Angels, Angels Everywhere
The Presence of Angels With Us Today.
By Rev. Paul Booth
The Presence of Angels With Us Today.
By Rev. Paul Booth
Throughout all the ages, angels have been revealed to different people at different times and places. They have spoken to and were spoken to by people on earth. This is something believed by many, many today and so, I believe it may not be new to you here today. Today, can any of one of us see angels, or is it only a select few? If so, how and why? We can read of accounts recorded in the Bible that in the past angels appeared to different people, some in dreams, others it seems as if in wakefulness. How did they see them?
Let me ask. What do you think or believe are angels? Are they human like us? Or, are they created as special beings that serve mankind as helpers of God? First, let us put aside the question whether or not they are human or are a special creation; that question will be answered later during the course of this lecture. If you agree that angels somehow serve mankind, that they are obedient to the Lord, then how do they help us? Is it by some miracle or through good advice? Do they come to only to particular people? If so, why? Evidence today seems to indicate this if you read the many accounts written by different people. All these questions and many more that you may have wondered about has caused so much interest today that you could call it a phenomenon.
In the original Hebrew language, angel, I am told, means 'sent'. We can understand why they are often referred to as 'messengers' from Heaven. What are these messengers, and why does it seem they are sent to only certain people? Are they to help the person over a difficult period in their life? Even more important, why are they sent at all? There are many more questions then these. Are there any real or true answers? There are many books written about angels, that I believed have attempted to, at least, answer some of these question raised. What do you believe about angels?
Would you believe the angels are far more important to mankind then what they have been depicted or seem to appear to us today? Let me explain. Without angels we would have no communication with the Lord God and our existence would be dammed. In a sense, we live because of angels. Our life is sustained because of the angels' presence with us, and without them a person would never be able to come into Heaven; they would end up in hell. So, you can understand why they are far more important than what may be suggested by reading about the experiences of others, wonderful as they might be. How does angels communicate to us? First, they are more then messengers; they, as it were, carry Life to us. Life which is the Lord's, not theirs or ours. Angles are vessels formed 'as it were' to hold life and are to share that life with others and with us by consociation or association with mankind. To understand how angels carry life to us we must learn what is meant by life. Is God Life; is God Love, and is God Wisdom Itself! You can see, one must have or act from some religious life, that is, in some faith in order to understand what is life and what are angels. The Life of God is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom Proceeding, creating, sustaining, redeeming, and regenerating -saving -man so that he may receive His love and live in eternal delight and joy. His Life - His Love and Truth, for that is the Lord's Life - flows from Him down to all creation and especially into mankind; the Lord, as it was, breaths life into man the breathe of His Life through His Word. This may seem rather difficult to comprehend. Yet, in the Lord, as the Word, as Truth and Good is His Essence and Esse. However, today, the Lord's Love, through means of revealed truth, when it is not only learned, but also followed and causes us to act, because it is the Truth is the Word coming from the Good, that is, coming from the Lord. Without Divine Truth we are but empty vessels and soon become filled with falsities. In the beginning of creation, the Lord Himself was present with and within all of mankind. Then were men together with the Lord Himself. If you accept the teaching of the Old Testament, then you may remember reading that Adam and Eve spoke with the Lord. Then something happened to change this - sin entered them and mankind was said to die. Life from the Lord God was cut off, as a result, evil began to reign and spiritual death entered, not spiritual life. Angels then became the only means of communication and thus, conjunction with the Lord was still possible. From this, we can see that angels are the means of conjunction with the Lord by which mankind has life and lives, but that life is not the same as when life was communicated by the Lord immediately to mankind. If that is so, you might think, then why does it seem that angels reveal themselves to only certain people and not to everyone, since the Lord is said to love everyone equally.
