NEUOFFENBARUNGDeutscher Text · Book contents
(John 16:33)
23 February 1844, evening
[Ste.01_035,01] ‘I have spoken these things to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world!’
[Ste.01_035,02] This is another of those texts that are very transparent, so that anyone can grasp the spiritual meaning in the letter at once. I will therefore show you its meaning straight away in a few words, and in those few words you will recognise its true spiritual meaning in full. Listen, then!
[Ste.01_035,03] All that I am saying to you now is likewise of such a nature that in every situation of your life it must give you true inward peace of heart in love for Me, if you heed in deed, even to some degree, what has just been said.
[Ste.01_035,04] The world would press in on you from every side, but it cannot, because I have overcome it. If you have Me within you through your love, you also have within you the eternal conqueror of the world. The world has experienced My power, so it dare not and cannot harm a hair on the head of anyone who truly shelters My peace in their heart.
[Ste.01_035,05] But as soon as people wish to rise out of this peace and themselves throw down the gauntlet to the world, they have only themselves to blame if the world takes them captive and mistreats them. Whoever truly remains in My peace is safe for eternity, and no breath from the world will ever harm a hair on their head.
[Ste.01_035,06] Many will surely say here, ‘O Lord! See, the apostles and Your disciples and so many of the first Christians, and zealous champions of the pure Gospel in later times too, became martyrs. The world took the most shameful and dreadful revenge on those who were filled with Your peace. Why, O Lord, did Your peace fail to protect them from the claws of the world? For before Your suffering You Yourself said that the prince of the world had been judged. How, then, could the one who had been judged have the power to rouse the world so dreadfully against the bearers of Your peace?’
[Ste.01_035,07] This is a vain enough question. Anyone with even some knowledge of history will find it clear that all the martyrs, from the apostles down to later times, went to their deaths of their own accord in the heroism of love, because I, their Master, was Myself crucified. They went under no compulsion or admissible decree of Mine.
[Ste.01_035,08] I tell you, every martyr could have spread My Gospel without becoming a martyr. But those who spread it knew Me and had eternal life before their eyes. They had little desire to go on in the world for long and could scarcely wait for the moment when their flesh would be taken from them, so that they might reach the place to which I had gone before them.
[Ste.01_035,09] John, however, had the greatest love for Me. So he did not shrink from the world's persecutions and preferred to drink them to the last drop rather than, as it were, beg Me to take anything away from his allotted earthly lifetime. Thus he was entirely content with My order, while many others begged and preferred to submit to the most shameful bodily torments rather than work a few more years for My kingdom.
[Ste.01_035,10] But since everyone can have from Me whatever they earnestly ask for in full faith, I could not take back, in the case of those first witnesses, My word, ‘Whatever you ask of Me, I will give you!’
[Ste.01_035,11] It is now clear from this explanation that My Word had no need of witnesses in blood. For I promised the one eternally valid witness, My Holy Spirit Himself, to all who accept My teaching and live according to it. This witness remains, whereas the blood of the first martyrs has long since left no trace for later times, even in history.
[Ste.01_035,12] If this Spirit is an eternal witness, why should I require My followers to bear witness in blood? Let anyone who wishes to become a witness in blood do so. But let no one think they thereby do Me a service. Whoever does it does so for their own benefit, and for none of Mine.
[Ste.01_035,13] It is as if a father were to say to his children, whose clothes are still good, ‘I will give you splendid new clothes once you have worn these out!’ Some of the children let their hope of new clothes and fondness for them lead them to take no care at all of the old ones. When their clothes are soon in tatters, the father duly gets them the promised ones. But some of these children, who love their father more than the clothes, wisely take care of the old ones so as not to put their father to expense before the time.
[Ste.01_035,14] Although such expenses are out of the question with Me, there are other costs to consider, namely those of bringing about a slight disorder. For out of My order I have set for every person a definite term of life, and its end is neither the sword nor fire, for death by sword and fire is a judgement. Whoever wilfully takes matters into their own hands and anticipates My order in any respect must submit to a small judgement to the extent that they have anticipated the order I have laid down.
[Ste.01_035,15] Daniel did not wish to die, so he was preserved in the lions' den, as were the young men in the fiery furnace, and there are several similar examples. See, not a hair of their heads was harmed. Nor was a hair harmed on the heads of many thousands who loved Me, because they kept the power of My peace undisturbed in their hearts. But whoever wished to soar beyond this peace had in return to taste the world's strife.
[Ste.01_035,16] Here, too, someone will say, ‘If that is so, it is surely best to let the world be the world in all its shameful doings, and for everyone who is better to go on living in peace, quite unconcerned about the world. And if everyone does so, will the world not soon be full of abominations up to the stars?’
[Ste.01_035,17] Very well, I say, reckon back! Since the days of the apostles there have surely been countless zealots who wanted to improve the world with, as it were, a flaming sword in their hands. Streams of blood were shed. Ask yourselves with what result. Then look out into the world, and from every side it will give you an answer as clear as sunlight.
[Ste.01_035,18] By your time so great a number of zealots ought surely to have left such a legacy that the whole world would plainly have to be a paradise. Yet in this very time of yours the world is ten times worse than it was in the days of Noah!
[Ste.01_035,19] Why, then, did David say, ‘O Lord, how utterly as nothing are all people compared with You, and all human help is of no avail!’? David said this because he knew Me. You speak differently because you do not know Me as David knew Me!
[Ste.01_035,20] Do you suppose that I do not know what the world is doing, or that I am too lukewarm to chastise the world for its misdeeds? I tell you, think otherwise and leave the guidance of the world to Me!
[Ste.01_035,21] Whoever draws the sword will also perish by the sword. No one will ever accomplish anything against the world by open force. Where the world sees force, it answers with force, and in this way one people continually slaughters another.
[Ste.01_035,22] Whoever wishes to fight the world must fight it with hidden weapons, and those weapons are My love and My peace within you! But each person must first overcome their own world within with these weapons. Only then will they be able always to use these very weapons victoriously against the outer world.
[Ste.01_035,23] Truly, whoever is not master of the world inwardly will be all the less so outwardly! Whoever still feels a fiery, cursing zeal within has yet to finish with their own world. For this zeal still comes from the hidden combat between My peace and the world within a person.
[Ste.01_035,24] For it is the world that grows zealous, judges and calls down fire from heaven, cunningly disguising itself as My cause. But My Spirit and My peace do not rage with zeal. They work mightily in silence, wholly unnoticed by the world, with no outward sign other than works of love and humility in their bearing. To My knowledge, since My John no one has ever been judged by the world for true love and humility.
[Ste.01_035,25] See, in this consists true inward peace and also the mighty victory over the world that I Myself won! Heed this explanation, then, and you will overcome the world within you and every other world always and for ever through My name and My peace! Amen.