404. We take on a completely different condition if love for the world or for wealth constitutes the head, meaning that this is our dominant love. Then love for heaven leaves the head and goes into exile in the body. People who are in this state prefer the world to heaven. They do indeed worship God, but they do so from a love that is merely earthly, a love that leads them to take credit for all their acts of worship. They also do good things for their neighbor, but they do them to get something back in return.

In the case of people like this, heavenly things are like the clothes in which they strut about, garments that we see as shining but angels see as drab. When love for the world inhabits our inner self and love for heaven inhabits our outer self, then love for the world dims all things related to the church and hides them as if they were behind a piece of cloth.

Love for the world or for wealth comes in many forms, however. It gets worse the closer it approaches to miserliness. At the point of miserliness the love for heaven becomes dark. This love also gets worse the closer it approaches to arrogance and a sense of superiority over others based on love for oneself. It is not as detrimental when it tends toward wasteful indulgence. It is even less damaging if its goal is to have the finest things the world has to offer, like a mansion, fine furniture, fashionable clothing, servants, horses and carriages in grand style, and things like that. With any love, its quality depends on the goal that it focuses on and intends to reach.

Love for the world and for wealth is like a dark crystal that suffocates light and breaks it only into colors that are dull and faded. It is like fog or cloudiness that blocks the rays of the sun. It is also like wine in its first stages - the liquid tastes sweet, but it upsets your stomach.

From heavens point of view, people like this look hunchbacked, walking with their head bent down looking at the ground. When they lift their head toward the sky, they strain their muscles and quickly go back to looking downward. The ancient people who were part of the church called people of this kind "Mammons. " The Greeks called them "Plutos. "

757. Today the Christian Church Is at Its End; the Lord Foretold and Described This Event in the Gospels and in the Book of Revelation

The sections under the preceding heading showed that "the close of the age" means the time when the church is at an end. From this we can see what the Lord meant when he spoke of the close of the age in the Gospels (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21).

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, his disciples came to him privately and said, "What will the sign of your Coming and the close of the age be?" (Matthew 24:3)

Then the Lord foretold and described what the progressive stages would be like at the end, leading up to his Coming. He said, among other things, that he would come in the clouds of heaven with power and glory and gather his elect (Matthew 24:30-31), which never happened during the actual destruction of Jerusalem. The Lord described these events in the prophetic mode; in that mode, each expression is pregnant with meaning. (What each phrase there entails has been explained in Secrets of Heaven 3353-3356; 3486-3489; 3650-3655; 3751-3757; 3897-3901; 4056-4060; 4229-4231; 4332-4335; 4422-4424.)

4332. The preliminary section of the previous chapter explained what the Lord foretold in Matthew 24:32-35 about His coming, by which was meant, as was shown there and in previous preliminary sections to chapters, the final period or end of the former Church and the first period or beginning of the new Church - see the preliminary section to Chapter 31, in 4056-4060, and the preliminary section to Chapter 32, in 4229-4231. To be explained next are the words which follow in Verses 36-41 of the same chapter in that gospel, which are these,

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as they were in the days before the Flood - eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage - up to the day on which Noah entered the ark (and they were unaware of anything until the flood came and took them all away) so also will be the coming of the Son of Man. At that time two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left behind. Two women grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left behind.