Apocalypse 22:1-7

Guarding Spiritual Freedom

A Sermon by Rev. Kurt H. Asplundh

"Along the bank of the river, on this side and that, will grow all trees
used for food; their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fall. They
will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the
sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for medicine"
(Ezek. 47:12).

The final chapters of the prophecy of Ezekiel recount a great vision of a
new city and a new temple in Israel. Our text, taken from this vision,
describes a river of healing waters coming from the sanctuary. Along
the banks, on both sides, grow wonderful trees that bear fruit every
month and whose leaves never wither. "Their fruit will be for food and
their leaves for medicine."

There is an unmistakable similarity here to John's vision of the Holy City
in the final chapter of Revelation. Both tell of a river of life-giving water
flowing from the throne of God; both tell of trees with fruit and leaves,
fruit for food and leaves for medicine, the "healing of the nations." The
visions of the great city and temple with its river and trees of life should
be an inspiration to us all. These are visions of the New Church. Both
picture the vitality and importance of the New Church. Through it there
is to be a healing of all the nations.

When we look at the world in which we live we see a desperate need for
healing. Many evils are plainly evident. False ideas abound. We can
look inward too. There is a world that lives in us as well as a world
around us. We would have to admit that there are evils and falsities in
this personal world of ours. Our responsibility to heal ourselves is
immediate, and our influence in this private world is greater than
elsewhere. Here again the New Church is vital for a healing.
But what is it that the New Church has to offer the world which is so
vitally important? What does the New Church provide for each one of us
that is unique and powerful?

One answer may be found in the symbolic meaning of the text,
especially what is said of the leaves of the trees that they will be for
"medicine." The same is true of the Tree of Life which John described.
Its leaves are for the healing of the nations. What is meant by these
leaves? What do they have to do with the New Church or with us?
These are questions we will answer presently, but first a word about the
Last Judgment, what many people call the Judgment Day, which
preceded the establishment of the New Church.

One of the unique teachings of the New Church in the Christian world is
that the great judgment promised in the Scriptures has already taken
place. It was not the end of the world as some believe. It was a
judgment and a reckoning in the spiritual world. The prophecies of the
overthrow of kingdoms, the darkening of the sun, the falling of the stars
of heaven were fulfilled in the spiritual realm where all people are
together after death. These pictures of the Last Judgment were
symbolic of a reordering of the heavens and the hells by the Lord. The
Last Judgment was an exposing of the real nature of hidden evil loves
and false teachings by which people had been held captive for
centuries. When the Lord revealed these, finally, people could be free
from them.

One way we can imagine the nature of this great change is to think of
the effect of a new discovery or a scientific breakthrough in the scientific
community. Traditional thinking is shaken, overturned, perhaps
completely rejected. Everything has to adjust to the new evidence.
Schools of thought that have held sway become discredited. Beliefs and
practices have to change.

The Last Judgment was this kind of change with regard to religious
truths and deep-rooted religious beliefs. It was not, as most had
assumed, a reordering of the political and ecclesiastical structures of
this world. So we are taught, "the state of the world hereafter will be
altogether similar to what it has been heretofore, for the great change
which has taken place in the spiritual world does not induce any change
in the natural world as to the external form ... " (LJ 73). In other words,
the world will continue after this judgment much as it has before. There
will be divided countries, war and peace, various religious sects
teaching different interpretations of doctrine and practicing distinct rites.
Since this judgment took place in the middle of the 18th century, we
have more than 200 years of history showing that life in the natural
world has continued unchanged.

The great change is an internal one. The Last Judgment has effected a
new state of spiritual freedom. We are told that the people of the church
will be "in a more free state of thinking" on matters of faith and about
spiritual things.

What is the significance of this? This is far-reaching. To have spiritual
freedom is the greatest and most precious of life's treasures. We can
compare it only to having natural freedom a much less important gift.
Yet we prize our natural freedom. We fight for freedom and may be
willing to die for it. The ability to choose what we shall do, where we
shall live, and how we shall live is important to us. How much more
should we prize the inner freedom that allows us to know what is true
and right and to love what is good and useful. It was such a gift that
Solomon, the king, chose when the Lord said: "Ask! What shall I give
you?" And he said, " ... give to Your servant an understanding heart ...
that I may discern between good and evil ... " (I Kings 3:5-9).

