Sermon on the Mount 14

September 779 in the year of the Romans-14

Excerpts from the Sermon on the Mount in authorial form

Sermon at Bethany (3 April 783 A.D.)

The next day, God the Lord Himself came to Bethany, and there, after the burial of the earthly body left by Lazarus, gave teachings on the truth of eternal life to those present, among whom many Essenes had arrived from all regions, especially from Galilee. He spoke: There is a dying in the earthly, but no death, for the leaving, the taking away, the laying down or destruction of the earthly body is not death, but the entering of the living soul into another world, which is not like this earthly one, but is formed as the cognisant spirit of the living soul shapes it alone or with hosts of its kind. In the earthly, the living soul, by the power of the earthly body built up there according to its eternal nature, is bound to the laws of this earthly world as long as its earthly body is not naturally consumed or violently destroyed. This world with its earth and its heaven shall pass away, but not the living soul and not My Word. The living soul merely lays down that which it has taken from the earthly and built up according to the eternal shape, form and nature of its being and this eternally own spiritual power, in order to perceive and act in the earthly. The becoming and passing away in this world applies to all that is created and built up from it and from the earthly, but not to the living soul, since its being is eternal, its eternal nature has nothing of the earthly of this world in it, and it is therefore foreign in this world; it can maintain what is taken up here, and though it be ever so perfect and well built up, for a comparatively very short span of time, for that which is taken up and built up is perishable, and though ever so well cared for, it consumes itself within itself. The consumption or the violent destruction of the earthly body or frame leads to the dying of every being living in the earthly and passing through this realm but once. But what dies and passes away is again only that which is taken up from the earthly of this world and built up into the earthly body or frame; this alone dies, but not the living soul, belonging to and enclosed in eternity, which as being-spirit-life therefore has an eternal being like God, because it was eternally there with and beside God in the shape and form of its being and the spirit eternally own to this its being. Pervaded by the life force of My Spirit, partaking of the same life force, it forms, like My being, an indestructible and imperishable trinity, which was, is, and remains enclosed in the eternal being of eternity. There is, outside My realm of eternal truth, true light and true eternal life, also a realm of impotence, unconsciousness and oblivion. From this realm gradually comes all that which must once pass through the realm of this earthly world, and here, by the power of its own body brought here, forms that which is there as living beings. Not the spiritless and lifeless, though ever so great, forces of the realm of the earth of this world can create life; they only cause all that is soul-spirit-living, come here from the realm of impotence and unconsciousness, to be attracted, incorporated by female predecessors of the same kind, and stirred up and awakened by the doing of the male, taking from the forces of the realm of the earth of this world itself, to become aware of its being and life, and to be able to act according to the nature of its being and spirit. Though once the self-willed and wanton behaviour of great hosts of beings of cognisant spirit compelled them to leave My realm, and their entering into the lightless realm of impotence and unconsciousness was like a dying, yet that realm holds no death. A death, namely in the sense of utter annihilation and non-being, even of the slightest, most insignificant, inconspicuous and utterly nugatory soul-spirit-living being, there is not; and already the word death, in the sense of utter annihilation and non-being, is in itself nothing other than the most insidious, lying and malicious offspring of the blood-, revenge- and annihilation-greedy spirit of the bottomless and shoreless swamp of hellish darkness, an offspring of the spirit of Satan. He knows exactly how much every living soul, and especially the soul of cognisant spirit, clings to life; and he also knows that the soul of cognisant spirit, according to its eternal shape and form, as well as its and its spirit's nature, can create, form and build up no other than the human being in the earthly; and it has also not remained hidden from him what loss the memory of the living soul of cognisant spirit, creating man in the earthly and building up the human body, has suffered and how thoroughly every image, every memory and idea of the terrible former event has been destroyed and extinguished in the human soul. But he also knows how every trace of such a memory, which has surfaced and is surfacing again, which revives in the form of a more or less pronounced presentiment, is often suppressed, but when spoken, is immediately stifled by third parties through misguidance, lies and even by force; and because the evil spirit knows all this, therefore he already calls dying death, therefore he incessantly threatens with the lie of death, extermination, annihilation and non-being. Behold the documents of the Hebrew scriptures, through which Satan reveals his being and his spirit to the chosen ones, how he there, immediately after the lies of his ridiculous creation, threatens every cognisant spirit with the annihilation of death, who will stretch out his hand to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to recognise and know what is good and what is evil. But because it lies precisely in the power of the cognisance of the spirit of the soul creating man here to recognise from its own through the power of its own feelings what is good and what is evil, and because the evil spirit knows this, therefore he has it proclaimed in his such revelations that it was actually a serpent that "seduced and misled" man to the knowledge of good and evil. In his fierce anger, such a god curses the serpent, inflicts pain upon the woman, sorrow upon the man and eternal death, resorting to the lie that man, made from the earth, shall return to the earth; he curses the field, and lest man, who has recognised what is good and what is evil, also recognise the tree of eternal life and live eternally, he seeks to block his way to this knowledge by having his devils, whom he calls cherubim, armed with flaming swords, prevent the way to the tree of life. Well does this god of the swamp of hellish darkness know that I am the tree of true eternal life, eternal truth and true eternal life Myself; well does he know that I am also the tree of true knowledge, the tree of truth, and that every cognisant spirit who willingly takes from Mine recognises in Me what is truly good, and that everyone who is of good will must recognise evil in all that is contrary.

