The Lord Speaking to Man

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The Lord speaks with every man — for whatever a man wills and thinks that is good and true, is from the Lord. 

There are with every man at least two evil spirits and two angels. The evil spirits excite his evils, and the angels inspire things that are good and true. Every good and true thing inspired by the angels is of the Lord; thus the Lord is continually speaking with man, but quite differently with one man than with another. With those who suffer themselves to be led away by evil spirits, the Lord speaks as if absent, or from afar, so that it can scarcely be said that He is speaking, but with those who are being led by the Lord, He speaks as more nearly present; which may be sufficiently evident from the fact that no one can ever think anything good and true except from the Lord.

The presence of the Lord is predicated according to the state of love toward the neighbor and of faith in which the man is. 

In love toward the neighbor the Lord is present, because He is in all good but not so much in faith, so-called, without love. Faith without love and charity is a separated or disjoined thing.

Wherever there is conjunction there must be a conjoining medium, which is nothing else than love and charity, as must be evident to all from the fact that the Lord is merciful to everyone and loves everyone and wills to make everyone happy to eternity. 

He, therefore, who is not in such love that he is merciful to others, loves them, and wills to make them happy, cannot be conjoined with the Lord because he is unlike Him and not at all in His image.

To look to the Lord by faith, as they say, and at the same time to hate the neighbor, is not only to stand afar off but is also to have the abyss of hell between themselves and the Lord, into which they would fall if they should approach nearer - for hatred to the neighbor is that infernal abyss which is between.

The presence of the Lord is first possible with a man when he loves the neighbor. The Lord is in love; and so far as a man is in love, so far the Lord is present; and so far as the Lord is present, so far He speaks with the man.

Man knows no otherwise than that he thinks from himself, whereas he has not a single idea, nor even the least bit of an idea from himself, but he has what is evil and false through evil spirits from hell, and what is good and true through angels from the Lord. Such is the influx with man, from which is his life and the interaction of his soul with the body.

(Arcana Coelestia 904)

Temptation Against the Lord's Love

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

He who is in temptation is in doubt concerning the end in view. The end in view is the love, against which the evil spirits and evil genii fight, and thereby put the end in doubt; and the greater the love is, the more do they put it in doubt. If the end which is loved were not put in doubt, and indeed in despair, there would be no temptation. Assurance respecting the result precedes the victory and belongs to the victory.

As few know how the case is with temptations, it may here be briefly explained. Evil spirits never fight against other things than those which the man loves; the more ardently he loves them, the more fiercely do they wage the combat. It is evil genii who fight against the things that pertain to the affection of good, and evil spirits that fight against those which pertain to the affection of truth. As soon as they notice even the smallest thing which a man loves, or perceive as it were by scent what is delightful and dear to him, they forthwith assault it and endeavor to destroy it, and thereby the whole man, for man's life consists in his loves. Nothing is more delightful to them than to destroy a man in this way, nor would they desist, even to eternity, unless they were driven away by the Lord. They who are malignant and crafty insinuate themselves into man's very loves by flattering them, and thus bring the man among themselves; and presently, when they have brought him in, they attempt to destroy his loves, and thereby murder the man, and this in a thousand ways that cannot be comprehended.

Nor do they wage the combat simply by reasoning against things good and true, because such combats are of no account, for if they were vanquished a thousand times they would still persist, since reasonings against goods and truths can never be wanting. But they pervert the goods and truths, and inflame with a certain fire of cupidity and of persuasion so that the man does not know otherwise than that he is in the like cupidity and persuasion, and at the same time, they enkindle these with delight that they snatch from the man's delight in something else, and in this way they most deceitfully infect and infest him; and this they do with so much skill, by leading him on from one thing to another, that if the Lord did not aid him, the man would never know but that the case was really so.

They act in a similar way against the affections of truth that make the conscience: as soon as they perceive anything of conscience, of whatever kind, then from the falsities and failings in the man they form to themselves an affection; and by means of this they cast a shade over the light of truth, and so pervert it; or they induce anxiety and torture him. They also hold the thought persistently in one thing, and thus fill it with phantasies; and at the same time they clandestinely clothe the cupidities with the phantasies; besides innumerable other arts, which cannot possibly be described to the apprehension. These are a few of the means, and only the most general, by which they can make their way to man's conscience, for this above all else they take the greatest delight in destroying.

From these few statements, and they are very few, it may be seen what temptations are, and that they are, in general, such as the loves are, and from this we may see -

what was the nature of the Lord's temptations, that they were the most terrible of all, for such as is the greatness of the love, such is the fearful character of the temptation. The Lord's love was the salvation of the whole human race, and was most ardent; consequently it was the whole sum of the affection of good and affection of truth in the highest degree. Against these, with the most malignant wiles and venom, all the hells waged the combat; but still the Lord conquered them all by His own power.

Victories are attended with the result that the malignant genii and spirits afterwards dare not do anything; for their life consists in their being able to destroy, and when they perceive that a man is of such a character that he can resist, then at the first onset they flee away, as they are wont to do when they draw near to the first entrance to heaven, for they are at once seized with horror and terror, and hurl themselves backward.

(Arcana Coelestia 1820)

Repentance is The First Thing of The Church in Man

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The communion called the church consists of all men in whom the church is, and the church enters into man when he is becoming regenerate, and everyone becomes regenerate by abstaining from the evils of sin, and shunning them as one would an infernal horde with torches in hand, endeavoring to overtake him and throw him upon a burning pile. There are many means by which man, as he progresses in his early years, is prepared for the church and introduced into it; but the means whereby the church is established in man are acts of repentance.  Acts of repentance are all such things as cause man not to will and consequently not to commit evils, which are sins against God; for until this takes place man stands outside of regeneration, and if any thought respecting eternal salvation should then creep into his mind, he turns toward it but immediately turns away from it - for it enters the man no further than into the ideas of his thought, and from that goes forth into the words of his speech, and also, it may be, into some gestures conformable to speech.

But when such thought enters the will, it is in the man; for the will is the man himself, because in it his love resides, while thought is outside of the man, except when it proceeds from his will, and then will and thought act as one, and both together constitute the man.

From this it follows, that, for repentance to be repentance, and to be effective in man, it must be a repentance of the will and from that of the thought, and not of the thought only; therefore that it should be actual repentance, and not merely verbal.

That repentance is the first thing of the church, is very evident from the Word. John the Baptist, who was sent beforehand to prepare men for the church which the Lord was about to establish when he baptized, preached at the same time repentance - therefore his baptism was called the baptism of repentance, for the reason that baptism signified spiritual washing, which is a cleansing from sin. This John did in Jordan, because Jordan signified introduction into the church, for it was the first boundary of the land of Canaan where the church was. The Lord Himself also preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins, teaching thereby that repentance is the first thing of the church, and that so far as man repents his sins are put away, and so far as they are put away, they are forgiven. And still further, the Lord commanded His twelve apostles, and also the seventy whom He sent forth, to preach repentance. From all this it is clear that the first thing of the church is repentance.

(True Christian Religion 510)