By Rev. Michael Gladish

One of the most inspiring prophecies of the Old Testament, and one that is repeated almost verbatim in Isaiah and in Micah, tells about a time “in the latter days” when after a period of punishment and desolation Israel would be restored to her former glory. Then, as we read, people of many nations would gather together in recognition of the Lord to hear His Word and to walk in His paths in peace and prosperity.

“For out of Zion the law shall go forth, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and rebuke strong nations afar off; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Is. 2:3-4 & Micah 4:2-3).

The words of the prophecy are poetic, and very beautiful. As such the metaphor is well known throughout the civilized world: swords and spears represent war while plowshares and pruning hooks represent peace. When the instruments of war are no longer needed they will be converted into farm implements and people will be able to live contentedly in their own places, minding their own business. The Lord will judge right and wrong, taking away the sphere of oppression, and there will be no conflict.

“But everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. For all people (shall) walk each in the name of his god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever” (Micah 4:4-5).

What a wonderful vision! What a happy state! In fact, this is another prophecy of the Lord’s coming into the world, when,

“‘In that day,’ says the Lord, ‘I will assemble the lame, I will gather the outcast and those whom I have afflicted; I will make the lame a remnant, and the outcast a strong nation; so the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from now on, even forever'” (Micah 4:6-7).

Sometimes in our hardships and pain it is difficult to “get” this vision, and even more difficult to imagine how it might apply to us, unless maybe it’s some sort of reward that we’ll be able to enjoy in heaven, at the end of our long battle with temptations in the world. After all, when the Lord did come into the world He plainly said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword!” (Matt. 10:34). But in the spiritual sense we know that the “plowshares prophecy,” like all prophecies, doesn’t only tell us about the future in time, it tells us about the potential in our lives now – spiritually – as we learn to endure the consequences of our foolish decisions and receive the Lord (as He is ALWAYS coming to us) in the love and wisdom of His Word.

Incidentally, consistent with the Lord’s words in Matthew there is another prophecy in Joel, who may well have written even before Micah or Isaiah (certainly before the captivity in Babylon), in which the Lord says,

“Proclaim this among the nations: ‘Prepare for war! Wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears!'” (Joel 3:9-10).

So the Lord does not deny the place or need for battle in the work of regeneration, but He does promise that after the battle, after the conflict with the falsities and evils in ourselves, if we accept the Lord’s judgments, there will be peace.

So now let’s look at the message about the swords and plowshares more carefully. In our recitation this morning (John 15:4-7) we were reminded of the Lord’s analogy of the vine and the branches. He is the vine, we are the branches, and as such we are in Him as He is in the Father: forms of love or wisdom that can bear fruit in useful life. But remember how that 15th chapter of John begins:

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

This pruning should be a reminder of the “pruning hooks” of the Old Testament prophets. What actually happens when you prune a tree or vine is that you cut shoots or branches out of it; but you do it with a couple of things in mind: first you may be trying to shape the thing so that it lets sufficient light and air get into all the branches that remain, and so that the fruit is not too difficult to harvest. But most importantly you will be directing its energy so that it is not dissipated in the production of leaves rather than fruit. You will be concentrating the sap into those branches that can produce more or possibly better quality fruit than others.

All this is of course symbolic. In the Word the branches of a tree correspond to the truths or “branches of knowledge” that support the production of the fruit that is good works or the life of charity. “Pruning” keeps us from getting carried away with knowledge for its own sake, and helps us direct our energy into the good and useful things of life. Remember the fig tree that the Lord condemned? It was all leaves and no fruit. So we should beware of the condemnation, or at any rate the uselessness of faith alone. Knowing what to do is important, but knowing without doing is like saving money for its own sake, without using it.

Now think about the act of pruning. The overall image of a man in his vineyard, peacefully working his way down the trellises, evokes a peaceful feeling. But remember, the job involves cutting, and the cutting involves a separation and removal of part of each vine. So in our lives the job of pruning corresponds to the recognition of those aspects of our own character that are not worthy to remain with us – either because they are unproductive or because they interfere in some way with other aspects that need or deserve more attention. It involves the decision to cut those things out, and, in the end, to throw them away so that the better, stronger qualities in us can flourish and bear more excellent or more plentiful fruit.

So – back to our pastoral vineyard scene – as we watch the man working among the trellises we find that the picture includes small piles of young shoots and branches neatly stacked along the rows, waiting to be gathered up and – most likely – thrown in a fire. It is still a peaceful, pleasant picture, but now we can see that an important part of it is what the Lord teaches us about self-examination, or if you will, self-analysis, and genuine repentance: carefully discerning and cutting away and casting off those undesirable qualities within ourselves that would prevent the Lord from realizing His potential with us if they were left to grow.

In the prophecies of Micah and Isaiah we are reminded that when the Lord comes to us, that is, when we truly receive Him into our hearts, this pruning of our own trees or vines will replace the activities represented by spears, which are designed to hurt and kill others. In fact, spears, like arrows in the Word, correspond to the truths of doctrine we need to fight against what is wrong or false. But when that battle is over then we can turn to the more subtle task of refining and strengthening the truths that remain so that they will produce good fruit. This is the self-evaluation, self-judgment, and self-improvement that constitute the life of genuine charity once the intellectual arguments are over. This is the more interior work of directing the truth into what is good in our spiritual world so that “everyone may sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.” The vine specifically corresponds to our understanding and the fig tree to our will, especially the will as expressed in a charitable outward life.

As for swords being turned into plowshares, this is another fascinating image involving a similar idea. Of course the sword is designed to cut and chop other people. It can be an instrument of self-defense or a tool of hostile aggression, but the point is that the sword is used for battle. In contrast a plow – or as the Writings translate it, a HOE, is used for cultivating one’s own land, one’s own field or vineyard. Here again we have the simple distinction between ware and peace, but we also have a lot more: for in this image the Lord is showing us the difference between cutting and chopping at things (or people) outside of ourselves, and being critical of ourselves. He is showing us the difference between judgment of others on the one hand and the cultivation of our own affections on the other. For the ground or soil in any story of the Word really corresponds to the human mind, especially as to the will or affections that are there. And to cultivate is to dig up and turn that soil over so that it will be aerated and kept free of weeds.

Going deeper, the sword corresponds to truth which is used to distinguish between right and wrong, and if necessary to cut down or destroy opposing falsity. But notice that the plow, or hoe, is also a cutting instrument. It is used to dig, to chop, to lift the soil and to turn it over. So it is another image of the truth, but this time working in the field of our affections, digging up things that may interfere with the growth and development of a good and true and useful life. Who knows what rocks and seeds and mold and fungus may lie just beneath the surface of our conscious attitude or feelings? Who knows until we dig and plow and so get into those affections, turning them inside out so that the deeper layers may be exposed to the light and air of wisdom?

This is a challenging process! And just the same as it is with pruning, the picture we get in our mind’s eye generally is of a very peaceful scene. But on closer examination there’s a lot of work involved. Digging around in the soil of our feelings, poking, chopping, analyzing, exposing things within ourselves that may not be very pleasant is a strenuous and often time consuming exercise. On one hand it may not involve intellectual conflict, for the intellect is represented by the hoe, and it is digging in the will, but anyone who has done any work with a hoe – or for that matter with an old-fashioned plow – can understand the sort of resistance that may be involved in the task.

Our will is the ground of our being. It is the basis of our individuality, our sense of identity, our proprium or “that which is our own.” What we feel is who we are. And this does not like to be disturbed. But it has to be disturbed; it has to be examined; it has to be exposed by means of the hard-edged and pointed tools the Lord gives us in the teachings of His Word. Unless we dig and open up and see what is beneath the surface of our lives we will never be able to change or grow much of anything except what is sown by the forces of nature – wild things, weak things, weeds and seeds of worldly ambition. But what is equally important about plowing and cultivating our affections is that when we do it as a regular thing it gets a little easier every time. Gradually, season by season, we clear the major obstacles – the roots and stumps and most obnoxious weeds, and we keep the soil soft and loose so that when we go over it we meet less and less resistance.

Soil that has never been plowed can become very hard. Soil that is plowed regularly will respond to the blade with neat furrows ready to receive the seeds of wisdom that the Lord can sow according to His will and providence for us as He prepares us for the fulfillment of a heavenly life.

Finally, and you may have wondered how in the world this was going to tie in, let’s remember the lesson of the second reading this morning in which the Samaritans rejected Jesus. James and John saw this and challenged Him, saying, “Lord, Do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?” But the Lord said, no, “For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.” Then a discussion arose as they walked along the road and they talked about following the Lord. And one of them said he would follow Him but that he wanted to go bury his father first. Another said the same but that he wanted to go and bid farewell to those at his house. Then the Lord answered, “No one having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).

Surely one of the lessons here is that once we understand the need to break and turn the soil of our own minds, cultivating our affections according to the teachings of the Word, there is no turning back. Once we recognize that the kingdom of heaven is within and that the cultivation of the ground for reception of that kingdom is up to us, and most of all once we start that process, we must realize that looking back to our old ways, looking back to our old patterns, falling back into our old habits is only going to result in crooked furrows, broken tools and a lot of frustration.

At this point there is no hope or fulfillment in a merely worldly life, and there is no long term benefit in giving up the spiritual work. We simply must go forward. We must look to the Lord, cut straight furrows, watch for the rocks and stumps and weeds that get in the way, and bring up whatever comes up to be addressed from within ourselves. Remember, we are going to plow our own field, not someone else’s. We are going to prune our own trees or vines, not someone else’s. We are going to cultivate our own thoughts and affections by removing whatever stands in the way of reception of the Lord’s eternal love and wisdom so He may grow His kingdom in us and we may indeed be called “trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified” (Is. 61:3). In this way His kingdom will come, and we will find enduring peace.

Amen.

By Rev. Dr. Reuben P. Bell

“For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.” Isaiah 35:6-7

Our Scripture lessons today are not much alike. You may have noticed, and wondered where the connection might be. Isaiah tells us that the desert will blossom, and that water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. Remember this: we will work our way back to this beautiful image. Matthew tells us of what must have been a terrible ordeal for Jesus – and the setting of this story is also the desert.

The Word is a marvelous narrative which teaches its lessons primarily with stories, and so often, the images within these stories are of the desert; the wilderness. The image of the desert appears and reappears in the Word. We saw it today, in Isaiah’s book of despair and hope for the nation of Israel. And finally, the desert beyond the Jordan River.. the testing ground for Jesus, about to begin his great temptation.

So why the desert? The Writings tell us that the significance of the desert (or wilderness) is found in its correspondence to states of temptation. We read about it this morning in AC 6828. Here’s a little more of that passage:

The truth which flows in [during temptation] does not appear to [the person] to have sufficient life to disperse the falsities and evils. Moreover evil spirits are then present, who inject grief, and despair of salvation. That a “wilderness” signifies such a state, is evident from the very many passages in the Word.

You see, this marvelous narrative of the Word, which is the story of Man’s creation, fall, long struggle, and final triumph in the New Jerusalem, is mostly the story of a struggle. And this struggle is often described for what it is – a time in the desert, the wilderness – “when falsity and evil come out and darken and almost take away the influx of truth and good from the Lord;” when evil spirits are present.. to test the strength of our convictions.

So our theme this morning is the desert.. the testing ground.. for Israel forty years of it, and for Jesus, who was about to stand the world on its head forevermore. We shall see that this desert is a familiar place for us humans, but we shall also see that this desert, for all its desolation, despair, and danger, is the doorway to our salvation. For without anxiety and despair, there can be no regeneration, and without regeneration there can be no New Jerusalem.

Let’s get on to the story. It is another of those deceptive little ten verse sleepers buried all over the Gospels. What a fascinating habit of those writers, telling the biggest news in the smallest space! It appears in Matthew, which we read today, is virtually the same in Luke, but in Mark, the whole episode is summarized in an amazing two verses!

