Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/8534

8534 Holding on to misguided spiritual knowledge.... Desire for truth....

June 19, 1963: Book 90

It remains an impossible venture to convey the truth to people who believe that they already possess it, for they are unapproachable and don't accept anything, no matter how appealing it is offered to them.... They stubbornly hold on to the spiritual knowledge in their possession without considering whether it can lay claim to truthfulness. And the longer such spiritual knowledge continues to exist among the human race the harder it is to eradicate it, the darkness is so immense that no ray of light can penetrate it.... But since people deem themselves in possession of the truth, they will not appeal to Me Myself for truth either; consequently, it is not possible to convey truthful knowledge to them. And even if people debate the issue of truth and untruth at times, they only ever merely use their intellect and will therefore never reach the goal of recognising error and untruth correctly. The concept of the 'working of the spirit' in the human being is also incomprehensible to them. They only ever abide by the knowledge they accepted by way of education, which they believe to be true, and do not allow anything else to shake this belief.... And yet they are profoundly mistaken and don't realise it as a result of their spiritual darkness.... Imparting the pure truth to such a person will remain unsuccessful until a messenger of My Word succeeds in shaking this person's firm conviction, until he succeeds in clearly exposing the truth and in arousing the person's doubt so that he will dwell on it and thus there is a chance that his thinking might become enlightened. Even then, this will only be possible if a person lives a life of love.... But since especially people living in error prioritise unimportant, humanly decreed commandments while the commandments of love are often set aside or are merely marginally taken notice of, they lack the love which would grant them spiritual enlightenment.... And thus only a person's degree of love is decisive as to whether and to what extent he is receptive when purest truth is given to him.... Only a person who is willing to love will therefore feel affected by and be receptive for the truth, and only a person willing to love will accept My direct revelations and revise his present thoughts. In that case it will be a significant gain, for he will also advocate the truth wherever possible. Yet on the whole, all efforts of liberating people from erroneous thinking will be in vain, they will be unwilling to exchange it for the pure truth, they will resist the light and be content with deceptive light, which merely reduces their eyesight so that they are no longer able to recognise true light.

However, the truth does not establish itself forcibly, nevertheless, everything will be done to make it accessible to people, but where the resistance cannot be broken it will remain dark, because the people themselves offer resistance, which cannot be broken by force. And neither will large campaigns succeed in changing people's thoughts, for every human being is responsible for himself, and regardless of what a person's awakened spirit tries to explain, he will only ever be accepted where the ground has been prepared by a life of love, where the preconditions are in place for clear and correct thinking, for the recognition of truth. Therefore the error cannot be systematically eradicated either, every individual person must come to terms with it by wanting to know the truth. As long as this will, the desire for truth, is not present, every effort to teach people otherwise will be futile.... One can only ever try to motivate people to live a life of love, to explain to them the significance of love, that love is the only possibility for attaining beatitude and that all other actions and traditions won't benefit the soul in the slightest if love has not been kindled in a person. And if a person takes this message of love to heart and makes an effort to perform selfless deeds of love, much will have been achieved already. Then it will no longer be hopeless that he will think clearly, for love will ignite a light in him, it will awaken the spiritual spark to life and this will successfully influence the person from within.... He will doubt, question and also receive an answer as soon as he genuinely desires it. Nevertheless, a revival will only ever gradually take place, because people are already too engulfed by the darkness of night and they lack the will to reach the light. The conviction of knowing the truth is the most effective poison the adversary could have administered to people.... And yet, people who want to escape his influence are not hopelessly lost.... However, they have free will and therefore they can only ever be preached love and, depending on their fulfilment of the divine commandments of love, their spiritual state will change as well.... They will be able to step out of the darkness of night into the light of day, they will realise the truth and will subsequently also want to release themselves from error, and My strength and grace will always help them to accept the truth....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna