Matthew 24:1

Mat_24:1

And Jesus went out and departed from the temple.

Judgment of Jerusalem and the world

In this chapter the accounts of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the end of the world are so interwoven, that it is not easy to distinguish between them. Many people have been puzzled because they could not draw the line of demarcation arbitrarily, and say where the division was. But the best way of looking at the passage is to regard it as not confused-as one narrative, not two. The destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world are here considered as one event. We who live in the present dispensation are they upon whom the ends of the world are come. The narrative is of one thing in two parts; one tale told in two chapters; one drama in two acts. This is why it looks like two accounts. And it is not difficult to see this. It may be felt to be the duty of a parent, who has an unruly, incorrigible child, to administer corporal chastisement, but he would not strike more than one blow at a time. Between each stroke there is an interval, and the parent may, after having begun, suspend the punishment; and then, when the waiting time is over, and the necessity of punishment still continuing, he may finish what had already been begun. The act of punishment is one, though distributed over two periods of time. So with Gods judgments related in this chapter. The destruction of Jerusalem was not merely a prelude to the day of judgment, nor merely a type of it, as is commonly supposed, but it was a part of it. The day of judgment, which is to come upon the whole world, began with the destruction of Jerusalem; and God having struck one blow in one place, is now waiting, with sword still uplifted, to strike again and finish His work. The corresponding account in Luke tells us that God is waiting until the times of the Gentiles be come in. The Jew was first in grace; he is likewise first in judgment. But the turn of the Gentiles is coming on. Judgment has begun at the House of God, but it stays not there. The awful drama of the end of the world has two acts, and the time in which we are living is due to a suspension of the judgment already begun. (F. Godet, D. D.)

On the destruction of the temple

I. An instructive question-See ye not all these things?-these goodly stones, this stately fabric, this masterpiece of architecture. The question was meant as a reproof;

1. That they so much admired it. As if He had said, Turn your eyes from hence, and see things of a superior nature; the beauty and excellence of the renewed soul; the gospel Church; the house which is eternal in the heavens, whose builder and maker is God.

2. That which they admired, they imagined He must admire also. But what are earthly temples to Him who meted out the heavens with a span, who Himself dwells in unapproachable light, and before whom the seraphim cover their feet and veil their faces?

II. A solemn declaration-Verily, I say unto you, etc. By this Christ may have intended to instruct His disciples-

1. That though God may bear long, yet He will not bear always, with a sinful and provoking people.

2. That the most stately structures and the most splendid edifices, through the pride of their inhabitants, shall one day fall in ruins. Only Gods spiritual temple will not be burnt up, nor any of the materials of it destroyed.

3. That the time was coming when God would no longer prefer one place of worship to another.

4. That the whole frame of the Jewish economy should shortly be dissolved. The substance being come, the shadows are fled. (B. Beddome, A. M.)

The destruction of Jerusalem seemed improbable

There was no outward sign of any such disaster. The indications were all against that prediction. The sunlight which, that day, glorified the -towers of Jerusalem was of the common kind, only, it may be, brighter than ever. There was nothing unusual in the sight which met the eyes of the disciples. They beheld the tide of traffic ebbing and flowing along its noisy streets in the ordinary way. They knew that in the temple the priests stood ministering, just as they had done for years. Therefore Christs words, His mournful prophecy, His pitying lament and tears must have seemed to them strange and uncalled for. And yet, although what He saw was so different from what met their vision, though He beheld desolation where they discerned nought save splendour, that difference was but the result of less than half a centurys change. In the crowds then pressing along that citys prosperous courts, there were some who did not taste of death, till they drank the cup of a worse bitterness in the day when Christs word was all fulfilled. (E. E. Johnson, M. A.)

Why Jerusalem must be destroyed

And now there rises the question: Why did not Jesus save that city? The awful peril which He saw impending in the near future was destined to involve not the guilty alone, but the innocent as well; why then did not the Son of God avert the coming tribulation He so bitterly lamented? Why did He not do it at least for the sake of those who had shown themselves friendly to Him, the humble ones who followed Him with a sort of dumb faithfulness until the hostility of the government, which frightened the apostles, filled them also with paralyzing fear? There is no doubt that Christ was able to dispel that storm rising so black and terrible. The twelve legions of angels who were ready to save Him from capture, would, at His word, have saved Jerusalem. The myriads of the army of heaven could have turned to a retreating flight the advancing eagles of the heathen conqueror The destruction of Jerusalem belongs to the workings of that natural law in which there is, after a time, no place and no use for repentance, under which God, for some inscrutable reason, permits the innocent to suffer along with the guilty, and where no regret on the part of any one can save him from the doom of reaping precisely what the community has sown. Christ offered to the Jewish nation, as a nation, deliverance from temporal evil. There is no doubt of that. He stood ready to fulfil for them all the glorious things spoken of Zion by the prophets. Both spiritual and earthly peace lay within their reach. It was bound up in the kingdom preached and offered by Him. He promised to take them out from the realm of natural government, where fixed laws work on regardless of the cry of pain and the supplication for pity, where nothing miraculous ever interposes to avert the gathered lightning of moral retribution, where the storm of judgment breaks over the community that deserves it, even though some who are comparatively righteous must endure thereby what seems temporal wrong. He offered, I say, to redeem that Jewish world from the natural law of sin and death and inflexible justice, and lift it into the higher, supernatural realm of grace and life. But that redemption depended upon their knowing and receiving Him. And their selfishness and pride prevented them from recognizing Him. Their King and Redeemer came, but they cast Him out. They chose to be a law unto themselves. Hence that former law must have its perfect work. The hand outstretched to save the nation drifting to ruin was not grasped, and therefore that nation must whirl on and on, down the rapids and over the brink. The destruction of Jerusalem became simply a question of time. Inward corruption would sooner or later have accomplished what we are wont to regard as solely the result of external force. The fig-tree had ceased to bear fruit; and that fact was of itself a sign of the death which had already begun to work. All that was left of the glorious opportunity was the bitter consciousness that it was past Under the working of this law, the drunkard comes at last to a point where repentance is too late, and where death lies both in continued indulgence and in attempted reformation. And so with nations. The day may come to even the strongest, when on the whole it is not worth saving, when, although there are many pure patriots in it, the only thing left for it to do is to die and be blotted out of the map of the world. (E. E. Johnson, M. A.)

The warnings of judgment

The uncertainty of the day bespeaks our preparedness. When the disciples asked Christ concerning the sign of His coming, He answers them with a how, not with a when. He describes the manner, but conceals the time; such signs shall go before. He does not determine the day when the judgment shall come after. Only He cautions them, with a Take heed, lest that day come upon you unawares: for as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the earth (Luk_21:34-35). The bird little thinks of the snare of the fowler, nor the beast of the hunter; this fearlessly rangeth through the woods, the other merrily cuts the air: both follow their unsuspected liberty, both are lost in unprevented ruin. Against public enemies we fortify our coasts; against private thieves we bar our doors, and shall we not against the irremediable fatality of this day prepare our souls? It is favour enough that the Lord hath given us warning; the day is sudden, the warning is not sudden. The old world had the precaution of six-score years, and that (we cannot deny) was long enough; but we have had the prediction of Christ and His apostles of above fifteen hundred years standing; besides the daily sounds of those evangelical trumpets, that tell us of that archangelical trumpet in their pulpits. When we hear the thunder, in a dark night on our beds, we fear the lightning. Our Saviours gospel, premonishing of this day, is like thunder; if it cannot wake us from our sins, the judgment shall come upon us like lightning, to our utter destruction. But I will thank the Lord for giving me warning. The thunder first breaks the cloud, and makes way for the lightning, yet the lightning first invades our sense. All sermons, upon this argument of the last day, are thunder-claps; yet such is the security of the world, that the sons of thunder cannot waken them, till the Father of lightning consume them. The huntsman doth not threaten the deer, or terrify him; but watches him at a stand, and shoots him. But God speaks before He shoots; takes the bow in His hand and shows it us before He puts in the arrow to wound us. (T. Adams.)

Christs coming no delusion

The first reason why the declarations of Christ respecting the near approach of His coming, although they were not realized in their utmost sense, yet involve no error, is this-that it is an essential ingredient in the doctrine of the advent of Christ that it should be considered every moment possible, and that believers should deem it every moment probable. To have taught it so that it should have pointed to an indefinite distance would have robbed it of its ethical significance. The constant expectation of the return of Christ is verified, secondly, by the fact that Christ is constantly coming in His kingdom; it is relatively true that the history of the world is a judgment of the world, without superseding by the judicial activity of God, as already manifesting itself in the history of the development of mankind, the judgment as the concluding act of all developments. And it is here we find the foundation of the principle, that great events in history, wherein either the fulness of the blessing that is in Christ, or His severity against sin, is strikingly manifested, may be viewed as types of the last time-as a coming of Christ. To this category, so far as respects the fulness of blessing revealed by Christ, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit belongs. (Olshausen.)

The destruction of Jerusalem

I. An illustration of the instability of all earthly grandeur.

II. An instance of Gods punishment of sin in the present world.

III. An example of the fulfilment of Scripture prophecy.

IV. A proof of the abolition of the Mosaic economy.

V. A cause of the dispersion of the Jews. (G. Brooks.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 24:1. And Jesus went out — For the last time; and departed from the temple — Which he never entered afterward; and his disciples came to him — As he was going away; to show him the buildings of the temple — To call his attention to the splendid buildings and sumptuous decorations of the place, saying, according to Mark, Master, see what manner of stones and buildings are here! intending to intimate, probably, what a pitiable calamity they thought it that such a grand structure should be destroyed. Indeed, as the whole temple was built with the greatest cost and magnificence, so nothing was more stupendous than the uncommon measure of the stones, some of which, particularly those employed in the foundations, were in magnitude forty cubits, that is, above 60 feet; and the superstructure was worthy of such foundations. And some of the stones were of the whitest marble, forty-five cubits long, five cubits high, and six broad. Indeed, the marble of the temple was so white that, according to Josephus, it appeared at a distance like a mountain of snow; while the gilding of several of its external parts, especially when the sun shone upon it, rendered it a most splendid and beautiful spectacle. See Bishop Newton, from whose admirable work on the prophecies most of the notes on this chapter are extracted.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Tuesday of Passion Week.

§ 118. — JESUS FORETELLS THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM, vv. AND DISTINGUISHES IT FROM THE FINAL JUDGMENT, Mat_24:1-15, Mat_25:1-30.

1. Jesus went out, and departed from the temple — It was probably near the close of the day. From the temple, where he closed the pathetic prediction of the desolation of Jerusalem at the end of the last chapter, he doubtless bent his course toward Bethany, over the Mount of Olives. And his disciples came to him — As he made a pause in his departure, probably they brought up before him, to call his attention to the magnificence of the temple. “Master, see,” was their animated language, according to Mark, “what manner of stones and what buildings are here.” And Luke notes how it was “adorned with goodly stones and gifts.” The stones of many ancient structures are called Cyclopean, from their stupendous size; and it is a matter of wonder and conjecture by what mechanism they were conveyed to the place they occupy. Robinson measured stones in the ruins of Baalbec, Syria, one sixty-four feet and another sixty three feet eight inches in length. And the gifts in the sacred depository were, many of them, offerings of kings. Must then so noble a pile be destroyed? If compassion could have saved it, doubtless it would have been saved. But even divine tenderness cannot save the incorrigibly impenitent.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

Mat_24:1. To show Him the buildings of the temple.—Was that glorious house indeed to be left “desolate”? Would not the sight of its glories lead Him to recall those words of evil omen?

Mat_24:2. See ye not all these things?—The expression, “all these things,” does not refer definitely to the buildings of the temple. It refers to these buildings only in so far as they were contingently connected with a more generic class of things, the things of dread significance to which our Saviour had been referring in some of His concluding remarks within the courts of the Gentiles. See Mat_23:36, where the same expression occurs. It is as if He had said, “Are ye yet in the dark? Do ye not yet understand that Judaism is doomed, as a thing thoroughly effete and incurably corrupt?” etc. (Morison). There shall not be left here one stone upon another.—The remains which recent explorations have disinterred belong, all of them, to the substructures of the temple—its drains, foundations, underground passages, and the like (Plumptre).

Mat_24:3. End of the world.—Consummation of the age (R.V. margin). When the “end of the world” is spoken of in the New Testament, the term αἰών, the present dispensation or order of things, is used, and not κόσμος, the planetary system, the created universe (Schaff). It is evident that the coming of Christ and the end of the world were closely connected in the disciples’ minds with the judgment that was about to come upon the temple and the chosen people—a connection which was right in point of fact, though wrong in point of time (Gibson). The near as well as the distant event is viewed as the coming of the Son of man.

Mat_24:5. Deceive many.—Lead many astray (R.V.). No direct fulfilments of this prediction are recorded, either in the New Testament, or by Josephus or other historians. In the excited fanaticism of the time, however, it was likely enough that such pretenders should arise and disappear, after each had lived out his little day, and fill no place in history (Plumptre). See 1Jn_2:18.

Mat_24:6. Wars and rumours.—The forty years that intervened before the destruction of Jerusalem were full of these in all directions; but we may probably think of the words as referring specially to wars, actual or threatened, that affected the Jews—such, e.g., as those of which we read under Caligula, Claudius, and Nero (ibid.).

Mat_24:7. Nation shall rise against nation, etc.—“Pestilences” omitted in R.V. Perhaps originally inserted in the margin, by some harmonist, from Luk_21:11. Occurrences of the character here indicated are recorded by contemporary historians. But “the passage combines in one view the whole of the various social, physical, and climatic crises of development in the whole New Testament dispensation” (Lange).

Mat_24:11. False prophets.—At the siege of Jerusalem “false prophets suborned by the Zealots kept the people in a state of feverish excitement, as though the appointed Deliverer would still appear” (Milman). See also Act_20:29; 2Pe_2:1; 1Jn_4:1.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mat_24:1-14

Until the end.—When the Lord Jesus and His disciples come away from the temple (Mat_24:1), that conspicuous building is much in their thoughts, but in different ways. They are thinking of its beauty and grandeur. He is thinking, and tells them so, of its approaching destruction (Mat_24:2). That leads them to think and inquire in turn about other things in the future (see Mat_24:3). To these questions the Saviour replies by a word of warning, in the first place; a word of explanation, in the second place; a word of hope, in the end.

I. A word of warning.—The subject they ask about is not by any means an easy one. It is one, on the contrary, in regard to which they will do specially well to “take heed.” That is His first word on the point (Mat_24:4). “Take heed that no man lead you astray” on this subject. Take heed of this, because there will always be a number of false guides in existence. Take heed of this, because such misleading teachers will usually be of very plausible bearing and look. Take heed of this, because they will succeed often in persuading men to believe them (Mat_24:5). Such, in brief, will be the character of the days preceding the end! Such the state of things on earth until the “coming” or “appearing” of Christ. “Deceivers,” and “being deceived.” Many teaching what is erroneous. Many accepting it as correct. Those, therefore, who are in the midst of such will do well indeed to “take heed.”

II. A word of explanation.—Why is it that there will always be these many mistakes on this matter? Partly, of course, because of the usual folly and presumption of men. These will account, in most subjects, for almost any amount of both gullibility and conceit. It is never quite wise, therefore, in any subject, to accept all that one hears; or to take for granted that all things will always turn out eventually as they appear to be at the first. But still more, of course, will things tend to be thus in regard to that very novel and all but unexampled phenomenon here described as “the end.” That very title implies that it will be something such as never happened before. And that very fact, therefore, implies further that there will be unusual difficulty in discriminating (in connection with it) between the false and the real. Hence, therefore, what our Lord says here, first, in regard to the world. At one time the world will be full of cries of alarm; a general break-up will appear imminent; the “end” will seem close. Instead of which these signs will be signs only that the world is on the way to the “end” (Mat_24:6). At another time there will be more than alarm—there will be actual conflict and strife, families of men against other families, and nature, apparently, against all. This is surely the very eve of the end (Mat_24:7). Not at all; it is only a beginning, a first battle out of very many, the suffering which marks the first stage in development, and which is to be followed, naturally, by still more (Mat_24:8). So, also, of what the Saviour appears to say, next, of the church. Many outward assailants, much bitter persecution—no friendliness to it anywhere—will sometimes mark its surroundings (Mat_24:9). Also, much inward treachery—false teachers and disciples in abundance, evil-doing abounding, good-doing discouraged—will mark, at the same time, its condition (Mat_24:11-12). Altogether, in short, things will look as though they could no longer be “endured”; and even faith itself will be inclined to say of them that they can no longer go on. Not so, however, even then must true faith conclude. These things are but reasons for further patience; not for giving all up. More still has to be “endured”—perhaps a good deal more—before the final closing of all. Happy he who knows this, and is, so, able to “wait” (Mat_24:13; see also Rev_6:10-11; Rev_13:10; Rev_14:12).

III. A word of hope.—Is there, then, no reliable way of ascertaining the approach of the “end”? There is; but it is to be sought by faith in quite another direction. Such hope is to be sought for, in the first place, in the continuance of the Word. Whatever may be the opposition to it on the part of the world, whatever the disloyalty to it on the part of organisations and “churches,” the preaching of the “gospel” (Mat_24:14) shall never wholly cease in this “age.” Always there shall be some to know it—and some to teach it—in truth. Hope is to be sought for, in the next place, in the spread of the Word. The “whole world” is ultimately to be penetrated thereby. “All the nations” are to hear in turn of the message of the “kingdom.” And the more there is seen of this, therefore, the more evidence there will be, as well of the certainty as of the near approach, of the “end.” And especially will this be felt, therefore, when we consider, finally, what is said here about the purpose of thus spreading the Word. It is in order that the sound of its message may come as a “testimony” to all (Mat_24:14). Every separate land is to hear those tidings which were meant for all from the first. No nation is to be left without this “witness” of the love and mercy of God; no nation to be without its opportunity of hearing of salvation through Christ. The inference seems irresistible. When the last nation has had its opportunity, the day of opportunity will be over. When the day of grace has been thus extended to all, it will not be far from its close. This, we say, is the natural inference. The Saviour Himself also here solemnly tells us the same. “Then shall the end come!” “Then shall the end have come.” So it might be translated.

This view of the “age” sets before us:—

1. The sad depravity of mankind.—What a succession of pictures—of apparent disappointments—is here! What opposition and rebellion on the one side! Centuries of appeal, centuries of contempt, on the part of the world. What weakness and unwisdom on the other! Centuries of trust, centuries of coming short of it, to say nothing more, on the part of the church! The very “salt of the earth” continually tending to corruption and death!

2. The wonderful patience of God.—Bearing with all this so as to call forth (as we have seen from the descriptions given and the passages quoted) the continual astonishment of the church. Rarely, indeed, would even the people of God have been as God Himself in this matter.

3. The absolute certainty of the end.—This miracle of forbearance, in the nature of things, cannot always go on. The longer it endures, on the contrary, the surer, evidently, its close. How can God allow His own designs always to be thwarted? Or His own people always to be oppressed? Or His own Son always to be disappointed, waiting for His crown? Such never-ending delay, in a word, would differ little from falseness itself. A thing, here, not to be thought of (Tit_1:2).

HOMILIES ON THE VERSES

Mat_24:2. The destruction of Jerusalem.—It was not merely the destruction of a city, but the close of a dispensation—the end of that great ago which began with the call of Abraham to come out from Ur of the Chaldees, and be the father of a people chosen of the Lord. It was “the end of the world” (cf. R.V., Mat_24:3, margin) to the Jews, the end of the world which then was, the passing away of the old to give place to the new. It was the event which bore the same relation to the Jews as the Flood did to the antediluvians, which was emphatically the end of the world to them. If we bear this in mind, it will enable us to appreciate the tremendous importance assigned to this event wherever it is referred to in the sacred Scriptures, and especially in this momentous chapter.—J. M. Gibson, D.D.

Mat_24:6. Consolation during pestilence.—“See that ye be not troubled,” for:—

I. National calamities work out God’s purposes.

II. Ye are in God’s hands.—“It is appointed unto men once to die.” “All the day’s of my appointed time,” etc. “Every man is immortal until his work is done.” Not fatalism but Providence is the doctrine of the New Testament.

III. Trouble does no good, but much harm (Psa_91:6).

IV. God gives you the means of safety.—T. R. Stevenson.

Mat_24:11. False teachers.—

1. Christians may be tempted to defection by their own teachers, who, ere people be aware, may make defection themselves, and then fall to seduce the people. “Many false prophets shall arise.”

2. This sort of temptation is ready to prevail with people, and to draw such away whom open persecution could not drive from the truth; for, it is said, “They shall deceive many,” because disputation and opposition against the truth (for which we are called to suffer), by our own teachers, when they begin to swerve from the truth, is a harder onset against a man’s faith than when fire and sword are threatened, in the case of a cause clear and not questioned by our teachers.—David Dickson.

Mat_24:12. The weakening of love.—

1. Honest men do suffer much in their estimation, when the hypocrisy of hypocrites is discovered; for iniquity abounding breedeth mutual suspicion of one another’s sincerity, a man not knowing whom to trust, when by outbreaking of much iniquity he findeth many to be false.

2. When abounding iniquity breedeth much jealousy, as mutual esteem and confidence are weakened, so is mutual love diminished.

3. This is a sore trial when, beside the common adversary, the godly do grow suspicious one of another, and dare not trust one another, and so do grow cold in their love to one another.—Ibid.

Mat_24:13. Final perseverance not inevitable.—When our Lord says that none can pluck from the Father’s hand those who are His, He does not say that they who are His may not themselves break or fall away from Him. The grace of God does not make our final perseverance inevitable. It makes it possible, probable, morally certain if you will, but morally and not mechanically certain. God who has made us free respects the freedom which He has given us. He does not crush it even by His own merciful gifts; and grace no more absolutely assures heaven than does natural will or the force of habit conquer the road to it. What are the causes which make endurance to the end difficult in so very many Christian lives?

I. “The persecution that ariseth because of the Word.”—Persecution is in any case friction; and friction, if only it be continued long enough, brings movement to a standstill, until there be a new supply of the impelling force.

II. The false Christs and the false prophets.—Our faith is undermined by people who talk and write in the very best English, and who have so much about them that is winning and agreeable that we cannot believe what is really going on. We cannot go on breathing a bad air, and be as we were when we lived high up on the mountain, unless we take very great precautions.

III. Then there is the weariness which steals over thought and heart with the lapse of time.—Human faculties, after all, are finite. They spend themselves and they fall back into lassitude and exhaustion. After great experiences, there is—I do not say a relapse, but a condition of less keenness of insight, less tension of will, less warmth of affection, less conscious effort of intelligence and of sanctified passion; and lookers-on say that the excitement has passed, and that commonsense has resumed its sway, and the soul, too, knows that something has passed from it—inevitably, no doubt, from the nature of the case. And with this knowledge there comes depression; and this depression is in its way a trial, permitted, as we may believe, in order to make our service of God more unselfish than it would be if it were sustained throughout life by an uninterrupted sense of ecstasy. But it is a trial under which some men have failed. And then it may be the case that all is lost, and that perseverance is forfeited.

IV. And once more there is the trifling with conscience, not necessarily in great matters, but in a number of little matters—omission of morning and evening prayers, or their curtailment; neglect of a regular review of conscience; carelessness as to the objects upon which money is spent, and as to the proportion in which it is given to works of religion and mercy; recklessness in intercourse with others, especially if they are younger or less well informed. These and like matters help forward and dull the inoperative condition of conscience, which is in itself preparatory to a great failure. Perseverance is likely to be secured by three things especially:

(1) by a sense of constant dependence on God;

(2) by prayer for perseverance;

(3) by keeping the mind fixed as much as possible on the end of life and on that which follows it.—Canon Liddon.

Mat_24:14. The preaching of the gospel.—I. It is called the “gospel of the kingdom,” because it reveals the kingdom of grace, which leads to the kingdom of glory; sets up Christ’s kingdom in this world, and secures ours in the other world.

II. This gospel, sooner or later, is to be preached in all the world, to every creature, and all nations discipled by it; for in it Christ is to be salvation to the ends of the earth; for this end the gift of tongues was the first-fruits of the Spirit.

III. The gospel is preached “for a witness unto all nations”; that is, a faithful declaration of the mind and will of God concerning the duty which God requires from man, and the recompense which man may expect from God. It is a record (1Jn_5:11); it is a witness for those who believe, that they shall be saved; and against those who persist in unbelief, that they shall be damned.—M. Henry.

The end.—“Then shall the end come.”

I. When?—

1. When the gospel has been preached to all the world.

(1) As a witness unto it.

(2) As a witness against it: a savour of life or death.

2. When the fulness of the Gentiles is come in.

II. Why?—

1. God’s faithfulness demands it, in aid of His church, endangered by worldliness (Mat_24:12).

2. Iniquity demands it.—“Lawlessness” shall abound. “Where the carcase is,” etc.

III. How?—

1. Suddenly, as a thief in the night.

2. By cosmic irregularities; powers of nature shaken.—Proctor’s “Gems of Thought.”

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 24:1-36.

Destruction Of Jerusalem And Coming Of Christ

Found also in Mar 13:1-32 Luk 21:5-33.

Our Lord’s last public discourse has now been ended. The day is probably Tuesday of the Passover week (see on "Mat 21:18",)(see on "Mat 21:23"). He has been discoursing all day in the courts of the temple, and before turning away he draws instruction from the widow’s touching gift to the sacred treasury. (Mar 12:41 Luk 21:1) He then leaves the temple, and seems never to have entered it again. In this final departure it was very natural that his thoughts should dwell on the impending destruction of the temple and the city. Moreover, as there is no sufficient reason for departing from Matthew’s order (compare on Mat 23:1, Mat 23:13), we see that he had just before predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and his own future coming. (Mat 23:38 f.) Six months earlier (Mat 16:27 f.) he had declared that he would come again in the glory of his Father, as the sovereign Judge of mankind; and that some then present would live to see him "coming in his kingdom." We there found it necessary to understand that the particular coming to which this last phrase especially refers took place at the destruction of Jerusalem, which made Christianity completely and manifestly distinct from Judaism, and established the Messianic kingdom in its permanent present state. The prediction then briefly made by our Lord is now more fully unfolded. He first declares in leaving the temple that it is going to be completely destroyed (Mat 24:1 f.); and then, sitting on the Mount of Olives, he gives the great discourse of Matthew 24 and Matthew 25.

This discourse certainly foretells in the outset the destruction of Jerusalem (e. g., Mat 24:15-21, Mat 24:34); and in the conclusion certainly foretells the final coming of our Lord, with the general judgment of mankind and the resulting permanent state of the good and the bad, (Mat 25:31-46) in a way substantially equivalent to the predictive descriptions afterwards given by the apostles. To refer that closing passage to the destruction of Jerusalem is absurd and impossible. So then the discourse begins with the destruction of the temple and city, and ends with the final coming to judgment: how does it make the transition from the former to the latter topic? Every attempt to assign a definite point of division between the two topics has proved a failure. Place it after Luk 21:28, saying that up to that point only the former topic is meant, and after that point only the latter, and at once we see that Luk 21:34 must refer to the destruction of Jerusalem. Place it after Luk 21:34 or 36 or 42, and we cannot resist the persuasion that Luk 21:30 f. (and Mat 24:36) must refer to the final coming for judgment. (compare Mat 12:41-43, 2Th 1:7-10) But if the destruction of Jerusalem was itself in one sense a coming of the Lord, why may we not suppose that the transition from this to the final coming is gradual? Then much in Mat 24:3-36 may be taken as referring both to the former and the latter topic, while some of the expressions may refer exclusively to the one or the other. In Mat 24:37 to Mat 25:13 the earlier topic is sinking out of sight; in Mat 25:31-46 it has completely disappeared, and nothing is in view but the final coming to judgment. (Luke and Mark are parallel only as far as Mat 24:42) Similar cases occur in Old Testament, where a prediction refers to some nearer event, and also, by typical relation, to a kindred event in the remoter future. This view does not rest on the crude notion of a "double sense" in Scripture words or phrases, but on the unquestionable Scripture use of types, prophetic as well as ceremonial. For example, in Isa 41:8 to Isa 53:12, the predictions as to the "servant of Jehovah" make a gradual transition from Israel to the Messiah, the former alone being seen in Isa 41:8 ff., the Messiah also appearing to view in Isa 42:1 ff., (Mat 12:18-21) and Israel quite sinking out of our sight in Isaiah 53. (Act 8:32-35) Compare above on Mat 2:15. All the Scripture predictions remained obscure till their fulfilment (compare on Mat 24:15). Accordingly we may expect here to see somewhat clearly the fulfilment in the destruction of Jerusalem, but the other and yet future fulfilment must remain still quite obscure, and we should be "contented (Alex.) with a careful explanation of the terms employed, according to analogy and usage, and a reverential waiting for ulterior disclosures by the light of divine providence shining on the word." Some zealous students of prophecy have brought reproach on the Scripture by their lack of moderation and reserve in the interpretation. It should be frankly conceded that grave difficulties attend the interpretation of this discourse in any of the methods that have been suggested. The view above described is believed to involve fewer difficulties, and to yield better results, than any other theory.

Mat 24:1 f. The temple is here hieron, the general sacred enclosure, see on "Mat 4:5". Jesus went into the Court of the Gentiles and the Court of Israel, but never into the central building (naos) and the surrounding Court of the Priests. (Compare on Mat 21:12) The clause ’from the temple’ stands in the Greek (correct text)[1] between the participle rendered ’went out’ and the verb ’was going,’ and could be connected with the latter, as in Com. Ver., but is more naturally connected with the former, as in Rev. Ver. The preposition ’from’ makes the temple the point of departure; the other expression, ’going out,’ shows distinctly that he had been in the temple, which would be plain from the nature of the case. (Compare on Mat 3:16) Was going on his way (Rev. Ver.), doubtless returning towards Bethany, whence he had come that morning (Mat 21:17 f.; Luk 21:37); and the disciples interrupted his progress to show him the buildings of the temple (hieron). In Mark (Mar 13:2) they are expressly called ’great buildings,’ and in Mark and Luke special attention is directed to the vast "stones" employed. Josephus says ("Ant.," 15, 11, 3) that Herod built the sanctuary (naos) of stones that were "white and strong," probably meaning a hard variety of white limestone still much used in Palestine, and that they were about twenty-five cubits long, eight in height, and twelve in breadth, or in our feet about forty by twelve by twenty, which is even larger than the stones now found in the southern angles of Herod the Great’s outer wall. (See on "Mat 21:42") In "War," 5, 5, 6, Josephus even says that some of the stones were forty-five cubits long (eighty-five feet). Doubtless the inner walls also, and pillars of the colonnades (see on "Mat 21:12"), presented very large and ’beautiful’ stones. (Luk 21:5, Bib. Un. Ver.) It is doubtful whether any other pile of sacred buildings on earth has been so vast or to contemporaries so imposing as Herod’s temple. Talmud Bab. says: "He that never saw the temple of Herod, never saw a fine building." Luke’s other expression, ’the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and offerings’ (Bib. Un. Ver.), recalls Josephus’ statement that "fastened all around the temple (hieron) were barbaric spoils, and all these King Herod offered up, adding whatever he took from the Arabians also." (Compare Rev 21:26) There were doubtless also many votive tablets, and other beautiful objects offered by the people, to adorn all the courts and colonnades, as well as the central sacred building. Tacitus says ("Hist.," V., 8, 12), that it was "a temple of immense wealth," and so constructed as to be "an excellent fortress." Our Lord seems to have been outside of the temple when his attention was called by the disciples, but this does not show that they were observing only the stones of the outer wall, for the central building rose high above the outer court and its wall, and was visible to a great distance, as Josephus states, ("Ant.," 15, 11, 3.) Our Lord’s language in Mat 4:2 shows that he is referring to the entire structure. And Jesus said, etc. But he answered and said, is the correct Greek text. The subsequent insertion of the name ’Jesus’ is a thing of frequent occurrence in the manuscripts, compare on Mat 14:14. See ye not all these things? This called their attention to the vast and solid mass of buildings, by way of preparation for the statement that all would be overthrown, a thing which then seemed in the highest degree unlikely; indeed, we know that Titus fully meant to preserve it. (Josephus "War," 6, 4.) There shall not be left here one stone upon another. So also in Mark and Luke. Some stickle at the fact that several stones of Herod’s outer wall now remain in situ, e. g., at the Jews’ place of wailing, and at the southeast and southwest corners; indeed, at the southeast corner the recent English excavations reached foundation-stones supposed to have been laid by Solomon. Our Lord’s language is of course popular, and such an objection is trifling. Compare Jer 26:18. In fact, it is wonderful how literally the prediction was fulfilled, for very seldom was a great city so completely destroyed. Josephus says ("War," 7, 1, 1) that Titus finally ordered the whole city and the sanctuary to be razed to its foundations, except three towers and part of the western wall, and that all the rest of the city wall "was so completely levelled with the ground that there was no longer anything to lead those who visited the spot to believe that it had ever been inhabited."

[1] The earliest MSS. and nearly all the early versions give this order, and the internal probabilities are at least not against it; so there need be no question.

Mat 24:3. Going on towards Bethany, our Lord climbs the steep base of the Mount of Olives, see on "Mat 21:1", see on "Mat 21:17". Half way up the walking path one is apt to feel tired on a hot afternoon at the time of the Passover, and to seat himself on some ledge of limestone rock to rest. There he finds himself ’over against’ (Mark) the site of the temple, at about the same height above the ravine of the Kedron. Our Lord may have sat here, or perhaps on the summit, where he would look down upon the whole city. The place at which some days before he "saw the city and wept over it", (Luk 19:41. Rev. Ver.) was about half a mile further south, on the riding road from Bethany. The time was now towards night, and the evening sun kindled the white stone and gold of the temple buildings into splendour. The disciples. Mark says, (Mar 13:3) ’Peter and James and John and Andrew,’ who were the first company of the Twelve (see above on Mat 10:2), and three of whom had been with the Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration. (Mat 17:1) This fact might have led these particular disciples to suppose that he would tell them what he would not tell the rest of the Twelve; and Matthew’s general expression might be easily restricted to the four mentioned by Mark. Or it may be, as Euthym. suggests, that "they all came to learn, but four asked, as having greater freedom of access." Privately, so also Mark, as opposed to the public discourses he had been giving all day in the temple. Jesus would of course refrain from speaking plainly in public of his future coming as the Messiah, when he had not yet publicly declared himself to be the Messiah. And it would have been dangerous (Maid.) to foretell openly the destruction of the temple, (compare Joh 2:20) which in the case of Stephen was reckoned blasphemy. (Act 6:13 f.) When shall these things be? So Mark and Luke. The prediction that the entire temple would be thrown down reminded them of previous predictions that he would come again as the Messiah (Mat 16:27 f.; Luk 19:11 Mat 23:39), for they might well suppose such an utter destruction would occur only in connection with the establishment of the Messianic kingdom, which many Jews believed would be attended by mighty changes. So the disciples privately inquire as to the time of his promised coming, and the sign of it. The sign of thy coming, (parousia), presence (Rev. Ver. margin), as in 1Co 10:10, or ’arrival’ as in the phrase ’by the coming of Titus’, 1Co 7:6; the idea is of not merely arriving but then remaining present. The word suggests (Ewald) that Jesus will come and stay with his people. This peculiar term is used for the second coming of Christ four times in the chapter (Mat 24:3, Mat 24:27, Mat 24:37, Mat 24:39), and repeatedly by James, Paul, Peter; also in 1Jn 2:28 Other terms used in the Epistles are manifestation, revelation, appearing, coming, day. The word ’thy’ has a certain emphasis in the Greek. He has spoken of the Messiah’s coming; (Mat 23:39, Mat 16:28) they are satisfied that this means his coming. And of the end of the world, or, as the Greek exactly means, the consummation of the age (Rev. Ver. margin), see on "Mat 13:39"f. There is here no reference to any such idea as that of the destruction of the material universe (kosmos), but only the consummation and termination of the present aion, age, or state of things. A common Jewish conception was that the appearing of the Messiah would close ’this age,’ and introduce ’the coming age’—these phrases often occurring in the Talmud. The disciples would easily transform the conception into that of a future appearance of their Master as the Messiah. Jesus had taught them that at ’the consummation of the age,’ the end of the present state of things, the Messiah would destroy the wicked, (Mat 13:41, Mat 13:49) and they were now fully convinced that he himself was the Messiah. Thus it was natural for them to ask these questions. It is not wise to distinguish sharply between the three clauses as if representing three entirely separate points. Evidently the disciples did not separate between his future coming and the end of the present period; nor has the Saviour done so in his reply. They also then supposed that the destruction of the temple would coincide with his coming and the end of the age; the reply did not clearly show that they would in fact be far apart, but it left the way open for what has in this respect turned out to be the case. The phrases ’coming’ and ’consummation of the age’ would be readily intelligible to the Jewish readers contemplated by Matt., but not to Gentiles; and accordingly Mark and Luke have simply ’and what is the sign when all these things are going to be completed’ (Luke ’to come to pass’).[1]

[1] Wünsche here quotes a good deal from the Talmud, and other Rabbinical writings, as to presages of the Messiah’s earning (i.e. what we call his first coming), and descriptions of the Messianic time, but nothing that would really help in understanding this discourse. As to the wide difference between the Rabbinical conceptions of "the last things," and those of the New Testament, see Edersheim II, 434, 445.

The Saviour’s reply, so far as included in our present section, divides itself into Mat 24:4-14, Mat 24:15-28, Mat 24:29-31, Mat 24:32-36; and this last is very closely connected with what follows in the next section. Observe that the whole discourse is evidently designed, not to satisfy curiosity about the future, but to save from misconception, restrain impatience, and stimulate to perpetual watchfulness (Mat 24:42) and faithfulness. (Mat 25:14 ff.)

I. Mat 24:4-14. Misleading Signs

Found also in Mar 13:5-13 Luk 21:8-19.

Alexander: "The divine wisdom of the Saviour and his knowledge of the perils which beset his followers are strikingly exemplified in this preliminary warning against error and delusion, this exposure of false signs before giving a description of the true. This method of proceeding is the more remarkable because the course suggested by fanatical excitement is the very opposite, and even wise men who devote themselves to such inquiries are too prone to look exclusively at what is positive in Christ’s instructions, without heeding this preliminary admonition, or even observing that his purpose in this first part of his discourse is not to tell what are but what are not the premonitions of the great catastrophe to which he here refers, whatever it may be."

(a) False Messiahs and other false teachers, Mat 24:4 f.; also in Mark and Luke. Many shall come in my name (see on "Mat 18:5"), here means more than reliance on him, for they would claim to be what he really was. (Compare Mat 24:23-25 and Jer 14:14) We have no account of any one who claimed to be the Messiah between this time and the destruction of Jerusalem. Yet there may very well have been such persons. As the Jews expected the Messiah to be a political deliverer, it was very natural that men who set up for political deliverers should pretend to be the Messiah; but as Josephus had interpreted the Messianic predictions as fulfilled in Vespasian,[1] and knew that any popular expectation of a native ruler would be highly unacceptable to the Romans, he would be likely to pass over such claims without mention. Christ, the Christ, with the article. (See on "Mat 2:4".) Com. Ver. itself gives the article in Mat 26:63.

[1] See "War," 6, 5, 4, and compare 3, 8, 9, with 4,10, 7. The often quoted statement of Suetonius ("Claudius" 25) and Tacitus ("Hist." V, 13) as to an expectation "that persons proceeding from Judea would gain dominion," was to all appearance derived by them from Josephus, for they both make the same application that he does.

(b) Wars, famines, earthquakes, affecting the world at large, Mat 26:6-8; so also Mark and Luke, the latter expanding. These extraordinary occurrences would become a false sign by being misinterpreted, as such events often are. Wars and rumours of wars, which latter may turn out unreal. Both real wars and such rumours were abundant before AD. 70, as well as often since. Famines (Act 11:28) are often mentioned in Old. Testament, and are still frequent in Palestine; earthquakes also frequently occur, and there are many signs of former volcanic activity. We read in Josephus and Tacitus of various famines and earthquakes in Palestine during the years preceding the destruction of Jerusalem. Persons caring to trace them out may refer to Alford or "Bible Comm." Be not troubled. Luke, ’terrified.’ Alexander : "As if these commotions would necessarily imply the imminence of some great catastrophe, or of the final consummation. The necessity of this caution, not to the first disciples merely, but to their successors, is abundantly apparent from the well-known fact that pious men in every age have been continually falling into the mistake of looking on national commotions and collisions as decisive proof that the world is near its end. The meaning is not that such changes may not be immediately succeeded by the greatest change of all, but only that they are no sign of it, and ought not to be so regarded." For all these things (rather, they)[1] must come to pass, the latter term as in Mat 5:18. Why "must," or "must needs?" (Rev. Ver.) We might simply say (Meyer) that it was necessary according to the divine purpose, the thought of which might console the disciples, as it did the Saviour. (Mat 26:54) But does not the expression mean that in the preparation for the complete reign of the Messiah, conflict is unavoidable, not simply individual and domestic variance, (Mat 10:34 ff.) but conflict of the races and nations, as afterwards depicted in the visions of John in Patmos? Meyer sees in Mat 5:6 f., "the first, far off indirect prognostics of the second advent, like the roll of distant thunder." With the imagery of Mat 5:7 compare that of Isa 19:2. In Isa 19:8, the beginning of sorrows, or, travail, and not the end, the consummation. ’Travail’ is in the Greek a plural, meaning the pains of labour, the birth-pangs; (1Th 5:8, and often in Old Testament) then any severe pangs (Act 2:24) These things will not be merely the beginning of distresses, but of labour-pains; (compare Rom 8:22) and the end of these will be the appearance of a better state of things (compare "the regeneration," Mat 19:28) Edersheim: "Jewish writings speak very frequently of the so-called ’sorrows of the Messiah’ the word meaning labour-pains. These were partly those of the Messiah, and partly—perhaps chiefly—those coming on Israel and the world previous to, and connected with, the coming of the Messiah." The particulars mentioned vary greatly, and the descriptions are quite fanciful. But they may generally be characterized as marking a period of internal corruption and of outward distress, especially of famine and war, of which the land of Palestine was to be the scene, and in which the people of Israel were to be the chief sufferers; yet none of them refers to desolation of the City and Temple as one of the ’signs’ or ’sorrows’ of the Messiah.

[1] Some documents inserted ’these things,’ some ’all things,’ a few ’all these things;’ the earliest MSS. and several early versions are without any such expression and the various phrases mentioned are obviously additions made by students or copyists. In Mat 24:7 ’and pestilences’ is added by many documents, but wanting in the earliest MSS., and plainly inserted from Luk 21:11.

(c) Things directly affecting the Christians—persecution, false prophets, multiplied transgressions, Isa 19:9-13. So Mark and Luke. But they here also give a prediction that the disciples will be brought before Jewish and heathen tribunals, with persecution and scourging;

(compare Act 22:19, 1Co 11:24 f.) and that they will be taught by inspiration what to say in their defense, and need not be anxious in advance on that point. (Compare Act 4:8-13) Matthew has given a similar passage in the discourse to the Twelve on sending them out, (see Mat 10:17-22) and therefore (we may suppose) does not repeat it here. To be afflicted, better, as Rev. Ver., to tribulation, see the word explained on see on "Mat 13:21". For instances of persecution, see Act 4:1, Act 7:59, Act 12:1 Rev 2:10, Rev 2:12. Ye shall be hated of all nations. Compare "as concerning this sect, it is known to us that everywhere it is spoken against." (Act 28:22) Tacitus ("Annals " XV. 44) speaks of the Christians as "a kind of men hated for their acts of wickedness." And then shall many be offended (stumble), compare Mat 13:21, Mat 13:57, and see the term explained on Mat 5:29. Shall betray (or deliver up) one another, represents a peculiarly painful feature of the situation in times of severe persecution. Tacitus in speaking of the persecution of Christians by Nero in AD. 64, says, "At first those who confessed were seized, afterwards upon their information a great multitude." And shall hate one another. Remember how Paul was hated by the Judaizers, and by various parties at Corinth.

Mat 24:11 f. is found in Matt. only. There shall be not merely persecution but false teaching. (Compare Act 20:29 f.; 2Pe 2:1, 1Jn 4:1) False prophets, compare Mat 24:24, Mat 7:15, 2Pe 2:1. Shall deceive, or lead astray, many, the same term as in 2Pe 2:4 f. Iniquity, more exactly transgression of law, see on "Mat 23:28". Shall abound, or be multiplied, as this word is everywhere else rendered. The love of (the) many, the general mass, excepting a few individuals. (Compare Winer.) ’Love’ here probably means love to Christ and to his people. The great increase of the violation of God’s law among the wicked will gradually tone down and chill the zeal and love of the great mass of professed subjects of the Messiah. The Epistle to the Hebrews seems aimed at such a tendency, and similar periods have often existed in Christian history. Tyndale and followers greatly enfeebled this statement by neglecting the article, and making it ’the love of many.’

Mat 24:13. He that shall endure unto the end, that through life endures persecution (Mat 24:9-11) without flinching, and with multiplied transgression all around him maintains warm Christian love (Mat 24:12); compare Rev 2:10. Or ’unto the end’ may mean not through life, but unto the end of these trials. Luke gives (Luk 21:19) the kindred and remarkable expression, "in your patience ye shall win your souls" (correct text and translation), implying that men may gain possession of their own spiritual nature through patient endurance of the ills of life.

(d) A corrective to the false signs, Rev 2:14; Mar 13:10. Notwithstanding the persecution from without and the false teaching and diminished love within, the gospel will be everywhere preached; then, and not till then, will the end come. This gospel of the kingdom, the good tidings (Rev. Ver. margin) that the Messianic kingdom or reign is near (see on "Mat 4:23"; see on "Mat 3:2"), which the Saviour was and long had been engaged in proclaiming. Compare the beginning of our Lord’s preaching in Galilee, Mar 1:15. Preached, kerusso, see on "Mat 4:17". In all the world, more exactly, in the whole inhabited (earth), as in Rev. Ver. margin. This term, oikoumene, is repeatedly used in Luke (and Acts), not elsewhere in the Gospels. From it comes the modern Popish phrase, "an oecumenical council," one whose members gather from all the inhabited earth. This statement, that the gospel shall be preached in the whole inhabited earth, and the following expression for a witness unto all (the) nations, could be regarded as a hyperbolical prediction of what was fulfilled before the destruction of Jerusalem, even as Paul wrote to the Colossians (about AD. 68), concerning "the gospel which ye heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven." (Col 1:23, Rev Ver) It will evidently be fulfilled much more thoroughly before the second coming of Christ; yet Paul’s phrase, and the apparent primary reference here to AD. 70 as ’the end,’ should restrain theorizers from insisting that the second coming of Christ cannot take place until this has been fulfilled with literal completeness. For a witness, or, testimony, in order that testimony may be offered them concerning the Messiah and his salvation, such as they may believe if they will.

II. Mat 24:15-28. One Great Sign At Jerusalem;

also in Mar 13:14-23 Luk 21:20-24. In Luk 21:15-22 the Saviour states what they must do upon the occurrence of this sign, and in Luk 21:23-28 warns against misleading pretensions and propositions.

(a) The sign, and what they must do, Luk 21:15-22. When ye therefore shall see. What inference is expressed by ’therefore’? He has said that the end is coming (Mat 24:14), and that those who endure to the end shall be saved (Mat 24:13); when therefore they see a certain sign, let them promptly flee, in order to save themselves. (Mat 24:16 f.)

Mat 24:13 apparently refers both to the destruction of Jerusalem and to the final coming of Christ; an inference from it in the former sense is that which here follows. The abomination of desolation. The Greek construction makes it the abomination characterized by desolation, which might be as a token or as a cause of desolation. This vague phrase is further described by adding spoken of by (through) Daniel the prophet, viz., spoken of by God through the prophet, compare Mat 21:4, and see on "Mat 1:22"; see on "Mat 2:5". This addition is wanting in the correct text of Mark, (Mar 13:14) having been added in the common text from Matt. It is stated in Daniel, (Dan 9:26) that ’the anointed one,’ the Messiah, ’shall be cut off,’ and ’the people of the prince that shall come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary... and he shall cause the sacrifice and the meat-offering to cease; and upon the wing of abominations shall come one that maketh desolate,’ or (margin, Rev. Ver.), ’upon the pinnacle of abominations shall be one that maketh desolate.’ In this last sense it was understood by the Sept., which renders ’upon the temple (hieron) (shall be) the abomination of the desolations.’ In Dan 11:31, Dan 12:11 the Sept. has ’abomination of desolation,’ as here. The writer of 1Ma 1:54 applied this phrase to the heathen altar which in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes was set upon the altar of Jehovah. It is evident that our Lord interprets the prediction in Daniel as referring to the Messiah, and to that destruction of the city and the temple which he is now foretelling; and his interpretation is authoritative for us. What this predicted ’abomination of desolation’ would be, was an obscure question. Many a prediction of human action was necessarily obscure till the fulfilment came, because otherwise it would have so influenced believers as to fulfil itself, and would have thus failed to be valid as a superhuman prediction to strengthen faith in him who spoke it. (Joh 14:29.) Our Lord cites this obscure expression without explaining it, simply pointing out that it demands attention from the reader of Daniel—let him that readeth understand—and implying that if really understood it has the reference he is indicating. Some suppose the parenthetic remark to be that of Matthew, addressing the reader of the Gospel; but this is made improbable by the fact that Mark gives the same parenthesis verbatim, for although Mark (in the correct text) does not mention Daniel, yet the peculiar and well-known phrase would suggest its source in that book. Luke, (Luk 21:20) probably because the phrase was obscure and difficult, paraphrases it by an expression (or perhaps reports an additional expression, compare Luk 19:42), which suggests to us the interpretation: ’When ye see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is near.’ Literally, it is ’being encircled by armies,’ when you see the process going on, then flee. Notice that Luke retains the term ’desolation.’ Now we cannot always interpret the phraseology of a passage from that of a parallel passage, but there is always a strong probability that their meaning is substantially the same. It is possible that Luke describes an occurrence without the city, and Matthew, some concurrent desecration of the temple, represented by the abomination of desolation. But it is much more likely that ’the abomination of desolation, standing in the holy place’ means some object connected with the Roman army under Titus that encircled and captured Jerusalem, which object foretokened speedy desolation. The Roman military standard, with its eagle of silver or bronze, and under that an imperial bust which the soldiers were accustomed to worship, standing anywhere in the holy city. (Mat 4:5) would be a violation of the second commandment, would be abominable in the eyes of all devout Jews, would in itself desolate the holy place, according to their feeling, and would foretoken a yet more complete desolation. Holy place cannot well mean distinctively the temple in this case, for when the Roman standards stood in the temple it was too late for fleeing to the mountain. One or two years before the Saviour thus spoke, Pilate had outraged the Jews by bringing into Jerusalem by night such military standards, having on them the emperor’s bust, and only upon vehement and protracted entreaty did he consent to remove them (Jos."Ant.," 18, 3, 1). The masculine participle for ’standing’ used by Mark (Mar 13:14, correct text) might refer to the emperor whose bust the standard bore, or to the general whose authority it represented. The term ’abomination’ is oftenest used in Old Testament as denoting idols, or objects connected with idolatry. The horror of civil war in the temple (Jos."War," 4, 9, 11 f.) would not so well account for this phrase, nor correspond to the connection in Daniel. Some prefer simply to understand the Roman power, as abominable and desolating.

Mat 24:16. Then. The signs previously mentioned will not show that the end is near; but when this sign is seen, then the followers of Christ must at once leave Jerusalem and the entire district of Judea. Flee into the mountains seems to be a general phrase, not denoting any particular mountains. In the Maccabean time the Jews had become familiar with the idea of hiding in ravines and caves of the mountains. Eusebius states ("Hist." III., 5, 2 f.) that at the time of the siege by Titus the apostles had gone to preach the gospel to all the nations, and that the people (laity) of the church in Jerusalem, in accordance with a certain divine communication given by revelation before the war, removed and dwelt in a city of Perea named Pella. Epiphanius has a similar statement. Merrill, "East of the Jordan," leaves no reasonable doubt that Robinson was right in identifying Pella with the ruins called Fah’l, lying just across the Jordan valley eastward from Bethshean, in a beautiful and healthy situation. The ruins indicate an important city. Epiphanius says that when Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem, changing its name to Ælia (AD. 135), the Christians a second time withdrew to Pella. It is not clear from Eusebius at what precise time the Christians withdrew from Jerusalem; it may have been (so Plump. and Edersh. think) in AD. 68, but it seems to have occurred after Titus took command, which followed the death of Galba, AD. 69 (see Joseph "War," 4, 9, 2). During the siege, in AD. 70, Titus allowed many Jews to withdraw from the city ("War,"5, 10, 1), and the Christians may have left then. Such an abandonment of Jerusalem was not unprecedented, for after the affair of Cestius, in AD. 66, "many of the distinguished Jews left the city, as if swimming from a sinking ship" ("War," 2, 20, 1).

Mat 24:17 f. The flight is to be prompt, immediate. The top of an Oriental house is flat, with only slant enough to carry off the rain, and with a battlement or parapet to prevent persons from falling. (Deu 22:8.) This roof is usually reached by steps from the inner court. (Mar 2:4) In a city, where the houses adjoin, one might go along the roofs from house to house without descending to the court and the street. Josephus ("Ant.," 13, 5, 3) represents some Jewish soldiers as quelling a tumultuous rebellion in Antioch by going on the roofs of the palaces to cast down missiles upon the crowds in the streets, and then leaping from house to house and setting fire to the dwellings of the people. So here, he which is on the housetop (e.g., Act 10:9) will find it the shortest way to escape from the doomed city to pass from roof to roof, and must not go down to take anything out of his house.[1] In like manner, neither let him which is in the field at work, and has laid aside his outer garment, (Mat 5:40) return to the place where he laid it, but he must flee straightway. Origen understands return to the city, but that would take a long time, and the prohibition of it would not indicate great haste; besides that decorous persons would not leave the outer garment at home, but would wear it in going from the city to the field. These are strong expressions—such as the Saviour frequently used, see on "Mat 5:39"—to show that the flight must be extremely prompt, when the predicted sign appears.

[1] Literally ’to take away the things that are out of his house,’ an abbreviated expression for "to take out of the house the things that are in it." This is undoubtedly the correct reading here. The singular ’garment’ (or ’cloak’) is read by all the earliest MSS. and many others, and by nearly all the early versions; this must outweigh the probability of assimilation to Mar 13:16.

Mat 24:19-22, Woe is here said compassionately, while in Mat 28:13 it was denounced as a thing deserved. A flight so prompt and hasty must involve great hardship and difficulty for delicate women, and for all if it should be in the winter.[1] So the traditional law as to a Sabbath day journey, that it should be not more than two thousand cubits, about ten hundred and fifty yards, would prove overwhelmingly inconvenient, if the flight should occur on the Sabbath day. Some (Wun.) held it lawful to violate this when in peril of life; and such a course our Lord would certainly have approved (compare on Mat 12:2 ff.); but it would be to any strict Jew a painful and embarrassing necessity. Moreover (Hessey, in "Bible Comm."), "it was no doubt considered wrong to assist the traveller, however urgent his errand, in his movements on the Sabbath day. All possible impediments therefore would be thrown in the way of the fugitives by those who were still zealous for the supposed requirements of the law." Our Lord seems to imply that his Jewish followers will be still scrupulous about the traditional mode of observing the Sabbath up to the destruction of Jerusalem.

[1] It was a great mercy to the Southern people that the end of the Civil War (1865) came in April, when if the men hurried home and went immediately to work, there was just time enough to plant corn, tobacco, cotton; this prevented disorder and violence, by engaging all in hopeful industry. So some Rabbinical writers (Wet.) speak of it as a special mercy that the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (2Ki 25:3-9) occurred at a season of the year suitable for journeying and exposure. And, according to Josephus, the army of Titus reached Jerusalem in April (AD. 70), and destroyed it in September.

It was indeed this event that first made the Jewish Christians clearly understand the ceremonial law to be no longer binding (compare on Mat 16:28). Pray ye that your flight be not is a non-final construction, see on "Mat 5:29".

Mat 24:21. For, reason for the injunction of Mat 24:16, which was expanded by Mat 24:17-20. This reason is that the sufferings attendant upon the destruction of Jerusalem, will be without parallel in past or future history. (Compare on Mat 24:29.) We might regard this also as the hyperbolical language often used in prophecy; (compare Dan 12:1 Joe 2:1) yet in this case it may be taken literally, for certainly no recorded distresses have been so vast, so prolonged, so terrible, as those described by Josephus in the "Jewish War." We are not surprised to find him saying (5, 10, 5),"no other city ever endured similar calamities, and no generation ever existed more prolific in crime." Compare his Preface to the "War," 4. The elect (Mat 24:22) would seem to be the elect among the Jews, (Isa 65:9) the Jewish Christians. If the destruction and desolation inflicted by the Romans during the siege and overthrow of the city, and afterwards at various points, had been continued much longer, they would have swept away all Jews who were then Christians, and all who afterwards became Christians-yea, the whole Jewish race. Should be shortened, etc., Rev. Ver. Had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved, is the necessary meaning of the Greek; ’saved’ means the saving of the life, Mat 9:21 f., compare on Mat 1:21 Mar 13:20 refers the shortening expressly to Jehovah. That others should also be saved for the sake of saving the elect, reminds of Gen 18:23 ff. Luke adds (Luk 21:21, R. V.) ’and they shall be led away captive into all nations’ (compare Jos. "War," Book 7), ’and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.’

We cannot say that Gen 18:15-22 does not at all refer to the times just preceding our Lord’s final coming; but no such reference shows itself. The terms of Gen 18:22 might readily be so understood, but ’those days’ can hardly mean anything else than the days of the flight from Judea. (Mat 24:16-20.)(b) False pretensions which must then be guarded against, Gen 18:23-28; so Mar 13:21-23; not in Luke.

Mat 24:23-25. Further cases of false Messiahs. (Compare Mat 24:5.) A pseudo-christ, one who falsely claimed to be Christ, must be, distinguished from an anti-christ, an opposer of Christ (Epistles of John); compare the somewhat similar designation in 2Th 2:4. Shall shew great signs and wonders, compare on Mat 16:1, and for the terms see on "Mat 12:38". Shall deceive, or lead astray, same term as in Mat 12:4 f., 11, and in Mat 18:12 f. (Compare Deu 13:1 ff.; Rev 13:13) Alexander: "This prediction, in its strict sense, is among the passages which seem to show that even real miracles are not sufficient of themselves to prove the truth of any doctrine, but only one part of a complex demonstration, at once sensible, rational, and spiritual."

Mat 24:26 f. The true Messiah’s appearing will be sudden and visible to all. The desert or wilderness, (Mat 4:1) and the secret chambers, (Mat 6:6) are contrasted. He will not be known to have appeared elsewhere, and will not be found by searching in the wild, thinly inhabited regions, or in the private portions of some city house; his appearing will be visible to all, as a flash of lightning. (Compare Luk 17:23 f.) The coming, compare on Mat 24:3. The Son of man, the Messiah, see on "Mat 8:20". Here ’the coming of the Son of man’ answers to ’thy coming’ in Mat 8:3.

Mat 24:27 is closely connected by for with Mat 24:26, which last points to the destruction of Jerusalem. Yet the language of Mat 24:27 seems specially appropriate to the final coming; and it may perhaps be understood as referring to both. (Compare on Mat 24:3.) Also is an inadequately supported addition in the common text. And shineth, or is seen, as in Mat 6:5; not that the lightning goes to the west, as ’shineth’ might suggest, but that its light is seen even that far. The thought therefore seems to be (Weiss) that the Messiah’s coming will be alike visible to all, and so there will be no occasion for some to tell others where he may be seen.

Mat 24:28. Compare Luk 17:37, and the same image in Job 39:30. Wheresoever the carcass is,[1] there will the eagles be gathered together. As the eagle proper rarely feeds on carrion, the word probably here denotes a carrion-kite, which Pliny classes with eagles (Grimm), or a great vulture as large as the eagle, which now abounds in Palestine, and is called eagle by the natives (Thomson, III, 221). The meaning of the saying as here applied seems to be, that things will come to pass when the occasion for them exists. When Jerusalem is ready for destruction, the Roman armies will gather and destroy it; when the world lies awaiting the final appearance of Christ to judgment, he will come. Kendrick (in Olsh.) considers, with less probability, that it means the swarming of the false prophets to prey on the corrupt mass of Judaism. Calvin, after some Fathers, understands the children of God as gathering to Christ and feeding on him, an idea repulsive in itself, and out of harmony with the connection, in which ("Bible Comm.") Christ comes not in grace, but in judgment; yet many later writers have unwisely adopted this view. It is hardly possible, as formerly fancied by some, that our Lord meant an allusion to the Roman eagles.

[1] ’For’ is wanting in the earliest MSS. and most of the early versions, and would be very easily inserted by students or copyists. The word meaning ’carcass,’ (or ’corpse’) was here altered by some documents into the somewhat similar word meaning ’body,’ which Luke has in Luk 17:37; compare above on Mat 14:12

III. Mat 24:29-31. Signs In Heaven

Mar 13:24-27 Luk 21:25-28.

Immediately. The phrase is not exactly ’immediately after’; the adverb ’immediately’ is connected with ’the sun shall be darkened,’ etc. The substantial sense is however the same. So far as this passage relates to the destruction of Jerusalem, we may suppose that the events it indicates were to follow immediately after those predicted in 15-28. As regards the ulterior reference to the final parousia, there may prove to be in like manner some close consecution, but only the fulfilment is likely to show. After the tribulation of those days, viz, the tribulation attending upon the destruction of Jerusalem, see especially Luk 21:21. The English term tribulation is often regarded as interesting, from its supposed connection with the Latin tribulum, a threshing-sled with sharp teeth to beat the grain out of the straw. But the Greek certainly has no such association, and means simply pressure, oppression, affliction (e. g., 2Co 1:3-8). Of those days, is naturally but not necessarily the same period as ’those days’ in Luk 21:19 and Luk 21:22. The sun shall be darkened, etc., compare Joe 2:31; Joe 3:15 Amo 8:9 Isa 13:9 f.; Eze 32:7 Rev 6:12. These passages incline one to understand the expressions as a mere image. And so with the following expression, the stars shall fall, meaning not some stars, but the stars generally. Compare Isa 34:4. The powers of the heavens, the forces which dwell in the heavens and keep them stable the shaking of which will disturb their stability (Meyer). Luke condenses all this into ’there shall be signs in sun and moon and stars,’ and then adds some other striking imagery, as ’the roaring of the sea and the billows.’ (Luk 21:25 f., R.V.) Some Premillennialist or Adventist writers hold (Hanna) that with Mat 24:29 begins the account of the introduction of Christ’s personal reign on earth, extending to Mat 25:30, and after that is described the general judgment at the end of the millennium. But it is extremely doubtful whether we ought to introduce into the Saviour’s discourse such ideas supposed to be drawn from the Apocalypse.

Mat 24:30. The sign of the Son of man in heaven. The Jews had repeatedly asked for such a sign, (Mat 16:1, Mat 12:38 Joh 2:18) and the disciples had just inquired as to the sign of his coming. (Mat 24:3.) He here tells the disciples when it will appear, but does not tell them what the sign will be, nor can we clearly perceive from the connection. Some Fathers fancied that it meant the appearance of a cross in the sky, as in the famous story of Constantine; but this is quite unwarranted. It may be (Calvin) that the sign will be nothing more than the Saviour’s own coming on the clouds, as just afterwards mentioned, and as predicted in Dan 7:13.

Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn. (Compare Zec 12:10, Zec 12:12 Rev 1:7) Not simply the Jews shall mourn, but all men. This may have been true in some partial sense at the destruction of Jerusalem. Is it not probable that many Jews who had heard the apostles preach, or who had read the Gospel of Matt., did then remember the rejected Jesus, how he predicted all this calamity and ruin, how they voluntarily assumed the guilt of his blood, (Mat 27:25) and did mourn bitterly? But the prediction will doubtless be completely fulfilled at the second coming of Christ. Coming in the clouds of heaven, etc. (Compare Mat 16:27) Com. Ver. obscures the variation of this expression in different passages. The Greek has ’on the clouds’ here, Mat 26:64 Rev 14:14-16; ’in clouds’; (Mar 13:26 Luk 21:27) ’with the clouds’ (Mar 14:62 Rev 1:7 Dan 7:13)

Mat 24:31. Send his angels (see on "Mat 13:41".), A great sound of a trumpet. With a trumpet of great sound (Rev. Ver., margin), i. e., with a loud-sounding trumpet (Buttm.), is the natural translation of the most probable text.[1] It might possibly be translated as in Com. and Rev. Ver., but not naturally, for so the word rendered trumpet would have in the Greek an emphatic position without any discernible reason (Weiss). The image is drawn from a herald sounding a loud trumpet to announce the approach of a monarch, or of his representatives, and to assemble the people that they may hear his commands. From this saying Paul probably derived the expressions of 1Co 15:52. And they shall gather together his elect, etc. Notice how often this term ’the elect’ is used (Mat 24:22, Mat 24:24, Mat 24:31), and so Mark in each case. (Comp, above, Mat 22:14) From the four winds, a common designation of what we now call the four points of the compass. From one end of heaven to the other, a phrase drawn from the old conception of the earth as an oblong plain, bounded at each end by the sky, the horizon. Such familiar phrases are used in Scripture as they are among us, without becoming responsible for the conformity of the conception they involve to the physical fact. The meaning is that the elect will be gathered from every part of the earth in which they are found.

[1] There is considerable documentary evidence for the fother reading in the margin of Rev. Ver., ’with a great trumpet,’ but only the "Western" documents support that in the margin of Com. Ver., ’with a trumpet, and a great voice (sound)’, which is a manifest alteration. The difference in any case is unimportant, as a great trumpet would make a great sound.

It is practically impossible to suppose that 1Co 15:30 f. relates simply to the destruction of Jerusalem. As the latter part of the discourse (Mat 25:31-46) clearly refers to the second coming of our Lord, it seems unavoidable to suppose a similar reference here; see also the corresponding passage, Mat 13:41. But Mat 13:34 will presently declare that ’all’ the foregoing matter will occur during the existing generation. Then as we cannot believe (with Meyer and others) that the Saviour mistakenly expected his parousia to be within that generation, it follows that Mat 13:29-31 must refer to the destruction of Jerusalem. The difficulty is relieved by understanding a typical relation between the destruction of Jerusalem and his final parousia, on the ground of which relation Mat 13:29-31 really points in some sense to both events. (Compare above on Mat 24:3.)

IV. Mat 24:32-36. These Signs Will Suffice To Show

Mar 13:28-32 (very nearly the same words); Luk 21:29-33. From the fig tree, placed first in the sentence, and thus emphatic. He may have looked at some fig tree near them, just as in the same vicinity he had five days before used a fig tree for an object-lesson. (Mat 21:20.) But the article, ’the fig tree,’ does not necessarily indicate a particular tree, but may mean only that kind of tree, or that class of objects. Learn a parable (Rev. Ver., her parable), or simply ’the parable,’ the one which the fig tree has to teach. Everything in nature has its moral analogies; Jesus has set us the example of perceiving these and using them for religious instruction. The word parable (see on "Mat 13:3") is here used in its general sense of an illustrative comparison, as in Mat 15:15, there being here no narrative such as we commonly mean by a parable. When his branch... leaves. The ’his’ is the old possessive of ’it,’ which was originally ’hit,’ and is still often so pronounced by the vulgar. The possessive its was just beginning to be used when the K. James version was made. It is found in Shakespeare, though he generally uses his. (Schmidt "Shak. Lex.") Its is not in K. J. Ver., Ed. 1611, though now found, Lev 25:5. We find his as neuter repeatedly in Old Testament, (e.g., Psa 1:3 Exo 25:31, Exo 36:17, etc.) and several times in New Testament (Mat 5:13 Act 12:10, 1Co 15:38)

The parallel passage in Com. Ver. of Mark has ’her branch,’ which Rev. Ver. adopts here, personifying the fig tree as feminine (like the Greek), and so in Rev 6:13; compare Mat 22:2. Is yet tender The Rev. Ver., Is now become tender, gives the exact meaning. ’Is yet tender,’ Tyn. and followers, suggests that the tenderness is about to cease, when the Greek means that it has just become complete. When ye shall see all these things, probably those of Mat 24:15 and Mat 24:29 f. Know that it is near. (Mat 24:31.) The Rev. Ver. gives ’He is nigh,’ or in margin, ’it is nigh,’ viz., his coming (Mat 24:27), or ’the kingdom of God is nigh’, (Luk 21:31) all obviously amounting to the same thing. The ’he’ is most naturally suggested by what precedes, and is supported by Jas 5:9. Edersh. thinks "it can scarcely be supposed that Christ would speak of himself in the third person"; but see in this very discourse Mat 24:31 and Mat 25:31 ff.

Mat 24:34. Verily, I say unto you (see on "Mat 5:18"), calling attention to something of special importance. This generation, as in Mat 23:36, also Mat 11:16, Mat 12:41 f.; and compare Luk 17:25 with Luk 21:32. The word cannot have any other meaning here than the obvious one. The attempts to establish for it the sense of race or nation have failed. There are some examples in which it might have such a meaning, but none in which it must, for in every case the recognized meaning will answer, and so another sense is not admissible. (Compare on Mat 3:6) Some of the Fathers took it to mean the generation of believers, i. e., the Christians, etc., after the loose manner of interpreting into which many of them so often fell. We now commonly make the rough estimate of three generations to a century. The year in which our Lord said this was most probably AD. 30, and if so, it was forty years to the destruction of Jerusalem. The thought is thus the same as in Mat 16:28; and compare Joh 21:22 f. Till all these things be fulfilled, or, more exactly, take place, ’come to pass,’ see on "Mat 5:18". The emphasis is on ’all.’ All the things predicted in Mat 5:4-31 would occur before or in immediate connection with the destruction of Jerusalem. But like events might again occur in connection with another and greater coming of the Lord, and such seems evidently to be his meaning. (See on "Mat 24:3".)

Mat 24:35. Heaven and earth shall pass away, etc. (see on "Mat 5:19"), still further emphasizes the importance of what he is saying, which was introduced by ’Verily, I say unto you.’ It was hard for the disciples to believe that their Master would come again and utterly destroy the temple and the holy city (Mat 24:2 f.), and work such great changes as have been indicated by Mat 5:29-31, within that generation; and so he asserts it very solemnly, compare Joh 16:7. We learn also in 2Pe 3:7 f. and elsewhere that heaven and earth will pass away; not that they will cease to exist, but that they will be changed into something entirely new.

Mat 24:36. The predictions he has made will receive a fulfilment within that generation (Mat 24:34), to be witnessed by some then living; (Mat 16:28) this much he solemnly declares, but the time he will not more exactly state, for indeed the precise time no one knows but the Father only. Of (concerning) that day and hour. It is mere quibbling to say that still we may ascertain the year and month. No, not the angels of heaven, compare on Mat 18:10. The Rev. Ver. gives ’neither the Son.’ It is difficult to decide whether these words are here genuine.[1] They are certainly genuine in Mark, (Mat 13:32) and so were spoken by our Lord on this occasion. In fact, the thought they convey is implied in but my (the) Father only, for otherwise we should have expected ’but God only.’ Compare Mat 20:23 Act 1:7. The ’my’ of the common text is spurious.

[1] Though of little practical importance, the question is one of great interest to the science of text criticism. The clause is given here by à B D, by the old uncial represented by 13, 124, 346, two other cursives, some codices of the Old Latin and a few of the Vulgate, Syriac of Jerusalem, Æthiopic, and Armenian, Origen (who carefully discusses the phrase in his commentary on Matt.), Chrys., Hilary, and the Anonymous Comm. on Matthew. Now if B were absent from this list, the clause would be immediately rejected as a "Western" addition, obviously drawn from Mark. We know (W H., Int. 159) that "in Origen. especially in some of his writings, Western quotations hold a prominent place," e.g., see just after this, Mat 24:41. The Æthiopic is well known to present ’Western’ readings in many passages, and the Armenian gives them in Mat 24:2, Mat 25:1 Act 8:37 Eph 5:30, and elsewhere. It is of course possible (Tischendorf and Westcott Hort) that the words were omitted because of the obvious difficulty they present; but then why are they omitted from Mark by no documents except X and one codex of the Vulgate? It is true that Matt. was more used than Mark, but the difference in this respect will bear no comparison with the immense difference between the documents for omission in Matt. and in Mark, even after we allow for the ready acceptance likely to be given to a form of text that would remove a difficulty. Various Fathers speak of the clause as wanting in Matt. and present in Mark, but they do not regard that as lessening the doctrinal difficulty. On the other hand, nothing would be more natural than the insertion of the clause in Matt. by transcriptional assimilation to Mark. Such assimilation of parallel passages occurs oftener than can be numbered; while alteration to avoid doctrinal difficulty is a thing of very rare occurrence. How then can W H. maintain that the omission "can be no less easily explained by the doctrinal difficulty" than their insertion by "assimilation to Mark"? This seems to be only because they regard "the documentary evidence in favour" of the clause as "overwhelming"; and it is made overwhelming by the concurrence of B with the other documents. Now it is true that a group containing B very commonly presents the original text, as W H. have convincingly shown in their genealogical classification on the basis of internal evidence. But it is not true that such a group presents overwhelming evidence; for we have seen in this commentary a good many cases in which a group containing B is certainly or probably wrong; and Dr. Hort himself states that B "has a few widely spread wrong readings in this Gospel" (App. on Mat 13:35) For example, W. H. do not follow groups containing B, some of them large groups, in Mat 6:22, Mat 19:9, Mat 19:24, Mat 20:27, Mat 27:28, Mat 27:49. Compare above on Mat 19:9. In Mar 4:21 à B, the uncial represented by 13 and 69, with 33, and we may now add Σ give a manifest clerical error, which Hort says is "due to mechanical repetition." There ore various examples in the other Gospels which tend to the same result. So the B groups, and even the à B groups (as in several of the above instances) do present a number of unquestionable errors, even in the Gospels, and Westcott Hort fully agree that B is repeatedly "Western" in the Epistles of Paul. Accordingly, the à B group in this ease does not constitute "overwhelming" evidence in favour of a clause wanting in the great mass of documents, and so readily accounted for by assimilation to Mark. We think that W. H. ought to have confined it to their margin, and that Rev. Ver. ought not to have noticed it here at all. Compare on Mat 27:49.

This statement of our Lord as to himself can be explained only by referring the ignorance to his human mind. We read of him at twelve years of age that he ’advanced in wisdom and stature’ (or ’age’). If he then advanced in wisdom, he did not cease advancing at the age of twenty or of thirty. If his knowledge was incomplete at twelve, it was still incomplete at thirty. Indeed, a finite mind could not contain all knowledge. If there was to be a real Incarnation of the Eternal Word, then the body he took must be a real body, and the mind a real mind. How his divine nature could be omniscient, and his human mind limited in knowledge, both being united in one person, is part of the mystery of the Incarnation, which we need not expect to solve. (Compare Php 2:7) But to be limited in knowledge, does not necessarily involve erroneous information or conceptions. The human nature of the Incarnate Deity was infallibly preserved from sin (compare on Mat 4:1), and so, we may believe, from error of judgment.

So remarkable a statement seems much more natural if it relates not simply to the destruction of Jerusalem, but also, and mainly, to the second coming of which our Lord goes on to speak in the immediately succeeding verses; and we have seen that the passage as a whole appears to predict both events. This saying ought to repress all curious inquiry as to the precise time of his second coming, to prevent reliance on any arithmetical calculations, and also to foster confidence in him. The disciples greatly wished to know the precise time; in every age many have been eagerly seeking to determine, and some fancying they have ascertained it, only to be disappointed; but he expressly warned against this from the outset, and impliedly bade us be reconciled to an ignorance shared by the high angels, and (Mark) by the Son himself. The humiliating failures by so many well-meaning Christians in this matter, should bring no reproach to their Master, but cause him to be honoured all the more. And if the God-man, the Mediator, left this and many other things, (Mat 20:23) to the Father alone, how cheerfully should we his followers rest in ignorance that cannot be removed, trusting in all things to our Heavenly Father’s wisdom and goodness, striving to obey his clearly revealed will, and leaning on his grace for support. Whether this particular limitation upon the Saviour’s knowledge was removed after his resurrection (Mat 28:18), we cannot undertake to judge.

Homiletical And Practical

Mat 24:2. Henry: "A believing foresight of the defacing of all worldly glory will help to take us off from overvaluing it."

Mat 24:4 f. In times of great trial we must carefully avoid false guidance and comfort. Griffith: "Men’s first impulse under trouble is to catch rashly at every person who seems to promise relief."

Mat 24:6. Henry: "It is against the mind of Christ, that his people should have troubled hearts even in troublous times."

Mat 24:12. Love waxing cold. (1) Through discouragement from apparently fruitless efforts to do good. (2) Through resentment at ingratitude and injustice. (3) Through general influence of evil example and environment. Happy the few who resist all such tendencies, whose love is warm even amid surrounding chill, for they shall be useful to men, shall honour Christ, shall themselves be saved. (Mat 24:13.)

Mat 24:14. Preaching the gospel. (1) It is the gospel of the kingdom. (2) It is adapted to all the world. (3) Christ commands his people to preach it to all (Compare Mat 28:19) (4) Christ predicts that it will be preached to all. Are we personally receiving it, and busy in proclaiming it?

Mat 24:16. Henry: "In times of imminent peril and danger, it is not only lawful but our duty, to seek our own preservation by all good and honest means; and if God opens a door of escape, we ought to make our escape; otherwise we do not trust God, but tempt him."

Mat 24:20. Henry: "Though the ease of the body is not to be mainly consulted, it ought to be duly considered; though we must take what God sends, and when he sends it, yet we may pray against inconveniences."

Mat 24:23. Faith is a characteristic of Christianity; but belief of truth involves stern refusal to believe in falsehood. Henry: "There is not a greater enemy to true faith than vain credulity. The simple believeth every word, and runs after every cry."

Mat 24:30 f. The final and glorious coming of Christ. (1) It will be sudden, Mat 24:27. (2) It will be not in the form of a servant, (Php 2:7) but as the Divine King, with power and great glory. (3) It will cause mourning to all who have rejected him. (Rev 1:7 Heb 6:6) (4) It will bring all his scattered people together in unspeakable and eternal blessedness, compare 2Ti 4:8. Henry: "Sooner or later, all sinners will be mourners; penitent sinners look to Christ, and mourn after a godly sort; impenitent sinners shall look unto him whom they have pierced, and though they laugh now, shall mourn and weep in endless horror and despair."

Mat 24:36. The great day. (1) There is a definite day on which Christ will come to judgment, compare Act 17:31, 2Ti 1:12. (2) The precise day is wholly unrevealed, and known only to God the Father; attempts to fix it by calculation are idle. (3) Our great concern is to be ready when that day comes, and we shall do this by constant and watchful service of Christ, Mat 24:42; compare Mat 25:1-14.

John A. Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (American Baptist Publication Society, 1886) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. The Olivet Discourse; the King Reveals the Future of the Kingdom.

Chapters 24-25.

CHAPTER 24

1. The Destruction of the Temple Foretold. (Mat 24:1-2.)

2. The Questions of the Disciples. (Mat 24:3.)

3. The End of the Age; Events Preceding His Coming.(Mat 24:4-14.)

4. The Great Tribulation and what will Happen. (Mat 24:15-26.)

5. The Visible and Glorious Return of the King.(Mat 24:27-31.)

6. The Exhortations of the King. (Mat 24:32-44.)

7. The Parable of the Faithful and Evil Servant.(Mat 24:45-51.)

In the two chapters, which follow, we have the great Olivet discourse of our Lord.

Next to the thirteenth of Matthew, the seven parables, these two chapters are the most misunderstood. We shall have occasion to point out the erroneous interpretations which spring mostly from a false conception of the characteristics of the age in which we live.

First of all we shall look at the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters in a general way. We mention them together for they should never be separated. The Olivet discourse, was spoken in answer to the questions the disciples had asked of the Lord Jesus. In Mark and Luke the Spirit of God has recorded parts of this discourse, but only in the first Gospel, the Gospel of Matthew, do we find a full report. This is in fullest harmony with the scope of the Gospel.

“I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee.” Thus God had spoken to Moses (Deu 18:18). We know from the Book of Acts that this was a prophecy to be fulfilled in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ (Act 3:22; Act 7:37). But the Lord is greater than Moses (Heb 3:5-6). In the first great discourse in this Gospel, the sermon on the mount, He expounded the law and spoke with greater authority than Moses ever could speak; “I say unto you.” He fulfilled the law. But Moses was also a prophet. Before he left his people, he uttered a great prophecy. This is found in Deu 32:1-52. It is in the form of a song, a wonderful inspired unfolding of the history of Israel. God’s dealings with them in the past is reviewed and then follows a forecast of their future to the very end, which up to the present time has not yet been reached. This is followed by the Blessing of Moses, likewise a prophecy.

And now He, who is greater than Moses, the prophet like unto Moses utters a great prophecy, more complete and far-reaching than that of Moses. He, Jehovah, had come in the midst of His people. As king He had offered the promised kingdom; He and the offer of the kingdom had been rejected by His own, and now before He goes to the cross to fulfil all that was written concerning His sufferings in the law and the prophets, He predicts events connected with the end of the age and His future glorious manifestation, which will usher in that new age of blessing and glory, of which His own Spirit testified in all the prophets.

The Olivet discourse is a great prophecy, the King’s last, great utterance. It was spoken, as we shall see later, in answer to the question of the disciples. He had just predicted the destruction of the magnificent temple buildings, and while He sat upon the Mount of Olives, where in the future His glorious feet shall stand in the hour of His manifestation, they asked Him: “Tell us when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the Age?” We shall find later that here in Matthew, the Spirit of God in giving us the discourse does not give us the words which relate to the destruction of the temple, which was then standing. He omits here certain words, which, however, are given in the Gospel of Luke. All this and much else our exposition will bring out.

The discourse itself is divided into three great parts clearly marked. The answer of the Lord to the question asked begins with the fourth verse. Up to the forty-fourth verse we have the first part of His predictions. Beginning with the forty-fifth verse, He changes His mode of speaking. No longer direct predictions, but He speaks again in parables. These are three: 1. The parable of the faithful and evil servant. 2. The parable of the five wise and five foolish virgins. 3. The parable of the man traveling into a far country and delivering unto his servants his goods. In one of these parables we find again the phrase so peculiar to the Gospel of Matthew “the kingdom of the heavens.” These parables end with the thirtieth verse. In the verses which follow the Lord no longer speaks in parables. It is true Mat 25:31-46 is often called a parable, but it is not. It is a revelation the King gives concerning His own glorious appearing and the judgment He will execute in that day. We have therefore a three-fold division of the Olivet discourse.

First division: Mat 24:4-44. Second division: Mat 24:45 to Mat 25:30. Third division: Mat 25:31-46.

We shall look at these divisions first of all to find out to what season or time they refer and after we have cleared away some of the false interpretations and misconceptions, we hope to study each division in detail.

In reading over the first part of the discourse of our Lord we find that it relates to disciples, which of necessity must be Jewish. In this part the Lord speaks of the ending of the age, the time of distress which is to come, the great tribulation and a climax is reached in this division, when the Lord speaks of His coming again in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. This is to take place immediately after the days of that tribulation.

The most widespread interpretation of this part of the discourse is that it all was fulfilled in the past. The great tribulation is a thing of the past and the Lord Jesus Christ came again in the destruction of Jerusalem. This is the foolish, spiritualizing method, which does such violence to the Word of God. These interpreters are given to the wildest and most fanciful imaginations to prove their assertions. Quite often they make use of the writings of Josephus instead of God’s Word. According to them the year 70 was the year in which “the Son of Man came in the clouds of heaven with great power and glory.” In a recent volume published in defense of this theory, which is unknown in primitive Christianity, the writer tries to get over the difficulties by saying the following: “But who can say what other sights appeared at the final moment of the catastrophe? (The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.) The ‘Coming’ was like a lightning flash, not abiding for days like the glory on Sinai. The sight of the Glory of Jehovah was like devouring fire on the top of the mountains to the eyes of the sons of Israel ; and that glory was a real presence, a veritable parousia, for Jehovah came down upon Mount Sinai. And yet in that Sinaitic parousia the Israelites saw no form or shape of the divine person. Whether those who saw the sign of the Son of Man which appeared in heaven immediately after the tribulation of those days saw the person and form of the Son of Man Himself, or only some symbol of His presence, must remain a mystery.” This interpretation, which looks upon Mat 24:4-44 fulfilled in the past at the time when Titus besieged Jerusalem, has its origin in a deplorable ignorance of God’s dispensational dealings with the Jews and the Gentiles. It leaves nothing for the Jewish nation in the future. It would take us too long to show the impossibility that the Lord meant by these predictions the events which transpired between the time of His resurrection and the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70. But had the Lord nothing to say in this discourse about the great judgment, which befell Jerusalem. He certainly gave a revelation concerning it as well as warnings. But the record of this prediction of the fall of Jerusalem under Titus is not at all given in Matthew twenty-four, but we find that the Spirit of God has put that in the Gospel of Luke, In Luk 21:20-23 we have the words which predict the siege and fall of Jerusalem in the year 70. The prediction is, that after that catastrophe has taken place and they have fallen by the edge of the sword and are led away captives, that Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. This happened after the destruction of the City and Jerusalem is still trodden down, because the times of the Gentiles have not yet run out. But now turning to the words in Matthew we find an entirely different result from the manifestation of the Son of Man in Glory and in the clouds of heaven (that which postmillennialism claims to be identical with the destruction of Jerusalem ). There is not a word mentioned of their being scattered among the nations, but the very opposite is said “they shall gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other.” The predictions in Mat 24:4-44 have nothing whatever to do with the 40 years which preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, nor with that event in the year 70. That they refer to Judea and Jerusalem, that the predictions concern Jewish disciples and that they describe scenes of distress and tribulation to be enacted in the land of Israel is quite true.

Another mode of explaining these first predictions of the Olivet discourse is, to apply them to this Christian age in which we live. This is generally done by those who have the correct Scriptural belief in the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. They reject the spiritualizing teaching of postmillennialism and hold that there will be a future great tribulation, which will close with the visible and glorious manifestation of the Son of Man out of heaven. They tell us that the Lord describes this entire Christian age and especially the closing of it, the end. Then they maintain that the church is to remain on the earth in this end of the age and to pass through the great tribulation, and therefore the exhortations contained in this chapter are meant for Christian believers living in the end of the age. This wrong interpretation has confused not a few of God’s people. Let one get clear on two important teachings of the word and deliverance from this false interpretation of this part of our Lord’s discourse will speedily follow. We mean the teaching of the Scriptures of what the church is, her calling and her destiny. And in the second place the teaching of the prophetic word, that the Lord will call a believing Jewish remnant, which will suffer and witness at the end of the age. If a person, be he a teacher or not, is ignorant of either one of these, he must be confused in his conception of the first part of Mat 24:1-51.

Furthermore it is to be said that the disciples knew absolutely nothing of a Christian age. Such an age could not even begin, when they asked the question about the end of the age. They did not mean a Christian age, but their Jewish age. All through these forty verses everything is of Jewish character. The warning is against false Christs and false prophets; the warning given to church is against false spirits. The condition of salvation that one must endure to the end is nowhere given to the Christian believer, who is saved and safe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It has an entirely different meaning here. Again the prayer that the flight should not take place on the Sabbath day is Jewish, for the Christian believer has no Sabbath day, but the Lord’s day. The reference to Daniel and the great tribulation, which never concerns the church, but Israel, shows us that we are not on Christian, but Jewish ground. The preaching which is mentioned is that of the Gospel of the Kingdom, but that Gospel is not now preached, for we preach the Gospel of Grace. When we turn to the different verses we shall go carefully over this theory again and disprove it by what is written.

There remains the third way of interpreting these words of our Lord, it is to look upon these predictions about the end of the Jewish age as being still future. This is the right and only key to understand these verses. The first part of the Olivet discourse of our Lord is a prediction of how the Jewish age will end. The disciples only knew of a Jewish age. This Jewish age has not yet ended; it has been interrupted. A careful study of the great prophecy in Dan 9:24-27 reveals the fact that one year-week, the seventieth, has not yet been fulfilled. The Christian age, in which God visits the Gentiles and takes out a people for His name, the church, is the great parenthesis, which has come in between the sixty-ninth week and the seventieth week of Daniel. [See also “The Great Parenthesis” by H.A. Ironside.] As soon as the purpose of God is fulfilled, the church complete, the Lord will resume His dealing with Israel and the seventieth week (seven years) will end the Jewish age. Before that end, the seventieth week can come, the church must be complete and be removed from these earthly scenes, according to the divinely revealed destiny of the church. The church complete and taken up, the end of the age will follow and that will be Jewish and as far as the so-called “christian world” is concerned one of complete apostasy. Then the 144,000 of whom we read in Rev 7:1-17 will be sealed and bear their witness. This is the Jewish remnant and the exhortations here concern them. No doubt when the time comes they will find great comfort here in the words of our Lord. They will preach the Gospel of the kingdom and the unfinished testimony, of which we read in Mat 10:1-42, will be finished by them. Thus the disciples the Lord addressed were typical of similar Jewish disciples living after the church has ceased her testimony. A striking fact is that this interpretation can be verified by many Scripture passages from the Old Testament. The teaching of a future remnant of Jewish believers, suffering and witnessing for God during the great tribulation, is very pronounced in the Old Testament We shall have occasion to turn to some of these Scripture references when we come to the different verses. The Old Testament predicts a siege of Jerusalem which has not yet been. The reader in turning to Zec 14:1-21 will find a full description of what awaits Jerusalem and a faithful remnant in the end time. Though Jerusalem has had so many sieges in the past there is not one which could be said to be a fulfilment of Zec 14:1-21. The Lord Himself appears for the deliverance of His people, His feet standing on the Mount of Olives. Mat 24:4-44 refers to this, and His coming and all His saints with Him in Zechariah corresponds to “the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”

In the second part of this discourse, chapter 24:45-25:30, we find that the Lord speaks in an entirely different way. He mentions no longer the tribulation, nor the Sabbath or Judea. He speaks again in parables. These parables, each one having for its central thought, His coming again, relate not to the Christian church as some have expressed it, but rather to the Christian profession. We notice the true and the false throughout. A faithful servant and an evil servant; wise virgins and foolish virgins; servants who use their talents and one who does not. Here, then, we have the revelation of the judgement between the true and the false.

The third part, chapter 25:31-46, is not a revelation concerning the universal judgment; no such judgment is ever mentioned in the Bible. The Lord describes the judgment of nations which takes place when he sits upon the throne of His glory.

The first part of the Olivet Discourse, Mat 24:4-44, is now before us. At the close of the previous chapter we learn that the King after His loving outburst over Jerusalem had made the declaration, “Behold your house is left unto you desolate.” This prophecy is fulfilled throughout this present age. In the beginning of the twenty-fourth chapter we read that the Lord left the temple. “And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple; and His disciples came to show Him the buildings of the temple.” There is a strongly marked correspondency between the end of the twelfth chapter and the beginning of the thirteenth and the close of the twenty-third and the beginning of the twenty-fourth. At the close of the twelfth chapter the Lord by His symbolical action in refusing to see His mother and brethren, declared His relationship with His own to whom He had come, and who received Him not, broken; at the close of the twenty-third there is a fuller break with the nation, the nation for whom He came to die. In Mat 13:1-58 it is recorded that on the same day Jesus went out of the house, and sat by the seaside, giving there His parables concerning the kingdom of the heavens. In the twenty-fourth He also goes out and departs, to give soon after the great Olivet discourse. While His parables, the mysteries of the kingdom, relate to this present age and the end of the age, in a general way, in the first part of the Olivet discourse, He makes known the details of that ending of the age, of which He spoke repeatedly in the thirteenth of Matthew.

In leaving the temple and going towards the Mount of Olives, the Lord had to cross over the brook Cedron, and in ascending the mountain, they must have had a magnificent view of the temple buildings. These buildings were of the most massive construction, some of them still in process of erection. An enormous wall encircled the whole temple area; some of the stones used in that wall were 23 and 24 feet in length. It must have been a wonderful sight for human eyes to behold. Not a word had come from the disciples’ lips during the events recorded in the twenty-second and twenty-third chapters. They had heard His answers to the tempting Pharisees, and the pronunciation upon them. They listened to His loving outburst over Jerusalem and heard His prediction of the desolation of their house. But now they call His attention to the buildings of the temple, to the great sight before them. “And Jesus said unto them, see ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” What a solemn prediction this was! How it must have impressed these Jewish men, His disciples, whose hearts clung to the temple and its wonderful buildings. These mighty stones, so solidly put together, were to be rent asunder, not one remaining upon the other. Only the Lord could make such a prediction. Here then is a prediction which refers to the destruction of the temple in the great catastrophe which came upon Jerusalem in the year 70. It is, as stated before, fully given by our Lord in Luk 21:20-24: What should happen to the rebellious city, to the murderers, the Lord had revealed in the parable of the marriage feast, when He said: “But when the king heard it he was wroth; and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.”

“And as He was sitting upon the Mount of Olives the disciples came to Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be, and what is the sign of Thy coming and the completion of the age?”

The question asked by the disciples is threefold. When shall these things be? The sign of Thy Coming? The completion or consummation of the age? It is of great importance to see that the record of the discourse, as given by the Holy Spirit, passes over the answer to the first question, “When shall these things be?” This is evident by the fact that the Lord says not a word in the discourse of Jerusalem or the destruction of the temple, and as stated in our introduction to this chapter, while in Luke we hear that Jerusalem is to be besieged by armies, and the inhabitants are seen falling by the edge of the sword and led away captive into all the nations and Jerusalem trodden down by the Gentiles; in Mat 24:1-51 we do not find a word of all this at all. Indeed we read of great distress, which is to be in Judea, but nothing whatever of them being led away captive, or Jerusalem to be trodden down by the Gentiles. Instead of a scattering of the elect people at the close of the great tribulation, we have a gathering of the elect. The word in the passage (24:31), that is the word “elect” refers to the literal Israel.

Turning to the next two questions, “What is the sign of Thy coming and the completion of the age?” it is to be said that undoubtedly in the minds of the disciples this question was one. He had repeatedly spoken about His return. As true Jews they expected, and that with perfect right, the establishment of the messianic kingdom by the Messiah. They had seen how He, in whom they had believed, and the kingdom He offered, had been rejected. All, of necessity, must have been very misty before their view; but they take heart and ask Him about the sign of His coming, the coming He had mentioned before. It is evident that the coming is His coming in power and glory for the establishment of the kingdom promised to Israel in the Old Testament. This coming is His visible and glorious return to the earth “in like manner as He went up into heaven”; it takes place in the land and His feet will stand on the mount of Olives. The synoptic Gospels know of no other coming of the Lord than His visible return to Jerusalem ; connected with this return we find always besides blessings, judgment. Entirely different is His coming for His Saints who compose the Church. This coming is revealed through the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians, the fourth chapter. There we read that the Lord will descend into the air, not to the earth. The dead in Christ will be raised and the living saints be caught up, together with them, in clouds to meet the Lord in the air and to be forever with the Lord. In Joh 14:1-31 the Lord gives a little word which may be taken to indicate that coming for His own, though the manner is not made known. It is that word of comfort to His own. “I will come again and receive you unto myself.” It is strange that believers in the return of the Lord Jesus Christ can fail to see the strongly marked difference between His visible and glorious return, His coming in power and great Glory, taking place in the land of Israel and His coming for His Church, as revealed exclusively through the great Apostle. It is not strange that where this distinction is given up confusion and error result.

Then they asked about the completion or consummation of the age. The authorized version simply has it “the end of the world.” That is a translation which is responsible for much wrong teaching. The end of the world as generally understood in Christendom is not at all in view here. It is the consummation, the winding up of the age, the _aion. As we have shown this age could not be the “Christian age,” but it is the ending of the Jewish age, which is still future. Such an age ending predicts the entire Old Testament prophetic World.

There we find numerous predictions of a great coming day, the day of the Lord, in which Jehovah is visibly seen in His Glory and majesty, coming forth to deliver His persecuted and downtrodden earthly people, who wait for Him and to judge the nations likewise. According to Old Testament prophecy this day of the Lord’s visible and glorious manifestation is preceded by a time of great trouble and distress. The center of the tribulation is Jerusalem, and when the height of the tribulation is reached, the heavens and the earth are shaken and Jehovah appears. Furthermore it is seen that there is a believing and suffering remnant of Jews passing through that time of trouble, who are faithful in the midst of universal apostasy, wickedness and worship of the false king, who is likewise described in the Prophets. Their prayers and calls upon God are prophetically recorded by the Spirit of God as well as their deliverance by the manifestation of Jehovah. Now all this has never been fulfilled. That great day so often spoken of by the Prophets, the day of the Lord, has not yet come; it is still future. So is the time of distress, which is called “the time of Jacob’s trouble,” and therefore the suffering of a Jewish remnant, which is not identified with the church is likewise future. When the Lord speaks in Mat 24:1-51 about the consummation of the age and the signs of His coming, He gives altogether that which is revealed in the Old Testament and which has not been fulfilled up to the present time. The purpose of God in this present Christian age is to take out from among the Gentiles a people for His Name. This taken out people is the Church. As long as this calling out through the preaching of the Gospel continues and new members are added to the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ (the church), the predicted end of the age does not come. Besides having a description of the end of the age, of which our Lord speaks here, in the Old Testament we have also one in the Book of Revelation. From the sixth chapter on to the nineteenth we find another record of the future age-ending. In studying the account our Lord gives here in Matthew we must compare Old Testament prophecy and the visions of the Book of Revelation, with what the Lord saith in His discourse. If our interpretation is the right one there must be perfect harmony between these three: Old Testament Prophecy: Mat 24:4-44, and Rev 6:1-17; Rev 7:1-17; Rev 8:1-13; Rev 9:1-21; Rev 10:1-11; Rev 11:1-19; Rev 12:1-17; Rev 13:1-18; Rev 14:1-20; Rev 15:1-8; Rev 16:1-21; Rev 17:1-18; Rev 18:1-24; Rev 19:1-21.

And now we turn to the text and give the first section of the discourse. “And Jesus answering said to them, See that no one mislead you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and they shall mislead many. But ye will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that ye be not disturbed; for all these things must take place, but it is not yet the end. For nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places. But all these are the beginning of the throes. Then shall they deliver you up to tribulation, and shall kill you and ye will be hated of all the nations for my name’s sake. And then will many be offended, and will deliver one another up, and hate one another; and many false prophets shall arise and shall mislead many; and because lawlessness shall prevail, the love of the most shall grow cold; but he that endureth to the end, he shall be saved. And these glad tidings of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole habitable earth for a witness to all the nations, and then shall the end come” (Mat 24:4-14).

These are the opening words of the Lord, which describe the age ending. In a secondary and general way they likewise describe, no doubt, the characteristics of the times during which the Lord is not on the earth. Looked upon in this light what an argument they form against the modern optimistic dreams of the professing church! Neither the Lord, nor the Spirit in giving the Epistles of the New Testament have a single word to say that this present age and the world is to be getting better and that the end will be righteousness and peace. The testimony of the Scriptures is wholly on the other side. Wars there have been all along as well as rumors of wars. Famines, pestilences and earthquakes have again and again swept over this globe, as well as the persecution of such who are the Lord’s. All this is true in a general way. But the Lord describes not the age as such, but shows what will be in the end. The words we have before us refer us to the beginning of that end, while in the last verse quoted, the fourteenth, the Lord saith “then shall come the end.” What follows the fourteenth verse then refers directly to the end. The last week of Daniel, the seventieth, is marked off in two halves, each having three and a half years. The words here before us up to the fourteenth verse refer to the first half of the last week, while the fifteenth verse and the verses which follow bring us to the middle of that week.

Mat 24:4-14 then contain the prophecy of our Lord relating to the beginning of the end of the Jewish age, while with the 15th verse the end itself in its fearful great tribulation and “the abomination of desolation” is described. The whole period is the last week of Daniel’s great prophecy, a prophetic week, consisting of seven years, which cannot begin as long as the church is on the earth. The first part of it is now before us. The Lord saith in His answer to the question concerning the sign of His coming and the end of the age, that these things He mentions first are “the beginning of throes” (Mat 24:8).

And now let us look at the predictions. We find them in the following order:

1. Many coming, saying, I am the Christ and succeeding in misleading many.

2. Wars, rumors of wars. Nation lifting up sword against nation. Kingdom against kingdom.

3. Famines and pestilences and earthquakes.

4. Many witnesses to be killed and hated by all nations. False prophets and lawlessness prevailing.

5. The preaching of the Gospel of the kingdom before the end is reached.

These are the startling prophecies of our Lord, soon to be followed by other predictions of what shall be before He returns in the clouds of heaven, immediately after the tribulation of those days. The disciples, all Jews, no doubt well versed in the Old Testament Scriptures, must have had considerable knowledge of such awful events as described by the Lord, for Old Testament prophecy predicts precisely such troubles preceding the visible manifestation of Jehovah out of the opened heavens, the beginning of the restoration of His earthly people and the blessings of the coming age. The following passages are but a few of those which might be quoted: Joe 2:1-17; Hos 5:14; Jer 30:4-9; Eze 21:27; Dan 12:1; Mic 7:1-7; Hab 3:16. It is also true that Jewish tradition maintained in fullest harmony with these teachings that the days preceding the glorious coming of the Messiah are to be days of woe and sorrow. One of these ancient traditions is so striking that we quote it.

Rabbi Jochunan says: “Seven years of trouble come before Messiah comes. The first year before the Son of David comes the prophecy of Amos (chap, 4:7) will be fulfilled. In the second year of tribulation there will be six months of famine. In the third year there will be great famine. Many men, women and children will die and the pious will be few. The law and the prophets will be forgotten by Israel. The last years will bring signs in heaven and wars and at the end of the seventh year the Son of David will come.” Similar statements could be easily quoted from the Talmudical writings.

All that which the above Old Testament passages predict, a time of trouble, before an age of blessing begins and nations learn war no more, is still a matter of the future, and so are the predictions our Lord makes here. The disciples to whom He gives these words and warnings are typical representatives of disciples, who will live when that end comes; they will be Jewish disciples. When on the Mount of Olives, before His ascension, they asked Him their last question: “Lord, is it at this time that Thou restorest the Kingdom to Israel?” He answered: “It is not yours to know times or seasons, which the Father has placed in His own authority” (Act 1:6-7). The kingdom will be restored with the coming of the King. It was not revealed when it was to be; all was to be postponed. They passed off the scene When the end at last will come other Jewish disciples, waiting for the kingdom to be restored to Israel, will witness and suffer, and they will turn to these words of our Lord and find comfort and instruction in them.

And now there is something still more significant. Not alone does Old Testament prophecy predict distress for the ending of the Jewish age, but we have an additional description of these great coming events in the last book of the Bible, the only book of prophecy in the New Testament, that glorious book, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.”

The book is divinely divided into three parts (chapter 1:9): I. The things seen; Christ walking in the midst of the candlesticks (chapter 1). II. The things which are. The present church age; a wonderful prophecy concerning the history of the church (chapters 2 and 3) III. The things which shall be after these (chapter 4 to 22). Here follows all which will take place after the church has completed her history. The removal of the true church from earth to heaven is promised in the third chapter of Revelation and is indicated in the opening verses of the fourth chapter. In the fourth and fifth chapters the church is seen symbolically in the twenty-four elders, seated, clothed and crowned in the presence of the throne. Then the Lamb takes the book to break its seals. That which is revealed, beginning with the sixth chapter, the breaking of the seals, the sounding of the seven trumpets and the outpouring of the seven vials together with the great events described from that chapter to the nineteenth, is nothing else but a more detailed history of the last week of Daniel. It is here in the last book of the Bible fully revealed what judgment will be executed upon the earth during that period of distress and what great tribulation will be for those who dwell upon the earth, Jews and Gentiles (never the true church). It is an intensely interesting fact that this part of Revelation (chapters 6-19) ever points us back to Old Testament prophecy. Hundreds of passages from all the prophets can easily be put alongside of the visions of judgment, tribulation and wrath in the Apocalypse.

The point which we wish to make is the following: If this is the correct interpretation, if Mat 24:4-14 refers to the beginning of that coming end of the age and if Rev 6:1-17 refers to the same beginning of the end and that which follows the sixth chapter leads us on into the great tribulation, then there must be a perfect harmony between that part of the Olivet discourse contained in Mat 24:1-51 and the part of Revelation beginning with the sixth chapter. And such is indeed the case.

We turn briefly to the sixth chapter of Revelation. The Lamb opens one of the seals, after that great worship scene in heaven had taken place. Then we read: “And I saw; and behold a white horse, and he that sat upon it having a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering and that he might conquer.” It is strange that so many expositors have expounded this to be the Lord Himself. The Lord indeed is described in this book as coming riding a white horse; but this description is found at the close of the Revelation in the nineteenth chapter. The rider upon the white horse under the first seal is a counterfeit. He is a false Christ, who goes forth to conquer. His conquest is a bloodless one, as he has only a bow. He will bring about a false peace among the nations, which for a time may have been alarmed by the supernatural removal of the church. The second rider “takes peace from the earth,” from which we would conclude that the first rider upon the white horse (white the emblem of peace) had established peace.

And as we turn to Mat 24:1-51 we find that the first thing our Lord saith, is about the deceivers who will come with the beginning of the age ending saying: “I am Christ,” and succeeding to lead away many. It is true throughout this age impostors came among the Jews claiming to be the Messiah. It is true even now men rise up saying they are some great one, Elijah, prophets or even Christ.

All these are but faint shadows of what will take place in that soon coming end. Indeed the increasing delusions and the claims of, as we believe, demon-possessed men and women, are strong indications that the end is very near. Then deceivers, led by Satan, possessed by his demons, will arise and among them there will be a mighty leader going forth to conquer, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.

The rider upon the red horse, as already stated, takes peace from the earth. The second seal shows him coming forth with a great sword, “that they should slay one and another.”

And the very next thing which the Lord saith in Mat 24:1-51 is, “But ye will hear of wars and rumors of wars... Nation shall lift up sword against nation and kingdom against kingdom” (Mat 24:7). Wars there have been in the past; this earth is saturated with blood. But there will be a time, and it is soon coming, when literally nation will lift up sword against nation and kingdom against kingdom, when they will slay each other. Any one who follows present-day history will see how everything is ripening for just such a universal warfare. And yet secure, sleeping Christendom is dreaming of peace, world wide peace and times of prosperity!

The third the Lord mentions is “there shall be famines.” And the third seal reveals a rider upon a black horse and he has a balance in his hand and what he saith indicates clearly that he brings famines (Rev 6:5-6), The fourth rider of the fourth seal is upon a pale horse. His name is “Death.” He takes the fourth part of the earth away. This corresponds to the Lord’s announcement that there will be “pestilences and earthquakes in divers places.” Fearful have been the famines, pestilences and earthquakes of the last twenty-five years. (Especially great has been the loss of life and property from earthquakes and volcanic disturbances since 1900. The last, the destruction of San Francisco, has been one of the most terrible of the recent catastrophes. A harbinger indeed of the nearness of the far greater earthquakes to come.) But these are insignificant in comparison with those to which our Lord refers here, the mighty events which tell all the earth that the day of wrath is rapidly approaching. Blessed be His name, who delivereth us from that wrath to come that “His Beloved,” “His Dove,” “His Bride,” the church, will be safe within when these awful things come to pass.

And now under the fifth seal we do not behold another rider, but instead of it we hear the souls underneath the altar, that had been slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they gave, crying out with a loud voice, saying, How long? (Rev 6:9-11) Who are these? Not saints of the church. These are all raised up when the Lord comes into the air (1Th 4:17) and are caught up with the living saints. They are such of the remnant of Jews who began to give their witness for the Word of God after the church had departed and they suffered martyrdom in consequence of their faithful testimony. It is exactly that of which our Lord speaks next in His discourse. “Then shall they deliver you up to tribulation and shall kill you; ye will be hated of all the nations for my name’s sake.” As we shall show later this faithful Jewish remnant will go throughout the world proclaiming the coming of the kingdom and calling to repentance.

We see then how striking the agreement is between the beginning of Mat 24:1-51 and the book of Revelation, the seal judgments. The interpretation we have undertaken to give is therefore proven to be correct.

We point out but a few more of the facts mentioned by our Lord. False prophets shall arise misleading many. The Jewish age has false prophets; the Christian age has false teachers. “But there were false prophets also among the people, as there shall be also among you false teachers, who shall bring in by the bye destructive heresies, etc.” (2Pe 2:1). These false prophets who come in the end of the Jewish age will be possessed by evil spirits. Such was the case during the great apostasy of Israel under the reign of Ahab. The Lord permitted then a lying spirit to take possession of the false prophets as revealed by the prophet Micaiah (2Ch 18:18-22).

“Lawlessness shall prevail;” that is, complete anarchy will hold sway. This too is clearly seen in the breaking of the sixth seal (Rev 6:12-17). The earthquake, the darkened sun, the blood-red moon, the falling stars, the rolled up heavens and the removal of mountains and islands are all great symbols of startling political events, which will take place in the first three and one-half years. Government and authority is swept away; civil and ecclesiastical powers are shaken; mountains (the type of kingdoms) are moved out of their places and as a consequence of this awful upheaval, the reign of terror and anarchy, worse than that of the French revolution and the Russian revolution of today, all classes of men, the kings, the wealthy, the rich and the poor, the bondman and the free, will be seized with terror. Well has a recent writer said: “The scene here described is an awful and sublime one. The symbols employed to set it forth are the powers of nature convulsed. The whole fabric of civil and governmental power on earth breaks up. Disorder reigns supreme. It is not simply the collapse of this or that government, but the total subversion of all governing authority -- both supreme and dependent. The general idea which the metaphors present is a universal overthrow of all existing authority; a revolutionary crisis of such magnitude and character that kings and slaves are in equal terror. The coming crash will involve in one general catastrophe everything on earth deemed secure and strong. A vast civil and political chaos will be created. What an awful scene to contemplate! a world without a magistrate! without even the semblance of power! without government! without the authority of repression!”

This is the sixth seal, and it is precisely what the Lord saith: “Lawlessness shall prevail.” And later the lawless One will take the lead. He comes into full display in the middle of the week. How near, how very near all these events are, even at our doors, is seen by the increasing unrest of all nations, the manifestation of the spirit of anarchy among all people. Yet there is One who hindereth (2Th 2:1-17). The Holy Spirit is the One who keeps it back and He has His abode in the body of Christ, the church. Only after the church is taken into glory can that lawless One be revealed. But even in those awful days the mercy of God lingers and one more great testimony goes forth; the Gospel of the kingdom will yet be preached in a very short time to all the nations, then the end comes.

“And these glad tidings of the Kingdom shall be preached in the whole habitable earth for a witness to all nations, and then shall come the end” (Mat 24:14). This verse relates exclusively to the end of the age, that is the Jewish age. And here we have to speak of all of the wrong application of this word of our Lord.

It is generally looked upon as a condition to be fulfilled before the Lord can come. Post-millennialism, believing as it does, without any authority from the Word of God, in the conversion of the world before the coming of the Lord, makes use of this verse to uphold its unscriptural theory. Then there are others who believe in the premillennial coming of Christ who misapply this statement of our Lord. They ever speak of preaching the Gospel to all the nations as a necessary condition before the Lord can come for the church. It is often pressed in this way in missionary meetings, conventions as an incentive to giving, that unless the Gospel is preached to all nations, the Lord cannot come. Now such an application of this verse is certainly wrong.

It is true that the Gospel is to be preached in the regions beyond and that by this preaching a people is called out from the Gentiles, a people for His name, the church; but it would be incorrect to say that in order that the Lord may come for His Church, all the individuals of all the nations must hear the Gospel. Believers in the blessed Hope of the Coming of the Lord have a deep interest in foreign missions, unless they are given to extreme, fanciful or unscriptural notions. This is clearly established by a number of foreign missionary enterprises of the last twenty-five years, which have been inaugurated by men who believe in the premillennial Coming of the Lord and also by the large number of missionaries in all lands, who are out and out premillennialists. The accusation that believing in the imminent Coming of the Lord paralyzes missionary efforts is unjust and unfair. It stimulates missionary activity. The believer in the Coming of the Lord desires the Gospel to be preached in the great, wide field of the nations, that the church may be completed as to numbers. How soon this may be none can tell.

If the verse before us contained a necessary condition before the Lord can come to receive His fellow heirs, the church, in Glory, then the end must be indefinitely postponed. Other difficulties arise if this were the case.

But let us look at this preaching of this Gospel as in the future and all will become clear. In the first place must we remind ourselves that it is at the end of the age that the glad tidings of the Kingdom are to be heralded through the earth. The end of which the Lord speaks, the termination of that Jewish age, as we shall see later in this chapter, will be the visible manifestation of the Son of Man in power and in glory out of the opened heavens. The glorified church, the Lamb’s wife, comes forth with Him in that visible manifestation.

Let us then have this fixed first of all, the preaching of which the Lord speaks is a future witness to all the nations, and that witness must be given before His visible manifestation will take place.

In the next place we have to ascertain what witness will be given. It will be the proclamation of the glad tidings, or Gospel, of the Kingdom. What does this mean? Superficial readers of the Word of God make no difference between the Gospel of the Kingdom and the Gospel of Grace. Many speak of the preaching of John the Baptist and the Lord and His disciples in the first part of Matthew, when they announced “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” as if it were the same thing as the Gospel of Grace, which is so freely offered after the death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a difference between the Gospel of the Kingdom and the Gospel of Grace.

What then is the Gospel of the Kingdom? As we learn in the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of the Kingdom is the good news that the promised Kingdom of the Old Testament was about to be established with the manifestation of the King. [Our lecture on the Kingdom in the Old Testament, published in tract form, will give more complete information about the Kingdom.] But the nation rejected Him and rejected the offered Kingdom. Some time after the day of Pentecost this Gospel of the Kingdom was preached to the nation. It was to Jews that Peter preached on the day of Pentecost. It is the Gospel of the Kingdom when Peter declared unto them after the healing of the lame man, he being a type of the nation (Act 3:1), “Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached to you; whom the heavens must receive, until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began” (Act 3:19-20). This was the good news of the Kingdom. If the nation had then repented and accepted the renewed offer, the Lord would have come again and with His coming the restitution of all things as foretold by all the prophets. This restitution, of course, does not consist in the resurrection and restoration of the wicked dead, as an unscriptural restitutionism claims, but in the glorious things of the earthly Kingdom and the promised blessings to Israel. Soon the nation rejected the last offer in the stoning of Stephen. The measure was full. In the Old Testament Jehovah had offered Himself to them as their King and they had rejected Him. Then He came manifested in the flesh and they rejected Him, God the Son. Then the Holy Spirit in Stephen’s testimony was likewise rejected.

With that event the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom ceased. Another Gospel was preached. The Lord gave it to the great Apostle, whom He called Himself, Paul. And Paul calls this Gospel “my Gospel.” It is the Gospel of God’s free Grace to all who believe, the Gospel of the Glory of God, the Gospel of a risen and glorified Lord. The mystery of the church is made known to Paul, and it is part of that blessed Gospel that every believing sinner, Jew or Gentile, is baptized by the one Spirit into the one body. This Baptism took place on the day of Pentecost. The Gospel of Grace declares that all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are quickened together with Him, raised up and seated with Him in the Heavenly, that they are Sons of God and Heirs of God and joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. This then is the Gospel of Grace. This wonderful offer goes out now to the nations of the earth that the Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ may be gathered. It had a definite beginning, it will have a definite end. When that body, the church, is complete, the church will be removed from the earth in the manner as revealed in 1Th 4:16-17, and with this the preaching of the Gospel of Grace will come to an end, because the purpose for which God had this Gospel proclaimed is accomplished.

Now during the time that the Kingdom was preached to be at hand the Gospel of Grace was not heard, and during the time the Gospel of Grace is preached the Gospel of the Kingdom is not preached. But as soon as the Gospel of Grace has fulfilled its mission and is no longer heard, the glad tidings of the kingdom will be preached again.

As soon then as the church leaves this earthly scene and the end of the age begins, the Gospel of Grace will no more be heard, but in place of it, the Gospel of the Kingdom will be sounded forth once more to all the nations, before the heavens, silent for so many, many centuries, will be opened again to reveal the King, who comes to execute judgment and to rule the earth in righteousness, Under the solemn signs of the ending Jewish age it will be proclaimed world wide, “Fear God and give Glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is come and worship Him that made heaven and the earth and the sea and the fountains of waters.” The Kingdom is at hand; repent!

And who will be the preachers of this last witness, the missionaries who reach all nations with this final message before the King appears in judgment? They are a believing Israelitish remnant. God in His wonderful grace will begin a work among His earthly people Israel. The Holy Spirit, who has His abode, as long as the church is forming, in the church, will have accomplished His mission in the completed body and will no longer be present on the earth as He is now; but He will still be working and that in the same way as He did in the Old Testament, He will come upon a remnant of believers from the long blinded nation Israel. These will take up the work of preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom to all the nations, and no doubt special power will rest upon them for that service. How well this people is fitted to do this, needs little comment. They are now scattered among all the nations. They understand the languages of the nations, they are at home in every climate. When the church is no longer here, God in His mercy will turn to His own people again and the blindness of a company of them will be removed and the Spirit of God will come upon them. We believe this remnant will most likely consist of such Hebrews who are at this time still holding to the Messianic hope of a coming deliverer, who hold fast the law and the testimony, who firmly believe in the prophecies of their own Scriptures. Alas! hundreds of thousands have broken with the faith in God’s Word and God’s promises.

Such a remnant according to the election of Grace (Rom 11:1-36) will be called, and this remnant will be used as the great herald to announce to all the nations the great coming events. What preachers they will be!

And now before we look at the purpose of this preaching and to whom they will go and what their success will be, we have to follow the argument laid down in the beginning of the exposition of this chapter. We remind the reader that we claimed that inasmuch as these predictions of our Lord refer to the end of the Jewish age, that we must be able to find all what is spoken of here both in the Old Testament and in that part of the book of Revelation, which treats of the things to come, after the history of the church is finished on earth (chapters 6-19). We have found already the remarkable correspondency which exists between the predictions of the Old Testament concerning the time of distress of the end of the age, the predictions of our Lord and the seal judgments of Revelation Is there a similar agreement about a witnessing remnant of God’s earthly people? Has the Old Testament anything to say about this? Do we find anything mentioned about such a remnant in the book of Revelation? Both Old Testament prophecy and the book of Revelation give us most interesting light on this remnant, the testimony they will bear, the suffering and the persecution they will have to stand, and their final deliverance.

