Literal sense of the Word in the writtings of E.Swedenborg…
‘… if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.’ Judges 16:17
Dear G., good afternoon to you, how are you?!! 🙂
Please don’t worry about ‘the timing’ of your answer, I knew that sooner or later you will be back with it…
… which I also read… and, of course, I agree wholeheartedly with your basic attitude in ‘willingness to be helpful’ issue…
But, my whole point here was = I was aiming at the following, namely, that somehow and somewhere in the writtings of E.Swedenborg I find the literal sense of the Word to be unjustly neglected, i.e. ‘shaven’, and by that very ‘act’ we are deprived of it’s power which normally would affect us if we ALSO literaly stick to it…
On the other side he did also mentioned many times in his writtings that Word in that sense is in ‘it’s ‘fullness, its holiness and in it’s POWER!’ (for example ‘Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture – 33’; by the way, my new publisher agreed to publish my translations of the ‘4 Doctrines’, so they will appear in my native language early next year; I am truly happy because of that especially because of the one about the SACRED SCRIPTURES, which is book that in my opinion everybody should read and have in their pockets!’; also, in April next year my TCR translation will be completed, so I guess next Autumn this great book will be available to the Croatian people 🙂 )…
In another words, i discovered up till now not just that ‘situation’ about Noah and Enoch to be unjustly ‘de-natualized’ (‘de-naturalize’ = remove natural properties; Babylon Dictionary), but some other situations also… as for example that particular ‘oil and wine’ situation.
But let me explain this further, namely, as I am working also with the healing remedies (collecting healing herbs and roots and producing from them also some elixirs, oils, tinctures etc. etc.)… I know from my study of the related literature that oil and wine are literally applicable in those situations… that very Biblical ‘oil and vine’ remedy was also confirmed through another prophet and visionary, namely Hildegard of Bingen… in her book about healing aids, which she received from Jesus Christ, it is expressly stated that ‘oil and wine’ (in her terms ‘vinum oleatum’) are right remedy in the case of the open wounds…
… in her words, ‘wounds should be carefully cleansed with the wine, and than after it oil should be placed on them together with the bandage’.
***
Another situation which is in every respect similar to that one is one when, ‘Jesus, being crucified, was offered wine mingled with the myrrh’ (Mark 15:23), which He refused…
Now, nowhere in the writtings of E.Swedenborg’s we can found the natural explanation why actually ‘wine mingled with the myrrh’ was offered to Him?!! I made a research and I found that in those times ‘wine mingled with the myrrh’ was actually something like the ‘pain-killer’ which was given to those about to be killed on the cross to appease their pain…to benumb their senses… it is like when in today time ‘morphine’ (myrrh supposedly has the same, but in the lesser degree, properties as morphine) is given to those who are in pain… for example in the last stage of cancer…
Now, through E.Swedenborgs ‘only’ spiritual or ‘de-naturalized’ explanation of the same (see A.E. 519), which is in my opinion most correct, we would never learn what was the NATURAL reason that our Lord and Father refused that ‘offer’, to wit, we will never learn that it is of utmost importance for our soul’s perfection and our body’s spiritualization to FEEL THE PAIN (= all of it) AND ENDURE IT in full consciousness, because in that way not just our soul will mature even more but also our less pure spiritual substances, those in our body, are more quickly spiritualized… which was not just the destiny of Jesus’ body, but of the body of each one of us (against this erroneous statement from ‘Doc. of Life for the New Jerusalem – 35:9’ I already wrote in this group, to Sue, and teaching was called ‘He rose again with His WHOLE body’)…
… remember Enoch and Elliah, they were taken up into heaven with their whole body, which at that time was not material anymore but completely spiritualized same as in the case of Jesus Christ.
Please read the following revelations for your better understanding of that ‘wine and myrrh’ rejection by our Lord:
As received from Jesus Christ by Bertha Dudde,
Revelation nr. 2348, 27.5.1942
Hour of death.…
The soul’s separation from the body is usually a painful experience for the body because a certain degree of maturity is necessary for a painless separation, which is rarely achieved by the person. The human being’s hour of death will always make him aware that he no longer will be able to strive, that he no longer will be able to achieve anything by himself when he has left the human shell. And depending on the state of his soul the hour of death will then become more or less difficult for him. As long as the human being is on earth he still has the choice to purify himself, and the soul in the beyond will thank its Creator for having been given this opportunity before its departure that it will not have to suffer as much in the beyond. Since God is righteous the soul has to accept its fate in the beyond and needs far greater suffering to attain the degree of maturity. Nevertheless it is not possible to enter the spheres of light without it, consequently this higher degree of maturity has to be achieved through suffering and pain and thus a long struggle before death should always be viewed as an ascent. It is true that people only see the state of suffering, which contributes towards their fear of death since the hour of death seems unbearable to them, and yet it is only bestowed upon the human being by the greatest love to provide for him a brighter light in the beyond.