Let us now examine more closely the premise that through the association of angels with man we have life and will one day come into Heaven; that is, if we have accepted the Lord's Truth and are obedient to it. There is a continuous communication from the Lord through the Heavens and, so by this, there is possible conjunction with the Lord - His Love for us flows as good and truth into all creations by means of angels, bringing life into the natural degree so that we have existence. The Lord's life proceeds through all the degrees and in all the states within the ultimate or the natural. The Life of the Lord is Divine. He is Life. Closest to the Lord is the celestial degree of life, next is the spiritual degree, then the natural, these are call internal degrees and these degrees were more and more closed through mankind's turning from the Lord, rejecting His Life. These degrees are still within us and when we begin to live from them again we are 'as it were' in Heaven while here on earth, provided that we accept His truth and His good; otherwise, we live in hell in our spirit, not Heaven. The last degree is the natural degree where we presently live while here on earth. The life we live and experience here is known by the natural senses, and therefore, instead of degrees and states there is time and appearances of place, but it is still the Lord's and we can still be the recipients of the Lord's love though in natural appearances. Now, how does a person receive the Lord's life? Life appears to be our own. We appear to see or know through natural appearances. We must begin to believe that the Lord did not somehow just give us life when we were conceived and born from our parents and that is all there is to it. Most people accept that a person has within them a spirit or that they will becomes a spirit and continue living after their natural death, and that they will, then, live in the spiritual world hopefully in Heaven if they believe the Lord or in hell if they lived evilly. There are some that believe they will receive new bodies and live here on earth again. Otherwise, why be concerned about angels, Heaven, or eternity at all? Man is made with both a natural and a spiritual body, thus there are a natural or earthly substance or material and a spiritual substance, both having been created by God. These substances - spiritual and natural - the Lord formed into vessels called men while on earth and angels when in Heaven or devils or satans when in hell. While on earth, man can receive the Lord's love, that is, His good and His truth and be made into His image and be made after His likeness and, so, become truly human. Life to be life, that is, to cause an existence, must have form and its form is from the Lord, thus man can become human from the Lord when he lives a life from the Lord now in the natural world and later in the spiritual world. Every person has been formed with two faculties, the will and the understanding, and these are the receptacles of life, that is, of good and truth. These two receptacles constitute the mind. With the Lord they are one, but with us they are divided. Into the vessel called the will good may be received and into the vessel of the understanding truth can be received. How does life, or good and truth flow from the Lord into us? It proceeds from the Lord, the Divine Human through the celestial and spiritual degrees of the Heavens, thus through the angels there, into us in the natural degree. But, what is the conduit or the means that carries Life? I will try to explain this by a natural illustration. Both heat and light proceed from the sun; but how? Through the atmosphere, for without atmosphere, heat and light could not reach the earth and our natural life would cease. Now, heat and light are correspondent to good and truth. But, good and truth are spiritual and can only be evidenced in our natural life by our reaction to them according to their reception or rejection, just as heat and light is received according to its acceptance is evidenced by the form of the recipient. What are the vessels, which carry 'as it were' the Lord's love and wisdom? We already have said that the mind, the will and the understanding are the vessels. Now, an angel also has a will and an understanding, but it is open to the Lord and not closed as was ours before we have turned to know and believe the Lord. How else could they help a person, except by some form of speech or thought and how else can they have concern and compassion for the person they are 'sent' to and cause them to feel joy and delight? This is evidence of the spiritual life within us. It is the angels who 'as it were' proceed with affection for truth and good bringing us the truth and good of faith, if we will accept them.
Not only do angels bring the Lord's love and His truth to us, but also they are receptacles themselves of His love and truth, and as such, the Lord is within them and they with Him, although in a higher degree of life. They are in the delights and joys of the Lord. Such spiritual or celestial life with them constitutes the Heavens, not because of them, but because of the Lord with them. The degree which they are in Heaven, either the celestial or the spiritual, is determined by their capacity to receive His life, and to make the Lord's life 'as if' theirs. Thus, they are the Lord's. Now, if angels, in this respect, are like us, then are they human and are men and women? Angels lived in the natural degree as we do now, for the Lord's love, His Life flows equally into all, and so all are created equally. The Lord did not created higher beings, angels and lower beings, men. This idea may be one that many have not been taught and at first may not be accepted as the truth. In this respect, compare the quality of a man who receives the Lord's love with an angel, who receives and lives from His life; are they not equal if their understanding and will have been opened equally? If that is true, then a person on earth and an angel in Heaven are both human to the degree they have opened and accepted the Lord's love, His good and truth. The only difference between them is that one still lives in the natural world, the other in the spiritual world, and this is because of their acceptance of the Lord's life. Acceptance of course involves obedience - acting from the truth in love.
