The Household of God
Volume 2
Rise and spiritual prime of the first world empire Hanoch
- Chapter 185 -
LAMECH RECOGNIZES AND PRAISES GOD'S FATHERLY LOVE AND GOODNESS. HOW THE REMORSE AND LOVE OF THE CONVERTED TRANSFORMS THE FILTH OF SIN INTO PURE GOLD.
When Lamech had heard this from Kisehel, he threw himself onto his knees and spoke with uplifted hands: "O God, o God, how great must Your love be for You to be so gracious and merciful towards a sinner!
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"This impending work, which I feel I am unworthy of performing with my own hands, You took from me bidding other hands do it in my stead, thereby giving me too much honour!
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"O God, O God, how good You must be, regarding the most reprobate sinner in his immense depravity as though he had almost never sinned before You!
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"O you most fortunate friends of my whole being and of my truly poor people, whose poverty I am unfortunately only now beginning to realize in its whole depth and the cause of which only I am, what a feeling you must harbour in your hearts when you think and dearly realize that God - the almighty God! - supreme Love, is your Father!
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"O you great and mighty children of the almighty God, tell me if you can, tell me, what do you feel whenever your heart says: 'God is my Father!'
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"Oh for the endless chasm between me and you! You, born out of the eternal light of God and forever enlivened through His infinite fatherly love and I, a child of the filthy brood of the earth, a son of the serpent as was the father Cain!
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"O friends, only now do I realize fully why the snakes like to sun themselves. Surely the warmth and light of the sun gives them as much pleasure as it is now giving me to be in the presence of you children of the eternal light in God, your most holy Father.
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"Yes, yes, also the children of the earth revel in the beautiful rays of the sun; thus also the great sinner Lamech is now happy in your hallowed, eternal light, shining upon you actively from the heart of Him, Whose name which is holy, holy, holy! - here, where I am kneeling and weeping, was desecrated abominably by me!
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"O you children of the eternal God, here, here where I am kneeling, here I crowned all my abominations with the greatest; here the most holy Name on the stone tablet was buried!"
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Here Lamech began to weep mightily, but Kisehel promptly stepped up to him, took him under the arms, lifted him up and then said to him: "Beloved brother, brother Lamech! Behold, I and we all are now calling you a brother; how then can you talk of the great chasm between us and you?
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"Do tell me, beloved brother Lamech: Do you feel a great and super mighty love for God in your heart?"
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And Lamech replied, deeply moved: "O friend from the lightful height! Unless my heart and my whole being were permeated by such love of which my heart is surely in the highest degree unworthy, how could I possibly have an inkling of what you as true children must feel when remembering that God is your Father?"
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And Kisehel, glowing with happiness, grasped Lamech's hand and said in a loud voice: "O brother, all thanks, all praise, all honour, all my love and all glory be forever to our holy Father, for He has allotted me the great good fortune of finding again a dear brother who was lost!
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"Brother Lamech, rejoice with me; for believe me, we are now children of one and the same Father in Heaven, and now there is no longer such a chasm between us and you as you thought, but, as I said, we are children of one and the same Father.
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"For were it not so, we would not have come to you and God would never have spoken to you!
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"However, since we came to you so as to save you and all your people from perdition, it is as clear as daylight that both you and your people are our brothers from all eternity.
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"So rejoice; for you were lost and have been found again.
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"At all times there has been a greater joy over that which was lost and then found again than over that which was always in one's possession.
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Thus we are rejoicing over you a hundred times more than over all those on the height who have always walked before our eyes.
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The tablet you have already dug out and cleansed with your tears of love and remorse, and have thereby transformed the filth in which you hid it into pure gold and precious stones.
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"And so let the workmen open this spot here and you will convince yourself into what your loving, remorseful heart has transmuted the filth."
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And Lamech said to the bailiffs: "Since it is the great God's holy will, come here and open the spot!" - And at once the bailiffs came along and began to dig in the ground.
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How amazed were all those present, including Lamech, when upon opening the ground they came upon nothing but gold and precious stones of inestimable value!
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And when after an hour's digging they reached the tablet itself and found it to be a shining carbuncle with the luminous signs of Jehovah, they all fell to the ground worshipping the most holy Name.
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And Lamech beat his breast and cried: "O God, have grace and mercy upon me!"