The Spiritual World: Talks for Children by George de Charms

2. The Spiritual Sun 

The first thing that the Lord created when He made the world was light. He said, "Let there be light, and there was light." So also the first thing a little baby sees when he comes into the world is light. The Lord says for every little infant, "Let there be light," and then the little baby begins to see. Before he or she can see anything else they sees light. And then later they see the things that are lighted up by the sun of this world.

The reason for this is that the first thing in the world - the center of the whole world - is the sun, from which comes all the light, and all the heat that we enjoy. Unless there were first a sun, there could be no world. Nothing could grow. There could be no plants. There could be no animals or birds. There could be no people.

Just as the sun that we see is the first thing in the natural world, so also a sun must be the first thing in the other world. When you go to that other world, the first thing you will see will be light. It is a beautiful golden light that makes you feel glad. But that light does not come from this sun which you see in this world. It is a different kind of light. It is a more beautiful, a more wonderful light. It comes from the Sun of heaven, in the midst of which the Lord lives.

The sun of this world is made of fire. All the fire in the world comes from It. The fire we burn in our houses comes from the sun. It is the fire of the sun that the trees have caught, and stored up inside of them, which is set free to shed warmth and light to all who are in the house. The sun sends that fire down to us through the air, and we feel its warmth, and see its light, and use it for many things.

But the Sun of heaven is not fire. It looks like fire, but it is not fire. It is the Lord's love toward angels, and toward people in our world, that looks to those in heaven like the sun. The Lord dwells far above the heavens, and His love goes out to the angels even as the heat and light of our sun goes out to men on earth. And that love is so great that it lights up the whole spiritual world. It is so powerful that the angels cannot look at the Sun there. It blinds them, even as our sun blinds us if we try to look at it. The Lord is in the midst of the heavenly Sun, but because it is so bright, the angels do not see Him; they see only the Sun, and know that He is there.

When the Lord comes down into heaven, it is this same love that causes His face to shine, and makes a beautiful circle of light all about Him - so brilliant that the angels know Him at once, and they bow down to worship Him.

Because all love shines in the other world, therefore the angels who love the Lord have also a circle of light about them. Their faces shine and their garments glisten with that light. But all the light they have they receive from the Lord. It is reflected from the Sun.

It is not their light, but the Lord's light in them. And it is not nearly so brilliant or so beautiful as the light that surrounds the Lord when He appears in heaven. You remember the angels who appeared to the shepherds at the time the Lord was born. It is said, "The angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid." The glory of the Lord is the wonderful light that surrounded the angels who then appeared in the sky. It was not the light of our sun, because it appeared in the midst of the night, when all in this world was dark. It was not the light of the angels themselves, but was the light of the Sun of heaven; wherefore it Is called the "glory of the Lord," These angels came because they loved the Lord. They came to tell people here that the Lord had come into the world. And it was the light of love that shone all about them, as "the glory of the Lord."

It is that Sun that is spoken of in the Lord's Word. It is not the sun of this world, but the Sun of heaven. It is this that is meant in the prophecy of Isaiah, when it Is said: "Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself:- for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light."

This describes what will take place when you go into the other world. So long as you are here, the sun rises and sets every day. It appears in the east, and travels across the sky until it disappears in the west. And as it passes, you have first morning, then midday, then afternoon and evening, and at last night, when all is dark. And then the sun rises again to begin another day. This will not be the case when you go into the other world. There the Sun does not rise and set. It shines always. The Lord never ceases to love us, and all the angels who love Him in return receive light from Him without ceasing. Only in hell is there the darkness of night.

The angels always see the Sun there in the east - the way it is seen here about nine o'clock in the morning, at an angle of 30 degrees above the horizon. It goes no higher, and it falls no lower than that. For this reason it is literally true that in heaven "Thy sun shall no more go down. "

But still, the angels have morning, noon, and evening - not marked by the position of the Sun there, but by its brightness. At first it is not so bright, like the dawn of the day. Then it becomes brighter and brighter, until it reaches what they call noonday. And then it becomes less bright, its light from golden becoming silvery white, more like that of the moon, only far more brilliant. When this happens, then it is evening, and the angels feel a little sad, and long for the morning to come again. And they fall asleep, even as we do at night, and when they wake up, the morning has returned. But it never becomes dark. Wherefore it is said of heaven - in the Book of Revelation: "And the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did Lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there."

Lesson: Revelation 22:1-9

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