Spiritual freedom involves being free from false ideas, seductive
theories and perverted thinking. Spiritual freedom involves the ability to
discern evil affections, destructive loves and selfish motives. To discern
and identify these allows us the freedom to decide whether or not we
will be swept up by them and carried away by them to certain
unhappiness and slavery.

Spiritual freedom was what the Lord meant when He said to those Jews
who believed Him, "If you abide in My word ... you shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31, 32). He added: "Whoever
commits sin is a slave of sin" (Ibid. 34).

The Last Judgment has released the world from the grip of false
doctrine; it has given each of us the opportunity to know the truth and to
throw off the bonds of spiritual slavery.

This is where the New Church comes in. After the Last Judgment the
Lord established a New Church in which the spiritual sense of the Word
has been disclosed and interior Divine truths revealed. This church is
pictured as the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of
heaven. That city signifies the doctrine of truth, foursquare, solid, and
beautiful. Within its walls, straddling the river of water from God, is the
tree of life, bearing its fruit every month and having luxuriant leaves said
to be "for the healing of the nations." Let us focus on those leaves.
We are told that the leaves of the tree signify "rational truths." In the
Word, a man is often compared to a tree, its fruit meaning his goods of
life, its leaves his rational thoughts. So in the first Psalm the man who
loves the law of the Lord is said to be like a tree by the water which
brings forth fruit and whose leaf does not wither (see AC 885).
The leaves of the trees in our text were said to be for "medicine," as the
leaves of the Tree of life were to be for a healing. "Here [the word] `tree'
denotes the man of the church in whom is the kingdom of the Lord, its
`fruit' the good of love and of charity, its `leaf' the truths there from,
which serve for the instruction of the human race and for their
regeneration, for which reason the leaf is said to be for `medicine.'
Further concerning this, we are taught that the leaves for the healing of
the nations signify "rational truths ... by which they who are in evils and
thence in falsities are led to think soundly and to live becomingly" (AR
932:2).

Here, then, is a vital function of the New Church both for us as
individuals and for the world in which we live. We have a mission to
preserve and extend the state of spiritual freedom which was brought
about through the Last Judgment and assured by the establishment of
the New Church. The doctrine of the church delivers the spiritual
rational truths which can bring about a healing. These truths are the
necessary basis of that healing process. Without them, the hells will
prevail, for we will not even know that we are in spiritual slavery. Listen
to this teaching: "One reason why man does not ... desire to come out of
spiritual servitude into spiritual liberty is that he does not know what
spiritual slavery is and what spiritual freedom is; he does not possess
the truths that teach this; and without truths, spiritual slavery is believed
to be freedom, and spiritual freedom to be slavery" (DP 149).
It is vitally important then that truths should be known and believed; "for
man is enlightened by truths," we are told, "but is made blind by
falsities" (AC 2588:8). "Truths make evils manifest ... but from evil none
can see what is good and true ... " (HH 487).

Every New Church person should follow the example of Solomon and
ask of the Lord a wise and understanding heart. It will be the unique
capacity of those who love and study the Heavenly Doctrine of the New
Church to discern the quality of their states and the quality of the civil,
moral and natural states of the world around them. This is the special
intelligence and the special use of the church. How can spiritual
freedom be preserved and extended without some ability to see through
appearances, to make critical analysis and practical judgment? This is
not from us or according to our degree of knowledge. As Joseph said
when they called him to interpret the dreams of Pharaoh, "Do not
interpretations belong to God? It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh an
answer of peace" (Gen. 40:8; 41:16). The "truly human mind," we are
told, "acknowledges that God alone thinks from Himself, and that man
thinks from God" (DP 321).

That we should think from God and not from ourselves is the key to
understanding the nature of the truly rational thought that will
characterize the New Church. Only such thought can be a medicine for
the healing of the nations. The doctrine describes true wisdom. "All have
the capacity to understand and to be wise," we are told, "but ... they who
ascribe all to the Lord are wiser than the rest, because all things of truth
and good, which constitute wisdom, flow in from heaven, that is, from
the Lord there ... " (AC 10227).

