GENESIS THE MIRACLES AND THE PREDICTIONS ACCORDING TO SPIRITISM

Allan Kardec

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Precursory Signs

47. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. (Matthew, 24: 6 to 8)

48. “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Marc, 13: 12 and 13)

49. “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. * Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.” (Matthew, 24: 15 to 22)


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*The expression: the abomination of desolation, despite being meaningless, is also ludicrous. Ostervald’s translation that says: “The abomination that causes desolation,” is quite different. The meaning then becomes perfectly clear, as one comprehends that abomination brings desolation as punishment. Jesus said: “when abomination comes to a saintly place, so does desolation, and that will be a sign that the times are near.”



50. “Immediately after the distress of those days ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ “At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the Earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” (Matthew, 24: 29 and 34)

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. (Matthew, 24: 37 and 38)

51. “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Marc, 13: 32)

52. I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. (John, 16: 20 to 22)

53. And many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, But he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew, 24: 11 to 14)

54. This picture of the end of time is evidently allegorical, as the greater part of them are which Jesus presented. The images which they contain are colored in a way to make a deep impression upon intelligences corroded with sin and ignorance. In order to strike these clouded spirits, it was necessary to paint vigorously with glaring colors. Jesus addressed himself particularly to the people who were the least enlightened, those incapable of comprehending metaphysical abstractions, and of seizing the delicacy of forms. In order to reach the heart it was necessary to speak to the eyes by the aid of material signs, and to the ears by the vigor of language.

As a natural consequence of this disposition of mind, supreme power could not, according to the belief then, manifest itself only by extraordinary or supernatural things. The more impossible they were, the more ready were they to accept them.

The Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with great majesty, surrounded by his angels, and with the sound of trumpets, seemed to them much more imposing than a being invested with moral power alone. So the Jews, who expected the Messiah to be a king of the Earth, mighty above all kings, to place their nation in the first rank among them, to raise up again the throne of David and Solomon, would not recognize him in the humble son of the carpenter without material authority. However, this poor, despised man of Judea has become the greatest among the great. He has conquered by his sovereignty more kingdoms than the most powerful potentates.

With his word alone, and with the aid of a few miserable fishermen, he has revolutionized the world; and it is to him that the Jews will owe their rehabilitation. He then had the truth when he replied to this question of Pilate: “Are you the king of the Jews?” “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied.

55. Allow us to observe, that among the ancients, earthquakes and the eclipse of the sun were necessary symbols of all events and all sinister presages. One finds them at the death of Jesus, of Caesar, and in a multitude of times in the history of paganism. If these phenomena were produced as often as has been related, it would appear impossible that men had not preserved the memory of them by tradition. To this is added that of the stars having fallen from heaven, which is evidently a fiction, as one knows now stars cannot fall.

56. However, under these allegories are concealed great truths. Firstly, it is the announcement of calamities of all kinds, which will strike and decimate humanity, – calamities engendered by a great contest between good and evil, faith and incredulity, progressive and retrogressive ideas. Secondly, that of the diffusion over all the Earth of the Gospel reestablished in its primitive purity. Then the reign of goodness, which will be that of peace and universal fraternity, will arise from the code of evangelical morals put in practice by all nations. This will truly be the reign of Jesus, since he will preside at its establishment, and men will live under the aegis of his law – a reign of goodness; for, said he, “Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.”

57. When will these things be accomplished? “No one knows,” says Jesus, “not even the Son of man;” but, when the moment shall have come, men will be warned of it by precursory indication. These signs will not take place in the sun or in the stars, but in the social state, as well as in phenomena which partake more largely of the moral quality than the physical, which one can in part deduce from his allusions to it.

It is very certain that this change could not have been operated during the life of the apostles; otherwise Jesus would not have been ignorant of it. Moreover, such a transformation could not take place in a few years. However, he speaks to them as if they were to be witness of it. He meant by it that they were to be reborn into life for this epoch, and to work themselves at the transformation. Sometimes he speaks of the approaching end of Jerusalem, and takes this fact as a point of comparison for the future.

58. Is it the end of the world which Jesus announces by his second coming, and when he says: “The end of the world will come when the Gospel shall have been preached over all the Earth?”

It is not rational to suppose that God will destroy the world precisely at the moment when it will enter into the way of moral progress by the practice of evangelical teachings. Nothing, moreover, in the words of Christ indicates a universal destruction, which, under such conditions, would not be justified.

The general practice of evangelical truths must lead to an amelioration of the moral state of men, will lead of itself to the reign of good, and will lead the downfallen from the errors of his ways. He refers, then, to the end of the old world, of the world governed by prejudices, pride, selfishness, fanaticism, incredulity, cupidity, and all the bad passions to which Christ alludes when he says: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come;” but this will lead to a struggle from which will proceed the evils which he predicts.

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