DIVINE BLINDNESS AND DEAFNESS

DIVINE BLINDNESS AND DEAFNESS
A Sermon by Rev. Grant H. Odhner
Preached in Rochester, Michigan May 17, 1992

If you were standing before someone you respected and cared for a great deal, someone who had the power to make your life either “all right” or unbearable, and that person knew that you had done something terrible, faithless, shameful, how would you feel? How would you want the person to respond?

Would you want to be absolved of all wrongdoing without any discussion? Would you want him to simply pretend that nothing had happened? That might bring an initial relief, but it would also create a discomfort, a lack of resolution, a lack of truthfulness. We would feel that that person had not acknowledged the reality of our life, and in not doing that he or she would be showing an unwillingness to know us and to know the truth. The deeper part of us longs to be known and to be valued based on our real character and merits. Otherwise it is not we who are being loved.

Of course, we would hope to be forgiven. We would hope to receive a new chance. But we would not want the trust to be restored miraculously. Again, this would bring initial relief but not healing relief. Rather, we would want the trust to be restored based on our real efforts to move beyond our transgression. In this way we would feel a deep sense of acceptance and forgiveness. It would be a real restoral of relationship.

It’s one thing to have someone overlook our faults or not make an issue of them. It’s another thing for that person to deny our faults when they have become the issue.

All this is prelude to considering an amazing quality of our Lord, a quality that is ascribed to Him in our text from Isaiah – namely, His Divine blindness and deafness: “Who is blind but My servant? Or deaf as My messenger whom I send?” (Isaiah 42:19)

In what sense is our Lord blind and deaf? The Writings of the New Church explain it this way: “[The Lord] is called ‘blind’ and ‘deaf because [He] is as if He did not see and perceive people’s sins, for He leads people gently, bending and not breaking, in this way leading away from evils and leading to what is good; therefore He does not chastise and punish, like one who sees and perceives” (AE 409:2, emphasis added).

The Lord does see and perceive our sins. He knows us thoroughly. (As the Psalmist sang: “You know my down- sitting and my uprising and are acquainted with all my ways.”) In addition, He knows that ultimately we are beings who want to know ourselves and be known accurately. And yet at any given time there are things that we cannot accept about the Lord, about ourselves, about others. There are things that we can see but do not yet really deal with. If the Lord is going to lead us further, then He must let certain things remain hidden; other things He must allow to be as they are for the sake of what is to come. And this is why, from our point of view, He can appear to be blind and deaf to evil.

This is contrary to one idea we have of the Lord. We think of the Lord as perfect, as pure, as utterly and uncompromisingly truthful. According to this idea, all that is imperfect, impure, or false stands far away from Him. If He were to draw near to evil, what would happen? Wouldn’t He rebuke it loudly? Wouldn’t He cast it far from Him? Isn’t it abominable, unclean, contrary to His holy and perfect will? Wouldn’t it be crushed, burnt up, destroyed in an instant? The Psalmist speaks this way; he sings of the Lord’s descending and all the mountains catching fire and melting like wax.

But would the Lord be this way when He came? He certainly had enormous power and used it to cut through falsity and evil, and to lay them bare. He certainly had a zeal for righting wrongs, for protecting the good from evil. Our chapter from Isaiah speaks of this quality of the Lord as well: “Yehowah shall go forth like a mighty man; He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war. He shall cry out, yea, shout aloud; He shall prevail against His enemies. I have held My peace a long time; I have been still and restrained Myself. Now I will cry like a woman in labor; I will pant and gasp at once. I will lay waste the mountains and hills, and dry up all their vegetation; I will make the rivers coastlands, and I will dry up the pools” (Isaiah 42:13-15).

What zeal! And yet, if people expected the Lord to be only this way when He came, they were in for a surprise.

Consider Jesus’ stooping to the ground, drawing in the dust with His finger while crowds of people stood around. What would the Lord do? Hadn’t this wretched woman sinned – caught in the very act? Shouldn’t she be stoned? Wouldn’t Divine justice demand this? What a curious picture of the Lord this presents. It appeared, as John recorded, “as though He did not hear.”

Again, think of how the scribes and Pharisees struggled with the Lord’s acceptance of people who were not observant of the Law: He actually ate and drank with them! On one occasion a Pharisee mused to himself. “This man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner” (Luke 7:39). Was Jesus simply ignorant? Or was He condoning her sin? “Who is blind but My servant, or deaf as My messenger whom I send? You see many things but do not observe; Your ears are open but you do not hear.”

The Lord was often “as if He did not see and perceive people’s sins” because His aim was to gently withdraw them from their false ideas and their evil habits. This could not be done if every evil and falsity were confronted and rooted out at once. We can see that the Lord’s work required great “patience and tolerance.” And this is, in fact, one of the ways our text from Isaiah is explained. We are told that it describes “the Lord’s patience and tolerance” (Prophets and Psalms).

How important were patience and tolerance in the Lord when He came! Our state was so wretched and low and His hopes for us were so high! There was so much disorder and blindness. Truth and falsity were so mixed in people’s minds. There could be no simple, quick, and bold remedy that would not jeopardize the good that was there or destroy our freedom. He couldn’t use the mere force of truth to straighten things out – not unless that truth was applied wisely and patiently with the prudence and long-sightedness of Divine love.

And so the prophets don’t just record a picture of the coming Lord as a “man of war,” entering the scene with force, but also of a person with inscrutable wisdom and restraint: “Behold, My Servant on whom I lean, My chosen One in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit on Him; He will bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He will not cry out nor raise His voice, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoking flax He will not quench. He will bring forth judgment into truth. He will not fail nor be discouraged till He has established judgment in the earth” (Isaiah 42:1-4).

“He was despised and rejected by men …. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth …” (Isaiah 53:3,7).

“Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently …” (Isaiah 52:13). And this is how He deals with each one of us today. He is present with us with Divine perfection and power, yet He is Divinely patient and tolerant – to the point where He seems not to see or heed our evils.

The Lord’s “blindness” and “deafness,” when we understand them rightly, teach us how we ought to be with one another.

It’s not hard to see how they apply with children. Their faults are so apparent. Their ignorance is so great. There is so much that they must learn and experience before they can appreciate what we appreciate. And they can’t change at once. Their affections must be educated and bent gradually. Selfish affections that are harmful, such as hatred and contempt, must be chastened. But selfish affections that are not so contrary to love, such as pride in self-accomplishment and excelling more than others, must be tolerated and only gradually confronted (cf. AC 3993). For a while those qualities can serve some use.

The case is similar with children’s growing ideas. The limitations and fallacies in them need to be tolerated and not crushed. They see the Lord as capable of anger and of punishing. They think that heaven can be earned by good behavior, with little appreciation for the proper spurt in which good must be done. They think that they can do good from themselves. These ideas contain fallacies and the seeds of terrible falsities. Yet they are stepping stones to truer ideas. They must be tolerated and even fostered for the sake of the innocence that is within them and for the sake of the potential that they represent. A wise adult keeps the end in view and restrains their tendency to correct every error. They overlook when they can.

And are adults all that different from children in these respects? Don’t we need to be tolerant and forgiving of a lot of the selfishness that we see in one another – especially selfishness that’s not blatantly contrary to neighborly love? Don’t our religious concepts contain a lot of fallacies, particularly as we live them (as opposed to our “book faith’)? In fact, don’t wise people even overlook errors and perversions in others when they can? We are told that angels do (see AC 1082-1088).

If we have the end firmly in view, there are often deeper ways that we can help one another than by trying to rebuke and crush bad behavior and erroneous ideas. First, we can “mind our own house” and be a better member of society ourselves; this is a tremendous source of strength to others! (For our private lives touch others from within, spiritually, and from without, in ways that are hard to appreciate.) We can also support the good things we see in others and work to strengthen them. In doing these things we are also in a better position to help influence their ideas with our own sight of truth.

It is important to realize (returning to our sermon’s opening thoughts) that wise “blindness” and “deafness” is not a matter of ignoring all evils. We see this in our story from John. The Lord did not ignore the woman’s adultery. He did not remain silent. He looked up and saw her and spoke to her. And He didn’t just say, “Neither do I condemn you.” He said, “Go and sin no more.”

How would she have felt if He had not looked at her? If she had been forced by silence to turn and slip off like her accusers? She would not have felt known by this Man who was her Maker and Lord. She would not have felt that His forgiveness was credible or meaningful.

So with us. If we would be wise, we can’t just ignore evils in ourselves or in others. When they become clear issues, we must openly acknowledge them. We must recognize (in the case of our own transgression) or communicate (in the case of another’s) love and mercy: “Neither do I condemn you.” We must encourage ourselves or others to move on from where we are: “Go.” And rather than offering blanket acceptance, we should realize and communicate that hope and peace lie in stopping the disfunctional behavior: “Sin no more.’

What the Lord “didn’t hear” were all the accusations being thrown at the woman. He didn’t seem to hear at first their suggestion that she be stoned.

The Lord appears to be blind and deaf to evil because He doesn’t act from truth alone. From truth He sees and hears. But from love He feels and touches. Truth alone condemns – it stones to death. The Lord does not subject us to endless persecution because of our evils and mistakes; He doesn’t listen to the voices of hell which we hear at times, railing upon us, inspiring guilt and anxiety. Truth alone would keep us all in a state of such hell to eternity.

But truth from love is different: it wisely distinguishes one evil from another; it sees to the heart of things; it looks to the end in view. What appeared to the Pharisees as an outrageous flaw was in fact a sign of the Lord’s perfection. “Who is blind but My Servant, or deaf as My Messenger whom I send? Who is blind as He who is perfect and blind as Yehowah’s Servant?”

“He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, nor decide by the hearing of His ears; but with righteousness He shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth” (Isaiah 11:3,4).

We all stand before Him in evil and condemnation. And sometimes we stand before each other so. In struggling with our own condition and with others’, may we remember just how merciful and wise our heavenly Father is! He draws near to us, with all the force of Divine holiness, perfection, glory, yet “because of the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, for His compassions fail not. They are new every morning …” (Lamentations 3:22,23). Amen.

Lessons: Isaiah 42; John 8:2-1 1; AC 6472:2, 4031:4

Arcana Caelestia

6472. The Lord does not compel a human being to receive what flows in from Himself but leads in freedom, and so far as a person allows, through freedom leads to good. Thus the Lord leads a person according to his delights, and also according to fallacies and the principles received from them. But gradually He leads him out from these. And this appears to the person as though it were [done] from himself Thus the Lord does not break these things, for this would be to do violence to freedom, which however must needs exist in order that the person may be reformed.

4031. If a person does not receive good and truth in freedom, it cannot be appropriated to him or become his. For that to which anyone is compelled is not his but belongs to him who compels, because although it is done by him, he does not do it of himself. It sometimes appears as if a person were compelled to good, as in temptations and spiritual combats; but he then has a stronger freedom than at other times (as may be seen above: n. 1937, 1947, 2881). It also appears as though a person were compelled to good when he compels himself to it; but it is one thing to compel one’s self, and another to be compelled. When anyone compels himself, he does so from a freedom within; but to be compelled is not from freedom.

OUR DAILY WORK

A Sermon by Rev Grant H. Odhner

Preached in Rochester,Michigan January 19, 1992

OUR DAILY WORK

It is a common phenomenon that something we begin doing with a sense of higher purpose, in time loses its higher purpose and becomes a rote habit that serves self. For example, we begin giving of our time or money to some “cause” from an unselfish sight of its value, from an idealism and willing sense of duty. But after a while our motives and thoughts subtly drift to our own advantage. First, the thrill of the newness wears off. We do it without much forethought or reflection. Then we find ourselves thinking of our financial contribution (for example) as a tax deduction. Or we find ourselves helping out because we “said we would” or because we want to be thought well of.

This isn’t always the case with noble actions that become habitual. Over a long period of time many of the things we do “on principle” become “internalized” so that we don’t reflect self-consciously about them. We do them spontaneously from unselfish love.

How does this happen? How do our values become internalized in this way? It happens with effort. We need to go through the process of applying principles to our daily lives in a deliberate, self-conscious way. This involves something we might call “pairing”: we deliberately pair with our “working thoughts” higher thoughts about what we are doing and why.

When we’re doing the dishes, for example, we might reflect that washing dishes is a rather low-level job. We reflect on the uses associated with it: it protects us from disease; it enables us to carry on with other uses (viz. tomorrow). We think of the impact that a messy, dish-strewn kitchen has on our attitudes, on the atmosphere of our home, on our own sense of initiative. We think of the uses involved in eating: nourishing the body so that it can work, relaxing and delighting the mind after work, bringing household members together, both physically and spiritually. All these higher uses depend on dishes. And many more things could be mentioned, because all higher uses rest in lower ones: spiritual uses on the natural, domestic, and physical: eternal uses on the daily.

In anything that we are doing any act, any task, any recreation we can do this: we can pair with our present enjoyment or drudgery higher thoughts. This lifts us to a new plane of functioning. And with time and practice it brings a greater sense of delight and purpose to whatever it is we are doing.

The Writings of the New Church provide us with many “higher thoughts” that have the power to elevate the quality of our lives. Among these are some about the neighbor whom we are to love.

All might agree that loving the Lord and loving one’s neighbor as oneself are the essence of religion. These two loves make a Christian. But how do we go about expressing this love? How do we love rightly?

There’s a lot of confusion in our world about what charity (Christian love) is, and about what our primary focus should be in trying to live the religious life. Most Christian churches (other than Fundamentalists) see loving the neighbor primarily as feeling pity for the poor, the hungry, the homeless, and for those who are the victims of social inequity or injustice. They suppose that love is best shown by giving money and providing assistance of various kinds. Other aspects of life are evidently viewed as means to the higher end. Having a job, for example, is a means to earning money, and affording leisure time, which we can share with the needy. In any case, this is certainly the order of priority that their clergy would set.

My point here is not to criticize other churches. Rather I want to set a contrast between this common emphasis and that offered in the Writings of the New Church. The Writings teach that the primary way we love the Lord and our neighbor is by doing the work of our particular calling sincerely, justly and faithfully (see AC 4730:3, 4783:5; D. Wis XI:5; Life 114; SE 6105; TCR 422ff). This is “charity” in the proper sense.