And this love is the foundation of everything.… God only sends suffering and pain to earth for the purpose of removing a person’s physical desires, that he then will pay more attention to his soul and attempt to perfect it. Every suffering which results in this is blessed by God.… Time on earth passes quickly and with good will can be used to abandon everything worldly, then the soul shapes itself in accordance to God’s will and at the end of its earthly life requires no further exceptional suffering to enter the kingdom of light. However, suffering always contributes towards higher maturity and is therefore a blessing for the human being who otherwise would have to dispose of his errors and failings in the beyond which would also be rather wretched.… thus his suffering cannot be prevented even though the hour of death apparently proceeds silently and without pain. God knows every human being’s state of soul and his willingness to fight all impurities; hence He complies with the human being by offering him the opportunity to accomplish his goal.… by allowing the hour of death to be his last opportunity for arriving in eternity purged and purified.… Amen
As received from Jesus Christ by Bertha Dudde,
Revelation nr. 4033, 30.4.1947
Hour of death…. Explanation of suffering….
You never know how your end will happen, and therefore you should call upon God’s mercy every day that you might receive it in the hour of your death. Even if you live in accordance with God’s will your end can be difficult if it is to serve you to completely purify and liberate yourselves forever. God’s wisdom and love is yours until your last hour on this earth, and as long as your souls are still able to change you will be given the opportunity even at the hour of death.
For this reason devoted people often have to suffer in the flesh and cannot find an explanation for it because they are unable to detect God’s love therein. And yet, divine love causes this suffering because it is the best means for the soul to acquire a degree of maturity within a short period of time which allows the light to permeate the soul in the beyond, and the soul will thank its Creator once it is free and recognises God’s great love and mercy. Thus all suffering has to be seen as evidence of God’s love, and even the end is blessed if it is accompanied by suffering, although it does not appear to the human being that way. The soul indeed separates itself from the body with pain, but immediately lifts itself into the kingdom of the blessed spirits. It not only leaves earth physically but also spiritually and also takes the body’s fully matured substances along, because every degree of suffering dissolves the cover which still encloses the soul.
And the person who is still able to free himself completely from immature substances on earth will be blessed…. he will have used his earthly life for his deliverance and will no longer revolt against God’s will either. In the hour of death he will certainly struggle for the peace of his soul but he will never consider his physical suffering to be unjustified, for his soul will know that the end is near, that his physical suffering will also come to an end and that the soul will derive benefit from it even if it is no longer able to convey this realisation to the body. The body, however, will separate itself from the soul as soon as it senses its perfection, because then it will have fulfilled its task of having served as an abode for this soul. The hour of death can be difficult for all of you but it can also be a blissful falling asleep in order to awaken in the kingdom of light if the soul needs no further suffering, if it has already found the union with God on earth and He then brings it home into His kingdom, into your Father’s house, in order to make you blissfully happy. But you do not know how your end will happen, and therefore pray to God for mercy, ask Him for His grace and strength if God still needs to afflict you, and you will also endure the hour of death. The body will suffer but the soul will joyfully leave the body and lift itself into the spheres of light…. Amen
Unfortunatelly, whole E.Swedenborg’s theology lacks this knowledge about our ‘soul being made of innumerable more or less impure spiritual particles’… ‘particles who were in their earlier stage of development’ embodied in, and passed through, some of the forms of the three kingdoms of the nature…
Without that it is impossible to understand all of this (you can ask me about ‘practical application’ of all this, well, imagine that someone in your household lies on the deathbed in pain, and there is a choice to be made instead of him, to benumb his body with some painkillers or leave him to ‘endure’ it’s pain in the fullest possible extent!) …
Already mentioned Sadhu Sundar Singh knew this, it was revealed to him by the angels of the highest heaven during his visits to that world, about which we read:
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY
” Did you learn anything about the resurrection of the body ? ” ” I was told there that Christians leave behind them the physical body. That body is buried, but the spiritual body that is within is then free to come out, and in this we go to the Second or the Third Heaven according to our state of development. At least this is true of the majority of Christians ; but there are grades in the spiritual life, and in the case of some few who have lived very close to Christ this physical body is slowly changed and is taken up into Heaven. It is completely spiritualised, for flesh and blood cannot inherit eternal life, but it is the same physical body only completely transformed. I asked them whether this applied to Enoch and Elijah, who were taken up bodily into Heaven. They told me ` Yes,’ and that it also applied to Moses, and then they pointed out to me Moses and Elijah in Heaven, and they told me that they appeared at the Transfiguration in the same form and aspect in which I saw them then, for in Heaven we no longer change. God buried Moses, but they told me God’s way of burying is not like ours. It is to enfold with a spiritual body. No one can enter into Heaven with a physical body, but in the case of those few that body is transformed ; and this is what happened to the Body of Christ. ” But the majority of ordinary Christians leave the physical body behind and proceed in their spiritual body to the intermediate state or Second Heaven. Here they stay, some a few days, some a few months, some longer, until they are ready for the Third Heaven. Exceptional people, however, like St. Francis of Assisi and the author of The Imitation of Christ, are already so spiritually advanced that they enter the Third Heaven at once.
Consequently, E.Swedenborg’s teaching that ONLY JESUS was the FIRST one Who was ressurected with His whole body, and that HE WOULD BE THE ONLY ONE, was, and still is, not correct (but, I repeat, all this is hardly understandable without that knowledge about ‘elementary particles being alive’ and not ‘completely dead’ as E.Swedenborg wrongly supposed; we already discussed this before, remember?)!
***
Another thing… not knowing this ‘story about the fall of the original spirits, their imprisonment into the matterial universe, and their liberation and redemption through ascension of their soul particles through kingdoms of the nature’, E.Swedenborg conceived a wrong and quite erroneous idea about ‘eternal punishment’…. in another words, ‘once in hell always and forever in hell’ doctrine … which is his greatest error!
Now, even those souls who are most stubborn will be saved at the end… because otherwise they would never been created in the first place… i.e. God would never foresaw their condition and agree upon their creation (= here I agree with W.Blake who in his annotations to E.Swedenborg’s ‘Divine Providence – 277’, said that this ‘wrong doctrine of his equals predestination’; in his own words = text of E.Swedenborg is in italics: ‘…for Death is a Continuation of Life; with this Difference, that then Man cannot be reformed. Predestination after this Life is more Abominable than Calvins & Swedenborg is Such a Spiritual Predestinarian–witness this Number & many others See 69 & 185 & 329 & 307; I explained in what way that act of God-anyway-creating-those-whom-He-foresaw-in-hell would be the predestination in my ‘Mighty to save – 3’ which I also wrote for this group a two years ago where, together with Mighty to save – 1 & 2, this erroneous and misguided doctrine was fully exposed and refuted); funny thing is that in this very moment I am translating the 8th chapter of TCR which is about Free Will and which contains his explanations about ‘predestination’ 🙂 )…
About that ‘re-transformation’ and ‘second opportunity’ even for most wretched souls we read in another Jesus Christ revelation:
“Your soul is made up of innumerable particles, each of them representing an idea originating from Me. Once it has come together, it can become no other than it is, for it will then express the character it has been given. A crystal cannot change its nature once it has crystallized out, crystallizing as a rhombohedron, a hexahedron, an octahedron etc., depending upon which form corresponds to its essential nature, i.e., the cumulation of particles around the center of its life.”
“If a change is to be effected, because the crystals have turned out not to be entirely pure, they will have to be dissolved through warmth (love), to crystallize out anew as the warm water of love is cooling, which is equivalent to their will being released. Now beautiful new crystals are forming again, and any careful chemist will know how to achieve the most beautiful crystals possible, large and transparent, as meets his purpose.”
“You see, I am such a chemist! I dissolved the crystals that had become impure (Lucifer and his followers) in the warm waters of love, and then let these souls crystallize out again, that they might be crystal clear. You know that this happens in the ascent through the mineral and the plant kingdoms to man.’
