103. We can tell from the books of Moses that there was a Word among the ancients because he mentioned it and excerpted from it (Numbers 21:14-15, 27-30). We can tell that the narrative portions of that Word were called “The Wars of Jehovah, ” and that the prophetic portions were called “Pronouncements.” Moses quoted the following from the historical narratives of that Word:

Therefore it says in The Book of the Wars of Jehovah, “Waheb in Suphah and the rivers Arnon, a watercourse of rivers that goes down to [where] Ar is inhabited and rests along the border of Moab.” (Numbers 21:14-15)

In that Word as in ours, the wars of Jehovah were understood to be, and served to describe in detail, the Lord’s battles against hell and his victories over it when he would come into the world. These same battles are meant and described time after time in the historical narratives of our Word - in Joshua’s battles against the nations of the land of Canaan, for example, and in the wars of the judges and the kings of Israel.

[2] Moses quoted the following from the prophetic portions of that Word:

Therefore those who make pronouncements say, “Come to Heshbon! The city of Sihon will be built up and fortified, because fire has gone out from Heshbon, flame from the city of Sihon. It has devoured Ar of Moab, those who occupy the heights of Arnon. Woe to you, Moab! You have perished, people of Chemosh; he has made his sons fugitives and sent his daughters into captivity to Sihon, king of the Amorites. With arrows we have dealt with them; Heshbon has perished as far as Dibon, and we have spread destruction as far as Nophah, which extends to Medeba.” (Numbers 21:27-30)

Translators change [the title of] this to “Composers of Proverbs, ” but it should be called “Makers of Pronouncements” or “Prophetic Pronouncements, ” as we can tell from the meaning of the word moschalim in Hebrew. It means not only proverbs but also prophetic utterances, as in Numbers 23:7, 18; 24:3, 15 where it says that Balaam gave forth his pronouncement, which was actually a prophetic utterance and was about the Lord. In these instances each of his pronouncements is called a mashal in the singular. There is also the fact that what Moses quoted from this source are not proverbs but prophecies.

[3] We can see that this Word was similarly divine or divinely inspired from a passage in Jeremiah where we find almost the same words:

A fire has gone out from Heshbon and a flame from the midst of Sihon, which has devoured the corner of Moab and the top of the children of tumult. Woe to you, Moab! The people of Chemosh have perished, for your sons have been carried off into captivity and your daughters into captivity. (Jeremiah 48:45-46)

Further, both David and Joshua mention another prophetic book of the former Word, The Book of Jasher or The Book of the Righteous One. Here is where David mentions it:

David lamented over Saul and over Jonathan and wrote, “‘To Teach the Children of Judah the Bow.’ (You will find this written in The Book of Jasher.)” (2 Samuel 1:17-18)

Here is where Joshua mentions it:

Joshua said, “‘Come to rest, O sun, in Gibeon; and, O moon, in the valley of Aijalon.’ Is this not written in The Book of Jasher?” (Joshua 10:12-13)

Then too, I have been told that the first seven chapters of Genesis are right there in that ancient Word, so that not the slightest word is missing.

254. 1. Strict materialists justify their rejection of divine providence when they look at the religious practices of various peoples. There are some with no knowledge of God at all, some who worship the sun and the moon, some who worship images and statues. People who use this as a source of arguments against divine providence do not know the secrets of heaven, the innumerable secrets of heaven of which we know scarcely one. One of them is that we are not taught directly from heaven but indirectly (see 154-174 above). Since we are taught indirectly, and since the Gospel could not be brought to everyone in the whole world by missionaries, while some religion could be carried by various means even to people in the remote corners of the world, this has therefore been accomplished by divine providence. That is, people do not simply originate a religion by themselves, they learn from others (who learned it from the Word either directly or by transmission through others) that there is a God, that there is a heaven and a hell and a life after death, and that we must worship God in order to be blessed.

[2] On the way religion has been transplanted throughout the world from the ancient Word and then from the Israelite Word, see Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 101-103; and on the fact that if it were not for the Word no one would know about God, heaven and hell, or life after death, let alone about the Lord, see Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 114-118 of that work.

Once a religion has taken root, the Lord leads its people by the laws and principles of that religion. Further, the Lord makes sure that in every religion there are laws like those of the Ten Commandments, stating that we are to worship God, not to profane his name, to observe holy days, to honor our parents, not to murder, not to commit adultery, not to steal, and not to commit perjury. Any people that regards these laws as divine and lives by them because of its religion is saved, as stated in 253 above. Most of the peoples remote from Christianity regard these not as civil laws but as divine laws and keep them sacred. In Teachings about Life for the New Jerusalem Drawn from the Ten Commandments, from beginning to end, it shows that we are saved by living according to these laws.

[3] Another of heaven's secrets is that in the Lord's sight the angelic heaven looks like a single person whose soul and life is the Lord, and that the form of this divine person is human in every respect, not only as to its outer members and organs but also as to its inner members and organs, which are abundant, and even as to its skin, membranes, cartilage, and bones. In this person, though, all these components are not material but spiritual; and the Lord has arranged that even people whom the Gospel has not reached, people who simply have some religion, can have a place in that divine person who is heaven. They can make up the parts we call skin, membranes, cartilage, and bones, and they are as full of heavenly joy as anyone else. It makes no difference whether their joy is like that of angels in the highest heaven or like that of angels in the lowest heaven, since all the people who get to heaven attain the highest joy of their hearts. They could not bear anything higher or they would suffocate.

[4] It is like a farmer and a king. A farmer can have his highest joy when he is dressed in new clothes of plain wool and sits down at a table where there is some pork, a joint of beef, some cheese, and some beer and mulled wine. He would be profoundly uncomfortable if he were dressed up like a king in purple, silk, gold, and silver and confronted with a table where there was a feast of all kinds of rich delicacies and fine wine. We can see, then, that there is heavenly happiness for the last as well as for the first, all on their own level. So there is happiness for people outside Christendom, if they simply abstain from evils as sins against God because evils are against their religion.

[5] There are a few people who know nothing whatever about God. You may see in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 116 that if they have lived moral lives, after death they are taught by angels and accept something spiritual in their moral life. Much the same is true of people who worship the sun and the moon and believe that God is there. That is all they know, so it is not charged to them as a sin. After all, the Lord says "If you were blind," that is, if you did not know, "then you would have no sin" (John 9:41).

There are many people, though, who worship images and statues, even in the Christian world. This really is idolatry, but not for all of them. For some, the statues serve to awaken thoughts of God. It is from an inflow from heaven that people who believe in God want to see God; and since some of them cannot raise their minds above the sensory level the way deeper, spiritual people can, they awaken their thought with a statue or image. If people who do this are not worshiping the statue as God, and if they live by the laws of the Ten Commandments for religious reasons, they are saved.

[6] We can see from this that because the Lord wants to save everyone, he makes sure that all of us can have our places in heaven if we live well.

Heaven is like a single person in the Lord's sight, and therefore heaven corresponds to the human overall and in every detail, with people there who are equivalent to our skin, membranes, cartilages, and bones: see Heaven and Hell 59-102 (published in London in 1758) and Secrets of Heaven 5552-5564 [Secrets of Heaven 5552-5569], as well as 201-204 above.