Simon Peter says, ‘Lord, who will leave You, who will not wish to serve You? For You alone have words of life such as never came from a human mouth before You. Ask everything of us, and we will do it; only never ask that we should leave You! But have patience with our great weakness, and strengthen us with the grace of the Father in heaven, which has also wonderfully strengthened You, so that You now stand, teach and work wholly one with Your Father in heaven.
‘But as You taught us on the mountain, we too will always ask in Your name and say: “Father in heaven, Your kingdom come and Your holy will be done! And as we forgive those who have done us harm, so do You also forgive us our weaknesses and sins!”’
I say, ‘Simon, look, this language pleases Me better than your earlier defense of the law and its sanction. What use to a land or kingdom is peace and order achieved through the harshest compulsion? For a while it may work. But when it becomes too much for the devils who are pressed too hard, they will rise up and trample laws and lawmakers underfoot with dreadful scorn. For whoever still has to be held and guided by force is still a devil. Only whoever lets himself be guided by love, gentleness and patience is like an angel of God and worthy to be a child of the Most High!
‘Through love you accomplish everything, but through force the devil is only awakened from his sleep! What good can then come upon the earth from the human being?
‘It is therefore infinitely better that love and gentleness grow among people and remain awake at all times, and thereby compel the devils to sleep and rest so that they do not harm the earth, than that one should awaken the devils with the resounding clamor of force and they then ruin the earth and everything upon it! Tell Me what you can and wish to object to in this!’
Simon Peter says, ‘Lord, there is nothing more to object to here, for there everything is clear and readily understandable. But how many of the people living on earth know anything of this holy truth? Lord, look, here there are legions of angels from the heavens. Send them to all people throughout the earth and have such truth proclaimed to everyone! If this happened, I think it would at last become brighter and better on the sinful ground of the earth!’
I say, ‘You think according to your understanding, but I must be of another opinion here. Look, a thousand times as many angels as you see here are constantly with people and act upon their inner feelings and senses, in such a way that a person does not thereby knowingly come under any compulsion, and could therefore, without injury to his freedom, accept and follow such thoughts, wishes and impulses entirely as his own. But what happens?
‘In secret people do indeed think well, have good wishes and make praiseworthy resolutions. But when it comes to acting accordingly, they look to the world, its goods and the deceptive needs of their flesh, and do and act accordingly, wickedly and full of selfishness!
‘I will bring before you many thousands who are nothing but evildoers and ask them whether they do not know that they do evil; and they will all tell you that they know it! But if you ask them why they do evil, many will say, “Because it gives us pleasure,” and others will say, “We would indeed like to do good, but since others do evil, we do the same!” Still others will say, “We certainly know the good, but are not able to practice it, for our nature resists it, and we must hate whoever has offended us!”
‘Look, more such answers will come to you, and from them you will surely see only too soon that even the evildoers marked out as the very worst are not without knowledge of what is good and true, and yet still do evil!
‘But if people do evil against their innermost knowledge, what can be expected of knowledge that has entered them from outside? Yes, from now on knowledge of what is good and true will also be given to people from the heavens from outside, and for it they will kill Me and you and many who will teach them to do good and to leave off and avoid evil!’
Simon says, ‘Lord, if that is so, then the whole world had better belong entirely to the devil! What does such a human world matter, which never wants to recognize and accept what is good?’
I say, ‘Whoever speaks in great passion as you do is still far from My kingdom. But when I have ascended, you will speak differently! Now, however, evening has come, so let us go into the house and there give refreshment to our weary limbs.’