Sunsets Into Sunrises
Bishop Martin - The Progress of a Soul in the Beyond
- Chapter 10 -
BISHOP MARTIN GOING ASTRAY. - HINTS FROM THE LORD ABOUT SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES.
Whoever is familiar with the spiritual compass will soon notice that our man, instead of turning toward noon, is walking straight toward evening. He marches boldly along, but sees nothing except the fairly level ground, covered by sparse moss and a greyish light where the horizon seems to be getting darker the farther he proceeds toward evening.
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This growing darkness begins to puzzle him, but it does not keep him from walking on in that direction because his cognition and faith are practically nil, and what is left is some false reasoning against the pure Word of the Gospel, a clearly antichristian attitude, and a hatred of sects hidden behind a humorous mask.
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Therefore, the bishop's walk toward evening and the sparsely moss-covered ground signifies the dryness and meagerness of My Word in his heart. And the ever-growing darkness is due to the fact that the little respected and even less heeded Word of God (to which bishops of this kind, in red and golden robes, bow merely for the sake of appearance) in him never developed that warmth of life which could generate the glorious light of the eternal morning for the soul.
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In the spirit world, people of this type must be faced with the greatest apparent destitution and the darkest night; only then does it become possible to change them. Difficult as it would be, already in this world, to lead such a bishop onto the path of a true disciple, in the other world it is even harder, for there, as a spirit, he cannot be influenced from the outside whilst in him there is only error, false reasoning, and lust for power.
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However, My mercy can achieve what normally would be impossible. Therefore, let us look at this man and see where his inclinations would lead him, but what My mercy can do if the worst comes to the worst, without interfering with his spiritual freedom. This mercy will be extended to him because, at one stage, he asked Me to help and hold him. But the force of My mercy cannot take hold of him until he has rid himself of the junk of false ideas and hidden evil within him, which is becoming apparent in the utter darkness that will surround him.
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So now let us watch our wanderer. He is proceeding with slow and careful steps, scanning the ground to make sure it is firm enough to carry him; for the ground is gradually turning boggy which means that his fundamentally false concepts will soon be flowing into an unfathomable sea of secrecy. Therefore, various smaller swamps of secrecy are already becoming apparent - a state which on earth often becomes manifest when people do not want to listen to talk about life of the spirit in the hereafter, claiming that such talk only confuses and worries them, and that brooding over such things could easily cause a person to become mentally unbalanced.
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This reluctance only shows that the spirit has stepped onto very boggy ground, where no one has the courage to measure the uncertain depths of such swamps with his much too short measure of cognition for fear of sinking into the unfathomable.
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Look, the ground carrying our man is beginning to show more and more pools of water, with only narrow strips of apparent soil between them. This corresponds to the fanciful drivel of a spiritually ignorant person confessing God with his mouth only, whilst in his heart he is actually an atheist.
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This is the ground on which our man is walking, and so are many millions! The strips of firm soil between the pools are growing narrower and the latter deeper and deeper and desperately unfathomable for his cognition. He is already swaying like a person balancing over a narrow plank bridge across a torrent. Still he does not stop; a sort of deceptive curiosity leads him on, looking for an imaginary end of the spirit world on the one hand but, secretly, also hoping to find the beautiful sheep and lambs which are still on his mind.
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Everything that might remind him of them has been removed; the book, the meadow, the rock (representing a stumbling block), and the sheep and lambs, which latter had a lot of attraction for him in the world supplying amusement and diversion. That is also why the angel Peter produced them with a view to revealing his weakness to him.
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This shows us what is driving our man until he will reach the endless sea, where it will become apparent: "This far and no farther your blindness, ignorance, and utter foolishness will lead you!"
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So let him stagger on to the extreme land spit of his drivel, which is not far away. There we shall overhear all the follies he will be ejecting into the sea of his spiritual night.
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And let each of you search into his own secret foolish inclinations to prevent him from entering upon the desolate path of this wanderer!