The Old Testament

So the king gave the command, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions. But the king spoke, saying to Daniel, "Your God, whom you serve continually, He will deliver you." Then a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the signets of his lords, that the purpose concerning Daniel might not be changed.

Now the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; and no musicians were brought before him. Also his sleep went from him. Then the king arose very early in the morning and went in haste to the den of lions. And when he came to the den, he cried out with a lamenting voice to Daniel. The king spoke, saying to Daniel, "Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?"

Then Daniel said to the king, "O king, live forever! My God sent His angel and shut the lions' mouths, so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before Him; and also, O king, I have done no wrong before you." Now the king was exceedingly glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no injury whatever was found on him, because he believed in his God.

Daniel in the Lions' Den

A tearing to pieces of good by falsities and evils is meant in the internal sense of the following: "They opened their mouth against me - a lion tearing and roaring" (Psalm 22:13).

The Lord's Protection

The Lord by means of Divine truth protects His own, for He surrounds them with a sphere of light.

Good and its affection do not protect themselves, but are protected by truth and the understanding of it.

The Lord's combat against hell may also be compared, though imperfectly, to a conflict with all the wild beasts on the earth and their slaughter and subjugation, until not one of them dares comes forth to attack any person who is in the Lord.... By a like Divine power the Lord fights at this day against hell in every person who is being regenerated. For hell attacks all such with diabolical fury, and unless the Lord resisted and tamed that fury, a person could not but succumb. For hell is like one monstrous human, or like a huge lion, with which indeed it is compared in the Word.

The Lord protects against all evils and falsities that are from the hells.

As for temptations themselves, they are going on while a person is in the actual process of being regenerated, for no one can be regenerated unless he also undergoes temptations. The evil spirits around him are the means through which those temptations are brought about. In temptation the person is brought into a state in which the evil that possesses him, that is, possesses his own essential self, is dominant. Once he enters this state evil and hellish spirits surround him, and when they realize that inwardly he is protected by angels those evil spirits reactivate the false ideas he has previously contemplated and the evil deeds he has committed. But the angels defend him from within. This conflict is what the person experiences as temptation, yet the experience is so vague that he is aware of it as scarcely anything more than a feeling of anxiety.

Nothing at all could harm people whom the Lord is protecting, not even if the whole of hell were surrounding them, both from without and from within.

Who Can the Lord Protect?

Every person and every spirit is under the Lord's protection, the evil equally as the good. No evil can happen to him who is under the Lord's protection, for it is the Lord's will that no one should perish or be punished. Every one is under the protection of the Lord, so far as he abstains from doing evil, but in the measure that he does not abstain, so far does he remove himself from the protection of the Lord. And in the measure that he thus removes himself, so far he is hurt by evil spirits from hell.

Trusting in the Lord's Providence

Those who trust in the Divine are altogether different. Though concerned about the morrow, yet are they unconcerned, in that they are not anxious, let alone worried, when they give thought to the morrow. They remain even-tempered whether or not they realize desires, and they do not grieve over loss; they are content with their lot…. They know that for those who trust in the Divine all things are moving toward an everlasting state of happiness, and that no matter what happens at any time to them, it contributes to that state. Be it known that the Divine Providence is universal, that is, in things the most minute; and that they who are in the stream of Providence are all the time carried along toward everything that is happy, whatever may be the appearance of the means. Those are in the stream of Providence who put their trust in the Divine and attribute all things to Him. Those are not in the stream of Providence who trust in themselves alone and attribute all things to themselves, because they are in the opposite, for they take away providence from the Divine, and claim it for themselves. Be it known also that insofar as anyone is in the stream of Providence, so far he is in a state of peace.

The angels through whom the Lord leads and also protects a person are near his head. Their function is to impart charity and faith, to notice the direction in which the person's delights turn, and to modify and bend those delights toward what is good, so far as they can do so in the person's freedom…. [T]he angels call forth the forms of good and truth residing with a person and set them opposite the evils and falsities activated by the evil spirits. As a result the person is in the middle and is not conscious of the evil or of the good; and being in the middle he is in freedom to turn toward one or toward the other. Angels from the Lord employ means like these to lead and protect a person, doing so every instant and fraction of an instant. For if the angels were to let up merely for a single moment the person would be plunged into evil from which after that he cannot possibly be brought out. The angels are motivated to do all this by a love they receive from the Lord, for nothing gives them greater delight and happiness than to remove evils from a person and lead him to heaven…. Scarcely anyone believes the Lord has that kind of concern for a person, a constant concern lasting from the very beginning of a person's existence to the final moment of his life, and for evermore after that.