Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/4575

4575 ‘They ate and drank....’ just as it was before the Flood....

February 28, 1949: Book 53

As the end comes closer it will become again as it was before the great flood. People will be seized by an increased lust for life and be influenced by the world with all its attractions. People will no longer be able nor want to control themselves and will therefore unscrupulously enjoy life in sinfulness. For they will not desire harmless pleasures, instead, sin will prevail everywhere, selfish love will displace all neighbourly love and thus people will become sinful by harming their fellow human beings merely to satisfy their body’s every wish. Other people’s possessions will not be respected and thus all laws will be violated. The increased pleasure of life will stifle the voice of conscience and what the world has to offer will be relished to the full.... The world, however, is My adversary’s realm and thus only bad can come from the world, it can only denote a danger for the soul, for the satisfaction granted to the body must be atoned for by the soul, it must pay for what the body demands. People may therefore seemingly delight in the pleasure, only those belonging to My Own will know which hour has struck when people seek to intoxicate themselves in the ecstasy of pleasure. Then the end will be very near, for I have long announced to you already that it will be like before the great flood.... They ate and drank, they married and were given in marriage and took no notice of the admonitions and warnings from above. And it will be difficult to preach the Gospel to these people, for since they only pay attention to and aim for earthly life they lack all understanding for spiritual life, and therefore they mock and ridicule every bearer of truth who will try to convert them. Yet in the midst of euphoria comes the last Judgment.... It will be dreadful for all who look upon the world as their God, for they will fall from the height into the abyss, from joy into immense fear, they will fall from heaven into hell.... For the world and its attractions was their heaven, but the world will be destroyed.... and harshest incarceration will be the fate of those who used their freedom on earth wrongly, who live in sin and also die in sin. Beware of the world for it is a great danger for you.... at the moment it certainly still offers much that is desirable yet it is better that you refrain from it and strive toward the heavenly joys which come afterwards, and do without, so that you can enjoy the delights of heaven in all abundance. Don’t belong to those who only love themselves and want to provide the body with every pleasure. The euphoria is short-lived, yet it will be followed by a dreadful awakening, as it is announced in Word and Scripture.... The human race, however, is in great danger, for it is already dazzled by the world’s deceptive light, and it will not stand still in its demands but it will increase them.... It aims with giant strides towards the final end.... it seeks life and will find death, it seeks joy and walks into ruin....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna