10685. And he was there with Jehovah forty days and forty nights. That this signifies temptations before there is any internal of the church, of worship, and of the Word, is evident from the signification of "forty days and forty nights," when said of the church with man, as being states of temptation (see n. 730, 862, 2272, 2273, 8098). That it signifies before there is any internal of the church, of worship, and of the Word, is because the internal which is called the internal man is opened and given to man by means of temptations. Hence it is that everyone who is being regenerated undergoes temptations. The reason why the internal is opened and given by means of temptations, is that when a man is in temptations (which are combats against evils and falsities), the Lord flows in from within, and fights for him; as the man may know from the fact that when he is in temptations he resists inwardly, for unless he resisted inwardly he would not conquer, but would yield. This interior resistance does not come to the notice of the man at the time, because when he is in temptations he is in obscurity, from the evil and from the falsities of evil which are assailing him; but after the temptations, it is noticed by those who are in the perception of truth. For the things which are introduced by the Lord into the internal of man are unknown to him while he lives in the world, because at that time he thinks in the external or natural man, and not perceptibly in the internal man until he comes into the other life. Nevertheless when he has overcome in temptations he ought to know and acknowledge that he himself has not fought, but the Lord for him.