NEUOFFENBARUNGDeutscher Text · Book contents
19 January 1844, evening
[Ste.01_019,01] ‘I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you!’
[Ste.01_019,02] This passage says exactly what already lies before you, what I always say to you and what I now confirm faithfully and livingly with this new gift.
[Ste.01_019,03] ‘I will not leave you as orphans!’ Rather, as it also says, ‘I remain with you to the end of the ages!’ Not in your worldly cleverness and great learning, which disgust Me, but in the love and humility of your hearts.
[Ste.01_019,04] ‘I will not leave you as orphans!’ does not mean, ‘I shall furnish you with books of every kind and also with houses of prayer full of carvings and portraits of Me, painted and carved in every imaginable situation, which belong to the realm of paganism!’ For all outward viewing belongs to the world and hinders the opening of inward sight. In the same way, a person who does not close his eyes will not get to sleep, much less dream in his sleep. A dream is an inward beholding of what belongs to the world of spirits.
[Ste.01_019,05] Nor is it by permitting you to stage a host of outward spectacles that may have something to do with Me that I will not leave you as orphans. At the same time you may write as many books out of your understanding, or more, in which truth is sought in the same way you stake money in the lottery. No one knows whether the number he put his money on will be drawn. Everyone stakes it on chance. If by chance his number is drawn, he knows the reason for his success no more than he would know the reason for failure in the opposite case. Every player thinks his number will be the best, or he would surely not have put his money on it. Only the outcome shows him in a different light that another number was better. Then of course he says, ‘But I already had this number on my paper. Why did I have to choose another one?’
[Ste.01_019,06] And see, this example fits the great multitude of writers exactly. Each thinks he has somehow hit the nail on the head. Before long another comes forward who proves to the first, down to the last detail, that he missed it by a mile. So it goes on and on. In the end the last knows no more than the first whether he hit the nail on the head.
[Ste.01_019,07] Even if now and then someone happens upon the truth in one field or another, he still does not know whether he really happened upon it. His only test is that his work has drawn general applause from the world. But he does not consider that it takes no extraordinary effort to win that applause.
[Ste.01_019,08] One need only do with writing what lottery players do with their numbers before the draw: mix everything thoroughly together, so that nobody can make out what the writer really meant. All criticism then holds modestly back before so colossal a work, and the writer has plainly hit the jackpot of worldly applause.
[Ste.01_019,09] But is the Holy Spirit I promised to be found in such works? Oh no! Truly, they are orphans. I am not with them. The passage in question does not apply to them.
[Ste.01_019,10] Perhaps it applies to the painters, engravers, sculptors and gilders who occupy themselves especially with depicting so-called sacred subjects, but who, if paid, also produce battle scenes and all manner of obscene pictures? I say that these too are orphans, and the passage has nothing to do with them.
[Ste.01_019,11] Perhaps, then, it is the writers of sermons and prayer books, and composers of so-called church music? Oh no! The passage does not apply to them either, for they too turn their cloaks with the wind and are ready for anything for money. Today the first writes a sublime hymn, a prayer or a psalm that, outwardly considered, would have been no disgrace to David had he written it. Tomorrow, if paid, he writes with equal enthusiasm a sublime poem on a great man's prostitute, and if need be even makes a sublime epitaph for a princess's dead lapdog. Today the second composes an oratorio, but immediately afterwards, if paid, he will write a ballet or still lower dance music.
[Ste.01_019,12] Is there any sign here of the Holy Spirit at work? I find none. If I do not find it, you will surely find it still less, even if you looked with lanterns in which a central sun burned in place of a poor candle.
[Ste.01_019,13] But perhaps the Holy Spirit is in wise state laws, in laws of war, in regulations of all kinds, or even in the numerous strict laws of church discipline? Truly, I find none!
[Ste.01_019,14] Why not? Because the ground of all that is worldly advantage in ruling, rather than Me. Everyone wishes to rule: emperor and king, prince, count, baron, knight, gentleman with a title, merchant, citizen and farmer too. From the emperor down, all his officials naturally behave as though they were almost everywhere the emperor in person.
[Ste.01_019,15] An emperor, king and prince are indeed needed. But their purpose is to guide, not to rule, so that through their guidance the peoples may be led to Me. Instead, the peoples are in many ways led away from Me and turned towards the world. They are made weak rather than strong, so that in their weakness they are more easily ruled.
[Ste.01_019,16] Is it the work of the Holy Spirit when a ruler sees nothing in his subjects but bondmen, whom his word can destroy at any moment if he only speaks it? A ruler should guide and comfort his people and give them laws clearly derived from Mine, rather than from pagan laws. Then he would be a true ruler and the Holy Spirit would work with him, as it worked with David and other worthy rulers.
[Ste.01_019,17] But in inventing all sorts of machines that make poor people's hands superfluous, promoting industry, building railways and raising great military forces, the Holy Spirit never works! For all such things were commonplace before the Flood in Noah's time through the action of the spirit of the world, which is the devil in his entirety. So too it was in Sodom and Gomorrah and in Babel.
[Ste.01_019,18] Who would claim that the Holy Spirit brought such things about? A mighty judgement always followed conduct so directly opposed to the Holy Spirit. I already hold a like judgement in readiness, to show thereby that My Holy Spirit is present nowhere at all in the world's present conduct. Thus this whole world stands an utter orphan. Yet I shall let it rise a while longer, until it has reached the right height for its fall. Then a flash from east to west, and in its light it will be seen how much of the Holy Spirit's working there now is in the world!
[Ste.01_019,19] But if that is so, where are those whom I will not leave as orphans?
[Ste.01_019,20] I say there are some here and there, but they have now become almost rarer and more precious than great crown diamonds. They live simply, withdrawn from the world as far as they can. I am their joy and the subject of their conversation. Why? Because the mouth overflows with what fills the heart! So I too am what occupies their hearts, and everything else in the world is worth an empty nutshell to them.
[Ste.01_019,21] Truly, these are no orphans, for I am in their midst, speak with them daily and teach and bring them up Myself. They always hear My voice and recognise it as the voice of the true shepherd. They do not follow the voice of a hireling, for it is the voice of someone who can be bought. These, then, are the ones for whom the present passage is given.
[Ste.01_019,22] So I need no scholars, poets, sculptors or composers, no inventors of machines or makers of worldly laws. I need only humble hearts that love Me. Where I find those I will add everything else, surely in a better way than the world devises it. Then everything will be a working of the Holy Spirit, and there will be no orphans in the world. But as things stand, very few have ears receptive to My voice.
[Ste.01_019,23] From what has been said you will, I think, readily understand for whom this passage is given. What lies before you proves that you too are counted among them at present. But only when you act upon it fully will you receive the great conviction of this truth. Ponder this! Amen.