The Old Testament is full of predictions and descriptions of this remnant. Indeed it is next to impossible to understand prophecy relating to the things to come if one does not reckon with that remnant, which is so prominent in the pre-written history of the end of the age. Especially rich is the book of Psalms. The great prayers, cries to God for deliverance, calls to God to destroy the enemies, are all prophetic descriptions of how a faithful remnant of God’s earthly people will go through that time of great trouble and be delivered out of it. In these great prayers and calls upon God for interference, the ungodly part of the nation as well as the Gentiles are mentioned. Showing how they are in the midst of them giving their faithful testimony. It would be impossible to show all the passages which speak of this future remnant in the Old Testament. Almost throughout every one of the prophets do we find this remnant and the words which God speaks to encourage and comfort them.

Turning to the book of Revelation we find a very striking confirmation of this fact. We found that under the sixth seal a great upheaval took place. Anarchy is let lose and all the mighty governments of the earth are shaken, rebellion spreads worldwide. Before the seventh seal is broken by the Lord we read of something else. The seventh chapter of Revelation is a parenthesis. The first part of it tells us that then in the beginning of these fearful events, a company of 144,000 will be sealed. Who is this company? It is a most fanciful, worse than that, evil interpretation, which makes of the 144,000 a company of Christian believers. The theory of a “first-fruit” rapture has no scriptural foundation whatever and it aims in a most subtle way at God’s Grace, giving man a share, by his attainments, experience, suffering and other things, to become worthy to enter into the presence of the Lord. We have listened to such teaching repeatedly that the 144,000 of Rev 7:1-17 are a company of “sanctified” Christians (as if there were sanctified and unsanctified believers). Companies of people all over this country claim to be part of “the elect Bride,” a part of the 144,000, and not a few of these hold extremely fanatical views. The Word of God makes it so clear that it is almost impossible to believe that any intelligent person could fail to see who these 144,000 are. The Spirit of God tells us that they are “of all the tribes of the children of Israel.” Christian believers do not belong to the twelve tribes of the children of Israel ; furthermore, if these 144,000 were parts of the church, a first-fruit, the previous part of Revelation, especially chapters 2-5, would be most difficult to explain, and the divinely given division of the book would be wiped out. The 144,000 then are literal Israelites and these constitute the remnant of God’s earthly people, the preachers of the Kingdom Gospel during the great tribulation.

In the second part of Rev 7:1-17 we read of a countless multitude out of all nations, who have come out of the great tribulation and who stand before the throne of God. This multitude is not the church, because the church does not come “out of the great tribulation,” nor do the church saints stand before the throne, but they are seated upon thrones in the presence of the throne of God (Rev 4:1-11). This great multitude are those who heard God’s last witness during the end of the age, the preaching of the Kingdom Gospel and who believed the message and were yet saved and we see these in the presence of the throne of God, their millennial position and blessing in the earth. The multitude is the blessed result of the preaching of the remnant of Israel.

It is, however, to be stated that those who had the Gospel of Grace presented unto them and who rejected God’s gracious offer, who went on in apostasy will not have another chance to accept “the Gospel of the Kingdom.” 2Th 2:10-12 reveals the fate of all the Christ and Gospel rejecting professing “Christian” masses. But the nations in Africa, China, India, the isles of the sea will hear and accept the Gospel of the Kingdom and gladly receive these messengers whom later the Lord calls “these my brethren” (Mat 25:31, etc). Thus during the very end, God’s Grace will still be manifested ere that great and terrible day of the Lord comes.

The next verse brings us into the middle of the week, the great tribulation, and we shall have to turn to the prophet Daniel and the thirteenth chapter of Revelation to establish still clearer the fact that our Lord has in these predictions exclusive reference to the end of the Jewish age.

We have learned then that the events predicted by our Lord up to the fourteenth verse fall into the beginning of the ending of the Jewish age, the seven prophetic years; with the fifteenth verse we reach the middle of this period, three years and a half are passed and the second half with its mighty events culminating in the personal and visible manifestation of the Son of Man out of heaven is now described. With the second half of these seven years, the last 1,260 days, the great tribulation, the time of Jacob’s trouble, is fully developed. We shall find as we advance that not alone the interpretation we have laid down for this chapter is the right one, but that no other one is possible; all expositions, which claim a fulfilment of these words of our Lord in the past, or which apply these events to the church period, must be rejected as incorrect. Let us read the words of our Lord beginning at the fifteenth verse.

“When therefore ye shall see the abomination of desolation, which is spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in what is a holy place (he that reads let him understand); then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains; let not him that is on the house come down to take the things out of his house; and let not him that is in the field turn back to take his garment. But woe to those that are with child, and those that give suck in those days. But pray that your flight may not be in winter time nor on Sabbath; for then shall there be great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now nor ever shall be; and if those days had not been cut short no flesh had been saved; but on account of the elect those days shall be cut short” (Mat 24:15-22).

Our Lord gives us a most important hint on what He means by these words, by mentioning the Prophet Daniel. Then furthermore, the Holy Spirit adds through Matthew a word of exhortation, which calls special attention to the Lord’s reference to Daniel, the prophet. The Holy Spirit saith, “He that reads let him understand”; or, as it might be put, “Consider so as to understand.” It will, therefore, not do for us to hurry over this word of our Lord, to which the Holy Spirit calls our special attention, which He the great interpreter of the Word of God wants us to consider and to understand fully.

We must, therefore, turn first of all to the Prophet Daniel. Does he mention anything in his great prophecies about a future abomination and where do we find these passages? He does in three places.

“And he shall confirm a covenant with the many for one week, and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and because of the protection of the abominations there shall be a desolator, even until that the consumption and what is determined shall be poured out upon the desolate” (Dan 9:27).

“And forces shall stand on his part, and they shall profane the sanctuary, the fortress, and shall take away the continual sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate” (11:31).

“And from the time that the continual sacrifice is taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days” (12:11).

There can be no doubt that the Lord refers to these three passages in Daniel, and it is of that abomination mentioned in these passages of which He speaks. These three verses in Daniel refer all to the same period of time; this period is three years and a half. The same space of time is mentioned in Dan 7:25. “And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws, and they shall be given into his hands, until a time and times and the dividing of time” (which makes three and a half). Then in Dan 10:7 we have it mentioned again.... “It shall be for a time, times and a half, and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.” When later in the course of this exposition we come to the book of Revelation we shall discover the same period of time there.

It is not our purpose to enter fully into Daniel’s great prophecies. To do this would lead us too far and prolong our exposition. The most important passage of the three we have quoted, is the one from the ninth chapter; as the others treat of the same period, we shall not consider these (Dan 11:31; Dan 12:11) at all. The ninth chapter in that prophetic book contains the prayer of Daniel and the wonderful answer he received. He was meditating on the Word of the Lord as it came to Jeremiah the prophet, when he turned to the Lord in prayer. This seems to us is the true and perfect way of turning to God in prayer. First communion with God through the written Word, His revelation, and then to seek His face. He was occupied in his prayer with the years of captivity. The man Gabriel appears, he came flying swiftly to assure him that he was greatly beloved and to give him the answer to his prayer. The answer is a revelation relating to seventy-year weeks, that is seven times seventy; a period of time which was to come.

We take it for granted that our readers are delivered from the old, superficial and erroneous interpretation, which looks upon Dan 9:24-27 as having been completely fulfilled with the death of the Messiah and the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus. It is strange that the clear division of these seventy weeks has been so much ignored. (To our readers who are unsettled on the interpretation of this most important prophecy, or who desire a real good work on Dan 9:1-27, we recommend Sir R. Anderson’s most excellent work, “The Coming Prince.” It is most helpful, clearly written and sound. See also “The Great Parenthesis” by Ironside.)

The 24th verse in Dan 9:1-27 (Dan 9:24) is the prophecy stated in a general way. “Seventy weeks are apportioned out upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to close the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make expiation for iniquity, and to bring in the righteousness of ages, and to seal the vision and the prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies.” Seventy sevens, as it is in the Hebrew, make 490. This space of time is, so Gabriel declared, apportioned out, for the people of Israel and Jerusalem, and at the close of it the full blessing of Israel will come to pass; the righteousness of ages, undoubtedly refers to the kingdom age, the millennium. So in a general way the whole prophecy of seventy-year weeks is given and what shall be accomplished in them and at the close of them for the people Israel and for Jerusalem. But now as we read on we find a division of these seventy weeks. First: Seven weeks; secondly: Sixty-two weeks; thirdly: One week. What does this division mean? We are not left to speculation, for the Word makes it plain. “Know, therefore, and understand: From the going forth of the word to restore and to build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince, are seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. The street and the moat shall be built again, even in troublesome times. And after sixty-two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with an overflow, and unto the end war, the desolation determined (Mat 24:25-26).” The first seven weeks, that is 49 years, is the period of time which elapsed from the giving of the command to rebuild Jerusalem and its walls till this was accomplished. The commission to restore and build Jerusalem was given to Nehemiah by Artaxerxes in his twentieth year. The sixty-two weeks is the period of time from the complete restoration of the city and the walls till Messiah is cut off, that is the death of Christ, and there is nothing for Him. His own people reject Him and then in consequence of that rejection, the city and the sanctuary is to be destroyed by the people of the prince, that shall come. Wars and desolations, persecutions and troubles, bloodshed and sufferings, was to be the lot of the Jewish people after the rejection of the Messiah, a prophecy stated not only here but throughout the prophetic Word and so solemnly come true for well nigh two thousand years. The people who destroyed the city and the sanctuary were Romans. But now we have one week left. Of this last week we read in the last verse of Dan 9:1-27, the verse in which the abomination is mentioned, to which our Lord and the Holy Spirit calls attention. This week, or seven years, is the end. It is a week, a period of time still future. With the 69th week Messiah was cut off, He had nothing; His people had rejected Him and the offered kingdom; an indefinite period follows, during which the Jews are outcasts, scattered into the corners of the earth, Jerusalem trodden down by the Gentiles. It is the present age in which we live, in which God’s gracious offer of free and full salvation for the gathering out of a people for His Name (the church) is preached. How soon this may end no one knows. It will end at some time and then Jewish history from a prophetic standpoint will be resumed, the Jewish age will close to be followed by the kingdom or millennial age, when the righteousness of the ages will come in.

And what then is to take place in that last week, in the coming seven years, that very time which was indicated in the question of the disciples when they asked about “the end of the age” and which the Lord describes in this part of His discourse? We say again it seems strange that so many learned men should be so superficial in expounding the Word of God. How true it is, many of these things are hid from the wise and the prudent; and they are revealed unto babes. Thus many have not alone made no distinction of the division of the weeks as given in the text, but they have not distinguished between the two princes mentioned in these verses. The one Prince is Messiah, the other prince is a counterfeit, the false prince. It is claimed by this incorrect interpretation that the prince who confirms the covenant with the many for one week is Christ. But the one of whom the 27th verse speaks is not Messiah the Prince, but “the prince who shall come.” It is that wicked head of the Roman empire in its last revived form of whom we read in different parts in prophecy. The Roman power had come upon the land and destroyed Jerusalem and burned the temple. This was prophetically stated in Dan 9:26; but it does not say that “the prince shall come to destroy the city,” but the people of the prince “that shall come,” in other words, the Roman power destroyed the city and from that power a prince is to emanate in the future. Up to now this prince has not yet appeared; when he comes he will be the leader of the confederacy of the nations, who inhabit the territory of the Roman empire, a mighty man who is under the control and inspiration of Satan. Perhaps Napoleon I is the nearest photograph the world has.seen of that prince who shall come. It would be most interesting to follow all this in detail, but we are not writing on Daniel or the false king and the antichrist, but on Mat 24:1-51, and so we can only give the most simple facts so as to make the chapter as clear as possible. Now when this prince, the head of the revived Roman empire, appears, he will make a covenant with the Jews. His covenant will be for one week, that is for seven years. It is interesting to notice that the covenant will be made with “the many,” not with all, for the believing Jewish remnant will know the true personality of the wicked prince and refuse to enter into that covenant. What this covenant will be we do not follow now. Suffice it to say that it will be undoubtedly of a political nature and connected with the resettlement of the Jews in Palestine, the rebuilding of the temple and the institution of their worship by sacrifices. Zionism, the great restoration movement of the Jews in unbelief, sheds a flood of light on these coming events. If Zionists were ready to herald the Sultan as their deliverer, should he allow them the practical carrying out of their program, how much more will they be willing to accept an agreement with that mighty prince, who is to come. This covenant will be effected in the beginning of the week (seven years) and all will run smoothly for a while. But in the middle of the week he will unmask himself and in conjunction with that other wicked one, the man of sin, the son of perdition, the personal antichrist, he will break the covenant and cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. In its place he will set up the abomination (Dan 11:31). What then is this abomination? It will be idolatrous worship. The 13th chapter in the book of Revelation gives us more light on this abomination of the last three years and a half of the Jewish age ending. We shall turn to this chapter at once. However, before we do so we wish to say that to our mind the argument is complete. The seventy weeks have to do exclusively with the Jewish people. The first seven weeks, the sixty-two weeks and the last, the seventieth. It is impossible to find a place for the church in this prophecy. Her place is in the unreckoned period between the sixty-ninth and seventieth week. She does not belong, nor a part of the church, into the last week.

And now we shall briefly examine the book of Revelation on this subject. We have laid this down in the beginning of our exposition, if the words of our Lord refer to the future events of the definitely marked end of the age then these three, Old Testament prophecy on this theme, the Words of the Lord, and the book of Revelation must be a complete harmony. We have seen how perfectly this has been the case up to the fifteenth verse and now we have still more striking proof.

The thirteenth chapter of Revelation corresponds in part to the middle of the week; the last half of the seven years and the events transpiring on Jewish ground, in Jerusalem, are described here. Here we find the 1,260 days, the 3-1/2 years. In the twelfth chapter Satan is seen cast out of heaven, cast down upon the earth and the heavens pronounce a woe upon the inhabiters of the earth, for he is come down and has great wrath, for he has but little time. When the church is received into glory, the casting out of Satan will take place. He comes down and finds the church gone from this earthly scene and then in his great wrath he begins his awful work.

The thirteenth chapter of Revelation is the perfect counterpart of Daniel’s prophecies; even a beginner in the study of prophecy can see that. Two beasts are seen in this chapter. The first rises out of the sea typifying the nations. The second comes out of the earth and has two horns like a lamb, but speaks as a dragon. The first is “the prince that shall come,” the wicked leader of the revived Roman empire ; the second one is the false Messiah, the antichrist, who mimics the true Christ. What will then take place is clearly stated in Rev 13:12-18. There we read of an image. “And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.” This, no doubt, will be the abomination, an image worshipped; as well as the second beast, “who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God (not in Rome, but in Jerusalem), showing himself that he is God” (2Th 2:4). This then is the abomination which falls in the last half of the seventieth week. The result of this abomination, the revelation of Satan’s power upon the earth, will be the great tribulation. This is fully borne out by the thirteenth chapter in Revelation. Of this our Lord speaks, when he said, “for then shall there be great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world, until now, nor ever shall be.” And in Daniel we likewise read of this tribulation. “And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation” (12:1). The context shows that it will be at this very time of which the Lord speaks, immediately before His personal, visible and glorious Coming.

The words which the Lord utters concerning those who will be then on the earth show clearly that they are not church saints. They are in Judea and are asked to flee to the mountains; a foreshadowing of this was seen at the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus. They are asked to pray that their flight should not take place on the Sabbath; they are called the “elect,” a term which in this chapter as well as throughout the Gospels always means His earthly people; in the Epistles the word “elect” always means the church.

The next words of the Lord in His discourse contain warnings. “Then if any one say to you, Behold here is the Christ, or here, believe is not. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall give great signs and wonders so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. Behold I have told you beforehand. If, therefore, they say to you, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth; behold he is in the inner chambers, do not believe it. For as the lightning goes forth from the east and shines to the west, so shall be the coming of the Son of Man” (Mat 24:23-27). Deceivers have appeared from time to time throughout this age, claiming, like Simon Magus, “to be some great one.” No question that many of these evil, fanatical leaders were and are energized by Satan. Not a few of such deluded persons we see today; the evil power likewise manifests its signs and lying wonders to a certain degree, while another system claims that the Lord Jesus Christ came in a secret manner in 1874 (Millennial Dawnism). But all this is not a fulfilment of the words spoken by the Lord. The fulfilment comes in the great tribulation. Of the second beast, who imitates the lamb, but speaks as a dragon, it is written, “He doeth great wonders so that he maketh fire to come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of these miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast” (Rev 13:13-14). This corresponds with that passage in 2Th 2:1-17 from which we quoted above; the false Christ will deceive by his signs and lying wonders and the strong delusion, all those who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Not alone will the apostate part of the Jewish people be deceived by these lying wonders, but also the apostate part of Christendom, left behind after the rapture of the church has taken place, will be deceived and swept away in the great judgments of that coming day. These warnings will be of great importance and value to the Jewish believing remnant, living in those days. The Lord tells them that His coming will not be in a secret way but openly, seen by all like the flash of lightning. It will be a sudden, a startling coming; as the lightning flashes over the dark sky and strikes down upon the earth, so will He the Son of Man make his appearance. It is not necessary to say that this lightning-like Coming is wholly distinct from His coming for His own. Then the Lord adds a significant word, “For wherever the carcass is, there will be gathered the eagles” (Mat 24:28). The interpretation which makes the eagles the church, or a certain class of “advanced believers” is so weak and fanciful that we do not think it necessary to speak of it here. The carcass is the type of corruption and it represents here the unbelieving part of the Jewish people, that part which followed the beast. The eagles stand for the judgments. In the next verses the Coming of the Son of Man in Power and Glory is revealed by Himself, the coming One. Once more we shall have to turn back to the Old Testament and to the book of Revelation to find another perfect harmony.

“But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven; then shall all the tribes of the land mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great sound of trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds from the one extremity of the heavens to the other extremity of them” (Mat 24:29-31).

It is unnecessary to call attention to the misinterpretation of this passage, which by the spiritualizing method claims a fulfillment of these words at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. What we have learned in the exposition of this part of the Olivet discourse makes such an application and interpretation an impossibility. It is ridiculous to say that the Lord spoke these words about His visible manifestation, but did not really mean a literal return; but what He meant is the destruction of Jerusalem. The context proves that the event could not have taken place at the time of the destruction of the city.

What is before us in these words of the Lord is the great climax of the end, the visible appearing of the Son of Man. It is to be immediately after the days of tribulation; that tribulation we have seen is still future and has for its center Jerusalem, though all the earth will share in it. And now we have to turn once more to the Old Testament Word of Prophecy. Do we find there anything promised, which corresponds to this predicted visible and glorious coming of the Son of Man? And if we find in the Old Testament prophecies which correspond to these words, in what connection do we find them?

We find indeed in the Old Testament numerous predictions of just such an event of which the Lord speaks here and a careful investigation will show that these predictions of the Old Testament and the prediction of our Lord here fully harmonize.

The first passage we desire to mention is a prophecy in the last chapter of Joel. “The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining” (Joe 3:15). Joel is one of the earliest prophets. While he announces and speaks of a great locust judgment which came upon the people Israel and upon the land, his prophecy points to the great future fulfillment in the “Yom Jehovah,” the Day of the Lord. The third chapter contains one of the great prophecies of that future day and the events connected with that day. The verse we quoted gives the physical signs and the verses which follow show that the Lord will be manifested in His Glory in the midst of these wonders in the heavens. The prophets which prophesy after Joel have nearly all visions of that day.

We give a few other Scriptures to show this. “And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright light will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land saith the Lord God” (Eze 32:7-8). Here it is the proclamation of the day as it is to come upon Egypt and the nations. Another prophecy of the day of the Lord’s manifestation is found in Isa 13:9-10. “Behold the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate, and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the Stars of heaven, and the constellations thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.” We do not need to quote other prophecies from the prophetic books and the Psalms. The day of the Lord is announced in many passages. It is always seen in connection with great troubles on the earth, tribulation for His earthly people, culminating in these startling physical signs, darkened heavens, shaking earth and the manifestation of the Glory of the Lord. And this is the event of which our Lord speaks in Mat 24:29.

But there will be not only physical signs, but something else will occur. The sign of the Son of Man will appear in the heaven. This will be followed by the mourning of the tribes and then the Son of Man will come on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

What is the sign of the Son of Man? We believe it will be the Shekinah cloud. It was a cloud which enshrouded His form when He tarried with Israel of old. A cloud it was which received Him out of the sight of His disciples; a cloud must bring Him back. At the bitter end of the great tribulation, when His faithful remnant is hard pressed on all sides, when they cry to God for the heavens to open and to come down, there will be seen, we believe, in the heavens a bright and shining cloud, a cloud from which fire shines out. Well may the believing Jewish remnant then cry out, “Lo, this is our God, we have waited for Him, this is the Lord, He will save us.” His elect earthly people, those which have not been swept away during the great tribulation, the “all Israel “ of Rom 11:26 will know what that cloud means. Jehovah is coming to be manifested. What their prophets saw and predicted is at last to come true. The Day of Jehovah is about to dawn, the Lord their King is coming.

The consequence will be a national mourning. It is not to be thought for a moment that all the tribes must be in the land. The sign of the Son of Man will appear in the heavens and will be seen from all continents. “All the tribes of the land” simply means that the persons who mourn belong to all the tribes of Israel. This again is predicted in the Old Testament. “They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first born” (Zec 12:10). But that sign of the Son of Man will not tarry long in the heavens. He Himself comes on the clouds of heaven in great power and glory. The promise given by the two men at the time of the Lord’s ascension is now to be fulfilled. “This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner, as ye see Him go into heaven.” He ascended upon high; He predicted this event in uttering these words in the Olivet discourse.

And this too is found in the Old Testament prophetic Word. “I saw in the night visions and behold, one, like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven...” (Dan 7:14). This takes place after the ten-horned beast with the little horn, with the eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things, had come forth. All this refers to the end of the Jewish age. The little horn is the same evil person seen elsewhere in prophecy. It is then and not before, when the little horn is in existence, that Daniel sees the Ancient of Days and the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven to receive the Kingdom. What a wonderful and divine unity the Scriptures are!

If we turn briefly to the Book of Revelation, we shall find once more a minute confirmation of these revealed events. It is the Book which in its greater part is taken up with the description of the tribulation, judgments and other events of the last week of Daniel; the seven years with which the age closes. Therefore in the very beginning of the Book do we find a solemn announcement which fully harmonizes with the words before us here. “Behold He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him; and all the tribes of the land shall wail because of Him. Even so. Amen” (Rev 1:7). It needs no further comment to show how fully these words confirm both the Old Testament predictions and the predictions of our Lord. This striking harmony should not appear to us as so very wonderful, for He who speaks the words on the Mount of Olives is the same who spoke through the prophets and the last Book is “the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him.”

For a fuller description of His Coming the reader will turn to Rev 19:11-16.

Let us now turn to the next words. “And He shall send His angels with a great sound of trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the one extremity of the heavens to the other extremity of them.” Angels appear now once more upon the scene. Throughout this present dispensation angels as the ministering spirits are not seen; that they do minister is certainly a fact. But as soon as He comes again, He who was made a little lower than the angels, and who is above the angels in Glory, they will be sent forth again. When he was born in Bethlehem they appeared with their heavenly song of praise; when He comes again the holy angels will accompany the Christ and His church and the angels will worship Him (Heb 1:6). It is also written “the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2Th 1:7-8). In Mat 13:1-58 we likewise find that angels are mentioned in connection with the end of the age, the same end as here. “The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and He shall gather out of His Kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity” (13:41). “So shall it be at the end of the age; the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just” (13:49). In our passage the angels sound a trumpet and they go out to gather His elect from the four winds. We say once more that this has nothing to do with the church. The removal of the church takes place before the last week of Daniel’s prophecy begins and when the Lord comes immediately after the days of tribulation, the church is with Him and in His Glory the church is manifested. He comes and brings His saints with Him. The revelation concerning His coming for the church is recorded in 1Th 4:15-18. To make the elect in Mat 24:30 the church, as it is done so often, is bewildering and a wrong interpretation. This part of the Olivet discourse, as we have shown, has nothing whatever to do with the church. The “Elect” in this chapter always means His elect earthly people, as stated before.

The angels will gather them back to the land and bring them in, for the people in greater part are still scattered in the corners of the earth, when the Son of Man, the King of Israel, returns. Of this the Old Testament bears witness. “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come, which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount of Jerusalem” (Isa 27:13). “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people, which shall be left from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros and from Cush, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (Isa 11:11-12). “Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. But the Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither He had driven them; and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers. Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall find them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks” (Jer 16:14-16). This regathering of the remnant of Israel, the people left after the great tribulation, takes place after the Lord has been manifested out of the heavens. Then the “lost tribes” will be discovered, and during the age of the Kingdom, God will fulfil in His regathered people, the nation Israel, all the precious promises His prophets spoke and which a false theory called “Anglo-Israelism” attempts to have realized in this present Christian age.

What follows now are exhortations and solemn warnings given by the Lord, and these form a sublime conclusion of this first part of the Olivet discourse, referring, as we have learned, to the end of the Jewish Age. We shall look briefly at each verse.

“But learn the parable from the fig tree: When already its branch becomes tender and produces leaves, ye know that the summer is nigh. Thus also ye, when ye see all these things, know that it is near, at the doors” (Mat 24:32-33). The fig tree is the picture of Israel. The parable of the fig tree in Luk 13:1-35 is well known, and its application is Israel, to whom the Lord came, looking for fruit, and did not find it. Luk 21:1-38, the record there of this discourse, mentions likewise the fig tree and all the trees; these are the Gentiles, the nations. In Mat 21:1-46, we see in the withered fig tree a type of Israel ‘s spiritual and national death. But that withered tree is to be vitalized. The fig tree will bud again. However, the characteristic of the fig tree is that fruit and leaves are there together. As soon as the branch becomes tender the fruit is found. It is a rapid development. This is the lesson here. Israel ‘s blessing, new life, fruit and glory will quickly be realized in those end days. When in these last seven years, and especially the last 1,260 days, all these things come to pass, they will know that all which is promised to Israel will be at hand. The other application, that now we behold Israel like a budding fig tree, signs of new national life and in this a sign of the times, is certainly not wrong. It tells us of the nearness of the end.

“Verily I say unto you, This generation will not have passed away until all these things shall have taken place. The heavens and the earth shall pass away, but my Words shall in no wise pass away” (Mat 24:34-35).

The wrong interpretation of the word “generation” is responsible for the erroneous conception so prevalent in our days. It is said that “this generation” must mean the very generation, the people who lived then upon the earth, when the Lord spoke these words. It is easily seen how, if this is the meaning of “this generation,” the events predicted by our Lord must have been fulfilled within the life-time of the people living then. What other event could be meant than the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70? Thus the wrong interpretation of these two words, “this generation,” has led the large numbers of Bible teachers and readers of this discourse astray. But let us get the right meaning of “generation” and all will be clear. The word _genea means not necessarily the same persons living, but it has also the meaning of race. The English word “generation” has this meaning of “family or a race of a certain class of people.” And so has the Greek. It is used in that sense in Luk 16:8. “This generation” is the race sprung from Abraham, God’s chosen earthly people. Well have they been called “the everlasting nation;” better still we could call them “the nation of destiny.” God has kept this race, and is keeping them for the fulfilment of His own great, revealed purpose. The verse, however, has also the meaning that the people living, when the end of the Jewish age sets in, will behold its termination; it will all be accomplished in a small space of time. Yea heaven and earth may pass away but His Words will not pass away. How solemn this is! Here we read still the same great and mighty Words, which were hated by thousands of God’s enemies in the past; words which have been attacked and denied. And still the old enemy of the written Word is at it, and through his chosen instruments (alas! many of them in the midst of the professing church) attacks and belittles these Words. They stand! They are as eternal and divine, as infallible and true, as He, the eternal Son of God, is from whose lips they came.

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of the heavens, but my Father alone” (Mat 24:36).

This makes the matter still more solemn. That day and hour, which will usher in these mighty events, of which the Lord speaks in His discourse, culminating in His own personal and glorious manifestation, is unknown. In the Gospel of Mark the Holy Spirit adds, “nor the Son.” This addition is made in Mark because there our Lord is viewed as God’s servant, and a servant “does not know what his master doeth.” The Father knows the day and the hour, when all this is to come to pass The beginning of it is liable to occur at any time. How foolish, then, to speculate on the possible time of our Lord’s return -- and the setting of years and days. It dishonors the Word and brings reproach upon Prophecy.

“But as the days of Noe, so shall be the coming of the Son of Man. For as they were in the days which were before the flood, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day on which Noe entered into the ark, and they knew not till the flood came and took all away; thus shall be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two shall be in the field, one is taken and one is left; two women grinding at the mill, one is taken and one is left. Watch therefore, for ye know not in what hour your Lord comes” (Mat 24:37-42).

The introduction here of Noah and the flood is in fullest accord with the entire chapter. Noah lived at the close of an age, and was saved with his house through a great judgment, and then became the beginning of a new age. That this is typical of the remnant of Israel living at the close of the Jewish age is well known. As Noah’s age closed with the deluge, so will the Jewish age close with judgment. The judgment came suddenly upon the ungodly generation of Noah’s day; thus will it be when the Son of Man cometh. Two classes were living in Noah’s day. The one who were unbelieving and these were swept away by the divine judgment. The other class was Noah and his house, and he and his own were left and not destroyed by the judgment. It will be so again in the coming of the Son of Man. The unbelievers will be taken away in the day of judgment and wrath; the others will be left on the earth to receive and enjoy the blessings of the coming age and enter into the kingdom, which will then be established. It is the opposite meaning of “taken” and “left” when the Lord comes as the “Bridegroom” for His church. Then, too, some will be taken and others left. The true believers will be taken into glory, caught up in clouds to meet Him in the air; the unbelievers and mere professors will be left. Some deny that the word “taken” in our passage means a judicial taking away. The context, however, shows (the reference to Noah and the flood) that this must be the meaning. Surely those who were taken by the flood were not “received into glory.”

And now once more His warning voice is heard.

“But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have watched and not have suffered his house to be dug through. Wherefore ye also, be ye ready, for in that hour ye think not the Son of Man comes” (Mat 24:43-44). With these words of warning and exhortation to watch, our Lord closes the predictions relating to the end of the Jewish age. This warning will be understood and heeded by the Jewish remnant, to which it is addressed. They are to watch for the Son of Man; the church is to wait for her Lord.

With the next verse, the beginning of the first of three parables relating to His coming, a new part of the Olivet discourse begins. We will find this very clearly marked and shall prove next that this part, from chapter 24:45 to chapter 25:30 refers no longer to the events which transpire on the earth during the end of the Jewish age, but to something altogether different. [For an excellent interpretation of this passage, 24:45-25:30, cf. “studies in the Gospel of Matthew” by E. Schuyler English, pp. 180-188.]

The second part of the Olivet discourse begins with the 45th verse of this great chapter and extends to chapter 25:30. The contents of this division are entirely different from the preceding one. Up to the forty-fourth verse we learned that the Lord gives predictions relating to the end of the Jewish age, an end still to come. We traced all these predictions in the Old Testament and in the great book of prophecy in the New Testament, the Revelation. We found the closest correspondency between Mat 24:3-44, certain parts of the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation, because all three deal with the same period of time. But now another series of predictions are before us which have no connection with Old Testament prophecy nor with Rev 6:1-17; Rev 7:1-17; Rev 8:1-13; Rev 9:1-21; Rev 10:1-11; Rev 11:1-19; Rev 12:1-17; Rev 13:1-18; Rev 14:1-20; Rev 15:1-8; Rev 16:1-21; Rev 17:1-18; Rev 18:1-24; Rev 19:1-21.

In the first part of this discourse we hear of wars, pestilence, famine, great tribulation, false Christs, the abomination of desolation, Judea, the Sabbath day and the visible and glorious coming of the Son of Man. The exhortations were to flee to the mountains, to pray that the flight take not place on the Sabbath day, to endure unto the end for salvation, etc. Of all this we do not read a word in the second section of our Lord’s utterances. Here again he speaks in parables as He did in His second discourse in this Gospel, contained in chapter 13. The three parables which make up this part of the Olivet discourse picture the condition of things during the absence of the King and how in the professing church, in Christendom, there will be the true and the false, possessors and professors, saved and unsaved, such who have life and such who have a name to live but are dead. These three parables then may be justly put alongside of the seven parables in chapter 13 dealing with the kingdom of heaven; the phrase the Lord uses again in giving the second parable. The great parables in the thirteenth chapter give the beginning, the external and internal development of Christendom, in a general way; the three parables in the Olivet discourse give the moral aspect of those who are in the professing church, and each is linked with the fact of His coming again. His coming discerns the true and the false and brings the separation of the good from the bad.

Let us, however, understand clearly that we have in these parables not the full revelation of what is the blessed Hope for the Church. The Church is, as we have seen from our exposition, mentioned in this first Gospel and spoken of as being an institution of the future.

Not in the Gospels do we find full revelation about the church, her relationships, her calling, her heavenly hope and glorious destiny. All this is made known elsewhere in the New Testament. The parables concern the Christian profession in a general way. If we hold this fast in our minds we shall find no difficulties at all. This Christian age is a mixed age and will be so to the end and the Coming One will find the faithful and prudent servants and the evil servant; the wise virgins and the foolish; the faithful servants using their talents and the wicked and slothful servant. The Coming One will mete out the judgment. The faithful servant is called “Blessed,” the evil servant is cut in two and cast out. The wise virgins go in with the bridegroom and the foolish face a shut door. The servants who used the talents are set over many things and the slothful servant is cast out into the outer darkness. That the Lord will first descend into the air (1Th 4:15-18) and that the true believers, resurrected saints and living saints will be caught up in clouds to meet the Lord in the air to appear then before the judgment seat of Christ; that the unsaved, nominal Christians will go into apostasy and after the great tribulation receive judgment when the Lord comes out of heaven and all His saints with Him -- all this is not revealed in these parables.

And now we turn to the first parable.

“Who then is the faithful and prudent bondman whom his lord has set over his household, to give them food in season? Blessed is that bondman whom his lord on coming shall find doing thus. Verily, I say unto you, that he will set him over all his substance. But if that evil bondman should say in his heart, My lord delays to come, and begin to beat his fellow bondmen, and eat and drink with the drunken, the lord of that bondman shall come in a day when he does not expect it and in an hour he knows not of, and shall cut him in two and appoint his portion with the hypocrites; there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mat 24:45-51).

The Lord still speaks to His disciples, but let us understand now while they are viewed in the first part as Jewish disciples and typical of the remnant of Israel in the end of the Jewish age, here the Lord looks upon them as soon to be in connection with something new, that is, Christianity. The parable itself is the simplest of all three; yet it has very significant and far-reaching lessons. The thought in this parable is service over the household; the household are those who are Christ’s. This household is to receive food in season and the bondman or servant, faithful and prudent, is to supply the household with that food. He does it faithfully and at the coming of the Lord, this faithful and prudent bondman is set over all the substance of his lord. This is an extremely beautiful and blessed parable. It takes us at once upon an entirely new ground. Judaism knows nothing of that kind of ministry which is spoken of here; it is essentially Christian. The Lord, the great shepherd of His sheep, for whom He died, whom He loves so much, appointed His own as bondmen of Himself, to feed His flock, to give them to eat. This is what pleases the Lord, and it is only another proof of how dear and beloved His own people are to Him. Faithfulness to Him and to His own, His household, is the teaching of these words. The true servant (and every true believer has a service) is faithful and prudent and attends to that, to which his Lord has called him. And what keeps in such service? What is it that makes it ever fresh and refreshing, sweet and precious? It is the Hope of His Coming, yea, His imminent coming. The next paragraph, the description of the evil servant with his evil watchword, will bring this more prominently to our view. The reward of the faithful and prudent servant is a higher service, a service over all the substance of His Lord. Service does not terminate with this earthly life; there is a service up yonder, for “His servants shall serve Him.” Faithful service here fits for that higher service in His presence. According to our faithfulness in service here we shall find service there to the praise and glory of His Name.

But now the other side comes up. The Lord pictures an evil servant and he saith in his heart, “My lord delays his coming.” He acts outrageously, smites his fellow servants and eats and drinks with the drunken; suddenly his lord comes and gives him his portion with the hypocrites.

The interpretation is easily made. Here is the spurious, that which has taken the name of Christ and claims to be a servant likewise. The person described is a hypocrite; he professes outwardly to be a servant under his lord, but in his heart he saith, “My lord delays his coming.” Then he usurps the place of authority, instead of serving in meekness, feeding Christ’s own, he domineers over fellow servants and associates with the drunken.

The faithful and prudent servant is a picture of how it ought to be in the house, the church, and the evil servant in his hypocrisy and evil work is a picture of Christendom in corruption. The starting point of this corruption, this domineering over fellow servants and association with the drunken, the world, began with saying “my Lord delayeth his coming.” It began in the heart. He gave up first in his heart that Hope, which was so pronounced in the early church. The belief given up that the Lord would come back, the departure from the doctrine of the imminency of the coming of the Lord, soon brought out the evils which the parable pictures. If the return of the Lord at any time had been the heart faith of the professing church, all the abominations of which the parable speaks would have been well nigh an impossibility. Gradually the belief in the coming of the Lord was given up; and as it was abandoned in the professing church, “the domineers of the people,” the Nicolaitans sprung up; an earthly priesthood was inaugurated, fashioned after a priesthood, which was the shadow of the better things, fulfilled in Christ. This false priesthood took the place of authority and domineers over the others, the servants of Christ. The separation was likewise given up and the church became identified with the world. It is another glimpse of the mustard seed in chapter 13 becoming a great tree with the birds flocking into its branches. The evil servant and his deeds are more fully pictured in the church message to Pergamos in the book of Revelation. But let us pass lightly over the fact that the evil servant began by saying in his heart, “my lord delayeth his coming.” He may not have been that evil servant all at once; but as soon as he said in his heart that the lord delays he had taken the first step towards becoming corrupt in doctrine and in practice. The enemy had put that foolish thought into his heart and then led him on into the wickedness he practiced.

And has this no meaning for us? Indeed it Has. God’s own Spirit through the Word has but a few years ago led back to the blessed Hope and the midnight cry has been heard, “Behold the bridegroom; go ye forth to meet Him.” There has been a most powerful revival of the study of prophecy and the imminency of the coming of the Lord has been taught and believed with apostolic simplicity. It has led out and on into true service for Christ. One who believes in the imminent coming of the Lord cannot help himself from looking to that Lord of being responsible to Him for service and wait on Him for service. This has been the case. Of the large numbers of servants who have been used in preaching the Gospel and shepherding the flock of Christ, the great majority have been and are such “who wait for His Son from heaven.” There is a remnant of faithful ones who expect Him to come, who wait for Him; this expectation leads to faithful and happy service. One can be very happy indeed in serving the Lord with the childlike but scriptural Hope “He may come today.”

The enemy, however, is not satisfied with having God’s people waiting for the Lord. He is the author of that evil cry, “my Lord delayeth his coming.” And he has succeeded in producing it in these days of revival of the study of Prophecy. We know some who taught and believed the imminency of the coming of the Lord. All at once their voices were silent as to the blessed Hope. Why? In some way they became ensnared in teachings which put off the glorious event till after the great tribulation, the manifestation of the antichrist, etc., and this unscriptural view silenced their testimony completely. It is sad to see this, and we fear, if our Lord tarries, some of these men (as it has been already the case) will act the part of the evil servant in a still more pronounced way.

Let us beware of any teaching which has even the faintest insinuation in it of the Lord delaying his coming. It is not of God. Let us rather begin each day with the blessed expectation that He may come today and then go forth to serve and be faithful to Him. But be assured the enemy will not rest, but find some new and subtle way to take away the blessed Hope and the blessed expectation, and to try and bring us into conformity with the world. Only the power of God can keep us in these evil days in this simple path and that will rest upon us as we cling to Him, the Lord who comes.

We take the following from a recent volume by W. Kelly:

“Only let the children of God get clear of those clouds of noxious and unwholesome vapors that constantly rise up between the Lord and them. Let them cherish in their souls the hope He gave them. If you bring in a millennium first, it is hard to see Christ’s coming clearly; it must act as a veil, which dulls the hope of that day. It may not destroy the hope; yet one cannot but look for His coming in an imperfect manner. If you bring in a great tribulation first, this also lowers the outlook and enfeebles the hope greatly; it occupies one with evils as they rise, produces a depressing effect, and fills the heart with that judicial trouble and its shade of desolation. They are mistakes of theorists. The one puts a wrong expectation between you and the coming of the Lord, kindling meanwhile a dreamy excitement in waiting for that day. The other case produces a sort of spiritual nightmare, an oppressive feeling in the thought that the church must go through so dreadful a crisis.

“Be assured, my brethren, that the Scriptures deliver us from both the dream and the nightmare. They entitle the believer to wait for Christ as simply as a child, being perfectly certain that God’s word is as true as our hope is blessed. There is to be God’s glorious kingdom; but the Lord Jesus will bring it in at His coming. Without doubt the great tribulation shall come, but not for the Christian. When it is a question about the Jew, you can understand it well; for why does the greatest tribulation come upon him? Because of idolatry; yea, of the Beast and the Antichrist worshipped. It is for him a moral retribution, with which the Christian has nothing directly to do. The predicted trouble falls on the apostate nations and the Jews. Those that ought to be witnesses of Jehovah and His Christ will at last fall into the dreadful snare of allowing the abomination to be put into the sanctuary of God.”

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER 20

COMING OF THE LORD

Matthew 24; Matthew 25; Mark 13; Luke 21. It is now in the afternoon, on Wednesday, preceding the arrest of our Savior about midnight the ensuing day, and His crucifixion the Friday following. He had spent the morning preaching to the multitudes on the Temple Campus, bidding a final adieu to the temple and its holy environments, prophesying the desolation of the temple, city, and land, and assuring them that they will see Him no more until they shall say, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord;” i.e., till He comes in His glory, and the elect remnant, gathered from the ends of the earth, will thus salute their Savior, Brother, King. Having preached to the Greeks at the gate as He came out, now He goes away to the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem. We are gratified to have. this wonderful sermon, which, at this time and place, He preached to His disciples about His return to the earth, recorded by three of His faithful amanuenses. As we proceed we will endeavor, aided by the Spirit, to give you the full benefit of this triple record. Mat 24:1 : “Jesus having gone out, departed from the temple; and His disciples came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple.” From Mount Olivet we enjoy, not only a conspicuous view of Jerusalem, but especially of the entire Temple Campus, containing thirty-five acres, occupied by many great and valuable buildings now, and more at that time.

Luk 21:5. “Certain ones speaking concerning the temple that it was ornamented with beautiful stones and offerings, He said, The days shall come in which not a stone shall be left upon a stone, which shall not be thrown down.” In that day they had no banks, gold and silver and other valuables being frequently hidden away for safe-keeping. When the city was destroyed, the Roman soldiers tore up the very foundations of the temple, searching for hidden treasures, thus verifying this prophecy of Jesus.

Mar 13:3. “He, sitting on the Mount of Olives in front of the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Him privately” ( Mat 24:3), “Tell us when these things shall be, and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and the end of the age.” E. V. says “the end of the world.” Our Lord did not say kosmos, “world,” but aion, “age.” The same word means time. The E. V. translation, “end of the world,” has given currency to the popularidea that this world is going to have an end and be consumed — i.e., annihilated, blotted out of existence — which is contradictory of Scripture, which plainly teaches another age following this (Mat 12:32, and Heb 6:4), the glorious Millennial Theocracy succeeding the present age, which will also be followed by the new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21), when this lost planet (Luke 15) shall take its place with Other celestial worlds, the especial reward of the meek (Mat 5:5), to possess, shine, and shout with the unfallen angels forever.

“And Jesus, responding, said to them, Beware lest any one may deceive you. For many will come in My name, saying, I am Christ; and will deceive many.” I am a personal witness to the fulfillment of this prophecy, several persons in the last score of years having actually claimed to be Christ. Soon after His ascension, many made their appearance in Palestine, and other Oriental countries, claiming to be Christ e.g., Theudas; Simon Magus, Marchocab, and others. As the times of our Lord’s second coming draws nigh, doubtless many false Christs will arise.

“And you will be about to hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not shaken: for it behooveth all these things to take place, but the end is not, yet.” Pretty soon it was rumored that the Emperor Tiberius, and after him Caligula and Nero, were going to make war on the Jews, as they threatened them because of the commotions prevalent among them. Here you see that Jesus puts them on their guard against the idea that those terrible Jewish wars, commotions, and revolutions, which put an end to the Jewish state and Church at the expiration of forty years should be mistaken by them as ominous of the end of the age, which will not come till Jesus in person returns.

“For nation shall rise up against nation and kingdom; there shall be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. But all these are the beginning of birth-pangs.” Odinon (“sorrows,” E. V.) literally means “birth- pangs” — i.e., the pains and acute sufferings characteristic of parturition — and has a deep significance as here used by the Savior. The awful death- agonies of the drowning antediluvians proved the birth-pangs of the new- born postdiluvian world. The terrible death-shock when the destroying angel winged his flight into every Egyptian home, slaying the first-born, was the birth-pangs of a great nation, as Israel that very hour issued from the dark womb of. Egyptian slavery, and took her place among the nations of the earth. So the awful death-roll of a million Jews, when the Romans destroyed the city, was the birth-pangs of the glorious Gospel Dispensation, unfurling the banner of Redeeming Grace to the whole Gentile world. In a similar manner, the death-agonies of the human powers, when the Ancient of Days shall descend and execute righteous judgments against all the usurpers of His royal throne, shaking down the false claimants and clearing the way for the coronation of His Son, King of Kings and Lord of lords (Dan 7:9), deluging the world with blood and heaping it with mountains of the dead (Revelation 16-19), will prove the birth-pangs of the glorious millennium, restoring Eden back to earth, and imprisoning Satan in the dungeons of the pandemonium.

Mar 13:9. “But you, take heed to yourselves; for they will deliver you up into the Sanhedrins, and you shall be beaten in the synagogues.” You see, those are Jewish punishments. “And you shall stand before governors and kings for My name’s sake, for a testimony unto them.” These are Gentile punishments. Paul, in Cyprus, testified before Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul, and was instrumental in his conversion. He also testified before Felix, at Caesarea, who rejected his testimony. The martyrdom of Stephen, soon after Pentecost, lifted the flood-gate, and poured in on them rivers of blood, the Jews making every possible effort to exterminate them. This world is no friend to grace. The apostles all suffered martyrdom among the Gentiles except the two Jameses.

Mar 13:11. “And when they may lead you forth, delivering you up, do not be solicitous what you shall say, nor premeditate; but whatsoever may be given unto you in that hour, speak this: for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Ghost.”

Luk 21:15. “For I will give unto you a. mouth and wisdom, which all those who are opposed shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.” This has been literally verified by the martyrs in all ages, pagan Roman historians certifying that the executioners, in the bloody work; of martyrdom, were frequently so convicted by the testimony of the dying saints that they confessed Christ on the spot, becoming willing and heroic subjects of the martyr’s fate.

Luk 21:16-17 . “And you shall be delivered up by your parents, brothers, kindred, and. friends; and they will put some of you to death.

And you shall be hated by all for my name’s sake.” During the martyr ages; most shocking scenes, as above described, were common, the nearest relatives of consanguinity testifying against one another as the only way of escape from bloody death, since the persecutors would take the whole family if they did not thus deliver up the confessors of Christianity.

Mat 24:10. “And then many will be offended;” i.e., backslide, and repudiate Christ, in order to save their lives. This was always the case during the martyr ages, many thus recanting to save their lives, and resuming their places in the Church after the persecutionary wave rolled by. “And they will deliver one another and hate one another. Many false prophets shall rise and deceive many.” A false prophet is a counterfeit preacher, who preaches a religion that lets Adam the First not only live, but have a very good time; while the true Christianity always slays Agag. Carnal, anti-holiness religion is never persecuted, from the simple fact that Satan has no objection to it. “Because iniquity doth abound, the Divine love of many doth wax cold.” While this has had its fulfillment in all ages, its verification has been overwhelming in the last quarter of a century. I can remember well when no man could preach Holy Ghost religion too straight, strong, and hot to suit Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians. O what a change! You will now generally find them, not only in a North Pole atmosphere, but in many instances actually so opposed to fire:: that they can not stand a red-hot testimony. You all see this confirmation of the near approach of the end, Jesus being the Witness. “But he that continueth to the end, the same shall be saved.” Lord, help us to be true, as the promise is only to the finally faithful! “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached throughout the whole world for a testimony to all nations; and then the end shall come.” This is very plain and explicit. He has fortified His disciples against the idea that the end of all things will take place with the destruction of Jerusalem. N. B. — Jesus had in His mind, and at that time saw in panorama, not only the wonderful events coming on so quickly — not only destroying Jerusalem, but annihilating the Jewish polity — but also the end of the age; i.e., the winding up of the gospel dispensation, though the time of the latter, being then a long way off, had not been revealed to Him. Again, you must remember that a few centuries in the Divine mind are but fleeting moments. Consequently the events connected with the destruction of the Jewish State and Church insensibly blend with those transpiring at the end of the Gentile times. Here you see the clear and unequivocal affirmation that the end of the age will come so soon as the gospel of the kingdom shall have been preached to all nations. Two years ago there were regions in Africa and Asia — i.. e., Thibet and Rangoon in the latter, and the Soudan in the former — where no missionary had ever been, so far as we know. Since that time the missionaries have reached all of these countries. So we do not know that there is any nation on the earth now which has never received the gospel, as so many great countries in Asia and Africa, where once the gospel flourished, are now missionary grounds, wrapped in the darkness of idolatry and the False Prophet. You see, as God is the Judge of the witness, we can not ascertain to what extent the gospel must be preached in any nation in order to develop the required testimony. When Jesus returns, in glory to reign over the whole earth, He must have the charter members for His kingdom in every nation, as the different nations of the earth will be perpetuated in their integrity, in the diversified countries which they now occupy, through the millennium. Of course, the saints of bygone ages, who represent these nations that once had the gospel, but have it not now, are not dead, but living in heaven, and ready to return with Jesus, and receive their glorified bodies in the first resurrection, at the beginning of the millennium. (Rev 20:6) For ought we know, they are sufficient : for the Divine testimony in behalf of the nations which they represent. The exceedingly rapid spread of the gospel among the heathen at the present time is certainly a most cheering omen of the Lord’s near coming. While it may seem strange, yet it is true, that the phenomenal apostasy of the Protestant Churches in the last few years is an equally striking fulfillment of the latter-day prophecies (2 Thessalonians 2), and convincing manifestation that the Lord is nigh.

Luk 21:18-19 . “Not a hair of your head can perish. In your patience gain your souls.” What thrilling inspirations to the perseverance of the saints! We actually gain our souls by patiently suffering and toiling to the end, with the blessed assurance that if we will be true, no spiritual detriment whatever shall overtake us.

DOOM OF JERUSALEM AND ESCAPE OF THE DISCIPLES

Mat 24:15-18. “Therefore when you may see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet [Dan 9:27], standing in the holy place, let the one reading take notice then; let those who are in Judea go. to the mountains; and let him who is on the housetop not come down to take things out of his house; and let him who is in the field not turn back to take his garments.” A. D. 66, Gallus, the Roman general, laid siege to Jerusalem, succeeded, A. D. 68, by Vespasian, the emperor, who was succeeded by his son Titus, A. D. 71, who prosecuted the war to its awful end, as the Jews were divided into bloody factions, and were killing one another, and would not surrender to the Romans. Read Josephus, and you will find the horrors of the siege beggared all description — famine raging, people dying in piles; pestilence, arising from the putrefying corpses, sweeping the city with the besom of destruction far more terrific than the sword, which was also devouring them on all sides, till a solid million perished, and a million more were sold into slavery, the city utterly destroyed and left without an inhabitant. After fifty years a Roman colony was founded on the memorable site where Jerusalem once stood, even the name being dropped, and the new Roman city was called Elia Capitolina the ensuing two centuries, till the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, who came thither, revived the city, and restored the sacred name, Jerusalem. When the Roman armies effected all entrance through the walls, they at once set up their battle-flags on the Holy Campus, on the summit of. Moriah, taking possession of the temple and all the holy places. This was the “abomination of desolation” — “abomination,” because the Roman gods were pictured on it, and the soldiers worshipped them as they looked on the flags; and “desolation,” because those battle-flags meant the destruction of Jerusalem. Jesus notified His disciples that the moment they saw these Roman battle-flags floating from the pinnacles of the temple, they should all recognize it as the signal for, them to make their escape. Their flight was to be so sudden that, if on the housetop, they were not. to come down. N. B. — You can now run all over Jerusalem on the flat roofs of the houses, as the narrow streets are overarched, the buildings being continuous, jam up to the wall, which is a part of the contiguous edifice. Consequently they could run to the wall on the roofs of the houses and pass down, thus making their escape, which must be sudden and expeditious, or they would be intercepted and detained. This is a vivid symbolism of the rapture of. the saints at the end of the age.

Luk 21:22. “Because these are the days of vengeance, to fulfill all things which have been written.” Josephus says that a sword, suspended from the pinnacle of the firmament, was visible in the blue sky, hanging over the city a whole year before this awful siege. He also says that a strange man walked upon the walls of the city some time before the siege, crying aloud, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!” continuing. there to walk and utter this awful sentence of coming doom till a stone struck him and he fell dead.

Mat 24:19-22. “Woe to those who are in gestation and nursing in those days!” The pure, tender heart of His unfallen humanity thus gives expression to the deepest sympathy in behalf of all thus encumbered in those terrible perils. “Pray that your flight may not be in a storm, nor on the Sabbath.” Jerusalem is only forty miles from the great sea, two thousand miles long and continuous from: the ocean of five thousand miles, thus giving the western storms a tremendous sweep, and the city is five thousand feet above the sea-level. Consequently storms at Jerusalem are terrible. I was in one which, as they all do, had come from the sea. Though they have but little effect on the stone houses, I found it difficult to stand and move about. Besides, these storms are not only wind, but rain, carried from the sea which is so nigh. Again, they were not protected with clothing as we are, there being no factories in that day. As to the Sabbath, so punctiliously was it kept in Jerusalem that the gates of the city were closed. Hence the probability of their being shut in. “For then there shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world until now, neither may be.” We do not understand this statement to antagonize the probability of the great Gentile tribulation, as the Jewish was preliminary to it, and really will culminate in it. “Unless those days were shortened, no flesh were saved.”

Mar 13:20. “But on account of the elect, whom He hath elected, He shortened those days.” You must remember, not only some of the elect of grace were there, who doubtless afterward got saved, but a special reference is here made to the elect of Israel, the recipients of the infallible promises of the Abrahamic Covenant, who in due time will be restored, and eventually saved and sanctified, and become the honored recipients of their Brother King, coming in His glory in the last day. They were there in that awful siege and must be saved.

Luk 21:24. “They shall fall by the edge of the sword, and be led captives into all nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, till the times of the Gentiles may be fulfilled.” Much of this wonderful prophetical verse has been fulfilled, while things of profoundest moment are yet in the future. Jerusalem is still trodden down by the Gentiles, but, as you see here, destined to be relieved when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. When our Lord returns on the throne of His glory, the elect of Israel will have possession of Jerusalem, and come again to the front of the world, there to remain. Now, what about these Gentile times?

When did they begin, and when will they end? God’s plan was to rule the world. Man was dissatisfied with Divine rule, rejected the government of God, preferring human administration. When Nebuchadnezzar conquered the world, he captured Jerusalem, and carried away the Jews, B. C. 587. So at that date the last vestige of the Theocracy disappeared, the whole world falling into the hands of a heathen monarch. I doubt not but Nebuchadnezzar was the most competent man in the world to rule it, and consequently God gave it to him when He saw that the people would have human government and reject the Divine. You remember (Daniel 4) how Nebuchadnezzar became so utterly crazy that he vacated his throne, followed the predilections of his boyhood, dwelt among the herds and flocks seven years, so utterly insane that he all this time played king among them, thus illustrating the utter incompetency of any man to rule a nation, a responsibility to which none but God is equal. (Simultaneously symbolizing the Divine interregnum in the world’s government on the part of the Eden Theocracy.) This insanity lasted seven years, which, according to the year-day system of prophetical interpretation thoroughly established in the Bible, — this period, according to lunar time, which is measured by the revolutions of the moon and 354 days in the year, the seven years equal 2748; the planetary chronology, 360 days in the year = 2520;, and the solar time, 365 days in the. year, equal 2555. Now, lot us see how much time has elapsed since the beginning of the Gentile times: B. C. 587+1900=2487. Now, you see, 2487-2478=9. Hence you see, according to lunar time, the times of the Gentiles are just about to run out, only lacking nine years.

Now, if you count the tribulation as Daniel gives it (Dan 12:11-12), 1335-1290=45, the years of the tribulation (which, as you see from the above, are very likely to be shortened, for the sake of the elect of grace as well as that of Israel), 45-9=36. Hence you see, according to lunar time, the tribulation is even now overdue thirty-six years. Planetary time, 2520- 2487=33. Now, 45-33=12. Hence you see, the calendar time makes the tribulation overdue twelve years. Now, the solar time, 2555-2487=68- 45=23. Hence you see that the solar chronology makes the rapture due in 23 years, the calendar chronology makes it overdue 12 years, and the lunar makes the rapture of the saints overdue 36 years. Of course, no man knows the exact chronology, and consequently no human being can ascertain the day of His coming.

“But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end; many shall run to and from, and knowledge shall be increased.” (Dan 12:4)

When Daniel saw these wonderful visions of the latter days and the end of all things, he was so wrought upon and thrilled with solicitude to understand his own vision that he fainted. You see in this verse that he is commanded to shut up the words and seal the book till the time of the end, when the mystery will be revealed, and “many shall run to and fro,” publishing it to all nations. I gather from the above chronologies, and other Scriptural sources, that we are living now in the “time of the end,” when the Holy Spirit is opening these latter-day prophecies to His saints, who are running to the ends of the earth proclaiming the good news. I have traveled twenty thousand miles within the last year, through Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and of course much of the time on the seas, and with many different nations. I find the saints in all my travels on the outlook for the Lord’s appearing, and publishing the glad news in every land. I am abundantly satisfied, for a thousand good reasons, that we are nearing the close of the “Gentile times” and the wonderful fulfillment of these thrillingly interesting latter-day prophecies. Of course, we appoint no time for our Lord to appear. But it is right and proper, and His positive mandate, for us to be incessantly on the lookout. As our Lord here quotes largely from Daniel, it is impossible to restrict these prophecies to the destruction of Jerusalem, as Daniel’s grand theme is the “end of all things.” While the former is preliminary, the latter is the grand moment of our Lord’s discourse.

Mat 24:23-29. “Then if any one may say, Behold, here is Christ, or there; believe them not. For false Christs and false prophets shall arise, and give forth great signs and wonders, so if possible to deceive even the elect. Behold, I have told you.” Christ did not come in His glorified person at the destruction of Jerusalem. Here He warns His disciples not to be deceived by the bold claimants who arose in those times, or may arise in any other age. Here you see plainly the possibility of deceiving even the elect. Consequently Jesus gives the elect this timely warning to watch and pray, and diligently heed His plain words, which will prove an ample fortification against delusion. “Therefore if they may say to you, Behold, He is in the desert; go not out. Behold, He is in the secret chambers; believe them not.” As many false Christs arose in the Jewish times, so they will in the Gentile times.

