5606. There are four kinds of people there just as in the world. 1) Those who give their attention to the uses in the Word, and certainly see other things but do not give attention to them. They serve as a plane [for reception]. It is read in this way by heavenly angels. 2) There are those who draw the doctrinal points of the Word from it. Spiritual angels understand the Word in this way. 3) There are those who are delighted only by its holy outward aspect without understanding it. These are those who are in the lowest heaven. 4) And there are those who merely give attention to its literal meaning, and these are those who give attention only to the words there, like the critics and those who write about various things. The former are on the threshold to heaven, the latter are in its very remotest parts.

4056. The preliminary sections of Genesis 26-30 in Volume Three explained what the Lord has said and foretold in Matthew 24 about the Close of the Age, or the Last Judgement. Those sections covered verse 3 through to verse 28, and now the statements next in line come up for explanation. The preliminary section of this chapter deals with what is stated in verses 29-31 in the following words,

But immediately after the affliction 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 Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn; and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and He will send out His angels with a trumpet and a loud voice, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other end of them.