TCR 22 - God is present with every person

TCR 22 [2]

. . . God is present near at hand with every person,
for God is in him with His essence.
 For this reason He is near at hand to those who love Him,
and those who love Him
are those who live according to His commandments
and believe in Him;
these people as it were see Him.
What is faith but one's spirit seeing that it is so?
And what is it to live according to His commandments
but to acknowledge Him in practice
as the source of salvation and everlasting life?

May the peoples praise You, O God

May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make His face shine upon us,
Selah,
that Your ways may be known on earth,
Your salvation among all nations.

May the peoples praise You, O God;
may all the peoples praise You.
May the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for You rule the peoples justly
and guide the nations of the earth.
Selah.
May be peoples praise You, O God;
may all the peoples praise You.

Then the land will yield its harvest,
and God, our God, will bless us.
God will bless us,
and all the ends of the earth will fear Him.

(Psalm 67)

TCR 13 - one end in view

TCR 13
. . . the universe is a single unit
coherently organized from beginning to end,
because God had one end in view in creating it,
to create from the human race
a heaven of angels.
The means to this end
are all the things of which the world is composed;
for he who wills the end,
wills also the means.

. . . The Divine Love cannot have any other end in view
than from His Divine
to make human beings eternally blessed;
and His Divine Wisdom cannot produce anything
but services designed to fulfill that end.
By considering the world from this universal point of view
every wise person can grasp
that the Creator of the universe is one,
and that His essence is Love and Wisdom.
Consequently there is no detail in it
which does not conceal services
either nearly or distantly designed
to benefit human beings.

The Lord Sustains the Righteous

But I call to God,
and the Lord saves me.
Evening, morning and noon
I cry out in distress,
and He hears my voice.
He ransoms me unharmed
from the battle waged against me,
even though many oppose me.
God, who is enthroned forever,
will hear them and afflict them
men who never change their ways
and have no fear of God. 
-- Selah

My companion attacks his friends;
he violates his covenant.
His speech is smooth as butter,
yet war is in his heart;
his words are more soothing than oil,
yet they are drawn swords.

Cast your cares on the Lord
and He will sustain you;
He will never let the righteous fall.

(Psalm 55:16-22)

TCR 11 - belief and knowledge

TCR 11 [3]

Belief in God 
comes into a person by the front door,
that is, from the soul
into the higher regions of the understanding.
But knowledge about God 
comes in by the back door,
because it is absorbed by the understanding
from the revelation of the Word
by means of the bodily senses.
The two paths leading in
meet in the midst of the understanding;
there, natural belief,
which is merely a strongly held opinion,
becomes spiritual,
that is to say, a real acknowledgment.
So the human understanding
is like an exchange where currencies are changed.

Put Your Hope in God

Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed with in?

Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise Him,
my Savior and my God.

(Psalm 42:5, repeated 42:11)

TCR 2, 3 - believe in the Lord

TCR 2, 3

The Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah,
came into the world to subdue the hells
and to glorify His Human.
Without this no mortal could have been saved,
and those are saved who believe in Him.

It is a universal point of faith
on the part of a person
to believe in the Lord,
and this is the way to salvation.
Believing in Him
means having confidence that He is the Savior;
and since only those who lead good lives
can have such confidence,
this too is meant by believing in Him.

Trust in the Lord

Do not fret because of evil men
or be envious of those who do wrong;
for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.

Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Delight yourself in the Lord
and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in Him and He will do this:
He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.

Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret - it leads only to evil.
For evil men will be cut off,
but those who hope in the Lord
will inherit the land.

(Psalm 37:1-9)

ISB 16 - three angelic heavens, three degrees of the human mind

ISB 16 [5-6]
. . . there are three angelic heavens:
a highest, which is also called the third heaven,
where are the angels of the highest degree;
a middle, which is also called the second heaven,
where are the angels of the middle degree;
and a lowest, which is also called the first heaven,
where are the angels of the lowest degree.
Those heavens are also distinguished
according to the degrees of wisdom and love.
Those who are in the lowest heaven
are in the love of knowing truths and goods;
those who are in the middle heaven
are in the love of understanding them;
and those who are in the highest heaven
are in the love of being wise,
that is, of living according to those things
which they know and understand.

