Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/0672

0672 Faith is a prerequisite for knowledge.... living on....

November 16, 1938: Book 14

The need on earth is great, and standing in direct contact with the earth, the dangers for the soul are endless and manifold.... There are so few possibilities that ensure ascent without struggle. Only when love is exceptionally active in the human heart are such souls in a state of maturity in a short time. In general, however, people are not urged enough by love, and so the soul has an extremely difficult time until it has overcome all earthly dangers and is released from the heaviness of earth. But as soon as the endeavour to only act according to God's will sets in, the dangers for the soul will also be less, for the conscious search for the deity is the first step towards the soul's advancement. At present, however, there is great hardship on earth, for the inclination to live is predominantly.... and this inclination only ever extends to earthly life but not to life in the beyond, which should of necessity be lived in a correspondingly listless and God-pleasing manner for the beyond.... But people don't think about that.... they only know life on earth.... but a continuation of life after death is completely unthinkable to them, and therefore they do not prepare their lives for such a life. And so the majority of humanity lives as if the hour of reckoning would never come for them, every day is devoted solely to earthly worries and plans.... They strive incessantly to increase their possessions, to bring themselves prestige and honour and to savour the joys and pleasures of the world, and hardly listen to their fellow human beings who, with a view to a higher being, would like to give them exhortations and lead them to faith in God. What they were taught as children has probably remained in their minds, but very few are convinced of the truth of what they were taught and are much more inclined to ridicule the teaching they were given or not give it any attention or importance. And thus a spiritual alienation will increasingly occur amongst humanity; there will only be a few who enter into contact with the eternal deity, but most will displace all christian teachings with purely worldly ones, and all faith will be destroyed if people themselves do not fight for it. People will instruct each other in everything necessary for earthly existence, yet what should be most important to them, to cultivate true profound faith as the foundation of knowledge, they will overlook as indifferent and thereby harm themselves the most, for the more they distance themselves from faith the more incapable they become of fathoming the truth. All earthly endeavours are then so unimportant because they do not improve the soul's lot in the slightest but rather shroud it ever deeper in darkness.... Only faith is able to bring light to people on earth, and only the acceptance of faith fulfils the conditions for a God-pleasing life on earth. You are not yet aware of the latter as long as you turn away from faith, and you will realize for yourselves how empty and stale life as such is if you do not know the true reason for your earthly existence.... Only the knowledge of this is necessary in order to make you work hard in earthly life for life after death, for eternal life in the beyond.... then you will know your task, then you will also try to fulfil it completely. And even if life then offers you hardship, worry and suffering, you will gladly take it all upon yourselves in the belief that you will continue to exist and without complaining, for one day a life of joy in the beyond beckons to you if you have devotedly borne the suffering on earth in God's will and have been purified by it from everything that would have prevented you from entering the heavenly paradise. In the same way, your bodily burden will also be taken from you, and your survival after death will make you forget all hardship if you are allowed to dwell in the neighbourhood of the lord. Therefore, pay attention to the coming time. The hardship on earth is great and anyone who recognizes it should make every effort to alleviate it and offer his fellow human beings spiritual and physical help if they are in need of it....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers