The Great Gospel of John
Volume 10
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord in Aphek
- Chapter 97 -
The right searching for God.
You also said that you do not care anymore for any deity because you searched already for so long for a true deity and despite your zealous searching not one came ever not even a bit close to you.
2
Although you zealously searched for yourself a long time for a true deity, you still did not see any. But you also should realize that you searched for the true deity only very one-sidedly and selfishly. You only wanted to be sure yourself that there is a true deity as a great life's friend for you and that the soul of man continues to live forever after the death of the body, but the people had to languish in their old foolishness and complete blindness and had to make offerings to you priests just like before.
3
With the one, only true God however, a priest is not in the least given any preference compared even to the most insignificant person of the people. With God there is no hierarchy among men. To Him emperor and beggar are on one and the same level. Only that person will be favored by God who truthfully recognizes Him, who then loves Him above all, his fellowman as himself and who keeps the commandments of God as they were given by Moses, being humble in everything and who will not want from anyone something that is unjustified, that is in contradiction with the order and in contradiction with the will of God, neither with violence or cunningly, for all these deeds are an abomination in the eyes of God.
4
But you priests always shamelessly lied to the people and deceived them. And thus you surely will realize now why the one and only true deity did not want to let Himself be found by you despite all your searching, because He saw all too clearly that solely out of worldly considerations you would leave the people in the old darkness, as this was also the case with many priests in Egypt.
5
These knew about the one, only true God, but the common people had to believe what they were impressed on them to believe. And since these priests behaved that way, God struck them also with blindness, and in this blindness you are still now and will remain for a long time if you will not turn away from the world and begin to search God, His spiritual Kingdom and its pure justice with the right and in every respect completely true motivation.
6
Whoever will not search God with all love, meekness, humility, patience and complete self-denial, will not find the One who is the greatest value of life. And whoever will not search and find God in this manner can also not expect exceptional help from Him.
7
Although God, in His immense love, takes care of all people, as He also takes care of all creatures in the endless big universe according to His eternal, unchangeable order, He only takes care in a special and exceptional way of those who truly recognize Him, do His will that was revealed to them and truly love Him above all in all their actions.
8
You really searched the one, only true God for a long time with great zeal, but ask yourself now if you ever searched God in the manner that I have shown you now.
9
I say to you: not the one who says: 'Lord, Lord, where are You? When I as Your creature am searching You and call upon You from the dark deepness of the night of my life, why do You not let Yourself be found, and why do You not answer me by saying 'Here I am?', will find God the Lord and come to Him, but only the one who searches God in the manner that I have shown you now.
10
Look, you read Moses and the prophets, and you clearly saw what God wants from men in the spoken-out, well-known 10 commandments, and you liked these commandments so much that you very often said within yourself: 'Truly, in the whole world there are no laws that are wiser, more suitable for the true happiness and well being of all men, and one can justly assume that they really come from a divine Being.'
11
But if you could say this within yourself, why did it not come once into your mind to put these laws into practice with yourself? If you would have done that, you would have found God already, but you found all kinds of worldly reasons not to put these laws into practice, although you admired them.
12
Let these laws from now on become deeds with you, indemnify everyone as good as possible what you did wrong to them, and have for the being the firm will to do this. Then you quickly and easily will find the One whom you sought in vain for so long."