Since the angelic heavens
are distinguished into three degrees,
therefore the human mind
is also distinguished into three degrees,
because the human mind is an image of heaven,
that is, it is a heaven in the least form.
So it is that a person can become an angel
of one of those three heavens,
and this is effected according to his reception
of wisdom and love from the Lord:
an angel of the lowest heaven
if he receives only the love of knowing truths and goods;
an angel of the middle heaven
if he receives the love of understanding them;
and an angel of the highest heaven
if he receives the love of being wise,
that is, of living according to them.

Rejoice and Sing

Many are the woes of the wicked,
but the Lord's unfailing love
surrounds the man who trust in him.

Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous;
sing, all you who are upright in heart!

(Psalm 32:10-11)

ISB 11 – Our Garment

ISB 11

. . . the spiritual clothes itself with the natural,
as a person clothes himself with a garment.
. . . the body grows old like a garment;
but not the soul,
because this is a spiritual substance,
which has nothing with common
with the changes of nature . . .

Wait

I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.

(Psalm 27:13-14)

ISB 2 -order is truth but not hypothetical truth; ISB - 8 - influx from God

ISB 2
 All that which is from order is truth,
and truth manifests itself by the light implanted in it,
even in the shade of reason,
in which hypotheses are.
But there are three things
that involve this hypothesis in shade;
ignorance of what the soul is,
ignorance of what the spiritual is,
and ignorance of what influx is;
therefore these three must first be unfolded
before reason sees the truth itself.
For hypothetical truth is not truth itself,
but only a conjecture of truth.
It is as a picture on the wall seen at night
by the light of the stars,
on which the mind induces various forms
according to its fancy.
It is otherwise 
when the light of the sun after the dawn
shines upon it . . ..

ISB 8 [5]
. . . the good of love and the truth of wisdom
flow from God into the soul of man conjointly,
that is, united into one,
but that they are divided by a person in their progression,
and are conjoined only with those
who suffer themselves to be led by God . . ..

Taking Refuge in God

Keep me safe, O God,
for in You I take refuge.

You have made known to me the path of life;
You will fill me with joy in Your presence,
with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.

(Psalm 16:1,11)

BE 120 - a holy truth

BE 120

. . . in the Lord God, the Savior Jesus Christ,
there is a Divine Trinity
which is the Originating Divine, called the Father,
the Divine Human which is the Son,
and the Divine Proceeding which is the Holy Spirit.

In Jesus Christ dwells
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. 
(Colossians 2:9)
 

Thus, there is One God in the Church.

Loving the Lord

But let all who take refuge in You be glad;
let them ever sing for joy.
Spread Your protection over them,
That those who love Your name
may rejoice in You.
For surely, O Lord, You bless the righteous;
You surround them with Your favor
as with a shield.

(Psalm 5:11-12)

BE 116 - the universal of faith is what must enter into each and all things

BE 116

It is a universal of faith,
that God is one in essence and Person,
in whom is the Trinity,
and that the Lord God the Savior Jesus Christ is He.
It is a universal of faith,
that no mortal could have been saved,
unless the Lord had come into the world.
It is a universal of faith,
that He came into the world to remove hell from man,
and He removed it by combats against it,
and by victories over it;
thus He subdued it,
and reduced it to order,
and under obedience to Himself.
It is a universal of faith,
that He came into the world to glorify the Human
which He assumed in the world,
that is, to unite it with the Divine from which it was;
thus, having subdued hell,
He keeps it in order
and under obedience to Himself to eternity.
Inasmuch as both these could only be effected
by means of temptations admitted into His Human,
even to the last,
which was the passion of the cross,
therefore He endured that.
These are the universals of faith concerning the Lord.