By now you might doubt or wonder, Is all this true? And, if so, then why is it that all people are not good, since the Lord's love is the same to everyone? If angels are with us, as it were, bringing the Lord's life so we can live a 'good' life, then shouldn't everyone become good? Just because we have the receptacles of the will and the understanding does not mean we do not have freedom - or a free will. We can choose to believe what we want - the Lord's truth or what others teach, or believe that we can rationally understand without the Lord - otherwise we are not the least human, having not win of our own. When we were infants, we had no knowledge of the science of religion or of anything else. Later, when we became children, we began to learn. We wanted to know about everything. We had, as an infant, only the desire to be fed and to be loved by our parents. We did not win to be like the Lord. It can be said, We loved ourselves; we cried when we were not satisfied. Where do you think did those infantile desires comes from? We were born from our parents, so what characteristics we inherited came from them. Remember, mankind had rejected the Lord's love. It had turned from the Lord to himself Mankind, then, could only receive life through mediate means, that is, through the angels. In this state the rejection of the Lord's love, he can not receive life immediately from the Lord, that is, directly, like he could in the beginning of his creation. So it is that everyone born into the world today has the presence of two angels and of evil spirits. Many people will recognize the angels' presence with children as 'guardian' angels sent to protect us when we were born. They conjoin the Lord with us and are the Lord's proceeding to us. Hence, angels are called messengers and means 'sent' from God. However, since we have the tendency to love ourselves because of our hereditary loves, and not the Lord, and since we need to be taught and learn truth, that is, knowledge of the Lord and of Heaven, and, so, need to be lead to act from good and truth, then we, of necessity, need the angels presence and their association, otherwise the evil spirits with us, also, desires to lead us to do evil things to bring us down into hell. As a child, we were unable to know the genuine truth; as such, as a child we had a natural innocence, and the angels that are with us guarded us against the evil, for as a child, we knew nothing of the fact that good or of truth are coming from the Lord. However, as we matured and became, first a youth, and later an adult, our desire or our will to learn, to acknowledge, and to do, was claimed as ours, whether it regarded truth from the Lord or what others taught us. The angels that are with us withdraw and the evil spirits then take over and begin to reign. Our will and understanding becomes distorted. Communication with the Lord through the angels becomes worse and worse as we more and more focus upon ourselves. Conjunction with Heaven and the Lord becomes more and more remote. Instead of angels, instead of the good affections to learn truth because it is true, we only have a desire for truth because of our desire or love for ourselves for gain, honor, and lust of dominance. This desire distorts the life coming from the Lord and finally destroys any truth with us and, so, we are not in any good from the Lord and what we think is good is what we love and this delights us, Though most of us know very little about angels, they are most important. Without angels we would not have the truth or the faith that joins us to the good of life from the Lord. What does that mean to us? It means our faith, whatever it is, from what ever religion we profess, remains only in our memory, in the understanding, when the life we live is separated from it and is not from the faith that we learned and know. Because of our evil will we often act even contrary to our belief, to our faith, when others are not aware.
The truths we may learn remain separate from any good from the Lord. The truths that we may learn from our faith are only understood, when angels who are within us, 'as it were' associate themselves with us. Then the good and the truth become conjoined with us, and we are conjoined with the Lord, for as it was said, then, His Proceeding Good and Truth is known to us together as one. On earth, when there is this conjunction it is called the 'Church' and it is within a man according to his acceptance and consequent obedience to it. In Heaven the conjunction is within the angels and is called Heaven. It is the Church in Heaven.
Because we are in the natural world and the spiritual world is not seen, we often believe that angels are concerned with and guard our natural life, but that is a wrong idea; angles guard our spirit; they have concern for our spiritual life. Angels with us are within us in our spiritual or celestial loves. As such, they speak with us through spiritual ideas by means of our spirit, not by natural means or natural ideas, for these are material and concern only the time and space of this world. They speak through spiritual ideas which are of states and the changes of states, not of places and times of men and nations. Although, when angels are with us in spiritual good and truth, and flow 'as it were' into us from the Lord the spiritual truth becomes in us natural ideas corresponding to spiritual ideas. Neither the man who is on earth nor the angel in Heaven is aware of any influx into himself from the Divine, but they can be aware of the results.
Another question that is asked today is, can anyone speak with and see angels? There are accounts, which confirm this in the Bible, but how did they speak and see them? Was it by their natural eyes and voice? We see naturally, and as such, we understand naturally, yet we often can understand abstract ideas, things we have not seen with our eyes, things we have not sensed; instead, we see interior things with our understanding. You can understand and know this: that, if our spiritual eyes are opened, we can see, 'as it were' like an angel, spiritually, and not only do we see like angels, but then the things in Heaven and in the spiritual world are revealed to us. The things seen there are of a spiritual nature and are not the as things we see in the natural world, though they do correspond. This, today, is rare, for the interior things of the mind need to be in association and communication with the angels and not just have their presence; so, in this way, we can be in conjunction with the Lord. The conjunction is according to the acceptance within our understanding of truth from the Word and the acceptance of good coming from the Lord within our will. This implies that we are given a conscience from the Lord, who provides the means or the medium between our understanding and our will, conjoining them; for these two are separated within us. This is where angels are with us and cause us 'as it were' to have affection for the Lord and for others. Have we from the angels, and so from the Lord, received a conscience, and so, have love and concern for what is right and good? We read the Word of the Lord and we understand it according to our natural senses. The angels with us perceive it according to the internal sense, either spiritual or celestial. Both senses appear diverse from the other, but they are one, because they correspond. Example: we see naturally because we are in the natural world, but our spirit sees spiritually. In our spirit, we live in the spiritual world.
To see, is to understand. One sight is with natural eyes, the other is with spiritual eyes. Seeing corresponds to understanding and is to know. Affection or love is to act according to the knowledge and corresponds to the will.
Finally, the word angel means something of the Lord. The angel proceeds 'as it were' from the Lord with His Good and Truth, for the Lord's Proceeding is His Love and Wisdom flowing into all. The angels have within goods and truths, because angels are recipients of Divine Truth from the Lord. The conjunction of good and truth in man makes him an angel in the natural degree, for the Lord's proceeding to him. The quality received determines the degree, either natural, spiritual, or celestial. It is in this respect, that a recipient of the good and the truth within man on earth from the Lord that man can be said to be a natural angel. I suspect we have rejected many natural angels thoughts and ideas and accepted very few of them. Yet the Lord loves us and wants to restore the conjunction between Him and us through the angels. When the Lord has finally succeeded in restoring this communication, He will immediately or directly associate with us and will no longer just mediately, that is, by means of angels communicate with Him, but directly. Truths coming from the Lord are within us. The Lord is conjoined with us; we are in Him and He in us. We can become while here on earth and still living within the natural degree the New Church. With most of us this conjunction with the Lord and Heaven only happens when we have come into the spiritual world after having the natural body put off. There, angels instruct us with the truth from the Lord, thus from Good without the falsities of our natural senses adhering to them. For there the Lord's life, when accepted, is One within us; it is not divided as it is within our natural mind before it is in regeneration here on earth.
I end by telling you that only the Lord in His Divine Human has effected the means of this conjunction and made it possible for us today to receive His truth and His love. Thus, He provides not only the means for our reformation and redemption, but also for our regeneration and salvation. This was affected by the Lord Himself coming to earth, becoming glorified, which means that His Divine was united with His Human. I leave you to answer the question: have the angels spoken with you? I pray that they have.
Let me ask. What do you think or believe are angels? Are they human like us? Or, are they created as special beings that serve mankind as helpers of God? First, let us put aside the question whether or not they are human or are a special creation; that question will be answered later during the course of this lecture. If you agree that angels somehow serve mankind, that they are obedient to the Lord, then how do they help us? Is it by some miracle or through good advice? Do they come to only to particular people? If so, why? Evidence today seems to indicate this if you read the many accounts written by different people. All these questions and many more that you may have wondered about has caused so much interest today that you could call it a phenomenon.
In the original Hebrew language, angel, I am told, means 'sent'. We can understand why they are often referred to as 'messengers' from Heaven. What are these messengers, and why does it seem they are sent to only certain people? Are they to help the person over a difficult period in their life? Even more important, why are they sent at all? There are many more questions then these. Are there any real or true answers? There are many books written about angels, that I believed have attempted to, at least, answer some of these question raised. What do you believe about angels?
Would you believe the angels are far more important to mankind then what they have been depicted or seem to appear to us today? Let me explain. Without angels we would have no communication with the Lord God and our existence would be dammed. In a sense, we live because of angels. Our life is sustained because of the angels' presence with us, and without them a person would never be able to come into Heaven; they would end up in hell. So, you can understand why they are far more important than what may be suggested by reading about the experiences of others, wonderful as they might be. How does angels communicate to us? First, they are more then messengers; they, as it were, carry Life to us. Life which is the Lord's, not theirs or ours. Angles are vessels formed 'as it were' to hold life and are to share that life with others and with us by consociation or association with mankind. To understand how angels carry life to us we must learn what is meant by life. Is God Life; is God Love, and is God Wisdom Itself! You can see, one must have or act from some religious life, that is, in some faith in order to understand what is life and what are angels. The Life of God is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom Proceeding, creating, sustaining, redeeming, and regenerating -saving -man so that he may receive His love and live in eternal delight and joy. His Life - His Love and Truth, for that is the Lord's Life - flows from Him down to all creation and especially into mankind; the Lord, as it was, breaths life into man the breathe of His Life through His Word. This may seem rather difficult to comprehend. Yet, in the Lord, as the Word, as Truth and Good is His Essence and Esse. However, today, the Lord's Love, through means of revealed truth, when it is not only learned, but also followed and causes us to act, because it is the Truth is the Word coming from the Good, that is, coming from the Lord. Without Divine Truth we are but empty vessels and soon become filled with falsities. In the beginning of creation, the Lord Himself was present with and within all of mankind. Then were men together with the Lord Himself. If you accept the teaching of the Old Testament, then you may remember reading that Adam and Eve spoke with the Lord. Then something happened to change this - sin entered them and mankind was said to die. Life from the Lord God was cut off, as a result, evil began to reign and spiritual death entered, not spiritual life. Angels then became the only means of communication and thus, conjunction with the Lord was still possible. From this, we can see that angels are the means of conjunction with the Lord by which mankind has life and lives, but that life is not the same as when life was communicated by the Lord immediately to mankind. If that is so, you might think, then why does it seem that angels reveal themselves to only certain people and not to everyone, since the Lord is said to love everyone equally.
Let us now examine more closely the premise that through the association of angels with man we have life and will one day come into Heaven; that is, if we have accepted the Lord's Truth and are obedient to it. There is a continuous communication from the Lord through the Heavens and, so by this, there is possible conjunction with the Lord - His Love for us flows as good and truth into all creations by means of angels, bringing life into the natural degree so that we have existence. The Lord's life proceeds through all the degrees and in all the states within the ultimate or the natural. The Life of the Lord is Divine. He is Life. Closest to the Lord is the celestial degree of life, next is the spiritual degree, then the natural, these are call internal degrees and these degrees were more and more closed through mankind's turning from the Lord, rejecting His Life. These degrees are still within us and when we begin to live from them again we are 'as it were' in Heaven while here on earth, provided that we accept His truth and His good; otherwise, we live in hell in our spirit, not Heaven. The last degree is the natural degree where we presently live while here on earth. The life we live and experience here is known by the natural senses, and therefore, instead of degrees and states there is time and appearances of place, but it is still the Lord's and we can still be the recipients of the Lord's love though in natural appearances. Now, how does a person receive the Lord's life? Life appears to be our own. We appear to see or know through natural appearances. We must begin to believe that the Lord did not somehow just give us life when we were conceived and born from our parents and that is all there is to it. Most people accept that a person has within them a spirit or that they will becomes a spirit and continue living after their natural death, and that they will, then, live in the spiritual world hopefully in Heaven if they believe the Lord or in hell if they lived evilly. There are some that believe they will receive new bodies and live here on earth again. Otherwise, why be concerned about angels, Heaven, or eternity at all? Man is made with both a natural and a spiritual body, thus there are a natural or earthly substance or material and a spiritual substance, both having been created by God. These substances - spiritual and natural - the Lord formed into vessels called men while on earth and angels when in Heaven or devils or satans when in hell. While on earth, man can receive the Lord's love, that is, His good and His truth and be made into His image and be made after His likeness and, so, become truly human. Life to be life, that is, to cause an existence, must have form and its form is from the Lord, thus man can become human from the Lord when he lives a life from the Lord now in the natural world and later in the spiritual world. Every person has been formed with two faculties, the will and the understanding, and these are the receptacles of life, that is, of good and truth. These two receptacles constitute the mind. With the Lord they are one, but with us they are divided. Into the vessel called the will good may be received and into the vessel of the understanding truth can be received. How does life, or good and truth flow from the Lord into us? It proceeds from the Lord, the Divine Human through the celestial and spiritual degrees of the Heavens, thus through the angels there, into us in the natural degree. But, what is the conduit or the means that carries Life? I will try to explain this by a natural illustration. Both heat and light proceed from the sun; but how? Through the atmosphere, for without atmosphere, heat and light could not reach the earth and our natural life would cease. Now, heat and light are correspondent to good and truth. But, good and truth are spiritual and can only be evidenced in our natural life by our reaction to them according to their reception or rejection, just as heat and light is received according to its acceptance is evidenced by the form of the recipient. What are the vessels, which carry 'as it were' the Lord's love and wisdom? We already have said that the mind, the will and the understanding are the vessels. Now, an angel also has a will and an understanding, but it is open to the Lord and not closed as was ours before we have turned to know and believe the Lord. How else could they help a person, except by some form of speech or thought and how else can they have concern and compassion for the person they are 'sent' to and cause them to feel joy and delight? This is evidence of the spiritual life within us. It is the angels who 'as it were' proceed with affection for truth and good bringing us the truth and good of faith, if we will accept them.
Not only do angels bring the Lord's love and His truth to us, but also they are receptacles themselves of His love and truth, and as such, the Lord is within them and they with Him, although in a higher degree of life. They are in the delights and joys of the Lord. Such spiritual or celestial life with them constitutes the Heavens, not because of them, but because of the Lord with them. The degree which they are in Heaven, either the celestial or the spiritual, is determined by their capacity to receive His life, and to make the Lord's life 'as if' theirs. Thus, they are the Lord's. Now, if angels, in this respect, are like us, then are they human and are men and women? Angels lived in the natural degree as we do now, for the Lord's love, His Life flows equally into all, and so all are created equally. The Lord did not created higher beings, angels and lower beings, men. This idea may be one that many have not been taught and at first may not be accepted as the truth. In this respect, compare the quality of a man who receives the Lord's love with an angel, who receives and lives from His life; are they not equal if their understanding and will have been opened equally? If that is true, then a person on earth and an angel in Heaven are both human to the degree they have opened and accepted the Lord's love, His good and truth. The only difference between them is that one still lives in the natural world, the other in the spiritual world, and this is because of their acceptance of the Lord's life. Acceptance of course involves obedience - acting from the truth in love.
