Christmas 2003
Sermon by Rev. Paul Booth
Lessons: Luke 1: 26-34; 2: 6, 7
Sermon by Rev. Paul Booth
Lessons: Luke 1: 26-34; 2: 6, 7
"Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph. . . . Then the angel said to her. 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call Him Jesus. . . . Then Mary said to the angel, 'How can this be, since I do not know a man?" (Luke 1: 26, 27, 30, 31, 34) and "And, so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her first born son" (Luke 2: 6,7).
When the angel Gabriel came to Mary, to her, it was personal. She did not understand what it meant or why, but we learn that in her innocence and in her obedience she accepted what the angel told her. However, the announcement to her was what all in the Lord's kingdom had waited for, - the Lord's first Advent - for those words not only were recorded for the entire world to read and know, but were also revealed to all those who were in Heaven, for they, too, had waited, as is evidenced, when the shepherds were told by an angel when the Heavenly hosts sung. Thus, it is in that simple faith that all throughout history mankind had waited for this Advent to come to pass. We can read in the Old Testament that there was to come such a time when Jehovah, the Lord, would come and redeem mankind. The prophet Jeremiah tells of such a time to come, saying, "In those days and at a time I will cause to grow up to David A Branch of righteousness; and He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth" (33: 15). To the man on earth this meant when a time had been reached when it was possible for Jehovah God to come as it was promised. To an angel it meant that mankind had reached the state wherein Jehovah could again come to man within his heart and mind bringing to him true life. To mankind it was years and years and most all had either forgotten or no longer believed, but to the angels where there is no time, but only state, they must have also wondered how long O Lord as David expresses in the Palms and as is expressed in the spiritual world in the book of Revelation. Man in his natural existence had reached the state wherein he no longer had the truths or goods of the Lord; they had all become vastated; they had all fallen away. This was such a time or state in which Jehovah God would come and assume the human of mankind becoming manifested in the flesh. It was also a state in which a new doctrine from the Lord could enter into man and wherein the old could be removed 'as it were' through combats or temptations fought by the Lord. That old doctrine was only of falsities, and had, thus, profaned the truth; thereby, man would have never come into Heaven, unless he become reformed and regenerated, receiving a new life from the Lord.
Over all the prior years the Lord's truths and goods had continued to proceed to man into his understanding and will. Yet, over these centuries, man had fallen further and further away from such truth, even though God had given him the written Word, both the Ancient and the Old Testaments and had raised up priests, prophets, and kings to lead them. The main reason was a person no longer could receive these true thoughts and affections from the Lord immediately or directly, but only through the spirits, both good and bad, and even through evil spirits, though at first they did come through angels. Very few people know that they are governed by the Lord through the angels and spirits. And, thus, that the life they have today has been contaminated and, therefore, life from God from Heaven now comes through the spiritual world, from the world of spirits and even hell. There are those who will doubt this, yet many Christians know that it has often been said that with children there are guardian angels and that with each person there are two angels and two spirits. The only way that God could reach man was now through the written Word and not through any perception from within, and that way is through one's external, through his or her natural mind - the understanding and the will. In other words, the Lord's coming again to mankind was also to be in a new doctrine that was to come, for the old one had been completely distorted and was full of falsities and led to evil, that is, to hell. The presence of the Lord in doctrine with a person was no longer useful in the things taught, and now a new Word was about to come on earth. The presence of the Lord was no longer clearly seen with the people. It is the Lord's true presence with man in his understanding that makes the true Church on earth with man and, in fact, the true Church is within man in his will and understanding. The prior Church on earth was only a representative Church and had come to its end, having, as said, come into its vastation having no truth left. Since that is true, then we can understand that since a person can, now, only receive truths from without, which means through an external way, then we must realize that unless the Jehovah, the Lord, becomes as a man - putting on the natural, the corporeal, and sensual of man - then truth cannot enter man unless evils and falsities are removed; for, he would only continually distort truth and turn it into falsities.
However, in order that the Lord to come again immediately in truth to a man and, so, is able to save him, the Lord must first become manifested in the natural human of mankind, so that He is able to combat and to fight against and to become victorious over the evils that are within and reign over man's life in order to subjugate them in hell and He then reign in man again as his Lord. Simply, how else can the Lord, who is the Truth and the Good, save man unless man allows Him to dwell within him in spirit, that is, in love and wisdom or in good and truth? Hadn't man rejected Jehovah God when he chose to live from himself, that is, from his proprium and to dwell in the external or the natural state where the Lord was not present, except in the Word, but that celestial and spiritual life of man had become distorted so much so that even Jesus had said that the leaders of Israel had made the Law - God's Word - of no effect? It could not save them. Thus, a new Word came and taught man of his spiritual life.
