In Deuteronomy 4:30; Judges 10:14; 1 Samuel 10:19; Revelation 1:9; 7:14, this signifies the state of the church when goods and truths are lacking. (Apocalypse Explained 27)

In Matthew 24:9, this signifies that good and truth will perish. (Arcana Coelestia 3488[2])

Tribulation also signifies temptations, afflictions, and vastations. (Apocalypse Explained 474)

Matthew 24:21 mentions an affliction "such as was not from the beginning of the world, no nor ever shall be". There, the affliction means the infestation from falsities, and thence the consummation of every truth, or the desolation which at this day prevails in the Christian churches. The affliction of souls on festival days (Leviticus 16:29) represents the humiliation of the rational man, or his affliction from a principle of freedom.

(Референце: Brief Exposition of Doctrine 74)

74. 17 The reference in Matthew 24:21 to “a great affliction such as has never existed since the world began and will never exist again” means an attack by falsities and the resulting end—the devastation—of all truth in the Christian denominations of today.