182. 8. In fact, if the Lord were not building a new heaven and a new church, the human race would not be preserved. We read in Matthew,

Then there will be a great affliction such as has never existed since the world began until now and will never exist again. In fact, unless those days were cut short no flesh would be preserved. (Matthew 24:21-22)

This chapter in Matthew concerns "the close of the age," which means the end of the modern-day church. "Cutting those days short" means ending that church and starting a new one.

Surely everyone knows that unless the Lord had come into the world and redeemed us, we could not have been saved. "Redeeming us" means constructing a new heaven and a new church.

In the Gospels the Lord predicted that he was going to come into the world again (Matthew 24:30-31; Mark 13:26; Luke 12:40; 21:27; see also the Book of Revelation, especially in the last chapter). As I have shown above in the second part of the last chapter, on redemption [114-137], today the Lord is again redeeming us, constructing a new heaven, and building a new church for the purpose of saving humankind.

[2] Here is the great secret as to why the human race could not be preserved if the Lord were not building a new church. As long as the dragon and its crew stay down in the world of spirits where they were thrown, no divine truth united to divine good can get across to people on earth without being perverted and falsified or ceasing to exist. This is what the Book of Revelation means when it says,

The dragon was thrown down onto the earth and its angels were thrown with it. Woe to those who live on the earth and in the sea, because the Devil has come down to them in a giant rage. (Revelation 12:9, 12-13)

It was after the dragon was thrown down into hell (Revelation 20:10) that John saw a new heaven and a new earth and saw the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven (Revelation 21:1-2). The "dragon" means those who share the belief of the church today.

[3] In the spiritual world I have talked several times with people who say faith alone makes us just. I said that their teaching is wrong and also absurd; it brings on spiritual complacency, blindness, sleep, and night; and it is eventually lethal to the soul. I urged them to give it up.

I received the response, "Why stop? This is the sole reason that the clergy can claim to be better educated than lay people. "

I replied that in that case they must view a superior reputation as their goal, not the saving of souls. Since they have applied the truths in the Word to their own false principles, which means they have contaminated them, they are the angels of the abyss called Abaddons and Apollyons (Revelation 9:11; those names mean people who have destroyed the church by completely falsifying the Word).

They replied, "What? Since we know the mysteries of that faith, we are oracles. We give answers from that faith as if it were a sacred shrine. We are not Apollyons; we are Apollos. "

Irritated at that, I said, "If you are Apollos you are also leviathans. The leaders among you are coiled leviathans, and the followers among you are uncoiled leviathans. God will visit you with his sword, great and strong" (Isaiah 27:1).

They just laughed at that.