Now, Mary was told that the 'Holy Spirit would come upon her' and that the 'power of the Highest would overshadow her', and that she was 'chosen', 'favored', and 'blessed among women' and this because of the qualities of her innocence and obedience in which she loved the Lord. Those same qualities of innocence and obedience taught in a new doctrine in the New Testament that was about to come to man, and so, can be received in those who have those same qualities of love to the Lord and whose affections are for His goodness and are of charity towards the neighbor. We can understand that a new doctrine can be accepted and received in one's understanding and will or that it can be rejected. It can be accepted and received because the Lord came and defeated the evils that infested all men. Yet, in freedom of will a person may reject it. So, why could not a person just accept the teaching or the doctrine that the Word of Jehovah has given - the Old Testament and of course, now, the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ, the New Testament? Why does it take a new doctrine written in a new Word - the Word of the Divine Human, the Third Testament? The answer is because man loves himself more than God. From what Jesus has said we see that Word had been made of no effect with man at that time in that state to which he had fallen, and, in fact, we have learned that a person would have come into a state in which there was nothing but evils and he would believe only falsities, thinking that he had the truth. If this state of vastation of truths with mankind continued and the Lord not come, man would have profaned the Word and forever be in hell.
So, a new doctrine could either be accepted or not accepted as was the doctrine before the Lord's first Advent and as before His Coming again. In this, however, we can see one's freedom of his will. Whatever doctrine one does accept becomes and is called his faith. It is the truth that is the 'seed' of one's faith. These truths or 'seeds' are to grow and develop and are to result in one's affections and love for God and towards the neighbor. They are called 'good works' or charity. Therefore, if one's doctrine is from falsities, then their affection and love are of evils, being a love of self and the world, not a love of the Lord and the neighbor. If it is a faith which comes from truths then one's affection and love are of goodness being a love to the Lord and towards the neighbor.
It has often been taught that mankind was not just created as a natural being with a material body, but spiritually with a spiritual body as well, and that he has a soul in which the qualities of God's love and truth resides. And, that, because man has sinned, his celestial and spiritual life had been closed 'as it were' to him and that still deep within him is his soul, however, it is now 'as if' he is without the Lord God's presence in his life, even though His Word may be within him in his natural mind and in his memory. This, in truth, has caused the truths that he has from the Lord and from His Word to be distorted and finally be lost and 'as if' God has abandoned man. In our natural understanding we have forgotten and do not know what spiritually is understood in the written Word. Today, generally, a person thinks as though all truths come from him self, that is, that he can come to understand all things naturally and, in fact, may reject any idea that there is an internal or spiritual sense to the Word of God, even though it may be revealed to him.
Mary knew that birth was possible only from knowing a man, and we read where she asks 'how can this be since I know not a man?' From her natural understanding she sees this as impossible. She knows, as any person with the least knowledge of reproduction knows, that the male or man provides the 'seed' and the female or the woman the natural material necessary for the natural body's growth and that the child is conceived from the father and that its body is from the mother. And, those who still have a belief in God say that mysteriously God gives life to the fetus in the womb and it is made alive and, so, an infant is born. A person can understand from this that life is not just of natural substance, but is of spiritual substance as well, which are truths and goods from God, thus that the natural is just the receptacle in which the spiritual man lives and, that within his spirit is a soul in which there is true life and that life is from and of the Lord God.
Thus, we can understand that because we are in the natural state in the material world and that the spiritual world is in obscurity, we do not easily accept the qualities of the Lord God - His Love and Wisdom - in not just creating, but in sustaining and in regenerating man. We have said that truth from God is the 'seed' and that 'good' from God, which is His Love, is the essence within that 'seed' and that man was created with an internal, which is of love, that is, with a spirit, and even has the celestial within and that these are within one's natural life in which a person now lives and has true life. From the Old Testament book of Genesis we read, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness . . . And, God created man in His own image, and in an image of God created He him" (1:26, 27). Now, since man is created in God's image, then God is Man and mankind is from Him, and, in fact, he who is regenerated, that is, who has an image of the Lord, or those qualities of the truth and good, and that without those qualities a man has no direct communication let alone conjunction with God or with Heaven. Now, since man's celestial and spiritual life was first created before his natural life, then the truths and goods of God are spiritual and man is a man from them, that is until he rejects them, which is when he is no longer in the innocence of his infancy and childhood in his natural state, but is when he has become a man with the responsibility to choose good and to reject evil in that natural state.
Therefore, Mary's faith is seen in her acceptance of what was to happen to her. Jehovah God had formed man out of the 'dust of the ground', which, we know, is natural substance or material and is the external of all that is spiritual and 'breathed into his nostrils the breath of life', which is to give man a soul, that is, to give him the life of faith and love, thus, a spiritual and celestial life, for such life is predicated of Heaven. Surely, if God, who is the very Truth and the very Good Itself, the Wisdom and Love Itself, then the prime 'seed' that was implanted in Mary, who was to provide the natural or material substance for the Lord's natural body, then what is brought forth from her or born is the Truth Itself manifested in the natural or external. And, of course, we know that Jesus has said that He is the Truth and, within that Truth is the Divine Good, which was His Soul. The Divine Truth conceived in Mary's womb was, in the process of time brought forth, and was her first born son. Truth was manifested in flesh and was called the 'Son of God'. Mary named Him Jesus, who was the Savior, which is Christ the Lord, the Messiah who was to come. Thus, His body was from Mary, but His Soul was the Lord God who is Divine. He was a Celestial Man and He had come and 'put on' the human of man, whose state is natural, sensual, and corporeal. So, it is that when the Jesus spoke of His Father, He was referring to His Soul and we learned that He said that He and His Father were one.
Whereas, in all other births, men have their own soul which comes from their earthly fathers and so on, back to the beginning, when man first was created by Jehovah God and when He breathed into man the breathe of life giving him a soul and enlivened it, which is, as said, was his life of faith and love from the Lord. Though, as we know, man had come to sin and still sins, not being able to resist and overcome his hereditary evil and, so, his spiritual life becomes 'as it were' shut off from him and he now lives in falsities and in evils that are from his love of self and the world, and, so mankind, has waited for the Lord to come in Truth bringing him a new Life of love to the Lord which is also seen as a new doctrine.
The Divine Truth manifested Itself in the natural of mankind and there faced 'as it were' the evils and falsities that reigned over all man. There Jesus could combat or fight against evil and so, could become victorious. We, who are called Christian, know the Lord was tempted as man is and even worse. His natural death on the cross was His final temptation wherein He defeated all evil and it was completed and, then, returned back to His Father, who was the Divine above the Heavens and, thus, in this He was glorified and became the Divine Human.
Thus, those who today hear His Word and accept this new doctrine that comes from the Divine Human of the Lord, who is the Divine Truth, and who comes to dwell within a person in those truths and, that when a person is obedient to them, because he loves them, the Divine Good then comes within him and he is made a new creature with a new will and understanding whose rational is of the Lord out of the celestial and he is born again spiritually.
In truth, truth that no longer could enter a person having had turned away from Jehovah God, can now enter into one's innocence and obedience, and therefore, a new doctrine from the Lord can be taught and accepted and, then, what is produced in one's faith is charity, and in such is not only the Lord's presence as when truths are within him in his understanding, but is conjoined to him in his will and there is conjunction with Him, and thus is a man's true faith and charity and he is a recipient of true Life.
Amen.
Over all the prior years the Lord's truths and goods had continued to proceed to man into his understanding and will. Yet, over these centuries, man had fallen further and further away from such truth, even though God had given him the written Word, both the Ancient and the Old Testaments and had raised up priests, prophets, and kings to lead them. The main reason was a person no longer could receive these true thoughts and affections from the Lord immediately or directly, but only through the spirits, both good and bad, and even through evil spirits, though at first they did come through angels. Very few people know that they are governed by the Lord through the angels and spirits. And, thus, that the life they have today has been contaminated and, therefore, life from God from Heaven now comes through the spiritual world, from the world of spirits and even hell. There are those who will doubt this, yet many Christians know that it has often been said that with children there are guardian angels and that with each person there are two angels and two spirits. The only way that God could reach man was now through the written Word and not through any perception from within, and that way is through one's external, through his or her natural mind - the understanding and the will. In other words, the Lord's coming again to mankind was also to be in a new doctrine that was to come, for the old one had been completely distorted and was full of falsities and led to evil, that is, to hell. The presence of the Lord in doctrine with a person was no longer useful in the things taught, and now a new Word was about to come on earth. The presence of the Lord was no longer clearly seen with the people. It is the Lord's true presence with man in his understanding that makes the true Church on earth with man and, in fact, the true Church is within man in his will and understanding. The prior Church on earth was only a representative Church and had come to its end, having, as said, come into its vastation having no truth left. Since that is true, then we can understand that since a person can, now, only receive truths from without, which means through an external way, then we must realize that unless the Jehovah, the Lord, becomes as a man - putting on the natural, the corporeal, and sensual of man - then truth cannot enter man unless evils and falsities are removed; for, he would only continually distort truth and turn it into falsities.
