246. From Secrets of Heaven

The church takes a particular form where the Word exists and the Lord is known by means of it, and therefore where divine truths have been revealed: 3857, 10761. Still, though, this does not mean that people are part of the church by merely being born where the Word exists and the Lord is known; people are part of the church only if they are being regenerated by the Lord by means of truths from the Word-that is, they are living caring lives: 6637, 10143, 10153, 10578, 10645, 10829. People who are of the church-that is, people who have the church within themselves-are drawn to the truth for its own sake; that is, they love what is true because it is true. They also search the Word to find out whether the teachings of the church in which they were born are true: 5432, 6047. Otherwise everyone's religion could be declared true merely because someone else said so or because it was the religion of the person's native soil: 6047.

[5] Every church begins with a focus on caring, but in the course of time strays from it (494, 501, 1327, 3773, 4689), and turns instead toward falsities born of evil and eventually to evils themselves (1834, 1835, 2910, 4683, 4689). A comparison of the rise and fall of a church with the infancy and old age of an individual (10134) and also with sunrise and sunset (1837). A discussion of the successive states of the Christian church all the way its last, including an explanation of the Lord's predictions in the twenty-fourth of Matthew, from beginning end, about the close of the age his Coming: 3353-3356, 3486-3489, 3650-3655, 3751-3757, 3897-3901, 4057-4060, 4229-4231, 4332-4335, 4422-4424, 4635-4638, 4807-4810, 4954-4959, 5063-5071. The Christian church is now at its last days, because it has lost its faith as a result of losing its caring: 3489, 4689. The "Last Judgment" is the last time of a church: 2118, 3353, 4057, 4333, 4535. On the final devastation of the church: 407-411. The "close of the age" and the "Coming of the Lord" is the end of an old church and the beginning of a new one: 2243, 4535, 10622. Profound truths are revealed as an old church is undergoing its final devastation, for the service of the new church that is then being raised up: 3398, 3786. On the raising up of a church among non-Christians: 1366, 2986, 4747, 9256.