The Household of God
Volume 2
Rise and spiritual prime of the first world empire Hanoch
- Chapter 231 -
LAMECH'S FOOLISH FEAR OF THE LORD'S WRATH. THE LORD'S LIGHTFUL EXPLANATION OF THE 'WRATH' OF GOD (12th January 1843)
After this speech the whole company was taken aback, and particularly Lamech, for now he thought to himself:
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"Generally speaking He looks quite kind-hearted so that one is always newly encouraged to talk to Him; His eye invites one to it.
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"But to judge by this speech He cannot be quite trusted. So I shall choose the wiser course and refrain from talking.
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"For one simply cannot know how He might receive a slightly silly word, - and in the end one's standing with Him might be utterly ruined for all eternity.
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"His wrath must be something inexpressibly terrible.
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"If one imagines the wrath of an almighty God!
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"It would surely be infinitely better not to be at all than to be beside a wrathful God.
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"So be still, still, my silly tongue, you most miserable little lump in the mouth! You could prepare a nice lot for our mankind. To anger a God? For heaven's sake!
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"No, no, I no longer want to think such thoughts; for the mere idea of a possible wrath of God is more horrible than anything the human reason could ever invent.
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"And I, a silly beast of a man, dared talk to Him just as to an ordinary man and display my whole stupidity before Him!
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"No, the longer I now reflect and on top of that remember what a blasphemer I was, the more abominable my impudent folly seems to me every moment.
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"I acted as if I wanted to instruct Him, God the Almighty, on the proper expression of His will!
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"Maybe He is already secretly angry? For heaven's sake, what did I miserable, silly ass do?
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"His serious gaze now! Yes, yes, it is just as I thought: He is secretly angry.
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"Who will now protect me from Him if He should unleash His wrath against me?
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"Oh, if only this time He would spare me! In return I would be silent all my life.
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"He is no longer talking, neither with His loved ones nor with any of us.
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"This alone is a sure sign that He is mightily angry.
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"Be silent, my heart, and await with the greatest fear and trembling the most horrible outburst - Oh, I am lost, forever lost!"
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Here the Lord stepped up to Lamech, regarded him with great friendliness and said to him:
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"My dear Lamech, with what miserable thoughts, totally unworthy of Me, are you tormenting your heart?
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"How can you imagine an angry God?
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"Behold, love and wrath are the greatest opposites a fully alive spirit with the profoundest insight can imagine!
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"Love is the forever all-preserving principle, - and wrath the forever all-destructive one.
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"Hence, if ever any wrath were possible in Me, it would surely soon destroy all love and with it all that was created by it, - in the end even consuming itself!
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"Look, now everything is still there; where then should be My wrath?
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"Of course, a man can become angry, for he is owing to his freedom trial a being alienated from Me and thus at times an opposite to Me, wherefore he can reunite with Me only through love for Me, - but I, as the purest love, am totally incapable of wrath.
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"Once upon a time the love in Me was surrounded by wrath; but then infinity was still devoid of all created beings, both spiritual and material.
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"But love seized the wrath oppressing it and set it substantially outside of itself.
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"And behold, out of this wrath were created all the innumerable spirits, suns and worlds, this earth and all there is in it;
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Therefore, if you want to see the wrath of God in reality, look at the created things; they represent the wrath of God.
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"But they are by no means only a wrath, for My love is everywhere their mightiest component.
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This holds and carries everything, and there is no other might, which would be stronger than it.
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"Therefore, man shall not cling to the world, but shall extricate himself from it completely so as not to be devoured by it in the end and thus be open to My wrath. For the world is my fettered wrath; but whoever is with the world, is also prone to its fetters of eternal death.
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"That which you would regard as 'wrath' so to speak, behold, is only My divine, most active zeal of love, which as such is My mercy.
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"Thus you may say before Me whatever you like and I shall not be angry with you but shall throw light upon your foolish queries.
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"So if you still have something at heart, do tell Me openly and I will help you; so talk. Amen."