As received from Jesus Christ by Leopold Engel, and written in ‘The Great Gospel of John – book 11’
Etc. etc. …
***
Another example where in Swedenborg’s revelation ‘we as readers’ suffer becaue literal sense is neglected, is for example this one:
‘But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ Matthew 5:39
You will find nowhere in his writings an exhortation to ‘stick literally’ to this advice of our Lord… but instead we read:
‘That these words are not to be understood according to the letter, is evident to every one; for who is under any obligation from Christian love, to turn the left cheek to him who strikes the right…’ AE 556:8
But, dear G., through another greater than great Apostle we learn something completely different:
‘An eyewitness reported his experience with Sundar, “I encountered Sundar Singh as he was walking down a mountain trail to proclaim the Gospel to us. He then sat on top of a tree, wiped the sweat off his face and sang a hymn about the love of Jesus to us. The audience was not impressed by the song. One man came forward from the audience, pulled Sundar down from the tree and knocked him to the ground. Silently, Sundar got to his feet and began praying for these hostile people. He then told us about the love of Jesus who had died to redeem all sinners. Because of that I repented and so did the attacker.” That was not the only time when Sundar won souls for the Lord by adhering to Jesus’ instruction which says, “Do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, let him slap your left cheek too.” (Matthew 5:39).
One day in Nepal, Sundar was ambushed by four robbers in the middle of a jungle. One of them brandished a sword. Meekly, Sundar bowed his head thinking that his life was about to end. This attitude surprised the perpetrators. Since he was penniless, they took his blanket away from him and let him go. But then, one of the robbers called him back and curiously asked his name. Sundar introduced himself, opened his Bible and started telling him the story of the rich man and Lazarus the poor. The robber said that the end of the rich man’s life was unpleasant and asked what would happen to himself. Sundar then told him about the Gospel and God’s forgiveness. The robber took Sundar home with him and repented.
It was actually his 100% adherence to the literal sense of the Gospels that MADE Sundar Singh the greatest Apostle who walked the Earth after Jesus Christ!
His life is absolutely full of these situations produced by his literal ‘understanding’ of, and ‘faithfull adherence’ to the Jesus’ Words.
I mean, his life-long 100% literal adherence to Jesus orders as given to the Apostles (Mark 6:7-9) before He send them to preach the Gospel is a true Divine poetry!!
Not to mention that ‘he was indeed poisoned but he surviverd because He believed and He was baptized’, also that he ‘slept few times without him knowing, next and on the deadly snakes, as cobras, and they hurt him not’, also, ‘he indeed used to heal only by touching those who were ill’ (Mark 16:17, 18), etc. etc.
How I wish that you would take your time and learn about him and his most extraordinary life…
***
And yet another thing… this time in relation to the Second Coming of the Lord, which, as we all know, in E.Swedenborg’s theology is connected ONLY with the spiritual or inner realm… not with the natural too… which is again one quite serious omission, because we are about to witness the End of the natural Earth or, in another words, a complete transformation of the surface of the same… LITERALLY.
And before that, Jesus Christ will INDEED appear on the ‘clouds’… as He Himself testifies (the other day, while reading the Acts of the Apostles, I found that He actually was taken up into the clouds, which received him, before the eyes of the Apostles who beheld all of that literally!! = Acts 1:9, 10 = so please note that in below revelation nr. 7944 Jesus Christ said the following words: ‘… I will descend to earth in the same way as I once ascended to heaven…. that My Own will see Me in brilliance and glory, just as My disciples once saw Me…’):
As received from Jesus Christ by Bertha Dudde,
Revelation Nr. 7944, July 18th 1961
Coming in the clouds….
You all should know that I will return in the clouds…. that I will descend to earth in the same way as I once ascended to heaven…. that My Own will see Me in brilliance and glory, just as My disciples once saw Me, and that I will take My Own from earth because the day of the end has come…. Admittedly, prior to that I already descended to earth in the Word, for I Am the Word Myself (this ‘descent in the Word’ which equals the first phase of the Second Advent, actually begins with E.Swedenborg!), and have given you the promise that I will stay with you until the end of the world…. but My obvious appearance will not happen yet, for it will constitute the end of one and the beginning of a new earthly period….
