NEUOFFENBARUNGScribes: K. G. L. – F. S. – Andr. and Ans. H.
[MEr.01_011,01] You have read the story of the prodigal son in My book, in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15. You will have read and heard it more than once. But I tell you that in the whole book there is hardly a verse or chapter that contains greater things than the prodigal son.
[MEr.01_011,02] Nor will you readily find a passage harder for you to understand than this one. You ought to know the reason, for it is of the greatest importance and an indispensable key to inward sight.
[MEr.01_011,03] The reason is this. Often I speak exalted things from My wisdom through love, and often things that seem trifling from love through the light of wisdom. Note that in the first case you are offered only as much as your own individuality can bear at the time. In the second you are given a veiled infinity that eternities will never finish unfolding.
[MEr.01_011,04] See, the prodigal son is just such a gift that seems trifling. Indeed, if you knew all that lies behind the prodigal son, truly archangels would come to you for instruction.
[MEr.01_011,05] In the preceding ten hours I have shown you much of what is happening on the Earth at the present time, though I have kept the very greatest disgraces from you. I have shown you what is lacking in the administration of law in general, the follies of Asia and the barbarity of Africa. I have shown you the disgraces of America, though only a very small part of them, England's administration of justice chiefly abroad, and the treatment of convicts on the coasts of Australia that I made known to you. In the far south I also showed you a maltreated country as it was and for the most part still is. In the case of this very country I must draw your attention to two things. First, pay particular and double attention to what was said about it. Second, take what was said about it least literally of all. What follows will show you why. I also showed you the exceedingly tyrannical and strict conditions of other island states, especially Japan, and told you briefly something of the northern state of Russia.
[MEr.01_011,06] Although things in the world are as described, I did not tell you of these conditions so that you could see what goes on in the world. You will have only too many occasions in the future to read such things and things a thousand times worse. I told you for this reason alone: that you might understand the great mystery of the prodigal son a little more deeply, to your greatest benefit.
[MEr.01_011,07] You wonder now what the prodigal son has to do with all these worldly cruelties, and are curious how he will find his way out of this whole worldly labyrinth. I tell you that it is easier to find the prodigal son among all these scenes and grasp him than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
[MEr.01_011,08] To understand the whole, you first need to learn who the prodigal son really is. When I show you the prodigal son, even by name alone, truly you would have to be struck with more than sevenfold blindness if you did not notice at once that a great veil had been taken from your eyes. Prepare yourselves now and hear the name.
[MEr.01_011,09] See, he is called ‘Lucifer!’ This name holds the whole endless compendium of the prodigal son, for ever beyond your grasp.
[MEr.01_011,10] Consider that nearly all humanity at present is made up of members of this one prodigal son, in particular those descended from Adam's unblessed line. This prodigal son took out all the wealth due to him and has squandered it over stretches of time too vast for you to conceive.
[MEr.01_011,11] You know from the story of the prodigal son what his final fate was. Look through all these conditions in the world. Truly, all you will see is the final fate of the prodigal son on an enlarged scale.
[MEr.01_011,12] Consider the shortcomings of justice. What do you think their cause might be? Truly, it is nothing but heedlessness and the dulling of conscience that has arisen from it.
[MEr.01_011,13] Look at the prodigal son again and see whether that is not the first thing that happens to him when he leaves his father's house. Consider the follies of Asia. What are they but the natural consequence that the passage of time has gradually brought to the present height of abomination?
[MEr.01_011,14] Now go on to Africa. Take the prodigal son by the hand. If you turn a somewhat sharpened spiritual gaze in that direction, you will discover with wonderful fidelity, in the present state of the land and in every conceivable condition, in Egypt and indeed in all Africa,
[MEr.01_011,15] from what the present time offers and through every period to which a human thought can reach and beyond, the very condition of the prodigal son after he had squandered his wealth. He too thought to rise again by every possible means to some possession like his former one. But look at all the fruitless, barbarous efforts of this whole continent and see what those who want to grow rich there actually achieve.
[MEr.01_011,16] The history of the past will show you much, and the present of this entire continent shows you the very same thing unmistakably. The condition of the prodigal son is faithfully portrayed in every individual person and every people, and in the whole continent from the first grain of sand to the last, from the first ray of sunlight to the last, in every land, mountain range, river, desert and animal, and in its history from earliest times to the present and beyond.
[MEr.01_011,17] Take the prodigal son by the hand again, but remember to put him in chains of slavery for this journey, and go with him to America. Truly, you would have to be blinder than the centre of the Earth not to find him there a thousand times over, in every conceivable shade. I need tell you only that North America depicts his inward part, South America his outward part. This is why the shape of the land itself depicts the starved, insect-like figure of the prodigal son.
