Week 3
Day 6

    Listen:

The Vastation of the Church

The end of the Israelitish Church, and a new church

Psalm 78, part 2

And He remembered that they were flesh,

A wind that goes and does not return.

And He turned to blood their rivers,

And their streams so that they could not drink.

He sent among them a flying swarm, and it devoured them;

And frogs, and they destroyed them.

And He gave their produce to the caterpillar,

And their toil to the locust.

He killed their vine with hail,

And their mulberry fig trees⁹ with heavy hail.

And He closed in their beast of burden with the hail,

And their livestock with embers.

He sent against them the fierceness of His anger, wrath, and indignation, and adversity,

A sending out of evil angels.

And He drove out the nations from before them,

And allotted them an inheritance by a cord¹⁰,

And made the tribes of Israel to inhabit their tents.

And they provoked Him with their high places,

And made Him zealous with their carved images.

God heard, and was wroth,

And rejected Israel exceedingly;

And He abandoned the Habitation of Shiloh,

The Tabernacle which He inhabited among man.

And He gave His strength into captivity,

And His splendor into the hand of the adversary.

And He rejected the tent of Joseph,

And the tribe of Ephraim He did not choose....

And He chose David His servant,

And took him from the pens of the flock....

And he¹¹ pastured them according to the integrity of his heart,

And led them by the understanding of the palms of his hands.

He sent against them the fierceness of His anger, wrath, and indignation, and adversity, a sending out of evil angels.

AC 357. It is not that Jehovah ever sends anger upon anyone, but that men bring it upon themselves; nor does He send evil angels among them, but man draws them to himself.

AC 6997:2. ...[I]t is a most general truth that all things come from God, thus evil things as well as good. But this most general truth, which must be taught to children, youths, and the simple, should afterward be enlightened, that is, by showing that evils are from man, though they appear as if from God, and that it is so said in order that they may learn to fear God, lest they should perish by the evils which they themselves do; and afterward may love Him; for fear must precede love in order that in love there may be holy fear. For when fear is instilled in love, it becomes holy from the holy of love; and then it is not fear of the Lord’s being angry and punishing, but lest they should act against good itself, because this will torment the conscience.

⁹In AC 7553:5, these trees are called sycomora, from a Greek word that means mulberry fig.

¹⁰Cords were used to measure a tract of land (see AC 9854:3).

¹¹I.e., David, who represents the Lord (see AR 383)

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