“For as the lightning comes from the east, and shines even unto the west, so shall be the coming of the Son of man.” This is a perfect fortification against all the delusions of impostors, which would prove our ruin. Now, you see plainly that you need not heed anybody who says, “He has come; He is in New York, or London, or in the wilderness of Judea.” I have met persons who actually told me thus, certifying that He has come in His glory. You see from His own unmistakable statement, that when He comes, we will all know it, because a great light, like sheet lightning, will suddenly sweep athwart the firmament, lighting up every sky with the splendor of His glory, and flashing into every human eye. “Every eye shall behold Him.” (Rev 1:7)

“For where the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” The vulture belongs to the eagle species, and is evidently here referred to as always voraciously feeding upon carrion. At that time the Jewish State- Church had reached such a culmination of political and ecclesiastical corruption that she was already odorizing the elements, and attracting the vultures from afar. Within forty years those revolutionary fires, then rankling in the deep interior of her putrefying vitals, burst forth into a terrific volcano, disgorging the fiery venom of internal corruption, and transforming into an awful whirlpool, swallowing up her time-honored institutions into the oblivion of an eternal night, and actually annihilating the Jewish polity forever. This awful catastrophe, which overtook and obliterated the Jewish politico-ecclesiasticism, is but the brilliant scintillation of the oncoming conflagration destined to over take the Gentile world.

These eagles emblematize the destroying angels, who shall accompany the Ancient of Days when He shall descend from heaven on the throne of righteous, retributive judgment, sweeping from the earth every rival of His Son. (Dan 7:9-14.)

“Thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him.” (Dan 7:10)

It does not take a philosopher to see the patent and indisputable fact that Church and State are rapidly deteriorating. This means something tremendously significant. The accumulation of diseases in a physical body can only end in dissolution. Why should men cry, “Peace, peace,”, when there is no peace? You see political and ecclesiastical corruption increasing on all sides. This is one of the most indubitable omens of the rapidly- approaching end of the Gentile age. We see it in America, to our unutterable sorrow; while in the Old World it is actually inconceivably worse. Every tendency has a culmination, when Divine intervention will produce a reaction. The antediluvians became more and more corruption the flood overtook them. This deterioration continued to develop more and more among the Jews, till the old carcass became so stenchy as to attract the Roman eagles to the carrion banquet. All Scripture points to a similar culmination of the present age. Christian men are everywhere becoming heart-sick of the political and ecclesiastical corruption we see everywhere rampant. Olfactories must be very obtuse not to detect the putrefaction already so alarmingly developed in the body, both political and ecclesiastical. Methinks the vultures of the great tribulation are already flapping their pinions, eager to light down upon the carcass and voraciously devour the prey. Even here, in America, the best country in the world, candid men are everywhere bewailing the political corruption, and recognizing the distressing fact that office and emolument are sought, pre- eminently and recklessly, at the sacrifice of truth, honor, and right.

“Immediately after the desolation of those days, the sun shall be darkened, the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from the firmament, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.” (Isa 13:9-10, and Joe 3:15)

These allusions to the heavenly bodies are very common among the prophets, the sun symbolizing the kings, the moon the queens, and the stars the subordinate rulers. Heaven frequently means the firmament enveloping the globe. The powers of the heavens — i.e., firmaments — indicate the secular powers, ruling the nations of. the earth. Our Savior here prominently quotes Daniel, who says, “I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit.” (Dan 7:9)

Luk 21:25-26 . “There shall be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; commotion of the nations upon the earth in their bewilderment; the sea and the wave roaring; the souls of men failing them, on account of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the world.” In connection with the universal commotions and disturbances of the nations, kings tottering upon their thrones, princes falling from the dizzy heights to which political ambition has climbed, and ecclesiastical rulers appalled with revolution and dismay, Luke here also speaks of strange and extraordinary phenomena of the sea, operating to the augmentation of the universal discomfiture and dissolution, evidently involving the conclusion that oceanic inundations, rolling waves of tremendous and unprecedented altitude over the maritime cities, will doubtless destroy millions. You must remember that these prophecies are parallel with John’s Armageddon. (Revelation 16-19)

Mat 24:30-31. “Then shall the sign of the Son of man appear in the sky.” We must not confound this sign with the Lord Himself, as it is entirely different and distinct. What it is, is not revealed. When He came the first time, He was preceded by the star in the East, seen by the wise men. Analogy certainly favors the conclusion that this sign will be something after the order of that star. As His second coming will be infinitely more demonstrative than the first, doubtless this sign, though of the stellar type, will be like a great comet, sweeping through the sky and leaving its train girdling the globe; lighting up the world, and attracting the gaze of earth’s panic-stricken millions. This sign is evidently identical with the “lightning coming from the east, and shining even unto the west.” (Mat 24:27.) While the sign will precede the personal appearance of our Lord, we know there will be no interval between them, the premonitory sign lingering in the firmament till the glorious King, descending on a white cloud, shall actually again enter the realm of vision, where “every eye shall behold Him.” (Rev 1:7) “Then shall all the tribes of the earth wail, and see the Son of man coming in the clouds of the firmament, with power and great glory.” Having waited through all the long, rolling ages for the “tribes of the earth” to get ready to meet Him with a joyous shout, riding; down on a snowy-white cloud as He went up (Act 1:11), now the centuries have flown, and the appointment of the Father has arrived. The Son in His glory returns, and all the tribes of the earth weep and wail when they see Him. Does this look like the millennium is coming before our Lord comes and brings it? If the millennium were girdling the globe with the glory of God, all the tribes of the earth would run to meet Him with a shout. This is positive proof that the world will get worse to the end, as you see here there will not be so much as a righteous tribe in all the earth, because they shall all see Him, and “wail at Him.”

“And He will send forth His angels with the great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from the extremities of the firmaments unto the extremities of the same.” Here you all see the rapture of the saints. Rapture means taking up. The word is here clear and specific — the angels will gather up the elect from every land and clime, from Abel down to the living generation. You. see here all the tribes of the earth will be awfully disappointed, affrighted, and panic-stricken when the Lord appears. But not so with the elect. O what an exultant hour that will be, when the resurrection angels meet the elect, and embrace them in their pinions of light and arms of love! Reader, be sure that you settle this matter without further delay. If a light should flash round the world, and our glorified Savior descend into view, what would you do? Would you join the wailing of all the tribes of the earth, or join the shout of God’s elect? How can I know that I am one of the elect? There is only one way; of election, and that is through “sanctification of the Spirit.” (1Pe 1:2) The Holy Spirit always witnesses to His work in the heart. If sin is dead in you, rest assured, you have already found it out. A dead man never kicks nor strikes back. Plug him full of bullets; and he does not feel them. Entire sanctification is the most knowable of all experiences. It always tells its own story. I tremble for the preacher who opposes our preaching on the coming of the Lord. I am afraid he is not ready, and consequently disquieted by such preaching. To melt is the most inspiring theme. I am looking for Him constantly. “Then are you not disappointed while He tarrieth?” That could not be, since my will is lost in His will. Consequently there is no disappointment.

Luk 21:28. “These things beginning to take placer straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draweth nigh.” Here our Savior represents the widowed Church bowed clown with sorrow during her bereavement, and terribly persecuted by the devil, and all of this time longing, waiting, and watching for the return of her Heavenly Consort. Now: that He actually comes, He rings the shout round the world, “Straighten up your curved back, and lift high your head, for I am here!” Now lie assures us that our redemption is nigh. Do you not know that redemption means the transfiguration of soul and body, even our translation to heaven? O what a glory! What an inconceivable sunburst upon the saints of all ages will the return of our glorified Savior bring to earth l This redemption includes, not only the transfiguration and translation of the living saints, but the glorious resurrection of the dead. Thus the whole body of the Lord’s elect who have trodden the globe from the days of Eden — soul and body — are glorified, the dead raised, and the living translated, and all gloriously transfigured into the similitude of His own glorious body. (Php 3:20) Be sure you take the safe side, and get to where, instead of weeping and wailing, you will meet the Lord with a shout.

Mat 24:32-35. “Learn the parable from the fig-tree: When her branch may be tender, and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is nigh. Thus when you may see all these things, know that it is even at the door.” While no one knows the day of His coming, we must all be very stupid if we do not recognize the “time of the end.” Daniel Says that at the “time of the end,” the book of this latter-day prophecy shall be opened, and “many will run to and fro,” telling its wonderful contents and shouting to the people, “The Lord is nigh!” You see from the parable of the fig-tree that we can know, beyond the possibility of doubt, the time of the end, as every one call tell by the fig-tree that the summer is nigh. Satan’s reign of six thousand years has been a long, dreary night. Praise the Lord, the millennial day is breaking! The morning-star now hails the approaching Sun of righteousness. Uniformly in the Scriptures the Jewish people are represented by a fig-tree, as. in the parable here alluded to. The awful blight came on them when they rejected their Christ, and O how they withered from the face of the earth! Fifteen years ago there were not more than ten thousand Jews in all Palestine. When. I was there last November and December, I was informed by the most knowing people of that country that there are now two hundred thousand-fifty-five thousand in Jerusalem alone, more than all who returned under Nehemiah out of, Babylonian captivity. O how they are making that land to flourish, and the delicious fruits of Canaan to abound wherever they get, it into hand!

“Truly I say unto you, that. This race can not pass away until all things may be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words can not pass away.” The E. V. translation, “This generation shall not, pass,” has puzzled many. Genea, means “race” as well as “generation,” while the verb is in the subjective mode. So you see, with the above translation, the difficulties all get away. As to the firmament and the earth passings away, of course they will in their present form, this being no conflict with the prophetic revelation of the new, heaven (firmament) and new earth. (Revelation 21) The Roman armies did their best to exterminate the Jews. All nations have conspired in the persecution of Abraham’s children. They have endured all conceivable outlawry, disfranchisement, and oppression, scathed and peeled by all the nations of Europe. Yet they are a separate and distinct race of people, numbering seventy millions while all their contemporaries of bygone ages have faded from the face of the earth, and the mighty nations of olden times, who used to meet them on the battle-field, long ago sunk into oblivion. The Jews in every age have been the most industrious, enterprising, and aggressive people in all the world. Robbed of their country, no land beneath the skies on which to rest their weary feet, practical tramps in the earth, they have outstripped all nations in the accumulation of wealth, becoming the richest people in the world, holding the purse of the nations, and ruling their kings by their money power; standing at the front of the learned professions, climbing to the acme of the world’s learning, and leading all the greatest universities of the globe. The Hand of the Almighty is on them. The elect of Israel is among them, and O how wonderfully they are now getting ready for the metropolitanship of the globe during the glorious Millennial Theocracy, When they shall again, as in bygone ages, stand at the front Of the world l How wonderful are the signs of His coming among His own consanguinity! Surely the fig-tree has again begun to revive, and the summer is nigh. Not only among the Jews, but among Moslems, Romanists, and Protestants, the signs of His coming are exceedingly rife.

Mar 13:32. “But concerning that day or hour no one knows; neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, except the Father.” “The periods and epochs hath the Father retained in His own authority.” (Act 1:7) While Jesus saw the entire panorama of the world moving before Him, the time of His coming had not then been revealed to Him by the Father, as it was not necessary, being then a long way off. There is no doubt but Jesus has long known the very time of His glorious coming, it having been revealed to Him since His ascension. You see from this Scripture that all appointments of the time are fanaticism, because neither man nor angel knows it. Yet we should not run into fanaticism on the other horn of the dilemma, and lose our appreciation of the wonderful and glorious latter-day prophecies, which are so helpful to our experiences and so conducive to a tiptoe anticipation of His coming, which is so eminently qualified to make us unworldly, spiritual, heavenly-minded, faithful, and obedient, looking well to our attitude before God, and every moment solving the problem, “Am I ready to meet King Jesus, coming in a cloud?”

Mat 24:37-41. “But as the days of Noah, so shall 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, until the day Noah entered into the ark, and they knew not until the flood came and took them all; so shall be the coming of the Son of man.” Only one family was taken up from the earth, fortunate to escape the devouring deluge. Does this look like the world is getting better? You see from this that comparatively few of the world’s population at the time of the Lord’s coming will go up in the cloud, along with the glorious Antitype of Noah’s Ark. The Church (not the sects) is getting better; but the world is like a diseased man, who gets worse till he dies, thus becoming a carcass for the vultures to eat. We are called pessimists by the progressionists, who call themselves optimists. They misrepresent us. A pessimist is one who believes things are getting worse, while the optimist claims that they are getting better. I am both — an optimist on grace, believing that the true saints are getting better and multiplying in the earth; but that the world, like the devil, its god (2Co 4:4), is getting worse, as all finitudes are progressive. While the World is fast moving down to hell, the saints, with joyful expedition; are going up to heaven. Never in all the ages did the people of God enjoy so much light on the Bible, and study it so generally and exhaustively as now. While Noah, a hundred and twenty years, pleaded with the antediluvians to get ready for the coming flood, they treated him with contempt. O what a striking verification do we see in the heedless disregard of this wicked world, with its anti-holiness Churches, and the contempt east upon the Lord’s coming and upon that “holiness without which no man shall see Him,” except to weep and wail!

“Then shall two men be in the field; one is taken, and one is left. Two women grinding at the mill; one is taken, and one is left.” Here we have specifications of the rapture again. In this wonderful sermon, which our Savior preached to His disciples on Mount Olivet in the afternoon of the day preceding His arrest by His enemies, we have three distinct judgments: That of the Jews, from which, pursuant to His instructions, the disciples were taken, flying away to the mountains, making their escape to Pella, beyond the Jordan, and surviving to preach the gospel to the world. Then we have the pre-millennial judgment, from which, as you here see, the Lord will take away the elect. (V. 31.) How natural and simple our Savior’s description of the rapture when He comes! Two men, working out on the farm, a saint and a sinner — the former is translated, like Enoch and Elijah; and the latter is left to take chances in the tribulation. Two women are grinding with the little hand-mill in the house, so common in that country

— one is suddenly invested with the transfiguration body and translated, flying up to join the mighty host of saints and angels descending with Him in that majestic cloud, broad as the firmament, and bright as the pure, white light. You will see before we wind up this sermon that the final judgment takes all, leaving none on the earth.

Mar 13:33. “Behold, watch and pray; for you know not when the time is. As a man going away, leaving his house, and giving authority to his servants, and to each one his work, commanded the porter that he must watch.” The porter is the doorkeeper of the Church; i.e., the pastor, evangelist, and Christian worker, who gathers the lost souls from Satan’s kingdom and leads them to Jesus, who is the Door, and thus escorts them into the kingdom of God. Jesus commands this porter to be on the constant outlook for His return.

“Watch therefore: for you know not when the lord of the house cometh, late [i.e., during the large hours; nine to twelve], or at midnight, or at the cock crowing, or in the morning.” Here our Lord specifies all the time we are likely to sleep, putting us on our guard to be on the constant outlook. David says, “I sleep, but my heart waketh.” So, while the body is wrapped in ambrosial slumber, the soul should be on perpetual outlook for the Lord to come.

“Lest having come suddenly, He may find you: sleeping. But what I say to you, I say to all, Watch,” How dares any one speak or write a word calculated to make people unwatchful for the Lord’s sudden coming? The post-millennialist believes that a thousand years’ millennium has to come in before the appearing of the Lord. Consequently he can not be on the: lookout for Him to come now. Any doctrine or theory which is out of harmony with God’s plain Word is false., He believed: that the millennium had to come and abide a thousand years before the coming of the Lord, I could not look for Him now. I am glad I do not believe that, nor anything else which disqualifies me to obey the positive commandments of Jesus, as I know that everything antagonistical to His plain Word is untrue. I am glad I have no creed to sustain. If the creeds are true, they do not need my poor help; if untrue, they do not deserve it. I have no theory to sustain; and if I had any, I would throw it away, being more than satisfied with the simple Word of the Lord. If you can not get up and preach in such a way as to encourage the people, and exhort them to be on the constant outlook for Jesus to come in His glory with the mighty angels, and take away the elect, you are out of harmony with His plain and unmistakable. Word. Your poor little theories, notions, and creeds will not be mentioned at the judgment- bar, unless to condemn you; but you will be judged by this Word just as it is. It is bad enough for the worldly Churches to preach human creeds and antagonize the Word of God; but holiness people forfeit their shibboleth if they do not take the Bible, all of it, and believe and preach it, fearless of men and devils. If the holiness movement is not on this line, she has forfeited her birthright, and is ready for a decent interment. I am glad that God has a grand army, now girdling the globe, who believe and preach everything written in the blessed Book, and are not going to be intimidated by ecclesiastical autocrats and critics.

Luk 21:34-36. “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts may be burdened with gluttony, and drunkenness, and worldly cares, and that day may come upon you unexpected.” O what valuable and timely admonition! While we have about a hundred thousand drunkards. every year going down to the drunkard’s hell, do you know that we Americans are a nation of gluttons, bringing on a thousand diseases by sheer gormandizing, even holiness preachers paying fifty cents a meal instead of one dime, which would get them all a king could want, while the people of India are starving to death in piles? Will not the holiness people wake up, and give the world an example of temperance, appertaining to eating as well as drinking, teaching them that hygienic living, so indispensable to health and temporal prosperity, and at the same time so conducive to intellectual culture, is harmonious with spiritual illumination and well pleasing in the sight of God? Gluttony, like drunkenness, stupefies the mind, and degrades and brutalizes the body. Do you not know we would be much brighter intellectualists and more efficient preachers if we would live hygienically, and take fasting along with prayer? These brutalizing habits are awfully antagonistic to spirituality; and O, how incompatible with the translation for which we should all be living when the Lord comes I Can we not go along and do our work unencumbered. with. worldly cares, content with food and raiment and constantly looking for the Lord? To say that this is not our appropriate attitude is to reject the plain word of Jesus.

“For as a lasso it will come upon all those sitting down on the face of the whole earth.” Just as the robber, from his hidden retreat, throws the lasso high in the air, dropping it round the body of the unsuspecting traveler, the other end attached to a fleet horse, dashing away and dragging him into the bushes, where, now dead and unconscious, he is robbed, so Jesus says the day of His coming will light on “all the people who are sitting down upon the face of the earth;” not as E. V., conveying the idea that there are no exceptions. Jesus says it will so come on all those who are “sitting down,” thus indicating the attitude of carelessness and unexpectancy; while the elect are watching, not “sitting down,” but Standing on tiptoe, stretching their eyes to catch the first glimpse of the coming glory.

“Watch therefore, praying all the time, in order that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things about to take place, and to stand before the Son of man.” He has already spoken of the terrible troubles, such as the world never saw, even more terrific than Noah’s flood. You see how the angels will gather up the elect. So the matter is lucid and clear. We are to be constantly watching and praying all the time, that we may be found worthy to be translated, like the man taken from the field and the woman from the mill, to meet the Lord in the air. (1Th 4:17)

Mat 24:42-51. “Watch therefore, because you know. not at what hour your Lord cometh.” This is the climacteric commandment, repeated over and over and more frequently than any other. Good reason! If you are watching every moment for your Lord to appear, you will obey all the other commandments, as this is the grandest of all restraints against sin in thought, word, or deed; and at the same time the most potent inspiration to an unworldly, spiritual, holy life. Beware how you tinker with anything calculated to render you unwatchful for the Lord’s immediate appearing! How sadly has this great and prominent doctrine dropped out of the pulpits long ages ago, thus fearfully expediting the alarming worldliness that has been in the Church since the Constantinean apostasy fifteen hundred years ago l It is the glory of the present holiness movement to revive this precious truth, so thrillingly emphasized by the Savior and every New Testament writer, and again bring it to the front, where it stood the first three hundred years of the Christian era. Let no one say that we depreciate entire sanctification. By preaching the coming of the Lord we magnify holiness, which is the only qualification to meet Him.

“Know this, that if the landlord had known at what watch the thief cometh, he would have watched, and not suffered his house to be broken into.”

Here you see our Savior pronounces an awful woe on the unwatchful man. He is the Thief, coming to this wicked world to steal away His bride. The thief comes at midnight, while all are asleep. The bride, who knows her, Lover is coming for her, does not sleep, but keeps awake, watching for Him. I want to be stolen away from this lost world when the Thief cometh.

“Therefore be ye ready, because ye know not the hour the Son of man cometh.” The qualification is entire sanctification, election “through the sanctification of the Spirit,” clearly and abundantly attested by the Holy Ghost. Grace is free, and there is no reason why we should not all be ready. O the awful peril of unreadiness!

“Who then is that faithful and wise servant, whom the Lord placed over His household, to give them their food in season? Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord, having come, shall find so doing. Truly I say unto you, that He will appoint him over all his possessions.” This servant is the preacher, leader, worker, to whom the Lord has committed souls. Now, what is the food which this servant is to give the members of the Lord’s house? It is all the Word of God, faithfully preached, lived, and exemplified. The grand sum and substance are a holy experience, life, and character — constant readiness to meet the Lord; and auxiliary to this, constant outlook for His appearing. Terrible will be the responsibility of the delinquent leader. On the contrary, whom the Lord finds faithful at his post, his people well sanctified, robed, and ready, and looking for the Lord: to come, He is going to confer on him incalculable: honor and glory in the coming kingdom; but not to be viewed from a carnal standpoint, as in the Lord’s kingdom the more you have, the more is left for all the balance; e.g., the loaves and fishes.

“But if the wicked servant may say in his heart, My Lord delayeth coming, and may begin to smite his fellow-servants, and; eat and drink with the drunken.” Here is a pastor in charge who rigidly enforces ecclesiastical law, laying heavy burdens on his people — as Peter says, “Domineering over the heritages;” living luxuriantly; his family moving in the flirtations of worldly dress-parade; persecuting the holiness people; his doors closed against every man who preaches holiness and the Lord’s coming. “The Lord of that servant will come in a day in which he does not expect, and in an hour in which he does not know, and will cut him off, and will appoint his portion with the hypocrites; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This man holds his pastoral charge, recognized by his Church and the world as a godly minister of file gospel, till the Lord comes, lifts the mask, and reveals his true character. Then He cuts him off — i. e., takes him out of his position — and appoints him his destiny with. the hypocrites, where he belongs. “Hypocrite” is a Greek word, meaning the actor in a drama, performing his part on the theatrical stage. So this man has been playing preacher all his life, pursuing the ministerial calling as a worldly man would prosecute a laudable employment, for a living. If you do not think we have multitudes of preachers on this line, get on your knees and ask God about it.! tell you their name is legion, who would not preach if their salary was taken away, thus in this simple way revealing their real character. You see this man is cast into the bottomless pit, amid “weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.” Good Lord, help us all to wake up to these momentous realities! I trow, the preacher’s hell is most horrific of all. I have been preaching in my humble way forty and six years. I would certainly rather risk the hell of the gambler or the robber than that of the preacher. How awful for the people, deluded and eternally ruined by his ministry, to meet him in the regions of the damned, gnash on him with their teeth, and help the devils to lash him with firebrands forever! God have mercy on the preacher who fights holiness and the Lord’s coming! O how he needs a mourners-bench!

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CXIII. Destruction of Jerusalem].

CXIII. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM FORETOLD. aMATT. XXIV. 1-28; bMARK XIII. 1-23; cLUKE XXI. 5-24.

a1 And Jesus went out from the temple [leaving it to return no more], and was going on his way; and his disciples came to him bas he went forth ato show him the buildings of the temple. bone of his disciples saith unto him, Teacher, behold, what manner of stones and what manner of buildings! c5 And as some spake of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and offerings, he said [The strength and wealth of the temple roused the admiration of the Galilæans. The great stones in its fortifications promised safety from its enemies, and the goodly offerings bespoke the zeal of its friends. According to Josephus, some of the stones were nearly seventy feet in length, twelve feet in height, and eighteen feet in breadth. The same historian tells us of the gifts or offerings which adorned it: crowns, shields, goblets, chain of gold present by Agrippa, and a golden vine with its vast clusters which was the gift of Herod. The temple was built of [619] white limestone, and its beauty and strength made it admired of all nations. It took forty-six years to finish, and ten thousand skilled workmen are said to have been employed in its construction.] { a2 But bJesus aanswered and said unto them, bhim, Seest thou these great buildings? aSee ye not all these things? c6 As for these things which ye behold, averily I say unto you, cthe days will come, in which there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that bwhich shall not be thrown down. [In the very hour when the disciples exulted in the apparent permanency of their glorious temple, Jesus startled them by foretelling its utter destruction, which, within forty years, was fulfilled to the letter. The emperor Vespasian, and his son Titus, after a three years' siege, took Jerusalem and destroyed its temple, A. D. 70. Of the temple proper not a vestige was left standing, but the vast platform upon which it stood, composed partly of natural rock and partly of immense masonry, was for the most part left standing. The destruction of the city and temple, however, was so complete that those who visited it could hardly believe that it had ever been inhabited--Jos. Wars vii. 1.] 3 And as he sat on the mount of Olives, over against the temple [he was in the middle portion of the mountain, for that is the part which is opposite the temple], athe disciples bPeter and James and John and Andrew [on this occasion Andrew was in company with the chosen three when they were honored by a special revelation, but is put last as being the least conspicuous of the four] acame unto him privately, basked him privately, asaying, cTeacher, b4 Tell us, when ctherefore shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when these things are about to come to pass? bto be accomplished? aand what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? [Dismayed by the brief words which Jesus had spoken as he was leaving the temple, these four disciples asked for fuller details. Their question is fourfold. 1. When shall the temple be destroyed? 2. What shall be the signs which precede its destruction? 3. [620] What shall be the sign of Christ's coming? 4. What shall be the sign of the end of the world? Jesus had said nothing of his coming nor of the end of the world; but to these four disciples the destruction of the temple seemed an event of such magnitude that they could not but associate it with the end of all things. Jesus deals with the first two questions in this section, and with the two remaining questions in Act_4:3, Act_5:18, Act_5:40, Act_7:59, Act_8:3, Act_12:1, Act_12:2, Act_14:19, Act_16:19-24, Act_22:30, Act_24:1, Act_25:2, Act_25:3. Peter, James the elder and James the younger, and Paul, and doubtless many more of the apostles suffered martyrdom before the destruction of the temple. Tacitus bears testimony to the hatred and blind bigotry of the age when he speaks of Christians as "a class of men hated on account of their crimes" (Annals, xv. 44). See also Suetonius on Nero 16, and Pliny (Ep. x. 97). For comments on a similar passage see Col_1:23). Of course the language of both Jesus and Paul must be understood with reference to the geography of the earth as then known. Paul's declaration was written about the year A. D. 63, or seven years before the destruction of Jerusalem. His meaning is not that every creature had actually heard the gospel, but that each had been given an opportunity to hear because the gospel had been so universally preached.] 11 And when they lead you i to judgment, and deliver you up, be not anxious beforehand what ye shall speak: c14 Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate beforehand how to answer: 15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to withstand or to gainsay. bbut whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye; for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Spirit. [See 2Co_11:13-15, Gal_2:1-4, 1Ti_1:3-7, 1Ti_1:19, 1Ti_1:20, 2Ti_3:8, 2Ti_3:9; Tit_1:10, Tit_1:11, 2Pe_2:1-3, Jud_1:4, Jud_1:8, Jud_1:10, Jud_1:12, Jud_1:16, Jud_1:19.] 12 And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax cold. [The prevalence of sin tempts and encourages the feeble to commit it.] c16 But ye shall be delivered up even by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolk, and friends; b12 And brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father his child; and children shall rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death. cand some of you shall they cause to be put to death. [Hatred against Christianity would prove stronger than all family ties.] 17 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. [See Dan_4:11], standing in the holy place bwhere he ought not [for comment, see end of the paragraph, Deu_28:49-57, Dan_9:26, Dan_9:27, Dan_12:1, Dan_12:11, Joe_2:2.] b17 But woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days! [because their condition would impede their flight] cfor there shall be great distress upon the land, and wrath unto this people. [The city of Jerusalem was divinely sentenced to punishment for her sins.] 24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led captive into all the nations [According to Josephus, one million one hundred thousand perished during the siege, and ninety-seven thousand were taken captive. Of these latter, many were tortured and slain, being crucified, as he tell us, till "room was wanted for the crosses, and crosses wanted for the bodies"]: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. [By comparing this passage with Rom_11:1-36., we find that the times of the Gentiles signify that period wherein the church is made up of Gentiles to the almost exclusion of the Jews. The same chapter shows that this period is to be followed by one wherein the Jew and the Gentile unite together in proclaiming the gospel. This prophecy, therefore, declares that until this union of the Jew and the Gentile takes place, the city of Jerusalem shall not only be controlled by the Gentiles, [625] but shall be trodden under foot--i. e., oppressed--by them. The history of Jerusalem, to this day, is a striking fulfillment of this prophecy.] b18 And pray ye that it ayour flight bbe not in the winter. [Because the flight will be so precipitate that it would necessitate much exposure to the weather, sleeping under the open heaven, etc.] aneither on a sabbath [Jewish tradition limited travel on the Sabbath day to a distance of seven furlongs. The early training of many Christians led them to have scruples about breaking the Sabbath. It is possible that Jesus had these scruples in view, but by no means conclusive, for in fleeing they would need the support and friendship of their Jewish brethren, who would be apt, not only to hinder, but even in those troublous and turbulent days, to show violence to any who openly disregarded the Sabbath. For it must be remembered that the Jews, not being guided by the admonitions of Christ, would regard the sudden flight of the Christians as unnecessarily hasty]: 21 for then { bthose days ashall be great tribulation, bsuch as there hath not been the like from the beginning of the creation athe world bwhich God created until now, and never, ano, nor ever shall be. [These words spoken before the event are strikingly verified by the statements of Josephus written after it. "No other city," says he, "ever suffered miseries, nor did any age, from the beginning of the world, ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness that this was." And again: "If the miseries of all mankind from the creation were compared with those which the Jews then suffered, they would appear inferior." The promise that there shall be no days like it of course excludes the terrors and miseries of the judgment day, since it belongs to celestial rather than terrestrial history. Having now the whole paragraph before us, we are ready to discuss the phrase "abomination of desolation" mentioned in Matt. xxiv. 15 ( Luk_21:20, Luk_21:21) forbids us to make the flight from Judæa subsequent to the flight from Jerusalem, for both flights were to begin when the Romans appeared. Again it should be noted that the phrase "the holy place" is apt to mislead, especially when coupled with Mark's "where it ought not." The words when seen in English cause us to think of some person or thing polluting the sanctuary of the temple by standing in its holy place. But it is evident that the words do not refer to the temple at all. When the New Testament speaks of the holy place in the temple it styles it en too hagioo (in the holy), while the words here are en topoo hagioo (in a place holy). Moreover, after a careful perusal of the LXX. we are persuaded that they used the two terms to distinguish between the holy place in the sanctuary and other holy places, a distinction which the Revised Version recognizes ( Lev_6:16, Lev_6:26, Lev_6:27, etc.). As none but priests could enter [627] the holy place, it is evident that another is meant at Psa_24:3; but in this place the Septuagint gives us en topoo hagioo. We, therefore, conclude that in this place Matthew uses the term "holy place" to designate the holy territory round about the Holy City, and that the combined expression of Matthew and Mark signifies the investiture of the city by the Roman armies and is equivalent to the plainer statement made by Luke. The Roman armies were fittingly called the abomination of desolation, because, being heathen armies, they were an abomination to the Jews, and because they brought desolation upon the country. The sight of them, therefore, became the appointed sign for Christians to quit the city.] 22 And except those days had been shortened, b20 And except the Lord had shortened the days, no flesh would have been saved [since the Lord is speaking to the Jews, this means that if God had not shortened the siege and restrained the Romans, they would have exterminated the Jewish race]; but for the elect's sake, whom he chose, he shortened the days. athose days shall be shortened. [since the term "elect" in Mat_24:24, Mat_24:31 evidently means Christians, it doubtless means that here, though it may mean that God spared a remnant of the Jewish people because he had covenanted with the patriarchs that they should be his chosen people, for the Jews are also God's elect ( Rom_11:28, Rom_11:29). Moreover, it should be noted that there were few, if any, Christians remaining in the city, and that those who were spared were spared as Jews without discrimination.] b21 And then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is the Christ; aor, Here; bor, Lo, there; believe it not: 22 for there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show agreat signs and wonders; so as to bthat they may lead astray, if possible, aeven the elect. [For accounts of these lying prophets who appeared before and during the siege, see Josephus, Wars iv., v., vi. Christ warns his followers: 1. Not to be deceived by spurious Christs. 2. Not to believe that he himself has again appeared. This latter warning is further enforced by what follows.] b23 But take [628] ye heed: behold, I have told you all things beforehand. a26 If therefore they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the wilderness; go not forth: Behold, he is in the inner chambers; believe it not. 27 For as the lightning cometh forth from the east, and is seen even unto the west; so shall be the coming of the Son of man. [The coming of Christ would be an event needing no herald; every man would see it for himself. See p. 531.] 28 Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together. [See pp. 533, 534.]