The universal of Christian faith on a person's part is,
that he should believe in the Lord,
for by believing in Him conjunction with Him is effected,
and by conjunction salvation.
To believe in Him is to have confidence that He will save;
and because none can have such confidence
but he who lives well,
therefore this is also meant by believing in Him.

From the Lord Comes Deliverance

I lie down and sleep;
I wake again,
because the Lord sustains me.
I will not fear the tens of thousands
drawn up against me on every side.

From the Lord comes deliverance.
May you blessing be on your people.
Selah

(Psalm 3:5-6,8)

BE 111 - only through regeneration can the Lord lead us to good

BE 111

. . . a person is led into good
through regeneration by the Lord.
. . . there is regeneration,
and unless one is regenerated,
he cannot enter into heaven.

The precepts of regeneration are . . . :
-- That evils ought to be shunned,
because they are of the devil and from the devil;
-- that goods ought to be done,

because they are of God and from God;
-- and that the Lord is to be approached,
that He may lead us so to do.

. . . good cannot be implanted
but in proportion as evil is removed;
. . . so long as anyone is in evil,
he is averse to good . . ..

King Josiah

Josiah was eight years old when he became king,

and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years.
His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah;
she was from Bozkath.
He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord

and walked in the ways of his father David,

not turning aside to the right or to the left.

Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary,

“I have found the Book of the Law

In the temple of the Lord.”

he gave it to Shaphan, who read it.

When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law,

he tore his robes.

Neither before nor after Josiah

was there a king like him

who turned to the Lord as he did –

with all his heart and with all his soul

and with all his strength,

in accordance with all the Law of Moses.

(2 Kings 22:1-2,8,11; 23:25)

BE 96 - the essentials of the church; BE 103 - the old & new can't be together

BE 96
The essentials of the church,
which conjoin themselves with a faith in one God,
are charity, good works, repentance,
and a life according to the Divine laws;
and because these together with faith
affect and move the will and thought of a person,
they conjoin a person with the Lord,
and the Lord with the person.

BE 103
The reason why the faith of the New Church
cannot by any means
be together with the faith of the former or present church,
is, because they do not agree together in one third,
no, nor even in one tenth part.
The faith of the former church
is described in Revelation (chapter 12) by "the dragon,"
but the faith of the New Church by
"the woman encompassed with the sun,
having upon her head a crown of twelve stars,
whom the dragon pursued,
and at whom he cast water as a flood,
that he might swallow her up,".
These two cannot be together in one city,
much less in one house,
consequently they cannot be together in one mind;
and if they should be together,
the unavoidable consequence must be,
that the woman would be continually exposed
to the anger and insanity of the dragon,
and in fear lest he should devour her son;
for it is said in Revelation, that:

The dragon stood before the woman
who was ready to be delivered,
in order to devour her offspring,
and the woman,
after she had brought forth,
fled into the wilderness.
(Revelation 12:1, 4, 6, 14-17)

Isaiah Gives a Message to Hezekiah

Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah:
"This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says:

"This will be the sign for you, O Hezekiah:

"This year you will eat what grows by itself,
and the second year what springs from that.
But in the third year sow and reap,
plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
Once more a remnant of the house of Judah
will take root below and bear fruit above.
For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant,
and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.

The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this."

(2 Kings 19:20,29-31)

BE 92 - two things which form heaven in a person

BE 92
There are two things which form heaven in a person,
namely, the truths of faith and the goods of charity;
the truths of faith
effect the presence of the Lord,
and show the way to heaven,
and the goods of charity
effect conjunction with the Lord,
and introduce into heaven.
And everyone there is introduced into light
according to his affection of truth,
and into heat according to his affection of good.
The affection of truth is faith in its essence,
and the affection of good (is) charity in its essence,
and that the marriage of them both . . ..
The church and heaven make one.

The End of Elisha's Life

Now Elisha was suffering from the illness from which he died.

Jehoash king of Israel went down to see him and wept over him.

“My father!  My father!” he cried.