“At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.”

Wild animals. Mark is the only one to mention this. We will return to these wild animals, when we talk about correspondences.

The story is simple. First, it is linked with the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. Second, Jesus didn’t just happen to wander out into the desert – he was sent, by the “Spirit of God” which had only recently descended on Him at His baptism – he was sent by the Spirit to be tempted. Third, there were three great temptations he had to face: (1) “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” (2) “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.” (3) “All this will I give you, if you will bow down and worship me.” Lastly, it says that “the Devil left him, until an opportune time. Who was this Devil? We shall see..

And that’s the story. But putting it into perspective, we are also told that he abided there forty days. There’s the number forty. It tells us of the importance of this narrative – puts it in the spiritual big leagues, so to speak, because forty signifies “the duration of temptations,” [AC 730] and reminds us to look at this story (despite its brevity) very carefully.

Christ’s temptation in the desert must be considered linked with his baptism. The reason is not complicated: The teachings of our church have a lot to say about temptation. Far from the simplistic idea of enticement or seduction by evil alone, we are told that temptation is a grand spiritual process, or exercise, by which our regeneration proceeds. Now we know that regeneration is the process by which we are born again, step-by-step into a new person, free from the evil and falsity we are born into. And it is by temptation that we take these steps.

As we read this morning, [AC 1787]

Every temptation is attended with some kind of despair (otherwise it is not a temptation), and consolation follows. He who is tempted is brought into anxieties, which induce a state of despair as to what the end is to be.

So temptation is defined as the continuous, ongoing struggle of our eternal lifetimes against evil, toward conjunction with the Divine. And it must begin with the illumination of our minds that there is good and that there is evil, and that we truly wish to be regenerated. This is reformation – the ordering of our thoughts toward good and the preparation to fight the battles (temptations) of regeneration.

This is our baptism – a sign and a memorial that our work has begun. And so did Jesus, coming out of nowhere, so to speak, step up to John and ask to be baptized. His destiny upon Him, he felt an urgency to focus his energies for the great work ahead.

There can be no regeneration without great temptation, and there can be no temptation without a first spiritual step – for Jesus, the baptism to “fulfill all righteousness;” for you and me, the decision to follow the Lord.

Having made this leap into His prophetic destiny, it remained for Jesus to find out what He was made of; who He really was. Something very strange had just happened to Him: the power of the universe had just been placed in His hands for the battles ahead. God-on-Earth He was, but let’s not forget that this Jesus was a man, nonetheless, and up to this time a man much like you and me. It is not hard to imagine the great anguish which must have followed His baptism, as this new power over men and nature began to manifest itself within Him. For along with this great power must have come an awareness of the days ahead.. and the cross at the end of those days.

So the Spirit led him (where else?) to the desert – to sort it all out. And who he met out there, we really do not know. The Word calls him the Tempter. What form he took is left up to our own imaginations. Christian tradition would tell us he met a person; a being; a “dark god,” of sorts, who would match wits with this new and powerful force on earth. But our church does not worship such a “dark god.” Evil for us is more authentic and closer-to-home than that. It flows in from within us, and is our own.. if we claim it. Mark, in his brief narrative, gives us the clue we need to visualize this experience. He said “He was with the wild animals,” in that desert, remember? Beasts, we are told, correspond to things of a person’s will or loves, to evil affections, cupidities and pleasures; to things which spring from the love of self and the pleasures of the world – the things we humans by nature hold so dear and have such trouble giving up. He met the Tempter all right; the same Tempter you and I meet every day. He met His Satan in the desert, just the same way.. And the fight was on.

And what a fight it was. The tempter knew just where to hit Him; just how to probe his soul for the weak spots – the human in this man who was trying so very hard to put his human away and assume the mantle of the Divine. There were three temptations in all: they were well chosen and they covered all the bases. We shall see that they are the three elements central to all temptations, his, yours, and mine.

In fact, if we recognize this, there are tools in this story to use in our own worst hours – for the beauty of Jesus is the example he left for us – he has done the work – shown us not only that it can be done, but how. Let’s examine these three assaults on the Lord, out there in that desert – analyze them a little, and find in them a lesson we can use when we find ourselves out there – alone, with the wild animals and the hunger and the danger of standing up close to the Tempter, who would destroy our souls.

“The Tempter came to him and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.'” Jesus’ answer was simple and direct: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'” Note that this (and all his answers) come from Scripture – the Word, in this case the law of Moses. He did not need to form some new argument to counter the challenge. This man used the Word in his defense because, as John tells us, he was the Word, who “became flesh and dwelt among us.” And what was the meaning of this challenge – to turn the stones to bread? The Writings tell us that in the Word, a stone represents natural truths, or truths known to us through our senses and our intellect. Bread, however, corresponds to things celestial, which are spiritual and heavenly truths revealed. What the Tempter really said was this: “If you are the Son of God, take these truths which you are to teach to these thick-headed humans, and rather than waiting for them to find their own way to salvation with them, open their eyes and make them see the spiritual truths contained in them. Get it over with. You can do it – you have the power of heaven and earth in your hands.”

What a great temptation. He knew what was ahead – hardship, scorn, torture, the unspeakable horror of the cross. Why not? Why not make the people see, and then they would surely all be saved. And the man in him must have cried out to be spared the cross. But it was not to be. We must have stones, and our salvation comes only as we, in complete freedom, turn these stones to bread by victory in our own temptations.

Next the Devil took Jesus to the top of the great temple in Jerusalem – built on a cliff, with a drop of several hundred feet. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'” Now there was an ancient belief of the Jews that in fulfillment of that prophecy, the Messiah would announce Himself by doing just what the Tempter was suggesting – he would leap off the highest point of the Temple and land unharmed. Easy work for the Son of God. And the easy way out for Jesus – to force people to believe what can only be believed by free and rational choice. And once again, the reward: no hardship, no betrayal, no cross. What a great temptation it must have been for this young man who was new at this Messiah business, and who must have been very unsettled and frightened about the whole thing. What a great temptation. Always, the easy way out. Jesus’ answer, again from Moses, “It is also written: ‘Do shall not tempt the Lord your God.'” Plain and simple: no free lunch; no blind faith for the human race any longer. Those days were over, and there was, in Him, a new covenant breaking through, that required it no more.

And last, the greatest temptation of all. The Tempter hit him with everything he had. What thing would a person find the hardest to give away? What promise would likely appeal the most to the human in this fledgling redeemer? “Again, the devil took him up on a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. “All this will I give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” What a great temptation. (I am glad no one has ever made me that offer.) All the kingdoms of the world and all their splendor. Imagine yourself in that situation. You have the power. It has been given to you “like a dove, descending from heaven,” and lighting on you. You know you have the power. You know what you are supposed to do.. and it is going to hurt. The human in you says “Yes..” But the dove says no.

Gathering up all his courage and strength and newly acquired righteousness, Jesus said to this Tempter, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only you shall serve.'” Then the Devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

It is easy to read this story and miss its great significance. As Christ, the Divine Human, “the Word who was made flesh, to dwell among us,” our tendency is to see Him as some sort of superman, with super powers, simply going through the motions of suffering and temptation, for the sake of fulfilling the Scriptures and making it all come out right. We must get beyond this. Jesus was a man. He was born just like you and me. He lived in this world just like you do. But at some point the Divine began stirring within this man, and his process toward Glorification began. Only at the cross was this process completed. At all other times in the Gospels, we are observing a man in transition. We must never forget this. It is this fact which brings life to the life of Christ.

In this story of Christ’s temptation – forty days in the desert – we must recognize the anguish, the desolation, and the loneliness He must have felt, because he was just beginning. He was like you.. and like me.. and he overcame the hells (as we like to say) to show us that we can do likewise.

So we have learned that there are three elements to great temptation. If we generalize those in this story to all our times of torment, anxiety, and pain, they can serve as rules to get us through. We have Jesus to thank for these rules. He suffered His forty days to help get us through ours. When we are in great anxiety we have only to look to Christ for the peace which comes from knowing He was there before us. And then we look to our church for the peace which comes from understanding what this process of temptation is all about. In times of great anxiety we must first remember:

“Every temptation is attended with some kind of despair.. and consolation follows. After the obscurity and anxiety of temptations, brightness and gladness appear.”

The pain is our signal that we are being tested. If it is a real temptation, we should look ahead for its three faces – the three elements we found in our story of the Lord’s temptation. By knowing that these will be present in some form, we can look for them, find them, and defeat them.

First, in any confrontation between good and evil, our first and strongest impulse will be to take the easy way out – to turn the stones to bread. This is the most basic of our human traits. Knowing this, and knowing that our regeneration depends on our doing what is right, not what is easy, we are encouraged to overcome.

Second, knowing that all of Providence works to the good, and knowing of the promises in the Word of our salvation by a loving God, do you just take yourself up to the top of the temple and throw yourself over? For it is written: “He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands.” Many people do. They accept their fate, and let the Lord do the rest. Blind faith. Faith without works. No good. Temptation is a battle: Join it. Do your work. Keep plugging away, working with the Lord, but working nonetheless. Who ever said our regeneration would be easy?

Third, remember that the love of self, and love of the things of this world are strong loves.

They are strong enough to destroy us. In all temptations we are fighting to displace these with love of the Lord and the neighbor, and the love of what is good and true. It is war to overcome these ruling loves, and there is great pain in it. But remember: consolation and great peace will follow. These loves, out of their proper order, are at the root of most great temptations. If we look for them we will find them. And we can defeat them, just as Jesus did.

This simple story of the forty days in the desert is ours to use. There are tools in it. There is hope in it, and there is a great victory in its message. The victory can be ours, because Jesus, through no small effort, overcame the same temptations which confront us all – the basic human conflict between choosing the evil of self-direction, or the eternal life of following the Lord. We have learned that to follow the Lord is not the easy way. It does not involve mindless blind faith. It requires much work and can produce great pain at times. But it can be done, and there is eternal happiness in it if we do.

In closing, let’s turn our minds once more to the image of the desert: barren, bleak, and desolate. This is the landscape of our great temptations. Never, we are told, will the lord seem farther away than when we are in this desert, paralyzed by the anxiety of the spiritual battles we must undergo. But knowing that the Lord is in fact never closer, and that he leads us every step of the way, this desert need not appear so forbidding. Let’s return to that beautiful image from Isaiah:

“The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.. it will burst into bloom.. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Amen. [AC 730, 6828]

By Rev. Grant R. Schnarr

If we look up the word ‘success’ in a dictionary, it will say that being successful is “Achieving one’s goals.” Let’s face it, in the world today, what are many of the goals? What do many people consider success?

One of the first things, of course, would be having money. Anyone who has made a great deal of money is usually considered successful today. Think of things that money can do. It gives us such freedom, freedom not to worry about paying our bills, freedom to go places we’d like to go, to do the things we’d like to do. As it says in the commercial for City Bank Mastercard, “Master the possibilities.” The things that you can do with money. And we can see it all over television, newspapers, and magazines, that success and money go hand in hand.

Beyond that, what else do we think of as success? Fame, popularity? Not too long ago there were several articles in the papers of Los Angeles about all the people who had flocked to Hollywood as actors and actresses trying to make the big time, and how many of them today are busboys, waitresses, parking lot attendants, etc., because it is so hard to make it. And yet they still flock there by the hundreds each year for that hope.

But it’s not just fame that people look for, it’s also popularity. The successful person is well liked and looked up to. He or she doesn’t have to be well known. But everyone who does know then has great admiration, love and respect for the successful person and the things he or she stands for.

Beyond that, another factor in being successful is power. You don’t have to have money to have power. You can have an important position at work, have a great deal of authority over many people, be able to move things and people to get things done. That’s looked upon as part of success.

