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.

427. Those kind acts are at the present time believed to be the proper deeds of charity meant in the Word by good deeds, because charity is in many passages described in the Word by giving to the poor, helping the needy, and taking care of widows and orphans. But up to now it has not been known that the Word in its literal meaning names only such things as form the external, in fact, the outermost aspects of worship, but uses them as a means of conveying spiritual or internal ideas. On this see above in the chapter on the Sacred Scripture (193-209). It will be clear from what is said there that when the poor, the needy, widows and orphans are mentioned, it is not they who are meant, but those who are spiritually like them. 'The poor' means those who lack the knowledge of truth and good: see Apocalypse Revealed 209. 'Widows' means those who lack truths, but still want them (Apocalypse Revealed 764), and so on.