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The Lord's sermon on the ship.
16th May 1843
The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 5
[1] This sermon, consisting of 64 verses, got lost at the first big church meeting. Here, however, it is reproduced word for word to the pious of the faithful lovers of the Lord. The sermon, however, together with the 3 preceding verses, was as follows:
[2] “And it came to pass that the people came to Him to hear the word of God from His mouth, because He was at the Sea of Galilee and had no place to stand on the shore before the great multitude of the people.
[3] But he saw two ships lying on the lake, on which the fishermen had gotten out to wash their nets.
[4] And as soon as he had entered one of the two ships which was Simon's, he asked him to take it a little from the land. When Simon had done this in reverence and secret love, the Lord sat down immediately and began to teach the people from the ship. And He opened His mouth and spoke aloud to the people:
[5] "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, therefore the Lord has anointed Me. He has sent Me to preach to the wretched, to bind up the broken hearts, to preach a release to the captives and a deliverance to those who are bound, as the prophet Isaiah said.
[6] Then hear ye afflicted ones and rejoice! For your light will rise like the sun from the sea, and your hearts will shine brightly like the waves of the sea in the light of the risen sun.
[7] For behold, darkness covers the earth and a great darkness covers all the nations; but the Lord passes over you, and His glory is shining on you!
[8] And the nations shall walk in your light, and the kings in the brightness that now rises upon you.
[9] Rejoice, Zion, your children and all those who will convert from sin, a Redeemer has come! Hear, therefore now the Lords speaks:
[10] How long have you been bound? And who among you may count the years you have languished from the primordial beginning?
[11] Your fathers wept when they became servants in Babylon; and mothers grieved their children and mourned.
[12] But here is more than Babylon! I have raised the children, but they have forgotten their homeland; they no longer know their Father.
[13] Woe to you who think you are free! For you have become servants of the temple. The whole head is sick, and the heart has become weak.
[14] Why should the great multitude of your blind sacrifice to Me? Such things says the Lord: "I have had enough of the burnt offering of rams and with the fat of the fattened. I have no desire for the blood of the bullock, of the lamb and of the goat.
[15] But when you come in to appear before Me, say – who demands such from your hands when you enter My forecourt? I tell you: Not I, not He who has anointed Me from eternity, but the greed of the servants of the temple and of the court.
[16] Bring therefore no more such futile food-sacrifice! The smoke is an abomination to Me, and the new moon and the Sabbath, since you come together and have none of it except empty trouble and dead fear.
[17] My soul has become the enemy of all your new moons, seasons, feasts and jubilees! I am weary of it's emptiness and have become weary of looking at your folly any longer. For if you do not love God, what good are your dead sacrifices to Me, the Living! [Isa 1:11-14 – tr.]
[18] So the Lord spoke and speaks also now: "But if you love the Father with all your heart, of what use then the blood of the beast and the smoke?”
[19] And He told them this parable:
[20] "There was a widow who had two sons. One was named Levi and the other Joshua.
[21] And the widow was sick, and moaned and groaned in her bed, and her face became pale, and her eyes began to darken.
[22] Then she called her sons to her and spoke to them: "My beloved sons, hear me, your departing mother! My last hour has come. But go and pray, whether the Lord will have mercy on me or will take my soul in peace.
[23] Then the sons went out and wept. And Levi said: "Who will have mercy on us and provide for us when mother is taken from us?”
[24] But Joshua said: "I would rather have nothing but bread and water, if only I did not have to see my mother's grave! Dear brother, let us go and pray that the Lord will have mercy on us and send His angel to strengthen mother and bring her salvation from above!”
[25] And Levi the firstborn, went into the temple, and spake by himself:
[26] “I will offer a burnt offering unto the LORD for a sweet savor, two young bullocks, one ram and seven year-old lambs. And for a meat offering I will offer three tithes of fine flour and oil for a bullock, two tithes for a ram, and a tithe for each of the seven lambs.”
[27] But Joshua went out under the palm trees and knelt there, folding his hands and prayed:
[28] “Aah, You Who hear the groaning of the afflicted and the wailing of the broken heart, behold my tears and my crestfallen face, and help me, dear Holy Father in heaven!
[29] My soul hopes in You alone! Have mercy, You comfort of the wretched, have mercy on us, oh dear, good, holy Father!
[30] I can give you nothing but this, my poor, broken heart, but I will love you with infinite love and walk in the way of justice all my life!”
[31] And behold, a bright glow spread among the palm trees, and a voice spoke from the bright cloud:
[32] "She lives! Your brother has promised burnt offerings to Me; but not a tear has moistened his eyes.
[33] But you have prayed and wept before Me and have given Me your heart. So therefore go in peace!"
[34] And when he came home, his mother came out of the hut to meet him and took him in her arms and blessed him.
[35] Which son do you think has brought a true sacrifice to the Lord? You say: "Joshua!"