Our “calling” is whatever we happen to be doing as our main employment, what we are busy with day-to-day, whether we are retired, whether we are a mother, a professional, a laborer, a student, or whatever. This is what we are spending most of our mental and physical energy on. This is where Providence has placed us. This is the main arena of our usefulness (or our potential usefulness) to others and to society.

To appreciate why our job should be our main focus as a Christian, and how doing it “sincerely, justly, and faithfully” is loving both the Lord and our neighbor, we need to understand the concept of “use” as the Writings teach it.

Everyone’s life and happiness depend on the common good. We owe so much of our well-being to the health of our nation, our society, and to the health of the various groups of which we are a part! (We easily take this for granted.) And what makes for the common good? We are invited to see that it springs chiefly from the jobs that individuals perform in society, and particularly from the integrity, both personal and occupational, which they bring to their work. When everyone is useful in his or her work, the whole benefits. Each person’s use fits into a whole complex of inter-dependent and complementary uses. Together these make up the common good. Contributing to this common good, from love for it and for the people it blesses, is the essential expression of Christian love and charity (see Char 126-157).

It is easy to be misled into thinking that Christian love is expressed most strongly in acts of generosity and kindness toward people. When someone does something kind for us personally, we notice it. We are aware of the delight that it gives us. This kind of action is tangible. Therefore we tend to think that such acts are the primary acts of love.

But this is not the case! Such acts are important (as we will touch on later) and yet they are secondary. For the greatest good that can be given to any person is the good that comes to them from the common good. And this could not exist without each person doing his or her own daily duties faithfully, justly, and sincerely.

Heaven, more perfectly than here, is a “kingdom” of uses that together make a one. Note how the angels of the highest heaven view their main job:

They have no idea that loving the Lord is anything else than doing goods which are uses, and they say that uses are the Lord with them. By “uses” they understand the uses and good works of ministry, administration, and employment, as well with priests and magistrates as with merchants and workmen. The good works that are not connected with their occupation they do not call uses; they call them alms, benefactions, and gratuities” (D. Love XIII).

We find a similar teaching in the Doctrine of Life applies to us here:

Christian charity with everyone consists in faithfully performing what belongs to one’s calling; for by this, if one shuns evils as sins, one is doing goods every day, and is himself his own use in the general body. In this way also the common (or general) good is cared for, and the good of each person in particular. All other things one does are not the proper works of charity, but are either its signs, its benefactions, or its obligations (Life 114, emphasis added).

This passage raises another reason why our occupation is to be considered our primary focus, namely, that by it a person is doing goods every day. Our work (in most cases) brings us into contact with people daily. Through it we can touch others and find opportunity to affect them for good. What’s more, in our daily work we are led to shun evils. This is where real evils show themselves standing in the way of our doing our work properly and in the right spirit.

The Lord provides continual opportunities to love and serve Him through our life’s work! Doesn’t it make sense that He wants our primary focus to be here?! And isn’t it what we do day to day that molds us into the kind of person we are? Our daily job, and especially our attitude toward it and in it, forms us into a human being. It tests us, matures us, puts before us the most character-determining challenges that we face. True Christian Religion offers the same basic teaching emphasizing this last point:

[Acting justly and faithfully in one’s office, business, and employment] is charity itself, because charity may be defined as doing good to the neighbor daily and continually, not only to the neighbor individually, but also to the neighbor collectively. This can be done only through what is good and just in the office, business, and employment in which a person is engaged, and with those with whom he has any dealings; for this is one’s daily work, and when he is not doing it, it still occupies his mind continually, and he has it in thought and intention. The person who in this way practices charity becomes more and more charity in form; for justice and fidelity form his mind, and the practice of these forms his body (n.423, emphasis added; see also SD 6105; Char 158ff).

Now all of this does not mean that our work is the only area that we should give attention to. Far from it! Living the life of charity involves prayer, worship, reading the Word, thinking and talking about its principles, also instructing one’s children, and like things. These are healthy and proper “signs” or manifestations of our Christian love (see Char. 173-183). There are many duties that good people fulfill that lie outside their proper work (see Char 187ff; TCR 429ff). Charitable people take recreation of mind and body seriously (as well as joyfully). Diversions from their work help them stay “sharp” and actually foster their enthusiasm for their work (see Char. 189ff; TCR 433f). Finally, there is the area of showing good will toward others through deeds of kindness or “benefactions” (see Char. 184ff; TCR 425ff).

Earlier I used this last aspect of the life of charity as a contrast to “doing one’s job.” The reason for this is that the Christian world has largely made charity to consist in benefactions in the first place. This emphasis is wrong, and has led to a lot of confusion, guilt, and even to “charity” that has done more harm than good. But it would be a great mistake to minimize the importance of good deeds to the life of charity! First of all, children and the simple are initiated into a deeper concept of charity through simple, tangible good deeds. In the second place, the common good is greatly served through aid to the needy and poor, through the funding of hospitals, through the voluntary support of educational programs, etc. Finally, on a more personal level, good deeds are vital to fostering unity, good will, and friendship. Where would we be without acts of kindness? Where would society be?

Still, we need to remember that the greatest good depends on the uses which each person performs in society, the chief of which are through one’s daily work. This is a difficult priority to hold as a church among others at our day. Many churches are persuaded that our approach is selfish, a weak excuse and justification for maintaining our comfortable lifestyles.

We need to be firm in our resolve to see a deeper picture of our religious responsibility and hold to it. But see it and hold to it we must! For if we make our job our primary focus for the wrong reasons, if we don’t do it for the sake of our neighbor and the common good, then what others might accuse us of becomes true: we are being selfish and narrow! We are in effect using religion to justify our pursuit of our own well-being. What’s more, our church’s emphases do become mere “intellectualizing” or group narcissism.

What can save us from this is frequent and honest reflection about why we do what we do; also entertaining “higher thoughts” while we work. How we think and what we think day to day determine the spiritual quality of our lives; they determine the depth and scope of our Christian love.

Just think! We can deal with, say, a client or pupil, a co-worker or cashier in so many different spirits! We can do it with only self in mind. We can be trying to gain a service from them. We can be trying to impress them, gain recognition, exert influence, get their business, or simply get it over so that we can get on to what we want to be doing. On the other hand, we can deal with them with their welfare in mind. We can be concerned with furthering them, with their sense of job-satisfaction, with their self-esteem.

More deeply, our thoughts can be lifted above the people to the uses themselves which they are involved in. We can deal with them out of respect for their part in society; we can be trying to further or support those uses (even when we don’t like the people). We can be thinking of the good of our neighborhood, or school system, or company. Or still higher, we can be thinking of the good of our state and country and world! The higher our sights are, the deeper and broader the scope of our acts become inwardly and (perhaps in subtle ways) outwardly.

This is where the pairing of higher and lower thoughts we spoke of earlier comes into play. Higher thoughts about what we are trying to do, whom we are trying to love and serve, and how we are going about it are what lift our minds to function on a deeper plane, and to function more perceptively. And by sincerely lifting our thoughts, over time our love is lifted and ennobled. And all this happens through our daily uses.

May the Lord give us the strength and inspiration to do the work which He has put before us each day sincerely, justly and faithfully. And may we offer up with these “daily sacrifices” sweet thoughts, thoughts from His Word, to guide our hearts and bring eternal meaning to the works of our hands! Amen.

Readings: Deut. 15:1,2,7-11; Matt. 25:14-30; SD 6105.

Spiritual Experiences 6105

CHARITY TOWARD THE NEIGHBOR

Charity toward the neighbor, in a specific sense, is to perform the employment, business, and work which belong to one’s calling faithfully, sincerely and justly. The reason is that this is a person’s daily occupation, the very activity and delight of his life. When, therefore, a person performs this sincerely and justly, his life becomes such, thus becomes a certain charity, in its place and degree. [One’s daily work] may be compared to the germ [of a seed]: . . . from this as the essential, the other aspects of charity, which are called the signs, benevolences and obligations, proceed and derive their essence; for they flow from his life, which in this case is a charity. And without that essence, even though he may have the signs of charity, which are acts of piety and the like, though he may have its benevolences, which are giving to the poor, and similar things, though he may have its obligations, which are such things as are his duties at home and outside his home, then, all these are like a shell without a kernel. It is different when he has the germ and essence already described.

Moreover, such a person does good to the community, and does good to the individuals in the community in their degree. Hence, from the community there flows to him delight of life and every necessary. This obtains in heaven and in the societies there. For everyone is a part in the common body. From performing his work sincerely and justly he becomes a worthy part in the common body. For everyone in a society must be in some work. Works produce the communion, and cause all things to be held in connection; for works contain in them all things human. Wherefore, even in hell they must be in works.

A PARABLE OF HEALING

A PARABLE OF HEALING
A Sermon by Rev Grant H. Odhner
Preached in Rochester, Michigan
May 26, 1991

“Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:6)

The Lord asks this question of us just as He did of some persons 2000 years ago. And unless we can answer “yes,” we cannot hope to know the deeper, richer life that the Lord promises. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Matt. 9:12). We cannot accept a greater sense of the Lord’s life unless we recognize the attitudes and priorities with ourselves that stand in the way. These are our sickness.

Our own sickness must be a reality for us, both if we are to be made well and if we are to understand this story. The Word’s stories hold secrets truths that remain secret to those who look with worldly eyes or with faithless eyes, or who look with self-sufficiency. If we are not in need we cannot see. When real truth is irrelevant to us, seeing it becomes a mere intellectual exercise.

All the stories of the Lord’s healings are parables about the healing of the mind. Spiritual sickness and health, damnation and salvation are all a matter of mind. It is our mind that senses life as good or bad. It is our mind that feels trust or distrust, mercy or contempt, patience or annoyance. It is our mind that is more or less limited. It is our mind that experiences the Lord and His salvation. The Word’s parables are about the mind and its changes. With this in mind, let us look at the parable before us.

It begins: “After this there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.”

There were three feasts which the Law required the Jews to celebrate at the temple in Jerusalem. These feasts remembered the Lord’s deliverance from Egypt (Passover), His “planting” them in the land of Canaan and beginning to make them fruitful (Weeks = First Fruits), and His bringing them to full blessing there (Tabernacles = Ingathering). Viewed spiritually, these feasts were held to recognize the Lord’s role in liberating our minds, in planting seeds of truth in them, and finally His role in blessing our minds with the full fruits of His life (see AC 9296).

Jesus went up to Jerusalem to these feasts because He is the one who liberates, grows, and blesses our minds. This is the general subject here. That’s why the setting is one of these feasts.

“Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches.” The Sheep Gate was just north of the temple, on the northeast wall of the city. Perhaps it was through this gate that sheep were brought in on their way to the temple for sacrifices, or perhaps they were bought and sold there for use in sacrifices. A gate is an entryway, marking an approach. In a symbolic sense, the Sheep Gate pictures the opening of the mind toward spiritual life, and a desire to follow the Shepherd in this path.

But the main focus here is not the gate but the pool near it, called “Bethesda.” It was trapezoid-shaped, divided into two pools by a walkway across the middle. Stairs in each corner led down into the pool. It was said to have “five porches.” This refers to colonnades, one on each side and a fifth one over the walkway. What is this “pool” at the entryway to our spiritual life? It is symbolic of the reservoir of ideas in our memories, ideas of what is true that we have gathered from our experience, and especially from the Word.

In themselves, as they exist in our memories, these ideas have little life. They are only by the entryway to the real us. It is a surface part of us that gathers knowledge. The “five porches” mentioned call to mind the fingers of the hand, and the five senses. Our first perspective on the things that we learn is a sensory one; we are at first tied to the way things feel and appear. It is a higher part of us that lifts knowledge out of the memory where it is first lodged, and turns it over and sees it more deeply. Still, the pool of truths in our memory is called “Bethesda,” “House of Mercy,” because of the potential that it holds for opening our minds and leading us to the Lord. The Lord mercifully gives us ideas that can lead us, and He is constantly present, “brooding over the face of the waters,” waiting for the right time to send His angels to stir those ideas to life.

Now in the five porches around the pool there “lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, withered.” What does this say about our entryway to spiritual life? Our outer mind is clogged with impediments to communion with the Lord. We are “sick” with selfishness and its petty concerns; we are “blinded” with ignorance, prejudice, and our world-centered outlook; we are “lame” in our inability to progress; we are “withered” in our powerlessness and lack of energy for achieving something beyond ourselves.

All these sick ones in our story were “waiting for the moving of the water.” “For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had” (vv. 3,4).

This describes how the impediments to our spiritual life and progress are healed. When we are willing and ready to commit our lives to them, the true ideas in our memory are stirred by the Lord’s messengers, by His spirit; they come alive for us: they become insight and inspiration where before they were just knowledge. We recognize their truth. Our sickness is then seen from a new perspective; we gain a separation from it; we move beyond it (see AC 10083).

This healing does not happen completely all at once: it happens gradually, one sickness at a time (so to speak). Some of our sicknesses take a long time to heal. We may think we are ready and “waiting” for them to change, but the Lord knows our real readiness to see and accept and change.

We tend to spend a long time wanting change from one part of us but not another; we want change from our understanding and not yet from our will. In other words, we see intellectually that we are sick in some respect and that change is desirable, yet we are not ready emotionally to change. Part of us may grieve over the consequences of a bad habit (for example); we may see its tragic effects on our life, its perversity! At the same time, we cannot find the resolve to really accept a change in attitude and life-style. The fact is, consciously or unconsciously, we still feel attachment to the delights that are the source of our disfunction. For every spiritual sickness has its source in some delight that sustains it.

Only the one who stepped into the pool first was healed. The quickest and readiest person found relief. “Quickness” in spiritual terms is a product of our will. We feel quick and alive when our heart is involved. When we are acting mostly from our understanding, we are slow. There is more effort, less resolve; more self-compulsion is required. As a result, our responsiveness is somewhat dull and forced.

How painful and frustrating it is to see that we are sick and incapacitated, and yet not to find the quickness and resolve of will to change! Did we hurt someone for the thousandth time? Were we impatient again? Did we give in to some bitterness after all our intellectual resolves? Did we “fall” to the same old lust?