[MEr.01_011,18] Whoever has ears, let them hear, and whoever has eyes, let them see. You all know how the prodigal son fared in his last period, when the inward, hallowed spark of Africa known to you was awakened in him. In Australia he finds a master who does not even allow him the pigs' food, so that he is obliged to fill his stomach with whatever he comes across.
[MEr.01_011,19] Now you will wonder what the prodigal son will do in New Zealand. We need not send him there at all. It will truly cost us little effort to recognise New Zealand in the prodigal son himself.
[MEr.01_011,20] Note, then, that the south signifies the outermost part of a person. Look for a moment at the prodigal son in this last time of dreadful trial. He is scarcely dressed after the latest Paris journal. Only the poorest and dirtiest rags cover his nakedness.
[MEr.01_011,21] See, here we already have the faithful map fluttering around the naked parts of our prodigal. Let us stretch or magnify him and take the occasion to pay a brief visit to the Christian Church as it now exists. Does it not resemble that land? Look at it as you will, spiritually as I have shown it to you or materially as you may find it described. Truly you would again have to be blinder than the centre of the Earth if you missed the striking likeness of the land to the rags of the prodigal son and of those rags to the Church.
[MEr.01_011,22] As the winds there blow away the wretchedness of those inhabitants, mark you, so the wind dealt with the rotten rags of the prodigal son. And so the holy winds blowing from above now deal with the church sects, all of which are more heathen than Christian.
[MEr.01_011,23] You will not need very deep knowledge of mathematics to discover what hour of the great day it is. Take another look at Japan. It will count off on its fingers, and indicate with the clearest signs, clearer than sunlight, the inward constriction of the prodigal son and of the present church conditions in their inward aspect.
[MEr.01_011,24] I need tell you no more. What do you say of a very sick person when his feet are cold and drops of cold sweat stand on his head? Truly, it takes no medical examination to say, as though in a prophetic spirit, ‘Only a few heavy beats of the pulse, and this man weary of suffering and life has finished his struggle.’
[MEr.01_011,25] First feel the prodigal son's feet in the south of the Earth. Then feel his head in the great empire of the north. Then lay a hand on the old, weary heart of the Church. Truly, you would again have to be blinder than the centre of the Earth if you could not reckon on your fingers which hour of the great day it is.
[MEr.01_011,26] You will still remember from the last hour how ‘second sight’ was made known and explained to you. You will wonder now whether second sight too has some affinity with the prodigal son.
[MEr.01_011,27] O My dear ones! When I give someone something, I do not give as people do, who with the best will in the world can never give anything whole. I always give something whole. I tell you that in this very second sight the whole knot will be untied for you. When it is untied you will no longer be a minute out in your reckoning.
[MEr.01_011,28] Let us return to our prodigal son and watch him for a moment as he wrestles with the greatest distress of death. See how his soul is pressed down to a single point. Truly, that is how far it must go.
[MEr.01_011,29] But see, what I told you of the souls to whom second sight comes in this way is now happening to the soul of the prodigal son. Its great distress spreads in swift vibrations. They reach the great Father's house, and the vibrations of the Father, full of love, exchange love with the vibrations of fear, misery and distress of the prodigal son.
[MEr.01_011,30] The prodigal son's soul feels such a holy, gentle breath from the great Father's house. Heartened by these holy vibrations, it goes back into its crumbling house, raises it up again and returns in the deepest, self-abasing humility to the place where you know the prodigal son returned.
[MEr.01_011,31] What happens there? See, the rags alone are taken from the son and burnt. The son, as you know, will be received again.
[MEr.01_011,32] See, now the whole mystery of the prophetic number of man, until this moment undisclosed, is unveiled before your eyes. If you go over the conditions of the time at all, truly you would have to be more than dead if you did not now perceive the holy vibrations of grace streaming from the Father's holy house.
[MEr.01_011,33] You too are members of the prodigal son. Let your souls reach out far and wide. Let the spirit in your soul be awakened, and return confidently in all humility, like the prodigal son, to the great domain of your most loving Father. Truly I tell you, He will meet you halfway.
[MEr.01_011,34] See, the time of My grace has drawn near. I have given you these things so that you may recognise it as the great time of which the prophets sang, the very time proclaimed beforehand from My own mouth.
[MEr.01_011,35] Therefore hold out just a short time longer and rejoice in great confidence. Truly, the great Father's house has come nearer to you than you imagine.
[MEr.01_011,36] How you may recognise the prodigal son and all these conditions of the time in yourselves, how the prodigal son is found again in every person, or rather first finds himself, and how ‘the great man’ is won in the small, of all this, dear children, the last hour will bring you faithful word. Amen! [5]