The Spiritual World: Talks for Children by George de Charms

9.  Space in Heaven

The angels and spirits in the other world do not live all together in one place. The angels are separated into different heavens and different societies that are at a distance, one from another. Some live in cities; some live in the country; some live on mountains, others on hills, and still others on plains, or by the seashore. Each one has their own home, separate and apart from all others. And between these different places there are roads along which they may journey, to go from one city or one house to another. Those who are in the world of spirits are very far from those who are in heaven; and farther still are those who live in hell.

But the roads in the other world are very different from the roads in this world. They are present but they are not seen except by those whose eyes are opened by the Lord. And the Lord opens their eyes to see the roads along which they may travel by the truths of His Word. Every teaching of the Word opens a road that leads to a certain society of heaven. If a person learns that truth, and loves it, they feel a desire to journey, and the Lord then opens their eyes, and they see a road. And as they walk along that road they come at last to a heavenly society where they may be among the angels who especially love that truth, and live it. No one but the Lord can open their eyes to see the road. And He can only cause a person to see it by teaching him or her the truth. One who loves the truth and good of the Word sees only a road leading to heaven. But one who turns away from that truth - denies it, and hates it - sees only a road leading to hell .

Swedenborg tells us how on one occasion he was reading the Psalms of David; and as he read he journeyed from one society of heaven to another, seeing all the wonderful things in the different societies on the way. When you know the truth from the Word, then there is no place where, with the Lord's permission, you may not go in the other world. You can travel enormous distances there - even to the stars that are millions of miles away; and this in a very short time. And there is great delight in such journeying. But if you do not know the things of the Lord's Word, you cannot travel thus, but are held bound in hell, seeing no way out, surrounded by a barren waste where there are no roads, and where you wander about until you are utterly lost.

These roads are the only means of journeying from place to place in the other world, though at times the angels go so quickly from one place to another that they seem to fly through the air, or suddenly find themselves in another place without realizing how they came there. But nonetheless they could not so have journeyed unless they had known and loved the truth that is the way.

It is because of this that we speak - even in this world- of truths as if they were roads. We speak of the road to success, by which we mean the knowledge of how to do a certain use. We say that we must learn the WAY to do things, and this by gaining knowledge. And the Psalmist speaks of "walking in the way of the Lord" - that is, keeping His commandments or the truths of His Word.

We here on earth are very far from heaven. We hope to enter heaven after death. But the only way we can do so is by learning the truth of the Lord's Word, and by obeying that truth. If we do this more and more each day while we live on earth, we shall actually travel or journey nearer and nearer to some society of heaven. And because we know the truth, when we have entered the other world we shall be able to see a road leading to that society where we shall find our home.

There is no one who can teach us that truth except the Lord, as He speaks to us in His Word. He it is that makes a road by which we may enter heaven. And for this reason He says, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. " If we would enter into heaven, we must enter by this Way.

You see how important therefore are the teachings of the Word, and how necessary it is that we should study the Word and seek to understand and love what the Lord there tells us. And you can understand what David says in the 19th Psalm: "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto Thy testimonies. I made haste, and delayed not to keep Thy commandments." The ways that are here meant are the truths of the Lord's Word - His commandments as given in the Sacred Scripture, which are the actual roads of the other world that lead to heaven. To learn these truths is to enable the Lord to open our eyes to those roads; and to obey them is to walk in those roads, that we may come at last to the mansions of heaven, and abide with the angels in the presence of the Lord forever.

Lesson: Psalm 119: 33-40, 57-64.

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