The Writings of the New Church do not say that these type of goals are evil. In fact, you can actually try to move up in your business for good reasons–because you care about your company, you want to have more control in it so that you can run it the way that you really believe will work the best. Or an artist, for example, who promotes his or her artwork may not be in a love of fame. He or she may love a piece of artwork so much that they want to share it with other people, and fame and popularity are a means of bringing that about. Money, power, fame, the teachings of the New Church tell us, are neutral. They can either be used for good or evil. They can be sought after from good intentions or bad intentions, but in themselves they are neutral.

And yet, we can look at these things see that if these earthy treasures are our only goals, how empty life would be. The Writings of the New Church give an example of that. You can imagine, they say, a king sitting at a table, feasting with all the delicacies of the world, drinking the best imported wine, perhaps having the best entertainment, and yet look into his eyes and find the look of misery because inside he may have nothing. On the other hand, you could look at a pauper who is sitting in his grubby little hut with his grubby little clothes on, eating some moldy cheese, and maybe drinking some homemade brew, has nothing. And yet, you could look into his face and see a real joy, a real happiness there, a real contentment.

We can all see what is being taught in this illustration from the Writings, that it really doesn’t matter externally what we have if we are a mess within. We can have the whole world and lose our own soul because these things don’t necessarily lead to happiness. They are neutral. The Lord said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you,” All the delights that He wants us to have, all of the joy in life, all of what it really means to be fulfilled within oneself comes from trying to be spiritually successful, from taking the Lord’s goals, making them our own goals in our life, and becoming a success within. And the beauty of that is when we obtain those spiritual goals it doesn’t matter whether we work down in the Loop for one of the big corporations there, or whether we are a busboy, or work on an assembly line. Whatever we do, we can be a success. We can be genuinely happy. And that’s the Lord’s promise to us.

What does it mean to be a spiritual success? Perhaps to look at that we should look at what it means to be a spiritual failure first.

To not pay attention to a higher realities of life, to make the mundane, earthly world the only reality, to make goals based on our hereditary inclinations to do evil instead of listening to the more noble parts within us and following the teachings of the Lords Word Lord’s Word–these are the things which lead to spiritual failure.

Spiritual failure is the kind of person who works his way right up to the top in his company, but when he gets there he doesn’t have any friends because he’s used them to get to the top. The person who is a spiritual failure has made the goal to have as many lovers as as possible, thinking that will be macho or successful. And they may have so many lovers, but they never knew love, only emptiness and pain.

The person who is a spiritual failure is somebody who has taken these beautiful talents that the Lord has given each one of us, and instead of using them, has laid them aside to lead an idle life or a life of self-gratification. Or, even worse, the spiritual failure has taken these talents which the Lord has given each one of us to use for good, and instead of using them for good, he or she uses them for gain, to take, take, take, instead of give; to tear down instead of to build up in other people’s lives. That’s spiritually failing.

The spiritual failure is the kind of person who, when they feel the inclinations to do evil, the destructive inclinations come up within them, instead of spurning them or shunning them as a sin against the Lord, they play with those feelings, they toy with them and let them come out into life. And the more they come out into life, the more those feelings from within take over, and they find themselves going off the path to heaven into a path that leads to selfishness, human desolation, misery and want. They are caught up and smothered by their own disease.

What the Writings point out is that the reason the Lord has told us to follow His way is because that is the way to happiness. It is not that God simply wants us to obey Him for the sake of obedience. He tells us that His way is the right way because His way leads to happiness. His way leads to fulfillment. His way leads to the sort of success in our lives which is genuine, real and lasting. Not the other way.

Yet so often in our lives we see falsity painting this picture of evil, as if it is so beautiful, that it is actually good, that it is right for us. And yet, when we follow that path the picture changes so quickly, and what we may have thought we would achieve in the world of evil, namely happiness, disappears. It disappears because evil cannot bring such a thing.

The effects of seeking after success through selfishness are devastating. Everything happens to the person that they didn’t want to happen. They become filled with bewilderment and anxiety. They don’t trust anyone anymore, including the Lord. They only trust in themselves. And that trust is a trust in something blind. In fact, they keep running into the wall and they can’t figure out why they are getting hurt. They keep hitting that wall, and something inside them tells them to do it again. “Maybe it will work this time.” But it doesn’t work the next time. They keep putting their hand into the fire, and they feel the pain, and they blame other people for that pain, or they blame God, not realizing they are burning themselves. And they keep on burning themselves. That’s what hell is. Hell isn’t a place where God punishes us. Hell is a human condition. Hell is something that we create within ourselves. Hell is frustration and dissatisfaction because evil is frustrating and dissatisfying. And that hell continues on after death for those who have made it their life. Thus the ultimate spiritual failure is the spirit in hell.

A person who is moving toward spiritual success has seen that false picture of happiness which hell has painted and he or she knows that it is a lie, it isn’t going to lead to happiness. They hear the Lord speaking to them, telling them that it is not the right way. They see the truths which lead to heaven and obey those truths, or at least try. Sometimes he or she falls down, but they get up, brush themselves off, and try again. And each day they move a little closer on the path to heaven. Each day the fire of love burns a little warmer, the light of wisdom burns a little brighter, and their happiness becomes more and more a living reality in their lives.

What they have done is taken the Lord’s goals for the human race, and have made them their goals: the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, love to the neighbor, a life in order in life. By applying these goals to their lives a change begins to take place within them, a certain peace comes over them, a certain wisdom, a wisdom that they know the right path to follow.

The person in spiritual success believes in themselves, but it’s not a belief solely in themselves, it’s a belief that the Lord has put them here for a purpose, that the Lord loves them, that the Lord cares for them, and that they’ve got a job that they can do here. It may not be some grand job to save the world, but maybe to help out the people who are around them, to give them a little more comfort in their life, to give them a little bit more truth, to give them a little peace of goodness in their lives. And that satisfies them. Two examples of this. When we were down at Myrtle Beach, there’s a girl that I know, and she’s the most pleasant girl, just has a great character and has many friends, does many good things, is really nice. We were talking, and she doesn’t belong to the church or anything. In fact, she said, “I’ve had a lot of problems in my life.” Her mother was an alcoholic, and she had a little daughter. Her mother accidentally set the house on fire with her daughter in there, and left the house with her daughter in there, and her daughter was burned up in that fire. There were several other things that happened to her as well, having to do with her father, having to do with some of her boyfriends, and yet she said to me, “I don’t know about this Swedenborgian religion. It’s pretty intellectual to me. I know if I just follow the Lord and His teachings, He’ll take care of me.”

I could see it in her eyes that she really meant that in her life, deep within. And there was a peace even though all those things had happened to her, a real peace and a real trust in the Lord. And no matter what happened, she still had that success within, that feeling of happiness within, that the Lord was leading her through the stream of Providence.

How many of us have had a life of terrible things happening to us. Not many of us, that bad. And yet, if the Lord can make someone like that happy, can’t he make us happy and successful? It doesn’t matter what happens to us, we can still have that success.

There’s another friend that I knew in elementary school who I used to pal around with. (I do have a lot of normal friends, but they are not interesting enough to talk about.) This guy was really into drugs and alcohol back even in elementary school–really, really hard. He went off into this, he quit school, he got married when he was 17, divorced when he was 19, and then at 19 he did something really stupid. He robbed a gas station. He went to jail for two years. He was the kind of person in the small town that we were in–and it was a small town–the kind of person everybody says, “Stay away from him.” It was like, “I don’t want you to grow up and be like this guy,” your parents would tell you. About a year and a half ago I found out that this person had finally woken up, something inside, and he went to get help, help for his alcoholism, help for his drug addiction, and that now he was back into college and helping out in the community, and he had dedicated his life to helping out people, or kids, so that they don’t end up the same way he did and have to go through the same things he did.

I went and I talked to him, and I knew him in elementary school, and he was a different person, completely different. Any kid that would go to him, they couldn’t say to him, “You don’t know what it is like.”

He would say, “You bet I do. I’ve been there. I’ve been all the way down to the pit of hell, and I climbed out.” That guy today, I don’t know what will happen tomorrow–and I’m sure he’d say the same thing–but that guy today is a prince. He’s a prince. He’s climbed out of the pits of hell, and he’s there helping people. He doesn’t have a whole lot of money. He doesn’t have a great deal of popularity. He doesn’t have any power. And yet he’s successful.

Success is more than the life of the body. Success is more than the treasures of the world. Real success comes from within, and that’s what the Lord is pointing out to us here.

Briefly, what are the steps to the sort of success like this? It’s already been said. One is–and it’s given in all the 12 steps, and the 12 steps were taken from Emanuel Swedenborg’s works–acknowledging a power greater than ourselves that can help us in our lives. And that power is the Lord Jesus Christ. To recognize that there’s a loving God up there that wants to help us in our lives, that is willing to share with us all His power to lead us away from the evil and falsity within us. To recognize that there is a higher spiritual reality. To recognize the Lord’s goals that He’s given us in His Word and to make those goals our goals. That’s the first step.

The second step is, take those teachings and look at them and then look at ourselves. See where we line up with those teachings. All the different commandments, “Here I really fell down. Here I’m doing OK. Oops, here, that’s another battle in my life.” Look at those things and be honest with ourselves. Don’t get full of guilt. That’s not going to do any good. Where do I line up with these teachings?

Once we see that and take an honest look at ourselves, the next step is to shun these things one by one, because they are hurtful, hurtful to society, hurtful to God so to speak, and hurtful to our own selves. Not to take on our whole personality and tackle that at once, not to take on all the evils that come up in our life; pick one or two the Writings say, and work on them for a while. “Well, I’ve really got a problem with my love life, but I also gossip so I’ll work on gossip for a while, leave the love life go.” Then you work on your love life a little bit later. “I’ve really got a problem with the way I have been dealing with people at work. I can work on that for a while. Try not to do that any more because it’s wrong, because the Lord has said not to because I want to make His goals my goals.”

And what the Lord promises is, even if we take one little thing and we work on that He can come into our lives and begin to change and mold us, and we can be reborn. Rebirth isn’t something that takes place overnight. It’s a process that we’re going to go through our whole lives. But it’s like that grain of mustard seed, the Lord says. If we begin to try to change our lives, that mustard seed will grow into the greatest of herbs. That goodness within us will grow within us. And that’s what it means to be spiritually successful, because with that goodness, with that truth in our lives, with following the order that the Lord has set up for us, for each one of us comes happiness. Happiness and goodness are synonymous. The Lord is love itself, wisdom itself. He wants us to have those things within us because the Lord is also happiness itself and joy. And when we follow that path, when we follow His teachings, the happiness and joy become part of our lives too, and we’ll be with the Lord and the Lord is with us.

When we think about what we want to be in our lives, sure we can seek after money, fame, riches, that’s fine, but let’s not put our hearts in them completely. Let’s also take a look at the Lord’s goals for the human race, make them our goals, start working on those, and then real success will come into our lives, something that the Lord wants each one of us to have; to seek first the kingdom of the God and His righteousness, and we are promised that all of these things, all of these blessings will be added unto us.

Amen.

By Rev. Donald L. Rose

“Settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist” (Luke 21:14,15).

The Lord said these things to followers who were later persecuted and brought before councils. Their accusers thought by confronting them they could weaken the cause of Christianity. But it turned out differently. Those confrontations became opportunities for the strengthening and growth of Christianity.

The boldness and eloquence of the disciples, although they were just fishermen, was nothing short of astonishing. Of one outspoken disciple it is said, “And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke” (Acts 6: 10). In the 4th chapter of Acts we read of two disciples who were confronted: “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled” (Acts 4:13). (King James Version says “unlearned and ignorant men.”) They had a boldness and assurance, and their answers were powerful.

They were somehow triumphant even when they were beaten and imprisoned, and in some cases put to death (see Luke 21:16). We will mention one example of that in a moment.

