THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN
VOLUME 5
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus in the region of Capernaum. Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 17
- Chapter 240 -
The healing of a possessed boy. Gospel of Matthew 17:14-21.
We alighted, fixed our ship and stepped onto the land while it was still day. But on this day there was a great fair and many people were present.
2
When we came to the people, we were recognized immediately by many people, and one came, fell at My feet (Matt. 17:14) and said, "Lord have mercy on my son, he has great suffering; for he is a lunatic, as the doctors say, and has great torment in it, so that he often falls into the fire and into the water! (Matt. 17:15) When Your disciples were here not so long ago and healed many very ill people by the laying on of their hands, I brought my son to them also; but they could not help him." (Matt. 17:16)
3
Then I said to those of My disciples whose faith had not yet become a rock and who a few moons ago had worked in My name, "Oh you unbelieving and amiss kind! How long shall I stay with you and how long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to Me!" (Matt. 17:17)
4
Then the father of the sick boy rose, hurried into his house and brought him to Me straightaway. When the boy was with Me, he made a terribly distorted face; for the terrible spirit by which the boy was possessed, tore him a few times before Me and forced out of the very contorted mouth of the boy several terrible curses and obscenities, which are not necessary to be repeated here. But I rebuked the terrible spirit very much and commanded it to leave the boy's body instantly and to go down to hell. Then the evil visibly flew out of the boy and the boy was immediately fully cured. (Matt. 17:18)
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But the terrible spirit had the form of a great black, fluffy cat and asked Me, saying, "You, son of the very highest, free me from hell and punish me in some other way!"
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But I said, "Rise from here to the bare gorges of the moon where you were before and purge your many abominations that you performed eighty years ago when you were still on Earth in the flesh!"
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Then the terrible spirit took the form of an ape with great bat-like wings and immediately flew up and away like an arrow. The people were amazed, and many were terrified at such a sight.
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But I calmed them and said, "Do not be afraid; for I have been given all power in heaven as well as on Earth, and this spirit which tortured this boy for seven years will never again come close to this Earth!"
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But then the father of the now fully healthy boy asked Me, "Lord, why did this have to happen to my son, who has never sinned in any seeming way, just as my whole house has always kept strictly to the Law? And yet it was the very most innocent of all who had to be so miserably tortured for such a long time! Such a thing can only happen with God's permission! But why does God allow such a thing?"
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I answered and said, "God tests those whom He loves in particular, and if the tested passes the test well, then he has found his salvation for eternity!
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But the soul of your boy is from one of those great worlds, countless many of which fill the endlessly great space over and under this Earth. It needed this for its salvation as well as the test of the flesh, through which it already received the power in the youth which many a soul does not achieve even if it had to bear the pressure of its heavy flesh for a hundred years.
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Believe Me, the people do not know it, and nor can they know, why such a thing is and happens; but God knows about absolutely everything!
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But eighty years ago this terrible spirit was a very usurious pig trader and had an important trading business, became very rich and in the end as a Jew even ran a slave trade, where he made use of great cruelty. Finally he died a miserable death, and his fate was to reach the kingdom of the devils as a devil himself.
14
And because it suited him there very badly, he began to go into himself and though in his innards: Why did I have to become a devil then? My bad, gluttonous body was guilty. Let me go back again into the good, sober flesh of an innocent boy and I will become an angel in it! And if the boy's flesh should feel even the slightest desire for gluttony, then it shall immediately be chastised by me!
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And behold, since this was a very serious decision of the indeed very terrible soul, it was practically granted to him. The success of it however is a good one for the boy, and the previously very terrible soul has now a better direction and taken on even something more human. Anything further will be done by the highly barren and inhospitable abysses of the moon!"
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At this the man asked me further and said, "Is the moon a world as well? And how did my son become a lunatic then? For besides the possession he must have been that, because the full moon had a great influence on his suffering."
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I said, "You will not understand, or only with difficulty, that the moon is also a type of Earth and world, although it is so; but My disciples understand it, and the later descendents will understand and see it only too well. But that your boy always had such a great fear of the full moon was not dependent on his nature, but instead in that of the spirit plaguing him, which originally came from that very scanty and highly inhospitable world. Anything further you do not need to know."
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When many standing around also heard this, they said, "That is an extraordinary person! He performs miracles like a great prophet, but immediately afterwards he begins to speak nonsense and speaks like a madman!"
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But the man went up to them and said very seriously, "He is certainly not crazy "but we are, because we are not capable of understanding his wisdom!"
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Then there was a short heated exchange among them, which the healed boy brought to an end with a few very cogent words.
21
At this My disciples came up to Me and asked, saying, "Lord, now tell us why we could not drive out this spirit; for we drove out many others in Your name?" (Matt. 17:19)
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I said, "Firstly because you have so little faith! For I tell you all: Truly, if you have firm, undoubting faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this high mountain: Move from here to there over the sea! And it will immediately lift itself up, and nothing will be impossible for you! (Matt. 17:20) But this kind [of spirit] does not go out except by prayer and fasting. (Matt. 17:21)
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When you were here, the boy had not yet reached the highest degree of fasting and prayer, as his possessor demanded. But now the case has happened and the most believing of you would have been able to drive it out, although the spirit would certainly have proved to be very stubborn. But now it was better thus. Now it is already becoming evening, the sun is sinking there under the horizon, and so we will go to the house of the man whose son I have healed!"