The Great Gospel of John
Volume 9
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord in the region of Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 181 -
The greatest obstacle for spiritual growth.
I said: "Yes, My friend, for people like you, you would be right, but it will not work out as well here as you think.
2
Did you not hear from the mouth of Raphael, when everyone thanked him so heartily for the great revelations he made regarding the nature of the Kingdom of God, how he admonished one of My first disciples who was, and still is, with Me since the time that I taught? That disciple saw and heard everything, and still, the world means more to him than all the truths that he heard.
3
Can he complain that My teaching is hard to understand, whether it comes from My very own mouth or from the mouth of one of My angels? O, absolutely not. He understands everything, but when will his will, which still sets out for earthly gain, be prepared and ready for the pure spiritual action?
4
And as this is the case with that disciple, what concerns his free will, so it is the case with many thousands of people. How many people did I teach Myself, in the open field, in the streets, in the cities, villages, houses, on the lake, on the mountains, in the temple and in the deserts, and did thereby always great, unheard-of signs to open the eyes of those blind ones. Just go and look how few of them did really repent of all those who heard and saw Me.
5
And look, as it is now, so it was and so it also will be in the future, because every person possesses his love, his will and his reason in freedom. Even if he understands the full truth with his reason, then he still sees, with his lustful eyes, also the world with its many enticements, and he does not want and cannot turn away his heart from that because his flesh prefers that instead of the spiritual things which his sensorial eye cannot see and his flesh cannot feel.
6
Besides, laziness is very typical to man. He often has one good intention after another, but once he should completely act upon all this, then his lazy and lustful flesh resists against it, and draws also the soul downwards to what is most important for his laziness and lustfulness. Then to what advantage is it for the soul to have clarity in the things of the spirit when he does not want to deny himself and does not want to go in full earnest upon the ways on which he could attain the full unity with My Spirit in him?
7
Now you think in your heart and say to yourself: 'Lord, but why did You then cover the soul of men with this flesh if that is only unsuitable for his spiritual completion?'
8
But I say to you that I only can certainly see best and the most clear how a soul has to be put in a right balance between the world of matter and that of the pure spirits for the sake of his short earthly test-life, because these are the conditions to acquire the full freedom of his love and his will.
9
It has been determined in this way that for every soul, matter must have a certain overweight, so that the soul will by that be forced to become active against the small overweight of matter in order to make the right use of the freedom of his will. To achieve that, the teaching from the Heavens was given to him at all times and in all clearness, which places the soul in a completely free floating condition between spirit and matter.
10
If the soul will then make a little effort to actively rise to the spiritual, the spiritual will then also immediately receive a great overweight, and the soul will rise with great ease above the weight of the laziness of the matter of his flesh, and will penetrate to the life of the spirit in him.
11
Once he will have achieved that with some difficulty, the heaviness of the matter of his flesh can no more hinder him on the progress to an as high as possible life's completion. And even if, on that easy road of progress, he still will now and then bump against a little stumbling stone, then it only will cost him very little effort to remove it."