However, in order that the Lord to come again immediately in truth to a man and, so, is able to save him, the Lord must first become manifested in the natural human of mankind, so that He is able to combat and to fight against and to become victorious over the evils that are within and reign over man's life in order to subjugate them in hell and He then reign in man again as his Lord. Simply, how else can the Lord, who is the Truth and the Good, save man unless man allows Him to dwell within him in spirit, that is, in love and wisdom or in good and truth? Hadn't man rejected Jehovah God when he chose to live from himself, that is, from his proprium and to dwell in the external or the natural state where the Lord was not present, except in the Word, but that celestial and spiritual life of man had become distorted so much so that even Jesus had said that the leaders of Israel had made the Law - God's Word - of no effect? It could not save them. Thus, a new Word came and taught man of his spiritual life.
Now, Mary was told that the 'Holy Spirit would come upon her' and that the 'power of the Highest would overshadow her', and that she was 'chosen', 'favored', and 'blessed among women' and this because of the qualities of her innocence and obedience in which she loved the Lord. Those same qualities of innocence and obedience taught in a new doctrine in the New Testament that was about to come to man, and so, can be received in those who have those same qualities of love to the Lord and whose affections are for His goodness and are of charity towards the neighbor. We can understand that a new doctrine can be accepted and received in one's understanding and will or that it can be rejected. It can be accepted and received because the Lord came and defeated the evils that infested all men. Yet, in freedom of will a person may reject it. So, why could not a person just accept the teaching or the doctrine that the Word of Jehovah has given - the Old Testament and of course, now, the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ, the New Testament? Why does it take a new doctrine written in a new Word - the Word of the Divine Human, the Third Testament? The answer is because man loves himself more than God. From what Jesus has said we see that Word had been made of no effect with man at that time in that state to which he had fallen, and, in fact, we have learned that a person would have come into a state in which there was nothing but evils and he would believe only falsities, thinking that he had the truth. If this state of vastation of truths with mankind continued and the Lord not come, man would have profaned the Word and forever be in hell.
So, a new doctrine could either be accepted or not accepted as was the doctrine before the Lord's first Advent and as before His Coming again. In this, however, we can see one's freedom of his will. Whatever doctrine one does accept becomes and is called his faith. It is the truth that is the 'seed' of one's faith. These truths or 'seeds' are to grow and develop and are to result in one's affections and love for God and towards the neighbor. They are called 'good works' or charity. Therefore, if one's doctrine is from falsities, then their affection and love are of evils, being a love of self and the world, not a love of the Lord and the neighbor. If it is a faith which comes from truths then one's affection and love are of goodness being a love to the Lord and towards the neighbor.
It has often been taught that mankind was not just created as a natural being with a material body, but spiritually with a spiritual body as well, and that he has a soul in which the qualities of God's love and truth resides. And, that, because man has sinned, his celestial and spiritual life had been closed 'as it were' to him and that still deep within him is his soul, however, it is now 'as if' he is without the Lord God's presence in his life, even though His Word may be within him in his natural mind and in his memory. This, in truth, has caused the truths that he has from the Lord and from His Word to be distorted and finally be lost and 'as if' God has abandoned man. In our natural understanding we have forgotten and do not know what spiritually is understood in the written Word. Today, generally, a person thinks as though all truths come from him self, that is, that he can come to understand all things naturally and, in fact, may reject any idea that there is an internal or spiritual sense to the Word of God, even though it may be revealed to him.
Mary knew that birth was possible only from knowing a man, and we read where she asks 'how can this be since I know not a man?' From her natural understanding she sees this as impossible. She knows, as any person with the least knowledge of reproduction knows, that the male or man provides the 'seed' and the female or the woman the natural material necessary for the natural body's growth and that the child is conceived from the father and that its body is from the mother. And, those who still have a belief in God say that mysteriously God gives life to the fetus in the womb and it is made alive and, so, an infant is born. A person can understand from this that life is not just of natural substance, but is of spiritual substance as well, which are truths and goods from God, thus that the natural is just the receptacle in which the spiritual man lives and, that within his spirit is a soul in which there is true life and that life is from and of the Lord God.
