How the Word encodes crescendos of spiritual death

Of Revelation 8:17 the Word relates the following:

""The first angel sounded," signifies the exploration and manifestation of the quality of the state of the church with those who are interiorly in that faith, (398). "And there became hail and fire mingled with blood," signifies falsity from infernal love destroying good and truth, and falsifying the Word, (399). "And they were cast upon the earth, and the third part of the trees was burnt up," signifies that with them, every affection and perception of truth, which constitute the man of the church, had perished, (400). "And all green grass was burnt up," signifies thus every living thing of faith, (401)" (Apocalypse Revealed 387).

Here is the verse in question:

"The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up" (Revelation 8:17).

We have recently been looking at certain passages in the Word as indicators of stages in a decomposition process the terminus of which is the definitive inversion of the Church such that it is fully a whore and no Church. 

Particularly, the central passage recently used to indicate the way in which the Word precisely records the stages of a Church waxing cold in love of God and the neighbor follows. It is the fall of Jerusalem, the epic end of the Church's inversion into a whore: 

"<6> And in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. <7> Then the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldeans were by the city round about:) and they went by the way of the plain. <8> But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. <9> Then they took the king, and carried him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; where he gave judgment upon him. <10> And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes: he slew also all the princes of Judah in Riblah. <11> Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death" (Jeremiah 52:6-11).

The famine was sore in the city, and as we know from the book of Amos (8:11) this involves a "famine of the Word". There is no more bread, no more of the good which proceeds from love, no more of the truth which supports and gives form to good in practice in the ultimates of everyday life.

Could we have expressed this same decomposition process of the Church becoming an anti-Church with other imagery in their classes of like crescendos? Certainly! We could have said instead that the stars of the Heavens fell to the Earth like ripe figs, that the Sun was black and ashamed and the Moon blood and confounded.

Likewise, we could have said that the pale horse, death and Hell, was upon the land. We could have said that the iron mingled not with the clay, or that He was offered vinegar to drink, or that it was night, or the King of Such and Such was upon the land to slay.

And also we could have said as we began that hail destroyed the produce of the Land; what is 'the Land'? It is the Church, the Heavenly Canaan in life on Earth. It is the fertile land which reduces to a desert in yet another way of expressing stages of the waxing cold of love and thus the decomposition process of the Old Church, the upside-down Church, the whore.

What is the Land? It is the World that God creates in creating the Church on Earth and the humans belonging to the Church as to the stages of their regeneration. What is the end of the World? It is the end of love of God and the neighbor, the end of non-ulteriority which is charity in act and thought; it is the end of the qualities of His name in the practice and theory of the Church. And there was a great earthquake... There was a great upheavel in the spiritual state and quality of the Church, the convulsing of the last vestiges of life within the Body thereof. 

But what also might we say? How might we even more plainly see what hail -- which is cold even when it is divine truth, for love divorced from divine truth in practice is cold -- actually looks like in everyday life? Observe the following exchange between the Lord and those who took issue with his healing a withered hand on the Sabbath day. You are just supposed to attend and perhaps have a nice chant, not carry on so and heal anyone naturally of ailments or spiritually of evil and falsehood:

"3 And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand.

2 And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him.

3 And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth.

4 And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace.

5 And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.

6 And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.

7 But Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea: and a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and from Judaea,

8 And from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and from beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did, came unto him" (Mark 3:1-8).

We see that they watched Him, it says so quite expressly. The literal meaning is plain enough, but the spiritual meaning depends for its perception and appreciation on knowing that the sight is spiritual sight and knowledge and theory in the Word of God. To see something in the Word is to understand that something. So we know that those who watched Him did so with spiritual understanding. 

Let us be very clear here: they are using the understanding to justify being cruel people with cruelty-supportive ideation.

This would be, ahem, the slaying of the King's sons before his eyes following the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon at the special audience with the King of Babylon at Riblah, who then had his eyes put out; since they were no longer necessary to behold the sons being slain, literally speaking, but more importantly and spiritually it means that the understanding which has unraveled the acknowledgement and paraphernalia of genuine divine truth and revelation has no further purpose and is no more an understanding at all.

They were watching Him to see whether He would apply divine truth lovingly; for this was precisely what they were disturbed about.

Water is divine truth, and hail which is frozen water is likewise divine truth; but it is cold truth, truth without love, as foolish as a dove without heart. Hail is cold truth like those who watched Him in Mark applying the truth that we should rest on the Sabbath to rule out carrying out the purpose of a Church on Earth.

This is why the Word frequently mentions things like hail and locusts and cankerworms destroying the crops; as well as plagues and the rest of the crescendos of spiritual death.

"How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers" (Isaiah 1:21).

One brings this verse into our fire circle for two reasons. First, it is a reminder that the decline of love in the Church and its replacement by another nation that gives forth the fruits thereof is fully Biblical and outright; in addition to plentifully encoded in less obvious forms,

Second, this verse brings us right into the equivalence in narrative form of the crescendo of decomposition. In the more abstruse passage we see that the Church becoming a whore becomes "murderers"! Bingo. Look:

"6 And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him" (Mark 3:6). 

This occurs just one verse down from when Jesus is "grieved at their hardness of heart" as He proceeds to heal the withered hand.

This is the waxing cold of love in the World, the Church, to which the Olivet Discourse refers.

Meantime, we have heard tell in close association with Isaiah 1:21 of a nation being given the kingdom to bear the fruits thereof, so let us have it:

"Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matthew 21:43).

Specifically, He would rather people were thrilled when He heals a withered hand naturally or spiritually, not cold and hateful and murderous. For those who pour oil and wine of correct teaching lovingly conveyed about charity and its supportive ideation into the wounds of one spiritually robbed are the Church, the nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. 

But those like the priest and Levite who pass by on the other side at night -- the indicator of the fourth quarter and death of the Church, the pale horse death and Hell -- are those who grieve Him with their hardness of heart. Their water is divine truth gone cold and utterly deflected from living a compassionate and spiritually knowledgeable life. It is the sort of loveless mentality which hears an excuse to hate or murder in a divine revelation about love's theory and practice. 

Neighbors, let us apply divine truth to growing in love, knowing that this is the destiny of humankind: to be perfected in love and the wisdom which marries it and the fruit which proceeds from it. Let us not grieve Him with the hardness of our hearts and hurt the oil and wine we were not to hurt but keep our vessels alertly while ministering to orphans and widows; pouring oil and wine into their wounds and faithfully carrying out our duties as a grateful giving back without ulteriority. 

Amen.

Appendix:

*"But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil" (Luke 8:35)

is the opposite of usury and following after a reward and seeking gifts in the Word.