We read in Matthew:

Then there shall be great affliction, such as never was from the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will be. Indeed, unless those days were cut short, no flesh would be saved. Matt. 24:21, 22.

That chapter deals with the completion of the age, by which is meant the end of the present-day church. Therefore 'cutting short those days' means bringing it to an end and setting up a new one. Is there anyone who does not know that if the Lord had not come into the world and carried out the redemption, no flesh could have been saved? Carrying out redemption means founding a new heaven and a new church. The Lord predicted in the Gospels that He would come into the world again (Matt. 24:30, 31; Mark 13:26; Luke 12:40; 21:27), and also in Revelation, especially in the last chapter. I have shown above in the section on Redemption [114-137], that the Lord is carrying out redemption to-day too, founding a new heaven and starting a new church, for the sake of man's salvation.

[2] The great secret about no flesh being able to be saved, if the Lord had not started a new church, is this. So long as the dragon with his crew stays in the world of spirits, into which he was thrown, no Divine truth united with Divine good can get through to people on earth without being perverted and falsified or being destroyed. This is what is meant by this passage in Revelation:

The dragon was cast down to earth, and his angels were cast down with him. Woe to those that live on the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to them having great wrath. Rev. 12:9, 12, 13.

But after the dragon was cast into hell (20:10), then John saw a new heaven and a new earth, and the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven (21:1, 2). The dragon means those who hold the faith of the present-day church.

[3] I have several times in the spiritual world talked with those who believe that man is justified by faith alone, and I have told them that their doctrine is wrong and also absurd; it induces carelessness, blindness, sleep and darkness in spiritual matters, leading to the death of the soul. I have pleaded with them to abandon it. But I got the answer: 'Abandon it? Surely this is the one thing upon which the superiority of the clergy's learning over that of laymen depends.' I replied that in that case the salvation of souls was no part of their purpose, but only the superiority of their reputations. Because they had used the truths of the Word to support their false principles, thus adulterating them, they were angels of the abyss, those called Abaddons and Apollyons* (Rev. 9: 11), by whom are meant those who destroy the church by totally falsifying the Word. 'What do you mean?' they replied; 'our knowledge makes us oracles of the mysteries of that faith, and we give its replies as if from a shrine. So we are not Apollyons, but Apollos.' This made me cross and I said: 'If you are Apollos, you are also leviathans, your first rank twisted leviathans, the second elongated leviathans, whom God will visit with His hard and mighty sword (Isa. 27: 1). But at this they laughed.

* Hebrew and Greek words for 'destroyer'.