Lessons: Numbers 24:1-2, 5-6, 9b, 10-17, 25 S-122
AC 4236
HOW GOOD ARE THY TENTS:
DIVINE ORDER IN THE NATURAL PLANE OF LIFE
A sermon by the Rev. Lawson M. Smith. Dec. 20, 1987
"How good are thy tents, O Jacob! Thy dwellings, O Israel!" (Num. 24:5)
These words are a beautiful prophecy of the peaceful state of
heaven. The pattern of the camp of the children of Israel,
divinely ordained on Mount Sinai, is an image of the orderliness
of heaven. This heavenly order is the basis for all peace and
happiness and protection from the curse of the hells. The Lord
was born into the world in order to secure this peaceful order for
heaven, and to establish it for the human race on earth as well.
As beautiful as the literal sense is, from the spiritual
sense we can appreciate even more deeply the Lord's love and His
purpose in coming into the world. We can therefore resolve more
firmly to follow where He leads, so that He may fulfill this
prophecy for us.
The Lord caused Balaam to utter these words as he stood on
the mountains of Moab, overlooking the children of Israel,
encamped in the plains of Moab below. Each of the twelve tribes
had its place around the tabernacle. The twelve tribes represent
the whole church, as to every good of life and every truth of
faith, and the marriage of doctrine and life. Each one of us has
a somewhat different approach to living a useful life. We have
various occupations and various groups of people who count on us
in many ways. Each of us has a somewhat different idea of the
Lord and what He expects of us in this life. But everyone who is
sincere in trying to do what is right according to the Lord's will
is represented in the camp of Israel, and in heaven. The Lord
makes the center, drawing all of us into a unity.
Within each person's life, a host of different loves and
motives each seeks its place. Some loves are nearer to the Lord,
some more remote, and some do not belong in the camp at all. We
struggle with the question of how to fit in all the things we
would like to do or feel we ought to do--and what to cut out. The
Lord wants us to respond to these challenges as if from ourselves,
yet only the Lord can teach us how to arrange our priorities and
set our lives in order.
In general, He teaches us that eternal things should rule the
temporary things of this life, and He guides us to see the greater
and lesser degrees of the neighbor, to whom we should exercise
charity. Judah, or love to the Lord, must be straight ahead, to
the east. Reuben, or faith and enlightenment from the Word should
be to the right or the south. Specific applications, represented
by the camp of Ephraim, will always be spiritually behind, to the
west, in relative obscurity compared to the goals and the
principles; yet the more we apply the truth to life, the clearer
the truth and the warmer our love will become. And to the north
is the camp of Dan, representing the most basic foundation truths,
on which our whole life rests.
The more carefully we reflect and the more earnestly we pray
and try to obey, the more clearly we will perceive how the Lord
would have us order our lives, and the greater sense of peace and
security we will feel. In this way, the Lord sets all the loves
of our lives in their proper places, in relation to Himself and in
relation to all others. (AR 349, AE 341:1,11-12, AC 3858, AC
3703)
The camp of Israel was an army, though it included the women
and children. The reason Balak, king of Moab, was so frightened
of the sons of Israel was that they had just completed a
successful campaign against two mighty kings of the Amorites,
Sihon and Og, and utterly destroyed them and taken possession of
their land. This display of military power was what induced Balak
to call Balaam so urgently to come and curse the children of
Israel.
But the camp of Israel represented the order of heaven
itself, the Grand Man. This order comes from the influx of the
Lord's Divine Human with the angels, for the Lord's Divine
inflowing and received by the angels is what makes heaven, just as
the Lord makes peace and order in our lives. The camp of Israel
thus represented the order of creation, the pattern of the
universe, reality itself. In the pattern of the camp was an image
of the intrinsic, necessary relationships between love and truth,
and between higher and lower loves, between the Creator and
creation. The spiritual gravity of the Divine love that draws all
together towards itself, the source of life, yet allows each one
of us to find his own distance from the Creator in freedom, is
represented in the arrangement of the various tribes and families
around the tabernacle, from the Levites at the center, to the last
families in the circumferences of the camp.
In such order there is all power, for it is the way things
really are. The Lord's commandments are another expression of
such power. They are not arbitrary rules to test our obedience.
They are the laws by which men and women become happy or sad, by
drawing nearer or withdrawing from the Source of life and
happiness. So Balaam described the camp as being like a lion:
"There IS no sorcery against Jacob, nor is there any divination
against Israel. Now it must be said of Jacob and of Israel, 'Oh,
what God has done!' Look, a people rises like a lioness, and
lifts itself up like a lion; it shall not lie down until it
devours the prey, and drinks the blood of the slain." (Num.23:23-
24; cf. Num.24:8-9; AC 6367:6)
Describing the camp, the Arcana Caelestia comments, "This
camp, or this order, is such that it cannot possibly be broken by
hell, although hell is in a constant endeavor to break it. Hence
also this order, or heaven, is called a [military] 'camp,' and the
truths and goods, that is, the angels, who are arranged according
to this order, are called 'armies' [or 'hosts']. . . It is this
very order, and thus heaven itself, which was represented by the
encampment of the sons of Israel in the wilderness, and the
dwelling together itself in them according to tribes was called
the 'camp.'" (AC 4236:1)
Such an army or heavenly host announced the Lord's birth to
the shepherds on the night the Lord was born. They knew how much
they depended on the Savior who had been born to preserve the
order and peace among them which makes the heavenly state. We too
depend on the Lord's order to provide peace and freedom in our
lives. The Lord enables us to see when and to what degree we must
subordinate our interests and ambitions to the greater neighbor,
when to assert our knowledge and skill, and when to defer to
someone else. The Lord's order provides for the greatest
usefulness and happiness possible for each person in His kingdom,
that is, for everyone willing to be guided by His laws.
Against this order, the powers of hell cannot prevail. Think
of the example of the man who dedicates himself to living an
active, useful life. His mind is thereby limited and circumscribed
as within the walls of a camp, and within this focus, his mind is
progressively coordinated into a form that is truly human. He
does not have time or interest for the insanities of scortatory
lust, because his mind is focused on the uses of his life. The
orderliness of his life is like a wall, protecting him from the
hells, whereas people who are idle and slothful have no such
restraints and protections. (CL 249, TCR 423)
The tents of Jacob and the dwellings of Israel have a
special, celestial connotation. A tent stands for all the
doctrine of the church and worship from it. A life according to
doctrine is true worship. In particular, tents stand for the
holiness of love to the Lord. The reason is that in most ancient
times, all who belonged to the church dwelt in tents, which they
also took on their journeys. We read, "for at that time, they
were mostly feeders of sheep, and the father of the family taught
those who were born of his house the precepts of charity, and
thence the life of love, in tents, as they later did in temples...
And because such was the quality of the church among the most
ancient people, and the doctrine of love to the Lord was taught in
their tents, ...therefore tents were loved by the Lord more than
temples. And so by command of the Lord on Mount Sinai, a
tabernacle was built in which the Israelitish nation might perform
holy worship. And afterwards, [when they had settled in the land
of Canaan], the feast of tabernacles was instituted in memory of
the most holy worship in the tabernacles [of the most ancients]."
(AE 799:1-2)
In another passage we read, "Because the Most Ancient Church
was the Lord's beloved more than the churches following, and
because in those times people used to dwell alone, or in their own
families, each celebrating holy worship in his own tent, tents
were considered more holy than the temple, which had been
profaned." (AC 414:4) So Balaam, by the spirit of the Lord, spoke
these words: "How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how
shall I denounce whom the LORD has not denounced? From the top of
the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him; there! a
people dwelling alone, not reckoning itself among the nations."
(Nu.23:8-9)
Here is an ideal for us today. While we live in the world
and serve others as well as we can, nevertheless each family
should look to the Lord as of itself, celebrating holy worship at
home, with as little regard for the ways of the world as possible.
Church societies should not be regarded as a crutch, taking over
the place of the family, but as a support for each family in
turning to the Lord as a family, strengthening each one's sense of
responsibility, freedom, and love to the Lord. Each family can
have a unique, precious way of looking to the Lord and a love for
the uses of life that is different from every other family's.
This vision and love are a gift from the Lord to them and to all
their neighbors. Let's encourage each family to cultivate its own
special life and worship. Let our fathers be strong in teaching
their children the precepts of charity and the life of love, and
never allow others to usurp that privilege. The strength of our
church, our school, and our country depends on the strength of our
homes in looking to the Lord, each one by itself.
The peaceful picture of the tents of Jacob, the dwellings of
Israel, the good of life according to truth, is completed by the
image of gardens planted in the valleys, with aloes and cedars,
well watered. The valleys represent the natural man, the lowest
part of our nature, while the gardens represent the intelligence
and wisdom of the celestial man, like the garden of Eden, and like
the trees of life in the holy city. Gardens have this meaning
because a tree corresponds to a man, growing from seed, putting
forth limbs, adorning itself with leaves and flowers as a man does
with natural and spiritual truths, and finally bearing fruits, as
a man does the goods of use. (Coro.27) Spiritual heat and light
make us grow, as natural warmth and light give life to plants. (AR
90) And as trees need water, so too our spiritual life withers
away without the understanding of truth. The aloes or sandal
trees stand for the life of the natural man, while the lofty
cedars stand for rational perceptions, both of which are fed by
the streams of Divine truth. (AE 518:12-13)
The Lord was born into the world in order to bring celestial
love and wisdom down into even the natural plane of life, and to
make the natural plane capable of becoming celestial. In the
highest sense, the valleys planted with gardens by the river
represent the Divine Love and Wisdom in the Lord's Natural Human
nature, when it had been glorified. The Lord, by coming into the
world, gave us rivers of water, streams of knowledge accommodated
to the perception of our natural and rational minds, yet capable
of being filled with infinite love and wisdom. Such paradises of
peaceful, heavenly life can flourish even in this natural world,
as far as we stay within the camp of the Divine order which He
teaches us. There we are safe, beyond the reach of the curse of
hell.
We sense the peaceful, calm sphere of the Lord's omnipotent
order in the Christmas stories, and we know it even more clearly
in the Writings of His second advent. Let us invite the Lord to
dwell with us in our homes, so that His prophecy may be fulfilled
for us: "How good are thy tents, O Jacob! Thy dwellings, O
Israel! As the valleys are they planted, as gardens by the river;
as the sandal trees, which the LORD hath planted, as cedar trees
beside the waters." (Num. 24:5-6) Amen.