By now you might doubt or wonder, Is all this true? And, if so, then why is it that all people are not good, since the Lord's love is the same to everyone? If angels are with us, as it were, bringing the Lord's life so we can live a 'good' life, then shouldn't everyone become good? Just because we have the receptacles of the will and the understanding does not mean we do not have freedom - or a free will. We can choose to believe what we want - the Lord's truth or what others teach, or believe that we can rationally understand without the Lord - otherwise we are not the least human, having not win of our own. When we were infants, we had no knowledge of the science of religion or of anything else. Later, when we became children, we began to learn. We wanted to know about everything. We had, as an infant, only the desire to be fed and to be loved by our parents. We did not win to be like the Lord. It can be said, We loved ourselves; we cried when we were not satisfied. Where do you think did those infantile desires comes from? We were born from our parents, so what characteristics we inherited came from them. Remember, mankind had rejected the Lord's love. It had turned from the Lord to himself Mankind, then, could only receive life through mediate means, that is, through the angels. In this state the rejection of the Lord's love, he can not receive life immediately from the Lord, that is, directly, like he could in the beginning of his creation. So it is that everyone born into the world today has the presence of two angels and of evil spirits. Many people will recognize the angels' presence with children as 'guardian' angels sent to protect us when we were born. They conjoin the Lord with us and are the Lord's proceeding to us. Hence, angels are called messengers and means 'sent' from God. However, since we have the tendency to love ourselves because of our hereditary loves, and not the Lord, and since we need to be taught and learn truth, that is, knowledge of the Lord and of Heaven, and, so, need to be lead to act from good and truth, then we, of necessity, need the angels presence and their association, otherwise the evil spirits with us, also, desires to lead us to do evil things to bring us down into hell. As a child, we were unable to know the genuine truth; as such, as a child we had a natural innocence, and the angels that are with us guarded us against the evil, for as a child, we knew nothing of the fact that good or of truth are coming from the Lord. However, as we matured and became, first a youth, and later an adult, our desire or our will to learn, to acknowledge, and to do, was claimed as ours, whether it regarded truth from the Lord or what others taught us. The angels that are with us withdraw and the evil spirits then take over and begin to reign. Our will and understanding becomes distorted. Communication with the Lord through the angels becomes worse and worse as we more and more focus upon ourselves. Conjunction with Heaven and the Lord becomes more and more remote. Instead of angels, instead of the good affections to learn truth because it is true, we only have a desire for truth because of our desire or love for ourselves for gain, honor, and lust of dominance. This desire distorts the life coming from the Lord and finally destroys any truth with us and, so, we are not in any good from the Lord and what we think is good is what we love and this delights us, Though most of us know very little about angels, they are most important. Without angels we would not have the truth or the faith that joins us to the good of life from the Lord. What does that mean to us? It means our faith, whatever it is, from what ever religion we profess, remains only in our memory, in the understanding, when the life we live is separated from it and is not from the faith that we learned and know. Because of our evil will we often act even contrary to our belief, to our faith, when others are not aware.
The truths we may learn remain separate from any good from the Lord. The truths that we may learn from our faith are only understood, when angels who are within us, 'as it were' associate themselves with us. Then the good and the truth become conjoined with us, and we are conjoined with the Lord, for as it was said, then, His Proceeding Good and Truth is known to us together as one. On earth, when there is this conjunction it is called the 'Church' and it is within a man according to his acceptance and consequent obedience to it. In Heaven the conjunction is within the angels and is called Heaven. It is the Church in Heaven.
