Title: Final Gathering, Attack, and Collapse (Rev. 19-20)
Topic: Second Coming
Summary: Final Gathering, Attack, and Collapse (Rev. 19-20)
Use the reference links below to follow along in the Bible as you watch.
References:
Revelation 19; 20:1-14; 6:9
Hebrews 9:27
Exodus 15:6, 8-10
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Ezekiel 38:8-13, 20-23; 39:1, 4-7, 17-29
034 - Final Gathering, Attack, and Collapse (Rev. 19-20)
By Jonathan S. Rose
Spirit and Life Bible Study broadcast from 3/30/2011. The complete series is available at: www.spiritandlifebiblestudy.com
Revelation 21
1
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
2
And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
4
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
5
And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.
6
And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
7
He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
8
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
9
And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.
10
And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,
11
Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;
12
And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:
13
On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates.
14
And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15
And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof.
16
And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.
17
And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.
18
And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.
19
And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald;
20
The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.
21
And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.
22
And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.
23
And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
24
And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.
25
And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.
26
And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.
27
And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.
The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings # 24
24. 4. People who live lives based on truth and have good intent; and also the nature of truths that come from what is good. Truth that leads to what is good and truth that comes from what is good, and how they differ: 2063. Truth is not true in essence except to the extent that it comes from something good (4736, 10619), because it is from goodness that truth gets its underlying reality (3049, 3180, 4574, 5002, 9144) and its life (3111, 2434, 6077). This is also because truth is the form or outward nature of goodness: 3049, 4574, 5951, 9154. The truth we have relates directly to the goodness we have; the amount and quality of both in us are the same: 2429. For anything true to be true, it must get its essence from our leading a life of caring and innocence: 3111, 6013. The truths that come from leading a good life are spiritual truths: 5951.
[2] Truth that comes from goodness is able to unite itself to goodness so thoroughly that the two become one: 4301, 7835, 10252, 10266. Our understanding and will make one mind and one life when our understanding is subordinate to our will, because our understanding is the part of us that is receptive to truth and our will is the part of us that is receptive to goodness; but this oneness does not occur when what we think and say is at variance with what we intend: 3623. Truth that comes from goodness is truth that lives in our will and in our actions: 4337, 4353, 4385, 4390. When truth comes from goodness, an image of that goodness remains present in that truth: 3180.
[3] Throughout the entire heaven and the entire world and in their every detail, there is some form of a marriage (54, 718, 747, 917, 1432, 2173, 2516, 5194); especially between what is true and what is good (1094, 2173, 2508). This is because everything in the universe, in order to be anything at all, must go back to what is good and what is true; and in order to accomplish anything, must be the result of their being joined together: 2451, 3166, 4390, 4409, 5232, 7256, 10122, 10555. The ancients established [a custom of referring to] truth and goodness as partners in a marriage 1 : 1904. According to the Lord's words, the law of marriage is that two should become one: 10130, 10168, 10169. True marriage love comes down from heaven from the marriage of what is true and what is good and becomes manifest: 2728, 2729.
[4] The more we are focused on goodness and on the truths that result from it, the wiser we are; no matter how much truth we know, however, if we are not focused on leading a good life wisdom will not be ours: 3182, 3190, 4884. When we have the truths that come from leading a good life, we are actually lifted out of this world's light into heaven's light 2 -out of dimness, then, into clarity. On the other hand, as long as we only know about truths but are not practicing any goodness, we remain in this world's light and in dimness: 3190, 3191. We do not even know what goodness is until we are practicing it and learning from it: 3325, 3330, 3336. Truths grow by leaps and bounds when they come from leading a good life: 2846, 2847, 5345. More on this growth: 5355. This growth happens the way trees bear fruit and seeds multiply to make whole gardens: 1873, 2846, 2847. Wisdom grows to the same extent as well, and this goes on forever: 3200, 4220, 4221, 5527, 5859, 6663. Not only that, to the extent that we have gained truths from leading a good life, to that extent we are enlightened, and to that extent we experience enlightenment when we read the Word: 9382, 10548, 10549, 10550, 10691, 10694. Good actions that we do out of love are like fire, and the insights into truth that result are like light from that fire: 3195, 3222, 5400, 8644, 9399, 9548, 9684. In fact, the truths we learn from living a good life actually do shine in heaven: 5219. The truths we learn from leading a good life, which are the basis of wisdom, increase in proportion to the quality and amount of our love for doing good, and conversely falsities that we absorb from leading an evil life are proportional to the quality and amount of our love for doing evil: 4099. When we are given truths through leading a good life, we come into angelic intelligence and wisdom. These lie hidden within us as long as we are living in this world, but they are opened up for us in the other life: 2494. People who have truths from leading a good life become angels after they die: 8747.
