Jesus says:
“There are two kinds of death. I have already explained this.217 There is the little death, the one that takes you from the earth and frees your spirits from the flesh. And there is the great death: the one that kills what is immortal - your spirits. You rise again from the former. You never rise from the latter. You will be separated forever from Life - that is, from God, your Life.
“More foolish than animals that, while obeying the order of instinct, are able to govern themselves in flood, in mating, and in selecting a dwelling, you, with your continual acts of disobedience to the natural and supernatural order, often cause your own first and second death by yourselves. Forms of intemperance, abuses, acts of imprudence, foolish habits, pleasures, and vices kill your flesh like as many weapons brandished by you deliriously. Vices and sins, moreover, kill your souls. I thus say, ‘Do not go seeking death with the errors of your lives and perdition with the works of your hands.’
“I told you218: God, who created everything, did not create death. The sun, which has been shining for vast millennia, is his work; the sea, contained in its limits upon a globe whirling in space, is his work; the numberless stars, whereby the firmament is like a region over which jewels fallen out of a boundless open coffer are scattered, are his work; animals and plants are his work: from the colossal ones, like the elephant and the baobab, to the tiniest, like the tenuous down of moss and the ephemeral dipterans insect in the strawberry bed; you men - with hearts harder than jasper and tongues sharper than diamonds created and buried in the entrails of the earth by the Eternal, with thought darker than the coal created in the terrestrial strata through decomposition over millennia, and with intelligence as powerful as an eagle in space, but with a stubborn, rebellious will like that of an ape - are his work.
‘But He did not create death. It was generated by your marriage to Satan. Your father, in the order of earthly time, Adam, begot it before begetting his son. He begot it that day when, weak before the weakness of the woman, he yielded to her seduced will and sinned where no one had ever sinned; he sinned under the Serpent’s hiss and the tears and blushes of the Angels. But the little death is not a great evil when the flesh alone falls with it, like a leaf that has completed its cycle. It is, rather, a good, for it leads you to where you came from and where a Father awaits you.
“As He did not make the death of the flesh, God did not make the death of the spirit. He instead sent the eternal Resurrector, his Son, to give you Life when you had already died. The miracles of Lazarus, of the young man of Naim, and of the daughter of Jairus are not anything remarkable. They were among those who had fallen asleep - I awakened them. The miracle was great, on the other hand, when I turned a Magdalene, a Zacchaeus, a Disma, and a Longinus, spiritually dead, into ‘those living in the Lord.’
“To be alive in the Lord! There is nothing greater in beauty, joy, duration, and splendor than this. Believe this, O sons and daughters, and seek to be ‘alive.’ Alive in the Triune God, alive in the Father, alive for eternity.
“You that call the earth hell - and no matter how hellish you have made it with your ferocious systems, it is a paradise compared to Satan’s dwelling - do not make hell the final goal for your spirits. Make it God, who is Paradise for your spirits, and leave hell to the nether world, to the damned, to the accursed ones who have rejected Life, repugnant food for their hearts as degraded ones, and received the death of which they were quite worthy.
“If everything ended on the earth, it would still be a small evil to appear wicked for a short time. Men would soon forget it, for memory is like a cloud of smoke that quickly vanishes. But the earth is not everything. Everything is elsewhere. And in that ‘everything’ you will find what you have done on earth waiting for you.
“Nothing shall be without judgment. Consider this. And do not waste the patrimony God has given you like demented people, but make it bear fruit for your immortality. Those who lived in the Lord do not die. What was pain, frustration, and trial here below shall be changed for them in the hereafter into reward, triumph, and joy.
“And do not think either that God is unjust in distributing the goods of the earth and the length of life. This is what those who are already apart from God think. Those living in the Lord turn privations, afflictions, illnesses, and early death into a joy, for in all things they see the hand of the Father who loves them and can give them only useful and good things - those things, moreover, which He gave Me, his Son.
“Already projected beyond this world, they think of and wish for the glory of God alone, and God shall clothe them in glory for eternity. The wicked shall be forgotten or remembered with horror, but the s aints, the just, the sons and daughters of God shall be rendered lasting and holy tribute, for the Lord takes care of his beloved and not only is concerned about giving them joy in Heaven - that is, Himself - but has true honor be given them by men, causing the spirit of a saint to shine like a new star before the eyes and minds of men.”
216 The writer in pencil adds a reference to Chapter 1, beginning at verse 12, and then to verses 2-5.
217 Especially in the dictation of August 22.
218 In the dictation of September 23.