Joel Chapter 1, the Internal Sense.

(From Swedenborg's work, "The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms")

(Verse 1) The Word has been perverted by false worship,

(2) when instead the Word should have been obeyed by everyone in the Church,

(3) and communicated to everyone who holds false beliefs that arise from evil loves.

(4) Instead, the spiritual things of the Church have been destroyed by sensualism.

(5) Now, remorse should be awakened, because of this loss of faith,

(6) a faith which has been destroyed by the lust of worshipping false gods,

(7) depriving the Church of spiritual truth and good.

(8) The Church should return to the Lord

(9) with inward mourning and contrition

(10) over the loss of good and truth in the natural and spiritual man -

(11) especially people who seek the good of the Church and who desire its genuine doctrine: for the Church is about to perish.

(12) Spiritual truth, its good, its knowledge, and its delights, which constitute the Church, are perverted.

(13) Only by repentance can communion with the Lord be renewed.

(14) The Church can only remove the evil and falsity by acknowledging and worshipping the Lord,

(15) for the end of the Church is near, when it will be judged.

(16) Good works are not being done, nor are there any people who delight in spiritual things.

(17) Natural good has been subordinated to evil, and the truth and good of the Word are rejected.

(18) Wherefore there is no good in the Church,

(19) and our hearts must be turned again to the Lord: for the love of self has corrupted all things in the church.

(20) Although truth is desired, it has been misappropriated to ourselves.

701. 16:13 And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. This symbolizes something perceived from a theology founded on the doctrine of a trinity of persons in the Godhead and on the doctrine of justification by faith alone apart from works of the law.

A mouth symbolizes doctrine, and preaching and discourse from it (nos. 454, 574). The dragon symbolizes an acknowledgment of three gods and of justification by faith alone, and so a destruction of the church (no. 537). The beast from the sea, which is the beast meant here, symbolizes people of the external church who are caught up in that acknowledgment and faith (nos. 567, 576, 577, 601). The false prophet symbolizes people of the internal church, who teach a theology founded on those doctrines. The false prophet has not been mentioned by that name before, but it is the beast from the earth that is called that now (see no. 594 above).

Now because all of this is symbolically meant by the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet (who is the beast from the earth here), it follows that John's seeing something coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, symbolizes something perceived from a theology founded on the doctrine of a trinity of persons in the Godhead and on the doctrine of justification by faith alone apart from works of the law.