“The chariots and horsemen of Israel!”

Elisha said, “Get a bow and some arrows,” and he did so.

“Take the bow in your hands,” he said to the king of Israel.

When he had taken it Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands.

“Open the east window,” he said, and he opened it.

“Shoot!” Elisha said, and he shot.

“The Lord’s arrow of victory, the victory over Aram!”
Elisha declared.

“You will completely destroy the Arameans at Aphek.”

The he said, “Take the arrows,” and the king took them.

Elisha told him, “Strike the ground.”

He struck it three times and stopped.

The man of God was angry with him and said,

“You should have struck the ground five or six times;
then you would have defeated Aram 

and completely destroyed it.

But now you will defeat it only three times.”

Elisha died and was buried.

(2 Kings 13:14-20)

BE 84 - a general rule of religion

BE 84
It is a general rule in religion
that so far as anyone does not will good actions,
and so does not do them,
to that extent he wills evil actions,
and so does them.
On the other hand,
so far as anyone does not will evil actions,
and so does not commit them,
to that extent he wills good actions,
and so does them.

Jehu Anointed King of Israel

The prophet Elisha summoned a man
from the company of the prophets and said to him,
"Tuck your cloak into your belt,
take this flask of oil with you
and go to Ramoth Gilead.
When you get there,
look for Jehu son of Jehosphaphat,
the son of Nimshi.
Go to him,
get him away from his companions
and take him into an inner room.
Then take the flask
and pour the oil on his head and declare,
'This is what the Lord says:
I anoint you king over Israel.'
Then open the door and run;
don't delay!"

So the young man, the prophet,
went to Ramoth Gilead.

(2 Kings 9:1-4)

BE 66 - predestination

BE 66

But what more hurtful, or more cruel notion
could have been hatched out and believed
concerning God,
than that any part of the human race
are predestined to damnation?
For it would be a cruel belief,
that the Lord,
who is love itself and mercy itself,
willed that a multitude of men
should be born for hell,
or that myriads of myriads
should be born devoted to destruction,
or in other words, born to be devils and satans;
and that, out of His Divine wisdom, which is infinite,
He would not and did not provide for those who live well,
and acknowledge God,
that they should not be
cast into everlasting fire and torment;
whereas the Lord is the Creator and Savior of all,
and He alone leads all,
and wills not the death of any.
. . . Yet this is an offspring
of the faith of the present church;
but the faith of the New Church
abhors it as a monster.

Elisha Goes to Damascus

Elisha went to Damascus,
and Ben-Hadad king of Aram was ill.
When the king was told,
"The man of God has come all the way up here,"
he said to Hazael, "Take a gift with you
and go to meet the man of God.
Consult the Lord through him;
ask him, 'Will I recover from this illness?'"

Hazael went to meet Elisha,
taking with him as a gift
forty camel-loads
of all the finest wares of Damascus.
He went in and stood before him, and said,
"Your son Ben-Hadad king of Aram
has sent me to ask,
'Will I recover from this illness?'"

Elisha answered, "Go and say to him,
'You will certainly recover';
but the Lord has revealed to me
that he will in fact die."
He stared at him with a fixed gaze
until Hazael felt ashamed.
Then the man of God began to weep.

"Why is my lord weeping?" asked Hazael.

"Because I know the harm you will do
to the Israelites," he answered.
"You will set fire to their fortified places,
kill their young men with the sword,
dash their little children to the ground,
and rip open their pregnant women."

Hazael said, "How could your servant, a mere dog,
accomplish such a feat?"

"The Lord has shown me
that you will become king of Aram,"
answered Elisha.

Then Hazael left Elisha and returned to his master.
When Ben-Hadad asked,
"What did Elisha say to you?"
Hazael replied, "He told me
that you would certainly recover."
But the next day he took a thick cloth,
soaked in in water
and spread it over the king's face,
so that he died.
Then Hazael succeeded him as king.

(2 Kings 8:7-15)

BE 52 - the Lord's order and a person's voice

BE 52

. . .  the Lord cannot act contrary to His own Divine order,
and His order is that man should examine himself,
see his evils,
resist them,
and this as of himself, 
yet from the Lord.
This does not indeed at this day appear to be the Gospel,
nevertheless it is the Gospel,
for the Gospel is salvation by the Lord.
The reason why the worship of the mouth
is accepted by the Lord
according  to the worship of the life,
is because the speech of man before God,
and before angels,
has its sound from the affection of his love and faith,
and these two are in man according to his life;
wherefore,
if the love of God and faith in Him are in your life,
the sound of your voice will be like that of a dove;
but if self-love and self-confidence are in your life,
the sound of your voice will be like that of an owl,
howsoever you may bend your voice
to imitate the voice of a turtle-dove.
The spiritual, which is within the sound, effects this.

"Is there no God in Israel?"

After Ahab's death,
Moab rebelled against Israel.
Now Ahaziah had fallen through the lattice
of his upper room in Samaria
and injured himself.
So he sent messengers, saying to them,
"Go and consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron,
to see if I will recover from this injury."

But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite,
"Go up and meet the messengers 
of the king of Samaria and ask them,
'Is it because there is no God in Israel
that you are going to consult Baal-Zebub,
the god of Ekron?'
Therefore this is what the Lord says:
'You will not leave the bed you are lying on.
You will certainly die!'"
So Elijah went.

(2 Kings 1:1-4)

BE 32 - a Divine Trinity; BE 42 - faith & good works

BE 32

That there is a Divine Trinity,
is clear from the Lord's words in Matthew:

Jesus said, go make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name
of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
(Matthew 28:19)

And from these words in the same:

When Jesus was baptized,
lo, the heavens were opened unto Him,
and He saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove,
and coming upon Him,
and lo, a voice from heaven,
this is My beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased.
(Matthew 3:16, 17)

The reason why the Lord
sent His disciples to baptize
in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
was, because in Him then glorified
there was the Divine Trinity;
for . . . He says:

All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.
(Matthew 28:18)

And . . . following:

Lo, I am with you all the days,
even unto the consummation of the age.
(Matthew 28:20)

Thus He spoke of Himself alone, and not of three.

And in John:

The Holy Spirit was not yet,
because Jesus was not yet glorified.
(John 7:39)

The former words He uttered after His glorification,
and His glorification
was His complete unition
with His Father,
Who was the Divine itself in Him from conception;
and the Holy Spirit
was the Divine proceeding from Him glorified.
(John 20:22)

BE 42
. . . faith in one God
without union with good works
is not given.

Jehoshaphat King of Judah

Jehoshaphat son of Asa became king of Judah
in the fourth year of Ahab king of Israel.
Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old
when he became king,
and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-five years.
His mother's name was Azubah
daughter of Shilhi.
In everything
he walked in the ways of his father Asa
and did not stray from them;
he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.
The high places, however, were not removed,
and the people continued
to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.
Jehoshaphat was also at peace
with the king of Israel.

(1 Kings 22:41-44)

BE 19, 21, 24 - the Roman Catholics and the Reformed

BE 19, 21, 24

The Roman Catholics, before the Reformation,
taught exactly the same things
as the Reformed did after it,
. . . namely, a Trinity of Persons in the Divinity,
original sin,
the imputation of the merit of Christ,
and justification by faith therein,
only with this difference,
that they conjoined that faith
with charity or good works.

The leading reformers, Luther, Melancthon, and Calvin,
retained all the dogmas concerning
a Trinity of Persons in the Divinity,
original sin,
imputation of the merit of Christ,
and justification by faith,
just as they were and had been with the Roman Catholics;
but they separated charity or good works from that faith,
and declared that they were not at the same time saving,
with a view to be totally severed from the Roman Catholics
as to the very essentials of the church,
which are faith and charity.