The text applies of course to us and, we might say, in a much less dramatic fashion. We will not likely be brought before courts and kings nor openly challenged and assailed by enemies.

But we do stand to be attacked by the enemies of our spiritual life. And the more we learn about the assaults of evil spirits on followers of the Lord, the more do we see that it too is dramatic and momentous. Falsities from hell itself assail the person who is being tempted, and the Writings say that to every falsity the hells inject, there is an answer from the Divine.

What we experience in temptation is anxiety, discouragement even to despair. We do not know that evil spirits from hell are fighting against us, nor do we know that the Lord is fighting for us, and the answers from the Divine to the false accusations and undermining thoughts do not come clearly to our consciousness. Here is what the Writings say: “As regards temptations.. the hells fight against man, and the Lord for man; to every falsity the hells inject, there is an answer from the Divine …. The answer from the Divine flows into the internal or spiritual man.. and in such a manner that it scarcely comes to the perception otherwise than as hope and consequent consolation, in which there are nevertheless innumerable things of which the man is ignorant” (AC 8159:3). (In that answer which we feel only as hope and comfort there are countless blessings that the person has no knowledge of”–new translation.)

Here is the context of the words of the text: “…they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and rulers for My name’s sake. But it will turn out for you an occasion for testimony. Therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist.. [N]ot a hair of your head shall be lost. In your patience possess your souls” (Luke 21:12-19).

The very first Christian to die for his beliefs found that the confrontation was indeed an occasion for testimony. He was falsely accused and brought before a council to answer. His eloquent speech takes up the whole of the 7th chapter of the book of Acts. It is said, “When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.. [T]hey cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord and they cast them out of the city and stoned him” (Acts 7:54,57).

That speech which so affected them had begun thus: “…brethren…listen: the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham” and he told the story through Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Solomon, and when he was finished he gazed up into heaven and saw the glory of God. And as they rained stones on him he said, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit’ and ‘Lord, do not charge them with this sin.’ And when he had said this he fell asleep” (Acts 7:2,59,60). It is said that those who looked at him “saw his face as the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15).

A radiant peace surrounded him. The Lord had promised that nothing would harm them. They were at peace even in death.

“Settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer.” Think deliberately about the future, and think of how not to think of the future. In one of the Lord’s parables a man is called foolish because he did not think ahead intelligently. “Foolish one, tonight your soul will be required of you, and then whose will those things be which you have provided?”

Oh, he had thought and meditated within himself about the future. But what was the level of his thinking? To quote the Gospel: “And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do? … I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater.. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years …” (Luke 12:17-21).

He could look down the road years ahead. He could figure out what he was going to do, and what he was going to say, and God called him a fool. How does our future look to us? How much strength and endurance do you have for what lies in store for you? Can you handle what is yet to come? Do you have the wit? Will you have the wit to respond to what may come to pass?

We live in the illusion that our strength, our intelligence, our very life is from ourselves. How big is our reservoir of energy or endurance or prudence? Since it seems that life is our own, we think in terms of calling on our reserves. Once the disciples set off in a boat on a journey with the Lord. And it had slipped their mind that they should have stored some provision. To quote from the Gospel of Mark, “Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat” (8:14). That was what was on their mind, and the Lord said to them, “Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? …do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up? How is it that you do not understand?”

He got them to answer the question, and He could ask them on a much later occasion, “When I sent you without money bag, sack and sandals, did you lack anything? So they answered, Nothing” (Luke 22:35). Think of the uncertain times of youth that you have passed through. You made it through your teens. Has the Lord kept you safe thus far? Has He provided?

It is too bad that some people have concluded that it is virtuous not to make provision for the future. It’s understandable. The Lord has given us the message that He will provide. Seek the kingdom of God, and these things will be added to you. But the Writings say this does not mean we should not provide ourselves with food, clothing, “and even resources for the time to come; for it is not contrary to order for anyone to be provident for himself and his own.” The new translation speaks of “resources for the future; for it is not contrary to order to make provision for oneself and one’s dependents” (J. Elliott’s translation).

But there is the matter of putting trust in the Divine. Notice the verb tribuo, something you do. It is translated to “attribute” or to “ascribe.” See how it is used in this teaching about charity in a person engaged in business. “He thinks of the morrow, and yet does not think of it. He thinks of what should be done on the morrow, and how it should be done; and yet does not think of the morrow, because he ascribes the future to the Divine Providence and not to his own prudence.” And then it adds, “Even his prudence he ascribes to the Divine Providence” (Charity 167).

Does that fortunate person who ascribes the future to the Divine just do this at one point in life? Or is it not something to be done deliberately through the progressing stages of life?

Settle it in your hearts. Deliberately ascribe the future to the Lord’s Providence, and do so, if you can, until you can feel a sense of relief as if someone had removed a false burden from you.

Do not think of this merely as “either/or,” as if to say, either you trust in Divine Providence or you do not. It can be a quantitative thing. Some attribute a little bit to the Divine Providence and a lot to themselves (see AC 2694:2). The Writings use the phrase “the more”: the more they ascribe, the stronger or wiser they are (see AC 4932). In our lives we gradually come to ascribe more to the Lord and less to ourselves (see TCR 610 and 105).

The disciples were to learn that peace, the wonderful prize of peace, is to be found in the Lord Himself. He said, “These things I have spoken to you that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world” (Luke 16e). En to cosmo thlipsin exete alla tharsete–In the world you will have affliction, trouble, but take heart. Have courage. I have defeated. I have conquered. I have overcome the world.

Our picture of the future can become less a matter of speculation and worry and more and more a picture of the Lord as one in whom to confide and one who grants peace. Peace has in it confidence in the Lord that He will provide, and that He leads to a good end. “When someone is in this faith, he is in peace, for he then fears nothing and no solicitude about future things disquiets him” (AC 8455).

We sometimes say that the future looks dark. And the unknown is a kind of darkness. But when we ascribe the future to the Lord, we may say at any time in history or at any stage of our life, that the future has light in it, being in the hands of Him who is the light of the world.

Settle it in your hearts anew today. Ascribe the future to the Lord. And He will give you what to think and do, and He will give you peace.

Amen.

By Rev. Ian Arnold

The reason why the Lord alone endures the conflicts brought on by temptations and is Conqueror is that the Divine alone can conquer the hells. If the Divine did not counteract them they would rush in like a mighty ocean, one hell after another; and man is utterly powerless to resist them.

Even so, this does not mean that (we) should stay our hands and wait for immediate influx; rather (we) should fight as though we acted from (ourselves), but nevertheless should acknowledge and believe that we act from the Lord. (Arcana Caelestia 8175 and 8176)

RESPONDING positively and practically TO WHAT INTIMIDATES and negatively looms large over US.

From this story of David and Goliath I’ve chosen two verses, and they highlight two very different moods and attitudes. First of all in verse 11:

“When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.”

And then in verse 48, towards the end of this story and the end of the chapter:

“So it was that when the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, that David hurried and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine.”

Thats verse 11 and verse 48 highlighting and giving expression to two very different attitudes and moods in the story.

Friends, as many people of my generation did, I grew up being intimidated by, and in awe of, professional people. As a very young child I had a lot to do with hospitals and doctors and specialists for over three years, and it left an indelible imprint on me as to the way in which I was ever thereafter to regard, look up to, and respect the members of the medical profession. It began when I was a boy of two, and it ended when I was five. As I grew older, I can remember a time when I was intimidated by, and in awe of, bank managers. And to this day, being no different from you Im sure, I am intimidated by a policeman in uniform, especially when a police car pulls up alongside of me and indicates to me to pull me over! I go hot and cold. The last time it happened, I was in such a state I couldnt even remember my date of birth!

Its not just people, is it friends, who intimidate us? I can also think of situations. I can also think of circumstances. Forty years on its something that comes easily to me, that I can stand up in a church and lead a service and give a sermon. And I have to, as it were, extract myself from that to understand how much that could intimidate somebody else. How much in awe they might be of a request, of an invitation, to lead a service or to read a sermon. Again, you yourself may be able to call on memories about times when you were called forward, like in school because you have achieved in some way or another, or worst of all if you were called up to some platform to shake some adults hand. For some people, that is enormously intimidating.

As we begin to look within ourselves, friends, we are able to identify many things, even on a relatively external level, which intimidate us and we are in awe of. I can think of disappointments, I can think of mistakes that I have made in the past, I can think of unwise decisions as I now see them to be. I can think of resentments that have bubbled along in the past, and perhaps still rankle to his day. We can still be in awe of these things, still be intimidated by them: why did I make that decision, how could I have chosen as I did do? And we really feel the power that that particular decision, or mistake as we now believe it to be, holds over us.

And if we go on a little bit further within ourselves, and look and explore and investigate, we can find other things that intimidate us. We can find habits that seem to be so ingrained, so very much part now of who we are, that we stand back from them, feeling powerless. Or we can look and explore and investigate, and we can see our proprium much too active in certain ways; more active perhaps than we are wanting to admit or acknowledge; and we feel intimidated that we havent become stronger in our resistance to the way in which the proprium the self dictates, rules, governs and directs our responses and the way we handle our life and relationships.

It is possible that in coming face to face with these things some people are, or could be, indifferent. But what is much more common, as is highlighted here in this story, is a feeling of being defeated by these things before they have even begun to do anything about them.

What did the army of ancient Israel do when Goliath burst of the scene? The answer is, the soldiers ran around telling themselves they were powerless, that there was no way out. It was as if they were paralysed by it all. They felt disempowered. They didnt know what to do! How could they match this giant? They were sure they would just have to succumb, to give in. They acted as people who were defeated before they began.

There is a lesson here for us, friends, lesson number one: that in the face of what intimidates us, in the face of what seems to have such power over us, the very worst thing we can do is to run around telling ourselves that we are powerless, we can do nothing about this, we cannot match the challenge that this particular thing represents. What happened with this army? They looked, they cracked, their knees knocked, and they told themselves that the situation was hopeless. What a bunch of dummies! They made a vital mistake: they had looked around at all the soldiers who had come, all the resources they had brought with them, and they saw nothing that would enable them to rise to the challenge that Goliath represented; a fatal mistake. The fatal mistake you see, is to look around, cast around, only for the resources that you can see, that you can put your eyes and hands on; and they are never adequate. They are never, ever adequate.

As recently as yesterday, in “The Weekend Australian”, there were two or three superb articles dealing with the challenge of Islamic terrorism. But I felt less impressed by the time I finished reading them, because they are looking only to human resources to meet the onset of this challenge that is emerging throughout much of the world. If we look only to human resources, we will never adequately respond to this challenge, and indeed we run all the risk of being defeated by it. That was the mistake that the Israelite army made: looking to human resources, human ingenuity, thinking that they had to find what would match their perception of the challenge. We so easily do the same, in so many ways and with respect to so many challenges, right down to the much more personal challenges that we face. Its our over-active proprium struggling against the dispensation of divine providence, the perception that life isnt unfolding as we hoped or anticipated that it would do. These sorts of things will arise as challenges in our lives, and if we are not careful, we will be defeated by them, if we think that there are, and has to be, only human resources to combat them.

But then David arrived on the scene. Its always wonderful, by the way, when someone comes along with a fresh new perspective, because they somehow seem to be able to cut through all that seems to be blanketing the whole situation, and they can see something that we havent seen before and, bang, we see the way that we should respond to or go about meeting this particular challenge. Yes, David represents a fresh perspective, but he represents more than that; he represents something within us. Young we was, yes, a youth as he was, but he came along with a profound conviction that human resources would always be inadequate: “What are you people doing? You are forgetting that there are divine resources available to us, and I will trust in them!” And so he went about it; and so he defeated the challenge he and his people were facing.

There were four things, please note, with which David went into battle with Goliath. Firstly, there was his trust in the Lord: his overriding conviction that human resources had nothing to do with it, that Divine resources were going to be the key. Secondly, there was his unhesitating willingness to turn and face the challenge. Recall for a moment, will you, lesson number one: we want to run away from what looms large negatively over us, we want to deny it; but David turned and faced it. That’s rule number two: turn and face your challenges. Dont be intimidated and awed by them to the extent that you feel paralysed and helpless. Thirdly, David took action.

And fourthly he called upon, and made use of, unadorned, straightforward and very simple weapons and resources that had been around for millennia, and to this day those same stones somewhere still are; unadorned, simple, straightforward weapons and resources that are available to us, and have been openly available to us for millennia back. They are, as you might have by now have guessed, the truths of the Divine Word. Simple truths. In my pastoral work as a minister, let me tell you I have seen people sweating, challenged, paralysed, and uncertain because of the way they have been hurt by somebody else. What did Jesus say? “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.” Why don’t you do it, why don’t you do it? Dont sit there, saying you can do nothing. Get on the phone; yes, its hard, but let them know. A simple, straightforward, unadorned, but O so obvious truth from the Word becomes the weapon with which to do battle with this state that has developed and has enveloped you.

Whenever we feel challenged and intimidated, or when life unexpectedly goes wrong, for whatever reason or under whatever circumstances there are always simple truths from the Word we can use in the situation. Anxious about the future? Think, then, on this: “Why do you worry?, the Lord said, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Do you feel lost or insignificant, or that the events of your life are of no consequence to the Lord? Then think on this: “The very hairs on your head are all numbered.” Is life chaotic at the moment? Many decisions to be made? Things crowding in? Bring this to mind: “Be still, and know that I am God.” They’re all simple, straightforward, unadorned weapons and resources that are made available to us in abundance from the Lord in His Divine Word. This is the key to meeting these inner challenges, those things whose shadows fall so negatively across our life, leading us to feel unable to do anything to change the situation.

In conclusion friends, I just want to pick up something with you, and I hope you can commit it to memory. And its from this particular volume, the sixth volume of Arcana Caelestia, and it simply says this, its paragraph 4353: “Action comes first.”

You know sometimes I’m stuck identifying a theme, a text, something that I hope will bring a meaningful sermon. Action comes first. If I do nothing, nothing will happen and my problem will only grow. And it’s the same right through: do nothing, and the situation grows in it’s capacity to intimidate and paralyse us. Do something, take action, and then the fight with Goliath begins.

Dont listen to the despair, the breast-beating, the wailing, and the certainty of defeat and of having to succumb to this challenge. Remember David. David went to meet his adversary with his profound trust in the Lord, his willingness to turn and face the enemy. David took with him five smooth stones, it is said, from the brook; the simple but eternal truths given to us, so plainly stated, in the Word and that hold the key to defeating what looms negatively and darkly over our lives.

“Then David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone; and he slung it and struck the Philistine in his forehead, so that the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him. But there was no sword in the hand of David.”

Amen.

By Rev. Ian Arnold

With regard to the raising up of truths and of the affections for these, and the arrangement of them within things that are general, truths and affections are raised up when the things of eternal life and of the Lords kingdom are thought to be more important than those of life in the body and of the kingdom of this world.

When a person acknowledges the former to be first and foremost, and the latter to be secondary and subordinate, the truths he knows and his affections for them are raised up. For as is his acknowledgement, so in the same measure is the person conveyed into the light of heaven, which light holds intelligence and wisdom within it; and so also in the same measure do things belonging to the light of this world become for him images and so to speak mirrors in which he sees the things belonging to the light of heaven.

The contrary takes place when he thinks the things of the life of the body and of the kingdom of this world to be more important those of eternal life and of the Lords kingdom. He does this when he believes that the latter do not exist because he dos not see them and because nobody has come from there and given an account of them or if he believes that they may exist, nothing worse will happen to him than to others and in so believing confirms himself in these ideas, leads a worldly life, and despises charity and faith altogether. With such a person, truths and the affections for them are not raised up, but are either smothered, or rejected, or perverted. For he dwells in natural light into which no heavenly light at all flows in. This is what is meant by a raising up of truths and of affection for them. (Arcana Caelestia, paragraph 4104.3)

RECAPTURING earlier IDEALS, insights and enthusiasms.

Turning, friends, to the 26th chapter of the book of Genesis, and reading from verse 18:

“Isaac dug again the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham.”

Friends, probably every one of us here this morning is aware of how it so often is with businesses, corporations, and indeed with organisations generally, that they start off with a commitment to high ideals, to business integrity, and to the founding vision which motivates them in those early stages; and yet, for one reason or another, and due to difference circumstances, there is an undermining of those founding ideals, a weakening of commitment to stringent business ethics, a losing sight of what it was that caused this business, this organisation, this operation to come into being in the first place.

A very current example of what I am talking about is the United Nations. Its not too many weeks ago that the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, announced a thoroughgoing reform of an organisation which seems to have lost its sense of direction, and run off the tracks. And so serious is it, that he believes that a huge amount of energy needs to be put into the recovery of what it was the United Nations was first founded for.

There is a biblical example of what I am talking about as well, in the reign of the boy-king of Judah, Josiah, in the middle of the 600s Before Christ. A boy of only eight when he came to the throne, yet for whatever reason, whether it was wise advisors, or his own innocent sense of how it should be, he instituted a reform of the religious and legal practices of his country. And in the process of doing that, they recovered what is believed to have been a copy of the book of Deuteronomy, which had been lost for generations. The founding raison-d’etre of the country over which he was reigning monarch, those founding laws and principles and visions that are contained in the book of Deuteronomy had been lost, and were now recovered; and he set about, as with the United Nations today with Kofi Annan, he set about the most thoroughgoing reform of practices, religious practices in the temple, and legal practices, and its administration, unjust and corrupt as it had become.

Well, we can switch our thinking, friends, from the secular world across to the spiritual world. And there’s no doubt that with this, as well, when we come to the spiritual, and spiritual affairs, you can detect and see examples of similar processes: of how things have begun with high ideals and great enthusiasms, a founding vision, and yet there has been a falling away. We as a human race have lived through a succession of religious ages or epochs; and there is no question that each of them has started with high ideals, with a pristine, clear, uncorrupted sense of what it was about; and yet over time, there was a falling away, a crumbling, of that early idealism. It was what confronted our Lord when He came into the world: that the Old Testament church, that we know of as the Jewish Church, had crumbled away from where it had begun and started. And He was confronted with a church that had fallen from its ideals, which as we know from His comments and teachings had so externalised the practices of religion. “You people who stand on street corners to pray so that you may be seen of others: my goodness, what had become of spirituality amongst you?” He might have said.

And so it has been when we stop and contemplate and reflect on such things as those ridiculous, blood-thirsty, unwarranted Crusades and the Inquisition, which went on for centuries during the Middle Ages there is no question that the Christian Church and the Christian Era, which also began with a pristine and clear sense of what it was all about, fell away. You can even read about it in the book of Acts, you can read about the ideals which had Christians coming together in communities, sharing what they had, giving to those who were poorer than themselves, a kind of kibbutz, a living together; but human proprium got in amongst it. There was theft, people taking more than their share. So many instances and examples to be given, the way in which what began so promisingly, then fell away. Fell away. The dirt began to be shovelled in on the top of those early ideals and enthusiasms.

And so it is, friends, for you and I. Idealism and early enthusiasms, a commitment to a vision that energises us in the beginning, steers us, causes us to rally to it, is so often eroded and undermined with the passage of time, whether it be days or weeks or months or years. It can be a project, just a project that weve embarked on, or it can be something that the Lord Himself has drawn to our attention in the pages of His Word. Were switched on, were alert and we are awake, and we see possibilities in those early beginning states. But then there’s a dropping away and corrupting; and we are no longer energised by, nor are we drawing life-giving strength from, those ideals, that vision, as we were in the past.

Now already, friends, you may realise that I’m touching the edges of the spiritual meaning of this passage from Genesis chapter 26: and I am! Abraham, you see, represents an early, innocent, perhaps at times naive, and uncomplicated phase of our lives. A recurring phase (this is not a linear development); a recurring phase when wells, and plenty of them, are dug in our lives: wells from which we draw that which gives us life and energy, and encouragement and enthusiasm to go forward in new directions, to embark on new projects, to believe in new relationships. We get it through those Abraham states time and time again. Those states when the wells are dug, and they are dug deeply, and the water in them is fresh and clear: we can see what this could achieve, we can see where we are going, we are attracted to the possibilities, and the wells are wonderful. But over time, the dirt gets shovelled in, and they are smothered and covered over. Choked, so that they can no longer yield to us all the wonder and potential they otherwise hold.

Now who are the Philistines? Let me remind you, friends, that the Philistines owned the wells. They knew about them, they were quite content to see that they held possibilities for people in those days, but they did not want anyone else to benefit from them. The Philistines are a feature of our own makeup which is quite able to see the possibilities of these ideals, of these new enthusiasms, of these visions which get hold of us; but they are determined that we shall not benefit from them. There are voices, are there not, within us which are cynical and resistant to any thought of new projects, of things being achieved, of making new headways and new directions? “Well yes, they’re there, but we’re going to make sure that you dont benefit from them in any way at all!”

Technically and doctrinally, the Philistines are, we are told, faith alone. Faith alone is big on ideas, but just about zilch on action. It can see the ideals, but it can immediately see a thousand problems as to why those ideals can never be accomplished or come into actuality. They are the Philistines, and there are Philistines within each and every one of us. Theyre the ones who, as we saw, caused the wells to be stopped up.

The story however, does not stop with the filling up of the wells so that they could not yield water, life-giving water, to other people. The story in fact is about the reopening of those wells. And so I want to move you on, friends, from what sounds and seems somewhat dark and negative in this story, to what is full of promise and hope: that though the wells get covered over, yet they can be reopened. And they were reopened by Abraham’s son, Isaac. And Isaac represents a more insightful, and a more regenerate approach and understanding to life and its challenges and its possibilities. It was in the time of Isaac that the wells began to be reopened.

I’ll give you an example for a moment, friends, and it’s from that reading from the fifth volume of the Arcana Caelestia: that as a child, in earlier Abraham-dominated states, you found no difficulty in believing in the life after death. Your grandma had died, and your parents told you that Grandma had gone to heaven, and you accepted it. But as you grew up, that well had dirt shovelled in on top of it: your sense-based experience of the world around you caused you to question whether there can be another dimension of existence other than this physical and material one. But then as you matured and realised that life in this world is not everything, and that physicality is not everything, you revisited that well, and you began to reopen it and draw from it what is life-giving and sustaining so far as your spiritual progress is concerned. Under Isaac, the wells began to be reopened.

But even so there is resistance. Of course there is! Because by this time, when you are becoming a maturer person, there are other voices that come to you and say, “Why bother? Who cares? Why does it matter? I’ll wait until I get there!” I’ve heard that a hundred times: “I’m not that interested in life beyond death: I’ll wait ’til I get there to see if it’s true or not.” So the wells don’t open, though we may try to open them, they don’t open and yield in the way they could do. But some do. Some do, and that’s what we’ve got to hold on to: that whilst there are some wells that we may never adequately reopen and draw upon, there will be others that we do; such as that God exists, and that God cares. That God provides. That God gives strength. Those wells that became blocked up, we recover them and we draw upon them again what is life-giving and sustaining.

How do we keep them open? The answer is this: we keep them open by ourselves keeping as close as we can to where they come from: those ideals, those visions, those convictions, those early first states and the sense of promise that infused and excited us. We need to keep close to where they come from. And I’ll give you another example. How many people go through stages in their life when they do wonder about the care of the Lord and the closeness of the Lord? And how many of those same people, by turning back to something as familiar as Psalm 23, the shepherds psalm, are reenergized, and find again that their original conviction about the Lord’s care, His love, His monitoring of our life that their original conviction is strengthened again and is able to yield to them that which will sustain and energise them.

Genesis chapter 26 friends, and this incident that I am focussing on this morning, is about what I referred to as first states or beginning states: we all know about them, we can all relate to them. In dozens of different ways in our lives, the times we are excited, the times we are captured by a vision, the times when ideals really lift us up, the possibilities grab hold of us: yes, they can come to have the dirt shovelled in on top of them, so that they are no longer a source of life and energy for us. But here is the Lord assuring us that the essential ones can be recovered, be reopened and recovered; so that again we can draw from them the life-giving waters of everlasting life and spiritual prosperity.

“And Isaac dug again the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham.” (Genesis 26, verse 18)

Amen.

By Rev. Brian W. Keith

Life can seem terribly dreary. Familiar patterns are repeated over and over again. Ruts appear. Dishes keep getting dirty. Bills keep coming. The house always needs something done to it. And as we grow older, our bodies signal the rapid passing of time. Energy levels decline. Aches and pains come from nowhere. From being unthinkable, one’s own death is seen as a real possibility.

Emotionally we can feel trapped by what has gone before. Previous actions, mistakes, and evils close in on our minds. We can be haunted by what has happened. The depressing patterns of petty frustrations and useless arguments scar and desensitize us. We can become numbed wandering through the day trying not to feel anything.

Ezekiel had a vision addressed to such a lifeless and hopeless frame of mind. He saw a valley full of dried out bones. As he prophesied, the bones came together, flesh was put upon them, and breath entered them. From dry bones came a great army. And the Lord said to Ezekiel,

“These bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, `Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ` … Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves'” (37:11-13).

Our bones are dry. Our hope is lost. How pitiful! And how false! Life is repetitive and dreary only if we choose to look at it that way. For all around us there is a renewal of life. New beginnings are taking place constantly.

Consider the natural world. Plants and animals are constantly reproducing, much more than this world could support. Every day the sun comes up anew. Each new year is ushered in with festivity. Even in the fall when the leaves turn and life seems to drain away, there is the promise of rebirth. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain” (John 12:24).

Consider also some events in the life cycle. A child leaves home for school. A person leaves school for a job. Single life is given up for marriage. Children grow up and establish their own homes. Retirement comes. Each of these changes involves loss and gain a new beginning. Even death itself is growth. The Heavenly Doctrines show that when a person awakens in the other world, “at this point his life begins” (AC 186), and his entrance into his eternal heavenly home “marks a new beginning” in his life (AC 1273).

Even as natural life has changes new beginnings so spiritually there can be a constant renewal of life. Above our consciousness the Lord is gently guiding our thoughts and feelings. While we are unaware of it, He is inspiring new ways of looking at life, stimulating new feelings of warmth and concern (see AC 6645e). The Lord is working with our spirits so that we are renewed every moment of every day. The fact is, there are new beginnings in our lives all the time. The Lord is raising up our apparently dry bones, putting flesh upon them, and breathing life into them.

We can choose to feel trapped by the past or dulled by routines. Or we can look at what is happening as the opportunity for one of the many new beginnings in life. For the Lord does not control what happens to us. Yes, His Providence is overseeing all that happens, but that does not mean He is causing specific events to occur good or bad. In one sense He is not concerned for what happens; rather He is concerned with how we respond, for that determines what good He can then bring about. Retirement, for example, is not important, but how a person then uses his or her time is. The response can be gloomy, for the loss of co-workers, status, or income; or it can be of renewal more time for friends, family, church work, or others. A newness of life can be born in any situation any time, anywhere.

Our participation in renewal is critical. The Lord never forces us to grow. He never forces us to change our minds or actions. While He is always working, urging and pressing to influence us in heavenly ways, He will not change our outlook if we do not want Him to. We can remain in the trenches. We can look upon life as a deterioration of our physical and mental abilities. We can see the dark side of every event, pessimistically awaiting the next cruel blow of fate. We can cry about dry bones and hopelessness. But those dry bones can have flesh on them, breath in them.

Regardless of what has occurred in the past, new beginnings are possible if we are willing. They do not start outside of ourselves. They start with our thoughts and intentions (see AC 1317). We have the freedom to think about life in any way we wish. We can think negatively or positively. We can desire, intend, anything we wish. We can want what is good. We can want what is evil. We are not trapped by previous choices or patterns of behavior. We are trapped only by our fears and refusals to think and try.

Our attitude makes all the difference in how we view the world and how easy we make it for the Lord to renew us. From a negative, doubting viewpoint we see the world and ourselves through a warped lens. We reject or give up on the ideals the Lord has shown us in His Word. But if we attempt to trust in what He has said, if we will be positive, affirmative to Him, then wonders can be worked (see AC 3913:5). “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, `Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).

Our basic assumptions can never be proven. And if we assume, have faith, that the Lord speaks to us in His Word, and our lives will be improved if we listen, then a new beginning can occur. For regeneration is the new creation of life spiritual life. It begins when a person affirms the truth and intends to live according to it. This is the start of regeneration. It does not occur at any set time in life, nor does it happen only once. Each and every time we positively turn our minds to the Lord’s way, a new beginning occurs.

Such beginnings are like seedlings. They are planted in the soil of our lives. With watering, with light and warmth, they take root. As they grow, as we walk in the Lord’s way, the earth of our life is made more secure. The interlocking root systems stop the erosion of false ideas, evil desires. The more that take root the better, for the roots hinder the washing away of good by selfishness.

But for seedlings to grow strong they need weathering. The storms and bitter cold which could harm the trees actually serve to strengthen them. So in regeneration. Each new beginning of spiritual life will be challenged. Where honesty is growing, the harsh wind of theft will blow and try to destroy it. Where compassion is developing, cold disregard for others and apathy will also be present.

Spiritual struggles ensue. These raging storms are painful, as the new beginnings of spiritual life are threatened and buffeted. Yet, as we endure, as we resist the forces of hell, a greater strength is acquired. More spiritual life grows perhaps a clearer idea of His ways, a deeper appreciation of our need for the Lord’s presence, or a greater intensity of affection for His good (see AC 2272). Whatever is gained, our spirits are growing flesh upon dry bones, breath giving life. As the Lord promised:

“I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight” (Isaiah 42:16).

The Lord leads us through all the many byways of life, through the valleys up to the peaks. He would have each day be a new beginning for us, not in a dramatic sense, for we are not meant to have radical changes often. The new birth, or regeneration, is not a series of sudden changes in direction. Yes, it can begin with that when a person first realizes the importance of spiritual values, when a person experiences the grief of repentance. But rebirth is an evolving process. It is made up of many small beginnings.

The small beginnings of regeneration are a series of purifications the regular washing away of evils in the spirit, of saying, “No, I won’t do that because it is wrong.” And as the Heavenly Doctrines note, ” … such purification ought to go on all the time and so always to be taking place as if from a new beginning” (AC 2044).

“As if from a new beginning.” In one sense, each time we resist an evil, each time we intend on doing something good, it is a new beginning. Something new has started in our lives. But in another sense, every positive step is a continuation of what was begun before. It is a resurfacing of the seeds planted years before from parents, from teachers, from whatever good we had willingly done. The Lord keeps working with the good He has established in everyone’s life. While it may not be seen for a time, it is carefully preserved, awaiting the occasion to be seen again. Hellish choices and life styles shut it up, but it is still there. The Lord is very patient, always leading us so that the good we have might be protected, develop, and eventually blossom in the fruit of an angelic life.

What this means is that life is never pointless. While we will certainly go through times when we feel our life is dry or our lot hopeless, the Lord can put flesh on our bones, breath in our lungs. All our patterns which seem so fixed and limiting, all the painful baggage we carry from the past, need not defeat us. For every day the Lord is providing us with new beginnings small, almost imperceptible opportunities to renew our lives. If we are not utterly downcast, if we have not given up if we will be open and affirmative to what He has said then new life may grow. Seedlings are planted which, though they may not bear visible fruit until the next life, will give us strength, will renew our spirits. And the prophecy of Isaiah will come true for us:

“But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not be faint” (40:31).

Amen.

By Rev. Patrick Rose

“For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matt.11:30)

Perhaps one of the most cheerful teachings in the Writings is this: that the path which leads to heaven is far easier than most people imagine. It is, though, a teaching we tend to forget. At times we can feel within ourselves that we are so evil and sinful that we begin to doubt whether we shall ever enter heaven. We compare what the Writings teach with the way we are actually living, and feel that we are failing. We doubt the possibility of our salvation. It seems so difficult to live the life we know we should live, and as a result we are burdened with feelings of despair and guilt.

Now to some extent, despair and guilt are inevitable. Despair, we are taught, is permitted when we are in spiritual temptation, so that we might come to see that by ourselves we can do nothing, and that salvation is of the Lord alone. Guilt is also necessary. If we do not make ourselves guilty of the evils we have committed, we will remain in them. Nevertheless, we would be mistaken to think that the path to heaven is a hard and arduous burden, and that it must be walked in sadness, guilt and depression. The fact is, the Lord loves us. He wants us to go to heaven. Therefore, He makes it easy for us. After all, why would the Lord create us for heaven, and then place obstacles in the path that leads there?

It is a ridiculous fallacy to believe that it must of necessity be difficult for a man to enter heaven. More than this, it is a cruel and hateful falsity, for it implies that the Lord would rather see us suffer to eternity in hell than enjoy everlasting happiness in heaven. Why, then, did such a fallacy arise? Why do so many people fall into believing the notion that heaven is an almost impossible dream?

The answer lies in the nature of human freedom. Heaven is happiness, and happiness, to be happiness, cannot be forced upon a man. It is something which he must freely choose. Therefore it is that the Lord does not create man as an angel. When we are born, we are placed here on earth, outside of heaven, so that we can choose for ourselves whether or not we want to become angels. Before each one of us the Lord sets a path, a simple and direct path, leading straight to heaven. If we want to walk along it, we can. On the other hand, if we prefer to remain outside of heaven, we can do so. It is up to us. We have complete freedom in the matter. The only thing which will prevent a man from walking easily towards heaven is a desire to remain in evil.

This is the origin of the idea that the path to heaven is difficult. Evil men who want to remain in evil find that it is indeed difficult to walk along this path. In fact, they find it impossible. The obstacle, though, is not in the path which the Lord has set before them. The difficulty is one they have created for themselves. It lies in the fact that they, quite simply, want to remain where they are. This, though, they are loathe to admit. They would rather blame the Lord than admit to the fact that they are insane enough to want to remain in evil. Therefore it is that evil men and evil spirits embrace the idea that to go to heaven is difficult. It is, after all, a useful excuse for remaining in the evil they love.

It is, therefore, a false idea, an idea originating in evil. It is not difficult to go to heaven. For those who truly desire heaven, the path that leads there can be surprisingly easy indeed. All that is required is that man undertake the simple work of repentance.

Now this might sound as if it is easier said than done. Repentance may appear to be a very difficult task. But it is not difficult to repent. Even if we have a tendency to remain in our evils, we can still repent if we so desire. Repentance is, generally, a relatively easy process, and it is intended to be so, for it is the way the Lord leads us to heaven.

When we read what the Writings have to say about repentance, we see that repentance consists of a series of steps, each one of which is relatively simple. Now what are these steps or stages of repentance? There are four of them. We are taught that repentance consists in examining oneself, in recognizing and acknowledging one’s sins, in praying to the Lord, and beginning a new life (TCR 528).

