The Great Gospel of John
Volume 10
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Der Herr in der Stadt am Nebo
- Chapter 222 -
Forced ripe and completely ripe souls.
Now the supreme judicial city officer stood up and said: "O Lord and Master, I, the innkeeper and his whole personnel, also these 3 Apollo priests and those 2 Pharisees and those Jews were in the first place converted to the faith in You by the miracles that You performed, although I am convinced now in myself that Your frequent teachings were much more useful to me than Your signs. But short and good: it was in the first place only by Your miracles that we paid attention to You, and soon it became easy to talk with us because we realized that no human being on the whole Earth is capable to perform such signs.
2
Are we now also considered forced ripe fruits because we were in the first place raised in the faith in You by Your signs, and would it be possible by that that some from somewhere else coming false teacher and prophet with his also false miracles and signs could make us fall off from our faith in You?
3
I can say about myself that such false teacher and prophet would never succeed with me since I very well know all false miracles as such, for I very often have seen such magicians, whose profession it is to be busy with all kinds of miracles, and I penetrated into the secrets of their miracle workings, which was actually very good for me because by that I got rid of every superstition and by that I had a greater preference to turn to the works of the old philosophers.
4
But since You, as well as Your servant Raphael, performed signs here which are impossible in any natural way, I then also found in You the one and only true God in the fullness of His almightiness, and my faith in You is now firmer than a diamond. But I am even more strengthened in my inner faith in You by the power of the truth in Your Word than by the forcing power of Your signs, because You were so merciful to very clearly explain to me and all the others the manner by which You can perform Your signs. But despite that, the question is if I and also the others here belong to the forced ripe fruits."
5
I said: "Not at all, My dear friend, a sign is in a certain way only a forced ripening for the one who came to immediately believe after that sign and did not care about anything anymore after that. Look, this was absolutely not the case with you, for also after that I performed those signs, you made very unusual objections to Me, and then it was even very difficult to bring you on the right way with My Word, and which was really not an easy task. For even after you believed in Me completely you still threw sharp criticism to Me as to how I treat all created beings, especially the people on this Earth, and if I were not able to give you a strong reply, all the signs that I performed would not have made you completely to believe in Me. So you much more came to the true faith in Me by the power of the truth in My words, and the signs that I performed before and after that you did not see as a confirmation of your faith in Me but only as a good deed which I did for you and for this city. And you yourself can now understand as well as I and Raphael how they can be accomplished, and which you very soon will understand even better.
6
What someone has analyzed, perceived and understood in his heart and spirit, as it were from fiber to fiber, is no more factor to force him to believe, but only to entirely strengthen his spirit in him. Therefore he does not belong anymore to the class of forced ripe fruits but already to the class of the fruits that became fully ripe. For I say to you: every human being who hears a truth in his life, still not knowing more thoroughly about the inner basic elements, but who believes the truth anyway without caring about the inner elements, still strongly belongs to an unripe fruit. However, the one who let doubts come up in him about the truth that he heard, this as long as he will come to learn all inner basic elements on which that truth is based, belongs truly not to a forced ripe fruit but to a fully ripe one.
7
Because one should be either completely cold or already completely hot in his heart regarding Me if he wants to be accepted by Me. For lukewarm people will be kept away from Me till they will become cold or hot. A decisive character is a thousand times more preferable to Me than thousand indecisive ones, because those indecisive ones look like the raw pots on the turning disk of a potter and which can only be used once they are hardened in the fire. And so, also these lukewarm people must first go through all kinds of fire of trials and temptations before they will become suitable and solid for Me and My Kingdom.
8
I believe that I told you everything now to reassure you all. Although I still could tell you a lot about it, but for what reason? He who can completely see the truth in a short sermon does not need a long sermon. However, he who does not see the truth in a short sermon will even less see it in a long sermon. Do you agree with this teaching of Mine and are you satisfied with it?"
9
The supreme judicial city officer said: "O Lord and Master, extremely. I even would say: a thousand times more than completely satisfied, and the only thing that is left for me and the others to do is to thank You from the bottom of our heart till the end of our earthly life. You, o Lord and Master, by the mercy that You gave us, built in our heart a temple for Yourself which no power in the world will ever be able to destroy. But protect also this temple of Yours against too big storms of temptation."
10
I said: "What you ask will also be given to you.
11
But now it is almost midnight, and so we will also give our body a short rest. We will still see and speak with each other tomorrow morning before My departure."
12
Then we all went to rest.