“And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to everyone according to his work.” - Revelation 22:12
Kempton New Church

December
12

Isaiah 60:10. “And the sons of the foreigner shall build thy walls, and their kings shall minister to thee; for in My rage I smote thee, but in My good pleasure I had compassion on thee.”

For the children from I Kings 8

38. Every prayer, every supplication that shall be [made] by any man, by all Thy people Israel, who shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread his palms toward this house,

39. … hear Thou [in] the heavens, [where] Thy dwelling [is] established, and pardon, and do, and give to each man according to all his ways, whose heart Thou knowest; for Thou, Thou alone, knowest the heart of all the sons of man;

40. so that they may fear Thee all the days that they live on the face of the ground, which Thou gavest to our fathers.

41. And also [as] to the foreigner, who [is] not of Thy people Israel, when he shall come from a far land for the sake of Thy name—

42. for they shall hear of Thy great name, and of Thy firm hand and of Thine outstretched arm, and shall come, and pray toward this house—

43. hear Thou [in] the heavens [where] Thy dwelling [is] established, and do according to all which the foreigner calls to Thee, so that all the peoples of the earth shall know Thy name, to fear Thee, as [does] Thy people Israel, and that they may know that Thy name is called upon this house which I have built.

Readings from the Heavenly Doctrine

AR 898. [Revelation 21] Verse 12. Having a wall great and high, signifies the Word in the sense of the letter, from which is the doctrine of the New Church. When the Lord’s New Church as to doctrine is meant by “the holy city Jerusalem,” nothing else is meant by its “wall” but the Word in the sense of the letter, from which the doctrine is. For the sense of the letter protects the spiritual sense, which lies hidden within, as the wall protects a city and its inhabitants.

That the sense of the letter is the basis, the containant, and the support of its spiritual sense, may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Sacred Scripture (n. 27‒36) And that this sense is the guard lest the interior Divine truths, which are those of the spiritual sense, should be injured (n. 97). Also that the doctrine of the church is to be drawn from the sense of the letter of the Word, and to be confirmed by it (n. 50‒61).

It is called “a wall great and high,” because the Word is meant as to the Divine good and the Divine truth; for “great” is predicated of good, and “high” of truth….”

AE 295:4. The Lord’s will in the Old Testament is called His “good pleasure,” and this likewise means the Divine love; and to do His good pleasure or His will signifies to love God and the neighbor, thus to live according to the commandments of the Lord, since this is to love God and the neighbor, and this comes down from the Lord’s love. For no one can love the Lord and the neighbor except from the Lord; for this is the veriest good for man, and all good is from the Lord. That “good pleasure” has this signification is clear from the following passages. In Isaiah:

In My wrath I smote thee, but in My good pleasure I have had mercy on thee (Isa. 60:10).

“To smite in anger” signifies temptation; “in good pleasure to have mercy” signifies deliverance from love; “to have mercy” is to do good to the needy from love.

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