New Church Life Mar/Apr 2014 | Page 31

         Despite this instruction it is hard to avoid being guided by our self-will rather than an objective view of the teachings. Jeremiah the prophet railed against this tendency: Both prophet and priest practice hypocrisy. They strengthen the hands of the evil. They speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of Jehovah. (Jeremiah 23:11,14,16) Jesus made a similar criticism of church leaders: You have made the Word of God of no effect by your tradition. Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: “In vain they worship Me,teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Matthew 15:6-9) The Heavenly Doctrines emphasize this point: It is blasphemy not to draw the doctrine of the church from the Word, but to hatch it from one’s own intelligence. The reason is that the church is founded on the Word and its character is such as its understanding of the Word. (Apocalypse Revealed 571) A true worship of God has its origin in things of the Word and not at all in those of self-intelligence… If you have fashioned such things as are to constitute the worship of God, and they are not products of the Word but of self-intelligence, no worship exists. (Arcana Coelestia 8943) In one instance Swedenborg observed that some preachers in the spiritual world were let go after preaching about faith alone: I have heard several reasons why those preachers are deprived of their priestly status. People gave me the following as the primary reason: “They shape their sermons to conform with their own earthly light and therefore their own spirit rather than with the Word and therefore the spirit of God. Yes, they do begin their sermons by quoting the Word, but they merely touch these quotes to their lips, and go no further because the quotes do not taste good to them. Instead they soon select some tasty idea of their own.” (True Christian Religion 810) In the story of Balaam, the prophet definitely wished to select some tasty idea of his own. We are told in the Heavenly Doctrine that as he traveled with his donkey from Syria to meet Balak, “he continually thought upon the use of enchantments for destroying the sons of Israel.” (Apocalypse Explained 140) Because of these thoughts the Angel of the Lord came and blocked his path – an apparition seen clearly by his donkey, but not by Balaam. When the donkey moved out of the way, and finally would go no farther, Balaam was enraged and beat her. In the story this caused her to open her mouth and remonstrate with him, after which the Angel also showed himself and said: “Only the word that I speak to you, that you shall speak.” We have this explanation: By the female donkey that Balaam rode is meant, in the spiritual sense of the Word, the enlightened intellect. The angel with the drawn sword signifies Divine 127