The Ups and Downs of Spiritual Progress
A Sermon by the Rev. Kenneth J. Alden
(Readings appended below)
1 And when Jehovah raised up judges for them, then Jehovah was with the judge, and saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for it repented Jehovah because of their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them. (Judges 2:18)
2 The second chapter of Judges outlines the pattern for the stories in that book.
A The children of Israel would forsake Jehovah and worship the idols that were worshipped in the land.
B Jehovah’s anger would burn against Israel and plunderers would come in and despoil them, and they would not be able to stand against their enemies.
C Jehovah would raise up judges who would deliver them out of the hand of their enemies, because Jehovah was sorry for having delivered them into the hands of their enemies.
D Before long, they would not listen to the judges and would cease obeying the commandments of Jehovah.
E Then the cycle would begin again as they turned to idols and behaved more corruptly than their fathers.
3 This cycle of disobedience, punishment, rescue and return to worse evil than before, can seem a depressing one.
A It is a downward spiral which resulted, for Israel, in ten tribes being removed from the land of Canaan, never to return, and the remaining tribe, Judah, being taken captive to Babylon for seventy years.
B Knowing that the stories of the Word represent each of our lives, it appears as though it can only represent our gradual rejection of the Lord, until we find our place in hell.
C But we must keep in mind that the Word especially tells the story of our regeneration, and so it describes our path to heaven.
1. This must be the case because the inmost sense of the Word describes the life of the Lord on earth as He made His Human completely Divine–so much so that He rose with His whole body at His resurrection.
2. Surely there is a very positive, hopeful message in the pattern of the book of Judges.
4 If we reflect on it, we can see that we are very much like the children of Israel during the period of the judges.
A Under Joshua they gained a foot-hold in the land of Canaan but did not fully possess it.
1. Similarly, we have some knowledge of heavenly life and a commitment to it.
a Our participation in church life shows that we want to prepare for heavenly life by learning truths from the Word and by the way we live our lives now.
B The land of Canaan was filled with nations who worshipped idols.
1. Similarly, our ideas of heaven are somewhat like images, that is, pictures or forms of heavenly life without living depth to them.
a We may know that the kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of uses
1) But when we think of performing uses, our top criteria for a use we might perform are still things like money; status before the world, family and friends; personal enjoymen; and time off.
A. We evaluate uses primarily by what is in it for us, rather than by what use it can be to others and their eternal welfare.
B. So we look at the Lord’s kingdom in terms of idol-worship: forms of use without the real life of use.
b As another example, we may know that the angels of heaven are married, and in true married love.
1) But when we think of marriage, too often we think of it in terms of pleasant companionship, compatible material goals, harmonious recreational pursuits, and a peaceful and prosperous earthly life.
A. So often, we completely overlook the truly human and eternal side of marriage, which is intimately tied to a shared relationship with the Lord, a commitment to keeping His commandments, and a mutual dedication to serving the neighbour: in short, a shared religious life.
B. Our view of the fundamental relationship in the Lord’s kingdom, then, is like a carved image of marriage, without the inner soul of marriage.
c Similar examples could be thought of for our view of church life, of community service and political involvement, our attitudes toward sharing the Lord’s Word, and many other areas.
1) If we let the light of truth shine upon the attitudes and assumptions that we actually use in our day-to-day life, we might find that we live in a land of idol-worship.
A. Our ideas of heavenly life–our ideas of what brings happiness–may have a lot of the outward forms and trappings of heaven, but lack the inner life of heaven.
C If we see that we have a long way to go in fully possessing heavenly life, let us not be discouraged by this discovery.
1. The Lord knew that each of us would be like this before He ever created us.
2. The Lord knew that we would be born in complete ignorance, and that we would gradually learn by means of our senses, and form outward ideas of heavenly life before we would form inward ones.
3. The Lord knew that our first foothold on heavenly life would cling to some of the outward glories and delights of heavenly life before it could grasp the inner realities of heavenly life.
a In fact, when instructing His disciples, he often spoke according to their primitive notions of heaven, and gently hinted to them that heavenly happiness was more than being greatest, or sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (See Matthew 19:28-30; Luke 22:24-30)
5 When the children of Isael were struggling to get full possession of the land of Canaan, they frequently turned away from the whole-hearted worship of the Lord to worship the idols of the nations around them.
