Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/3191

3191 The adversary’s mask....

July 16, 1944: Book 42

People allow themselves to become beguiled by the adversary’s mask and do not recognise his game of deceit. For this reason he is gaining ground everywhere since God does not set him a limit as long as the human being himself grants him power over his will. But he is using this power in every respect by means of increasingly bigger works of deception in order to mislead people. They could certainly see through it if they were striving for righteousness and justice.... But such endeavour is the last thing on their mind, everyone is merely interested in themselves and their advantage and no-one questions to what extent the next person has the same right. It is selfish love by which the human being delivers himself to the opponent and which also blinds and disables him to become conscious of his activity. But if the human being himself does not resist he will fall prey to this control and all clarity of thought will be lost to him. Because the goal of God’s opponent is to confuse people’s thoughts so that they will increasingly fall away from God and become unable to withdraw from his lure by themselves, that he will rage and unreservedly pull them into ruin without meeting any resistance, because only the human will is decisive and this is too weak. (Because) The adversary represents the world and therefore is a friend of those who are attached to the world.

But he is approaching under the cover of piety, and thus people allow themselves to be beguiled by him. He feigns goodness to them but his actions are evil, since he propels people into heartlessness, into self interest, into pursuit of earthly wealth, into increased physical comfort, and all this is a decline of the soul’s development, it is a disregard for the real purpose of earthly life, the maturing of the soul. And people do not recognise it because they are enslaved by the power which aims to separate them from God. Yet even this enemy of souls takes the name of God in his mouth, he wears this cloak in order to remain unknown, and his cunning is successful and puts untold people under his spell. But woe unto them when his cunning is revealed, when the mask drops and his true face appears.... Then they can only save themselves from his power with great difficulty, for they had left Him, Who is Lord of all creation, Who can redeem the human being whose will is willing to be redeemed. But the enemy’s cunning consists of first removing a person’s belief in the help of the divine Redeemer as well as in His Divinity Itself. And those who are spiritually blind will follow his banner and voluntarily separate themselves from their soul’s Saviour. Humanity, however, does not recognise the dark power’s activity, it sees light where there is utmost darkness, because making believe that there is light even though it is darkest night is also an act of Satan’s deception. And they flee the true light and do not accept the cautions and warnings which are given to them by the appointed messengers.... They worship an idol whose power in fact merely consists of weakening the human will but who is powerless when this will turns towards God.

And you will recognise this idol by the fact that he will not do anything to increase your faith in a loving, wise and all-powerful God. That the name of God will indeed come forth from his mouth, but he will not give him authority by deliberately calling on Him, that he will ignore love and for this reason is far removed from God, the eternal love, that he will not acknowledge Jesus Christ, the divine Redeemer, and thus he is an obvious opponent of Him, who will put humanity, which is in need of redemption, into bondage once again if it follows him and puts itself under his banner....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna