Gifts of Heaven · Volume 2 · Chapter 268

The Lord as a "testing bride"

1st January 1843

[1] "Seek and you shall find, ask and you shall be given, and knock and it shall be opened to you." Or: "Pray without ceasing" – i.e., have your hearts constantly with Me, and that perfectly, but not always halfway also with the world, so you will soon and easily find what you seek, just as easily and soon receive what you ask, and the gates of life will be opened to you without further delay.

[2] But if any man is of such a nature that he seeks only in the "wall," which is stuffed with pagan carvings and brushworks, and prays before statues, and prays before baked bread, and knocks on the stones; verily he will find little, and receive still less, and the stones will not turn to his knocking!

[3] So but when someone would say: "Lord, I have been searching, asking and knocking for quite some time, and still nothing really could be found, nor have I received anything specific, nor has anything opened up before Me! To him I say: "Friend, what do you say? Hear and see, I will show you good images, and these are to justify Me to you, so that you do not grieve over My delay!

[4] Behold, a bridegroom had a rich and exceedingly beautiful bride. But the bride was exceedingly wise, and spoke within herself: "I know what I shall do so that it will show whether my bridegroom is completely serious about me. I will travel and he shall not know where. But if I am going away, I want to do it so that I do it only for the sake of appearances and in reality remain near the bridegroom, so that nothing escapes me and I will see exactly what his heart is like.

[5] But since the bride is traveling, the groom says to himself: "Behold, my bride has gone away, and has commended the faithfulness of my heart, and has also assured me that she will return shortly. Yet, instead of keeping her word, she only writes one letter after another, always exhorting me to faithfulness, and yet she herself does not want to come. What is this? She always puts me off and says: "I am coming, I am coming tomorrow" – and behold, she is not coming! What can she possibly have, that she is always forgiven?

[6] But the near bride, disguised as a servant to the bridegroom, speaks to the bridegroom: "My Lord, allow the servant to speak a word with you, for I know exactly what excuses your bride. See, your bride, who is closer to you than you know, experiences continually that you have a thing even with a harlot of lovely flesh, and shares your heart between the bride and the harlot. And such is the reason why your bride has gone away and is now therefore forgiven. Depart from the whore, and your bride will never need to be forgiven".

[7] See the image and look at it closely in yourself, and you will easily guess that here you are the bridegrooms and I am the bride. But the whore is the world!

[8] But I say to you, the bride is disguised among you, and observes all your steps and treads of the heart, and now also speaks to you all: "Depart completely from the harlot, and the bride will not need to forgive those who have turned to her completely anymore!

[9] So seek, ask and knock, and the bride will be yours! Seek, pray and knock "but in spirit and in truth, and not in the wall and in carvings and images and in baked bread," but, as I said, in spirit and in truth in your heart – and you shall find it, receive it, and the bride shall open the door to her chamber.

[10] This be granted to all of you in this new year! Amen. Says the Bride! Amen.