Well doth the evil spirit and father of all lies know that I have sent many true prophets, who, instructed by the pure ones of My realm and by those standing in My light in the hereafter, have long since proclaimed My incarnation and My personal coming among men through long millennia, before the first of his chosen ones came into the realm of the earth of this world. Well could he and his not prevent that even into the written documents of the swamp of his spirit good morsels and fragments of My spirit were brought, My incarnation and My coming, though ever so mutilated, yet found their way even into the documents of Satan's scriptures; for ceaselessly were Mine also concerned about the prophets of the evil spirit and gave through them what was at all possible through prophets of such a spirit. But precisely these few morsels and fragments of truth and goodness shine forth from the dark and poisonous swamp of the writing of the spirit of Satan all the more clearly, the more densely the dark plague of lies, bloodlust, revenge and destructive fury surrounds them. That I would come, the evil spirit also knew, and therefore I stand in the revelation of his lying paradise as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and therefore he forbids under threats of death to take from the tree of knowledge, since he knows that every cognisant spirit who takes from the tree of knowledge in good will must fully recognise not only Me but also him. Far more than the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the evil spirit of hellish darkness is concerned that no cognisant spirit should find the tree of eternal life, recognise the truth of the eternal life of every soul-spirit-living trinity and know that he, like God, was not created, but by the power of his eternal being was, is and will eternally be. That men must recognise good and evil in general by the power of the feelings that are proper to the living soul of cognisant spirit, and that he cannot change a jot of this power by commandments, promises and prohibitions, he knows, but he does everything to prevent anyone from truly recognising Me and him; for in the hour when it happens and when the cognisant spirit of men of good will knows that I alone am the eternal truth, the true light and the true eternal life, because My coming, My incarnation, every one of My words and all My works confirm it, he knows in the same hour exactly who the Hebrew God is; for the written documents of his spirit, will and striving speak clearly and identify him exactly. If men recognise from their own what is good and what is evil, because the power of feelings, though ever so maliciously suppressed and hypocritically twisted, can never be stifled and annihilated, they shall never come to the knowledge of truth in the striving of the spirit of the hellish swamp; for once they have come to the knowledge of truth, they have also found the way to the tree of eternal life, which Satan strives so strictly to prevent and block by his devils. But to make the way to the tree of true knowledge, the way to the knowledge of eternal truth, which is none other than true God- and true self-knowledge, the way to the tree of eternal life, which I alone am, free to everyone who is of good will, therefore have I come, therefore am I here and say through you to this world:

