I say: ‘I have already told you that you always speak according to your worldly understanding; to give the world its peace would mean giving it still more death than it already possesses in all abundance.
‘If you are to help a blind person gain his sight, will he see if you tear out his eyes? Or will the lame ever walk straight if you chop off his bad foot? Or will the mute ever come to speak through your having his tongue cut out? Or can plague be healed with still more plague, a burning house extinguished with still more fire?
‘Look, that is exactly how matters stand with worldly people at this time: they are spiritually dead and have no life within them except animal natural life; their souls are sheer flesh, and their spirit is as good as dead and resembles the spirits that rest in stones and, through their persistence under judgment, chain together the otherwise loose matter, so that from it arise stones of every kind and form, softer and harder, some transparent, some opaque, and of different colors according to the nature of the spirit within.
‘But if you wish to free the spirits in stones from their matter, will you really be able to accomplish this with lukewarm water? Certainly not! I tell you: under such gentle and peaceful treatment the stone will firmly remain what it was and is. A mighty fire must come, so that the spirits in the stone enter into a great struggle; only then do they themselves tear the bonds of their matter and become free! And look, so it must now be here too.
‘What frees the spirits in stone—fire, struggle, mighty pressure, and heavy, hard blows—also awakens and frees the spirits in human hearts that have become hard stones, especially the hearts of the great and rich, who have diamond hearts that no earthly fire can soften.
‘Therefore (Matt. 20:34) mark what I tell you: abandon the ridiculously stupid delusion that I have perhaps come to send worldly people the peace of the earth through you, My disciples and servants—but the sword.
‘Understand it well! (Matt. 10:35) I have come to stir the still softer son against the often all too unbending hardness of his father, the modest daughter against her domineering mother, (Matt. 10:36) and the gentler daughter-in-law against her avaricious and envious mother-in-law! Yes, a person’s worst enemies should be the members of his own household! (Matt. 10:37)
‘Truly, truly, I tell you: whoever loves his father and his mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever has sons and daughters and loves them (Matt. 10:38) more than Me is not worthy of Me! Whoever does not willingly take his burden upon his shoulders, even though it presses upon him like the Roman cross of death, and follow Me, is certainly altogether unworthy (Matt. 10:39) of Me! And he shall have no share in the kingdom of God.
‘Truly, I tell you: whoever seeks the life of this world and also finds it easily will lose eternal life, and I shall not awaken him on the Last Day to eternal life immediately after the falling away of the body, but cast him into hell to eternal death!
‘But whoever not only does not seek worldly life, but flees and despises it out of true, pure love for Me, will find eternal life; for I shall raise him at once after the death of his body, as on its last day of the new life in the spirit world, and shall lead him into My eternal kingdom and adorn his head with the crown of eternal, imperishable wisdom and love. He will then rule with Me and all the angels of the eternally endless heaven over the entire world of the senses and of spirits forever!’