My coming in the clouds has to be understood literally, yet only few will see Me, for My flock is small and only My Own will be able to endure seeing Me, I will only be visible to My Own and allow them to behold My might and glory…. And this shall be your hope in hours of hardship and affliction by hostile powers to God…. for in the end everything will be hostile to God, the rulers and their followers, the people who take their side in the battle of faith. They all will take action against you, who want to remain loyal to Me and persevere to the end…. They will put you under great pressure and then you shall hope for My coming, for I will not leave you in distress of body and soul, I will save you and lift you to a place of peace, and your faith will be so strong that I will be able to show Myself when I come in the clouds in order to judge the living and the dead…. Then the great separation of the spirits will take place and My adversary will no longer have control over you…. For he and his adherents will be bound for a long time. Only few people sincerely believe that My return is imminent…. But the time is fulfilled and I no longer say: I will come when the time is fulfilled, but I say: the time is fulfilled…. You can only count on a very short time, on just a few days, compared to the long period of time that has passed since an ‘end’ was prophesied. You are living in the last days even if you refuse to believe it….
My coming is soon about to happen to you…. Hence take care that you, too, belong to the chosen ones who will experience My coming while still in the flesh, who may behold Me in all My radiance and glory, whom I will lift to heaven just before the end…. Just want to belong to them and, truly, I will give you the strength to turn your will into action. Let Me speak to you time and again and always strive to accept My will and you will establish a connection with Me, you will join Me and also be counted as My Own whom I will rescue before the end happens. For it is certain that I will come Myself…. And you should also believe, without a shadow of doubt, that all of you with a living faith and who approach Me with love, will be able to behold Me, for My Word is truth and will come to pass.
People who deny ‘My coming’, who only want to understand and explain this arrival figuratively, are not yet as profoundly devoted as to be united with Me, but the immense earthly hardship before the end will still strengthen their faith if they are of good will. And they themselves will pray for My coming, because they will realise that only I can provide the rescue which they cannot expect from another side any longer…. You should believe that I will save you from utmost adversity and await the hour when My promise fulfils itself. And then My adversary will be defeated, yet with him also his many followers, who will be taken in by the earth again…. Therefore hope and persevere, for the hour of your deliverance will come, the day of separating the spirits will arrive…. There will be an earthly and spiritual change which you will experience and which has been constantly proclaimed to you in Word and Scripture…. Amen
***
As received from Jesus Christ by Bertha Dudde, Revelation Nr. 8743, February 3rd 1964
Explanation about the coming of the Lord….
I want to give you an important spiritual explanation which is intended to benefit your soul: I want to open up an area for you which you would never be able to enter without the working of My spirit, for I want to introduce you to a world which is only comprehensible to the spiritually awakened person, since it already requires a certain amount of knowledge of things which otherwise are completely unfamiliar to the human being. I have promised you that I will return to earth when the day of the end has come…. This promise, however, has given rise to the most diverse notions in you humans, yet the true explanation has evaded you, precisely because the process of My second coming has been presented in so many different ways and…. just as the process of My Own’s rapture…. at different times, thus resulting in wrong claims which I want to correct:
My second coming to earth will not take place physically…. such that My feet will touch this earth, instead I will appear with an entourage of the most elevated beings of light and will be visible to all who are My Own, for no human being having devoted himself to My adversary will ever be able to behold Me in all My glory, for the darkness cannot see the light since people would completely cease to exist, being unable to endure the radiance coming forth from Me. Hence I will come to earth and also to My Own still concealed in the clouds, yet they will be able to bear an abundance of light and thus they will highly delightedly rejoice when they see Me with the great host of angels…. For I will open their eyes to see…. Hence it is wrong to say that everyone will see Me when I come to judge the living and the dead, for the ‘Judgment’ will not happen such that every individual person has to be answerable to Me. For I know every individual soul, I know to whom it belongs, and since the last Judgment on this earth is a matter of transforming the entire earth and dissolving its separate creations so that all spiritual substances are released to be placed into new forms (‘generation which will not pass until all is fulfilled’ is not the generation of men who lived then with Jesus, but ‘generation of all spirituals under the judgment in this now about to end the Period of Salvation!’), this dissolution also denotes the death of people who had failed their last test of earthly life and had handed themselves over to My adversary…. Hence these will be faced by death and unable to escape, which will generate intense panic amongst people…. Yet prior to this final work of destruction My Own will be lifted away….