Thus, we can understand that because we are in the natural state in the material world and that the spiritual world is in obscurity, we do not easily accept the qualities of the Lord God - His Love and Wisdom - in not just creating, but in sustaining and in regenerating man. We have said that truth from God is the 'seed' and that 'good' from God, which is His Love, is the essence within that 'seed' and that man was created with an internal, which is of love, that is, with a spirit, and even has the celestial within and that these are within one's natural life in which a person now lives and has true life. From the Old Testament book of Genesis we read, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness . . . And, God created man in His own image, and in an image of God created He him" (1:26, 27). Now, since man is created in God's image, then God is Man and mankind is from Him, and, in fact, he who is regenerated, that is, who has an image of the Lord, or those qualities of the truth and good, and that without those qualities a man has no direct communication let alone conjunction with God or with Heaven. Now, since man's celestial and spiritual life was first created before his natural life, then the truths and goods of God are spiritual and man is a man from them, that is until he rejects them, which is when he is no longer in the innocence of his infancy and childhood in his natural state, but is when he has become a man with the responsibility to choose good and to reject evil in that natural state.
Therefore, Mary's faith is seen in her acceptance of what was to happen to her. Jehovah God had formed man out of the 'dust of the ground', which, we know, is natural substance or material and is the external of all that is spiritual and 'breathed into his nostrils the breath of life', which is to give man a soul, that is, to give him the life of faith and love, thus, a spiritual and celestial life, for such life is predicated of Heaven. Surely, if God, who is the very Truth and the very Good Itself, the Wisdom and Love Itself, then the prime 'seed' that was implanted in Mary, who was to provide the natural or material substance for the Lord's natural body, then what is brought forth from her or born is the Truth Itself manifested in the natural or external. And, of course, we know that Jesus has said that He is the Truth and, within that Truth is the Divine Good, which was His Soul. The Divine Truth conceived in Mary's womb was, in the process of time brought forth, and was her first born son. Truth was manifested in flesh and was called the 'Son of God'. Mary named Him Jesus, who was the Savior, which is Christ the Lord, the Messiah who was to come. Thus, His body was from Mary, but His Soul was the Lord God who is Divine. He was a Celestial Man and He had come and 'put on' the human of man, whose state is natural, sensual, and corporeal. So, it is that when the Jesus spoke of His Father, He was referring to His Soul and we learned that He said that He and His Father were one.
Whereas, in all other births, men have their own soul which comes from their earthly fathers and so on, back to the beginning, when man first was created by Jehovah God and when He breathed into man the breathe of life giving him a soul and enlivened it, which is, as said, was his life of faith and love from the Lord. Though, as we know, man had come to sin and still sins, not being able to resist and overcome his hereditary evil and, so, his spiritual life becomes 'as it were' shut off from him and he now lives in falsities and in evils that are from his love of self and the world, and, so mankind, has waited for the Lord to come in Truth bringing him a new Life of love to the Lord which is also seen as a new doctrine.
The Divine Truth manifested Itself in the natural of mankind and there faced 'as it were' the evils and falsities that reigned over all man. There Jesus could combat or fight against evil and so, could become victorious. We, who are called Christian, know the Lord was tempted as man is and even worse. His natural death on the cross was His final temptation wherein He defeated all evil and it was completed and, then, returned back to His Father, who was the Divine above the Heavens and, thus, in this He was glorified and became the Divine Human.
Thus, those who today hear His Word and accept this new doctrine that comes from the Divine Human of the Lord, who is the Divine Truth, and who comes to dwell within a person in those truths and, that when a person is obedient to them, because he loves them, the Divine Good then comes within him and he is made a new creature with a new will and understanding whose rational is of the Lord out of the celestial and he is born again spiritually.
In truth, truth that no longer could enter a person having had turned away from Jehovah God, can now enter into one's innocence and obedience, and therefore, a new doctrine from the Lord can be taught and accepted and, then, what is produced in one's faith is charity, and in such is not only the Lord's presence as when truths are within him in his understanding, but is conjoined to him in his will and there is conjunction with Him, and thus is a man's true faith and charity and he is a recipient of true Life.
Amen.
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