Thus spoke the Lord to and in me (Jakob Lorber) for everyone, and this is true, faithful, and certain:
Whoever wishes to speak with Me, let him come to Me, and I will place the answer into his heart; yet only the pure, whose heart is full of humility, shall hear the sound of My voice.
And whoever prefers Me to all the world, loves Me as a tender bride loves her bridegroom, with him I will walk arm in arm. He will behold Me at all times as one brother beholds another brother, and as I beheld him already from eternity before he yet was.
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Great Gospel of John, Volume 1, Chapter 45
Nathanael’s modesty, an exemplary apostolic confession:
‘Up to this point I have had to speak with you; from here onward everything lies in the Lord’s hand. What He wills, that we too will will and do. For all of us are still very poor in spirit; therefore we must remain with Him so that the Kingdom of Heaven may become ours. With the Lord we also want to bear every suffering and every persecution, so that in and through Him we may have the right consolation. In His name we want to be gentle in all our thoughts, judgments, wishes, and desires and in all our doing and refraining, so that we may become rightful possessors of the true earth, which is pure love of God in our hearts.
Nor do we wish to fear the land where things are hard and unjust; we shall hunger and thirst for true justice, for we have with us the One who can truly satisfy us therein forever!
But we ourselves want to be full of mercy toward everyone, whether he treats us justly or unjustly, so that before the eyes of the Lord we may be deemed all the more worthy of God’s great mercy!
Likewise, as far as possible, everywhere, as here before you, we want to keep our hearts free of every impurity, so that the Lord does not depart from us when we behold Him; for with an impure heart one cannot draw near to God and behold in spirit and in all truth His face and the fullness of the wonders of His works!
But if we are pure in heart, then we must also be peaceable, patient, and gentle toward everyone, for an angry heart can never be pure, because anger always springs from the ground of pride. But if we are of a peaceable heart, then we can quite confidently draw near as children to the One who brought us childship of God and taught us to pray to God Himself as our Father.
If, in your opinion, we are persecuted in other lands and places because of our surely most righteous cause, that matters nothing, my friend; for in return we have Him and through Him the heaven of heavens! And thus we are already blessed here, supremely blessed, whether people love us or despise and persecute us for His sake, for He is Lord over all and everything! For He whom all heavens obey and are always ready to serve, as we convinced ourselves yesterday and on earlier occasions, Him above all we too serve, and this alone is already our highest reward and highest honor! Therefore do not worry about us, for we know and recognize where we stand!’
The chief priest was greatly astonished by this speech full of determination and said: ‘Truly, if I were not needed here and did not have wife and children and some other things, I myself would go with you!’
Nathanael says: ‘But we have left wives, children, and possessions and followed Him, and our wives and children still live! I tell you according to my understanding: Whoever in this world cannot leave anything, whatever it may be, out of love for Him, is not worthy of His grace! Whether that offends you or not, it is simply so! For my heart tells me this, and in the heart all is truth once the spirit within it has awakened to living thought in God. He does not need us; but we need Him.
Have you ever helped Him lift the great sun above the broad horizon and spread its heavenly light over the wide Earth? Or have you ever seen, much less forged, the bonds which the Lord lays upon the winds, how He holds the lightning and the mighty thunder and the sea in its depths?! Who can say that he has ever helped the Lord in anything?! If this is so, who, when the Lord tells him to follow Him, can still think of his wife, his children, his possessions and not follow Him, the Lord of all life, all heavens and all worlds, wholly and unconditionally—the One for whom we have hoped so long that He would come, and who now has come exactly in the manner in which all prophets and patriarchs prophesied of Him?!’
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Great Gospel of John, Volume 1, Chapter 72
The journey is now begun, and the commander, together with his healed wife and two of his chief subordinate commanders, accompanies Me. The commander and his wife take Jonael between them, converse with him, and question him about various matters of the Jewish religion and what in it might refer to Me; and the paralytic healed in the first little village takes the most attentive interest in this conversation. But I walk among Jonael’s seven daughters and his wife. They too ask Me about various things that will soon come upon the world, upon Jerusalem, and upon Rome. And I give them kind answers and show them how the secret prince of the world will soon be judged and shortly thereafter everything that belongs to his following. At the same time I also show them the end of the world and a general judgment like that in the days of Noah, and they ask Me in deep astonishment when and how such things will happen.
But I say to them: ‘My dear daughters! As it was in the time of Noah, so it will be then as well; love will diminish and grow completely cold, faith in a pure doctrine of life and knowledge of God revealed to human beings from the heavens will be transformed into the darkest dead superstition full of falsehood and deceit, and the rulers will again use people like animals and will have them slaughtered in cold blood and without conscience if they do not submit without contradiction to the will of dazzling power! The powerful will torment the poor with every kind of oppression and will persecute and suppress every freer spirit by all means, and through this a tribulation will come upon human beings such as there has never yet been on Earth! But then the days will be shortened for the sake of the many chosen ones who will be found among the poor; for if this did not happen, even the chosen ones could perish!
But from now until then a thousand years, and not another full thousand years, will pass! Then I will send those same angels, as you now see them here, among the poor people with great trumpets of summons! They will, as it were, awaken the people of Earth who have been made dead in spirit from the graves of their night; and like a pillar of fire rolling from one end of the world to the other, these many millions of awakened ones will rush upon all the powers of the world, and no one will any longer be able to resist them! From then on the Earth will again become a paradise, and I will guide My children on the right path forever.
But after that, following the course of a thousand years, the prince of night will once be set free for his own sake for only a very short time of seven years and some months and days, either for his complete fall or for a possible return.
In the first case, the Earth will then be transformed in its innermost part into an eternal prison; but the outer Earth will remain a paradise. In the second case, however, the Earth would be transformed into heaven, and the death of flesh and soul would disappear forever!—But how, and whether?!—Not even the first angel of the heavens may know that beforehand; the Father alone knows it. But what I have now revealed to you, tell no one beforehand until, after a few earthly years, you have heard that I have been lifted up from the Earth!’
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Great Gospel of John, Volume 3, Chapter 209
‘Those who have taken hold of Me in their hearts will also be taken hold of by Me; but whoever has taken hold of Me can indeed let Me go again, yet he will never again be let go by Me. For My love does not endure only for a time, but eternally; and whoever has received it into his heart can never again become free of Me for eternity! For My love holds him firmly in rein forever, so that he can never again wander completely away from Me.
And so it will also be with you! You will indeed be placed in circumstances and conditions of the world in which it will become somewhat difficult for you to confess My name and remain firm in faith—for shortly things will happen, because they must happen, that will make you weak in faith concerning Me—but at the right time I will strengthen you again and fully illuminate the little chamber of your heart. After that you will no longer fall into temptation because of My name, but from then on remain in My love and in My power.’
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