ПРОРОЧЕСТВА

It must be said why prophecies were introduced into human life. So, we need to say: why were they introduced? God usually delays and is slow to punish sinners, while He is quick and quick to do good to the virtuous. This, that is, the fact that punishment does not follow directly after crimes, predisposes more careless people to fall. Therefore, God, in order to show His long-suffering and so that people do not become more careless from this, uses the medicine of prophecy, teaching sinners not with the punishments themselves, but for the time being only with predictions about them, so that if, after listening to the threats, they become better, they will reject the actual punishment from themselves; and if they remain insensitive, He will punish them. The devil, seeing this and understanding how great the benefit comes from this, sent false prophets who spoke against the prophets who threatened famine, plagues, wars, invasions of foreigners, and proclaimed favorable things. Just as God wanted to ward off punishment with terrible words, so the devil did the opposite: relaxing people with favorable words and making people careless, he made punishment necessary in reality. Then, when those who believed the false prophets and did not care at all about virtue, but remained in their sins, incurred punishment and the end of the matter showed the truth of the prophets and exposed the falsity of the false prophets, the devil again used another means for the destruction of those who surrendered to him. He convinced people who were easily deceived that the disasters that happened were due to the wrath of demons, whom they neglected and despised. Therefore, in order to destroy such deception, God foretells to people many years in advance what will happen later, especially the disasters that will occur, so that those who deceive them cannot attribute what happened to the wrath of demons (4). Prophecy is then better known when it reveals not only what God himself intends to do, but also what you yourself desire (4). Do not seek clarity in prophecies, where there are shadows and fortune-telling, just as in lightning you do not seek constant light, but are content with the fact that it only flashes (5). You might be interested in: