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Why doesn't God do something to help his own people? These are the questions that I want to ask."
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Uriel answered, "If you live long enough, you will be surprised at what you will see, because this age is rapidly passing away.
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This age is so full of misery and imperfection that it cannot hold all the blessings that God has promised the righteous in the time to come.
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The evil about which you have asked me has already been planted, but the time for its harvesting has not yet arrived.
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This evil must be harvested, and this world where it was planted must be removed, before the new age where the good is to be planted can appear.
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At the beginning of time one grain of evil seed was sown in the heart of Adam. See how much wickedness it has already produced! Think of how much more it will produce before it is cut down and threshed out at Judgment Day.
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You can see for yourself what a big crop this one evil seed has produced.
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How terrible will be the harvest on Judgment Day when these countless heads of grain are threshed out!"
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Then I asked, "How long do we have to wait before this happens? Why are our lives so short and so full of misery?"
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Uriel answered, "Don't be in a greater hurry than God Most High! You are thinking only of yourself, but God has to be concerned about everybody.
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Your questions are the same ones asked by the souls of the righteous dead in the places where God is keeping them waiting: "How long must we wait here? When will the day of judgment come, when we will get our reward?'
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The archangel Jeremiel answers them, "It will happen as soon as the complete number of those who have suffered as you have are here. For God has weighed this age,
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measured the years, and numbered the days. Nothing will be changed until time has run its predetermined course.'"
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"But, sir," I replied, "all of us here on earth are such wicked sinners.
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Is it possible that because of our sin the righteous dead are having to wait for their reward?"
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His answer was, "Can a pregnant woman keep her child from being born after her nine months are up?"
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"No, sir, she cannot," I answered. And he continued, "In the world of the dead, the place where God has stored the souls is like a womb.
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It is as eager to return the souls entrusted to it from the beginning of the world as a woman is to end her labor pains.
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When that happens, you will have the answer to all your questions."
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"Please, sir," I asked, "if you think I am able to understand it, can you
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tell me one more thing? Is the time that is still to come longer than the past that has already gone by?