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.

Footnotes:

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.

2069. 'Kings of peoples will be from her' means truths that are the product of truths and goods joined together, meant by 'kings of peoples'. This is clear from the meaning of 'kings' as all truths in general, dealt with above in 2015, and from the meaning of 'peoples' also as truths, in general all things that are spiritual. For 'kings' are spoken of in reference to peoples, and not so much in reference to nations except when the nations mean evils, dealt with in 1259, 1260. In the prophetical part of the Word kings and peoples are mentioned many times, but nowhere are they used to mean kings and peoples, for at no point are kings and peoples the subject in the Word proper, which is the internal sense, but the celestial and spiritual things comprising the Lord's kingdom, and so goods and truths. The sense of the letter expresses itself by means of perceivable objects, as anyone does with words, merely to enable understanding.

[2] Since the subject here is Sarah and the promise that 'kings of peoples will be from her', and since 'Sarah' means Divine Truth which was the Lord's, 'kings of peoples' clearly means truths that are the product of truths and goods joined together, which are all the truths of the internal Church, that is, the interior truths of faith. Because these truths come from the Lord, they are frequently called 'kings' in the Word, and also 'a king's sons', as shown above in 2015.

[3] Anyone may see that some internal Divine matter lies concealed in the words that 'kings of peoples will be from her'. For the subject in this verse is Isaac, of whom it is said, 'I will bless him, and he will become nations', but of Sarah that 'kings of peoples will be from her'. Almost the same was also said of Abraham in verse 6 above, that 'kings will go out of him'; but it did not say as it does of Sarah, 'kings of peoples'. The arcanum within this lies too deep to allow it to be uncovered and described in a few words. From the representation and meaning of 'Abraham' as Divine Good and from the representation and meaning of 'Sarah' as Divine Truth the arcanum is to some extent evident, namely that from the Lord's Divine Good meant by 'Abraham' all celestial truth will come forth and have its being, and from the Lord's Divine Truth meant by 'Sarah' all spiritual truth will do so. Celestial truth is the truth which exists with celestial angels, and spiritual truth that which exists with spiritual angels. Or what amounts to the same, celestial truth was the truth which existed with members of the Most Ancient Church which came before the Flood and which was a celestial Church, spiritual truth that which existed with members of the Ancient Church which came after the Flood and was a spiritual Church. For angels, as also members of the Church, are distinguished into celestial and spiritual. That which distinguishes the celestial from the spiritual is love to the Lord, and that which distinguishes spiritual from celestial is love towards the neighbour.

[4] No more can be said about celestial truth and spiritual truth however until the difference between the celestial and the spiritual is known, or what amounts to the same, the difference between the celestial Church and the spiritual. For this see Volume One, in 202, 337, 1577; then concerning the nature of the Most Ancient Church and the nature of the Ancient Church, in 597, 607, 640, 765, 1114-1125, and in many other places. On the point that possessing love to the Lord constitutes the celestial, and possessing love towards the neighbour the spiritual, see 2023.

[5] These considerations now show what the arcanum is, namely that 'the kings who will go out of Abraham', referred to in verse 6, mean celestial truths that flow in from the Lord's Divine Good, while 'the kings of peoples who will be from Sarah', referred to in the present verse, mean spiritual truths that flow in from the Lord's Divine Truth. For the Lord's Divine Good is unable to flow in except with the celestial man since it is an influx into the will part of his mind, as was the case with the Most Ancient Church, whereas with the spiritual man the Lord's Divine Truth is flowing in since the influx is solely into the understanding part, which in him has been separated from the will part, 2053 (end). Or what amounts to the same, celestial good is flowing in with the celestial man, and spiritual good with the spiritual man. As a consequence the Lord is seen by celestial angels as the Sun, but by spiritual angels as the Moon, 1529, 1530.