The sun in the Bible represents the Lord, with its heat representing His love and its light representing His wisdom. “Daytime,” then, represents a state in which we are turned toward the Lord, receiving His love and being enlightened by His truth. And “nighttime,” obviously, represents states in which we are turned away from the Lord, left cold and blind to the truth. The most common word used for it in the New Christian theology is “obscurity.” The darkness is not absolute, of course. The light of the moon represents the understanding we can have based on facts and our own intelligence. But while the moon reflects some of the sun's light, it offers almost no heat, so this kind of understanding is a cold one, without the warmth of love. And at its darkest and coldest, night represents a state of judgment. This happens when a person -- or a church -- becomes so mired in evil and falsity that there is no light or heat. The Lord can then step in, separate the good from the evil, consign the evil to hell and begin rebuilding based on the remnant that is still good. Drastic as that sounds, it is something that we all go through repeatedly in various aspects of our loves, so that we can be rid of what is evil and let the Lord rebuild us as angels.

844. From this verse down to verse 6 the subject is the first state of the member of this Church following temptation. The present verse means the end of temptation. Previously the subject has been his temptation as regards things of the will, and also his temptation as regards those of the understanding. The end of temptation as regards things of the will is meant by 'the fountains of the deep were stopped', and as regards those of the understanding by 'the floodgates of heaven'. That this is the meaning of these phrases has been stated and shown already at Chapter 7:11, and that 'rain' means temptation itself at 7:12. Consequently there is no need to pause any longer to confirm these matters.