Matthew 23:25-28 Hypocrites

 

²⁵ Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

²⁶ Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

²⁷ Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

²⁸ Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. -Matthew 23:25-28 Bible, King James Version (KJV)

 

We must learn to not only outwardly appear righteous but within we must be righteous in our thoughts and feelings or after death we may cast ourselves into hell.

 

Heaven and Hell, by Emanuel Swedenborg, [1758], tr. by John C. Ager [1900] at sacred-texts.com

 

547. ...Evil in man is hell in him, for it is the same thing whether you say evil or hell. And since man is the cause of his own evil he is led into hell, not by the Lord but by himself. For so far is the Lord from leading man into hell that it is He who delivers man from hell, and this He does so far as man does not will and love to be in his own evil. All of man's will and love continues with him after death (n. 470-484). He who wills and loves evil in the world wills and loves the same evil in the other life, but he no longer suffers himself to be withdrawn from it. If, therefore, a man is in evil he is tied to hell, and in respect to his spirit is actually there, and after death desires nothing so much as to be where his evil is; consequently it is man who casts himself into hell after death, and not the Lord.

548.

How this comes about shall also be explained. When man enters the other life he is received first by angels, who perform for him all good offices, and talk with him about the Lord, heaven, and the angelic life, and instruct him in things that are true and good. But if the man, now a spirit, be one who knew about these things in the world, but in heart denied or despised them, after some conversation he desires and seeks to get away from these angels. As soon as the angels perceive this they leave him. After some interaction with others he at length unites himself with those who are in evil like his own (see above, n. 445-452). When this takes place he turns himself away from the Lord and turns his face towards the hell to which he had been joined in the world, in which those abide who are in a like love of evil. All this makes clear that the Lord draws every spirit to Himself by means of angels and by means of influx from heaven; but those spirits that are in evil completely resist, and as it were tear themselves away from the Lord, and are drawn by their own evil, thus by hell, as if by a rope. And as they are so drawn, and by reason of their love of evil are eager to follow, it is evident that they themselves cast themselves into hell by their own free choice. Men in the world because of their idea of hell are unable to believe that this is so. In fact, in the other life before the eyes of those who are outside of hell it does not so appear; but only so to those who cast themselves into hell, for such enter of their own accord. Those who enter from a burning love of evil appear to be cast headlong, with the head downwards and the feet upwards. It is because of this appearance that they seem to be cast into hell by Divine power. (But about this more will be said below, n. 574.) From all this it can be seen that the Lord casts no one into hell, but everyone casts himself into hell, both while he is living in the world and also after death when he comes among spirits.

Last Judgment Posthumous, by Emanuel Swedenborg, [1762], tr. by John Whitehead [1914], at sacred-texts.com

158.

[158] Hypocrites who have spoken well concerning God, the neighbor and the country, but in themselves have thought the contrary, were explored and cast into hell. They wished to speak well concerning the Lord's kingdom and concerning heaven, for this is then the country, but their interior thought was explored, which was for themselves alone, and against the rule of the country; wherefore, when they were let into their interiors they perpetrated criminal things. They were cast into hells, being first deprived of all that they had drawn from the Word and from doctrines by which they had deluded others.

159.

[159] Preachers who know something of the doctrine of their church, and, after they have been instructed in the schools, and have come into their functions, no longer care for it, nor for the Word, except that they may preach and be elevated to higher offices or may gain wealth; and thus who live in ease and are merely worldly and not Christians, these are sent into a hell in the northern quarter towards the west, far from the middle, where a dense fog is seen; and they then become stupid.