Advanced search
Search results clear search
Protecting each Child
Worship Service: Family (may include music) - May 31, 2020
We can be assured that no matter what is happening in and around us, we are under the Lord's protection. | By Rev. Garry B. Walsh | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (31m 36s)
Vessels for the Future
Worship Service: Sermon only - May 24, 2020
We are taught that we should work to develop the vessels of love and wisdom within us so that we use those vessels to keep growing ever more wise and charitable toward others in the life to come. | By Rev. Garry B. Walsh | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (25m 24s)
Forgiveness
Worship Service: Sermon only - May 17, 2020
The message here is about our need to both forgive and be forgiven. The closer we move to the Lord and the more we allow Him to forgive us, the more we automatically forgive others. | By Rev. Garry B. Walsh | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (31m 44s)
Mother's Day
Worship Service: Sermon only - May 10, 2020
This Mother's Day message reflects on the widow described in 1 Kings 17 who was on the brink of starvation along with her son and how they were saved by her faith in God's message. It also considers how a mother's instinctual love for her child is one of the most a wonderful gifts of God. | By Rev. Garry B. Walsh | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (30m 33s)
The Hem of Jesus' Garment
Worship Service: Sermon only - May 03, 2020
This is a study of the spiritual, personal meaning of the woman in Mark 5 who was cured of her flow of blood simply by touching the hem of Jesus' garment. | By Rev. Garry B. Walsh | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (29m 04s)
John W. "Jack" Rose
Memorial Service - January 25, 2020
November 6, 1924 - January 18, 2020 Obituary: http://rosefuneralhomeinc.com/obituary/john-wells-rose/ | By Rev. Solomon J. Keal | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (25m 53s)
Baptism Is from the Heart
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - January 24, 2016
Baptism is one of the holiest acts of worship. It brings closer to the Lord through correspondence. Baptism brings unto spiritual community, commits us to follow the Lord, and promises us that we can be spiritual reborn. | By Rev. Derrick Lumsden | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (26m 01s)
Psalm 23 - Part 1
Worship Service: Childrens Talk only - October 05, 2014
The Lord is the Good Shepherd. If we let the Lord be our Shepherd, he will protect us from evil. | By Rev. Pearse M. Frazier | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (08m 18s)
Psalm 23 - Part 1
Worship Service: Sermon only - October 05, 2014
The Lord is our Shepherd. All are included in His flock who have heard his voice and followed it. | By Rev. Pearse M. Frazier | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (19m 07s)
What Would Happen If?
Worship Service: Sermon only - June 14, 2009
| By Rev. Glenn G. Alden | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (25m 30s)
How to Be Part of the Christmas Story
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - December 02, 2007
Two thousand years after Jehovah, creator of the universe, came down and lived among us as Jesus, there are still people walking in darkness. This is why the He came again in the revelation of the internal sense of the Word, and it is why He continues to strive to be born in the hearts of individuals even today. He came to the world in the dark of Christmas Eve, then again in the Age of Enlightenment. He has also come into the individual lives of you and I, first when we learned of His existence and love for us, then again when we first began to understand the deeper implications of His presence in our lives. Now He is calling you to help him be born-€”either for the first time or more fully a second time-€”in the lives of those people around you who walk in spiritual darkness or are trapped by a dragon of false teachings. Answer His call. Be an angel. Bring the good news to those who desperately need it. Tell the world that Jesus is God, and help them to understand what that means in their own lives. Go to www.PittsburghNewChurch.org for audio and video of this message. | By Rev. Glenn (Mac) Frazier | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (31m 30s)
Part 3-Be the Church: Serve Humanity
Worship Service: Sermon only - July 29, 2007
