1. In the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, we find the Lord talking to his disciples about the close of the age, the last time of the church. ¹ At the end of his prophecies concerning the sequence of states of its love and faith ² he says:

Immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Human-born One will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will lament. And they will see the Human-born One coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a trumpet and a loud voice, and they will gather his chosen ones from the four winds, from one end of the heavens all the way to the other end. (Matthew 24:29-31)

When people understand these words according to their literal meaning, they can only believe that all these things are going to happen just as this meaning describes them, at that end of time called the Last Judgment. This does not mean only that the sun and moon will be darkened and that the stars will fall from heaven, that the sign of the Lord will appear in heaven, and that he will be seen in the clouds with angels blowing trumpets. It also includes matters prophesied elsewhere, statements that the whole visible world is going to be destroyed and that afterward a new heaven and a new earth will come into being.

Many people in the church these days are of this opinion. However, people who believe such things are not aware of the hidden depths that lie within the details of the Word. There is in fact spiritual meaning in these details, for they intend not only the outward and earthly events that we find on the literal level but spiritual and heavenly events as well. This holds true not just for the meaning of phrases but even for each word. ³

The Word is in fact written in pure correspondences ⁴ so that there may be deeper meaning in the details. Questions about the nature of this meaning can be resolved by all the things I have set forth about it in Secrets of Heaven. A selection of these may be found also in my explanation of the white horse in the Book of Revelation. It is in this deeper sense that we are to understand what the Lord said in the passage just cited about coming in the clouds of heaven. The sun that will be darkened means the Lord in respect to love, ⁵ the moon means the Lord in respect to faith. ⁶ The stars mean insights into what is good and true, or into love and faith. ⁷ The sign of the Human-born One in heaven means the appearing of divine truth. The wailing tribes of earth mean all the elements of what is true and good, or of faith and love. ⁸ The Lord's coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory means his presence in the Word, and revelation. ⁹ The clouds refer to the literal meaning of the Word ¹⁰ and the glory to the Word's inner meaning. ¹¹ The angels with a trumpet and a loud voice mean heaven, which is where divine truth comes from. ¹²

This enables us to see what these words of the Lord mean. They mean that at the end of the church, when there is no longer any love and therefore no longer any faith, the Lord will open the Word by disclosing its deeper meaning and will reveal the heavenly contents hidden within it. The particular hidden contents to be disclosed in the pages that follow have to do with heaven and hell and with our own life after death.

Church people these days know practically nothing about heaven and hell or their life after death, even though there are descriptions of everything available to them in the Word. In fact, many who have been born in the church deny all this. In their hearts they are asking who has ever come back to tell us about it.

To prevent this negative attitude - especially prevalent among people who have acquired a great deal of worldly wisdom - from infecting and corrupting people of simple heart and simple faith, it has been granted me to be with angels and to talk with them person to person. I have also been enabled to see what is in heaven and in hell, a process that has been going on for thirteen years. Now I am being allowed therefore to describe what I have heard and seen, in the hopes of shedding light where there is ignorance, and of dispelling skepticism.

The reason this kind of direct revelation is taking place today is that this is what the Coming of the Lord means.

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1408. The events described here and in what follows took place in history as they are recorded, yet the historical events as described are representative, and every word carries a spiritual meaning. This is so in all of the historical parts of the Word, not only in the Books of Moses but also in those of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, all of which books contain nothing else than historical narratives. But although they are historical narratives in the sense of the letter, in the internal sense there are arcana of heaven lying hidden there. These arcana cannot possibly be seen as long as the mind keeps its eye fixed on the historical details, nor are they disclosed until the mind removes itself from the sense of the letter. The Word of the Lord is like a body that has a living soul within it. The things that belong to the soul are not apparent as long as the mind is fixed on those of the body, so much so that it scarcely believes it possesses a soul, even less that it will be alive after death. But as soon as the mind departs from bodily things, those belonging to the soul and to life show themselves; and in this lies the reason not only why bodily things must die before a person can be born anew or be regenerated, but also why the body must die so that he can enter heaven and behold heavenly things.

[2] The same applies to the Word of the Lord Its bodily parts are the things that constitute the sense of the letter, and when the mind is fixed on these the internal things are not seen at all. But once the bodily parts so to speak have died, the internal for the first time are brought to view. All the same, the things constituting the sense of the letter are like the things present with man in his body, namely the facts belonging to the memory which come in through the senses and which are general vessels containing interior or internal things. From this one may recognize that the vessels are one thing and the essential elements within the vessels another. The vessels are natural, and the essential elements within the vessels are spiritual and celestial. In the same way the historical narratives of the Word, as with each individual expression in the Word, are general, natural, indeed material vessels that have spiritual and celestial things within them. These things never come into sight except through the internal sense.