I will come to fetch them Myself, they will be allowed to behold Me as I descend to them from above, rejoicing elatedly and with burning love for Me they will longingly stretch out their hands to Me, and I will draw them to Me, I will take them away, I will lift them up (1 Thessalonians 4:17), and thus they will experience a process which completely contradicts natural law…. And this jubilation by My Own will be heard by other people who are at first unable to understand it since they won’t see anything themselves. Consequently they will merely be seized by a certain apprehension, which will turn into extreme fear and horror when they see My Own suddenly disappear, when they can’t understand why they are no longer able to reach the people they had pursued with their hatred…. why they are no longer amongst them and cannot be found….
There will certainly be radiating brightness, but the pursuers will find it intolerable. Yet they will not have much time to think about it because the end will follow soon…. And the radiant brightness will give way to an almost impenetrable darkness that will drive people to despair. This will be followed by eruptions, outbreaks of fires, splits will occur in the earth so that no person can save himself and everything will be devoured by the earth….
Not much time will pass between the My Own’s rapture and this final destruction, for the rapture would force the remaining people to believe and this would be entirely worthless as it would exclude a free decision. People will have had adequate time before and will have been constantly admonished and forewarned, and anyone still coming to his senses before will also still be accepted and called away before the breakdown of earth, so that he can be helped to progress in the beyond. This act of the rapture is a completely unnatural process, but then I will be able to waive the laws of nature because it will no longer disadvantage anyone’s soul…. But even My coming in the clouds will no longer compel people to believe because those who will see Me will have already attained maturity of soul so that they will merely experience the fulfilment of what they firmly believed and therefore anticipated My arrival on a daily basis.
People rarely accept a correct explanation especially about these last events because they have already formed their own concepts about it and don’t want to let go of their ideas…. The rapture cannot possibly take place a longer time in advance because such unlawful occurrences would force people to change their mind…. And the end of this earth in any case means the end of everyone who is still alive, for even My Own will experience it, only they will be in a state devoid of all suffering, even though they will be able to follow the process, because this is My will…. Since they will then be completely devout they shall also experience My might and glory, and thus they will also be able to behold My great host of angels surrounding Me, and then they will also be suitable ancestral parents to populate the new earth (= again, HE is speaking about literal New Earth!!), which indeed will also be the work of an instant for Me when I want to give the liberated spiritual essence a new external shape for further maturing….
But the people themselves will have lost all awareness of time until they are returned to the new earth again…. Nevertheless, they will still possess their old body of flesh albeit it will be quite spiritualised already…. This, too, has to be said in order to refute the misguided opinion that the new earth will be populated by completely spiritualised beings…. For the new earth is intended to become a place for higher development again and the old laws will be applicable to the new earth too…. The process of the fallen spirits through the creations up to the human being will take place and the person as such will have to pass the last test of will again (= New Period of Salvation; dear G., if you are by any chence intrigued by this revelation and you want to know more about this Plan of Salvation, please let me know and I will re-send you mine ‘He rose with His WHOLE body…’ teaching!)…. which in the beginning will certainly lead to success because there will be no temptations by the adversary, who is bound for a long time…. and because people are full of love they will establish a direct contact with Me and therefore attain full maturity very quickly…. You should not let wrong descriptions tempt you into neglecting or postponing your psychological work, for I will abide by the day when I will come in the clouds and with this day will also come the Last Judgment on this earth…. Amen
***
As received from Jesus Christ by Bertha Dudde, Revelation Nr. 3557, September 24th 1945
Coming in the clouds…. Rapture….
An unusual roar will fill the air as the Day of Judgment arrives. And this will be the last sign for people, yet it will only be recognised as such by the believers, which will cause them great joy. For then they will be anticipating the coming of the Lord…. It requires a strong faith to expect God to be coming in the clouds, for this is such an extraordinary process that godless people just ridicule and make fun of it when it is mentioned to them. They will indeed hear the sound, too, yet they won’t see the Lord in the clouds and thus take little notice of the unusual noise in the air and won’t let themselves be distracted from their lives…. exuberantly and without scruples they will continue to enjoy themselves. The faithful, however, will get together and, with a happy heart, prepare themselves to receive the Lord. They will have reached the limit of their physical endurance and know that their time of suffering has come to an end, and in the final hour they will unanimously profess their faith in God although it will mean the loss of their earthly life, because they will be mercilessly attacked by the world. Yet the appearance of the Lord will thwart the plans of their godless pursuers…. For suddenly they will see the believers being lifted off the ground and rising into the air…. At the same time there will be a sound of dreadful thunder and people will realise with dismay that something dreadful is going to happen. Paralysed by the unusual process of the rapture they will be unable to think, they will try to flee and see the same everywhere…. flames of fire bursting through the earth from which there is no escape. And their life will end in a most dreadful way, for the people who rage on earth like devils and are rife with sin cannot be saved.