This is part three of our summer series, "Be the Church"Âť. In part one ("Connect with the Lord") we reviewed the seven basic components of a life in the church. Then last week, in part two ("Love One Another"), we discussed what it meant to be the church to one another as part of the communion of saints. This week, in part three, "Serve Humanity"Âť, are are going to talk about doing good deeds as a church. Good works are not optional. Which good works we do, and how and when we do them, are left to us to decide. But the Lord does not want people in this world to suffer and it is our obligation as his church to do something to make the world better. We start by shunning evils and performing our daily occupations, and also by being good citizens and good spouses and parents. But the Lord asks more of us. The world is full of natural as well as spiritual suffering, and we are not meant to ignore either. When doing good works, it is important that we do them justly and from good judgment. Indiscriminately giving money to anyone who asks for it, for instance, may do as much harm as good. At the same time it is a mistake to let our fears of doing the "wrong" good deed stop us from ever attempting good works at all. So long as we try to use our best judgement, and try to do it out of the kindness of our hearts and not merely with the hope of some reward, the Lord will bless us and lead us to become ever better at it. Now, natural charity is meant to be a foundation for spiritual charity, so in two weeks we will have part four, "Proclaim the Good News"Âť. To see the truth of this message and to learn how to apply it to your life, read Matthew 25:34-40 and True Christian Religion 459:13-17, then listen to the full audio of this sermon by clicking here, and then try out what you learn in your life. This sermon, along with the rest of the series, is available through the Pittsburgh New Church (www.PittsburghNewChurch), where it was preached, TheoBlog.com, the New Church (www.NewChurch.org), and for free at the Apple iTunes Store. | By Rev. Glenn (Mac) Frazier | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (17m 26s)
Part 2-Be the Church: Love One Another
Worship Service: Sermon only - July 22, 2007
In part one of our series, we reviewed our individual responsibilities to the Lord as citizens of his kingdom on earth, the Church. They are to live a life of piety (praying, reading the Word, and worshiping the Lord) and a life of charity (repenting, shunning evils, and serving other people) so that we may be born again. In Part 2, we are talking about how we can be the church to one another. In The Gospel of John, the Lord tells us, "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."Âť A very powerful and important way we can keep this commandment is by supporting each other in one another's personal spiritual journeys. True Christian Religion teaches that the Church as a person's neighbor provides true teachings and good deeds by which that person enters the Lord's kingdom. If each of us is to be the church, then each of us is responsible for supporting our spiritual brothers and sisters as they try to understand truths and to do good deeds. It is because the church - which is made up of each one of us - helps us in this way that we are to love and honor our spiritual mother the church as one of the highest forms of neighbor. And when we are the church to one another and are loving the church in one another, we form a spiritual community of individuals striving to help one another to become better people. This community the Writings for the New Church call the "communion of saints". But the communion of saints also includes people you have never met. In Part 3, we will look at ways we as a church can be a good neighbor to the rest of the world in "Be the Church, Part 3: Serve Humanity"Âť. To see the truth of this message and to learn how to apply it to your life, read John 13:31-24 and True Christian Religion 145-146, and then listen to the full audio of this sermon by clicking here. This sermon, along with the rest of the series, is available through the Pittsburgh New Church (www.PittsburghNewChurch.org) where it was preached, TheoBlog.com, NewChurch.org, and for free at the Apple iTunes Store. | By Rev. Glenn (Mac) Frazier | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (14m 48s)
Part 1-Be the Church: Connect with the Lord
Worship Service: Sermon only - July 15, 2007
Welcome to our series, "Don't Just Go to Church, Be the Church!"Âť The church is not the priesthood, nor is it some abstract thing apart from you. The church is simply the group of people who follow the Lord, and you are called to be one of them. For the next several Sundays we will be talking about what it means to be citizens of the Lords' kingdom on earth. In our first part, "Connect with the Lord"Âť, we begin by reviewing what our personal, individual responsibilities to the Lord are. Put briefly, there are seven things the Lord wants us to do: (1) Pray, (2) Read the Word, (3) Worship, (4) Repent, (5) Shun evils, (6) Serve other people, and (7) Regenerate, or be born again. The first three are what are sometimes called the "life of piety", and the next three are called the "life of charity"Âť; the last one is not something we do ourselves, but instead is something the Lord does for us as a result of the other six. To see the truth of this and learn how to apply it to your life, read Luke 17:20-21 and The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 124, 241-245 (included below), and then listen to the full audio of this sermon by clicking here. This sermon, along with the rest of the series, is available through the Pittsburgh New Church (where it was preached), TheoBlog, the New Church, and the Apple iTunes Store. Next week we will begin to talk about our responsibilities to the church in "Be the Church, Part 2: Support One Another". | By Rev. Glenn (Mac) Frazier | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (18m 08s)
Make Spiritual Victory a Habit
Worship Service: Sermon only - July 08, 2007
Today's message: Leading a good life sometimes seems hard, but if we just make a habit of repenting then the Lord will do all the heavy lifting. To understand and apply this, first read Matthew 11:30, Heaven and Hell 528, Psalm 51, and Heaven and Hell 533, and then listen to the audio of this sermon. It is important to realize, though, that the difficulty of thinking like this and also of resisting evils increases to the extent that we deliberately do evil things - €”in fact, to the extent we become used to doing them until ultimately we no longer see them. Then we come to love them and to excuse them to gratify our love and to rationalize them with all kinds of self-deceptions and call them permissible and good. This happens, though, to people who in early adulthood plunge into all kinds of evil without restraint and at the same time at heart reject everything divine. This sermon was preached at Pittsburgh New Church, and is available at TheoBlog.com, PittsburghNewChurch.org, NewChurch.org, and the Apple iTunes Store. | By Rev. Glenn (Mac) Frazier | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (26m 20s)
God Speaks in Your Heart
Worship Service: Sermon only - May 20, 2007
"Then they said to one another, 'Here comes that dreamer!'" (Gen. 37:19) The Lord gives us dreams and stirs our affections for spiritual things, and for good reasons; we therefore must learn to trust Him and to dream with Him. Think back to the life dreams of your childhood. Some may have been silly, but some were noble at their core. Where did they come from? And what happened to them? Sometimes our dreams are torn up by others, and sometimes we talk ourselves out of believing in them. All of our thoughts and affections are spiritual in origin. Some come from heaven, some from hell. The Lord is constantly flowing into our hearts to inspire and motivate us to do good things. Without the hopes and plans for the future that come from His influence, we would never strive to be better people. In the Word, Joseph and his brothers represent different parts of our minds. Joseph (and his little brother Benjamin) are the deepest, highest parts of us that receive the Lord's love and wisdom. The older brothers represent the more external parts of us that are necessary for daily life. Often, our external mind attacks our inner Joseph, especially when the Lord fills us with thoughts and affections that require us to change our lives in some dramatic way. As with Joseph, though, the Lord continues to guide and inspire us even when it seems that we have sold our inmost self into slavery. Even when we are trapped in the external concerns of the world, like Joseph in Egypt we will be protected and lead so that it all leads to good, if we permit Him to do so. So learn to discern which of your thoughts and affections are from heaven, so you can honor the Lord's inspiration when you find it in your heart. To see that this is true, read Genesis 37 and Divine Providence 287, and then listen to the full audio version of this sermon. It is archived at TheoBlog.com, and also available through www.PittsburghNewChurch.org, www.NewChurch.org, and the Apple iTunes Store. | By Rev. Glenn (Mac) Frazier | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (14m 12s)
Was the Lord Born to Suffer?
Worship Service: Sermon only - December 03, 2006
"Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. (Isaiah 53:10) When we think about the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger, words like "afflicted", "bruised", and "slaughter" do not come immediately to mind. "Innocence", "love", "peace", and "joy" are words of the Lord's birth. But the description of the Lord's life in Isaiah 53 is at once chilling and uplifting. Viewed wrongly, it seems as if the Lord was born on earth to suffer punishments from above so we wouldn't suffer. But "bearing the sins of many" doesn't mean that our sins are removed from us, but that the Lord, because of His victory over the hells during His life on earth, fights our battles for us when we shun evils as sins. The Lord was not born into a life of suffering, but a life of battle and of victory. Combat is not a pleasant thing, but the Lord loves us enough to fight our battles for us. When the angels heard this prophecy, they did not grieve for the Lord, but celebrated the victory that would save them and all of creation from the hells that threatened to overwhelm heaven. Take time this season to reflect on the circumstances surrounding the Lord's advent into your life. They may not always be joyful times, but then continue reflecting onward to the results of His coming and there you will find the angels bearing tidings of great joy. To see that this is true, read John 12:37-47, Isaiah 53, and Arcana Coelestia 9937:1-3, then listen to the full audio sermon, and finally try it out in your life in the coming week. This sermon is archived at www.PittsburghNewChurch.org and is also available at www.NewChurch.org and at the Apple iTunes store as a free podcast. | By Rev. R. Amos Glenn | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (15m 27s)
How to Prepare for the Holiday Pandemonium
Worship Service: Sermon only - November 26, 2006
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness; Prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert a highway for our God." (Isaiah 40:3) Too often, we allow the "holiday season" overwhelm us. What starts out with happy anticipation of joyful gatherings and peaceful worship, instead ends up covered with anxious shopping and distracting office parties. This is not to say that gifts and office parties are bad, but our culture allows the evil spirits to push us into thinking more about the correct celebration of Christmans than about what is being celebrated. I call this "Holiday Pandemonium," the craziness that distracts us from what we really would rather be doing, enjoying friends and family and the peaceful holiness that surrounds us. "Pandemonium" has taken on the meaning of "wild, lawless confusion" but originally was the name John Milton used in Paradise Lost for the capital city of hell (from the Greek "Pan-" meaning "all" and the Latin "demonium" meaning "evil spirit"). Both of these senses are meant in "Holiday Pandemonium". How do we prepare ourselves for the Holiday Pandemonium so that we might avoid the chaos and anxiety as much as possible? The prophecy in Isaiah, repeated in the New Testament, tells us to prepare the way of the Lord, or more literally, to "sweep" the path of the Lord. We start the beginning work of repentance by reading the Word and thinking about our lives and what we really want. By doing the preparation work ahead of time, before the Pandemonium sets in, we allow the Lord ino our lives in ways that, though unseen, are powerful. It is like a baptism before the work of regeneration takes place. To see that this is true, read Isaiah 40:1-8, John 1:19-27, and True Christian Religion 531, then listen to the full audio version of today's sermon, and then try putting it into practice. This Christams season sermon is archived at www.PittsburghNewChurch.org and is available as a free podcast at the Apple iTunes store. | By Rev. R. Amos Glenn | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (11m 53s)
Preparing for Holiday Pandemonium
Worship Service: Chapel Talk - November 26, 2006
| By Rev. R. Amos Glenn | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (14m 31s)
Why Are the Ten Commandments So Negative?
Worship Service: Sermon only - November 19, 2006
"From these considerations it is clearly manifest that so far as a man shuns evils, so far is he with the Lord and in the Lord; and so far as he is in the Lord, so far he does good, not from himself but from the Lord. Hence results this general law: SO FAR AS ANY ONE SHUNS EVILS, SO FAR HE DOES WHAT IS GOOD. "(Doctrine of Life 21) When we turn away from hell, which way are we facing? We often think of the Ten Commandments as a list of "Thou Shalt Not"s - the Lord telling us, like parents tell their children, all the things they are not allowed to do. But as we have learned over the past weeks, the Ten Commandments are not about limiting our freedom or making us suffer. So why are they so negative? The Doctrine of Life, which is drawn directly from the Ten Commandments, teaches that everyone in this world is suspended between heaven above and hell below. We are kept this way so we can freely choose which direction we want to turn. By birth we would naturally turn towards hell, but the Lord maintains our freedom and equilibrium and then educates us on how to turn towards heaven. We would assume that we would therefore be taught about how to do good. But in the 10 Commandments, we're not taught how to do good, but how to not do evil. Why? Good and evil are opposites and destroy each other when they meet. Since we are born with an inclination to evil, we cannot do good right away because the evil within us would destroy it. So our first job is to get rid of the evil. And as we shun those evils as sins, the Lord replaces them with good. We cannot do good without first shunning evil. The amazing result is turning toward heaven, not because we are choosing to turn towards heaven, but because we are turning away from hell. If we choose to not look down at the ground, we can't help but look at the sky. Obeying the Ten Commandments by shunning evils as sins against the Lord is the surest way to reach heaven. To see that this is true, first read Doctrine of Life 53, Isaiah 1:10-20, and Doctrine of Life 18-21, then listen to the full audio version of this sermon, and, finally, try practicing it for a week. This is the tenth and final sermon in our Journey series, celebrating the Ten Commandments. It is archived at www.PittsburghNewChurch.org. | By Rev. R. Amos Glenn | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (20m 33s)
Exercise Alone Can't Cure a Heart Defect: The Ninth and Tenth Commandments
Worship Service: Sermon only - November 12, 2006
"'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant nor his female slave, nor his ox nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'" (Exodus 20:17) The Lord is waiting for permission to replace your heart with a pure one. This is because right thinking and useful living cannot overcome selfishness and greed on their own. We are all born with sick hearts, and no amount of exercise will save us. Spiritually healthy living is important, but without a spiritual heart transplant, we're still doomed. We have already learned in the past eight weeks of studying the Commandments that there is not only natural murder, but spiritual, as well. We are to shun both. The problem is, spiritual murder actually feels good to us at times. How is this a spiritual form of coveting? Consider how coveting--longing to possess something that belongs to someone else--is like stealing in one's own heart. When we covet something, we haven't actually stolen it, but there's a part of us that wants to. This is how eventually all natural thefts, murders, false witnesses and acts of adultery come about. First comes the covetous desire, then comes the destructive act. So spiritual murder--attacking a person in your own heart--begins with the evil desire to do so. Now here's the frightening part of this teaching: satisfying our heart's desires gives us pleasure. That means that there's a dark part of us that feels good when we break a commandment, whether spiritually or naturally. The sin of adultery provides a powerful illustration of this. Everyone knows that physically committing adultery involves physical pleasure. That's a big part of the attraction of adultery. So our will rules over our intellect. Our will is our spiritual heart, and just like a natural heart, we can't directly control it. We can hold our breath but we can't hold our pulse from beating. Only the Lord can help us. For Him to do this, though, we have to freely decide on our own that we want Him to. We do this by repenting--or turning away from--evil impulses as they come to us, by praying to Him to ask Him for a clean heart, and by shunning--literally "fleeing"--evil when it presents itself within us. This is what the Lord meant when He said that, if our right eye or hand causes us to stumble, we should pluck it out and cut it off. He also said that it isn't what goes into the mouth but what comes out from the heart that makes a person unclean, meaning that it isn't our intellect that makes us evil, but our will. This is because love of self, along with its subordinate love of the world, warp our rational thinking, making whatever justifies our evil desires appear to be truth, and whatever satisfies them to feel good. Our hearts are corrupted by selfishness and greed, and full of murder, adultery, theft and deceit. So go back to the beginning of the Commandments., acknowledge the false god is you, and pray to the Lord for a new heart, and over time He will miraculously transform your life. To see that this is true, read Exodus 20:17, Luke 12:13-21, Mark 7:1-23, and True Christian Religion 325-328, then listen to the full audio of the sermon, and finally put it into practice for a week. This is the second-to-last sermon in the Journey / Rise Above It series on the Ten Commandments, preached at Pittsburgh New Church, this time addressing the ninth and tenth commandments. It is archived at TheoBlog.com, and also available through www.PittsburghNewChurch.org and www.NewChurch.org. | By Rev. Glenn (Mac) Frazier | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (17m 14s)
Listening to the Teaching of the Lord: The Eighth Commandment
Worship Service: Sermon only - November 05, 2006
"'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'" (Exodus 20:16) The commandment not to bear false witness is one that does not obscure its spiritual meanings too much; we easily leap from giving false testimony before a judge to lying in general, and from there to the spiritual meaning of this commandment: to not call the truth falsity, and to not call falsity truth. In the highest meaning, of course, it is a warning not to blaspheme against the Lord, for the Lord is Truth Itself. The great sin described in Isaiah 28 is false witness. The source of this sin was drunkenness, that is, the purposeful confusion of the understanding part of the mind as to what is right or true and what is wrong or false. This "drunkenness" was not an accident, but was the result of people pridefully and selfishly searching for truth with their own reason alone, confirming their own ideas with a mixture of falsified truths from the Word and "proofs" from the natural world. The result of this "intoxication" is extreme uncleanliness, representing the possession of the mind by the evil spirits. Once this state sets in, the Word is no longer the source of truth, but an obstacle to be overcome in fulfilling one's own selfish desires. How could a person live this way and call it good? That is the greatest lie of all: that the hells are the source of happiness, safety, comfort, strength, and peace. The hells promise us "glorious beauty" and delicious fruit from verdant valleys, self-esteem, success, and power. But when judgment comes, that covenant is annulled and our relationship with the hells is revealed to be terrible and the real source of suffering. How do we prevent this from happening to us? The short answer is to let your Yes be Yes and your No be No. Let truth be true and falsity be false. Acknowledge that the Lord is Truth itself and the source of what is right. The Lord simply says to us, "Give ear to My voice, Listen and hear my speech." We are not the source of our understanding of the truths of the Lord's Word; the Lord's Word is the source of our understanding of everything else. We break this commandment when we turn away from the Word when seeking answers to life's questions. Instead, we will listen to the teaching of the Lord. To see that this is true, read Matthew 5:33-37, Isaiah 28, and True Christian Religion 324, then listen to the full audio of today's sermon. This is the eighth sermon in our Rise Above It series on the Ten Commandments. It is archived at www.PittsburghNewChurch.org. | By Rev. R. Amos Glenn | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (17m 03s)
How Praising the Lord Frees Your Spirit: The Seventh Commandment
Worship Service: Sermon only - October 29, 2006
"'You shall not steal.'" (Exodus 20:15) When you take credit for the good you do, you are stealing from the Lord and buying into the first and biggest of all lies: that you--and not the Lord--are the source of all life. Doing this leads to fear, anguish and suffering, because you also end up stealing the Lord's responsibility for all future good, which you cannot possibly hope to manage without disaster. If instead you learn to praise the Lord for every good thing, then you will find you are able to enjoy all the Lord's loving gifts with a new sense of freedom. To see that this is true, read Matthew 6:19-21, Genesis 2:15-3:24, and True Christian Religion 317-319, then listen to the full audio sermon explaining Exodus 20:15. This is the seventh Rise Above It / Journey sermon on the Ten Commandments, addressing this time the seventh commandment, against all kinds of theft. It is archived at TheoBlog.com, and also available through PittsburghNewChurch.org, NewChurch.org, Apple.com (in the iTunes Music Store), and FeedBurner.com. | By Rev. Glenn (Mac) Frazier | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (20m 25s)
Consider the Source of Adultery: The Sixth Commandment
Worship Service: Sermon only - October 22, 2006
"'You shall not commit adultery.'" (Exodus 20:14) To not commit adultery seems to be one of the commandments that our culture has the most trouble supporting. As a nation, we wouldn't tolerate the sacrifice of animals to Baal in the name of religious freedom. Many states use even the threat of death to deter murders. But we've seen a President of the United States admit to committing adultery and be punished, not for the adultery, but for lying about it. Even if a state does technically have laws against adultery (as Pennsylvania does), no state today could expect a guilty verdict to be upheld. Since 1965, the U. S. Supreme Court has been concluding that consenting adults have a right to privacy in sexual intimacy, making adultery very difficult to punish or deter with civil means. This is not to say that such laws would be useful or necessary (though perhaps they would). The message we are hearing is that marriage is not valued as it should be. By 1970, every state had no-fault divorce laws, making it easier to get a divorce than get married in some states. Unlike almost every ancient or primitive culture, we no longer consider marriage to be sacred. But this did not happen in a vacuum. The dishonoring of marriage is not the cause, but is the effect of a much deeper and more terrible problem: the denial of any absolute set of values. We could translate that as the denial of the authority of the Word as the source of instructions for right living. Our post-modern culture tells us that what is "right" for you may not be "right" for me and both are equally "right". But we know that cannot be true. Even in cultures where the Old and New Testament did not exist, there was a set of standards that were considered to be sacred and applied to everyone equally. Sadly, much of the spiritual history of the human race is the story of repeatedly falling away from those standards. In Genesis, Joseph seemed fairly alone in his conviction that lying with his master's wife was wrong, even if they didn't get caught. In the prophets, Israel and Judah are regularly called "harlots" and "adulterers" because of their inability to remain true to the Lord and his laws. In the New Testament, the Pharisees were condemned because of their hypocrisy and their twisting of the laws of Moses to suit their own desire for power and wealth. This is all spiritual adultery, and it is the source of natural adultery. Denying the holiness of the Word, treating it like any other book and taking from it only the parts that agree with your desires is the essence of spiritual adultery. Natural marriage gets its holiness from its correspondence with the marriage of good and truth, which is heaven itself. Trying to join good to falsity twists that good into evil and destroys the heavenly marriage. Not treating the good and truth of the Word and of religion as heavenly leads only to hell. Celestial adultery, then, is the denial of the Divinity of the Lord. If you do not believe that the Lord is God, then the things He teaches in the Word are not sacred and become subject to re-interpretation. And if there is no longer any objective truth with which to restrain and reform your life, you are left only with the desires the hells give to you. Belief in the Divinity of the Lord is to behave as if the Lord is God. It means nothing to believe in something if you don't act as if it is living your life in accordance with those truths. Not living this way is to commit adultery in your soul, in your mind, and eventually in your life. To see that this is true, read Genesis 39:5-10, Revelation 17:1-6, Arcana Caelestia 8904:1-2, listen to the full audio sermon, and then try living your life as if it is true. This is the sixth Rise Above It sermon on the Ten Commandments. It is archived at http://www.PittsburghNewChurch.org/ | By Rev. R. Amos Glenn | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (17m 26s)
Spiritual Murder Leads Only to Spiritual Death: The Fifth Commandment
Worship Service: Sermon only - October 15, 2006
"You shall not murder." (Exodus 20:13) Similarly to the fourth commandment to honor your father and mother, the commandment against murder is clearly to be viewed in terms of both width and depth. Instead of adding numbers of people to achieve a wider point of view, as we did with the fourth commandment, we include all the stages leading up to murder. This includes wounding or mutilation that proves fatal, but also the feelings of hatred, enmity, and revenge that are the causes of the wounding -- even if the actual murder never takes place. Because of this, those who injure another's name or reputation have the same motivations and fears. The hateful or vengeful person, even if they never hurt anyone, lives "in danger of hellfire." But this commandment also goes much deeper than the life in this world; a person's real life is in their soul. Making the Word or the life of religion the subject of a joke can be spiritual murder if it then prevents another from thinking reverently about these things. Persuading someone to reject something of religion or worship is spiritual murder because it destroys that person's ability to live the life that leads to heaven. Of course, you do not have the power to close heaven to another, but you can provide real assistance to evil spirits as they try to drag another soul into hell. Both of these levels of murder come from a rejection and hatred of the Lord. All in the hells want nothing more than to destroy the Lord, the dreadfulness of which is pictured in the final days of the Lord's life on earth. But since they cannot, they instead try to destroy those who would follow Him. Real murder is the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who attempt spiritual murder only end up bringing spiritual death on themselves by choosing the life of hell. To see that this is true, read Matthew 5:21-26, John 8:37-59, and True Christian Religion 310. This is the fifth Rise Above It sermon on the Ten Commandments. (Archived at http://www.PittsburghNewChurch.org/) | By Rev. R. Amos Glenn | Pittsburgh, PA
See Event (14m 40s)