[3] This may become clear to anyone simply from the fact that many matters in the Word have been stated according to appearances, indeed according to the illusions of the senses, such as that the Lord is angry, punishes, curses, slays, and many other such statements, when in fact the internal sense contains the reverse, namely that the Lord is never angry or punishes, still less curses or slays. All the same, no harm at all is done to people who in simplicity of heart believe the Word as they find it in the letter so long as they are leading charitable lives, the reason being that the Word teaches nothing other than this - that everyone ought to live in charity with his neighbour and to love the Lord above all things. People doing this are in possession of the internal things, and thus with them the illusions acquired from the sense of the letter are easily dispersed.

4574. 'A nation and a company of nations will be from you' means good and Divine forms of good. This is clear from the meaning of 'a nation' as the good of the Church, dealt with in 1259, 1260, 1362, 1416, 1849, and from the meaning of 'a company of nations' as truths which spring from good, or what amounts to the same, which are forms of good, and as - in the highest sense in which the Lord is the subject - Divine Truths which spring from Divine Good, which are Divine forms of Good.

[2] What forms of good are must be stated first, and after this the fact that 'a company of nations' means such forms. Truths which spring from good are called forms of good because they are nothing else than goods that have been given outward form. Anyone who conceives of truths in any other way, more so anyone who separates them from good, does not know what truths are. Truths do indeed seem to be separate from good and so seem to be forms that exist unconnected to anything else. Yet they seem to be so only to those who have no affection for what is good, that is, people whose thought and speech are at variance with what they will and therefore do. For the human being has been so created that his understanding and will may constitute a united mind; and they do constitute a united mind when the understanding acts in unison with the will, that is, when his thought and speech are in keeping with what he wills and therefore does, in which case also the thoughts in his understanding are the forms which give expression to his will. Thoughts present in the understanding are called truths, for truths belong properly to the understanding, whereas desires present in the will are called goods, for goods belong properly to the will. Consequently, regarded in itself that which exists in the understanding is nothing else than the form taken by that which exists in the will.

[3] But since the expression 'forms' smacks of human philosophy, let an example serve to show that truths are the forms taken by good: Two virtues of everyday life, public or private, are integrity and propriety. Integrity consists in the heartfelt desire for another person's good within everyday life, whereas propriety consists in the demonstration of that integrity in speech and gestures, so that regarded in itself propriety is nothing other than the form which integrity takes, for this is what gives rise to propriety. This being so, when integrity displays itself through propriety, that is, through proper and appropriate speech and gestures, integrity is seen in every aspect of proper behaviour. This is so much the case that everything uttered through speech or expressed through gestures is seen as integrity, for everything is a form or image by means of which integrity shines forth. Integrity and propriety accordingly go together like essence and its form, or what is essential and what is formal. But if anyone severs integrity from propriety - that is, if he bears ill-will towards his fellow man, yet speaks well of him and behaves well towards him - there is no longer any integrity at all in his words or actions, no matter how much he tries to present through propriety an outward form that looks like integrity. It is absence of integrity, and one who is clear-sighted calls it this, because it is either pretentious, fraudulent, or deceitful.

[4] From all this one may see what the situation is with truths and goods. Truths in spiritual life may be likened to propriety in everyday life, and good in spiritual life to integrity in everyday life. This comparison shows what truths are like when they are the forms assumed by good, and what they are like when severed from good. When they are not extensions from good, they are extensions from something bad and are forms assumed by this, no matter how much they may be spoken of as forms assumed by good. As regards 'a company of nations' meaning forms of good, this becomes clear from the meaning of 'nations' as goods, dealt with immediately above. Hence a company or assembly of them is a gathering together of them, which is nothing other than the form they receive; and this, as has been shown, is truth. Since truths are meant, yet 'a nation' means good, not only 'a nation'- it is said - will descend from him but also 'a company of nations'. Otherwise one of the expressions would be sufficient. Furthermore 'company', 'assembly', and 'multitude', when used in the Word, have reference to truths. For 'multitude' or 'being multiplied', see 43, 55, 913, 983, 2846, 2847.