But the flock of the faithful will witness the end of the old earth; the divine work of destruction will take place before their eyes, while they will have escaped and will be safe and secure in a place of peace, as promised by God. This will be the end of one period of Salvation and the start of a new one as soon as the old earth is shaped anew through God’s will. Then the faithful will continue to live as the root of the new human race and the new period of Salvation will begin. The process of rapture is only understandable and therefore credible to a knowing and profoundly enlightened person, yet it will be the culmination of an anxious time of hardship and suffering, it will be the conclusion and the evidence of God’s glory, Who will also prepare a fate for His Own which testifies of His glory…. It will be an act of profoundly divine love for His living creations who will recognise in Him their Father of eternity, who will have returned to Him and become as one with Him through love…. with whom He will then be able to stay because divine love meets with no obstacle once the human being has become love himself…. Amen
***
As received from Jesus Christ by Bertha Dudde, Revelation Nr. 3707, March 8th 1946
Coming in the clouds…. Last days….
My coming in the clouds will be preceded by a time of the most awful suffering ever seen on earth, as proclaimed in Word and Scripture. I will constantly draw people’s attention to this and have done so ever since the start of this era in order to strongly advise those who are not walking the right path to change their mind. For the sake of these humans I used to occasionally let plagues come upon earth to remind them of the approaching end so that they seriously consider their souls and change themselves. But the last days had not yet arrived, the period of redemption had not yet reached the time chosen by Me in accordance with My plan of eternity. The earth was not yet ready for the last work of destruction, neither were people’s souls ready for their total downfall, i.e. for their banishment into the creations of a new earth…. But My prophecies would always fulfil themselves in times of greatest spiritual hardship…. when increased affliction and misery came upon earth, so that during each time of such hardship the approaching end had to be dreaded. And it was My intention that the precise time of the last days should always remain hidden from people…. Such times of need were also more or less successful for the people involved as they found their way back to Me and entered into a different relationship with Me than before. But they became ever more persistent, and their distance, their opposition, from Me grew ever larger….
And thus the time has arrived when no description, no admonition and warning will have an effect, when humanity remains unimpressed even in the light of utmost worldly suffering, i.e. when the latter does not lead to people recognising Me and entering into the right relationship with Me…. Their will remains opposed to Me, they are purely earthly minded and do not strive for any kind of spiritual progress. No adversity, irrespective of how harsh it is, will be able to change people’s thoughts, and thus the time of the end has irrevocably come, as I have known since eternity…. The earth has ceased to be a place of spiritual education for its inhabiting humanity, and as a result it will be dissolved and its creations totally reshaped, so that a new period of redemption can begin…. And thus enormous suffering will come upon earth, so that the last people can still gather who recognise My voice therein. And even My Own will have to experience this suffering, although extraordinarily strengthened by Me but also affected by it so that they longingly anticipate My coming, which I always and forever proclaimed for the end of this earth. And when the hardship gets unbearable, when the believers find themselves in greatest distress and see no earthly way of rescue, I will come Myself….
And there will be rejoicing amongst My Own when they see Me in all glory, but for their physical eyes still veiled by clouds which soften the intensity of My light, so that My Own, who still belong to the earth, will be able to endure Me. They will be triumphant and shout for joy because My Word has come true…. But the immense hardship, which I have announced time and again through My seers and prophets, through My servants on earth, will have strengthened their faith. Because everything will come to pass as I have foretold, and thus they will wait for My coming in the clouds with complete confidence…. And yet I will arrive suddenly and unexpected even for My Own…. For I will shorten the days of suffering because they will become intolerable and I do not want My Own to grow faint-hearted in view of the immense difficulties. And thus I will take them into My realm at the right time, and then the end will come…. Because My Word is truth and will come to pass, and the time of the last days has arrived…. Amen
Now, to conclude all of this dear G., my point was and still is that the ‘Word, which is essentially the Divine work, was designed for the salvation of the mankind’ (Doctrine of the Sacred Scriptures – 32’) and it is quite important to know and understand in what relation to our daily spiritual and natural life stands its literal sense.
May peace of our beloved Jesus Christ
Rest upon your soul dear G.
Lorens 🙂
(December 17, 19, 2008)