SPEAKER_00: Welcome to our service this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Our first lesson is from the book of Daniel, part of chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: And in this, Daniel is interpreting a dream of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: We will hear Daniel recounting the dream and then giving the interpretation.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar.
SPEAKER_00: Hear now the word of the Lord as it is written in the book of Daniel, chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: The tree that you saw, which grew and became strong, and its height reached to the heavens, and its sight to all the earth, and its leaves were goodly, and its blossom much, and in it was nourishment for all.
SPEAKER_00: Under it the animals of the field dwelt, and in its boughs the birds of the heavens had their habitation.
SPEAKER_00: It is you, O king, who are grown and become strong, for your majesty is grown and reaches to the heavens, and your dominion to the end of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And whereas the king saw a watcher and a holy one descending from the heavens, and saying, Hew down the tree and destroy it, yet leave the stalk of its roots in the earth, even with a bond of iron and bronze, in the tender herb of the field, and let it be tinged with the dew of the heavens, and let his part be with the animals of the field, until seven times pass over him.
SPEAKER_00: This is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decision of the most high, which reaches on my Lord the King.
SPEAKER_00: And they shall drive you out from man, and your dwelling shall be with the animals of the field, and they shall make you to taste grass as oxen, and they shall ting you from the dew of the heavens, and seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High has dominion in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he desires.
SPEAKER_00: And whereas they said to leave the stalk of the roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be steadfast for you.
SPEAKER_00: From this you shall know that the heavens have dominion.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, O king, let my advice be good concerning you, and put off your sins by justice, and your iniquities by being gracious to the afflicted, if it may be a lengthening of your tranquility.
SPEAKER_00: All this came on Nebuchadnezzar the king.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of twelve months he was walking on the palace of the kingdom of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: The king answered and said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the strength of my security and for the glory of my honor?
SPEAKER_00: While the word was in the mouth of the king, there fell a voice from the heavens saying, O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is said, The kingdom has passed away from you, and they shall drive you out from man, and your dwelling shall be with the animals of the field.
SPEAKER_00: They shall make you to taste grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High has dominion in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he desires.
SPEAKER_00: In that hour was the word consum consummated on Nebuchadnezzar, and he was driven out from man, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was tinged with the dew of the heavens, until his hairs were grown as the eagles, and his nails as the birds.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Reading from the Gospel of Luke, part of chapter five.
SPEAKER_00: And it came to pass, as the crowd pressed upon Jesus to hear the word of God, he was even standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two ships standing by the lake, but the fishermen had stepped away from them and were washing their nets.
SPEAKER_00: And having stepped into one of the ships, which was Simon's, he besought him to launch out a little from the land, and sitting down he taught the crowd from the ship.
SPEAKER_00: And when he had ceased speaking, he said to Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let your down your nets for a catch.
SPEAKER_00: And Simon, answering, said to him, Master, having labored through the whole night, we have taken nothing.
SPEAKER_00: But at your saying I will let down my net.
SPEAKER_00: And when they had done this they enclosed a multitude of many fish, and their net was breaking.
SPEAKER_00: And they beckoned to their partners in the other ship that they should come to take some with them.
SPEAKER_00: And they came and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.
SPEAKER_00: And Simon Peter, seeing this, fell before the knees of Jesus, saying, Go out from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: For astonishment encompassed him, and all who were with him, at the catch of the fish which they had taken.
SPEAKER_00: And likewise also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were companions with Simon.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to Simon, Do not fear, from henceforth you shall catch men.
SPEAKER_00: And bringing their ships to the land, they left all and followed him.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Reading finally, from the book Divine Providence, part of number three hundred and twenty-one.
SPEAKER_00: It is owing to a law of divine providence that a person should think as though of himself, and act prudently as though of himself, but still should acknowledge that he does so from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It follows, therefore, that someone who does think and act prudently as though of himself, and at the same time acknowledges that he does so from the Lord, is human, but not someone who affirms in himself that everything he thinks and does originates from himself.
SPEAKER_00: And neither is someone human who, knowing that wisdom and prudence originate from God, still awaits influx.
SPEAKER_00: For the first becomes no different from an animal, and the latter no different from a statue.
SPEAKER_00: It is apparent that someone who awaits influx is no different from a statue, for inevitably he must stand or sit motionless, his hands hanging down, his eyes either closed or open without blinking, not thinking or breathing.
SPEAKER_00: How much life does he have then?
SPEAKER_00: It is also apparent that someone who believes that everything he thinks and does originates from himself is no different from an animal, for he thinks only with his natural mind, which the human being has in common with animals, and not with his rational spiritual mind, which is the truly human mind.
SPEAKER_00: For the rational spiritual mind acknowledges that God alone thinks of himself, and that people think from God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Here end our lessons.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Unless Jehovah builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.
SPEAKER_00: Unless Jehovah guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.
SPEAKER_00: Has your life gone according to plan?
SPEAKER_00: Your first response to that question might be to laugh or to groan and to say, no, absolutely not.
SPEAKER_00: No matter where you are in life, it's unlikely that everything has turned out precisely as you envisioned it so far.
SPEAKER_00: But if you think about it objectively, it's probably also not true that life has never gone according to plan.
SPEAKER_00: We all have some experience of setting goals, working to achieve those goals, and finding some measure of success.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, this is essential to the Lord's goal for us as human beings.
SPEAKER_00: If we're going to be truly free, we need to have confidence that actions will have predictable outcomes, that we do have some power to shape the world around us, to shape our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has made it so that we have freedom and reason.
SPEAKER_00: And according to the book Divine Providence, the primary delight of reason is to foresee in one's mind a future effect.
SPEAKER_00: We read, this is the source of what is called hope, which increases and decreases in the reason as the person sees or anticipates the event.
SPEAKER_00: So we have hope, the sight of a future thing, and if we didn't have any way to predict that our actions would have a consequence, we wouldn't have hope.
SPEAKER_00: But that reality that actions have some predictable outcomes that'll let us carry out a plan, that can lead to the appearance that we are responsible for everything that happens in our lives, that I'm responsible for all my successes and for all my failures.
SPEAKER_00: If we buy into that appearance, we end up either despairing of the possibility that we might be saved because we see how far we are from perfection, or we end up worshiping ourselves while looking away from all our faults and failures.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is partly to prevent this, this fallacy that we're in charge of everything, that the Lord allows our plans to fall apart sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: Not that he wants us to failure, but that he sees we can learn from it.
SPEAKER_00: It allows us to see the truth of our text for today, that unless Jehovah builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.
SPEAKER_00: Unless Jehovah guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.
SPEAKER_00: From Psalm 127.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the story we read from the book of Daniel gives an extreme example.
SPEAKER_00: We have King Nebuchadnezzar, who's the most powerful man in the known world.
SPEAKER_00: Judging from the outside, there was seemingly nothing that could take his power away from him.
SPEAKER_00: It would have been laughable to suggest that his hold over his kingdom was fragile.
SPEAKER_00: But he had this dream, and in his dream he saw a tree towering over the earth, giving nourishment to animals and birds.
SPEAKER_00: But while he looked, a watcher and a holy one came down from heaven and called for the tree to be cut down, with its roots and trunk nevertheless remaining, while his heart was changed from that of a man to that of an animal for seven periods of time.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that the dream predicted his own temporary fall.
SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, twelve months later, when the king articulated that mistaken belief in his own power, when he said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the strength of my security and for the glory of my honor?
SPEAKER_00: That as soon as he said this, he lost his senses and began living outdoors, eating grass like an ox, allowing his hair and nails to grow wild.
SPEAKER_00: In a split second, with no attack from an enemy, no natural disaster, he lost everything.
SPEAKER_00: The illusion that he had an iota of control over his own fate was shattered.
SPEAKER_00: Now, throughout the word Babylon, as well as the Tower of Babel, which is the same word as Babylon in Hebrew, represents the desire to rule over everything, even over heaven, and to have oneself worshipped even above the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So that's connected with the desire to be the greatest.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in some sense, King Nebuchadnezzar as king of Babylon represents a trap we can fall into.
SPEAKER_00: When we realize that we are good at something, we are accomplishing our goals in an area, and we start to want to be the greatest in that thing, and to be known as the greatest at that thing.
SPEAKER_00: And it can begin with something good.
SPEAKER_00: So maybe you've noticed in your job you're particularly good at one element of it.
SPEAKER_00: Or you start a hobby and you realize you're really good at creating something beautiful that people appreciate.
SPEAKER_00: And the king's dream begins with this good tree.
SPEAKER_00: It's a big tree, it's providing nourishment to the animals.
SPEAKER_00: But when we're doing that and we're seized by the desire to be the greatest at this thing, that good thing becomes an obsession, and we start to care less about how that serves others, and instead we start to pursue it for the sense of greatness it gives us.
SPEAKER_00: Even if that detracts from our other roles and relationships.
SPEAKER_00: We are not letting the Lord build the house.
SPEAKER_00: We're building ourselves a tower of Babel to make a name for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: When we do that, we set ourselves up for a fall.
SPEAKER_00: At some point, you realize that no matter how good you are at doing something, someone else is better at it.
SPEAKER_00: Or you realize that you've become so focused on your success at work that you've ignored your family.
SPEAKER_00: When that fall comes, it can be devastating because those things we we are good at tend to become a core part of who we think of ourselves as being.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of our identity.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we're faced with that fall of realizing I have to rethink things, our tendency can be to say, no, no, actually things are fine, to try to prop it up, to try to guard that city.
SPEAKER_00: But unless the Lord guards the city, we guard it in vain.
SPEAKER_00: Propping that thing up just causes further harm.
SPEAKER_00: Now there is still hope in this story.
SPEAKER_00: In the dream, that stump of the tree remains.
SPEAKER_00: There's still something good there worth building on.
SPEAKER_00: And he can be returned to his position once he has realized everything is a gift from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So there's still hope, but there's the fall, and it takes time to rebuild.
SPEAKER_00: So that's an example of attempting to build a house without the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In circumstances where our own success blinds us to the fact that everything we have is a gift from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We think, I'm really good at this, I work really hard at it, I make things happen.
SPEAKER_00: But even when we're not having great success, we can be caught up in the illusion that our success or failure depends entirely on our own efforts.
SPEAKER_00: In the story from the New Testament, we read of some fishermen who had spent an entire night toiling without catching any fish.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus told Simon to launch out into the deep to let down his nets, Simon replied that they had labored through the night, taking nothing.
SPEAKER_00: The word labored there in Greek is the same word that is found in Greek translations of Psalm 127.
SPEAKER_00: So Simon and these other fishermen had literally been laboring in vain all night long.
SPEAKER_00: And his reply to the Lord, to tell the Lord we we we've been laboring and we haven't caught anything, suggests he did not think doing the same actions again were likely to change anything.
SPEAKER_00: But the key here is that despite his skepticism, Simon did launch out into the deep.
SPEAKER_00: And he did let down the nets again because the Lord said so.
SPEAKER_00: And when he was doing so because the Lord said to, they drew in so many fish that the nets started to break and the boats started to sink.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's another event like this that happened after the Lord's resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And in that account, they'd been fishing on the left side, and the Lord said, fish on the right side.
SPEAKER_00: But in this account, there's no indication that they're fishing any different way than they had before.
SPEAKER_00: The only difference it seems here is that they're doing it because the Lord says so.
SPEAKER_00: That makes the difference.
SPEAKER_00: They're doing it from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in one version we might imagine of the story, this could be almost the end of the story.
SPEAKER_00: There's these fishermen who couldn't fish when they were fishing on their own.
SPEAKER_00: But then when they had the Lord with them, they became great fishermen.
SPEAKER_00: They caught all the fish they needed.
SPEAKER_00: And from then on, they became great fishermen and they always caught all the fish they needed.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not the story.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, their success in fishing prepared them so that when the Lord called them to be fishermen of an entirely different kind, fishers of men, teachers who would draw people to the Lord, they were willing to leave their nets, their entire lives behind them, and start something completely new and unknown.
SPEAKER_00: In their case, letting the Lord build the house meant leaving an old house behind.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the key in a lot of cases where we need to start building with the Lord rather than uh building our own house.
SPEAKER_00: When we build our own houses, we have our own picture of what the outcome is going to be.
SPEAKER_00: And we try to make that happen, whatever it costs.
SPEAKER_00: And then if that outcome doesn't happen, we can become lost and despondent.
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, though, when we invite the Lord in, we still do work toward an outcome that we hope for.
SPEAKER_00: And we can work really hard, just as hard.
SPEAKER_00: And the actions can look identical.
SPEAKER_00: But when we're doing it from the Lord, and then things don't go the way we expected, we can work with that.
SPEAKER_00: We can let the Lord change our vision for what the outcome of that work is going to be.
SPEAKER_00: We might recall here one of the most beloved passages from the teachings of the New Church, Arcana Celestia 8478, which speaks of those who trust in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Although they have care for the morrow, still they do not have it, because they do not think of the morrow with disquiet, still less with anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: Unruffled is their spirit, whether they obtain the objects of their desire or not, and they do not grieve over the loss of them, being content with their lot.
SPEAKER_00: If they become rich, they do not set their hearts on riches.
SPEAKER_00: If they are raised to honors, they do not regard themselves as more worthy than others.
SPEAKER_00: If they become poor, they are not made sad.
SPEAKER_00: If their circumstances are mean, they are not dejected.
SPEAKER_00: They know that for those who trust in the divine, all things advance toward a happy state to eternity, and that whatever befalls them in time still leads toward this.
SPEAKER_00: When we let the Lord build the house and guard the city, that's the kind of attitude we can have.
SPEAKER_00: Because our hearts are primarily set on doing the Lord's will, not on our picture of the outcome.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's worth diving a little more into exactly what we mean by building a house with the Lord and guarding a city with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: A house is where we dwell, where we live the most intimate scenes of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: A house represents what is good, where we act from love.
SPEAKER_00: To attempt to build the house on our own is to let the emotions of a moment determine what's good and what's bad.
SPEAKER_00: It's to build on the shifting sands rather than the rock.
SPEAKER_00: To let the Lord build the house is instead to derive our definition of goodness from the Lord's definition of goodness.
SPEAKER_00: It does not rely on our ability to perform any particular task.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, it relies on our willingness to shun evils as sins and let the Lord flow into our lives so that every single action we take, no matter how big or small, no matter how planned or unplanned, it can be an opportunity to express the Lord's love.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the house, that goodness, how we define goodness.
SPEAKER_00: A city, on the other hand, represents our doctrine, the framework by which we view the word and the world.
SPEAKER_00: And again, if we let the world dictate our worldview, we will have priorities for success that are not the Lord's priorities.
SPEAKER_00: And clinging to those, trying to guard them, is futile, because anything built apart from the Lord eventually falls apart.
SPEAKER_00: If we let the Lord guard the city, when things seem to be falling apart, we can still see the framework of the Lord's wisdom and love.
SPEAKER_00: And things will fall apart.
SPEAKER_00: No matter how much we might say that our lives are going according to plan, there will be things that do not go the way we expect or want them to.
SPEAKER_00: No matter how hard we work for them.
SPEAKER_00: There's the medical student who pours years of work and thousands of dollars into studying, but then can't complete the degree because family obligations call them away.
SPEAKER_00: There's a young woman who loves taking care of children and then is not able to have any of her own.
SPEAKER_00: There's a successful businessman who rises to the height of his profession, but then eventually has to retire and doesn't know what to do anymore.
SPEAKER_00: There's almost all of us who will see our faculties decline, who will no longer be able to do the things we could in the past as we age.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's every single one of us who will die.
SPEAKER_00: Our life on this planet will cease, and we will not keep any of our worldly possessions.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's a real cause for grief in some of those things.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord doesn't want us to suffer, and we're not blamed for sadness when a vision we have had evaporates.
SPEAKER_00: But the question is whether that's going to destroy us entirely.
SPEAKER_00: If our entire identity, our whole house, our whole city depends on any kind of a temporary goal, a vision that is not the Lord's vision, then it's going to fall.
SPEAKER_00: But if we have been working with the Lord to build the house and guard the city, then a fall in one opportunity is a new opportunity somewhere else to continue loving the neighbor in a new way, to continue living in the Lord's truth.
SPEAKER_00: We can leave behind our familiar fishing nets and be given opportunities to use the skills we've gained in ways that we cannot yet imagine.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that we have to give up on having goals, and it's not that we stop working toward them.
SPEAKER_00: To say, unless Jehovah builds the house, they labor in vain who build it, on the flip side then implies that if the Lord is building the house, our labor is not in vain.
SPEAKER_00: We are still laboring and it's not empty, it's not in vain.
SPEAKER_00: Our own participation is vital, actually.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord never said, if you follow me, you'll never have to do any work.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Come to me, all you that labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.
SPEAKER_00: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls.
SPEAKER_00: For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
SPEAKER_00: The yoke's not taken away, but the Lord's work, done the Lord's way, is itself restful.
SPEAKER_00: There's rest even in the work we're doing when we see that it is the Lord's work, because then we can let go of anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: It is not all on our shoulders to make everything happen the way we want it to.
SPEAKER_00: And so we focused on the first verse of Psalm 127.
SPEAKER_00: Unless Jehovah builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.
SPEAKER_00: Unless Jehovah guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.
SPEAKER_00: But the second verse shows us that the Lord commands this not for his own sake, not so that he gets all the glory, but because this is what's going to give us peace.
SPEAKER_00: The second verse says, It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: For so he gives his beloved sleep.
SPEAKER_00: It's a peace that comes from remembering that the Lord's plan for us does not last just for the short span of a lifetime on earth, but to eternity.
SPEAKER_00: This peace comes from knowing that despite the appearance, things are going according to plan if we are continuing to build our house on the rock of the Lord's word.
SPEAKER_00: As we read of the operation of divine providence in the work Apocalypse Explained, it is like a person who is about to build a house.
SPEAKER_00: He provides himself with the requisite materials, such as timber, rafters, stone, mortar, and various other things.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord, while the person is ignorant of it, afterwards builds the house from the foundation to the roof, entirely suited to the person.