In chapter 4 of the Book of Amos, verses 1-3 are talking about people who pervert the truths of the church. They will fall into falsities in outermost things.

In the Bible, fish represent "lower" things than mammals, so we can interpret the fishhooks in verse 2 as meaning being caught and held fast in natural or lower things.

Verses 4-6 are about acts of worship such as tithes and sacrifices. These look similar to genuine worship, but are only external sorts of things. We can tell because ‘teeth’ (in verse 6) represent ultimates or outermost things (see Secrets of Heaven 6380). It follows that “cleanness of teeth” would mean outermost things that look good but only imitate genuine worship. The Lord exhorts, “Yet you have not returned to me.”

Verses 7-8. Some things true will remain, when where there are too many false ideas, the truths don't get through. This can be seen where the Lord says, “I made it rain on one city; I withheld rain from another city... where it did not rain the part withered.” Again the Lord exhorts, “Yet you have not returned to me.”

Verse 9. Afterward all things of the church are falsified, shown by blight attacking the gardens, vineyards, fig tree and olive trees. The last three represent spiritual, natural and celestial things, or all the things of spiritual life. “Yet you have not returned to me,” says the Lord.

Verses 10-11. The Lord explains the devastating things he allowed to happen: plague in Egypt, death of young men by swords, stench in the camps, Sodom and Gomorrah. This is because they are profaned by sensual knowledges. Profanation means the mixing of good and evil together. (See Secrets of Heaven 1001[2]).

This extends to all things of the church, with the church being the Lord’s kingdom on earth (Secrets of Heaven 768[3]).

With profanation “as soon as any idea of what is holy arises, the idea of what is profane joins immediately to it,” (Secrets of Heaven 301).

Now there is hardly anything left. “Yet you have not returned to Me,” says the Lord again.

Verses 12-13: Because people adamantly remain in their profane ways, they are warned, “Prepare to meet your God!”. This is the God powerful and mighty, “who forms mountains, and creates the wind,” and even more close to home, “Who declares to man what his thought is.” As intimately a knowing as that is, the Lord’s love for all humanity is contained in His exhortations for them to turn themselves to Him.

See, for example, Luke 6:44-45, and True Christian Religion 373.

1947. 'Because Jehovah has hearkened to your affliction' means since it was submitting itself. This is clear from what has been stated above in 1937 about 'humiliating oneself and flinging oneself down' as meaning submitting oneself beneath the controlling power of the internal man, which submission was discussed there and was shown to consist in self-compulsion. It was also shown that in self-compulsion there is freedom, that is, what is willing and spontaneous, and that this distinguishes self-compulsion from being compelled. It was also shown that without this freedom, or willingness and spontaneity, a person cannot possibly be reformed and receive any heavenly proprium; also that though the contrary seems to be the case, there is more freedom in times of temptation than there is outside of them. Indeed at such times freedom increases as assaults are made by evils and falsities and it is consolidated by the Lord in order that a heavenly proprium may be given to the person. For that reason also the Lord is closer in times of temptation. It was shown as well that the Lord in no way compels anybody. No one who is compelled to think that which is true and to do that which is good is reformed, but instead thinks all the more what is false and wills all the more what is evil. This is so with all compulsion, as may also become clear from all the experience and lessons of life, which when learned prove two things - first, that human consciences will not allow themselves to be coerced, and second, that we strive after the forbidden.

[2] Furthermore everyone who is not free desires to become so, for this is his life. From this it is evident that nothing is in any way pleasing to the Lord that is not done in freedom, that is, spontaneously or willingly. For when anyone worships the Lord under circumstances in which he is not free he worships Him with nothing of himself. In his case that which moves the external is the external, that is, it is moved under compulsion - the internal being non-existent, or else incompatible, and even contradictory. When a person is being regenerated he compels himself from the freedom the Lord imparts to him, and humbles, and indeed afflicts, his rational, so that it may submit itself, and in consequence he receives a heavenly proprium. This proprium is then gradually perfected by the Lord and it becomes more and more free, so that as a result it becomes the affection for good and for truth deriving from that good, and possesses delight. And in that affection and delight there is happiness such as the angels experience. This freedom is what the Lord Himself is referring to in John.

The truth makes you free. If the Son makes you free, you are truly free. John 8:32, 36. ¹

[3] What this freedom is, is totally unknown to those who do not have conscience, for they identify freedom with feelings of being at liberty and without restraint to think and utter what is false, and to will and do what is evil, and not to control and humble, still less to afflict, those feelings. Yet this is the complete reverse of freedom, as the Lord again teaches in the same place,

Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. John 8:34.

People acquire this slave-like freedom from the hellish spirits who reside with them and who inject it into them. When the life of those hellish spirits takes possession of them so do the loves and desires of those same spirits; for an unclean and utterly disgusting delight blows upon them, and being carried away so to speak in a stream they imagine themselves to be in freedom; but it is hellish freedom. The difference between this hellish freedom and heavenly freedom is that the former spells death and drags them down into hell, while the latter, that is, heavenly freedom, promises life and lifts them up to heaven.

[4] That all true internal worship springs from freedom, not from compulsion, and that unless it springs from freedom it is not internal worship, is clear from the Word, from the sacrifices - free-will, votive, and peace or eucharistic - which were called offerings and oblations, mentioned in Numbers 15:3 and following verses; Deuteronomy 12:6; 16:10-11; 23:23; and elsewhere. In David,

With a free-will offering I will sacrifice to You; I will confess Your name, O Jehovah, for it is good. Psalms 54:6.

From the thruma, ² or the collection which the people were to contribute towards the Tabernacle and sacred vestments, referred to in Moses,

Speak to the children of Israel and let them receive for Me a collection; from every man whose heart makes him willing you shall receive My collection. Exodus 25:2.

And elsewhere in Moses,

Everyone who is willing in heart shall bring it, Jehovah's collection. Exodus 35:5.

[5] The humbling of the rational man, or affliction of it - as stated, from freedom - was also represented by the affliction souls underwent during festivals, referred to in Moses,

It shall be a statute to you for ever: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls. Leviticus 16:29.

And elsewhere in Moses,

On the tenth day of the seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and you shall afflict your souls. Every soul who does not afflict himself on that very day shall be cut off from his peoples. Leviticus 23:27, 29.

It is for this reason that unleavened bread in which no fermentation has taken place is called the bread of affliction in Deuteronomy 16:2-3. Affliction is referred to in David in the following way,

O Jehovah, who will sojourn in Your tent? Who will dwell on Your holy mountain? He who walks blameless and performs righteousness, who swears to the affliction of himself and changes not. Psalms 15:1-2, 4.

[6] That 'affliction' is the taming and subduing of evils and falsities rising up from the external man into the rational man may become clear from what has been stated. Thus it is not any reduction of oneself to poverty and misery - not a renunciation of bodily enjoyments - that is meant by affliction. No taming and subduing of evil can result from doing that; indeed it may give rise to an additional evil, namely the desire to receive merit for such a renunciation; and what is more, man's freedom suffers, in which alone, as its ground, the good and truth of faith is able to be sown. Affliction also means temptation; see what has been said already in 1846.

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