What makes a person truly rational, truly wise? Again, the doctrine is
clear: while many in the world suppose that a rational person is one who
can reason acutely about many things, and so join reasonings together
that conclusions may appear like truth, "this is found in the very worst of
people," we are told, " ... [people] ... who are able to reason skillfully and
persuade that evils are goods and that falsities are truths, and the
reverse" (AC 6240:2). The Heavenly Doctrine rejects this as the mark of
rational wisdom. They state instead that "the rational consists in
inwardly seeing and perceiving that good is good, and from this that
truth is truth ... " (Ibid.).

Again, we are taught that
"by the capacity to be wise is not meant the capacity to reason about
truths and goods from memory knowledges, nor the capacity to confirm
whatever one pleases, but the capacity to discern what is true and
good, to choose what is suitable, and to apply it to the uses of life. They
who ascribe all things to the Lord do thus discern, choose, and apply ...
" (AC 10227).

The fact that we must ascribe all things to the Lord is shown and
signified in the visions of the New Church we have referred to before.
Both in the prophecy of Ezekiel and in the book of Revelation we read of
the trees being nourished by the river of living water flowing out from
God's sanctuary or throne. It is the man who trusts in the Lord that is
like a tree with roots by the river, whose leaf will be green even in the
heat, whose boughs will bear fruit even in drought (see Jeremiah
17:7,8).

In the world today there is little recognition of the importance of spiritual
truth. Few realize that wisdom in life is from a spiritual origin, not a
natural one. Few realize how vulnerable rational thought about civil,
moral and natural matters is to worldly opinions and emotional impulses.
Reflect on the current issues and controversies that fill the pages of our
papers and news magazines and that find a ready audience on our TV
screens. What kind of reasoning do we find? Are justice and morality
prevalent? And what about our own lives? Where do we turn to find
direction and to make right decisions that affect our marriages, our jobs,
our children?

Someone once said that the Writings of the church do not teach us
about education. We may smile at that. Do they speak of any of our
natural concerns? Do they tell us how to conduct a business? Do they
provide legal guidance? Do they instruct us about mental depression?
Yes, the Writings speak to all of these areas of life though not
necessarily directly. What they provide is a spiritual perspective on
every aspect of natural life. With this perspective the New Church
person is able to reflect on natural life with rational wisdom, to see what
is good and useful, to identify what is false and worthless. Without such
a perspective, a person is awash in a sea of natural emotion and
opinion, adrift from the basic principles that grant true freedom. This is
taught directly in the Heavenly Doctrine. There we are told that "man
would have no freedom of choice in civil, moral, and natural things if he
had none in spiritual things .... From that spiritual freedom man has a
perception of what is good and true, and of what is just and right in civil
matters ... " (TCR 482).

It is said further,
"when light from heaven flows into these things, the man begins to see
them spiritually, and first to discriminate between the useful and the
non-useful. From this he begins to have an insight as to what is true ...
From this then man has perception ... Wherefore the knowledges of
spiritual things must be with man in his natural in order that there may
be spiritual perception; and knowledges of spiritual things must be from
revelation" (AC 9103).

What could be more important to our life in this world than the
knowledge of spiritual principles of faith? These are not simply
theological abstractions. They are the insights that give us true
rationality. We live so much of our life indiscriminately, without reflection
or rational thought. Or else we respond to it with customary reactions
based on previous training or prejudice. In either case, we are not free.
We are either spontaneously moved by a natural affection of
questionable origin or bound by a rigid traditional response. We have
not made a choice, much less a truly rational choice.

The New Church has been established by the Lord that we might be
free! free of the urging of natural affections; free of the false attitudes
and theories that permeate the thinking of this world. What greater use
could we perform in the world and for ourselves than to guard and use
our opportunities for spiritual freedom? This is a clear and urgent need.
It can be fulfilled only by the wisdom that the Lord has given for the New
Church. For He has showed us a
"pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of
God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of
the river was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, yielding its fruit
every month. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the
nations" (Rev. 22:2).

Amen.
Lessons: Ezekiel 47:1-12; Rev. 22:1-7; AC 10227:2, 3