Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/4944

4944 The power of the word.... ineffectiveness....

July 31, 1950: Book 56

The power of the word cannot become effective as long as the human being rejects it. Therefore the word will also not be recognized for what it is: as emanation of the eternal deity, as long as the human being does not want it to bear witness to it. The inner defence is a visible influence of the adversary of God, for a good person feels beneficently touched because the adversary of God has no power over these people. The divine word is the direct emanation of God.... God's strength of love can certainly penetrate everywhere but it immediately becomes ineffective as soon as it encounters resistance, otherwise the word would exert a certain spiritual coercion on people who are still God-opposing. The opposition to God does not only consist of open rejection of God and obvious counteraction, but the person can appear outwardly as God-affirming and yet inwardly be full of opposition to everything that has to do with faith. And on such a person God’s word remains completely without impression. His heart remains closed because his intellect wants to deny what requires an affirmative attitude in order to be able to work as grace. Offering these people the pure word of God from heaven does not promise much success, and these are the people of whom it can be said that they are neither warm nor cold.... who do not have the courage to openly reject, who are considered believers and yet inwardly deny everything and often still influence their fellow human beings with their attitude. For these, therefore, the divine word is no source of strength, for they only hear it according to the letter and it has no spiritual meaning for them. These are the ones who also doubt the book of the fathers, even if they openly profess it. And therefore they will also read it without understanding, and it will confuse rather than enlighten their spirit. For the power is not able to penetrate to the heart. It is only a dead word, for life is missing because man himself is dead in spirit. And spirit must speak to spirit. God’s word is the current of strength which again touches the divine spark, but only if the human being is willing to do so. All resistance interrupts the current because God gives nothing that does not want to be accepted. And so it is understandable that the word of God is all the more effective the more intimately it is desired. The desire for the divine word also secures an inconceivable blessing for the recipient, and the power of God flows through him who opens himself to the flow of power through his desire for it. He feels what his fellow human being cannot comprehend, he will understand what is completely inexplicable to him, for he connects himself with God through his desire, a connection which the latter can never enter into because he is far from God and does not make use of His strength in order to be able to approach Him. For without the supply of strength from God the human being is a weak being, and he will achieve nothing on earth as long as he withdraws himself from this supply of strength through his will, as long as his will is still under the influence of the one who is God's adversary, who did not want to acknowledge God as the source of strength and therefore fell....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers