198. The Lord spoke to his disciples about the close of the age (or the last time of the church); at the end of his predictions about the stages and changes it would go through he said the following:

Immediately after the affliction of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Humankind will appear in heaven and all the tribes of the earth will wail. They will see the Son of Humankind coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. He will send out angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen people from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. (Matthew 24:29-31)

In the spiritual meaning, these statements do not indicate that the sun and the moon will be darkened, the stars will fall from heaven, the sign of the Lord will appear in heaven, and people will see him in the clouds and see angels with trumpets. Instead, the individual words there have spiritual meanings that relate to the church. The details that are mentioned relate to the church's state at its end.

In the spiritual meaning, the sun that will be darkened means love for the Lord. The moon that will not give its light means faith in him. The stars that will fall from heaven mean concepts of goodness and truth. The sign of the Son of Humankind in heaven means the divine truth from him in the Word that will become apparent. The tribes of the earth that will wail mean the loss of all true belief and all good love. The Son of Humankind coming in the clouds of heaven with power and glory means the Lord's presence in the Word and his ability to give revelations through it. The clouds of heaven mean the Word's literal meaning; the glory means the Word's spiritual meaning. The angels sent out with a great sound of a trumpet mean heaven as a source of divine truth. Gathering the chosen people from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other means building a new heaven and a new church that consists of people who have faith in the Lord and who live by his commandments.

It does not mean a darkening of the sun and moon and a falling of stars to earth. This is obvious from the prophets, who have similar things to say about the state of the church when the Lord would come into the world. For example in Isaiah,

Behold the savage day of Jehovah will come, a day of the rage of his anger. The stars of the heavens and their constellations will not shed their light. The sun will be darkened in its rising, and the moon will not let its light shine. I will visit malice upon the globe. (Isaiah 13:9-11)

In Joel,

The day of Jehovah is coming, a day of darkness and blackness. The sun and the moon will be blackened, and the stars will withdraw their splendor. (Joel 2:1-2, 10; 3:15)

In Ezekiel,

I will cover the heavens and blacken the stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not make its light shine. All sources of light I will cover, and I will bring darkness on the earth. (Ezekiel 32:7-8)

"The day of Jehovah" means the Lord's coming that was going to take place when there was no longer any good love or any true belief left in the church, or any knowledge of the Lord, which is why it is called a day of darkness and blackness.

To “dwell” somewhere, then, is significant – it’s much more than just visiting – but is less permanent than living there. And indeed, to dwell somewhere in the Bible represents entering that spiritual state and engaging it, but not necessary permanently. A “dwelling,” meanwhile, represents the various loves that inspire the person who inhabits it, from the most evil – “those dwelling in the shadow of death” in Isaiah 9, for example – to the exalted state of the tabernacle itself, which was built as a dwelling-place for the Lord and represents heaven in all its details. Many people were nomadic in Biblical times, especially the times of the Old Testament, and lived in tents that could be struck, moved and raised quickly. Others, of course, lived in houses, generally made of stone and wood and quite permanent. In between the two were larger, more elaborate tent-style structures called tabernacles or dwellings; the tabernacle Moses built for the Ark of the Covenant is on this model.