Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/8709

8709 God is lord over life and death....

December 27, 1963: Book 91

You know that My opponent has great power in the end and that he also makes use of it in every way. And his power is so great because you men yourselves grant it to him, because you comply with his will and do not resist his temptations in the least or offer resistance to them. It is you yourselves who allow him such activity that he can cause hopeless confusion among you men, because he has you completely under his control, because you are without love.... Love would keep him away from you, because since he himself is without all love, he himself cannot resist love, he is subject to love unconditionally, but you men do not apply it, but are of the same nature as he.... without love and therefore also without power to resist. And therefore it is possible for him to completely intervene in your thinking, to mislead you and to influence you that you always only carry out what is his will.... But his will is to prevent you humans from finding the way to Me.... His will is to keep you under his control, to incite you to actions of the most evil kind, to constantly incite you to sin and to act contrary to all My commandments of love. Furthermore, his will is to extinguish the light wherever it shines in order to penetrate the darkness. And where he cannot extinguish it, there he seeks to cloud it, to put up blinding lights next to it, which shine so brightly that the right light cannot be recognized by men, whose spiritual eye is blinded. He does everything to not lose his following and to win back him who has already withdrawn from him and turned towards Me. And he will continue these efforts until the end, and men will be more and more willing to comply with his desire and to move in sin as it is his intention. And so he will also seek to destroy human life to completely cut off their development. He will again seek to determine men to works of destruction of every kind because the power is taken from him himself over every work of creation although it holds the spiritual in it, which still belongs to him. But he cannot destroy the works of creation, and he also cannot end the life of a man, but instigate men of the same will to it.... And I do not resist him because every man has free will and does not need to carry out what My opponent whispers into his ear. If he does it, then he will also have to answer for it exactly because of his free will. But what do I Myself think of such actions which are directed against a person's life? Again I allow the free will of man to be valid, whatever he intends. But I still decide about life or death.... For I can very well also thwart an evil plan, I can protect every person from falling prey to attacks by evil people, and I know if and when I grant a person this protection.... I also know when a man's last hour has struck, which I have determined for his earth life. For then I call a man's soul away to its salvation to protect it from the relapse into the deep when it has already reached a certain maturity, or also to further use a soul in the spiritual kingdom that it takes part in the work of redemption from this kingdom, but as I also end the life of those who no longer show progress on earth or whose task on earth I regard as finished. All this I determine, because I am the lord over life and death.... And no matter how brutally My adversary proceeds, no matter how much he incites the people in bondage to acts of hatred and unkindness, he does not have the power to put an end to a person's life.... He can only determine man as mediator, but how the effect of every still so evil act is, that will always be left to My will. But for the will to act every soul has to answer, and also My opponent himself is not spared the fettering after his work in the last time before the end. So I will certainly leave free will to man who has surrendered to the will of My opponent; I will not prevent him to carry out his plan, and no matter how bad it is, but I Myself determine the effect or allow it. And a man loses his life through diabolical attack, then My will has predetermined the end of it, because I Myself call a man away, because I see when the hour has come for it. And whether also now My opponent triumphs.... he is also only an instrument in My plan of salvation from eternity, it is he who first needs the human being's free will in order to be able to carry out his shameful plans. But everything that happens is included in My plan of salvation from eternity, and also My adversary contributes through his will to support this plan of salvation and to push men to a decision, because every man has to prove his free will, whether he decides for Me or for him, and accordingly also all world events take place, whereby he is certainly strongly involved, but in the end still My will remains determining, how far I tolerate his work always in the foresight of the outcome, which alone is known to Me...._>Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers