"In Judah is God known, His name is great in Israel. In Salem also is His tabernacle, and His dwelling place is Zion. There brake He the arrows of the bow, the shield and the sword and the battle." Psalm 76:1-3

Additional readings: Ezekiel 47:1-9, Luke 6:27-49

Judah and Israel, the two great divisions of the Holy Land, represent the two division of the human mind, the will and the understanding.

The Scripture quoted in our text means that the Lord dwells in the wills and minds of those who love, know, and keep the truths of His Word, and protects them from evil and falsity.

The peoples of the world are living under a great strain. There is need of national self-control and self-sacrifice. The conditions which exist in the world today are the result of internal changes that have been going on ever since the Second Coming of the Lord. A new era in the world’s life began with the new revelation of the Lord through Moses and the Prophets. A new era was introduced by the coming of the Lord in the flesh. Every era that is really new has its beginning in a revelation from the Lord. This is true of the era into which the world has now entered. The essence of this new era was the opening of the inner meaning of the Word. The Writings do not indulge in particular prophesies, but in them the statement is made that the results would be endless and incalculable.

We are living in a spiritual and moral atmosphere altogether different from that which prevailed two centuries ago. Less than twenty years after the Second Coming occurred one of the important and decisive events in modern history, namely the American Revolution, whereby the United States were not only freed from their dependence upon Great Britain, but were enabled to establish on a scale previously impracticable a republican form of government. Hard upon this followed the revolution in France, which affected society to its foundations, and overthrew for France and for many other nations all belief in the Divine right of kings.

With the formation of a republic came the idea of universal education. If people are to govern themselves, education becomes a necessity. Emancipated from priestly surveillance, with all the sources of knowledge thrown upon to all men, their souls freed, their heart kindled with new hopes and aspiration, what wonderful progress has been made in the last two hundred years! The conditions of external human life have been revolutionized. With the use of machinery one man can do the work of fifty, or of a thousand in some fields. All these things have been brought about within so short a period, almost within one man’s lifetime, and follow each other with such rapidity, that we can only hold our breath in amazement and ask, "What next?" Thus, so far as external matters are concerned, the prophecy has been fulfilled.

These changes are so familiar that the recital of them would be superfluous. But the transformation does not stop at this point. It is not limited to matters of natural and worldly import. To all who have eyes to see and ears to hear it is obvious that the spiritual beliefs of men have changed. The eighteenth century forms of belief have not been openly repudiated, and their influence is felt in no small degree, but many of the old beliefs excite disquietude, faith in them has been shaken, and new ideas receive more and more favor.

Dishonesty and fraud still exist. Anger, hatred, envy, lust, hypocrisy are enemies to Christian life that have not been overcome, but there is a growing belief that these things, practiced even in secret, are not compatible with salvation or with happiness. The Church is beginning to cultivate a broader charity, and the thoughts of not a few are eagerly turning to some future time of universal Christian love and brotherhood. Yet this time is still a great way off. With all its progress, the world is still far from peace either external or internal.

Then the question is asked, "What is the world’s greatest need?" It would seem that a little reflection would lead all to agree that the only possible answer is the recognition and acknowledgment of the Lord as the one great and only source of life, who creates all men with faculties capable of receiving all the blessings of peace and happiness.

Yet humanity is suffering, suffering from wounds it has inflicted upon itself. It is obvious that something is the matter. Just what that something is it cannot tell, and it will look in vain for guidance to its own intelligence and devices. Many and various remedies are suggested, but few seem to think of the One Divine Physician who alone can heal the wounds.

The Church is at fault here. There is little clear belief about the Lord or in the divinity of the Word. Without much beliefs there are no fixed standards. It is of no use to say, "I believe in the Lord" and not seek to learn and do His will. The Lord is the source of all life. He is the central fact and foundation of all human activities. He must become more to us than a mere name, for if He is not made central in our lives, He will not rule in them. Without the Lord the world would drift on without any guiding principle or power other than the achievement of its own selfish ends, with hopeless confusion and conflict as the result. This is the state in which much of the world finds itself today.

"In Judah is God known, His name in great in Israel." Israel represents intellectual acknowledgment of God: Judah the acknowledgment of God in the heart, the doing of His will. Israel and Judah can exist together, but separated they fall. There may be an intellectual acceptance of Christian truth while in practical life the Lord is to a large extent ruled out of court; hence there is strife and struggle, sorrow and distress, destruction and war.

"In Judah is God known, His name is great in Israel." The Lord has made Himself known to us through the Scriptures. From Israel and Judah came the prophets, through whom the Scriptures were given, and in the Gospels and the Book of Revelation are given the record of the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.

Toward the close of His life on earth, the Lord said to Philip, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9). The Lord has been a long time with us, yet the question, "Hast thou not known Me?" still applies. He reveals Himself to us in the Scriptures, and is present with us as we see Him there and keep His teachings. But we must get the real meaning of the Scriptures to see God, and we cannot know the truth of the Scriptures until we have lived it.

We are living in turbulent times. A new world is slowly and painfully coming into being. Or is the world rushing to destruction? We should be able to give a confident answer because the strength and vitality of the Word have been revealed by the Lord in His Second Advent.

Diplomacy will not bring peace, neither will the mailed fist, nor will rationalism, atheism, or mysticism, nor the worship of men or saints. In this age these will be weighed in the balance and found wanting. Salvation will be found only through the opened Word of our Lord Jesus Christ.

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself" (Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27). The observance of outer forms alone will not suffice. Our minds and hearts must worship Him as well as our bodies. There must be knowledge of the Lord in the mind and love of the Lord in the heart.

One of the precepts of the Word is "Love your enemies." This is a searching exposure and a fearful condemnation of modern policy. Our religion is not measured by our conduct toward our friends. The acid test is the spirit in which we deal with the enemy. "For if you love them which love you, what thank have ye, for sinners also love those that love them" (Matthew 5:46, Luke 6:32).

"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). We are not asked to be infinitely perfect, but finitely perfect: that our knowledge and love make one, that we apply to life what we know to be true, and so copy in our finite way the perfection that is in the Lord. That is the way of salvation for the individual and for groups of individuals. The world may reply, "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?" (2 Kings 5:12). Cannot the wisdom, the craft, the diplomacy, the power of statesmen and of armies, of economists born, bred, and educated in the problems of the world politics suffice? The Church must surely answer, "They cannot suffice." One thing only has saving power, and that is the knowledge and acknowledgment of the Lord, the truths of the Word made known to the mind and accepted in the heart.

We must not form our principles from our daily papers, or from the books of men. For the folly of selfish interests and worldly wisdom will finally be proved with what suffering and agony we shall not live to know--and in the end the Word of the Lord will be heard. Then, tired of folly and in a humble and contrite spirit, will we come to the sanctity of those laws revealed by the Lord.

9457. 'And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying' means instructions regarding the holy things of heaven which had to be represented. This is clear from the verses that follow, for the things which Jehovah told Moses mean the holy things of heaven that were to be represented. Among the Israelite people a Church was being established in which outward forms would exist displaying in a representative fashion the celestial realities belonging to the good of love, and the spiritual realities belonging to the good and truth of faith, as such realities exist in heaven and ought to do so in the Church. From all this it is clear that 'Jehovah spoke' means instructions regarding the holy things of heaven which had to be represented. Since the matters described in the verses that follow are representative of the celestial and spiritual realities from the Lord in the heavens, something needs to be said about what a representative Church is and why it exists.

[2] There are three heavens - the inmost or third, the middle or second, and the lowest or first. In the inmost heaven the good of love to the Lord reigns, in the middle heaven the good of charity towards the neighbour reigns, and in the lowest the things which are thought, spoken, and come into being in the middle and inmost heavens are represented. The representatives there are countless, such as paradise parks, gardens, forests, fields, plains, as well as cities, palaces, and houses; also flocks and herds, as well as very many kinds of animals and birds; and countless other phenomena. These appear before the eyes of angelic spirits in that heaven more plainly than any such things do on earth in the light at midday; and what is astonishing, those spirits also discern what realities are meant by the things which appear.

[3] Such phenomena also appeared to prophets when their inner sight, which is the sight of the spirit, had been opened, for instance the horses that appeared to Zechariah, 6:1-8; the living creatures which were cherubs, and afterwards the new temple and everything in it that appeared to Ezekiel, Chapters 1, 9, 10, 40-48; the lampstand, thrones, living creatures (which again were cherubs), horses, new Jerusalem, and very many other phenomena, which appeared to John and are described in the Book of Revelation; and similarly the fiery horses and chariots that appeared to Elisha's servant, 2 Kings 6:17. Things such as these are constantly making their appearance in heaven before the eyes of spirits and angels. They are natural forms in which the inward things of heaven terminate and are given shape. The things which present themselves visually before the spirits and angels' actual eyes in this way are representations.

[4] A representative Church exists therefore when the holy, inner realities of love and faith which are derived from the Lord and look towards the Lord present themselves by means of visual forms in the world, such as those which are the subject in this and following chapters - the ark, the mercy-seat, the cherubs, the tables there, the lampstand, and everything else that was part of the tabernacle. For that tabernacle was constructed in such a way that it might represent the three heavens and everything there, the ark which contained the Testimony representing the inmost heaven and the Lord Himself there. This is why, when Moses was shown on the mountain the form it should take, Jehovah said at the same time, To the end that they may make for Him a sanctuary and He may dwell in their midst, verse 8. Everyone endowed with any ability to think on a deeper level can see that Jehovah could not have dwelt in a tent but that He dwells in heaven, and that this tent is called the sanctuary only because it presents an image of heaven, and the celestial and spiritual realities there. Let everyone ask himself, What would it have been for Jehovah, Creator of heaven and earth, to dwell in a small dwelling-place that was made of wood, overlaid with gold, and surrounded by curtains, if heaven and the things of heaven had not been represented there in outward forms?

[5] For the realities which are represented in outward forms do indeed reveal themselves in a similar way in the lowest or first heaven before the spirits there. But those in the higher heavens perceive the inner things that are being represented, which, as has been stated, are the celestial realities belonging to love to the Lord and the spiritual realities belonging to faith in the Lord. It was things of this nature that filled heaven when Moses and the people, moved by outward holiness, venerated that tent as the dwelling-place of Jehovah Himself. From this it is evident what a representative was, and also that by means of it heaven, and so the Lord, was present with mankind.

[6] A representative Church therefore was established among the Israelite people, when the ancient Church came to an end, in order that by means of such representatives heaven, and so the Lord, might be joined to the human race. (If the Lord did not join Himself to people through heaven they would cease to exist; for it is as a result of this joining of Himself to them that people possess the life they have.) Those representatives however were no more than outward means serving to conjoin, yet to which the Lord joined heaven in a wondrous manner, 4311. But when the joining together through those means also was about to perish the Lord came into the world and laid bare the actual realities which were being merely represented up to then, that is, the inner realities which belong to love to and faith in Him. These realities themselves now effect that joining together. But the only means by which such a joining together is effected at the present day is still the Word, since this has been written in such a way that every single part of it has a correspondence and as a consequence represents and serves to mean the Divine realities present in the heavens.