Week 3
Day 2

    Listen:

The Vastation of the Church

“There is no God.”

Psalm 14

To the victor; of David.

The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.

They have corrupted,

They have made abominable their action;

There is none who does good.

Jehovah looks down from the heavens upon the sons of man

To see if there be one who has intelligence,

Who inquires after God.

They have all turned aside; together they have become filthy;

There is none who does good,

Not even one.

Do not all the workers of iniquity know,

Eating up my people, as if they eat up bread?

Jehovah they do not call.

There they dreaded with dread,

For God is in the generation of the just one.

The counsel of the afflicted you have shamed,

Because Jehovah is his protection.

Who shall give the salvation of Israel out of Zion?

When Jehovah turns back the captivity of His people,

Jacob shall rejoice,

Israel shall be glad.

They have corrupted, they have made abominable their action (verse 1).

AC 622. Here “what is corrupt” is dreadful persuasions, and “abominable” the foul cupidities which are in “ their action,” or from which “ their action” is done.

Jehovah shall give the salvation of Israel, when He shall turn back the captivity of His people (verse 7).

AE 460:2. Everything of salvation and of eternal life is from the Lord, and is with man and angel; for all the good of love and all the truth of faith with man are the Lord’s with him, and not the man’s. For it is the Divine going forth, which is the Lord in heaven with the angels and in the church with men; and from the good of love and the truth of faith come salvation and eternal life.... [In this psalm] the Lord is here called “salvation,” from the act of saving, and for the reason that He is salvation with man, for so far as the Lord is with man, so far man has salvation.

Jehovah turns back the captivity of His people.

AR 591. By “captivity” is here meant spiritual captivity, which is to be seduced, and thus led away from truths and goods (that is, from believing well and living well), and led into falsities and evils.

Jacob shall rejoice, Israel shall be glad.

AE 811:22. “Jacob shall rejoice, Israel shall be glad,” means the joy with those who are in the external church and of those who are in the internal church because of their deliverance. “Jacob” means those who are of the external church, and “Israel” those who are of the internal church; and both mean gentiles.

Further about the vastation of the Church

AC 410. Vastation is of two kinds: first, of those who know and do not wish to know, or who see and do not desire to see, like the Jews of old, and Christians of the present day; and secondly, of those who, in consequence of their ignorance, neither know nor see anything, like both ancient and modern gentiles. When the last time of vastation comes upon those who know and do not desire to know, that is, who see and do not desire to see, then a church arises anew, not among them, but with those whom they call gentiles.... The reason why new light shines forth then and not before is... that then they can no longer profane the things revealed, because they do not acknowledge and believe that they are true.

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