True Christianity # 754
754. There are various factors that cause the demise of a church. A primary factor is things that make what is false appear to be true. When what is false is taken to be true, then goodness that is truly and intrinsically good - which is called spiritual goodness - no longer exists. In that state, what we believe to be good is merely the earthly goodness that results from a moral life. The factors that cause the loss of truth, and therefore of goodness as well, are the two earthly kinds of love that are completely opposite to the two spiritual kinds of love. These two earthly kinds of love are known as love for ourselves and love of the world. When love for ourselves is dominant, it becomes the opposite of loving God. When love of the world is dominant, it becomes the opposite of loving our neighbor. Loving ourselves is wanting what is best for ourselves alone and not for anyone else unless we ourselves will benefit. Loving the world is similarly self-centered. When these types of love are deeply embedded in us they spread, like gangrene does through the body, and progressively destroy everything within us.
The biblical descriptions of Babylon make it very clear that a love like this has invaded the churches (Genesis 11:1-9; Isaiah 13; 14; 47; Jeremiah 50; Daniel 2:31-47; 3:1-7; ; ; ; and Revelation 17 and 18 from beginning to end). Babylon eventually developed such an exalted idea of itself that it not only transferred all the Lord's divine power to itself but also put tremendous effort into steering all the wealth in the world toward itself.
[2] There is also fairly substantial evidence that many of the leaders of the churches that separated from Babylon would themselves have developed loves that were similar if their power had not been restrained and curtailed. Where else does this path lead but to viewing oneself as God and the world as heaven? And yet taking this view corrupts every true teaching of the church. People who are exclusively earthly are incapable of recognizing or acknowledging truth that is actually and genuinely true; such people are incapable of being given such truth by God, because it rapidly turns into its opposite inside them and becomes false.
Besides these two kinds of love there are many other factors that bring truth and goodness to an end and cause the demise of the church, but they are only secondary and subordinate to the loves just mentioned.
Genesis 11:1-9
1
The whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
2
It happened, as they traveled east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they lived there.
3
They said one to another, "Come, let's make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." They had brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.
4
They said, "Come, let's build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let's make ourselves a name, lest we be scattered abroad on the surface of the whole earth."
5
Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.
6
Yahweh said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing will be withheld from them, which they intend to do.
7
Come, let's go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."
8
So Yahweh scattered them abroad from there on the surface of all the earth. They stopped building the city.
9
Therefore its name was called Babel, because there Yahweh confused the language of all the earth. From there, Yahweh scattered them abroad on the surface of all the earth.
