The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 12 -
About matter and the danger of it.
Now Agricola who was slightly excited said: "But Lord and Master, You are really infinitely wise and are filled with an almighty will. And also, countless legions of the mightiest angels - like Raphael is one of them - are at Your disposal. Also we Romans want to battle for the success of the good cause against the might of all devils, and with heart and mouth we want to say: 'Rather the whole Earth will fall into pieces than that even one dash would be destroyed of the truth and justice of what Your teaching has announced to us.'
2
You alone are however more than almighty enough and do not need the countless many angels and even less our Roman armies. Then it must be for You very easy to secretly unlearn forever the evil practices of the prince of the lie and darkness who is working against You. What are we doing with a totally incorrigible criminal? As a justly punishment we throw him in a so-called eternal prison, or we bring him to death according to the law. For a man, who once has become a perfect devil can better disappear from the Earth instead of continuing to live unto great disaster for the other better fellowmen. Please, o Lord and Master, do also likewise with the prince of the lie and the evil darkness of life, then rest and order and truth, love and justice on Earth will prevail among the people."
3
I said: "You easily can say that because until now you still do not understand and realize what has to be understood by Hell and the prince of the lie and darkness.
4
You are right when you say that I have the power to destroy Hell and its prince with all his devils, but if I would do that then you will have no more Earth under your feet, no sun, no moon and also no stars. Because the whole material creation is a continuous judgment according to the immovable order of My will and My wisdom. This must be and must exist, so that the souls of men can acquire on the hard soil of judgment the freedom and the full independence of the eternal indestructible life.
5
If I would follow your advice and would dissolve the whole material creation, then I also will have to destroy the bodies of all men. However, the body is a necessary instrument of the soul, and only with the help of this instrument can the soul - according to My highest wisdom and deepest insight - fight and acquire eternal life.
6
However, although the body is absolutely necessary for the soul to receive eternal life, it can however also easily be the greatest disaster for the soul, because when he will allow himself to be blinded by the necessary prickles of his flesh, give in to it and with all his love and his whole thinking and will would completely surrender to it, then he will come under the judgment of his own prince of the lie and darkness out of which it will be very difficult to be saved.
7
And look, what your body is for your soul, that is the Earth for the whole human race. He who will allow himself to be overly blinded and to be captured by the glittering of his treasures, he also will come by his own free will in the judgment and the material death of it, out of which it will still be much more difficult to be freed.
8
However, precisely because men are now capable to draw more and more precious treasures from the Earth to acquire by that the greatest possible prosperity, pleasantness and sensuality, they have strongly intensified the activity of the prince of Hell, which is in itself the eternal judgment and consequently the death of matter and together with that the death of those souls who allowed themselves to be taken prison by the earlier mentioned reasons.
9
With what kind of almightiness and wisdom can you fight against it if you want it to be effective for eternity? I say to you and to you all: with nothing else except with the truth that I have taught you and with the power of extreme self-denial and the true and full humility of the heart.
10
Strive only for that which you recognize as truth, and then act according to it and not out of appearance for some worldly reason like the temple servants and also many gentiles are doing. Then by that, you will have conquered in yourself the complete Hell and its prince. All evil spirits that are present in all matter will not be able to harm you anymore. And even if an endless great number from the whole great Man of Creation would attack you, then they nevertheless will have to flee away from you as loose chaff and as desert sand for the mighty storm.
11
But if the treasures of the Earth are holding you captive, so that you in order to possess them, would also deny the recognized truth, then you are already conquered in your soul by the power of Hell and its prince who carries the name of lie and darkness, judgment, destruction and death.
12
Look at our 7 Egyptians. They know all the great treasures that are hidden in the interior of the Earth, and would also be able to make them useful in great quantity. But they are despising them and prefer to live very simple and are only searching for the treasures for the spirit. That is why they still have kept the true, primitive qualities of men by which they are true rulers and commanders over the whole nature, which certainly would not be the case if they ever had allowed themselves to be captured by the enticements of the nature.
13
When a father of a family and master of the house wants to keep the right and good order in his house, then he must not be familiar with his personnel and always give in to their weaknesses of all kind. Because if he will do that, he will become a prisoner of his unreliable domestic staff, and when he would say then to one of them: "do this' or 'do that', will the servants, who have received power over him, still obey him? Oh no, they will only mock and laugh at him.
14
The same would be the case with a general who would make himself subordinate to his soldiers who can only receive their power and courage from their general. If the enemy would come and he would command the soldiers to attack and defeat the threatening enemy, would the soldiers obey the weakened general? Oh no, they would struggle back and say: 'How do you weakling want to command us? You never had the courage and the will to let us seriously practice the use of the weapons and you only trifled with us as playmates. How can you now command us against the enemy? You have never been our master but we were yours. How can you now suddenly try to be our boss when we were your master since the beginning?'
15
Look, this will happen to everyone who will not from the very first beginning strictly be exhorted by his parents and teachers to deny himself in all possible fleshly desires, so that they would not become lord and master over his soul. Because once these will have power over the person, then he will have a tough job in the future to command all those desires and temptations of his flesh, for they became weak and indulgent and unstable in his weak flesh.
16
However, if a soul will be guided and trained already since his youth according to the truth of the clear mind, in such a way that he will have his flesh more and more under control and then will not allow it more than what it is due from nature according to My order, then self-evidently such a soul will also become indifferent for the whole world with all its treasures and its other temptations. And therefore, the soul who has in this way been purified in the spirit to become strong, is then also not only lord over the desires of his body but also lord over the whole nature of the world and consequently also lord over the entire Hell and its prince of the lie and darkness.
17
Now you know who and what Hell and the prince of the lie and the darkness in fact are and how they can be battled and how they certainly can be conquered. Therefore, act likewise, then you - men on this Earth - will soon and easy have completely destroyed its kingdom, and you will be true lords over the whole Earth and its nature as well as over your own nature."