Nevertheless the leading reformers 
adjoined good works,
and also conjoined them, to their faith,
but in man as a passive subject:
whereas the Roman Catholics
conjoin them in man as an active subject;
and that notwithstanding this,
there is actually a conformity
between the one and the other
as to faith, works, and merits.

(BE - A Brief Exposition of the Doctrine of the New Church)

The Lord Sends Ravens to Feed Elijah

Now Elijah the Tishbite,
from Tishbe in Gilead,
said to Ahab,
"As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives,
from whom I serve,
there will be neither dew nor rain
in the next few years
except at my word."

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah:
"Leave here, turn eastward
and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan.
You will drink from the brook,
and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there."

So he did what the Lord had told him.
He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan,
and stayed there.
The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning
and bread and meat in the evening,
and he drank from the brook.

(1 Kings 17:1-6)

CL 535 - knowing things to come

CL 535
. . . to the degree that a person knows things to come,
his reason and understanding fall
with his prudence and wisdom
into a state of passivity,
become inactive,
and are overthrown.

Omri then Ahab

In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah,
Omri became king of Israel,
and he reigned twelve years,
six of them in Tirza.
He bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer
for two talents of silver
and built a city on the hill,
calling it Samaria, after Shemer,
the name of the former owner of the hill.

But Omri did evil in the eyes of the Lord
and sinned more than all those before him.

In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah,
Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel,
and he reigned in Samaria over Israel twenty-two years.
Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord
than any of those before him.
He not only considered it trivial
to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat,
but he also married Jezebel
daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians,
and began to serve Baal and worship him.
He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal
that he built in Samaria.
Ahab also made an Asherah pole
and did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel,
to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him.

(1 Kings 16:23-25,29-32)

CL 528, 529 - purposefully or deliberately

CL 528
It is said in the church
that . . . anyone who sins 
against one commandment of the Decalogue 
sins against them all. 
But this conventional maxim is not as it sounds;
for it is to be understood in this way,
that anyone who purposefully or deliberately acts
against one commandment
acts against the rest,
since to act purposefully or deliberately
is to deny altogether that the action is a sin,
and anyone who denies the existence of sin
regards it as nothing
if he acts against the rest of the commandments.

CL 529
Something similar is true in the case of people
who are in a state of good from the Lord. 
If they from their will and intellect
or purposefully and deliberately
refrain from one evil because it is a sin,
they refrain from them all;
and this still more if they refrain from several.
For as soon as anyone
purposefully or deliberately refrains 
from some evil because it is a sin,
he is kept by the Lord in a purpose
to refrain from the rest. 

King Solomon Forgets the Lord

King Solomon, however loved many foreign women
besides Pharaoh's daughter -
Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites.
They were from nations
about which the Lord had told the Israelites,
"You must not intermarry with them,
because they will surely
turn your hearts after their gods."
Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love.
He had seven hundred wives of royal birth
and three hundred concubines,
and his wives led him astray.
As Solomon grew old,
his wives turned his heart after other gods,
and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God,
as the heart of David his father had been.
He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians,
and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites.
So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord;
he did not follow the Lord completely,
as David his father had done.

(1 Kings 11:1-6)

CL 516 - the Word; CL 519 - violation of It

CL 516
For the church is founded on the Word,
and the Word is the Lord.
The Word is the Lord
because He is
the Divine good and Divine truth in it.

CL 519
Violation of the Word
is committed by people in the Christian Church
who adulterate its good and truths,
and this is done by those
who separate truth from good
and good from truth. 
It is done as well by those
who mistake appearances of truth
and fallacies for genuine truths
and defend them. 
And so, too, by those
who know truths of doctrine from the Word
and live evilly.

Solomon's Blessing

"Praise be to the Lord . . ..
May He turn our hearts to Him,
to walk in all His ways and to keep
the commands, decrees and regulations
He gave our fathers.
. . . so that all the peoples of the earth
may know that the Lord is God
and there is no other.
But your hearts must be fully committed
to the Lord our God,
to live by His decrees
and obey His commands,
as at this time."
(1 Kings 8:56,58,60-61)