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:

7083. Heat and light in the natural world emanate from the sun in the world, whereas spiritual heat and spiritual light, or love and faith, emanate from the sun in heaven. The Lord is the sun in heaven, and the heat which comes from Him as the Sun is love, while the light which comes from Him as the Sun is faith. The fact that the Lord is light is clear in John,

Jesus said, I am the light of the world. He who follows Me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life. John 8:12.

And the fact that the Lord is a sun is clear in Matthew,

When Jesus was transfigured His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became [white] as the light. Matthew 17:1.

1158. 'From these the islands of the nations in their lands were spread abroad' means that the worship of even more nations emanated from these - 'islands' being individual pieces of land, and so individual forms of worship, which were more remote still, and 'lands' the general features of those forms of worship. This is clear from the meaning of 'islands' in the Word. Up to now the subject has been those who had external worship corresponding to internal. The seven sons of Japheth have meant those who came nearer to true internal worship, the seven sons of Gomer and of Javan together have meant those who were more remote from true internal worship. 'The islands of the nations' means those who are more remote still, strictly speaking those who lived in charity with one another but who were nevertheless uninformed people who knew nothing whatever about the Lord, about the Church's teachings concerning faith, or about internal worship. They did have some form of external worship however, which they kept up devoutly. Such people are called 'islands' in the Word, and therefore 'islands' means in the internal sense worship that is more remote.

[2] Those who possess the internal sense of the Word, as angels do, are unaware of what islands are, for they no longer have any ideas of such things. Instead of islands they perceive a more remote kind of worship like that found among gentile nations outside the Church. In a similar way they also perceive by islands things inside the Church itself which are somewhat more remote from charity, as forms of friendship and civility are. Friendship is not the same as charity, civility even less so. They are steps down from charity, though the more they draw from charity the more genuine they are.

[3] The fact that 'islands' has this meaning becomes clear from the following places in the Word: In Isaiah,

Keep silent before Me, O islands, and let the peoples renew their strength, let them approach. The islands saw and were afraid, the ends of the earth trembled; they drew near and came. Isaiah 41:1, 5.

Here 'islands' stands for upright gentiles outside the Church who have devoutly kept up their own type of external worship. The furthest limits of the Church are called 'the ends of the earth'. In the same prophet,

He will not be in darkness, and He will not break up until He has set judgement on the earth; and the islands wait for His law. Sing to Jehovah a new song, His praise from the end of the earth, you that go down to the sea, and all that is in it, the islands and their inhabitants. They will give glory to Jehovah, and declare His praise in the islands Isaiah 42:4, 10, 12.

Here again 'islands' stands for gentiles outside the Church who have lived without knowledge, in simplicity and uprightness.

[4] In the same prophet,

Listen to Me, O islands, and hearken, O peoples from afar. Isaiah 49:1.

This similarly stands for gentile nations who are more remote from worship of the Lord and from the cognitions of faith; hence the expression 'from afar' is used. In the same prophet,

In Me the islands will hope and await My arm. Isaiah 51:5.

Here too 'islands' has the same meaning. The phrase 'in Me they will hope and await My arm' is used because they are people who are living uprightly. In Jeremiah,

Hear the Word of Jehovah, O nations, and declare it in the islands afar off. Jeremiah 31:10.

Once again 'islands' has the same meaning. In Zephaniah,

Jehovah will be terrible against them, for He will destroy with leanness all the gods of the earth, and to Him will bow down, each in its place, all the islands of the nations. Zephaniah 2:11.

'The islands of the nations' stands for gentile nations more remote from cognitions of faith.

[5] In David,

Jehovah reigns, let the earth rejoice, let the many islands be glad! Cloud and thick darkness are round about Him. Psalms 97:1-2.

Again 'islands' has the same meaning. Here their lack of knowledge is expressed in representative fashion by means of 'cloud and thick darkness'. But because they are living in simplicity and uprightness the phrase 'round about Him' is used. Because 'islands' means things that are more remote, 'Tarshish, Pul, Lud, Tubal, and Javan' also, who meant forms of external worship, were called 'islands', in Isaiah 66:19, as also is Kittim in Jeremiah 2:10; Ezekiel 27:6. Furthermore when islands are mentioned as distinct from land or mountains they mean truths of faith because they are planted in the sea. Thus they mean doctrinal teachings which exist as forms of ritual.