We see here the plight of the man who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. He was unable to get himself into the water quickly enough; as he said, “I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

Thirty-eight years is a long time. We can imagine the pitch of despair. Viewed symbolically, periods of time mark states of mind. An interval of time seems long or short to us, depending on our mental attitude. And just as slowness and quickness are a matter of how much our will is involved, so here, the longness of this time reinforces the fact that the will is resisting the healing even though the understanding wants it.

But there is more in this number. Like all numbers in the Word, “thirty-eight” has a symbolic meaning. This was the number of years it took for all the Israelites who had doubted the Lord’s power to die in the wilderness; this was necessary before the others could begin to enter the promised land (Deut. 2:14). Thirty-eight (literally “thirty and eight”) refers to a mental phase coming to fullness so that a new one can begin. “Thirty” means fullness of preparation and readiness. Joseph was thirty when he began to rule Egypt (see Gen. 41:46); David was thirty when he became king (see II Sam 5:4); Jesus was thirty when He began His ministry (see Luke 3:23). “Eight” means a new beginning. The eighth day is the first day after a complete week, the beginning of a new week. It was the day when a boy was circumcised and entered the covenant. It is often mentioned in the Law as a special day in purification ceremonies and festivals.

Thirty-eight is mentioned in our story because spiritual change does not happen without preparation and readiness. For a given change in mental outlook to become permanent, certain crucial experiences are necessary, certain knowledges must be acquired, certain realizations must come realizations born of aging, of encountering difficulties and frustrations, of failing, of experiencing various kinds of success and satisfaction. We must learn the value of things through experiencing highs and lows, presence and absence, good and evil. When we have acquired a sufficient store of these things and are ready to begin a new phase, we have achieved “thirty and eight.”

The Lord is constantly preparing us to be healed, constantly trying to make life better for us. But it is not until we are ready for Him that we see Him standing above us in our infirm condition, and hear His invitation: “Do you want to be made well?”

We may not be aware at first that the invitation is coming from the Lord. The man in our story wasn’t. Still, our response must be one of self-awareness. In other words, we must know our own powerlessness to save ourselves. (“I have no man . . . ” ” . . . while I am coming, another steps down before me.”) It is this realization of our powerlessness, especially, that is meant by “thirty.” Joseph and David both were given power at age thirty. Both represented the Lord, who proclaimed Himself the Messiah, the king, at the same age. “Thirty” means recognizing our own lack of power and giving all power to the Lord, letting Him rule. This recognition is what enables us to hear the Lord’s voice saying to us, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.”

“Rise, take up your bed and walk.” People who lie in a bed are either asleep, weak, or sick. Those who rise and walk are awake and well. The Lord causes us to become spiritually awake, energetic, well, when we are ready. His “speaking” these words stands for the inflow of His love and truth, which stir us to new possibilities, new resolves, new power.

But more specifically, the Lord’s words symbolically describe the healing. “Rise” signals a raising of the mind to what lies above the self. We must look to the Lord, to a higher power, to goals in life that are larger than we are. And when the mind’s focus is raised, then the “bed” in which it has been resting is also raised. Our mental bed is the set of ideas that underlie our basic thinking and willing. These ideas are “taken up” when we rethink them or see them in a new way, out of a desire to respond to the Lord’s will. Finally the Lord said, “Walk.” To “walk” is to progress. Literally it is to actually change our location and direction. Spiritually it is to change our state of mind, our way of responding to life’s events, to the people around us, to insults, to frustrations, to our old negative mental dialogue.

And in what direction does the freed mind “walk”? Jesus later found the man who had accepted His healing in the temple. The temple, the Lord’s house, pictures His fuller presence, which is heaven. This is the goal of all healing: to dwell more closely in the Lord’s life and to have that life more fully in us. It was in the temple that the healed man found out who his Savior was. So with us, it is when we come into a greater sense of the Lord’s life that we can really know that He healed us. We feel gratitude and humility before Him. We have a clear sense of His mercy. We know that He has done it.

This realization is what is meant by the “Sabbath.” All the miracles of healing in our life are done on the Sabbath. They are done with the acknowledgment that the Lord alone works, the Lord alone creates and creates anew. It does appear that we are laboring from ourselves just as it appeared to the Jews that the healed man was laboring by carrying his bed. Indeed, we must labor as if all depended on us. Yet we can truly say, as the man in the story did, “He who made me well said to me, Take up your bed and walk.'” We labor by the Lord’s authority, recognizing that He is doing the work within us.

A final thought on our text, the Lord’s question: “Do you want to be made well?” What greater testimony to the Lord’s love is there than this: that He allows us the freedom to make His salvation our own? He accomplishes it, but not without our full involvement! The Lord does not tell us that we must be made well. In His infinite wisdom and mercy He asks, “Do you want to be made well?” He asks so that the choice may be ours. It is left to us to respond to His invitation: “Rise; take up your bed and walk.” Amen.

Lessons: Isaiah 55; John 5:1-15; AC 2694:1-3

Arcana Caelestia

2694:1-3. “Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the child where he is.” This signifies the hope of help . . . . In the verses which precede, the state of desolation . . . is treated of.

Those who are being reformed are reduced into ignorance of truth, or desolation, even to grief and despair, and then for the first time they have comfort and help from the Lord. This is unknown at this day, for the reason that few are reformed. Those who are such that they can be reformed are brought into this state, if not in the life of the body, nevertheless in the other life, where this state is well known, and is called vastation or desolation . . . .

Those who are in such vastation or desolation are reduced even to despair. And when they are in this state they then receive comfort and help from the Lord, and are at length taken away into heaven. There they are instructed anew, as it were, among the angels in the goods and truths of faith. The reason for this vastation and desolation is chiefly that the persuasive [light] which they have conceived from their self (proprium) may be broken (see n. 2682); and also that they may receive a perception of good and truth. They cannot receive this perception until the persuasive [light] which is from their self has been softened, as it were. This softening is brought about by the state of anxiety and grief even to despair.

What is good, nay, what is blessed and happy, no one can perceive with an exquisite sense unless he has been in a state of what is not good, not blessed, and not happy. From this he acquires a sphere of perception, and this in the degree in which he has been in the opposite state. The sphere of perception and the extension of its limits arise from the realizing of contrasts. These are causes of vastation or desolation, besides many others.

But take examples for illustration. If it is proved to those who ascribe all things to their own prudence and little or nothing to Divine Providence, by thousands of reasons that the Divine Providence is universal, and this because it is in the most minute particulars, and that not even a hair falls from the head (that is, nothing happens however small) which is not foreseen and provided accordingly, nevertheless their state of thought about their own prudence is not changed by it, except at the very moment when they find themselves convinced by the reasons. Nay, if the same thing were attested to them by living experiences, just at the moment when they see the experiences, or are in them, they may confess that it is so. But after the lapse of a few moments they return to their former state of opinion. Such things have some momentary effect upon the thought but not upon the affection. And unless the affection is broken, the thought remains in its own state. For the thought has its belief and its life from the affection. But when anxiety and grief are induced upon them by the fact of their own helplessness, and this even to despair, the opinion they are persuaded of is broken, and their state is changed. And then they can be led into the belief that they can do nothing of themselves, but that all power, prudence, intelligence, and wisdom are from the Lord.

LIFTING OUR THOUGHT TO ETERNITY

A Sermon by Rev. Grant H. Odhner

Preached in Oak Arbor, Michigan March 17, 1991

“I will lift up my eyes to the mountains … ” (Psalm 121:1).

Mountains have always inspired people with awe. Who has walked among mountains and not been aware, at some time, of his own insignificance?

Mountains give us a means of appreciating relative sizes and forces, distances and times. We feel small next to them. The creative efforts of human beings seem puny by contrast. We can dramatically alter many landscapes can level hills, redirect rivers, fill swamps, cover miles of green with pavement and skyscraper but mountains are remarkably resistant to human manipulation. They defy taming. There is also something timeless about them. They stand unchanged for ages. They silently proclaim a time before we were, and a time after we will be gone.

For those who believe in God, mountains have always provided not only a humbling perspective on humanity, but also an awesome perspective on the infinity and eternity of our Creator. Do mountains seem immense and unchanging to us? Yet, sang the Psalmist:

[Yehowah] looks at the earth and it trembles; He touches the hills and they smoke (Psalm 104:32, emphasis added).

The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord (Psalm 97:5).

Mountains indeed seem ancient to us. Yet the prophets declared:

He looked … and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills bowed. His ways are everlasting! (Hab. 3:6, emphasis added).

Before the mountains were brought forth or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God (Psalm 90:2).

The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from you (Isaiah 54:10).

Mountains and hills have been symbols through the ages of what is Divine, unchanging, eternal. In the Word they bring to our attention these qualities about the Lord, either by contrast, as in the passages we just read, or directly, as in our text:

I will lift up my eyes to the mountains from whence comes my help. My help is from the Lord, Who made the heavens and the earth (Psalm 121:1,2).

Here the mountains are the Lord. This Psalm is about the Lord’s perpetual watchfulness, guidance, protection. He is pictured as a watchman, who neither “slumbers nor sleeps” (vv. 3-5). He guards us constantly, by day and by night (v. 6). The Psalm ends:

The Lord shall preserve your going out and coming in, from this time forth, and even for evermore (v. 8).

“For evermore.” To eternity!

Our subject today is lifting our thought to the Lord, who is eternal life lifting “our eyes to the mountains.”

The Word tells us many things that we cannot know from mere sense experience, among them that our life is eternal. Our senses teach us that all things around us pass away. All living forms gradually grow old, their metabolism slows, they decompose. Even land formations and seas change and cease. Planets and suns grow cold or explode. Perhaps we can see that energy is conserved and conclude from experience that energy might be eternal. But this says nothing of individual human minds.

In our day-to-day lives we generally don’t sense life as eternal. We face the tasks at hand; we set goals that affect the foreseeable future next week, next month, in rare cases next year. For most of us life is busy and preoccupying. The needs of the body are relentless: food, clothing, shelter, sufficient comfort. The needs of the mind are ever with us too. More than ever before perhaps, we are aware of all sorts of things that we see as important for our proper maintenance and betterment. We have all sorts of goals and ambitions for our own mental well- being and for our children’s. This makes life very busy, and leaves little time for reflection on what is eternal.

When we ask the question, “What is eternal about our lives?,” we can think of “eternal” in two ways: we can think of it as a matter of what is timeless, or we can think of it as a matter of what is enduring through time, of what lasts.

Properly speaking, eternity is not a matter of time. It is not just an infinite amount of time. Eternity is as much this moment as it is a millenium (see TCR 31). The Lord, who is the eternal, has no beginning and no end; everything is present to Him, as the Psalmist suggested: “a thousand years in [His] sight are like yesterday when it is past” ( Psalm 90:4).

Time belongs to nature. We have time because physical matter defines distances, and movement across distances marks times. As the earth spins, it marks out regular periods of dark and light. As it moves around the sun, it marks our seasons and years.

Of course, the Lord does act in time. How else could He touch us and lead us? He is in all time, but apart from time, and in all space, apart from space (see TCR 31). He is not bounded by them or defined by them.

Certainly, for us eternity involves time. We have our beginning in time, we live in time, and we come to appreciate the Lord’s constancy and wisdom through time. It is impossible for us to envision the unbounded nature of the Divine without thinking of endless time (see TCR 31; AC 1382, 4204).

Still, we can all become aware that there is something beyond fixed time. It is a common observation that when we are engrossed in something, our sense of time vanishes. A minute can seem like an hour. We discover that what we thought had been an hour was actually two or three. The same is true when we are with someone we love for example, lost in conversation. Time becomes irrelevant! At that moment we have no other belief than that we will know and love that person two thousand years from now!

Our mind with its loves, affections, and thoughts is actually not in time; it too is “in time, apart from time.” We become so accustomed to disciplining our enjoyments and our thinking to a timetable that this can be hard to see, but it’s so. The mind knows no time! It grows and changes through time, but it always remains unbound by it. Our bodies grow old and wrinkles appear, our functions slow and become less vibrant, but our minds’ capacities for growth remain. Our capacity to love and empathize and understand what is important in life actually increases, provided we allow the Lord to regenerate us.

We have a common perception, especially about those whom we know well and love (e.g. spouses, children, friends), that they do not die with the body. The Lord implants in all people the perception that life is eternal. It’s not that He wishes to subtly persuade us to believe in the afterlife against our will. Rather, the perception simply results from the fact, which cannot be hidden, that unique human beings cannot die.

We are able, then, to sense that our life is eternal not with our physical senses but with our spiritual senses. The only requisite is that we have some idea, however scanty, about eternal life (which doubtless exists in every culture). And, of course, we must also reflect.

If we attend to our mental life, and withdraw our minds from the demands of the moment from bodily needs, from worldly cares, from concern about appointments and deadlines, from considerations of our age, the time of day, the time of year, our physical location then we can notice the timeless quality of our loves and thoughts, and of our deeper relationships with others. We can especially notice this when we reflect on what delights us, engages us, motivates us, sustains us. More particularly, we become aware of what is eternal, by lifting our thoughts to the things of heaven, lifting our “eyes unto the mountains.”

“Mountains” in the Word stand for heaven, as well as for the Lord. To be in heaven is to be in the Lord and in the eternal. In the spiritual world, when a newcomer looks toward some heaven and approaches, he sees mountains. The communities there actually appear to be in the mountains (see TCR 336; AE 405:5; e.g. CL 75:2,76,77).

Heaven is called “eternal life” in the Word. It is the place where one will live forever and not die. In a sense, life in heaven is no more eternal than life here. Angels’ lives are finite and limited, like ours. They are still bound by certain constraints of their world; they still change and grow and learn in finite steps that follow one after another. Day follows upon day with them as with us. There is a reality that appears just like our time (see HH 163; TCR 29).

An important difference is that in heaven life is not forced to take place within a fixed material universe, with its physical laws. There life unfolds according to the loves, strivings, and activities of the spirit. The laws in operation there are the laws of the mind. There time does not determine the course of the body’s changes; the state of mind does. The body stays as young and vibrant as the mental outlook. All things there are governed by considerations of states of mind.

For example, in heaven when an angel feels really inspired to serve the neighbor, it’s morning time, and he has a full day ahead of him. Time bows to his state of mind. He never has the frustration of feeling inspired at midnight when he can’t act on the inspiration. When an angel wishes to do something for another (the Lord willing), he never has the frustration of being fifty miles away; distance bows to his state of mind. When an angel begins to feel mentally tired and needs refreshment, it’s afternoon. (He can leave his active duties and find recreation.) When he begins to feel dull and in need of new inspiration, it’s evening. He is then in his home; he is removed from people (both spacially and mentally), where he can reflect on himself and rededicate himself to the Lord.

The spiritual world is this way in all respects: space and time follow mental states. All those in a given community experience a similar progression. The Lord gathers their states into a common flow and sequence that suits all.

So heaven is called “eternal life,” because there we will enjoy greater freedom from rigid, earthly time. Our bodies will never grow old and die. We will live a truly spiritual life, in which we can love and serve others more deeply and fully, in which we can enjoy a fuller sense of being in the Lord’s life and blessings. This is what He longs for.

It is vital that we think about eternal life! Our lives are filled with so many things. We can become so unmindful of what is important and lasting! We can forget to seek out that state of mind in which time is not a factor, in which the only thing that matters is our attitude and our goals, and what’s in our heart. These things alone are timeless; they alone have a lasting impact on our future. Reflecting that our life is eternal enables us to live for something larger than the moment. It enables us to live as spiritual and not worldly beings.

Consider the picture offered in our text of looking toward the mountains. Mountains offer us perspective. We cannot appreciate distances apart from contrast. If we look at the sky and set our gaze, even at a hundred miles, we are struck with little awe, for (unless there are clouds or an airplane) there is nothing that gives us a sense of that great distance. That distance might as well be a mile as a hundred miles. But when we look up at a mountain, or out from a mountain, the case is different. Then the distance before us becomes meaningful. We can trace this distance with our eye tree by tree, over farm, river, town. We can feel this distance. Sometimes we can sense the space before us palpably as a tingling in our stomach!

Similarly, eternal things, the things of heaven, give us a spiritual perspective that we can’t otherwise have. Without reflecting on what is eternal, we have no means of seeing the relative importance and value of what we are loving, thinking, or doing right now. We have no way of seeing genuine progress, or detecting how far afield we are straying. In fact, without reflecting on eternal life we have no true freedom! because the sense that our life is eternal is what gives real significance to our choices (see DP 73:6f; TCR 498).

A moment’s reflection on eternal life can lift us from the tangled forests of our natural lives, and place us on a mountain from which we can survey what is below. We can find quiet above the pressures of the moment, above the desires of our old will. We can feel new breezes of life. We can experience the Lord His enduring presence, His everlasting love, His awesome power, His timeless peace.

I will lift up my eyes to the mountains

From whence comes my help.

My help is from the Lord,

Who made the heaven and the earth.

Amen.

Lessons: Psalm 121; Luke 12:16-40; DP 59

Divine Providence 59

It has not been known before this that the Divine Providence in all its proceedings with a human being regards his eternal state. It can regard nothing else, because the Divine is Infinite and Eternal, and the Infinite and Eternal, that is, the Divine, is not in time, and hence all future things are present to Him. And because this is the nature of the Divine, it follows that the eternal is in all things that it does, in general and in particular. Those, however, who think from time and space have difficulty in perceiving this, not only because they love temporal things, but also because they think from what is present in the world and not from what is present in heaven, for this to them is as far away as the end of the earth. When, however, those who are in the Divine think from what is present, they think also from what is eternal, because they think from the Lord. They say to themselves, “What is that which is not eternal? Is not the temporal comparatively as nothing, and does it not also become nothing when it comes to an end? It is not so with what is eternal; that alone is, because its being (esse) has no end.” To think thus while thinking from what is present is to think at the same time from what is eternal; and when a person so thinks, and at the same time so lives, then the Divine Proceeding with him, that is, the Divine Providence, regards in all its progress the state of his eternal life in heaven, and leads him to that state. It will be seen in what follows that the Divine regards what is eternal in all people, the wicked as well as the good.

FIGHTING SPIRITUAL BATTLES

FIGHTING SPIRITUAL BATTLES
A Sermon by Rev. Thomas L. Kline
Preached in Bryn Athyn July 7, 1994

“Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil” (Luke 4:1,2).

Why do bad things happen? Why do bad things happen in our lives? One person recently made the comment that when he looked at the lives of all his friends, it seemed as if every person was dealing with some big problem or issue in his or her life, now or in the recent past. The problem could have been disease, a death in the family, marital difficulties, or emotional distress. But it seemed to him as if everyone had some big issue to deal with.

Another person made a rather cynical comment. That person worried, not about the people who had big problems in their lives, but about those who hadn’t yet faced a major crisis. The concern was that those who still believed that life was peaceful and free of problems would soon have that innocence taken away.

Not all of us face a crisis. And for some of us, the issues that we deal with in life are open and public; for others, the issues we deal with are more private and personal.

But back to the question: Why do bad things happen? One recent best seller was titled, Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? And another best seller began with the sentence, “Life is difficult.”

Sometimes when a bad thing happens, we can explain it by reasoning that bad things are a necessary part of our spiritual journey. When bad things happen, it is part of that “refiner’s fire” that makes us into a stronger person. When a bad thing happens, there is a lesson to be learned, a victory to be won. And this is why the life that leads to heaven not only involves joy and comfort, but also involves pain and the anxiety of spiritual temptation. Spiritual temptation is part of our spiritual growth.

But sometimes things happen in people’s lives that are so bad that this explanation doesn’t seem to work. One person said over the tragic death of a loved one, “If there is some lesson that I am supposed to learn by something as tragic as this, I’d rather not learn it.” There are events of true tragic proportion: the untimely death of a loved one, terrible and painful disease, emotional disturbance and depression, the dissolving of a marriage, abuse, hunger and famine. If we come to believe that somehow the Lord allows or even causes these to happen so that we can learn some important lesson about life, we end up with a pretty terrible idea about God. One person made the comment about such an idea: “God is a bad teacher if He uses tragedy as His lesson plan.”

And so there is one other very important truth given to us in the doctrines of the New Church that helps us to understand tragedy: Bad things, terrible tragedies, are permitted by the Lord, not just so we can learn something new about life; they often happen simply because we are in the midst of a great war between heaven and hell. We happen to live on the battleground of a great war, and that war is taking place right now. It is a spiritual war between heaven and hell. It is the very war the Lord came on earth to fight. And sometimes we, or our friends and loved ones, are innocent victims of that terrible battle.

Imagine a physical war where a bombshell goes off near us, and we suffer pain and anguish, not because of anything we did, but because there is a battle going on and a bombshell went off. The same happens on a spiritual level. The hells do inflict pain and disorder upon us, and we suffer.

Think of a little child who has a painful disease. The disease itself, the pain and suffering, come from hell. That suffering is a physical manifestation of the hatred, anger, and vengeance of hell. And that little child has a painful and disabling disease not because the child was sinful, not because his parents sinned, not because there is some lesson to be learned (although there might be a lesson that is learned), but that child has a terrible disease because the hells are indeed powerful and they wish nothing more than to cause pain and disease and suffering. All bad things physical, mental and spiritual are a result of this great battle between heaven and hell.

We said that we are often innocent victims residing on this great spiritual battleground. This thought can make us feel kind of helpless. And this is why, rather than saying that we are “innocent victims” living on a great spiritual battleground, it is more accurate to say that we are actually “soldiers” who are called by the Lord to be part of the battle. We are soldiers who live on a large battleground, and we are called to fight in the name of the Lord. And this is one of the most important concepts we need to know about our lives, because it gives us a vision of hope and purpose.

We are in the middle of a great war. (Just look around you and within you.) We are soldiers who are part of this great battle between heaven and hell. Even that little child is a soldier, called into the army of the Lord.

When a bad thing happens terrible disease, a terrible death are we just to remain passive? Are we helpless? How can we fight if the terrible thing has already happened? If a little child dies, how can we be victorious over the hells that caused that death?

And here is another key : We fight the spiritual battle as an individual, but the consequences of our victory, no matter how slight, are global. When we, as individuals, fight a spiritual battle against the hells, we help countless millions throughout this world and the spiritual world who are affected by those same hells. When we are spiritually victorious over a particular hell, we lessen the power of that hell, not just for ourselves but for everyone. When tragedy happens take for example, the untimely death of a loved one we can still fight against those very hells that caused the death. And we do this by continuing on our personal spiritual journey of shunning evils as sins against God, by living the Word of God, by not giving up hope. In this battle we fight for all. And when we fight, we fight for all in the Lord’s kingdom now and in future generations.

Why can’t our life be free from pain, suffering, and the anguish of temptation? Why can’t life just be easy and enjoyable?

It is interesting to ask these questions about the Lord’s life. Why couldn’t the Lord’s life, when He was on the earth, just be peaceful? Why did He have to suffer continual temptations, as the Writings say, temptations from the beginning of His life to the very end? Why did He have to begin His ministry by being tempted by the devil for forty days in the wilderness? Why did He have to suffer the awful pain and anguish of the passion on the cross? Why couldn’t His life have been one of simple peace and joy?

When we ask these questions about the Lord’s life, the answer is obvious: He didn’t come here to have a life of peace and joy; He came here with a mission to be accomplished. He came here to fight against the hells. He came to fight for generations of men, women and children, generations yet unborn. He came to fight for all of us. There was a purpose to His life, a purpose greater than Himself.

And the same is true for us. We are here for our own regeneration, and we are here for a cause (a battle, if you will) greater than ourselves. And sometimes this battle will involve pain, hardship and temptation.

What one of us would not willingly go forth in the face of danger if it meant that we could spiritually benefit the global sphere of the whole earth? (It is interesting that some passages in the Writings suggest that just one person is all that is needed to effect the conjunction between this earth and all the heavens.)

Now this doesn’t mean that our lives are going to be plagued with tragedy every moment. No, there is a lot of joy, happiness, and peace in life. Jesus says that our yoke is easy and our burden is light. But we do need to keep in mind why we are here. We need to have more of a “war-time” mentality than a “peace-time” mentality on the spiritual level. And if we see why we are here, we can know why there is often a lot of pain and suffering in our lives and with those around us. A spiritual battleground is not a very peaceful place. If anything, the Lord gives us an oasis from the battle from time to time, time off from the battle, but the battle is our main purpose in life. In this context, it is useful to think of some of the teachings in the Writings about spiritual temptation.

First of all, we are told that a spiritual temptation is said to be an attack by the hells on some good love that we have. If you have some new, good love in your life, expect it to be attacked by the hells. And if you say to yourself, “Why, every time I have some new love in my heart, it is challenged,” you are not seeing the purpose of why you are here. There is a battle going; expect spiritual temptations.

Another teaching of the Writings: Are our temptations going to get easier or more difficult as we get older? The answer: they are probably going to get more severe. And if your reasoning is, “You mean I am going to have to fight greater battles as I get older? How can this be fair? Why fight now?” If that is your response, then you have missed the point of why you are here. There is a battle going on. You are called to be a spiritual soldier. As you grow stronger, more experienced, the Lord will give you greater challenges, greater battles to fight, because strong experienced soldiers are needed in some of the battles. The Lord is preparing you for great things.

Still another teaching: Spiritual temptations cause utmost despair and anguish. There is no such thing as an easy spiritual temptation. Sometimes you feel that you are going to “lose it” during a spiritual temptation. And again, if the response of your mind is, “Why do I have to have really bad temptations? Why can’t they be easy?” then you have missed the point of why you are here.

When Jesus began His ministry, He was baptized of John in the Jordan River. And then He went into the wilderness and was tempted by the devil for forty days. He hungered. He hungered so much that He was tempted by the devil to make bread out of the stones. And His hunger was deep within Him. He hungered for the salvation of the whole human race.

The devil took Him up to the pinnacle of the temple, and asked Him to throw Himself down. He was tempted to doubt His own power to save the human race.

And finally, the devil took Him up to a great and high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world. All this would be given to Him if He would just bow down and worship the devil.

And after all these temptations, it says that the devil left Him “for a time.” The temptations were to continue. They were to continue even to the passion of the cross. And by His victory over temptation, our redemption was effected.

Let us use His victory as strength in our lives so that we may face the challenges that lie before us with courage and strength. Amen.

Lessons: Psalm 91; Luke 4:1-15; AC 6829, 1690

Arcana Coelestia 6829

When a person is in temptation, he is beset round about by falsities and evils which impede the influx of light from the Divine, that is, the influx of truth and good, and then the person is as it were in darkness. Darkness in the other life is nothing else than this besetment by falsities, for these take away the light from the man who is in temptation, and thus the perception of consolation by truths. But when the person emerges from temptation, then the light appears with its spiritual heat, that is, truth with its good, and from this he has gladness after anxiety. This is the morning which in the other life follows the night.

Arcana Coelestia 1690:3

All temptation is an assault upon the love in which the person is, and the temptation is in the same degree as is the love. If the love is not assaulted, there is no temptation. To destroy anyone’s love is to destroy his very life; for the love is the life. The Lord’s life was love toward the whole human race, and was indeed so great, and of such a quality, as to be nothing but pure love. Against this, His life, continual temptations were admitted, as before said, from His earliest childhood to His last hour in the world. The love which was the Lord’s veriest life is signified by His “hungering,” and by the devil’s saying, “If Thou art the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread,” and by Jesus answering that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God” (Luke 4:5-8; Matt. 4:2-4).

THE HEART

The heart opens when the mind lets go of fearful thoughts. An open heart, filled with love, is the conduit for manifestation. What would it take to open your heart? When was the last time you truly felt your heart wide open? Your heart, wide open to acceptance, is the place to create your dreams. Take a moment and open your heart. Feel the presence of the Divine. Feel the creation of your dreams. Feel the complete peace that is felt with an open heart…I love you all. im not a big fan of organized religion,there always hating someone for some reason or another… im ashamed to die until i have won some victory for humanity…-never explain-your friends don’t need it and your enemies will not belive you anyways… the greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own…treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they should be…share our similarities,celebrate our differences….THERE IS MORE IN US THEN WE KNOW,IF WE CAN BE MADE TO SEE IT,PERHAPS FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES WE WILL BE UNWILLING TO SETTLE FOR LESS.TAKE CARE AND GOD BLESS.

LOVE

Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.

