He Came as a Thief in the Night

While watching the inside of one's platter and cup a specific sin and error thoughtform entered them: the impulse to sterilize someone in the family and their children accompanied by justification ideation, error thought supportive of the sin impulse.  I answered the enemies in the gate with the truths, the sons in my quiver, that identified the impulse as unloving and the ideation as in addition false; it being a denial of the free will of the children and of their children after them. Thus we in watching and praying learn to see love and hate and their associated ideation in the vessels of feeling and thought. We answer the enemies in the gate with the opposing impulses compassion and enlightenment; which you will find stored neatly on the shelf to your right at crunch time, if so be you have stored the Word in your heart. Psalm 127:4-5 - King James Version (KJV) <4> As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. <5> Happy is the man that hat...

The Writings refer to history as one of the "useful sciences" which are "nothing else but means for becoming wise, or for forming one's rational mind" (SE4578). The cultivation of useful sciences such as history, in this broader sense of the term science, may serve to assist with confirming truths and doctrines from the Word. There is even a proper procedure and order for this confirmation, namely that useful sciences may be used to confirm the Word but should not be used as the starting point for arriving at spiritual truth. Someone may, for instance, see in the zinc spark at human conception a confirmation in natural life or science of the Word's being "the light that lighteth every man" (John 1:9); but someone should not start out from the incidence of such a minute event and therefrom arrive at spiritual truths.  With history having thus been subordinated to the higher and internal development of the human, let's follow the Church procedure...

Isaiah 61:7 - King James Version (KJV) <7> For your shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them.  For your combat with evil to purify your heart, your baking the manna, you shall have charity from the Lord in its place. For your combat with falsehood to purify your mind, your seething/boiling the manna, you shall have faith -- the understanding of charity -- from the Lord in its place. Therefore there will be a double portion of hidden manna  -- the marriage of charity and faith -- on the 7th day which is Heaven and conjunction with the Lord. This is why this happened, to represent the above message in narrative as in poetic form: Exodus 16:22-23 Exodus 16:22-23 - King James Version (KJV) <22> And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man: and all the rulers of the congregation came an...

Joshua 10:26-27 - King James Version (KJV) <26> And afterward Joshua smote them, and slew them, and hanged them on five trees: and they were hanging upon the trees until the evening. <27> And it came to pass at the time of the going down of the sun, that Joshua commanded, and they took them down off the trees, and cast them into the cave wherein they had been hid, and laid great stones in the cave's mouth, which remain until this very day. I quote this extract from the Old Testament histories because it involves the polar opposite of the angel's rolling the great stone out of the mouth of the sepulchre where the body of Jesus, hung from a tree because presumed by the Jewish Church to be accursed, was laid; and the polar opposite of the resurrection, of course.  The verse from Joshua is meant to be read alongside the same procedure done to the King of AI earlier in the same book as well as by Matthew chapters 27 and 28; for the Gospel deliberately echos the language ...

Here is another of those trials by fire for the purification of your heart and trials by water for the purification of your mind verses:  "<2> When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee" (Isaiah 43:2). When you are flooded by distorted, irrational, and false thoughts about spiritual or natural matters, He will extend you the awareness of their essential wrongness and leave you the wherewithal to reject them, even in a small way. It often will be a small and incremental way, for to push you too quickly would be counterproductive.  When you are immersed in the fire of various evil desires, He will make it clear that these proceed from Hell and leave you space and strength to assert that you want no part of them. Again, this will be typically incremental. As a reminder, when the flood and the furnace ar...

One has frequently mentioned the sun in the upright position as the sun shining sevenfold and the moon shining as the sun; and in the reversed position as the sun black as sackcloth of hair and the moon turned to blood.  As stated in Genesis, these "great lights" are to be for "signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years" (Genesis 1:14). In other words, they are to be symbolic indicators of the health of the Church as to charity, the good of love, the sun; and of the health of the Church as to faith, the understanding of truth, the moon.  They are indicators of times and seasons and days -- which days are states -- in the Church as witnessed by the eyes of God, which see the dead mummies inside the magnificent sarcophagi; which see the waxing cold of love and the dying of the light.  Now see another way of expressing the sun and moon in the reversed position, for your instruction and confirmation:  "Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed...