Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/7853

7853 Strokes of fate.... Spiritual death....

March 17, 1961: Book 82

People who no longer have faith in a God and Creator, in the soul's continuation of life after death, have already succumbed to spiritual death, for they do not believe that they live on earth for a purpose and reason but only regard this life as an end in itself. They only move on an earthly level, their thoughts don't find the path into the spiritual kingdom, for they refuse to accept and follow thoughts which originate from there. They are purely humanly-orientated creatures with such a low degree of maturity that the destiny of a renewed banishment almost certainly awaits them, because their free will, instead of striving upwards, aims downwards again.... They have already attained some life and yet surrender to death again.... And neither can they be stopped because it is their free will, because it concerns the last and entirely free decision of will in earthly life. God, however, wants to give everlasting life to people.... And people must accept it from His hand, they cannot receive it from anywhere else than from their eternal God and Creator, nevertheless, they don't believe in Him and thus they won't ask Him for it either. Consequently, He can only impose upon them a destiny in earthly life which dissuades them from the material world and makes them think.... He can only shatter their earthly happiness and hopes because he wants to save them, because He wants to help them to attain the life which will last forever.... For if the human being's every earthly wish and craving finds fulfilment, he will constantly want more and increasingly turn his thoughts towards earthly things, and then his life will only be an end in itself for him but never become the means to an end.

You should therefore not be surprised that events which, in an earthly sense, have a disastrous effect on those who are affected by them, will increase during the last days.... that accidents and all kinds of disasters will claim countless human lives, that earthly possessions will be destroyed and that people will have to suffer illness and distress.... These are merely the means used by God Himself in order to find access to those people's hearts who refuse access to Him as long as their earthly way of life is good.... Anything He can still do will be done by Him in order to save those people who are approaching death. For spiritual death is far worse than physical death, which need not affect the soul if the person has lived his earthly life appropriately.... the soul cannot die but it must suffer the consequences of the person's thinking and conduct on earth. It will irrevocably have to experience the fate of renewed banishment if it still hasn't found God before the end, if it does not learn to recognise Him before the end and consciously acknowledges Him and appeals to Him for help and mercy in its spiritual adversity. And to make this possible much is yet to happen which you don't think you can reconcile with the love of a God.... But it is love, no matter how cruel it seems to you, for the soul's spiritual death is far more painful than the most horrendous strokes of fate can be on this earth.... For earthly life comes to an end, the soul, however, must spend an infinitely long time in torment and darkness again before it will receive the grace once more to live on earth as a human being with the same task: to voluntarily make a decision in favour of the One from Whom it once originated.... to voluntarily decide in favour of God from Whom it once voluntarily turned away and therefore became wretched. And it can only become blissfully happy again if it has fulfilled the meaning and purpose of its existence as a human being.... Then it will attain life again, it will no longer need to fear death, it will live forever as soon as it returns to God once more, as soon as it has united with Him again, for which its existence as a human being provided it with the opportunity to do and its will made the right decision....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna