SELF-COMPULSION
A Sermon by Rev. Donald K. Rogers
"Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell in
Your mountain of holiness? He that swears to afflict himself
and does not change" (Psalm 15:1, 4).
Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell
in Your mountain of holiness? These are the opening words of
the 15th psalm. They ask a question the Lord longs for
everyone to ask, that is, who will dwell in heaven? What
kind of person must we become in order to enter Your
kingdom? And how do we truly become part of Your kingdom on
earth as well? And as not to leave comfortless, He answers
this question with the four remaining verses of the psalm.
"He who walks 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 does he take up a
reproach against his friend; in whose eyes a vile person is
despised, but he honors those who fear the Lord; he who
swears to afflict himself and does not change; he who does
not put out his money at usury, nor does he take a bribe
against the innocent. He who does these things shall never
be moved." In short, "Those who love the neighbor and God
will be of the Lord's church," and will dwell in heaven.
Unfortunately, these two loves, love to the Lord and
love to the neighbor, do not come naturally with us. Only
evil comes naturally with us. We are born selfish and self-
serving. We are born loving the pleasures of the world for
their own sake, and not the delight of heaven, which is to
serve others. That is why "He that swears to afflict himself
and changeth not" is included in the psalm. For to afflict
oneself in a spiritual sense is to compel oneself not to do
evil and then to do what is good for our neighbor. In no
other way can we acquire a love for the Lord and for our
neighbor.
The Lord cannot compel us. He cannot keep us from doing
the evil we want to. He cannot make us be good. For if He
did, He would take away our freedom, which is the very
essence of our humanness. Without freedom we would be mere
slaves or robots. No one outside of ourselves can compel us
either. For this would only make us externally good. We
would still interiorly will evil, and even will it with
increased fervor. Who does not want what is forbidden and
hates what is forced upon him, even if it is good? No! We
must compel ourselves if we are to receive the loves of
heaven into our hearts.
The first thing we must compel ourselves to do is to
examine ourselves. We should use our understanding to see
what evils we would like to do if there was no fear of
punishment, or the fear of the loss of honor, reputation or
gain. We should try to see what evils we deem as allowable
in our private thoughts when no one else is around. Would we
do these evils if we thought we could get away with them?
And we should especially ask ourselves if we make excuses
for the evils we do or think. These evils we may see in
ourselves make up what is referred to in the psalm as the
vile person which in the eyes of our understanding is to be
despised.
The reason we can do this sort of self-examination is
that our "understanding has been furnished with a higher and
lower thought, or interior and exterior thought, to enable
us to see from the higher or interior thought what our will
is doing in the lower or exterior thought" (DP 278). For
example, we can act nicely and speak lovingly to people we
do not like or may even hate. At the same time we can
reflect on what we are going to say next so as not to reveal
our true or inner thoughts to that person. This double
thought is the functioning of the interior thought looking
down upon the exterior thought, almost as if there were two
distinct people inside of us. In fact, the Writings often
call the interior thought our internal man, and they call
the exterior thought our external man.
This same ability, when turned to a good use, also
enables us to examine ourselves, condemn the vile person of
the exterior thought or external man, and resolve to desist
from the evils we see there. Then when we actually make an
effort and "desist from thinking evil, a door is opened, and
when it is opened, the lusts of evil which occupied the
internal of [our] thought are cast out by the Lord, and
affections of good are implanted in their place" (DP 145).
These affections of good are called elsewhere in the
Writings "a heavenly love" (AC 1937). And this love is also
sometimes called in the Word a fear of the Lord. It is not a
fear of punishment but a fear of failing to love. It is a
fear of wronging someone. It is this heavenly love
insinuated in us by the Lord that gives us the power to
compel ourselves to shun evils as sins against God. For "to
be compelled by love and the fear of failing in it is self-
compulsion." And so strong is this love that it gives us the
ability to lay down our life of evil for our friends.
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his
life for his friends" (John 15:13). Such is the love of the
internal thought that the Lord gives us once we make the
effort to stop willing, thinking, and doing evil, and try to
do what is right.
However, the external of our thought or external man
does not automatically begin to share this love. Instead it
continues to indulge in the evil thoughts as it always has.
Therefore, there arises a conflict between the compelling
love of our internal man and the stubborn and selfish love
of our external man. We literally have to wage war with
ourselves. And the object of the battle is to compel our
external thought or man to stop thinking of the evil things
it would like to do and to start thinking about the good
things it should be doing. In this way we introduce our
external man to the delight and enjoyment of thinking,
speaking and eventually doing what is good. In this way also
evil gradually loses its captivating delight, and we even
begin to hate evil.
This conflict between our internal and external man is
fairly easily resolved if we have not indulged much in our
evils. However, if we have, the conflict becomes combat, and
if severe, it is called temptation. This is why in the
internal sense "affliction" not only signifies self-
compulsion but also temptation, as in this passage from
Deuteronomy: "You shall remember that the Lord your God led
you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to
afflict you and tempt you, to know what was in your heart,
whether you would keep His commandments or not" (Deut. 8:2).
This passage also sums up the feeling that we have when
we are in a state of self-compulsion and thence temptation.
It seems as though it is the Lord who is compelling us to be
good. And therefore it also appears as if the Lord were
taking away our freedom. But, as has already been said, the
temptation really arises because our internal man is
compelling the external man. Both of these, the internal and
the external man, are parts of ourself. So if it is we
ourselves and not the Lord who is doing the compelling, then
we are doing it freely.
The reason it may appear as if the Lord were doing the
compelling and so may appear as if we were not free is that
our internal man is taking away our external man's freedom
to do evil. This freedom is like the freedom of those who
have no conscience for "they make freedom to consist in
doing as they please, and in the license of thinking and
speaking what is false, of willing and doing what is evil,
and of not compelling and humbling still less of afflicting
such desires, when yet the very reverse is the case" (AC
1947). Such freedom is also called infernal freedom because
everyone in hell has it. There every devil is a slave to
some other devil even more wicked than himself although he
may not always realize it. It is the same with our external
man. For "the influx of hell through evil spirits [acting on
our external man] is forcible, and impetuous, striving to
dominate" (AC 905). But all the while our external man
thinks he is in freedom, when yet he is being dragged down
to hell by the evil spirits. This is why the Lord teaches in
John that "whoever committeth sin is a servant of sin" (John
8:34). Such is the freedom of our external man which our
internal man must compel to give up.
If we persist, we will come into true freedom. For once
our external man is compelled by our internal man to shun
evil and to do what is good, the delight of doing good takes
hold, and our external man for the first time becomes truly
free. This freedom is heavenly freedom. This is like someone
who compels himself to learn to play a musical instrument,
and once he has learned how to play it, he plays it
automatically and with a growing delight both to himself and
to others. It works the same way with loving the Lord and
the neighbor. For if we compel ourself, even against our own
hereditary will, these good loves will gradually begin to
flow forth more freely and spontaneously. This is the
freedom that the Lord spoke of when he said, "If you
continue in My Word, then you are My disciples indeed, and
you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free"
(John 8:31, 32).
Self-compulsion is an ongoing and daily process. Not a
day goes by when we are not faced with at least one
situation in which we have to compel our external man. For
example, we may come home from a miserable day at work and
must compel ourselves not to take it out on the wife and
kids. We may have to put away our worries and lend an
understanding ear to their problems and worries and so
compel ourselves to give them the attention we felt we
deserved. Or we may feel unjustly wronged by someone and we
must compel ourselves not to feel vengefully angry with
them. It could be that they were spreading malicious and
false rumors about us, or simply cut in front of us with a
car. Whatever it may be, we will undoubtedly find times
during the day in which we will have to compel ourselves to
desist from some evil thought and feelings and to show some
love instead.
This may not always be easy. But the Lord never said
the way to heaven was without its struggles. For He said,
"Think not that I have come to send peace on the earth; I
came not to send peace but a sword. And a man's foes shall
be they of his own household." The external man is part of
the household of our mind which we must compel and afflict.
And what makes it so difficult is that the external man
within us rebels and complains that he is not free, and that
the Lord is so unfair to require him to change his life and
habits. But these things are for our own good and our
eternal happiness.
Furthermore, the Lord knows the feeling. He is no
stranger to affliction. He too went through the process of
self-compulsion and temptation. The temptations He went
through willingly were so grievous as to be beyond all human
comprehension. The gospel account of His temptation in the
Garden of Gethsemane is but a glimpse of what He went
through for our sakes. All alone because the disciples were
asleep and the angels could not help, He prayed in so much
agony that "His sweat was as it were great drops of blood
falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:42, 44). We are also
told in the Writings that this state did not abate until
after the Lord had endured one of the most cruel deaths ever
devised by man--the cross. For this reason the Lord can say
to us, "Take up your cross and follow Me" (Matt. 16:24).
Compel yourself. Follow My example. Yes, it is true that,
"In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I
have overcome the world" (John 16:33).
So if we do as the Lord says and swear to afflict
ourselves and do not change, that is, persevere, we will be
made happy to all eternity. We will throw off the slavish
freedom of our external man and dwell with the Lord in the
heavenly freedom of love and service to God and our
neighbor. We can be just as sure of this as we can that the
Lord Jesus Christ overcame the world and is now the God of
heaven and earth. "Lord, who shall abide in Your tabernacle?
Who shall dwell in Your mountain of holiness? He who swears
to afflict himself and does not change" (Psalm 15:1, 4).
Amen.
Lessons: Psalm 15, AE 1151:2
Preached in La Crescenta, California, August 9, 1987
* * * * * *
Apocalypse Explained 1151:2
There is infernal freedom and there is heavenly
freedom. Infernal freedom is that into which man is born
from his parents, and heavenly freedom is that into which
man is reformed by the Lord. From infernal freedom man has
the will of evil, the love of evil, and the life of evil;
while from heavenly freedom he has the will of good, the
love of good, and the life of good; for as has been said
before, a man's will, love and life make one with his
freedom. These two kinds of freedom are opposites of each
other, but the opposition is not evident except so far as
man is in one and not in the other. But a man cannot come
out of infernal freedom into heavenly freedom unless he
compels himself. To compel oneself is to resist evil and to
fight against it as if from oneself, but still to implore
the Lord for help. Thus a man fights from the freedom that
is inwardly in him from the Lord against the freedom that is
outwardly in him from hell. While he is in the combat it
seems to him that it is not freedom from which he fights,
but a kind of compulsion, because it is against that freedom
into which he was born; and yet it is freedom, since
otherwise he would not fight as if of himself.