The evil spirit of hell, through his own and through prophets of a spirit inclined to him, has spread great darkness among the nations and peoples, limited in time and place, has raged terribly among men, has caused mischief, horror, terror and despair, and has also left behind many documents of his will and striving written by his prophets. But what do all these, taken together, mean against the spirit of the Hebrew scripture, in which the same evil spirit, documented, reveals himself to his chosen ones? Nothing: for though the other scriptures contain ever so much error, ever so much delusion, ignorance, entanglements and bloodlust, all this is not to be compared with the Hebrew scripture. For this represents a spiritual wall, over which any view into the past is to be completely blocked, no cognisant spirit once enclosed therein is to find a way out of the swamp piled up there, is never to recognise what and who he himself truly is, is never to learn from where and how he comes, why and wherefore he is there. He is also not to strive to know what goal he is to strive for, and is to languish in the plague of blind faith, that he was created from clay, with the consumption and destruction of which he himself is also consumed, destroyed, annihilated, falls to death and eternal non-being. Such a spirit is incomprehensible even to many, many Hebrews; in this respect, countless Hebrews find their God incredible, despite all his promises of earthly wealth, power, well-being and exaltation over all other peoples, who are to be exterminated, and where they can neither annihilate Jehovah Sabaoth nor his chosen ones, they are at least to make them subservient to themselves. Despite all these and other promises and despite all the covenants concluded by such a God with his chosen ones and sworn by him in his many names against all the peoples of the earth, despite all fear and dread of the curses and the most terrible threats of revenge of such a God, countless Hebrews still feel disadvantaged and seek what Jehovah Sabaoth withholds from them from the prophets of the Essenes, from those of the other peoples, as well as from their own. How have the elders, the scribes, many Pharisees and even Sadducees, as worldly wise men and thinkers, searched in the scripture to find even the slightest hint of a further life and of life at all therein! They see and hear from the prophets of the Essenes and the peoples how vividly they speak with their dead; they themselves receive messages and information from their dead, which are undoubtedly only their spirit and knowledge and thus already a proof in themselves that the dead live. They search in the scripture, find the prophetess of Endor, who calls Samuel to King Saul – and he appears; that he expresses himself so vengefully and poisonously against Saul is understandable to many, for Samuel is the faithful servant of the Hebrew God. But if he lives, can appear and speak, others must also; but why does the Hebrew God forbid this communication, why does he, who himself must use his prophets for revelations of his spirit, will and striving, why does he call prophets who are infinitely superior to his own and to himself in human-moral terms, sorcerers, diviners, seers, necromancers, soothsayers, who have the Python spirit, and why does he command them to be banished, stoned, killed and exterminated? The documents of the Hebrew scripture identify the being and spirit of his prophets as clearly as himself! Why does he nowhere speak of an immortal soul in this scripture? Why, on the other hand, does he repeatedly say: Whoever does not keep my covenant, seeks to evade this or that of my statutes and does not want to obey me, shall be cursed and his soul shall be exterminated forever! His revelation that he built man from a clod of earth, from clay, and formed this creation into a living being by blowing his breath into it, gives even many Hebrews food for thought, and they ask themselves: Is the breath of God a living soul, and does it alone make men alive? The animal also lives; from whom does it have its breath? If the animal is not a living soul, how then is man? Moreover, this revelation contradicts all the following ones, for "Lord" Jehovah Sabaoth expressly and repeatedly reveals through his servant Moses: "The soul is the blood! – and blood is life! Whoever therefore slaughters whatever and does not do it before the sanctuary, the dwelling of the Lord and God of Israel, that it be brought to the Lord as a sacrifice and a sweet savour, shall be guilty of blood and shall be exterminated." The Lord, God of Israel, wants the blood to be sprinkled and poured out on his altar for a most sweet savour, and not that it be slaughtered in the field and the blood given to the field devils. The burnt offerings must perish with flesh and blood on the altar of the God of Israel, but the blood of all other sacrifices must be poured out on the altar; is blood therefore the soul or life?

Thus and similarly do many Hebrews think and argue until some Sadducee, as a worldly wise man and thinker, decides, speaking thus: The best of the scripture is that it sets us Hebrews above all peoples, so we are the people of all peoples, as the God of our scripture is the God of all gods; but the most reasonable of all his revelations is that which says briefly and succinctly: 'You are earth and dust, and shall return to earth and dust!' We see ourselves that it is so and not otherwise, know that it is the Alpha and Omega, a becoming, a passing away, the beginning and the end of all that lives – Amen! As these Sadducees think of being and life, so do many others who call themselves worldly wise men and thinkers – and I tell you that the time is not so far when the vast majority of men will think and speak no differently; and at this time, many of you who hear this My Word today will proclaim Me, My Spirit and also this My Word from Spirit to Spirit through the Spirit and through the prophet of humanity, whom I have promised you to send at that time. Now the tree of eternal life, the Father of all that lives Himself, has come to you! Behold Me! I alone am the eternal truth and the true eternal life! The way to the tree of eternal life, which the evil spirit of hellish darkness seeks to prevent and block from all cognisant spirit through his insidious lying revelations, that way I make free to everyone. And again I tell you: A death that is to mean the annihilation and non-being of the living soul and which does not exist in truth, this death the father of lies and the darkness of the spirit reveals despite better knowledge, because he knows the fear and dread, the horror and terror of the living soul before dying; and already in this torment he finds a kind of devilish intoxication, as it helps him and his kind to gloss over the own depravity and damnation which he has pronounced upon himself and his kind, and enflames his greed to ever worse desire. Infinitely should men fear him and his kind. Fear, horror, terror and despair should seize men when they hear or read his curses, revenge, death, extermination and annihilation threats. Need, misery and the severest afflictions should press men anew, full of his spirit and striving, to oppress, rob, tear each other apart and drive each other into the "death" he reveals, which is the greatest lie of the father of lies. If there were such a death, which would result in the complete extermination, annihilation and non-being of the living soul with the spirit eternally own to it – truly I tell you that there would be no Satan and no devils. For his, his devils' and servants' hatred against the omnipotence of eternal truth and true eternal life is so boundless and nameless that they would much rather give themselves the lying invented death, annihilate themselves and throw away their being than turn and acknowledge Me as He who I am in the eternal truth of My immutable spirit and in the truth of eternal life. They would annihilate themselves and throw away their being, not only out of hatred against eternal truth, but already out of malicious spite, in order thereby to convict the omnipotence of eternal truth and eternal life of impotence.