AMRITHDHAARA

Love is the binding force behind all Creation

The Sun spreads its light and heat on one and all

Devoid of bias of caste, creed, race, religion and continent

The Moon showers her cool beams on man and animal alike

The stars twinkle and serve as an ornament to the sky

The Earth stretches out her arms

To embrace the Sky, Man, flora and fauna , in her fold

She bears with love and patience whatever she receives

Be it rain, be it heat, be it corpses, or, be it earthquakes

The rivers flow to merge with the Sea and the Sea towards the Ocean

The plants bear blossoms and the birds aid in pollination

The flowers secrete nectar that the bees and the butterflies feast on

The bees give man honey and the silkworm, silk

The sheep give fur, the horse gives him a…

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A BATTLE ROYAL

I HAVE CAST FIRE ON THE WORLD

jesus said; i have cast fire on the world, and see, i guard it until the world is afire… the truth has to appear only once in one single mind, for it to be impossible for anything ever to prevent it from spreading universally and setting everthing ablaze. a lie can travel halfway around the world, while truth put’s on his boots… there is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few christians, scorned and oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trails with a fierce tenacity multiplying quietly, building order while there enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the world, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known, caesar and christ had met in the arena, and christ had won.

TRUST IN GOD

FINDING INNER STRENGTH

FINDING INNER STRENGTH
A Sermon by Rev. Thomas L. Kline
Preached in Bryn Athyn March 21, 1993

“Then David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him … But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God” (I Samuel 30:6).

Our subject this morning is “Inner Strength,” finding inner strength and peace in the Lord, and then tapping that inner strength so that we can overcome the battles and challenges we face in our lives. Our text is taken from the first book of Samuel, and it is the story of David, King David of the Old Testament, fighting against the Amalekites. This was one of the lowest points in David’s life. It was a time of great despair, almost unthinkable despair. David was fighting against the Amalekites, and during the battle, David and his men had built a small city where he and his soldiers would live. There they also brought their wives and children to live with them.

And one day disaster struck. One day, after returning from the battle, David and his men found their city ravaged by the Amalekites. The city had been burnt with fire, and all the women and children had been taken captive. It says that David and his men lifted up their voices and wept. And then, to make matters worse, the men of David’s army began to turn against David. They turned against their leader in their grief. They spoke of stoning David because of the loss of their families.

So here was David; he had despair over the loss of his family and now his own life was in jeopardy. And what did David do at that moment? And here we have that key sentence for this morning: “David went and strengthened himself in the Lord his God.” David strengthened himself in the Lord.

David could have gone out immediately; he could have gathered his army to retrieve his women and children; he could have gone out in anger and fought against the Amalekites. But David took another path, an inner path. David stopped everything that he was doing, and took that moment to be with the Lord.

It was a time of distress, and the real strength to overcome that distress came from within. That inner strength then allowed David to go forth and fight the battles that lay before him. He went forth, and it says at the end of the story, “He recovered all.” He brought back the women and children and he utterly defeated the Amalekites.

What would be the most precious gift you could ever receive? If you could have any one thing, any one wish to be granted; if you could change anything about your life, what would you wish for? It is interesting that when people really think about this, often the answer given is, “I would wish for inner peace. Just give me the inner peace and strength to deal with those things I face out there in my life.” Because the fact is, there are always going to be issues that we face out there in the external place of our lives. There are always going to be strife, distress, challenges, and hurdles. We can’t change all those life situations out there, but what we can change is what is within us to gather the strength here in our hearts to rise above those life situations, and to be able meet those challenges out there with love, wisdom, compassion, and spiritual strength.

For the parent to deal calmly, compassionately, and wisely with his children or teenagers, what parent doesn’t wish for that wisdom? For the boss to be wise, understanding, fair in dealing with his employers; for us to be truly caring in human relationships; for us to be able to have strength in times of tragedy, inner strength and inner peace are the source of it all.

King Solomon, when he was asked by the Lord for any one gift, chose wisdom. He could have had riches, wealth, fame and power, but he chose wisdom. And because he chose wisdom, it says that every other gift was given to him as well.

Inner peace and strength in the Lord, our message this morning: the potential for this inner strength and peace is there is each of our lives. There is a chamber of your mind, an inner chamber, where you can go and strengthen yourself in the Lord your God. And there you can gather strength to meet those challenges that stand out there in life.

I want to list some teachings given in the Writings of the New Church, teachings about what is called our “interior man” your interior man, and we all have one, that inner region of your minds where the Lord dwells.

Teaching number one: “The internal man is the gate or entrance of the Lord into man” (AC 1940). We have a choice. We have a choice to open that interior degree of our minds to God and let His life inflow, or we can keep that interior degree of our mind closed, to keep it downward to the world. It reminds us of the words of Jesus, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any hear my voice, and open the door, I will come into him and will sup with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20).

Here is a second passage from the Writings that has to do with inner strength during battle and temptation. We read, “When a man perceives anything fighting and conquering [for him], he may know that it is from the influx of the Lord through the internal man” (AC 978). You find things working in your life; you find yourself making progress, and where is that strength coming from? It is from the Lord, flowing down from within.

The third teaching has to do with our relationship to our neighbor. Think of a time when you are dealing with a difficult person. Every time you talk to that person you find negative emotions rising. No matter what you do, you find that person can “pull your strings” or “push your buttons.” You find yourself coming down to his level; you become defensive; you find anger. But picture a time (and this happens to all of us) when you are talking to that difficult person and you find that you can rise above your negative feelings. Even when they are wrong or “off the wall,” you find that you can be there for them with compassion and understanding. What one of us wouldn’t wish for that degree of understanding? Listen to this passage from the Writings: “When a person thinks well concerning the neighbor, wants to perform kind offices for the neighbor, and when he feels that he pities the neighbor who is in calamity and still more the neighbor who is in error, then he may know that he has the internal things in him through which the Lord operates” (AC 1102.3).

And here we are not just talking about skills, not just some fancy listening technique, but it is a time we are truly there for that person. It genuinely comes from the heart. That’s inner strength that comes from the Lord.

A fourth teaching: We might think that going within to gather inner strength is a kind of fleeing from our problems, but listen to this passage. It says that inner strength filters down into the external events of our lives. “When the interiors have been formed in heaven, then the things which are there inflow into the exteriors which are from the world and form them to correspondence, that is, that they may act as one with them” (HH 351).

The exterior things of life begin to act as one; they begin to change our life down here. One passage from the Writings uses the word “harmony” in describing the relation between the internal and external man.

One last teaching: the interior man is who you are for eternity. “Therefore, such as a man is as to his interiors, such he remains to eternity” (HH 501).

I want to end with a statement about prayer, the power of prayer. Prayer is vital to this subject of inner strength. In our story we saw that David strengthened himself in the Lord. But the question remains: how did he do this? How did David strengthen Himself in the Lord? Here was David in terrible distress, and it says that David went to the priest and commanded that the ephod be brought to him. In the tabernacle, the high priest would put the ephod over his heart and enquire of the Lord how he should lead the people. And we are told that the Lord would answer the high priest by the flashing of the stones in the ephod. The ephod pictures prayer. The ephod pictures our talking to God.

We can picture David holding the ephod in his hand, and it says that he “inquired of the Lord what he should do.” And the Lord gave him an answer at that moment. While David held onto the ephod, the Lord told him to pursue the Amalekites, and the Lord gave him the assurance that he would overtake the enemy and “without fail recover all who had been lost.”

How do we strengthen ourselves in the Lord our God? Through prayer, or what the Writings call speech with God. We go into that closet of our mind, we shut the door, we pray to our Father in secret, and our Father who will reward is openly.

And this is important: we strengthen ourselves through prayer, both before and during times of need. Before times of need that’s our daily prayer and meditation. Daily, even when things are going well in our lives, we go to that inner chamber of our minds and talk with God so we can build up inner strength before we need it daily prayer so that we can be accustomed to opening that inner door and feeling the inner strength that is there, and then when tragedy strikes, or when challenges face us, to pray that moment as well, as did David, so that we can tap that strength to meet the challenges that stand before us.

Let us read the story again from scripture: “But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. And David said to Abiathar the priest, `Please bring the ephod here to me.’ So David inquired of the Lord saying, `Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I over take them?’ And the Lord answered him, `Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.”

The potential for this inner strength and peace is there in each of our lives. There is a region of your mind where we can go and find peace and strength in the Lord our God. It is a strength that we can tap so that we can overcome the battles and challenges we face in our life. And with His help, you will find peace in your God. Amen.

Lessons: I Samuel 30:1-19; Matt. 6:1-24; AC 2535; HH 351:2

Arcana Coelestia 2535

“He shall pray for thee. “That this signifies that it will thus be revealed is evident from the signification of “praying.” Prayer, regarded in itself, is speech with God, and some internal view at the time of the matters of the prayer, to which there answers something like an influx into the perception or thought of the mind, so that there is a certain opening of the man’s interiors toward God, but this with a difference according to the person’s state, and according to the essence of the subject of the prayer. If the person prays from love and faith, and for only heavenly and spiritual things, there then comes forth in the prayer something like a revelation (which is manifested in the affection of him that prays) as to hope, consolation, or a certain inward joy. It is from this that to “pray” signifies in the internal sense to be revealed. Still more is this the case here where praying is predicated of a prophet, by whom is meant the Lord, whose prayer was nothing else than internal speech with the Divine, and at the same time revelation. That there was revelation is evident in Luke: “It came to pass when Jesus was baptized and prayed, that the heaven was opened” (Luke 3:21). In the same: “It came to pass that He took Peter, James, and John, and went up into the mountain to pray, and as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered and His raiment became white and glistening (Luke 9:28, 29). In John: “When He prayed, saying, `Father glorify Thy name,’ then came there a voice from heaven: `I have both glorified, and will glorify again’ (John 12:27, 28), where it is plain that the Lord’s “praying” was speech with the Divine, and revelation at the same time.

Heaven and Hell 351:2

True intelligence and wisdom is seeing and perceiving what is true and good, and thereby what is false and evil, and clearly distinguishing between them, and this from an interior intuition and perception. With every person there are interior faculties and exterior faculties, interior faculties belonging to the internal or spiritual man, and exterior faculties belonging to the exterior or natural man. Accordingly as man’s interiors are formed and made one with his exteriors, the person sees and perceives. His interiors can be formed only in heaven; his exteriors are formed in the world. When his interiors have been formed in heaven, the things they contain flow into his exteriors which are from the world and so form them that they correspond with, that is, act as one with, his interiors; and when this is done, the person sees and perceives from what is interior. The interiors can be formed only in one way, namely, by man’s looking to the Divine and to heaven, since, as has been said, the interiors are formed in heaven; and man looks to the Divine when he believes in the Divine, and believes that all truth and good and consequently all intelligence and wisdom are from the Divine; and man believes in the Divine when he is willing to be led by the Divine. In this way and none other are the interiors of man opened.

THE PRODIGAL SON

THE PRODIGAL SON
A Sermon by Rev. Thomas L. Kline
Preached in Bryn Athyn November 8, 1992

“This my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:24).

Jesus said that a man had two sons. The younger son went to his father and demanded his inheritance. It says he went to a far-off country, and there he wasted all that he had with riotous living. A famine arose in the land, and the young man had nothing to eat. And so he hired himself out to go into the fields to feed the swine. He was so hungry that he would have eaten the food of the pigs. But suddenly, he came to himself. He said to himself, “I will go to my father and ask him for forgiveness, and I will become as a hired servant to him.” We can picture the young man coming back after a long journey. Will his father forgive him? Will his father be angry with him?

His father is waiting for him! His father sees him at a distance, runs to him, and embraces him. The father has compassion on his son. And at the end of this story, we hear those words of the father to the older brother: “It is right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.”

There is something in each of us that is touched by the power of this parable. This is because it is a story of hope. We might have a friend or relative that seems to turn from the Lord. We might have a friend that for a time seems lost, spiritually wounded, a person in a time of spiritual crisis. And the everlasting message of this parable is that there is a way back. The Lord gives us a path to restore our souls no matter how hopeless the situation.

The father figure in this parable is so important. It is a picture of the Lord Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ as our heavenly Father. And what we see is a picture of the Divine love. When the young man returns, we don’t see the father demanding payment or retribution for the son’s sins. We don’t see anything that suggests the traditional dogmas of Divine atonement or punishment for sin. No, those old-fashioned, traditional ideas of God are not based on Scripture. In this parable we see only forgiveness after the long journey of repentance and reformation. The father celebrates his son’s return. The Lord rejoices when we come back to our spiritual home.

There is a message in this parable for a church congregation. The reason why Jesus even told this parable was that the church leaders of that time came to Him complaining that He was spending too much time with sinners. The scribes and Pharisees were murmuring because Jesus was associating with sinners, drunkards, and tax collectors. And the Lord’s answer was simple: “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” This is why He had come to bring sinners to repentance, and to restore their lives.

And so we ask the question of ourselves: What is the purpose of our church? What is the purpose of this congregation? Certainly the church is for the worship of the Lord. Certainly it is for the proclaiming of the Lord’s Word. It is for the life of charity and service. But the church also exists for something else.

In the book of Revelation, the New Church is said to be the “healing of the nations.” The leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations. It is a vision of the church as a hospital, the church as a place for spiritual healing, the church as a place where the sick and wounded come. There is a battle going on in the world today. It is a great battle between heaven and hell. And, as in any battle, there will be casualties: our sons and daughters, our friends and neighbors, our family. And the church is the place for those who are hurting, those who at times have failed, those who are dying spiritually, to come and receive support in the road that leads back to a restoration. It is a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Divine physician.

But there is a more interior meaning to this story. It is a level of meaning opened by the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem. This story of the prodigal son is the personal story of our rebirth and regeneration. It is the story of the Lord’s healing our troubled heart. And in this story, we find, step by step, the journey that we take as the Lord leads us on the path to heaven.

Let’s just look at the steps of regeneration outlined in this story.

Number one is permission, what the Writings of the New Church call the “doctrine of permission.” In this story the father allows his son to leave and go to a distant land. It almost seems that the father willingly gives his son all of his inheritance knowing that this will lead to grief and pain for the son. And how can this be? Why would a loving father do this?

The Writings of the New Church say that this permission to leave is a picture of the magnitude of the Lord’s love and wisdom in our lives. The Lord loves us so much that He will even allow us to turn from Him at times if this is what we truly choose. He will allow us to turn from Him and even experience the consequences, the pain and suffering of that turning away. And this is said to be of His permission, not of His will.

He grieves when we turn and suffer the consequences of evil. The pain of evil is not the Lord’s punishment; no, the Lord weeps for us. And still, in His love He allows this because in His infinite wisdom He foresees that sometimes it is only through the process of the journey that we can finally choose what is good, fight for what is good, and make what is good our own. So number one: the Lord permits us to leave.

And step number two: If we do choose to turn from Him, He is not passive. If we do choose to turn from Him, He protects and guides us every step of the way. He is with us on the perilous journey.

We have a beautiful teaching in the Writings of the New Church that during times of temptation and despair it seems as if the Lord has left us, whereas in fact He is closer than ever. The Lord is closest to us in times of temptation.

In this parable it seems that once the son left home and went to the distant land, his father was out of the picture. It seems that his father just stayed home and worried. It is important to realize that this is written from the viewpoint of the son: When we turn from God it seems as if He is distant from us; that’s how it feels to us.

But from the Lord’s perspective, He never leaves us. If we could re-write this parable from the Lord’s viewpoint, the father would be with that son in that distant land, actively protecting, guiding and leading.

How does the Lord protect us when we are in the distant land? First is the famine. The Lord allows us to hunger in the distant land. He allows us to hunger for righteousness. The Lord will never let us be completely satisfied with evil. No, something inside of us will hunger for a life that is higher. And it is this hunger that finally causes us to turn back to the Lord. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

Another thing He does when we are in the distant land: He withholds us from further evils. In the parable, it says the son was almost to the point where he was about to eat the food of the pigs, but he didn’t eat it. A person who has been in a state of disorder will often say, “Yes, I was in terrible disorder, but somehow there was something preventing me from going all the way down to hell. Something was holding me back.” The Lord’s hand is there protecting us from the hells even when we are in active evil.

A third thing He does when we are in the distant land: The Lord causes us to remember our home; He lets us remember our spiritual home. In the story the son remembered his father’s house. We hear the words, “I will arise and go to my father.” It’s a memory of heaven. The Writings of the New church speak about heavenly memories that stay with us always. Memories of heaven that remain with us sometimes we call these “heavenly remains.” No matter where we are in life, we all have a memory of heaven (sometimes from our earliest childhood) stored up in the interior parts of our minds. And that memory of heaven tempers and bends our life back to our spiritual home, when we are in the height of temptation and despair.

But then we come to the climax of the story, the turning point, and it is the turning point in our lives. The story says that the young man was in the field, far from his home, hungry. The young man, when he was at his lowest moment of despair, came to his senses. One translation says, “He came to himself.” It is the beginning of true repentance. For the first time we find him thinking the words, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.”

The young man suddenly sees his life in a new way. It is as if his eyes are opened. It is interesting that the Writings of the New Church use the word “inversion” when they talk about this change. When it seems as if things can’t get any worse, suddenly we come to this turning point; we come to this moment of change, and our lives are totally inverted. Everything is changed from top to bottom. The love of self that used to be at the top is now at the bottom, and in its place is a love of the Lord and the neighbor. We hear the words, “I will go and serve my father; I will hire myself to him; I will be as servant to him,” and we begin to lay down our lives. Jesus said, “He that shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.”

And we find that there is a road back home. That’s the young man journeying back home, retracing every step that He had taken. The Writings of the New Church call this “reformation.” And notice the power of that word: the Lord literally “re-forms” us. He makes us anew.

And then there is a time of rejoicing. Here are some of the internal meanings revealed in the Writings of the New Church: The ring the father put on his son’s finger pictures “internal conjunction.” The robe pictures “truths of our faith and trust in God.” The sandals picture our life changed even to the most “down-to-earth” parts. And the fatted calf pictures our life of charity.

So this entire 15th chapter of the gospel of Luke deals with the subject of lost things and the Lord’s rejoicing over what is lost being found again. Let us take these wonderful teachings and apply them to our lives. Let us reach out with hope and forgiveness to those who are hurting, supporting them on the Divine path of restoration. Let us express this love of the Lord Himself as He comes to restore our own lives toward heaven, realizing that in His sight we are all in need of the Divine healing. This is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Divine physician, and tells His everlasting message of hope: “It is right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.” Amen.

Lessons: Psalm 84, Luke 15, TCR 394-5

True Christian Religion 394, 395

THERE ARE THREE UNIVERSAL LOVES THE LOVE OF HEAVEN, THE LOVE OF THE WORLD, AND THE LOVE OF SELF.

These three loves must first be considered for the reason that these three are the universal and fundamental of all loves, and that charity has something in common with each of them. For the love of heaven means both love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor; and as each of these looks to use as its end, the love of heaven may be called the love of uses. The love of the world is not merely a love of wealth and possessions, but is also a love of all that the world affords, and of all that delights the bodily senses, as beauty delights the eye, harmony the ear, fragrance the nostrils, delicacies the tongue, softness the skin; also becoming dress, convenient houses, and society, thus all the enjoyments arising from these and many other objects. The love of self is not merely the love of honor, glory, fame, and eminence, but also the love of meriting and seeking office, and so of ruling over others. Charity has something in common with each of these three loves because viewed in itself charity is the love of uses; for charity wishes to do good to the neighbor, and good and use are the same, and from these loves everyone looks to uses as his end, the love of heaven looking to spiritual uses, the love of the world to natural uses, which may be called civil, and the love of self to corporeal uses, which may also be called domestic uses, that have regard to oneself and one’s own.

… That these three loves are rightly subordinated when the love of heaven forms the head, the love of the world the breast and abdomen, and the love of self the feet and their soles. As repeatedly stated above, the human mind is divided into three regions. From the highest region man looks to God, from the second or middle region to the world, and from the third or lowest to himself. The mind being such, it can be raised and can raise itself upward, because to God and to heaven; it can be extended and can extend itself to the sides in all directions, because into the world and its nature; and it can be let downward and let itself downward, because to earth and to hell. In these respects the bodily vision emulates the mind’s vision; it also can look upward, round about, and downward.

[2] The human mind is like a house of three stories which communicate by stairs, in the highest of which angels from heaven dwell, in the middle men in the world, and in the lowest one, genii. The man in whom these three loves are rightly subordinated can ascend and descend in this house at his pleasure; and when he ascends to the highest story, he is in company with angels as an angel; and when he descends from that to the middle story he is in company with men as an angel man; and when from this he descends still further, he is in company with genii as a man of the world, instructing, reproving, and subduing them.

[3] In the man in whom these three loves are rightly subordinated, they are also coordinated thus: The highest love, which is the love of heaven, is inwardly in the second, which is the love of the world, and through this in the third or lowest, which is the love of self; and the love that is within directs at its will that which is without. So when the love of heaven is inwardly in the love of the world and through this in the love of self, man from the God of heaven performs uses in each. In their operation these three loves are like will, understanding, and action; the will flows into the understanding, and there provides itself with the means whereby it produces action.

THE WISDOM OF OLD AGE

THE WISDOM OF OLD AGE
A Sermon by Rev. Thomas L. Kline
Preached in Bryn Athyn August 9, 1992

“Thus says the lord of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each one with his staff in his hand, because of great age. The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets” (Zechariah 8:4,5).

What a beautiful picture this is: old men and old women filling the streets of Jerusalem. Because of their great age it says they are carrying staffs in their hands. And then the picture goes on: alongside of these old men and women are boys and girls playing in the streets elderly people and young children together in the streets of Jerusalem. And the Lord looks at this picture and says it is marvelous in His sight. It is marvelous in His sight because it is a picture of a community that is whole and well, a community that is alive. And why? Because all ages are present and valued.

This morning we want to talk about the blessings of old age, the fact that the period of human life known as old age is a crowning step for our lives, the fact that old age is a state of life to be valued for its wisdom and enlightenment, the fact that old age is an essential part of a healthy community, church or society.

It is interesting that the Writings of the New Church divide our lives into four stages: our childhood, our youth, adult age, and finally, the last step is said to be old age. Our childhood is said to be a time of instruction (that’s when we learn); adulthood is said to be a time of intelligence; but old age is said to be a time of wisdom. Old age is a time of wisdom, a wisdom that comes from innocence. It is a willingness to be led by the Lord.

But why is wisdom associated with the final years of our lives? First of all, we are told that true wisdom is not just a matter of learning, but a matter of life. True wisdom is not up here (in our head), but wisdom is down here (in our heart). True wisdom comes from the life-long journey of walking hand in hand with the Lord. It is the life-long journey of discovering who the Lord is the journey of finding that we can trust Him to be with us every step of the way. That’s the wisdom of old age.

True wisdom is the life-long journey of seeing the truths of the Lord’s Word down here in the uses and activities of our lives. In that process of bringing truth into our lives, over a lifetime we make that truth our own.

Finally, the wisdom of old age is the magnificent realization that we can’t do it alone, the realization that without the Lord we are nothing. In old age we look back over our life and see that the Lord has been there all the while.

What do the Writings of the New Church teach us about old age? Just listen to this passage from the Writings: “Old age is the last age, when earthly and corporeal things begin to be put off and the interiors of a man begin to be enlightened” (AC 3492). So in the last stage of our life the Lord allows the things of our body to wane gradually and grow dim. We find that our physical bodies are not what they used to be. The Lord does this on purpose, so that during the last stages of our lives our minds can be elevated toward more interior things. The Lord, in His wisdom, provides a gradual giving up of the things of this world as a preparation for the eternity of heaven.

It is interesting to ask elderly people what things they value most. How often they respond with memories of friends, family, and human relationships. In old age a transition is taking place. It is a time of uplifting our lives toward heaven.

Another beautiful teaching in the Heavenly Doctrines: We are told that the body grows old but the spirit itself does not age. The body grows old, but if anything the spirit grows younger. This is why we all find ourselves in the unusual situation where as years are put on, we still feel the same. The body may feel older, but the person inside that body is still the same. We still feel just as young as we ever did. And in this sense we are all young. It is the timelessness of the human spirit.

The Writings teach us: “To grow old in heaven is to grow young” (HH 414). In relation to eternity we are all in our spiritual infancy.

A final teaching from the Writings of the New Church (an unusual teaching): The Writings say that old age begins at the year sixty. This is an unusual teaching because we don’t often think of ourselves as being old as we approach sixty. At sixty we are often still involved in our day-to-day uses. The events of our natural life don’t suddenly change at sixty. But still the Writings suggest that this is the beginning of old age because it is a time when subtle changes are taking place in our spiritual attitudes toward life. At age sixty, even though we are still involved in our life-long occupations, we see those uses in a new light. Gradually we are willing to accept the limitations of the human spirit. We begin to have the humility that we may not accomplish everything we set out to accomplish in life. We begin to see the reality that this life is not forever. We begin to face the reality of the next life. The things of this world are not as important as they once seemed. Our values change and are uplifted. We not only believe but we actually feel and see that there are higher realities worth reaching for. It is the beginning of an uplifting in the growth of our spirit.

Old age need not be a time of decreasing usefulness. If anything, as age advances, the uses of life can become higher and more heavenly in their form. Retirement sometimes can be feared and seen as a time of uselessness. But retirement can also be a new opportunity to pursue the real loves of the heart. So often, because of life’s circumstances we are forced into careers and occupations that we do not truly love. Yet in the autumn of our lives, the opportunity is there to find our ruling loves, to pursue those dreams we always held to, to find those uses that more match our eternal character.

Old age is also a time of reflection reflection on life in the light of the Lord’s Word. Those approaching old age may not think of themselves as theologians or scholars, but they need to realize that even a simple understanding and reflection on the Lord’s Word in the light of that period of life known as old age can bring about a wisdom not known in any other period of life. A person reading the Word in the wisdom of old age brings about a conjunction with the heavens that is essential both to the individual and to society as a whole. The power of the heavens to one reading the Word in the light of a lifetime of experiences is the very heart of the church on earth.

Every age has blessings and it also has its challenges and hardships. And this can be especially true with old age. It can be a time of physical decline, a time of extreme loneliness. It can be a time of seeing lifelong friends pass on and apparently leave. It can be a time of loneliness when a spouse has already gone to the other world. It can be a time of depression, physical pain, a time of wondering, “What is my use in this world? Am I merely a burden on society?”

We may not fully understand the working of the Lord’s providence and permission. At times we may have to trust that uses are being performed in old age that are greater than we can see and understand. We may have to trust that at times the uses accomplished by prolonging life in this world are greater than the individual.

The Lord may extend life in this world to provide a plane of innocence here on earth innocence that is more far-reaching than the individual can consciously know. Or the Lord may be secretly implanting heavenly remains and memories as a final blessing on a long life of use. We need sensitivity, love and care for those in the hardships of old age the courage to trust in the Lord’s will. The Psalmist said, “Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength fails” (Psalm 71:9).

I would like to end with a picture of Moses. This picture is from the 34th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. It is that beautiful picture of Moses, in the last hours of his life on earth, standing on the top of Mount Nebo, looking over the promised land of Canaan. For forty years Moses had led the people through the wilderness. He had led them out of their captivity in Egypt, and now he had led them up to the very border of the promised land. And now we see that glorious moment when Moses, now an old man 120 years old, is ready to die. The Lord allows him to see the promised land before He dies.

That picture of Moses’ viewing the expanse of the promised land, the land where the Children of Israel would now live, is a picture of true wisdom, the wisdom that comes in old age, that wisdom that comes when we have walked long enough through the journey of lives to really know and see that the Lord is with us. The wisdom of old age: it is a wisdom that comes when we begin to put off the captivity of earthly and corporeal things and are truly willing to see and accept the reality of heaven and the next life. That picture of Moses viewing the promised land before him and at the same time remembering the long journey that was behind him (both sides of the mountain) is a picture of true spiritual enlightenment.

In the book of Zechariah we have a picture of old men and women sitting in the streets of Jerusalem with the streets of the city full of boys and girls playing. It is a picture of the spiritual ages of our lives from childhood to old age. And the Lord looks at this picture, and His response is that it is marvelous in His eyes. Amen.

Lessons: Zechariah 8:1-11; Luke 2:22-38; AC 10225:1,5,6

Arcana Coelestia 10225:1,5,6

“From a son of twenty years and upward.” That this signifies the state of the intelligence of truth and good is evident from the signification of “twenty,” when said of a man’s age, as being a state of the intelligence of truth and good. That “twenty” denotes a state of the intelligence of truth and good is because when a man attains the age of twenty years, he begins to think from himself; for from earliest infancy to extreme old age a man passes through a number of states in respect to his interiors that belong to intelligence and wisdom. The first state is from birth to his fifth year; this is a state of ignorance and of innocence in ignorance, and is called infancy. The second state is from the fifth year to the twentieth; this is a state of instruction and of memory-knowledge, and is called childhood and youth. The third state is from the twentieth year to the sixtieth, which is a state of intelligence, and is called adolescence, young manhood, and manhood. The fourth or last state is from the sixtieth year upward, which is a state of wisdom, and of innocence in wisdom …

[5] But the third is called a state of intelligence, because the man then thinks from himself, and discriminates and forms conclusions; and that which he then concludes is his own and not another’s. At this time faith begins, for faith is not the faith of the man himself until he has confirmed what he believes by the ideas of his own thought. Previous to this, faith was not his but another’s in him, for his belief was in the person, not in the thing. From this it can be seen that the state of intelligence commences with man when he no longer thinks from a teacher but from himself, which is not the case until the interiors are opened toward heaven. Be it known that the exteriors with man are in the world and the interiors in heaven; and that in proportion as light flows in from heaven into what is from the world, the man is intelligent and wise; and this according to the degree and quality of the opening of his interiors, which are so far opened as the man lives for heaven and not for the world.

[6] But the last state is a state of wisdom and of innocence in wisdom, which is when the person is no longer concerned about understanding truths and goods, but about willing and living them; for this is to be wise. And a person is able to will truths and goods, and to live them, just insofar as he is in innocence, that is, insofar as he believes that he has nothing of wisdom from himself but that whatever he has of wisdom is from the Lord; also insofar as he loves to have it so; hence it is that this state is also a state of innocence in wisdom.

PROVING GOD

Proving God

Swedenborg’s Remarkable Quest
For The Quantum Fingerprints Of Love
by Edward F. Sylvia, M.T.S.
with a foreword by Ian J. Thompson, Ph.D.

A daring work that unifies Science and Theology
by challenging many of the world’s current beliefs about both.
Proving God

Forget what both scientists and the clergy have told you about the ultimate reality. This extraordinary book explains how scientists have misinterpreted the laws of the physical universe and how theologians have misinterpreted the revealed wisdom of the Lord God’s Holy Word. Fasten your seatbelt and prepare yourself for the new laws of physics and the new theology that will fulfill God’s promise of making “all things new”!

978-0-9702527-1-5

432 pages | pb | illustrations | index | glossary

Order now on Amazon or request from your local bookstore. If you’d like to receive updates on when/where this book

will be available, send an email to books@staircasepress.com with PROVING GOD as the title. To protect your privacy,

we will NOT share your information with anyone…

Introduction

Unifying science and religion is a high-risk venture. Landmines and dangers are everywhere on both sides of the issue. Yet, the history of human exploration is full of individuals who have risked even death to find what they are seeking. The passion of the human mind and spirit is such that visionary people will always feel it is worth making the attempt to explore the unknown.

For that very reason, there is growing interest among scientists, theologians, and laypeople to explore another uncharted region and resolve whether science and religion can both answer the same questions about reality and have real points of interaction. I like to think of myself as a part of this exciting and mentally stimulating movement. This book is my contribution to this discussion.

Both religion and science make truth claims about ultimate reality. Science deals with facts and religion deals with values. Because of this, some people feel that science and religion address different issues and should be kept apart.

But, can these two powerful endeavors ultimately satisfy the human psyche by keeping them apart? Einstein said in 1941 that, “science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind.” Religion is weak on the how of creation, and science is weak on the why. In other words, science shuns teleology or purposefulness in the universe as a legitimate category of explanation. In place of a purposeful creation, scientists embrace the concepts that fundamental reality consists of irreducible chance and that everything must be describable exclusively in physical terms and physical quantities.

Many scientists also believe that metaphysical principles cannot be a part of real science because such principles and philosophies make claims that are not testable. Ironically, physicists who have jumped on the bandwagon of string theory and a multidimensional universe have embraced concepts that also cannot be tested. Checkmate.

If God created the world, then God created the laws of nature as well as the tenets of virtuous living. But theology offers us no further rational help here. It offers only faith and expects belief. Does God create one set of laws for nature and another set of laws for the human heart? Or are God’s laws wholly self-consistent? (Inconsistency implies imperfection.) If the ubiquitous law that everything in the universe proceeds by the most economical means flows out from the action of the Creator, then there must be a top-down causal link between God’s nature and the laws of nature.

This book attempts to show that the laws of nature emerged out from God’s spiritual principles and values. That is, the laws of nature and its forces are actually spiritual laws and forces extended into spacetime constraints. While this is daunting and challenging enough, it is not the only challenge of this book!

Many other tricky problems are associated with attempting to write a book like this. Each of these problems is one more landmine ready to explode when stepped on. In spite of this, I have decided to step everywhere and not purposely avoid any dangers. The first big landmine is best expressed by the quote:

“ I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you
the formula for failure: which is: try to please everybody.”
– Herbert B. Swope

I did not write this book to please anyone. People have different and strong opinions about things. Theologians argue with theologians, scientists argue with scientists, and theologians and scientists argue with each other, often bitterly. In science, we have competing theories, even within the realm of quantum physics. In religion, we have competing theologies, even within the realm of a single “ism.” For instance, did God create the world and let it run on its own (Deism) or is God continually active in the world (Theism) and interested in our personal happiness? If the latter is true, which interpretation of quantum mechanics do I use (assuming one is correct) for demonstrating how God acts in the world?

So, in my attempt to unify science with religion, I must answer the question: which scientific model do I use and which interpretation of theological doctrine do I use? Two wrongs do not make a right, and my attempt will surely lead to an enormous backlash, since most of my readers will have their oxen gored no matter what choices I make.

In our post-modern world, it is taboo even to suggest in any way that one religion or worldview is “superior” to another (and I would do this if I picked one). But there is a big difference between respecting everyone’s deepest beliefs and suggesting that these belief systems can be improved upon; few people are experts concerning their own faith systems anyway. Does any theology excel over others in addressing scientific issues? Does any theology even adequately address such issues as the virgin birth, miracles, the resurrection, the Second Coming, and the nature of heaven from a scientific perspective? (I have already tipped my hand that I will try to unify science with Christian theology.)

Even if I enjoyed special enlightenment and chose the best interpretation from science to describe reality and the best interpretation from theology, the problem still exists that science and theology use wholly different languages. The differences must be addressed and bridged. And, unless I plan to sell this book only to a handful of intellectuals, I also need to reach the understanding of normal but serious-thinking laypeople while still challenging their minds.

Another problem is that God will stand in the way of my ultimate success. I believe God does not want to be proven in any way that would threaten a person’s freedom of thought and discrimination. Otherwise God would use coercion and constantly interfere with all our daily activities. And what constitutes proof? For instance, if experiments reveal that prayer and worship have a positive effect on one’s health (and they do), is this proof of a Divine Architect? One might just as easily explain that faith is an evolutionary strategy of selfish genes to calm the human mind from stressful thoughts about the inevitable fate of one’s death and enable us to live longer and have more chances at reproduction. So even if such an experiment in faith were repeatable, it would still be open to interpretation.

I have also put myself in the uncomfortable position of going against the experts. Therefore, I run the risk that this work will be summarily dismissed. However, since none of the experts has all the answers, I have invited myself to the table.

“A leader must have the courage to act against the expert’s advice.”
– James Callaghan

My calling is to go against the advice of the experts, to shake things up and stir up the dust. I come to the table with the wish to stimulate healthy discussion. I have not shied away from making choices, and you will find my choices to be quite unexpected; in many cases they will be quite new to you.

I have chosen to use the scientific and theological ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, an eighteenth-century scientist, philosopher, mystic and theologian. Using the ideas of a little known eighteenth-century thinker to straddle complex twenty-first century issues may seem like intellectual suicide. But I have studied this extraordinary man for more than 35 years, and I am confident that he has provided the world with scientific ideas that have yet to be grasped (like quantum gravity) and a theology that is most suited to interface with the discoveries of modern science. My undertaking will live or die on that choice.

Who is he? Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) is one of the most overlooked thinkers in human intellectual history. His theology, while Christian, is radically inclusive and teaches that all those who sincerely live according to their religious beliefs and conscience and strive to do good from spiritual principles are welcomed into heaven. He states:

“ All people who live good lives, no matter what their religion,
have a place in heaven.”

This universal idea of the essence of religion to seek goodness in one’s life was shared by Einstein, who said:

“ True religion is real living; living with all one’s soul, with all
one’s goodness and righteousness.”

Swedenborg’s Christian theology was so universal that Buddhist scholar T.S. Suzuki wrote a book about him, comparing his ideas to Buddhism and calling him the “Buddha of the North.” Swedenborg demonstrated that similar universal principles could be found at the heart of all the world’s religions.

His most remarkable idea is that God’s Holy Word was more than a historical account of the human predicament. It was a scientific and multi-dimensional document. The Holy Word, which encompasses God’s wisdom, not only teaches us how to live, but also contains deeper levels of meaning that offer insights into the true nature of God and the scientific principles, laws, and symmetries that emerge from this Divine nature and Divine order.

God and science are one.

All true knowledge is connected because it leads to Love and Wisdom. Knowledge that does not lead us to wisdom is incomplete and disconnected from the bio-friendly laws of the universe. This idea of the ultimate interconnectedness of knowledge is not simply New Age drivel or philosophical naiveté. Real Science seeks knowledge for the goodness and benefit of society. How else is human achievement to be a blessing? How else can human society reach true greatness? Again, Einstein:

“ All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.
All these aspirations are directed towards ennobling man’s life,
lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading
the individual towards freedom.”

Also:

“ Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelationship of means and ends.
But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends.
To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations
and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual,
seems to me precisely the most important function
which religion has to form in the social life of man.”

– Famous Einstein quotes
http://www.some-guy.com/quotes/einstein.html

Swedenborg underscores Einstein’s sentiment that knowledge must lead us beyond head-intelligence and move toward the heart:

“ To understand and to be wise are two altogether distinct things,
for we may understand and still not be wise; but one leads us to the other,
namely, science to the cognition of truth (veri) and truth (veritas)
to the cognition of good, and it is the good which is sought for.
But in order that we may be wise, it is necessary,
not only that we should know and thus understand what truth and good are,
but that we should also be affected with the love of them.”
– Worship and Love of God, Part 3, footnote b

Love is an emotion, and only recently has neuroscience begun to look at the importance of emotion within human cognitive function and consciousness. All human thought links itself to some emotion, appetite, desire, intention, volition, or derivative of love, and emotion is now recognized as a vital part of human reason. In other words, the neural networks are subservient to affection, which modifies the activity that animates, focuses our attention, and shapes our very thoughts and memory.

Swedenborg anticipated these “modern” ideas about the brain more than 250 years ago, even taking these ideas into deeper structures within the neuron. He believed that passion, emotion, intention, and love modified the neural structures of the brain, and the resulting modifications represented the analogs, ratios and equations that produce human thought. Thoughts are the outer forms of our intentions. Said another way, emotions and affections are the inner life of our thoughts, and from these thoughts come our speech. No information, idea, or subject can connect itself to our personal lives without some affection. Our worldview is an internalization of our loves.

The importance of emotion in all this is that it links neuroscience to personal-level experience and contributes an important link between hard science, the human heart and a heavenly God of Love.

In spite of all the problems that come with writing a book like this, there is a way out of the challenge of pleasing readers. Everyone responds to Love. This book is about Love! Therefore, no matter what beliefs you hold, you are invited to experience a most pleasant surprise—that Love is the ultimate reality. I am not a betting man, but I wager that, quietly, you will root
me on!

– Edward F. Sylvia, M.T.S.

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Foreword

by Ian J. Thompson, Ph.D.

It is well known that there are many severe problems yet unsolved in the foundations of physics, not least the question of whether and how to unify the dynamic geometries of general relativity with the superpositions of quantum mechanics. There are even more difficult problems when it comes to understanding minds and how they can be related to the physical world. Most scientists these days want to accept some kind of “non-reductive physicalism,” but there are still persistent debates about whether such a view is even internally consistent. And there is always the question of how to God can possibly be understood, and how anything Divine can be related to the physical world. Can we say anything scientific, for example, about how God could influence the evolution of life on earth? Most scientists and philosophers want rather to accept some kind of “dual magisteria,” whereby science and religion are allowed to peaceably coexist within their own realms, and as long as they are not allowed to disturb each other.

These commonly held views are all based on the desire to leave science alone; to let it proceed autonomously and not to disturb it. However, the views are all based on ignorance of connections. They all reflect the fact that we do not yet have any scientific knowledge that connects general relativity with quantum mechanics, or connects minds with the physical world, or connects anything Divine with the universe. They are all therefore susceptible to revision if we do have some good theory about any of these connections. Many today say that there are no connections, but that again is from ignorance. If someone does propose a theory for these connections, then that proposal should be worked out as best as possible, as it may be a chance for solving our severe problems.

Developing such a connecting theory is what Ed Sylvia is trying to do in this book, based on some neglected ideas found in the works of Emanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg, a Swede who lived from 1688 to 1772, claimed to have received extensive instruction in philosophical, spiritual and theological knowledge after his “inner sight was opened” in his 50s. Before that stage, Swedenborg had demonstrated a very independent and penetrating scientific mind, and published a Principia to explain his theory of how physical objects may be constructed by the rapid spiral motions of microscopic points.

This is not the place to discuss the entire veracity of Swedenborg’s writings, but his ideas do certainly appear to be relevant to all our contemporary problems as listed above. This book starts by using Swedenborg’s early physics ideas to see how a more modern account of how a “pregeometric” realm might be constructed. Ed then works to link that account with Swedenborg’s later ideas about how a spiritual realm might exist, and how such a realm might function in relation to the physical world. In a most interesting manner, Swedenborg and Sylvia see the spiritual world as continuously existing “alongside” the physical, and continually generating the physical world to sustain it in apparently stable forms. This, they argue, gives the appearance of physicalism, as the world functions “as if” from its own powers; but the powers are themselves derived from some other (spiritual) cause. And it would go some way to explain the apparent autonomy of the physical world.

