Fiery Flying Serpent

Preached on 01-14-01

THE FIERY FLYING SERPENT

A Sermon by the Rev. Patrick A. Rose

"Do not rejoice, all you of Philistia, because the rod that struck you is broken; for out of the serpent's root will come forth a cockatrice, and its offspring will be a fiery flying serpent." (Isa. 14:29)

A NEW YEAR HAS BEGUN, and, technically, a new millennium. And as we go forth into this New Year, we are led to reflect upon the passage of the years and upon the course of our lives. The Lord has placed us in this world of time and space so that we might be prepared for an eternal life in the world to come. And this preparation takes place, not at this instant or at that instant, but at every instant all the time during the whole course of life. From the time of our birth to the time of our death, the Lord, in His providence, is leading us -- leading us away from hell, and towards heaven (DP 279:4). And when we enter the other world, our state there will depend, not upon one particular event in our worldly lives, but upon what we have become during the whole course of our lives here on earth (AC 8991).

And so it is that if we would reflect upon our progress towards heaven, we would do well to think, not in terms of days, weeks or months, but, rather, in terms of years, and even decades. The process by which the Lord establishes His kingdom in our hearts and minds occurs slowly, gradually, almost unnoticeably, with the passing years.

This year we are, we would hope, closer to the Lord than we were a year ago. We would also hope and pray that the coming year too will bring us, in the way we live, just a little closer to the Lord and to eternal happiness. We would pray that the Lord's kingdom might be established just a little more firmly and surely within our minds and within our lives.

The Lord's kingdom, though, has its enemies. There are forces at work, forces which flow in from hell and which we ourselves welcome, forces which work against this establishment of the Lord's kingdom. And one of the most common and constant ways in which the hells threaten our heavenly happiness is by means of that false religion which is represented in the Word by the land of Philistia.

In the Word of the Old Testament, the salvation of man that is, the establishment of the Lord's kingdom within his mind is represented by the establishment of the Kingdom of Israel. Those things which threaten our salvation are represented by those other peoples -- enemy nations -- which threatened the establishment and the survival of that kingdom.

Our text this morning talks about one of these enemies: Philistia, or the Philistines. Philistia, indeed, might well be considered the archenemy of Israel. Certainly it was the Israelites' most constant enemy. The Philistines lived in the coastal plain in the southwest of the land of Canaan. They had five principal cities: Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron. During the conquest of Canaan, the Israelites fought and defeated those peoples already living in Canaan with one exception, that is, the Philistines. The Israelites never quite managed to completely conquer the Philistines (AE 817:7; F 50). They remained a constant threat and source of trouble on the southwestern border. When the Israelites were faithful to the worship of Jehovah, they would gain the upper hand over the Philistines. When, however, they fell away from worshiping the Lord, they suffered defeat, and had to serve them.

Philistia, we are told, represents faith separated from charity or love (AE 817:6; F 51). It represents the idea, and indeed the attitude, that it does not really matter how we live, as long as we believe the right things. And this thought, this attitude, this mind set, is a most constant threat to the church, and to our very salvation. It is so easy, so very easy, to put matters of life, matters of conduct, aside, so divorcing what we believe from the way we live. As it is said in the small work, The Doctrine of Faith: "as this religion, namely, faith separated from charity, is continually desiring to get into the church, the Philistines remained in the land of Canaan, and often harried the sons of Israel"(F 50). Note that what the Philistines represented is called a religion the of faith separated from charity"(cf. AE 727:21, 817:6) a religion that is desiring to get into the church." This religion that the Writings are talking about is an ancient religion, a religion that is as old as evil itself.

Religion is, first and foremost, a way of life. True religion is to walk with God, and to be led by Him away from what is evil towards a life of charity and love. There are also, though, false religions, paths which lead, not to the Lord and to heaven, but towards evil and hell. Philistia is one of these false religions. Philistia is a way of living, a way of life, in which the actual conduct of our lives is regarded as unimportant. Thoughts and words are seen as more important than deeds and actions.

Now the idea that man is saved by faith alone, that is, by his beliefs, rather than by the way he lives, became a central tenet of the Reformation and was thus one of the primary doctrinal foundations of the original Protestant churches. In page upon page, the Writings, though, in bold and uncompromising language, condemn utterly this terrible idea -- the idea that the way a person lives does not really matter. If we were to sit down and count how many pages in the Writings are devoted to condemning the doctrine of faith alone, we might be amazed. And yet, really, we should not be surprised, for this doctrine is, as we have said, an ancient idea far older than the Reformation, an ancient false religion that is as old as evil itself. It is also as crafty and as cunning as evil itself -- it is an idea which can so easily captivate, enslave and poison the mind.

"Philistia" or the "Philistines" stand for the idea that we can have faith and be saved merely on the basis of what we know (see AC 1197:3). Life is of only secondary importance. This idea is obviously false -- in effect it throws away the Ten Commandments, and makes light of matters of good and evil, and of right and wrong. It is an idea which is obviously wrong, but yet it is an idea so easily accepted by the mind that wants to accept it. Once accepted, though, this idea -- the idea that it doesn't really matter how we live -- carries with it the seeds of our spiritual destruction.

This idea, which is represented by Philistia, is an idea which comes forth from hell, and is an idea which leads towards back towards hell. So it is described in our text from the prophet Isaiah: "Do not rejoice, all you of Philistia, because the rod that struck you is broken; for out of the serpent's root will come forth a cockatrice, and its offspring will be a fiery flying serpent"(Isa. 14:29). Philistia, in other words, is said to be a serpent's root. From this root would come a cockatrice, and the cockatrice, in turn, would give birth to a fiery , flying serpent.

Now just what is meant, literally, by the cockatrice, also called a basilisk, is not known. We do know from the Arcana, though, that the reference is to a kind of snake (AC 251), and that various kinds of snakes are spoken of in the Word so as to describe various forms of evil. Snakes signify evil in general because snakes relate to the sensual, that lowest part of the mind from which evil originates (ibid.).

So it is that Philistia is described, as to its evil origin and its evil effects, in terms of serpents. That false principle itself, namely, the idea that man is saved simply by what he knows and thinks, is described as a serpent's root (AE 727:21). The basilisk or cockatrice, which would come forth from this root, is said to signify the resulting destruction of good and truth (ibid.), destruction brought about, it is said, by the love of self-intelligence (cf. F 53), and by the various sophistries by which that false idea is confirmed (cf. AE 581:8). The fruit of this basilisk would then be a fiery, flying serpent, and the flying serpent is said to signify the various reasonings from falsities of evil against the goods and truths of the church (F 53, AE 727:21). Especially is the flying serpent associated with the false reasoning that a person, no matter how he lives, will be saved by the immediate mercy of the Lord (TCR 487:4, DP 340).

Now, because these various images of serpents are used to describe Philistia, one thing should be abundantly clear to us. The false idea which is Philistia, the false idea that we can somehow be saved despite the way we live, is an exceedingly dangerous one. Philistia, the root of the serpent, represents something which can, like a serpent, suffocate and poison the very spiritual life of its victims. The idea that it does not matter that much how we live sounds like a simple falsity. It is, though, a lethal one, one which can so very quickly bring devastation to the life of the Lord's kingdom within us.

We are given very good reason, in the Writings, to take this warning regarding Philistia very seriously indeed. The fiery serpent is spoken of in the Writings in a very significant place in the closing section of the work, Divine Providence. The fiery flying serpent is said to signify various reasonings, reasonings which destroy the goods and truths of the church. And, at the end of the work Divine Providence this fiery serpent is identified, specifically, with the reasoning that all can be saved, instantaneously, by the Lord's mercy.

Divine Providence is a book which talks of those laws and processes by which the Lord saves man and brings him into heaven. And this book, this very significant book, closes by talking of this fiery flying serpent -- of the falsity that man can be saved, instantly, without the laws of Providence, and by the Lord's mercy, no matter how badly he may have lived. And, earlier in the same book, this same idea -- the idea of instantaneous salvation -- is said to be an error, error of the present age "(DP 279:4).

And indeed it is an error of the age -- not only the age in which the Writings were given, but the age in which the Writings are now to be received. We live in a time and an age in which people look for instant solutions and easy answers, in religion just as in everything else. It is an era when people, many lonely and anxious people, reach out for and crave acceptance. It is a time when disorders are so often overlooked in the name of tolerance and understanding. Ours is a world in which evangelists can speak on TV to millions of people, and tell them that they can be saved, they can be accepted, instantly and unconditionally, no matter how they have lived, by the grace of Jesus Christ.

We are a part of this world. And we would be foolish indeed to believe that our own thought is not affected, often in subtle ways, by the voice of the age. Indeed our own problems are no different, in essence, from those of others. We also can feel lonely, anxious, guilty. We also have done things that are wrong. We also want to be saved. We want to be accepted by our Creator, accepted despite our mistakes, our errors, our sins.

Now it is true that the Lord forgives us. No matter what we have done, and no matter what we may do in the future, the Lord always forgives us, for He loves us. It is also true that no matter what we may have done in the past, there is a way for us to be saved -- a way for us to be led by the Lord into heaven.

It is not true, though, and it never will be true, to say that we can be saved, instantly, apart from the way we live. The Lord loves all people. He forgives all people. He offers salvation to all people. His salvation, though, can be received only in freedom, a freedom which is exercised through the course and conduct of life. If it were any other way, there would be no hells, for the

Lord would instantly lift all the devils up into heaven. Neither, though, would there be human freedom. And human freedom is something the Lord has given us, something He regards as precious, something He protects at every step. It is the freedom that we have to determine our course, our destiny, by the way we live, by the very course of our lives.

This is the reality, a reality we should never forget. The choice between heaven and hell is not exercised in some magical mystical moment. It is not determined by some instantaneous focussing of the will. It is not decided by some act of Divine intervention. These are ideas the hells would have us believe. They are fallacies falsities which encourage us to put off the living of a life of good. Constantly, continually, at every opportunity, the hells encourage us to make the way we live to be a matter of only minor importance.

Nothing, though, could be more important than the way we live. We must not put off living a life of good. The choice for heaven over hell is exercised only by shunning evil and by doing what is good during the normal conduct and course of our lives in the way we live from day to day, from month to month, and thus, in the course we lay for ourselves from year to year.

And so, as we go forward into another year, let this be a year in which we allow the conduct of our lives to be governed ever more fully by the precepts of His Word, and by the dictates of His commandments. Let us not look for magical solutions, nor for ways to avoid doing what we know must be done, but, rather, let us trust, simply, in the leading of the Lord. If we obey Him, then He will lead us, through the course of our lives, and from year to year, ever closer to Himself, and ever closer to our eternal dwelling place in His heavenly kingdom.

Amen.

Lessons: Ps. 90:1-12; HH 184; Isa. 14:29-32; DP 340:1,4