How often have I said to the Hebrew elders and leaders, when they pressed Me, saying that I make Myself God and blaspheme their god, who is their god and father, that this their father and god, by the power of the documents of the scripture of his spirit, is a Satan, a murderer of souls and men from the beginning and the father of lies. Many among you know that many of these Hebrew leaders have sought Me secretly, and many of them have asked Me on that occasion how I, who know the death of no living soul, can call their god and father a murderer of souls and men, since only he who kills an image of God—that is, man—with intent to kill can be a murderer. But I have always said to them the same thing that I say to you: The evil spirit of hellish darkness is therefore a murderer of souls and men because he was the originator of the dying of countless and innumerable hosts of souls of cognisant spirit already in eternity; for these, seduced by him and taking from his spirit, were themselves thereby disfigured in spirit and being and therefore no longer able to dwell further in the realm of eternal truth with those who remained pure there, so that they left it through their own shared guilt and as a result of the self-willed degeneration they had brought upon themselves; they came into a realm in which there is a lack of forces and which therefore offers no possibility of perception and activity for the spirit of the living soul. As a result, despite the life force that can never be separated from their being and spirit, they subsequently lost their consciousness and had to fall into a severe impotence, which not only equals earthly dying but also surpasses it in many respects. From this realm of oblivion of unconsciousness and impotence, from this realm, which is completely closed to Satan and his kind due to a much deeper disfigurement and degeneration of the nature of their being, all that is living gradually comes into the realm of the earth, this world created by Me very soon thereafter, and must die there a second time in order to reach the realm of the hereafter. The originator of all this countless dying is the evil spirit of hellish darkness, whose existence in the realm of the light of eternal truth is impossible, because eternal truth is also true eternal life, but he has already sought to find the annihilation of all that lives that is not of his spirit and striving, even when he and his kind still beheld My realm. As the being of a once great spirit, he knows that his life force, like that of any other soul-spirit being, is the life force of My being and spirit. This very knowledge spurred his insidious malice to find means whose forces would entail the separation of the life force from the soul-spirit of all who are not of his spirit and striving, and, in accordance with his annihilation greed, would also bring about the separation of the soul from the spirit; this would result in what he so greedily longs for in his revenge and annihilation lust—death, which, however, as the offspring of the darkness of his spirit, suckled with lies and fed with malice, continues to haunt as a phantom only in the swamp of the hellish bog. But it is a fact that the evil spirit will never find a means or force in all eternity to separate My life force, once given to the beings of their own spirit eternally with and beside Me, even from a single one of the most insignificant and nugatory of these beings, because such means and forces do not exist; and such a separation is far beyond even omnipotence, because it lies far outside the laws that the immutable spirit of eternal truth has set for Itself and that therefore remain immutable. This holy fact fills the evil spirit of hellish darkness with an inextinguishable, just as boundless as nameless hatred against all that is from the truth; and because eternal truth once gave its own life force to every soul-spirit being, that it might live like God, with and beside Whom it eternally exists, the evil and lying adversary directs his annihilation greed against life, because I am the Father of life. As great as the spirit of the father of lies and malice once was, the smaller he became when he left My realm, in whose light and truth he did not endure, but the greater was his arrogance, defiance, hatred, his revenge and annihilation greed, for which My realm was closed to him. And because neither he nor those hosts who went with him full of his spirit could turn the evil properties they had assumed and created against anyone else, but the force of the spirit urges the effect of its properties and seeks objects for its action, the malice, insidiousness, mendacity, revenge and annihilation greed of all turned against each other. Thereby the foundation stone for the construction and expansion of the bog of the hellish swamp was also laid and consecrated with mutual threats, curses, revenge and annihilation oaths. Mutual persecution, terror, fear and dread of an admittedly only imagined, but in the darkness of the spirit as well as of the realm of this hell all the more firmly seated delusion of the possibility of the annihilation of life and being forced flight just as much as violence and defense against the oppressors, and more than once many of the devils turned against Satan himself, placing another on the throne of hell in his stead, but then soon pressing the deposed one again, so that he would avenge the deeds of the one dragged down by death and annihilation. Satan, however, aware