[5] Truths that arise from goodness come in something like successive generations: 9079. They are arranged in sequences: 5339, 5343, 5530, 7408, 10303. The arrangement of truths that arise from goodness is like that of the fibers and blood vessels in our bodies and the complex tissues and structures they form to serve the useful functions of life: 3470, 3570, 3579, 9454. Truths that arise from goodness take the form of a kind of city within us, and this is caused by an inflow from heaven: 3584. At the center are the truths that accompany our primary love, while other concepts are distanced from that center to the extent that they fail to harmonize with [the central truths]: 3993, 4551, 4552, 5530, 6028. For evil people, though, falsity is at the center: 4551, 4552. When the truths we have are a result of our leading a good life, they are arranged in heaven's form (4302, 5339, 5343, 5704, 6028, 10303); and this agrees with the pattern in which heavenly communities are arranged (10303). All truths that result from leading a good life are connected to each other by a kind of kinship, like the branches of families descended from the same ancestor: 2863. Everything true also has an aura 3 reaching out from it into heaven according to the nature and extent of the goodness that is its source: 8063. The marriage of what is good and what is true is the church and heaven for us: 2731, 7752, 7753, 9224, 9995, 10122. The pleasure and happiness felt by people whose truths have goodness inside them: 1470.
[6] When our truths are brought together by goodness, they present an image of us: 8370. As individuals, we are nothing more nor less than our goodness and truth, or our evil and falsity: 10298.
[7] To summarize, we come to faith through truths: 4353, 7178, 10367. We come to caring about our neighbor through truths: 4368, 7623, 7624, 8034. We come to love for the Lord through truths: 10143, 10153, 10310, 10578, 10645. We come to conscience through truths: 1077, 2053, 9113. We come to innocence through truths: 3183, 3494, 6013. We come to purification from evils through truths: 2799, 5954, 7044, 7918, 9088, 10229, 10237. We come to regeneration through truths: 1555, 1904, 2046, 2189, 9088, 9959, 10028. We come to intelligence and wisdom through truths: 3182, 3190, 3387, 10064. Truths beautify angels and therefore also beautify us at the deeper levels of our spirit: 553, 3080, 4985, 5199. We gain power against things that are evil and false through truths: 3091, 4015, 10488. Truths are means of bringing [inner things] into the kind of order that is characteristic of heaven: 3316, 3417, 3570, 5339, 5343, 5704, 6028, 10303. We come to the church through truths: 1798, 1799, 3963, 4468, 4672. We come to heaven through truths: 1900, 9832, 9931, 10303. We become human through truths: 3175, 3387, 8370, 10298. All these things come about, though, by means of truths that arise from goodness and not from truths apart from goodness; and goodness comes from the Lord: 2434, 4070, 4736, 5147. All that is good comes from the Lord: 1614, 2016, 2904, 4151, 9981.
სქოლიოები:
1. The Latin here translated “established [a custom of referring to]” is instituerint, whose most concrete meaning would be “set up.” It is used of establishing ritual practices in Secrets of Heaven 8153 and Heaven and Hell 287[3], and of establishing a church in The Lord 61. It here seems to suggest that the early people adopted a practice of conceptually or verbally linking truth and goodness on the model of a union in marriage. [GFD]
2. The nature of heaven's light, as Swedenborg explains it, is that it reveals the underlying nature of the thing or person seen (see Secrets of Heaven 4674[2-3]; Heaven and Hell 131; Marriage Love 269[3]; True Christianity 281[12], 462:11). Swedenborg reports seeing people's inner natures represented in the light of heaven as human beings (Secrets of Heaven 6626; Revelation Unveiled 341[2]); animals ( Revelation Explained [= Swedenborg 1994-1997a] §1005:3); birds ( True Christianity 42, 334:8); monstrous, mythological, or biblical creatures (see Divine Love and Wisdom 254; Marriage Love 521; True Christianity 388, 389:7); or lifeless objects (see Divine Providence 226; True Christianity 31: 4, 110[8], 113[4]). For a striking example of the revealing power of heaven's light, see Revelation Unveiled 926. For further references on heaven's light, see note 2 in Last Judgment 38. For the contrasting term, "this world's light," see note 2 in New Jerusalem 37. [JSR, GFD]
3. The Latin word here translated "aura" is sphaera. It is often used by Swedenborg to indicate a "sphere" of influence or a "field" surrounding an individual or even an inanimate object. For more on spiritual auras and their various effects, see Secrets of Heaven 1048, 1316:2, 1383-1400, 1504-1520, 4464:2-3, 5179, 5725, 7454, 8794, 9109-9110, 10130; Marriage Love 171; Revelation Explained (= Swedenborg 1994-1997a) §865:1. [LSW, SS]