A Do we find that we give more energy to pursuing our outward ideas of the life of use, the life of marriage, the life of the church, than we do to pursuing the real essence of that life?
1. If we do, we will find before long that there are, as it were, foreign nations plundering our land and ruling over us.
2. We will find ourselves serving the gods of money, status, or vacation time in the uses we serve.
a We will find ways in which we are plundered of our real goods and our inner peace-of-mind as we compromise our service of others for the sake of materialistic or self-centred goals.
3. We will find that as we develop merely the outward signs of our marriage the spiritual inner core begins to slip out of reach and form less of a bond between us and our partner.
a As we choose the easy, outward activities of pleasure and companionship, we neglect the inner activities of seeking the Lord together.
1) As a consequence, we may wonder if we really have a marriage relationship or if we really know our partner and ourselves.
B Just as it was with the children of Israel, so it is with us, that we are continually drawn to serve what is external, apart from its inner life.
1. Just as it was with Israel who was then overrun by its enemies, so we suffer when we serve our “idols.
6 When the children of Israel turned from the Lord and were oppressed by their enemies, the appearance was that the Lord delivered them into the hand of their enemies, and so it is expressed in the Word.
A Similarly, when they were delivered from their enemies, it seemed that the Lord had changed His mind, and repented of the evil He had sent upon them, and again, it is so-written in the Word.
B In actual fact, the Lord never punishes people, and never repents of His ways, for His are ways of mercy and love.
1. He is always seeking to deliver us from evil and give us every blessing.
C The key to our continued happiness is our willingness to hearken to the judges that the Lord sends us.
1. If we do hearken to the judges, we actually receive the blessings the Lord is always showering upon us, and “the land has rest.”
7 The cycle of turning away from the Lord, serving our enemies, and being delivered by a judge only to fall back into the worship of idols is the pattern of spiritual progress.
A As we learned in our lesson from Arcana Coelestia the life of hell with us cannot be destroyed suddenly, nor the life of heaven be implanted suddenly. (See Arcana Coelestia 9336:2)
B So we visit the evils to which we incline again and again until the Lord can remove them permanently.
1. In this pattern, where the Word says that Israel corrupted themselves more than their fathers, it is speaking spiritually of our capacity to recognize in ourselves a more subtle and more dangerous evil.
a Clearly, where the Word is describing the Lord’s glorification, He did not fall into greater and greater evil.
1) Rather He identified and rejected the evils and falsities of more cunning and deceitful hells.
b So must it be with us.
1) The fact that we seem to deal with the same evil for year after year, and that it seems to condemn us more severely with each passing decade does not necessarily mean that we are becoming more hellish.
A. It may be that we have grown spiritually strong enough to be shown the inner character of our hereditary evils.
B. Although we have every reason to despair for our salvation if we take no action to reject that evil, the fact that we have seen a more horrifying evil in ourselves than we have ever identified before is not in itself a sign that we are on the path to hell.
1 The evil spirits, of course, will want us to believe that.
a. They will want us to give up hope and adopt that evil as our own.
2 But the Lord wills that we repent of the evil we now see in ourselves, and return to Him.
a. So He sends us a judge to deliver us.
8 Who are the judges, in our spiritual life?
A Depending upon the context, the judges of Israel can represent either goods or truths. (Cf. AC 2258, 2781:6, 5212, AE 315:10, 433, 727).
1. In either case, the judges represent the Lord, who alone is the Judge. (Cf. AC 7811, AR 279)
2. They appear, then to represent specific good and true qualities from the Lord that are joined together and serve for delivering us from damnation.
a Since Divine Good judges all people to heaven, but Divine Truth, when separated from Divine Good, condemns people to hell, we may be sure that the judges represented the Lord’s Divine Good, or His Divine Truth taken together with His Divine Good, for the function of the judges was to deliver Israel. (Cf. AC 2258:2)
1) By the Lord’s good, we are saved. By the truth, our enemies are judged and condemned.
A. The Lord’s good that saves us is the new, inner life of use, marriage, church life, and so forth
1 –the love of serving others with no thought of reward;
2 –the love of a marriage relationship whose heart and soul is to know, love, and do the Lord’s will;
3 –the love of serving the spiritual uses of the church which involve the eternal salvation of our fellow human beings.
B. The Lord’s truth that judges our spiritual enemies and condemns them is the truth that teaches what is of eternal, spiritual worth, and what leads only to temporary thrills and enjoyment, and long-term unhappiness.
B These truths and goods are raised up by the Lord to deliver us.
1. The Lord stirs forgotten affections for what is good, and brings to our attention truths that can break the states of misery and oppression that we may feel when our serving of the Lord has lapsed.
2. Our choice is then to hearken to those judges, be led by them in battle, and to be returned to a state of peace under the Lord’s government.
3. If we make that choice, our salvation is secure, for the Lord’s love and mercy are constant, as expressed in the internal sense of our text:
a “And when Jehovah raised up judges for them, then Jehovah was with the judge, and saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for it repented Jehovah because of their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them.”
4. Amen.
Lessons: Judges 1:10-15, 2:11-19, 3:7-11; Matthew 19:23-30; AC 9336:2-3.
Arcana Coelestia 9336. [2] When a person is born he is, so far as his hereditary evils are concerned, a miniature hell. He also becomes an embodiment of hell to the extent that he draws on hereditary evils and adds his own to them. This being so, the order of a person's life which exists by reason of what he receives at birth, and by reason of his own acts in life, is the opposite of heavenly order. For what is a person's own leads him to love self more than the Lord and to love the world more than heaven, whereas the life of heaven consists in loving the Lord above all things and the neighbour as oneself. From this it is evident that the first life, which is that of hell, must be completely destroyed, that is, evils and falsities must be removed, in order that the new life, which is that of heaven, may be implanted,.... This cannot possibly be done hurriedly, for every deep-rooted evil, together with its falsities, is interconnected with all other evils and their falsities. Such evils and falsities are countless, and their interconnection is so complex that it cannot be comprehended, not even by angels, only by the Lord. From this it is evident that the life of hell with a person cannot be destroyed suddenly; for if it were destroyed suddenly the person too would perish. Nor can the life of heaven be implanted suddenly, for if this were implanted suddenly the person would again perish. [3] There are thousands and thousands of hidden ways, scarcely a single one of which is known to mankind, by which the Lord leads a person from the life of hell to the life of heaven. I have been informed from heaven that this is so, and it has also been corroborated for me by many things that I have been made aware of. Since mankind knows scarcely anything at all about these things many have fallen into errors concerning human deliverance from evils and falsities, which is the forgiveness of sins. They think that the life of hell with a person can be changed to the life of heaven with him in an instant, by mercy. But in actual fact mercy lies in the whole act of regeneration; and none undergo regeneration apart from those who receive the Lord's mercy in faith and life while they are in the world,....
Through The Week
Recall the Story
✦ The children of Israel forsook Jehovah and served the Baals.
✦ In anger, Jehvah delivered them into the hands of their enemies.
✦ The Lord raised up judges to deliver them because it repented Jehovah because of their groaning.
✦ When the judge died, they reverted and behaved worse than their fathers in serving other gods.
Reflect on the Message
✦ The Word inwardly tells the story of someone being regenerated for heaven, and inmostly of the Lord’s glorification.
✦ Our stake in heavenly life is at first beset with something akin to a land of idol-worshipers–ideas and interests that present a form of heavenly life outwardly, but lack the essence of heavenly life.
✦ We are plundered by them when we give more effort to the outward trappings of happiness than to the inner core of heavenly life.
✦ Truth and good from His Word are the judges the Lord raises up to bring victory over deeper and deeper evils.
Take Action
✦ If you have gone after “idols” of pursuing happiness outwardly more than inwardly, pray to the Lord for deliverance.
✦ Ask the Lord to remove the hellish spirits who magnify your sense of discouragement with your spiritual progress.
✦ Heed the “judges”–truth and good from the Word.
✦ Choose an inward goal in your job, marriage or other activity to focus on this week and shun the opposite outward goal.