ARCANA 100.3

The Coming Conflagration

“The Prophet (PBUH) said: ‘The nations shall gather and team up against you (Muslims) as the predators gather and team up against their prey. A questioner asked: ‘Is it because of us being low in numbers on that day?’ The Prophet replied: ‘No, on that day you shall be in great numbers, but you will be as powerless as the foam of the water on the surface of the river, and Allah shall remove any fear from your enemies toward you, and He shall put in your hearts a corruption.’ A questioner asked: ‘O Apostle of Allah, what is the corruption?’ The Prophet replied: ‘The love of life’s amusements and the fear of death.’

Translation of Sunan Abu Dawud, The Book of Fierce Battles: The Gathering of all Nations against Islam, Book 37, Number 4297

The Abomination of Desolation

For at that time there will be great tribulation, unmatched from the beginning of the world until now, and never to be seen again. If those days had not been cut short, nobody would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened. At that time, if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There He is,’ do not believe it.… (Matt 24: 21-23)

So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping thing and of the beast, the abomination, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about (Ezek. 8:10).

ARCANA:  Here the “form of creeping thing” signifies unclean pleasures whose interiors are yearnings, and the interiors of these, hatreds, acts of revenge, cruelties, and adulteries; such are the “creeping things” [serpents] or delights of pleasures from the love of self and of the world, or from man’s self, which are their “idols” because they regard them as delightful, love them, have them for gods, and thus adore them. In the representative church [ummah], these creeping things, because they had such a vile signification, were likewise so unclean that it was not permitted even to touch them; and he who but touched them was unclean (see: Lev. 5:2; 11:31–33; 22:5–6).

Jesus seeing a fig tree in the way, came to it but found nothing thereon save leaves only, and he said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever; and presently the fig tree withered away (Matt. 21:19),

By which is meant, that no good, not even natural good, was to be found upon the earth. Similar is the meaning of the “vine” and “fig tree” in Jeremiah:
Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? Nay, they were not at all ashamed, and they knew not how to blush; therefore I will surely gather them, saith God; there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf hath fallen (Jer. 8:12-13). By which is signified that all good, both spiritual and natural, had perished, since they were so depraved as to have lost even the sense of shame, like those at the present day who are in evil, and who, so far from blushing for their wickedness, make it their boast.

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG (2009). Arcana Coelestia, Vol 1: 551, 113.
West Chester. Pa. Swedenborg Foundation