feelings to our physical senses. This turns us into earthly, sense-oriented,
and physical people. In this state, our mind cannot be disconnected from
the flesh it is attached to; it cannot be lifted to God or see anything
related to God in the light of heaven; it cannot see anything spiritual.
Because we are then people of the flesh, any spiritual things that come
through our hearing into our intellect seem to us like no more than
ghosts or dust particles in the air; in fact, they seem like flies around the
head of a running, sweating horse, so we mock them in our heart. It is
common knowledge that the earthly self regards the things of the spirit
or spiritual things as crazy.
[ 2 ] Of all earthly people, hypocrites are the lowest and most earthly.
They are sense-oriented—their mind is tightly bound to their physical
senses. They have no love for seeing anything except what their senses
take in; and because the senses are in the material world, the senses force
the mind to think about everything, including all aspects of faith, from
the point of view of the material world.
If these hypocrites become preachers, they retain in their memory the
types of things they heard said about faith when they were children,
teenagers, and young adults. Yet since their words contain nothing spiri-
tual, and all that their words do contain is merely earthly, when they
speak before an assembled congregation, the words have no life in them
at all. The words sound as if they have life in them, because hypocrites
enjoy loving themselves and the world, a pleasure that leads them to hold
forth eloquently and caress the ears of their listeners with sounds that are
much like the melodies of a song.
[ 3 ] When hypocritical preachers go home after church, they laugh at
all the things they have just said to the congregation about faith, and at the
passages they have quoted from the Word. They might say to themselves,
“I threw my net into the lake and caught some flatfish and shellfish,” since
that is how they picture anyone who has true faith.
Hypocrites are like a carved human figure with two heads, one inside
the other. The inner head is attached to the figure’s torso and body. The
outer head is able to spin all the way around the inner head. The front of
the outer head is painted with flesh colors to look like a human face, some-
what like the wooden heads that are set in the shop windows of wig-makers.
Hypocrites are like a ship that sailors can steer either with the wind
or against it by adjusting the sail. Hypocrites give their approval to any
who indulge them with what their flesh and their senses enjoy. That is
how they set their sails.
singke
(singke)
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