of his power over his kind as well as of the fact that he cannot satisfy the desire for such revenge, which he would have gladly exercised himself on so many of the oppressors, spoke of granting a grace, in order to give himself the semblance of a deity, and from then on the throne of the realm of hell was called the seat of grace. Until then, the word grace, which the dark inhabitants of the swamp of hell had often and often heard before in My realm, had not yet been spoken, and now that Satan had spoken it in his insidiousness, it found an equally insidious echo even at the seat of grace. In the meantime, this world with the realm of the earth and the realm of the hereafter had already been created by the will of My spirit, the earth full of the life and work of the infinite diversity of the soul-spirit that once passed through there, and the hereafter also enlivened by the hosts that had arrived there from the realm of the earth. A few souls of cognisant spirit, who had once been close to the father of lies and his kind, found neither on earth nor then in the hereafter the right field for the effect of the evil properties slumbering in them, and they ascended, seeking this field, into the depths of the realm of the hereafter, where the equally seeking evil spirit found them with his kind; through them he was informed of the existence of the hereafter and the earth, and immediately he also knew why and for what purpose I had created all this. And when he saw hosts, herds and multitudes of soul-spirit-living beings in the hereafter and on earth, he assumed that he had shattered My realm; and now his arrogance swelled to an overweening pride, of which only his being and spirit are capable and which cannot be expressed in the words of an earthly language. The means and forces he restlessly sought, which bring about a destruction and annihilation of the soul-spirit-living beings he hated, he could not and will never find. But he found dying on earth, and soon it was clear to him that he was the originator of this dying, although until then this very phenomenon had been completely unknown to him, and he would not have thought anything similar possible. For he, like any other soul-spirit-living being, had until then seen neither a becoming nor a passing away and therefore could not even imagine a beginning, let alone an end, of being. But now he found it in the realm of the earth, in this world, and this finding, the dying of the living souls passing through the earthly, was to offer him an ample substitute for the destruction and annihilation of all that he hates, which he had so restlessly sought. Similar and equal souls of cognisant spirit, who had shown him the way through the hereafter into the realm of the earth, he also found here. Using those who had brought him and his kind here, he exploited the people suitable as prophets to proclaim him and the fellow leaders of his devils whom he favored as gods to men. At that time, it was impossible for him himself, as well as for his devils, to speak through the prophets thus found, but those who had themselves previously passed through the realm of the earth in a human body and had brought him and his kind here offered themselves as willing tools. Until then, mankind on earth had spoken only of one true, eternal and good God; only He was taught and invoked on earth; but now, temporally and locally, here and there, gods appeared who, through the mouths of their prophets, demanded blood and life as pleasing sacrifices to them, who answered the refusal and non-fulfillment of their wishes with curses, revenge, death and annihilation threats, and where fear, dread and terror met their demands, insatiably increased their desire to hitherto unheard-of abominations. But not always and not everywhere on earth could the evil gods satisfy their greed for blood sacrifices; for many of the peoples and nations, instructed by prophets of another spirit, found the abominations of the prophets preaching blood sacrifices to be possessed by an evil spirit and kept them behind secure locks; but where, despite secure custody, fears arose that such prophets might have a further effect, they were summarily strangled and their corpses burned.

"Till then mankind upon earth had spoken of One true, eternal, and good God alone, only He was taught and invoked upon earth; but now, in time and place, here and there gods arose, who through the mouth of their prophets demanded blood and life as sacrifices pleasing to them, who answered the refusal and non-fulfillment of their wishes with curses, revenge, death, and threats of destruction, and where fear, dread, and terror met their demands, insatiably increased their desire to hitherto unheard-of horrors.

But not always and not everywhere on earth could the evil gods satiate their greed for blood sacrifices; for many of the peoples and nations, instructed by prophets of another spirit, found the horrors of the blood-sacrifice-preaching prophets to be possessed by evil spirits and kept them behind secure locks; but where, despite the secure custody, a further effect of such prophets had caused fears to arise, they were summarily strangled and their corpses burned. For you should also know that graves are not an old institution and that before, all peoples and nations on earth knew no other institution than to dissolve the corpse of every deceased person in fire, which I call neither better nor worse than burying.

End of Part 14