It begins with self-examination. This is the first step. Self-examination is not to be confused with a general feeling of being evil. It is indeed easy for a person to weigh himself down with guilt, with the feeling that he is nothing but a miserable sinner. But what does this accomplish? By itself, absolutely nothing! After all, there are many people who can feel terribly guilty about their evil nature, and yet who keep right on doing evil. They have this feeling of guilt, but nothing changes. There is no improvement. All they have accomplished is a feeling of guilt. Self-examination is not like this. It is not a process by which all we do is discover how sinful and miserable we are. It is, rather, a way in which we come to discover and to see specific evils within ourselves. It is radically different from merely burdening ourselves with guilt. To sit burdened with a general feeling of guilt at how sinful we are, is to sit at the beginning of the path to heaven, and to remain there. On the other hand, to see and recognize within ourselves one or two specific evils is to take the very first step towards heaven.

Then we can make a second step. We have to take responsibility for what we have done. We have to accept that those things we have done are sins against the Lord. We must indeed make ourselves guilty of those evils which we find, but this is to be a specific guilt, a guilt with a purpose. We acknowledge specific things that we have done wrong, with the intention of changing. There are spirits who like to burden our consciences. They love to see us squirm under the burden of guilt. If they had their way, they would inject into us so many scruples that we would begin to feel guilty about everything, even about things that are not sins at all. This is the burden which these troublesome spirits would place upon us. The burden of the Lord is completely different. He asks us to consider the Ten Commandments, and then to look at ourselves. He asks us to find some specific evil within ourselves, and to accept that this evil is a sin against Him. At first all we are asked is to do this with just one or two evils. Finding one or two evils! It doesn’t sound difficult at all. It sounds almost too easy. But to see an evil within ourselves, and then to acknowledge that we have sinned in this way, making ourselves responsible for it, is to take two small steps towards heaven. This is the way in which we begin to walk along the path towards heaven. It is by taking one step, then another, and then another, and so on, that we actually begin to walk. It is infinitely better to begin by taking just two small steps, than to sit burdened with guilt, moving nowhere.

The next step, the third step, is to approach the Lord. This is essential. The very reason that repentance is easy is that the Lord helps us. But He will not force His help upon us. We must ask Him for it. And so we must pray. We must talk to Him. This isn’t difficult, either. We already know of Him. What we need to do is talk to Him, talk with Him. After we have found an evil within ourselves, and then admitted that what we have thought or done is a sin against Him, we should get down on our knees and pray. We should ask for His mercy, and beseech His help in resisting this evil in the future. We should tell Him that we see that what we have done is wrong, and that we have sinned against Him. This is all we need to do. There is no need, the Writings say, to list our evils in our prayers. The Lord already knows them; it was He who led us to see them for ourselves. Nor do we have to beg forgiveness. He has already forgiven us. All we must do is acknowledge before Him that we have sinned against Him, and ask Him for His merciful help. To do this, to actually ask the Lord to help us, has tremendous power.

After this, the fourth and last step is to begin a new life. This, more than the other steps of repentance, might sound difficult. To begin a new life, though, does not mean what we may think it to mean. We are not expected to repent and then all of a sudden go forth to live a perfect life. This new life we must live is not a perfect life. It is a better life — a life that is better in some small way. Because we have seen some evil in ourselves, acknowledged that it is a sin, and asked for the Lord’s help, we are in a position to resist this evil in the future.

And this is not difficult. It becomes difficult only when a person has become accustomed to giving free reign to his evils, or else has previously rejected everything of heaven and the church. Then the fight can indeed become severe. Normally, though, resistance to evils is not a hard task. Indeed, it is said that if we only resist those evils to which we are inclined, once every week, or once every two weeks, we will notice a change. We will find that to resist them becomes progressively easier. Our strength of will, given to us by the Lord, grows gradually stronger, until that evil we have discovered within ourselves is put away completely. Eventually we come to detest even the thought of committing this evil. Reaching this point is a gradual process. It takes time. But if a person is sincere in his efforts, and does his best, then this path is a sure path and a progressively easier one. It is as easy as walking. Indeed this is, of course, precisely what it is. It is walking the path to heaven.

This path would be difficult, it is true, if we were expected to walk it alone, or if we were expected to complete the journey overnight. But we are expected to do neither. The Lord does not expect us to repent without His help. This is why we are commanded to ask Him for help. Neither does He expect us to become perfect overnight. He expects us to walk the path to heaven in steps, not to get there suddenly in one big jump. First we must take the four simple steps of repentance. Then, as we begin a new life, we can, step by step, resist the evil we have discovered, until it is, with the Lord’s help, fully conquered. Then the whole process can be repeated. At recurring seasons we can examine ourselves to find one or two additional evils, acknowledge that they are sins, pray to the Lord, and then begin a still better life. If we do this at least once or twice a year, we are indeed on the way to heaven.

Repentance is easy, and it becomes easier and easier the more we do it. Repentance is not a thing we do once. It is, above all, a habit, a habit to be acquired. Once it has become a habit, it comes easily to us. On the other hand, if we never do it, it becomes progressively more difficult and painful to take that first initial step. In this it is like any other task we may undertake. The more frequently we do it, the easier it becomes.

We must make a regular practice of repentance, so that it becomes a part, and indeed an easy part, of our lives. The Lord has made it easy for us to go to heaven. It is a foolish person who ignores this, and tries to make it difficult instead. We have a tendency to burden ourselves with all kinds of imagined difficulties and problems. But with the Lord it is different. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. He makes it easy for us to go to heaven, and He makes it easy for the simple reason that He loves us, and He wants us to be happy. He wants us to go to heaven.

Amen.

By Rev. Grant R. Schnarr

“What ails you Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is” (Gen. 21:17).

The story of Hagar and her son’s banishment into the wilderness is about desolation. Hagar may have thought that she was secure forever in Abraham’s house, that her Son, Abraham’s son, Ishmael, would become Abraham’s heir. But instead Hagar found herself cast out into the wilderness with her son. And as she wandered the dry and parched lands, that one being, which held all her hopes, her dreams, her pride, her future, was dying in her arms, her only son Ishmael.

Hagar’s state of complete devastation represents on a higher more spiritual level, states of devastation that we can go through. The Writings say that this story illustrates how we can feel as if we are losing something special to us, those dreams which we’ve lived for, being a good person, for friendships, for conjugial love, how these dreams can appear to be dying before our eyes and what we can do (AC 2682).

Hagar represents our affection for external truth (AC 2675). It is that part within us that loves knowledge. It is that part within us that loves to figure out how to get along in this world. If we think about it from the Writings we understand why Hagar is from Egypt. Egypt represents scientifics, the intellectual (AC 5373). Of course our affection for external truth is born from our love of the natural sciences.

Hagar has a son, Ishmael. Ishmael here represents spiritual truth (AC 2677). Ishmael represents that truth which is genuine, pure. He represents our ideals, our dreams. Each of us has dreams that we carry with us. Those dreams of wanting to be an angelic being. Maybe we remember the first time we read Heaven and Hell or Conjugial Love and we saw the beautiful image of what it means to be a good person. And we really wanted to follow that. Maybe we were very little children when we first heard about angels and we wished or prayed to the Lord in innocence and sincerity that we could be an angel some day. That’s a dream we had, a goal. Many of us too, at one time or another, when we were very young, sat down in the pew to witness our older brothers’ and sisters’ weddings or maybe a relative, and we thought to ourselves, “Wouldn’t it be nice. I wish I could have that. I wish I could have conjugial love some day.”

But just like Hagar, what happens when we enter the wilderness of life. Things are not so easy. Hagar being ousted out of the home and into the wilderness represents us being ousted out of the innocence of childhood into the real world. Abraham, here, represents the Lord, the Lord sets us out into the wilderness of life with our dreams by our side. And when we get out into that wilderness it doesn’t take long to realize that we’re not just going to walk into a beautiful world where we effortlessly live those ideals. Life isn’t one continuous flower garden. It’s a wilderness out there, there’s no water around. And the little truth that we have begins to run out. The water bag runs dry very quickly. And we find ourselves alone in the wilderness, nowhere to go in our lives. And our ideals, our dreams that we held so close to us, those truths that the Lord has given us, are dying in our arms. We can feel them slipping away from us, resignation. We say to ourselves, “I’m not going to have conjugial love, not after the way I’ve been living my life. Forget it. I can’t do it.” Resignation: “I’m not going to be able to be that angel I dreamed about. Are you kidding? I look at my life and the disorders I’m in. I’m not going to make it. This dream is dying before me. My dreams, my visions, are dying.”

So what does Hagar do? She lays her son down right there underneath a shrub and walks away. She can’t face it. She can’t face the loss of this beautiful thing that the Lord has given her, that she dreamed so hard about. Her son, her only son, is dying in her arms. So she lays him down and walks a bow’s distance away, sits down under a tree and weeps bitterly. In the same way, when we are faced with the reality of life, we can take our dreams that the Lord has given us, take our dreams of being a good person, the dream of conjugial love, whatever the dream may be, and we can become so distressed that we aren’t able to live by this right now, that we put the dream down and walk away. We walk away in resignation. We feel as if something is dying inside. We say, “This beautiful teaching – I can talk about it, but it’s not me. I can’t do it.” So we cast it down and go into various disorders, leave our dreams to live a mundane life without ideals, we work, we have hobbies, we watch television and we idly waste our spiritual life away.

But when we leave our ideals behind something deep inside of us weeps bitterly. Inside of us, something is crying out for the ideal. The hagar within us cries for her son.

Now what happened as Hagar sat there under that tree crying? The Lord came to her and the Lord asked, “What ails you, Hagar?” In the same way, the Lord says to us in those times of desolation and resignation, “What ails you?” And the Lord knows what is wrong with us. He asks the question so that we can face in our lives what is ailing us. What is our problem? Why have we laid our ideals down? He asked Hagar the question so she would look at her life. He asks, “Why have you put down your son? I gave you that son,” the Lord said, “I want to make him a great nation.” In the same way, the Lord says to us, “I gave you the Writings. I gave you those ideals. I didn’t give them to you so that you could put them down to die here in the wilderness. I gave them to you so that you could take care of them and hold them up. I’m going to make of them a great nation if you let Me.”

The Lord cares about us. When we were tiny children, dreaming about angels and how wonderful it would be to be an angel, who gave us that vision? The Lord did. When we were a little older, in church watching that wedding, thinking how beautiful it would be to be married and have a good marriage, who gave us that ideal? Who gave us that dream? The Lord did. When we were older and we had that vision from the Writings, about what it means to be a good, useful person to society, a person who cares about people, a person who is productive, who knows the Lord – who gave us that dream? The Lord did. And He’s not going to take that away from us. He’s not going to kill our child in the wilderness. He’s not going to kill our dreams. That would be cruel. Instead, He wants us to go back and pick up those ideals and never let them go.

The Lord said, “Go back. Pick up your child. Lift him up with your hand.” And we can see the correspondences here. Pick up the child. Raise him up. Raise up that ideal again. Go back ! It’s not too late. Don’t be resigned to life. You can pick that ideal up again. You can live by it. And we know what hands represent in the Word – power. Give those gentle dreams some support in your life. Lift them up. The Writings say, at this time, that this raising up represents support (AC 2695, 2698). We support the ideals, to support the genuine truth, and in turn that genuine truth will support us. It is a reciprocal supporting. The more we hold up our dreams, the more our dreams hold us up in our lives.

Many of us, at times, act as if we’ve given up on life. We act as if we’re dead inside. Why do we read the Word, why do we come to church, if we are really spiritually dead? Isn’t that a waste of time? It makes us feel bad. That’s all it does. But the Lord is saying, “You are not dead. You`re sleeping. That child isn’t going to die in the wilderness; he’s going to be a great nation if you go back and work for it.. Can’t you go back and look at that ideal one more time and see if you can’t pick it up again?”

