Tyrone Clark II
07 APR 2004
Spirituality that Makes
Sense
By: Douglas Taylor
Five
Main Topics:
1.
The Valley of Decision
2.
The time of Judgment
3.
Who is going to live in Heaven?
4.
Hell is where the mind is
5.
The Spiritual world 2000 years ago
1. The Valley of Decision
A. “…and he cried
out and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send
Lazarus, that he may dip the
tip of his finger and cool my tongue; for I am
tormented in
this flame. But Abraham said, ‘Son,
remember that you in your
lifetime
received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now
he is
comforted, and you are tormented. And
besides all this, between us and
you there is a
great gulf fixed; so that those who want to pass from here to you
cannot, nor
can those who want to come from there pass to us.’”
(Luke
16:19-31)
1. This parable is very unique
in that it is the only one in the bible that actually
takes
place in the Spirit world and describes its structure. This great gulf
is
undoubtably the world of spirits, also called the valley of decision by the
prophet Joel in the Old Testament
2.
The valley of Decision is the place or state of mind where every
person
chooses for themselves,
whether the they will go to heaven or hell, and this
process is referred to
as judgment in the bible; so I will use judgment to
mean the decision
process in the world of spirits.
B.
In the world of spirits the true character of an individual is revealed.
Upon
death, people show up in the
world of spirits looking exactly as they did when
they died, but this does not
last, because as their true selves are revealed their
appearance changes to mirror
this mindset.
2. The time of Judgment
A. There is a lot
of misunderstanding surrounding when a person’s judgment is
carried out,
and by judgment I am referring to the time when it is decided
whether or not
a soul or mind goes to heaven or hell.
1. Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “This
day you shall be with Me in
Paradise”
(Luke 23:43). For me, it is clear that
“This Day” is
referring to
an immediate judgment. We are each
judged soon after our
arrival in the
Valley of decisions, but people think that this will happen in a
far off time
called the “day of judgment”, when the body is resurrected.
This line of
thinking is the direct result of the sacred scripture being
misinterpreted
or not taking into account all passages on the subject.
3. Who is going to live in Heaven?
A. Heaven is the
dwelling place of all humans in the universe who have passed
on, and
rejected evil things.
“He who walk uprightly, and works righteousness, and speaks the
truth in his
heart. He who does not
backbite with his tongue, nor does evil to his
neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his neighbor; in whose
eyes a vile
person is despised; but he honors those who fear the Lord; he who swears to
his own hurt and does not change; he who does not put his money to
usury, nor take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these
things shall
never be moved.” (Psalm 15:2-5).
B. It is important
to note that the passage above is describing what one could call
the heavenly
qualities or traits. Walking uprightly
means always doing what
is right. Speaking the truth in our hearts mean we
should always be honest
with others
and ourselves. We should never talk badly about others or
backbite with
our tongues. We should also strive to
reject deceit and lies.
Above all we
should strive to be selfless, and hopefully with many of these
traits in hand
we will enter the kingdom of heaven.
C.
Only those who choose to live in heaven and can withstand the atmosphere
will remain there for all
eternity.
4. Hell is where the mind is
A. “It is not a fire that is outside of us, a
physical fire that burns our bodies;
rather, it is the fiery, raging passions
of evil that burn within our minds”
1. In the bible, hell is
depicted as a place of burning heat with lakes of fire
where the inhabitants
suffer for all eternity. The truth as
revealed by
Swedenborg tells us that
there is no actual fire burning from the outside, but
a fire that burns within each soul
caused by their own insanity.
Passion,
love, lust, and greed are all
emotions that many have speculated or written
to have a burning or fiery type of
effect on humans, and since we take these
traits with us into the afterlife,
it stands to reason that these emotions would
be the source of those so-called
lakes of fire. The lakes reside within
each
person; burning them from the inside
out… forever. “…what other hellfire
need there be? What else is it but our burning,
all-consuming selfishness
that results when we have completely
and deliberately rejected the
Lord---
our fiery passions and ambitions, our
burning lust, our heated arguments our
hot anger and fiery tempers, our
smoldering resentment as we burn for
revenge? These are the fires of self-love burning within---the fires
of hell”
B.
The suffering in hell is self-inflicted because evil brings upon itself
suffering
as its punishment.
5. The Spiritual world 2000 years ago
A. What brought on the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ some 2000
years ago?
Why not 4000 years ago or 1000 years or
four years ago? The answer is
interesting; the lord always provides on earth a link to transmit his will to
the
masses.
This way heaven and earth are operating together in conjunction. If
no one was teaching, reading, believing,
or trying to live according to the
Word of God, the link would be broken,
and this was on the brink of
happening some 2000 years ago. Of course, God could not allow this happen
because with the link broken there would
be no good to curb the flood of evil,
and the church of God would disappear
from the earth forever.
1. The reason humanity was on
the brink, was due in part to the fact that
Jewish Pharisees, who had the
most recent form of the Word (Old
Testament), were not teaching the word of God, but choosing instead to
place their own traditions and rituals before the sacred scripture. They also
began to mislead the public, telling them that they could purchase
c
exemptions to the Ten Commandments by donating money to the temple.
2. Since the Word was being
replaced by human traditions the link between
heaven and earth had become very weak and was
close to being broken so
God stepped in to fix the problem.
B.
Since the Pharisees were hypocrites they did not spend the normal amount
of
time in the world of spirits; quite the
opposite; their unwillingness to reveal
their true nature and intentions slowed
the process of judgment to a near halt,
and since they held great power over the
minds of the masses, they blocked
others from entering into heaven, causing
a preverbal traffic jam in the world of
spirits.
Now with these religious leaders deceiving people in the afterlife,
other
souls began congregating around them and
forming a false heaven. Many good
people were listening to these evil
leaders and not entering heaven, but this all
changed when Jesus was born and entered
the world of spirits after His
crucifixion.