Because we are in the natural world and the spiritual world is not seen, we often believe that angels are concerned with and guard our natural life, but that is a wrong idea; angles guard our spirit; they have concern for our spiritual life. Angels with us are within us in our spiritual or celestial loves. As such, they speak with us through spiritual ideas by means of our spirit, not by natural means or natural ideas, for these are material and concern only the time and space of this world. They speak through spiritual ideas which are of states and the changes of states, not of places and times of men and nations. Although, when angels are with us in spiritual good and truth, and flow 'as it were' into us from the Lord the spiritual truth becomes in us natural ideas corresponding to spiritual ideas. Neither the man who is on earth nor the angel in Heaven is aware of any influx into himself from the Divine, but they can be aware of the results.
Another question that is asked today is, can anyone speak with and see angels? There are accounts, which confirm this in the Bible, but how did they speak and see them? Was it by their natural eyes and voice? We see naturally, and as such, we understand naturally, yet we often can understand abstract ideas, things we have not seen with our eyes, things we have not sensed; instead, we see interior things with our understanding. You can understand and know this: that, if our spiritual eyes are opened, we can see, 'as it were' like an angel, spiritually, and not only do we see like angels, but then the things in Heaven and in the spiritual world are revealed to us. The things seen there are of a spiritual nature and are not the as things we see in the natural world, though they do correspond. This, today, is rare, for the interior things of the mind need to be in association and communication with the angels and not just have their presence; so, in this way, we can be in conjunction with the Lord. The conjunction is according to the acceptance within our understanding of truth from the Word and the acceptance of good coming from the Lord within our will. This implies that we are given a conscience from the Lord, who provides the means or the medium between our understanding and our will, conjoining them; for these two are separated within us. This is where angels are with us and cause us 'as it were' to have affection for the Lord and for others. Have we from the angels, and so from the Lord, received a conscience, and so, have love and concern for what is right and good? We read the Word of the Lord and we understand it according to our natural senses. The angels with us perceive it according to the internal sense, either spiritual or celestial. Both senses appear diverse from the other, but they are one, because they correspond. Example: we see naturally because we are in the natural world, but our spirit sees spiritually. In our spirit, we live in the spiritual world.
To see, is to understand. One sight is with natural eyes, the other is with spiritual eyes. Seeing corresponds to understanding and is to know. Affection or love is to act according to the knowledge and corresponds to the will.
Finally, the word angel means something of the Lord. The angel proceeds 'as it were' from the Lord with His Good and Truth, for the Lord's Proceeding is His Love and Wisdom flowing into all. The angels have within goods and truths, because angels are recipients of Divine Truth from the Lord. The conjunction of good and truth in man makes him an angel in the natural degree, for the Lord's proceeding to him. The quality received determines the degree, either natural, spiritual, or celestial. It is in this respect, that a recipient of the good and the truth within man on earth from the Lord that man can be said to be a natural angel. I suspect we have rejected many natural angels thoughts and ideas and accepted very few of them. Yet the Lord loves us and wants to restore the conjunction between Him and us through the angels. When the Lord has finally succeeded in restoring this communication, He will immediately or directly associate with us and will no longer just mediately, that is, by means of angels communicate with Him, but directly. Truths coming from the Lord are within us. The Lord is conjoined with us; we are in Him and He in us. We can become while here on earth and still living within the natural degree the New Church. With most of us this conjunction with the Lord and Heaven only happens when we have come into the spiritual world after having the natural body put off. There, angels instruct us with the truth from the Lord, thus from Good without the falsities of our natural senses adhering to them. For there the Lord's life, when accepted, is One within us; it is not divided as it is within our natural mind before it is in regeneration here on earth.
I end by telling you that only the Lord in His Divine Human has effected the means of this conjunction and made it possible for us today to receive His truth and His love. Thus, He provides not only the means for our reformation and redemption, but also for our regeneration and salvation. This was affected by the Lord Himself coming to earth, becoming glorified, which means that His Divine was united with His Human. I leave you to answer the question: have the angels spoken with you? I pray that they have.
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