always happened when there was a desire for the call of the angel, after which the soul was leaving the body freely and without any compulsion, and the body was as it were falling to sleep without the least of pain. [3] But when men began to live more and more a sensual life and indulged more and more in fornication, harlotry and other reveling that dulled their senses, they spoiled even their health, became weak, miserable and sick, and their bodily death had to assume a different character. [4] If you take a knife, cut in your flesh and as a result you feel pain, can you then with your right senses blame the Creator, or would you maybe like to say: ‘Yes, why has the Creator in fact not given a insensitive body to man?’ But I say to you: if your body would be totally insensitive, how could it be alive? Only a totally dead body is also totally insensitive. [5] Now suppose that man, at least on the outside would have an insensitive body, more or less like his hair. What would be the consequence of that with thoughtless people? Self-mutilation of all kind, in such a way that finally people would not have a human appearance anymore and would also not be able to work anymore. [6] But in order to prevent that people would mutilate themselves – at least as far as their outer appearance is concerned – sensitivity has been given to them as a good watchman. Besides, it is obvious that if man cannot feel pain, he also cannot feel delight and bliss, because one thing depends on the other and one cannot exist without the other, and is even not conceivable. [7] I surely know that men because of their great blindness already since a long time have to suffer a lot of pain – that is to say when they are dying – and this firstly because they mostly have not a single certainty about the continuance of the life of the soul after the death of the body, and already many are followers of the belief of the Sadducees, and in the second place because men by their extreme disorderly way of life have filled their body with all kinds of impure spirits, which in course of time has inevitably to lead to all kinds of terrible and painful diseases resulting in early death. And therefore, I Myself have come in the flesh on this Earth in order to show man the ways that he should go, so that firstly he would be aware that and how his soul – which is his actual I – after the death of the body continues to live, and secondly to show how he, as long as he has to live on this Earth can stay healthy and strong until an old age and his going away would not be terrible and painful, but would make him glad and very happy. And so, I as Lord of life can give you the full assurance that the one who – according to the real meaning of the word – will eat My bread and drink My wine, will not see, feel or taste death. In other words: whoever will live according to My teaching, will also experience its ever blissful effect. I am of the opinion that you, My friend scribe will understand those things now differently than before.” (THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN vol. 8, chap. 82)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Answers to Faith-Related Issues
confirming the Christian Scriptures, clarifying and expanding them with still unknown spiritual knowledge Categories
All
Archives
March 2019
|