[36] But I say to you: For this very reason you also should not hang your heart on the empty temple and do not knock on it. For it is made with human hands, and will soon wear away when it's time comes, and it's priests will die.
[37] What do you think? The temple is great in Jerusalem, and the heart is small in the breast. But this small heart can love the great living God. Is it not therefore a more beautiful and glorious work than that which Solomon built?
[38] Have you read what the prophet Isaiah says? That is his word: "I will bring gold instead of brass, and silver instead of iron, and brass instead of wood, and iron instead of stones, and will make your rulers teach peace, and your keepers preach righteousness." [Isa 60:17]
[39] But where is peace on earth? And where does peace dwell among people?
[40] Behold, life is like the little ship in the sea, which always wavers to and fro and is beaten forever by the angry waves. They sail proudly along and raise themselves up high. But soon they fall back into the sea and become vain foam.
[41] I am sent by God to bring peace to the children of man from sunrise up to it’s going down; but notwithstanding this, wickedness is not at rest, and the devil has his apostles until his time.
[42] I am the stumbling block and the rock of offense to the house of Israel, for a noose and a snare to all the hypocrites of the earth, so that many of them may bump into Me and fall, and be broken, and be entangled, and be captured.
[43] Woe to you Pharisees and Sadducees, the light appeared to Moses before, when the bush burned in the fire; but you blindfold yourselves!
[44] The law of the Lord is eternal and is written in every man's heart; but you, who are to preach peace, divide the people and condemn where you are to seek with all love.
[45] You are perverse leaders and guides of the people, and your children and children's children will make it even worse!
[46] You strike the rock; but it remains closed. You still kiss the rod of Aaron; but it no longer greens.
[47] Listen, you who plant the cedar under the rock and bind the vine to a rotten stake! The cedar will still turn green, and the vine will climb up the rock.
[48] Lift up your eyes and look at the sea! Do you not often think: The mountainous waves will devour the sun?
[49] But I say to you, they are breaking only the image of the sun; but the sun prevails over this sea of waves in the high heavens and rejoices in it's eternal day.
[50] Therefore you are not to bind the hearts and plague them with vain words and not cry out: "Here is a snake and there is a snake!" For you yourselves do not see any and have never seen any.
[51] Cease therefore to teach the people, you hypocrites, fornicators and adulterers, but learn even from those who seek the way of the Lord in the love and simplicity of their hearts.
[52] And again He told them a parable:
[53] “The old Nathan had died, leaving two sons and Malkah his daughter.
[54] These children questioned each other and talked: “What did our father mean when he died and said before he passed away that we should receive his memory in blessing?”
[55] And the sons fought and quarreled about it among themselves from the morning till the setting of the sun.
[56] They wanted to set up a monument – one of wood, the other of marble. One wanted the headline to be long, the other wanted it to be short. One wanted to place this monument in the garden, but the other at the crossroads.
[57] The next day they got together again and started to fight with each other again.
[58] But about the eleventh hour, when evening came and the sun bowed down, Malkah went alone to the tomb and knelt there, planted a rose bush on her father's grave and wet it with the tears of her love.
[59] Verily, I say to you: She has set the best monument to the Father and has alone completely fulfilled his will!
[60] You are like the two sons! With wood and stones, with blood and smoke you also want to honor the Father in heaven, but your hearts are far from Him!
[61] You know long prayers by heart and even longer ones you carry with you on long strips so that people are to believe in you as if you were great, powerful and pleasant before God.
[62] But the living short prayer in the heart is foreign to you, since you do not know the Father and have never recognized Him.
[63] Nevertheless, you say: If an "unclean" sinner prays before God, he sins even worse! Oh you greedy, murderous deceivers of the people! What should your prayers be then, since you have always been full of abominations, fornication and adultery from the very beginning! You have murdered prophets and killed all who did not sacrifice to you in great amounts, and you still say "We are children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!"
[64] But Abraham, Isaac and Jacob recognized the Father when He came to them. What then is it that you do not recognize Him, since He has come to you? Because you are children of the devil, but not children of Abraham!
[65] But I tell you: This time the Father will stay with your "sinners" and will dwell in their houses and receive food from the tax collectors. But He will strike you with the utmost darkness, as the prophet Isaiah said:
[66] Who has raised the righteous from the rising, who called Him to go? Who gave the nations and kings before Him to be mighty, and gave them to His sword as dust, and His bow as scattered stubble?" [Isa 41:2]
[67] Many were converted by this speech.
[68] But when several of the Pharisees and Sadducees among them began to revile in a mighty manner, hence He had also ceased speaking and He said to Simon:
[69] "Rise up high and cast out your nets, that you may make a good draw!"
[70] The further details can be seen in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 5.
[71] But also these have received this sermon of Mine: Geiring, Tauler, Tersteegen, Lavater, Stilling and some others less known to you; among them only Witschel is known to you. They sure also have it in Rome and other places; but very much disfigured.