At this time we can so easily say to ourselves, “What is going on in me? Why am I different? Why didn’t I reach my ideals?” The Lord is pointing out to us in this story that everyone feels that way at one time or another. Everybody occasionally feels as if they’ve lost it spiritually. We have to feel that way. Why? So we recognize that the Lord has all power, so that we can call out to Him and ask Him for help. Also, we’ve got to truly want the spiritual part of life, and struggle for it. We have to realize that we know about life, which we have seen from our own natural intelligence, will get us nowhere. We’ve got to see that everything we need the Lord has, and call on the Lord to help us (See AC 2682).

As soon as Hagar returned and picked up her son, a well appeared before them. This is the truth, the living truth from the Word. The Writings say that this represents the life in the Word, that once we pick up our ideals and care about them again, we will be led and nourished by the living truth of the Lord,s Word (AC 2702). It will feed us and especially our dreams, and they will grow strong.

How many of us have gone to the Word in times of trouble and seen that help? It’s a miracle – the Lord really does talk to us through the Word. All we have to do is open it up and read it, and the Lord is there. We must go to the Lord’s Word, and believe in what He says, fully believe in what He says. That’s how we can make that dream grow again, that’s how we make that dream become a reality in our lives.

After Hagar gave her son a drink from the well he recovered. And one of the last things we are told in this story is that this boy grew to become an archer, and that God was with him, and that he did indeed become the father of a great nation. That’s the promise that the Lord gives us, if we’ve given up and put down our dreams somewhere, it’s never too late to go back and pick up those dreams. We should never give up on life. The Lord never gives up on us. Why should we give up on ourselves? The Lord is there saying to each of us, “What ails you? I’m going to make that child a great nation. Go, raise him up.” And then we will find that our dreams, those dreams that we love with all our heart, will become a reality. They will grow strong and we will find that what the Lord promised us from the very beginning has indeed come true. “What ails you Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad and hold him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation” (Gen. 21:17-18).

Amen.

By Rev. Frank Rose

Fortunately, comparatively few of us have had that degrading and humiliating experience. People who have will be very sensitive to the message in Psalm 142 which ends with the prayer, “Bring my soul out of prison that I may praise your name; the righteous shall surround me for You shall deal bountifully with me.”

Of course, not all people are in prison because of crimes. Many experience being in prison in time of war or perhaps they’re political prisoners of some kind. There are comparatively few stories in the Old Testament about people in prison, partially because of all the regulations and laws given in the Books of Moses which stipulate different crimes and their punishments–none of the punishments ever involved going to prison. In the early days of the Hebrew people, it was not known what prison was; it was not part of their culture. Joseph was cast into a prison. First of all, he was a slave which is a kind of imprisonment, but then when he was in Egypt, be was falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife–found himself in prison and later emerged from that prison to become the second ruler in all of Egypt–but that was an Egyptian prison. Samson was put into a prison and that was a Philistine prison. The first time, you hear of anyone of the Children of Israel being put into prison by their own people is in the time of the Kings; especially the story of the Prophet Jeremiah, who was repeatedly cast into prison because his message was so unpopular.

So when the people heard the Old Testament prophecies that the Messiah was going to come, and among other things, was going to release them from prison, you can’t help but wonder as to what meaning that held for them, since so few of them had had the prison experience. There is a prophecy in Isaiah 61: “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” And this prophecy is repeated in different words in other places; that’s one of the reasons why the Messiah was coming was to release people from prison.

The first time Jesus stood up to speak in the synagogue at Nazareth he quoted that part of the 61 chapter of Isaiah, and having read it, He then said: “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your ears.” Now, do you know of any story in the New Testament, of Jesus releasing someone from prison? John The Baptist, who prepared the way of the Lord and who baptized Him, was cast into prison by the wicked Herod and there is no indication in the Gospels that Jesus ever did anything to release him. Eventually, he was beheaded in prison, and yet Jesus said: “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your ears.” He was already releasing people from prison. Now what prison was that?

Clearly, it was not some external prison. What was the prison in which people found themselves, in which the Messiah had come to deliver them from? You know how you can be imprisoned by your body, Think of a person who is suffering from Alzhiemers Disease–how their body becomes like a prison to them–and even their minds can’t operate properly, simply because of a physical condition. Any kind of physical limitation is the nature of an imprisonment and if we listen too much to the bodily senses and base our whole life on our sense experience, our mind becomes very limited by people who say” “Well, I don’t believe in a life after death; I’ve never seen the Spiritual World. I’ve never met anyone who has come back from the Spiritual World.” So they are unable to accept the concept of Life After Death because they are imprisoned by their bodies, Their thoughts are overly dominated by sensual things. Remember in the early days of space travel; one of the space ships went out and an atheist jubilantly reported that God must not exist, because here Mankind bad traveled to the moon and no one had seen God on the journey! Notice the sensual thinking that God, if He is real, must be visible to the physical eyes! So we all tend to be limited because we have a body in the Natural World and sometimes it’s very difficult to rise above the appearances of that body–to see beyond the surface–to see the, reality. If you saw a person physically in prison you might not realize that their spirit was free and perhaps the jailer was more imprisoned that the prisoner, because of a mental attitude. Being in prison is much more a state of mind. Think of people who suffer with addictions, and in that sense they are prisoners of their own bodies. They cannot stop themselves from eating or drinking or taking in certain substances. They have lost control; as much as their mind might say: “I won’t do this anymore,” yet the body keeps on doing it. They are prisoners in a very tragic sense. But having a body itself is a kind of imprisonment; because the spirit is beyond the body, it has its own level of reality and there are many times in which we have to arise above the appearance that we exist only within the limits of our physical frame–to realize that we are Spiritual Beings and the body is only a very small part of our life. When the body grows old, our spirit does not grow old and when the body dies, we do not die–but to think like that, we have to be released from the domination of physical appearances. When Jesus taught, He confronted the people with their thinking–their thought patterns, You may remember the phrase: “You have heard it was said to them of old times, that I say unto you.” One of them we read was a recitation “You heard that it was said to them of old times–you shall not murder!” People who had that concept of the Fifth Commandment, that it was concerned with the murder of the physical body, had no awareness that their inner hatred and bitterness was a form of murder and therefore their thinking was very limited and it made them such that they wouldn’t even take responsibility for the inner attitudes or thoughts, They thought so long as they obeyed the letter of the Law, they were: “Right with God.” Now that thinking was a kind of prison bar which limits the way in which they approached life. Every time the Lord spoke He confronted their “traditional” thinking. He told them to cleanse the inside of the cup and platter, saying that ritual wasn’t going to get them to Heaven, but an inner spirit of Love and Charity would. He told them they should love their enemies–that they should forgive–they should let go of the pattern of wrong doing and revenge because that pattern, which we still see in the world today, is a kind of spiritual prison. People get caught in that and they’re locked into a way of thinking that makes it almost impossible for them to see anything else, That’s why it says in the Psalm: “Bring my soul out of prison.” Having the body in prison is one thing–having the soul in prison is even worse and your soul is in prison when your thoughts are false or when your emotions are totally negative.

During the Second World War, there was a Christian Thinker, Clergyman, Philosopher named Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He spent many years in prison and eventually died in prison. He wrote a book entitled “Letters From Prison.” The early letters were written after he had been in jail for only a short while and one of the first things he observed was that while the body is in prison, the mind does not have to be. And then he says this: “The important thing is to make the best use of one’s possessions and capabilities -there are still plenty left and to accept the limits of the situation, by which I mean, not giving way to feelings of resentment and discontent,” You see, he realized that thing that would truly imprison him was not the bars–was not the walls, but that spirit of resentment and discontent. “I’ve never realized so clearly what the Bible and Luther meant by Spiritual Trial. Quite suddenly, for no apparent reason, whether physical or psychological, the peace and placidity which have been a mainstay hitherto began to waver; and the fear, in Jeremiah’s Expressive Phase, becomes that defiant and despondent thing one cannot fathom. It is like an invasion from the outside, as though evil powers were trying to deprive one of life’s dearest treasures.” And then he adds: “But it is a wholesome and necessary experience which helps one to better understand human life.”

What then is prison? For much of his time in prison, Bonhoeffer was able to maintain an attitude of freedom and peace and he could see that there were times when his heart was invaded by these destructive forces which were all on a mental level; negative feelings of bitterness–despondency, despair, resentment–that was the prison he had to fear. And don’t we know the same kind of prison? Think of what prejudice does to imprison the mind. Imagine if you have a view that a certain race of people, a certain culture of people, are all bad, how that limits your life. How you put yourself in prison due to your own prejudices. Suppose you were negative to all black people, then you would never be able to meet a black person and see them as a real human being and benefit from that relationship. You’re imprisoned because of your own way of thinking, We all need to be liberated from this kind of spiritual limitation and spiritual blindness. That’s why it’s interesting in one of the prophesies of the Lords Coming, “The opening of the blind eyes” is put right alongside “Delivering people from prison,” This is Isaiah 42: “I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, as a light unto the Gentiles, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house,” Jesus never physically delivered anyone from prison but every time He spoke, He was opening their eyes and delivering them from their prison of darkness–from negative thinking–from prejudice–from an attitude of mind that judges all things on the basis of appearances and is not willing to be lifted up to a higher level. Whenever we are in a destructive frame of mind, self-pitying, resentful of others, we find ourselves in prison. And maybe you have known that kind of state in which you felt the limitations and you desperately wanted to get out. How do you break down those walls; how do you liberate yourself from that confined way of thinking and being? The Lord invites us to escape from prison by lifting our minds to a higher level. Just take for example, the prison of the body and the prison of our own personality. Ever stop to think that ones personality is a kind of prison–that you think of yourself in a certain way–others think of you in that way and your true spirit may be very different than your personality. So how do you break out of that prison of yours; those physical limitations or what people think of you or what you think of yourself? One way is to simply observe yourself and raise your mind to a higher level and realize that your body and your personality are a very small part of your total essence; that you are truly a Spiritual Being, created to live forever and that many of the things that are important to you in your life right now are just temporary; things that are active for awhile, but they’re not part of your true essence or your true personality. That’s why in the Psalms the person prays to escape from the prison by flying: “Oh that I had wings of a dove, for then I would fly away and be at rest.” You can imagine a person sitting in a physical prison and using the wings of thought to raise their minds above the limitations in which they find themselves, and suddenly they’re free, Whether we’re in physical prison or not, we can liberate ourselves by meditation and by elevating the mind. If you think of the problems that you face in your life, the things you find so discouraging and difficult to deal with just lift your mind to a higher level and let them come into a better perspective and you will be freed. And the most wonderful thing is as you release yourself from prison, you also release other people, for we tend to put other people in a box: by our attitudes toward them, by our judgments about them. Maybe you’ve had the experience of other people having thoughts about you that you say to yourself, “I’m not like that–I’m not the kind of person that other people think I am!” So if we become more liberated in our own thinking, able to think on a higher spiritual level, we will liberate other people and we will never say as we approach a person: “I know you!” For how much do we really know of one another–where I’m willing to judge you or I’m willing to interpret your life? But rather, I might say: ” I am more than my body, I am more than my personality, I am more than my roles in life and therefore the person I am talking to is much greater than what I see–and the limited thoughts I have about him.” In this process we need, most of all, to be liberated from the tyranny of having to be right all the time.

Let us accept with joy, in the fact that, in a certain sense, we are nothing–we’re just created out of the dust of the Earth and our loving Creator sees in us an infinite potential on the Spiritual level. So we let go of our pride, we let go of our self image and we lift our thought upwards and then we find that we are liberated, we are set free, we are given a kind of internal peace, surrounded by that spirit of love and acceptance.

Have you ever been in prison? Of course you have! We all have! There are many times in life when, mentally, we are in prison. The Lord has promised that He will come and deliver us from prison; to rescue us from that prison, if we but turn to Him, lift our thoughts to a higher level, want to rise above the limitations of time–of space–of personality, and see things more as He sees them, from an eternal and loving point of view.

Amen.