Of course, anyone can make such claims: the proof is in the details. And there are certainly many details known today about the world that could not have been known in the 18th century. It is therefore a challenge to present Swedenborg’s ideas again in relation to what we now know about physics, biology and neurology. Sylvia certainly rises to that challenge.

Ian J. Thompson

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California
and Department of Physics, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom.

Aug 28, 2009.

SAMSON–REGENERATION

SAMSON–REGENERATION
A Sermon by Rt. Rev. Louis B. King
Preached in Bryn Athyn on November 16, 1986

“Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness” (Judges 14:14).

Samson’s riddle which he put forth to his Philistine companions on the eve of his marriage to the Philistine woman of Timnath contains in summary the whole spiritual meaning of his dramatic life as it relates to a person’s regeneration. Interiorly it illustrates how the ferocious attacks of evil and falsity can be met and rent asunder by the power of Divine truth entrusted by the Lord to our care and for our regeneration. A transformation is effected. In place of temptation there comes perception, or meat for the soul, and from the very strength of evil that would have destroyed us there is charity or sweetness of life anew.

In general Samson represents the letter of the Word and its supreme power over evil and falsity. He takes on this representation because of his long, uncut hair. Hair is the last and ultimate outgrowth of the external skin, and as such it is the final termination of the life of the body. Similarly, the letter of the Word is the ultimate or outmost termination of all degrees of revealed truth. The Word exists, and has from the beginning, because the Lord wills that men be saved. Salvation, because it is an eternal reception of the Lord’s love, is possible only where a state of conjunction exists; and conjunction is possible because the Lord has accommodated His infinite love and wisdom so that they may be received by finite man as if his own. In the Word, which is the only medium of conjunction between God and man, we actually find the whole of the Divine so accommodated that it may be received by finite minds (see AE 918:11; AC 1461, 1489, 1496, 1542, 1661).

There are many degrees whereby truth is accommodated, as many as there are planes of human life. The celestial angels receive the Lord’s revelation in its highest form — in celestial or inmost appearances of truth. To the spiritual angels these forms of truth are further accommodated by grosser forms and thus adapted to their spiritual state. Again, natural angels receive a further adaptation of the truth. The form of their revelation consists of appearances of truth adapted to their natural state. Yet within these natural appearances dwells the spiritual sense; and within this is the celestial, and inmostly is the Divine of the Lord, which is the very essence of the Word itself.

As Divine truth descends through the heavens, it is successively clothed with forms which adapt or accommodate it for reception by angels and men, so that all may be conjoined to the Lord by an eternal reception of His Divine love.

The final resting place or outmost termination of the Word is in the literal statements of the three testaments, particularly the Old and New Testaments, wherein Divine truth is accommodated for reception by natural and sensual men on earth. In the literal sense of the Word, Divine truth is in its fullness and power not because of the literal form itself, but because into it are gathered all degrees of revelation. Power is in the ultimate but not from it. When a little child reads the Word with affection, the whole of the heavens benefit — each angel receives and delights in the particular sense directed to his state. Yet the child knows nothing of this. He is unaware that myriads of angels worship the Lord when he reads the Word, communicating to him as much of their affection as he can receive.

This conjunction with the Lord through the heavens not only applies to little children but to all men on earth who will read the Word with affection and humility. The Word of God has power in man’s life not because of its literal form, but because of the angels who depend on man’s reading of it for their perception, and who share with man the power of their love to the Lord.

The communion of angels and men is a very real thing. All our loves and affections come from the spiritual world, either through heaven or hell, depending upon the thoughts we entertain and rationally confirm. Thought brings presence or association, and continued association communicates affection, which in time conjoins or makes one. To entertain selfish and worldly thoughts is to associate with evil spirits who love such things and who desire nothing more than to share and thus insinuate with us their love of evil. Continued association with such spirits will bring about an eternal communion or sharing of their love, which will result in our damnation.

But the Word of God is given so that man may enter into a communion with angels and thereby, that is, through the heavens, be conjoined to the Lord. When we read the Word in a state of holiness, and our thoughts and rational judgments are guided by its truth, then we summon the inhabitants of heaven, and according to our state, receive the power of their affection by which we are conjoined to the Lord.

Samson, judge and mightiest hero of Israel, pictures most powerfully the office of Divine truth in man’s life. In the spiritual sense Samson can be likened to the Word in one whom the Lord is regenerating, his abundant hair and source of strength likened to the growing concept of truth in the natural mind. The Philistines are his enemies. They represent the power of faith alone — truths loved for the sake of self and the world rather than for the sake of good. They would make Samson their servant — they would induce the man who is being regenerated to delight merely in knowledges of truth, rejecting all applications to life. Philistines in the New Church are those who indeed possess the Writings but who remain in the seductive loves of the proprium. Their faith becomes an intellectual pastime. Serviceable though it may be for a time, such a spirit of historic or persuasive faith eventually must be destroyed by man, he himself taking the initiative.

Thus Samson, early in life, went down to Philistia and fell in love with a daughter of that land, symbolizing the conjunction of truth with an external affection in the natural mind — an affection which, because of its proprial nature, obscures truth rather than enlightening it (see AC 4855). Any truth learned that does not look to good is in danger of being perverted and becoming falsity. Nevertheless, this first affection with which truth can be conjoined in the natural mind is indeed of an external and somewhat selfish quality, but without it — without an affection of learning for the sake of one’s own honor, reputation and gain — man would never acquire the doctrines that he will one day love for their own sake — that is, for the sake of the good of life. So the first good produced by truth is called mediate good.

When Samson first entered the land of the Philistines to covenant with them for the bride he was to take, a young lion attacked him. So when Divine truth first enters the natural mind, the power of evil and falsity is aroused. Like a mighty lion they roar their hatred and contempt against the Divine. The power of truth when separated from good is thus turned against the Lord. Recall the Lord’s temptations in the wilderness, how the devil quoted Scripture to induce the Lord to obey him. With patience and strength, however, the Lord Himself used the letter of the Word to devastate and to make impotent the devil’s attack; so Samson rent the lion as if it were a lamb, demonstrating the power of truth rightly used, and its effortless destruction of evil wherever and if there is genuine faith in the Lord.

In time a swarm of bees built their nest in the carcass of the lion and filled it with wild honey. Discovering this, on a subsequent journey to Timnath to celebrate the nuptials of his forthcoming wedding, Samson tasted its sweetness and was refreshed. At the wedding feast he posed a riddle to his Philistine companions concerning this unusual condition of which he alone knew. “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness” (Judges 14:14). The dead lion no longer possessed its terrible power. The devourer or destroyer of spiritual life, the eater representing evil and falsity in the natural mind, was put to death. This is accomplished in man by the shunning of evils as sins; for when man compels himself to shun evils because they are sins against the Lord, a miraculous change takes place called regeneration. The influx of hell is exchanged for the influx of heaven. The quality of one’s mental strength is changed from the ravenous to the peaceful, which is meat for the soul. The power of the mind is also redirected from selfishness to charity. When good affections express themselves in external act, the strength of man’s character becomes sweet and spiritually palatable. Honey, therefore, represents a new state of charity or mutual love (see AE 611:18). “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness” (Judges 14:14).

Regeneration does not destroy man’s natural mind, nor does it deprive him of anything that causes him to be a man. It merely takes away evil by changing or bending the quality of his affections from evil to good. “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings before My eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well” (Isaiah 1:16, 19).

When we are engaged in the battles of temptation, it seems to us that if we give up our natural desires we will lose everything that makes life worthwhile. But when we lay down our evil tendencies we find that we have not really lost anything. Our affections remain, but they have been cleansed, purified, sweetened, by the heavenly spirit of charity. Our natural affections, which prior to regeneration were strong against our salvation, when purified, become the new sweetness of regenerate life. But this sweetness cannot be ours until we allow the Samson of Divine truth to enter into us and slay the lion of proprial passion. Temptations are attacks upon our good loves by forces of evil. The Lord permits evils — softens conceit, provides an optional route to happiness.

Samson’s relationship with the Philistines became a series of contests, successively severe. With each encounter his great strength proved victorious, that is, until he fell in love with the Philistine woman Delilah, who represents the subtlest of our affections of truth, which in fact is an evil affection — to use truth to confirm the opposite, that we can save ourselves. It utilizes our inmost inclinations to justify selfishness and obstruct the process of self examination. That man is the unknowing victim of these cupidities is seen in the fact that Delilah and her Philistine cohorts attacked Samson and cut his hair while he slept. Then his strength departed and his eyes were bored out and he was imprisoned and made to grind corn.

So it is with man in his last and inmost temptations of regenerate life. It appears to him that truth has been taken away and with it the very power to do good. He despairs of his state; his doubts overwhelm him; his spiritual eyes are blind to perceptions he once enjoyed; he feels himself to be the servant of sin. The Lord, he believes, has abandoned him. All purpose has gone out of his life.

In his deep despair, when forces of evil are confident of their victory and would sport with their victim, the man of the church begins to feel, once again, the near presence of the Lord. The strength of truth slowly returns as be gropes in his blindness for the way that leads to its right application. A little child leads him — remains of innocence implanted long ago direct the regenerating man to the very house of his enemies — to the temple of Dagon, hypocrisy and conceit. There in the midst of his unseen foes he receives the full force of their mockery and contempt for truth. His hands, still guided by the innocence of remains, take hold of the two central supports of evil — the loves of self and the world (hatred of others and the desire to possess all means of domination, persuasion that he lives from self and controls his destiny). Lifting his head in prayerful acknowledgment of the Lord as the source of all good and truth, he bows himself with all the might that God effects through the as-of-self. “O Lord God, strengthen me just this once.”

With the destruction of the temple, the “persuasive of self-life” is broken. Samson and the lords of the Philistines lie buried beneath the rubble. Indeed, “the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life” (Judges 16:30). But the angels know not what we mean by death and burial. When such is mentioned in the Word, they think of resurrection — of the beginning of life eternal. To lay down one’s natural life while destroying his spiritual enemies is really to take up eternal life in the service of the Lord. “Whosoever shall lose his life for My sake shall find it.” May it be said of all those who seek the overthrow of the proprium through the medium of the Lord’s Word, “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.”

Lessons: Judges chapters 13-16 (portions), AE 1086

Apocalypse Explained 1086:6

The power of the Word in the sense of its letter is the power itself of opening heaven, by virtue whereof communication and conjunction with the Lord is effected and also the power of fighting against falsities and thus overcoming the hells. A man who is in genuine truths from the literal sense of the Word can cast down and dissipate all the diabolical crew and all of their arts in which they place their power and these are innumerable. Man can do this in a moment by only a look and effort of the will. In brief, the spiritual world is the world in which there is power, and there is nothing, nothing that can resist the power of genuine truth when it is confirmed from the literal sense of the Word.

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havau22

BY BELIEVING IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST IS MEANT BELIEVING IN THE SPIRITUAL QUALITY OF LIFE HE CAME TO REVEAL,,NOT A MERE PAYING LIP SERVICE TO A HISTORICAL FIGURE...PRAYER COMES FROM TRUTH INSIDE YOU,AND YOU ARE CONTINUALLY AT PRAYER WHEN YOU LIVE ACCORDING TO THAT TRUTH... UPON A LIFE I DID NOT LIVE,UPON A DEATH I DID NOT DIE,I RISK MY WHOLE ETERNITY...NOTHING IN MY HANDS I BRING SIMPLY TO THE CROSS I CLING, FOR REMEMBER THAT THESE BAD BEGINNINGS HAVE HAD A GREAT EFFECT IN MAKING A MAN FRUITLESS,

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YOU WON'T KNOW WERE YOUR GOING ,UNLESS YOU KNOW WERE YOU'VE BEEN...

inspiration;

just be yourself, no one else is better qualified.
people will forget what you said,what you did,but they will never forget how you made them feel.

Thought of the Day: Minimize distortion by turning down the volume of your inner dialogue.

ones heart speaks louder then ones intellect.

Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.

Stop the habit of wishful thinking and start the habit of thoughtful wishes.

The whole worth of a kind deed is in the love that inspires it.
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth... Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

the purpose of life, is a life of purpose.

the more you are as a person the less you have to prove yourself to others.

without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly begger.

life is not a rehersal,so live it.

if love is not a game why is there so many players.
good judgement comes from experience,experience comes from bad judgement.battles are often won by walking away and fighting another day.the difficult i do right away the impossible takes a bit longer.

posted by Domenic

The heart opens when the mind lets go of fearful thoughts. An open heart, filled with love, is the conduit for manifestation. What would it take to open your heart? When was the last time you truly felt your heart wide open? Your heart, wide open to acceptance, is the place to create your dreams. Take a moment and open your heart. Feel the presence of the Divine. Feel the creation of your dreams. Feel the complete peace that is felt with an open heart. I love you all. im not a big fan of organized religion,there always hating someone for some reason or another... im ashamed to die until i have won some victory for humanity...-never explain-your friends don't need it and your enemies will not belive you anyways... the greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own...treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they should be...share our similarities,celebrate our differences....THERE IS MORE IN US THEN WE KNOW,IF WE CAN BE MADE TO SEE IT,PERHAPS FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES WE WILL BE UNWILLING TO SETTLE FOR LESS,
Who I'd like to meet:
people who are not afraid to be themselfs.just be yourself no one else is better qualaified.if you judge people you have no time to love them.

Im ashamed to die until i have won some victory for humanity.

Domenic Garisto / LIFE IS NOT A REHERSAL,SO LIVE IT..if you can't be the poet, be the poem..havau22.com

Month: August 2014

DIVINE BLINDNESS AND DEAFNESS

OUR DAILY WORK

A PARABLE OF HEALING

LIFTING OUR THOUGHT TO ETERNITY

FIGHTING SPIRITUAL BATTLES

THE HEART

LOVE

A BATTLE ROYAL

I HAVE CAST FIRE ON THE WORLD

TRUST IN GOD

FINDING INNER STRENGTH

THE PRODIGAL SON

THE WISDOM OF OLD AGE

PROVING GOD

SAMSON–REGENERATION

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