[FFG 619-629]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Subdivision 1. (Mat 24:1-44.)

Christ’s coming in relation to the elect people (Israel).

It is of first importance then to realize that, in all this first part of the prophecy, it is Israel, or a company of Israelitish disciples, with which we have to do. The twelve were as yet fully that, although the Church or assembly had been spoken of to them. But the foremost among them, and to whom the Lord had especially addressed Himself, needed, as we know, long afterward, to have a special vision to make him go to a Gentile, and the question in which they all unite when with the Saviour after His resurrection; and in the fulness of hope induced by it, is yet, "Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel?" Certainly then, of the Church, as Paul spoke of it, they could have as yet no conception; of what we call commonly the Christian dispensation they could have had no expectation; if we are reminded of the parables of the thirteenth chapter, what they had gathered from them we know not; but we know that they had not realized as yet the truth of the Lord’s death and resurrection which He had in the plainest way and at various times declared, and yet these were fundamental to all the rest.

It is not meant by this to limit what He might now declare, for to suppose this would be in contradiction to what has been already said. He spoke of much that would only open up as they went on, and which even the gift of the Spirit did not at once make plain. This the book of Acts fully shows, with much else. It does not therefore limit the Lord’s communications, although we know that there were things of which He could not as yet even speak; but we shall shortly find that it does affect important points in what is now before us, as for instance in regard to that coming of the Lord and that "consummation of the age," of which they question Him.

It is plain, then, that they were Jews not only in fact but in spirit, these disciples of the Lord. The questions they ask must be apprehended from this point of view, and no other; and this will help us to understand the parabolic way in which (even to them) the Christian portion of His answer is introduced. I do not forget that its being Christian even has on the other side been denied by some for whom the Jewish character of much has overshadowed the rest. All this shows how little we can afford to take anything for granted here, and the care with which we must examine things which for the mass of readers even may be undoubted.

1.(1) Let us now take up the question of the disciples which the Lord answers in the chapter before us. He has left finally the temple, as no longer the Father’s house. Israel had made it but a robbers, den; and that not merely the traffickers whom He had so easily driven out, but much more the people as a whole, who had refused not only the messengers from time to time sent to them by God, but now the Son of His love, the Witness not of His righteousness alone but of His grace. The vineyard should be their own; and for that they were ready to kill the Heir of it. He could only therefore leave them to their choice, though with His heart wrung at the thought of all that this meant of necessity for them.

But His disciples are held by other and very different thoughts. Herod’s magnificent temple, not even yet complete, though now nearly fifty years building, and growing thus continually under their eyes, the glory of Israel, spite of the murderous hands that built it - the temple drew them yet. "What manner of stones and what buildings are here!" they urge, as if in intercession for that house which He was leaving desolate. But He answers at once, "See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down." For Herod’s temple as such there can be no regret, with one who looks on more than the outside.

But it seems to linger yet in their hearts; and on the Mount of Olives, as He sits with the city over against Him, they come to Him to ask when these things shall be; and they add two other questions which in their minds were no doubt practically one, - "what shall be the sign of Thy coming and of the consummation of the age?*"

{*It is not kosmos here, the physical world, but aion, "age," a marked off period of time.}

The "age," in their thoughts, as already said, could not be any Christian age of which they had no idea; it was the age in which they lived, and which was for the Jew the age of law. There would follow it the "days of Messiah," and the coming of Messiah would bring them in. There was no interval thought of as taking place between the two, and certainly for the disciples here, no considerable time to elapse before He would return to Jerusalem, and take the Kingdom now denied Him. That time the Lord shows them to be longer than they imagined, though still leaving it largely indefinite, and certainly not interposing a Christian or Gentile age between that present one and His coming to set up the Kingdom, rather making it a protraction of the Jewish "age" itself. Th gospel of the Kingdom is indeed to be preached in all the earth for a witness, and "then shall the end come" - the end of that age about which they had inquired. There is no hint as yet of any Christian one.

It was this, doubtless, which helped to confuse the old interpreters. They could see that there was no sign of Christian times before it, and that the end of which the Lord speaks, with the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place had to do with Israel - "them that were in Judea." They naturally connected this with the question; "when shall these things" - the destruction of the temple and what was connected with it - "be?" There seemed indeed no other answer to it than this. Consequently the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus was intended to be pictured - Daniel certainly had spoken of this (Dan 9:26); but as a consequence also the coming of the Son of man immediately following must be providential merely. Thus the interpretation was complete.

A reference to the same prophecy as given by Luke (Luk 21:1-38) would seem to confirm this: for here certainly Jerusalem is spoken of as compassed with armies, the Jews led captive and dispersed among the nations, and Jerusalem trodden down of the Gentiles till the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled. No one questions, or could question, that here is its sack by Titus; and here is the same warning to flee to the mountains, as given in Matthew. The interpretation seems thus fully confirmed.

For the disciples indeed such a coming of the Son of man could in no wise be what they expected or desired. It was no restoration of the Kingdom to Israel; nothing, indeed, but vengeance upon her; no fulfilment of hopes, such as the Old Testament prophets had inspired, of that blessing for the earth even; which was in them always connected with the restoration and exaltation of Israel. Rather would it be the complete setting aside of this. The coming of the Son of man also in Daniel is always to receive a Kingdom, displacing all the kingdoms of the world; and that, not by a slow, leavening process, which would be transformation instead of displacement, but by a sudden blow as of a stone falling from heaven upon the feet of the world-colossus, overthrowing and shattering it as in a moment. How great the contrast between the Son of man shattering the Gentile powers and bringing Israel into blessing and supremacy, and the appearing of the Son of man here to put Jerusalem under the iron heel of the Gentiles!

Yet the Son of man appearing in the clouds of heaven seems in manifest connection with Daniel (Dan 7:13-14), as the abomination of desolation is in our Lord’s reference. Moreover, this coming itself, in the clouds of heaven; and with the angels, reads little like a mere providential judgment. Instead of its being to destroy Jerusalem, it is spoken of as coming after it, and separate therefore, from it. Nay, in Luke, where alone the treading down is spoken of, this goes on until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, and then come the signs in the heavens, and soon the Son of man.

In Matthew, when He comes, He sends His angels to "gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other," and this might be thought to refer to the day of judgment, by one holding the common views, but could not in any sense apply to the long past judgment upon Jerusalem. Rather is it, if in connection with Daniel, the exact opposite of Israel’s dispersion completed under Titus; it is the regathering of the elect nation under the "wings" that would so willingly have long since been spread over them. And this connects with the judgment of the Gentile nations, "when the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, and then shall sit upon the throne of His glory." Then shall "all the nations be gathered before Him, and He shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats" (Mat 25:31-32). By no fair inference can this be disconnected from the coming of the Son of man in the earlier part of the same prophecy, to which it self-evidently indeed refers. Nothing but the necessity of an unscriptural theory could have disjoined them from one another.

Thus the coming of the Son of man is most clearly future, a personal coming to set up that kingdom over the earth, for which the disciples rightly looked. But this being established, another result follows, - that the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, as given in Luke, must be distinguished widely from what we find in Matthew. The abomination of desolation standing in the holy place is not even connected with the worship of the Roman standards at the taking of the city over eighteen centuries ago: it is a yet future thing, and in close connection with that coming of the Son of man, of which it is the great and conclusive sign.

To see this clearly we have but to keep together in our minds what the Lord so plainly links together here. The abomination of desolation marks the beginning of a tribulation so severe, that, "except those days should be shortened, no flesh should be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened." It is plain; therefore, that a time so characterized could not stretch over centuries. Scripture has indeed, over and over again; marked the exact length of it; but this we need not now take up: it is evident that it can be but a short time; but then "immediately after the tribulation of those days" come the signs of the Son of man at hand. Thus it must as plainly be yet future, as the destruction of the city in Luke is long past. In Matthew there is no destruction of the city; in Luke no abomination in the holy place: the prophecies are different, although given by the Lord at the same time.

But this gives rise to another question: if that of which Matthew speaks is still in the future, how can it be the end of the Jewish age? Christianity has in fact replaced Judaism for God upon the earth; and, even though Israel has still promises to be fulfilled to her naturally, when the Lord appears, how can there he any recurrence between now and then of any remnant of the Jewish age?

This question can only be answered by turning once more to the Old Testament to which we are referred here - to Daniel: in his prophecy of the seventy weeks, the whole connection of what we have before us is made plain to us.

In the ninth chapter we find Daniel pleading with God for his people Israel, and for the city called by God’s name. God in answer sends the angel Gabriel to acquaint him with His purposes. "Seventy weeks" (of years,) he is told, "are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city to finish transgression and to make an end of sins, and to make atonement for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the holy of holies." This last expression points definitely to national restoration and blessing, and all that is spoken of here has reference to the same thing. At the end of this 490 years their sins are to be brought to an end, everlasting righteousness brought in for them. As with the prophecy in Matthew, the end of this is plainly not reached yet, however long ago the time began; and the end cannot be before the coming of the Son of man; as the Lord in agreement with Daniel, declares here. Up to that time their deliverance is not reached; and Zechariah shows how it will be effected (Zec 14:1-5).

There is again, however, a great difficulty. Four hundred and ninety years from the decree to restore and to build Jerusalem have long run out, - had nearly done so when Christ appeared publicly in Israel, and yet the blessing for them did not come. Nay, that time was some years past, when the Romans, in sharpest contrast with the promise here, destroyed the sanctuary. But all this, let us notice is in the prophecy itself: sixty-nine weeks (483 years) carry us already as far as "Messiah the Prince" (ver. 25), and then He is "cut off and has nothing," as the margin better renders (ver. 26); and after that, "the people of the prince that shall come destroy the city and the sanctuary." So that the prophecy shows us that there would be this seeming contradiction, - Messiah come, but not accomplishing the blessing; cut off, and so having nothing (to us with regard to Israel a thing perfectly plain); and still the prophecy goes on to the "end of the war," as far as which "desolations are determined." Until this therefore the prophecy cannot end.

Accordingly now, just at the close, we hear of the final, seventieth week: "And he shall confirm a [not "the"] covenant with many [properly "the many"] for one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, and because of the wing of abominations there shall be a desolator" - that is the literal rendering - "even until the consummation, and that determined is poured upon the desolate."

Here plainly is the consummation; and the determined time ends. To the very end the trouble lasts; and that we understand. The "wing of abominations" brings a desolator; so that here is an "abomination or desolation." Sacrifice and oblation being made to cease imply that it has to do with the holy place. Nay, there is a touching link just here with what we have had in Matthew; for the wing of abominations brings the desolation: how impossible to forget here the "wing" of which the Lord has spoken, under which Israel had been so often called to find shelter, and which would have so effectually sheltered them!

Put Daniel’s prophecy in this way side by side with what we have in Matthew, and their exact agreement will demonstrate that they are made for one another. We see that the "end of the age" is nothing but this broken-off end of Daniel’s seventy weeks. We can trace also its connection with the destruction of the city in Luke, though this latter does not itself come into the period. There is unity, in fact, throughout.

The answer to the first question of the disciples is more fully given in Luke than in Matthew, as is plain. We have only here in the first and introductory portion of the prophecy the general character of the times, which in some sense would suit the whole period of the Lord’s absence. We find nothing however, in this part, necessarily Christian. This comes in afterwards in the appended parables.

(2) The first words of Christ’s reply are a warning against the coming of false Christs. It has been said that it cannot be shown that there were any false Christs before the destruction of Jerusalem. But if that cannot be shown; neither can the opposite. There were many antichrists, the apostle John assures us. Among the Jews also leaders of various kinds with various pretensions were continually rising up. Nor are the disciples addressed here individually, but as representatives of others also who should succeed them, and that right down to the time of the end, when the greatest false Christ will appear that the world has ever seen; and when death will be the penalty threatened for resisting his pretensions; but of this it does not need to speak here.

(3) Next the Lord warns of wars and rumors of war, things which have been common enough certainly; as have "famines and pestilences and earthquakes in divers places." He gives them, however, a very significant character, as the beginning of travail-pains: as if nature were pressing on to the birth of a new and better time, and could not rest content or quiet with the present evil. Nor is there anything strained in this, however unintelligent may be the thing which manifests thus its sympathy with the purpose of God: "for we know," says the apostle, "that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (Rom 8:22). The mind of God cannot but manifest itself through nature, as well as in the movements and convulsions among the nations of the world; and though the specific lessons may have their difficulty, the general one is not hard to read. It is an unrest everywhere which cries for Him who alone has said - who alone could venture to say - "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." And the cry sounds in His ears, and will find answer.

(4) With all this His people are warned of special trials. The world that crucified their Master will be the same world still. They must look for suffering even to death, the signs of the world’s hatred for His name sake, and which will test the reality and measure of loyalty to Him on their part. Many will be stumbled and betray one another. False prophets will find their own in it and be listened to. And the abounding of lawlessness will have its effects even upon the mass in the decline of love. Let them have courage, however, as forewarned. They have but to have patience, and he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

It is manifest that, looking back over the Christian centuries, such things have characterized them throughout. They will end in an apostasy, out of which there will arise the giant forms of evil which will dominate the earth when the Lord shall have gathered His own out of it to Himself in heaven; and a new work of the Spirit shall begin in Israel, in order that the promises to her may be fulfilled. Those who have discerned the structure of the Apocalypse can be at no loss to discern, after the close of the Church’s history as depicted in the epistles to the Asiatic churches (Rev 2:1-29; Rev 3:1-22), the united company of the redeemed in heaven (Rev 4:1-11), the Lamb now taking the book of the future into His hands, as the Lion of the tribe of Judah; so that Israel nationally comes now upon the scene, as in the sealed ones of the seventh chapter out of all her tribes. And now as soon as the book begins to be opened, the figures that come forth in answer to the cherubic call are again strikingly similar to what we have in the beginning of the great prophecy before us. Under the first seal the symbol is of foreign conquest; then we have civil war; then famine; then pestilence; then there are under the altar the souls of slaughtered saints; then a great earthquake, whether literal or political or both. And then with the seventh seal, the book is fully opened; and those who have skill to read will find the very prophecies of Daniel to which the Lord presently refers us beginning to be fulfilled, and the half-week of unequaled tribulation again and again brought forward in the following chapters (Rev 7:14; Rev 11:2-3; Rev 12:6; Rev 12:14; Rev 13:5).

The closing word of encouragement here also, without denying its applicability to the Lord’s people at any time, cannot but be felt to have special reference to this time of trouble, so severe and yet so brief, and with every day of it numbered. They have but to endure for this brief measured time, and deliverance will come for them. How tender a provision for them this numbering of the very days!

(5) And all through it also the testimony of God will go out to the nations. "This gospel of the Kingdom" will be preached, spite of the distress and opposition, "in all the habitable earth for a witness unto all nations." It would not be like God to allow the end to come without warning, and this is especially the character of the gospel then. It is not just what we have as that now, although the gospel of the Kingdom does go out surely now; but if we look at Rev 14:6-7, which speaks of the same time and thing, we shall find that a special element enters into it then, which with us would be impossible to preach. The angel flying in the midst of heaven; there, has the "everlasting gospel to preach to them that dwell upon the earth, and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people." It is expressly called the "everlasting gospel," that which has always been the gospel. The gospel of the Kingdom, the announcement of the putting down of evil by the power of God, has been sounding out ever since the promise was given of the victory of the woman’s Seed; so that it is truly the everlasting gospel, and yet at the time we are speaking of, one thing is said which never could have been said at any other: it marks the exact time of going forth with the most perfect precision: "Fear God and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come." Then this will have come. The eagles will be gathering to the carcase. Judgment will have returned to righteousness. Instead of the shepherd’s rod being transformed into a serpent, the shepherd’s rod will smite down the serpent.

Thus, though with all our hearts we may thank God for the revival of the missionary spirit and work for the last century, we cannot properly apply to this the preaching of the everlasting gospel as we find it in Revelation. And the passage here also, while it may be better applicable to the present time, has yet, we may be sure, its full and final reference to the same period as that in Revelation. The "end" that then comes is that which will complete entirely the period of the seventy weeks, and so bring in the coming of the Son of man.

2. (1) It results from all that has been said, that that which now follows brings us completely to the end of the age, the determined time of God’s disciplinary dealings with Israel, in order to bring them into their promised blessing under Christ, when He appears. This, if really the subject, at once sets aside the ordinary interpretations, which apply it to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. The reference to Daniel (Dan 9:27; Dan 11:31; Dan 12:11) renders this impossible. The ninth chapter does indeed foretell the destruction by the Romans, but as distinctly separates it from the abomination of desolation; which comes in the middle of the last week of the seventy. It is in the midst of the week that sacrifice and oblation are made to cease, and this is commonly referred to the Cross as putting an end before God to the legal sacrifices. It is true that it did so, but how does this agree with the coming in of blessing at the end of the week, which must be and is allowed to be the end of the seventy? For, take away (as is commonly done) the application to Israel which is so plain in the angel’s words, then the making an end of sins and the bringing in of everlasting righteousness must be itself by the Cross, and the Cross must be at the end of the week, and not in the middle. Count one half week of years, three-and-a-half years, after the Cross, and what can be shown as bringing in everlasting righteousness at such a time? But the passage itself most distinctly states the making sacrifice and oblation to cease to be in the midst of the week and not at the end of it. This is an argument which would seem to pass the ingenuity of man to meet.

The setting aside of sacrifice, then, is not by atonement; and the other passages clearly show this. Take Dan 11:31: "They shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate"; or take the last passage of the three: "And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up." In both cases it is clear that the taking away of sacrifice is for or with the setting up of the abomination. In the ninth chapter it should be clear, therefore, why as soon as the former is spoken of, we hear of the latter: "on account of the wing of abominations [there shall be] a desolator," as it reads literally: idolatrous abominations bring the desolation.

Certain it is that the application of the taking away of sacrifice to the Cross cannot be maintained, and that if it could, that of the abomination to the Roman invader of the first century still would be impossible. The abomination of desolation in Daniel is in the last week of Daniel’s seventy; and this can only end with Israel’s blessing fully come; and that means with the coming of the Son of man. In Matthew it is exactly the same: only a brief period of unequaled tribulation, which Daniel also unmistakably declares (Dan 12:11), intervenes between the abomination and the coming of the Son of man; and this interval we can now exactly measure as three-and-a-half years. It is the "time, times and a half" of Dan 7:25, and Dan 12:7, and again of Rev 12:14. It is the "forty and two months" of Rev 11:2, and Rev 13:5. It is the "thousand, two hundred and threescore days" of Rev 11:3 and Rev 12:6. So many are the witnesses to what the prophecy in Matthew now before us speaks of.

There is no need of saying much as to other applications. The profanation of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, and which ended in the revolt of the Jews under the Maccabees, while it was doubtless a partial fulfilment of Dan 11:31, could not possibly fulfil either of the other passages, and was already a good while past when the Lord uttered this. The "abominations of the papacy," to which others would apply one of the passages in Daniel, are wholly out of question here in Matthew. Thus the application we are making of the Lord’s words seems the only one really possible.

In Old Testament times, when truth of heart to the one God of Israel was the foundation of all, the false gods of the heathen were in a special sense the "abominations." Thus Milcom is called the "abomination of the Ammonites" and Chemosh of Moab (1Ki 11:5; 1Ki 11:7), Ashtoreth of the Zidonians (2Ki 23:13); and there is no doubt that here (as is generally accepted) the desolating abomination is an idol or a false god. Israel has long been; and was then when the Lord spoke, and according to his own comparison; like a man out of whom this unclean spirit had gone (Mat 12:43-45); but it is to return in the last days in a still more evil fashion; and a false god or idol in the sanctuary of God itself would be the very trumpet-note of defiance to Israel’s Jehovah. In Dan 7:25, we find of the last horn of the last beast or kingdom pictured there, and whose "great," that is, haughty "words" shall bring destruction upon the beast (ver. 11), that he shall "speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and the law (R.V.) and they shall be given into his hand, until a time and times and the dividing of a time." Thus again we find in Rev 13:1-18, of what is undoubtedly the same evil one, that "there was given to him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and power was given him to continue" - or "do," "practise," - "forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven; and it was given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them." It is plain by just putting these texts together, that they speak of the same time and power; and we see how it is that the great tribulation of Daniel and of Matthew is brought about.

But in the same chapter of Revelation we are told of a second beast that shall arise along with the former with two horns like a lamb, but speaking like a dragon. He is like Christ, but a devilish imitation - an Antichrist; and as Christ leads men to worship the Father, so "he causeth the earth and .them that dwell therein to worship the first beast;" and "he doeth great wonders so that he maketh fire to come down from heaven in the sight of men; and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the beast. . . and he has power to give breath" - not "life" "to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed."

As already said, it needs but to put these scriptures side by side to see how well they fit together. Taken apart, we may apply them to the pope or the Mohammedan power, as many do. Putting them together, the connection with the last half-week of the seventy, and the shortened tribulation of the last days, forbids this as an interpretation, which in Matthew is quite impossible. On the other hand, we see how this breathing and speaking image (if we are to take it literally) or whatever it may signify, connects with this closing tribulation; which is indeed the "time of Jacob’s trouble," the travail-time of the nation, when they are "born" as "in a day" to God. And here we find the "elect," for whose sake the days are shortened, and who, when the Lord appears are to be gathered together from their long dispersion (Eze 37:1-28).

(2) The notice of the tribulation follows that of the abomination; but we have already sufficiently considered it.

(3) That of the signs and wonders in connection with false Christs and false prophets is also plain. In 2Th 2:1-17. we have the same power as the "man of sin," sitting in the temple of God and showing himself that he is God. The connection with Christianity (or rather with apostasy from it) and the thought of the Church as the "temple of God," have combined to lead the mass of interpreters towards Romanism and the pope as the explanation of this also. But how could this be a sign of the day of the Lord being just at hand, when Romanism counts its centuries of despotic sway over men, and that day is not yet come? And again Rome is Babylon the great, the harlot, the woman of sin and not the man of sin. The dark and evil power to rise up at the end will not even profess obedience to Christ, as Rome does. The man of sin is "he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God." . . . "Even he whose coming is according to the work of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders and with all deceit of unrighteousness for them that are perishing; because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved" (R.V.)

All this answers clearly to what we have in Matthew, and goes far beyond Romanism, evil as Romanism surely is. It links with all that we have had before, to certify the meaning of what we have here, a meaning which rather Scripture itself has given us than any interpretation of our own.

(4) They are warned now of any attempt to mislead by drawing away disciples after a Christ come secretly - in the desert, or in the secret chambers. Not so would He come. The power of evil at work would have its snares laid on the right hand and on the left; but there would be no need for any nice discrimination to discern the truth.

(5) He would come openly, not secretly. The need appealing would be such as to call not for secret help but open interposition. His coming would be like the lightning lighting up all the heavens, the announcement of swift and unsparing judgment. Wherever the carcase, the corruption; existed the eagles would find it out: judgment would thoroughly do its work. In long-suffering patience there was no longer hope. Judgment itself was now the only mercy. The shepherd’s rod must smite, and destroy the destroyers of the flock and the earth.

3. (1) We come therefore now to the appearing of the Lord, ushered in by signs throughout all nature. The sun and moon would fail; the stars fall from heaven. Nature itself would call for a stronger than creature hand to save it from ruin. Then would appear the sign for which men had asked. As Jonah to the Ninevites, so would He be again to them, the Son of man once crucified at their hands, now seen in the clouds of heaven. The sign would be Himself, and what a sign! They "look on Him whom they have pierced," - not in their minds, not in vision, but really: "every eye shall see Him, and they also who pierced Him," "and then shall all the tribes of the land lament" - the reference to Zechariah (Zec 12:10-14), both here and in Revelation (Rev 1:7) is, or ought to be, unmistakable - "and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." Joseph and His brethren are face to face.

Israel must be now re-gathered: this is the mission of the angels, to gather together His elect from the four winds. It might seem indeed as if the winds had scattered them: how little they think that angel hands shall bring them back! Brief are the words used, but how divine love breathes in them! what will be the joy in these from the far off country gathered home!

(2) "The man will not be at rest," says Naomi to her daughter-in-law, "until he has finished the thing this day." And the Lord now impresses upon His disciples the suddenness with which all this will be accomplished. The fig tree is once more chosen as a figure of Israel: and "when her branch is new and tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near." The fruit is there as soon as the leaves: thus the development is sudden indeed; summer in this way seems at once to set in: Israel’s hopes come thus to sudden fruitage. The very generation that sees the beginning of these things will see the end.*

{*So the connection inclines me now to understand ver. 34. That "generation" (genea) may be taken as "race," or a people marked by certain moral characteristics, there can be no question at all for any one who has examined the matter: and in this sense I used to take it here, that that unbelieving generation of our Lord’s day would continue on to the coming of the Lord itself. And this is, no doubt, true. I think, however, it is not so suited to the connection here as that given above, which is accepted by many. The suddenness of the end is the point insisted on.}

3 The Lord adds to this, what makes its suddenness more impressive, that the time in which it would take place was known to none, save only to His Father.* Upon the world all this would come as a surprise, just as the flood did in the days of Noah, judgment suddenly sweeping them to destruction. But at the end it would be separative, selective of its objects: two in the field, one taken and one left, two women at the hand-mill together, one taken and the other left. Here, as in the illustration from the time before the flood, it is judgment that "takes away": the one left is left for blessing; for the earth is now being purified, as we have seen; and where the carcase is the eagles are gathered together.

{*A very few ancient MSS. insert "neither the Son"; but Jerome asserts that, while in his day some Latin copies had it, yet in the Greek and especially "in Adamantii et Pierii exemplaribus" it was not found. According to Athanasius also it was alleged at the Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325, that these words were in Mark only. I take this from a note of Dr. Schaff, the American editor in Lange’s Commentary on Matthew.}

4 The Lord enjoins upon all to watch, just because they know not the day upon which He may come. For the world, it will be but the unexpected visit of the thief, breaking in upon the house they count their own. But let all be ready.

F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 18

The Prophecy on the Mount - Mat_24:1-51 & Mat_25:1-46

WE have seen that though the Saviours public ministry is now closed, He still has a private ministry to discharge-a ministry of counsel and comfort to His beloved disciples, whom He soon must leave in a world where tribulation awaits them on every side. Of this private ministry the chief remains are the beautiful words of consolation left on record by St. John (13-17), and the valuable words of prophetic warning recorded by the other Evangelists, occupying in this Gospel two long chapters (Matt. 24 and 25.).

This remarkable discourse, nearly equal in length to the Sermon on the Mount, may be called the Prophecy on the Mount; for it is prophetic throughout, and it was delivered on the Mount of Olives. From the way in which it is introduced (Mat_24:1-3) we see that it is closely connected with the abandonment of the Temple, and that it was suggested by the disciples calling His attention to the buildings of the Temple, which were in full view of the little group as they sat on the Mount of Olives that memorable day - buildings which seemed stately and stable enough in their eyes, butwhich were already tottering to their fall before

"that eye which watches guilt And goodness; and hath power to see Within the green the mouldered tree, And towers fallen as soon as built."

Thus everything leads us to expect a discourse about the fate of the Temple. The minds of the whole group are full of the subject; and out of the fulness of their hearts the question comes, "Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?" From the latter part of the question it is evident that the coming of Christ and the end of the world were closely connected in the disciples minds with the judgment that was about to come upon the Temple and the chosen people-a connection which was right in point of fact, though wrong in point of time. We shall not be surprised, therefore, to discover that the burden of the first part of the prophecy is that great event to which the attention of all was at that moment so pointedly directed. But since the near as well as the distant event is viewed as the coming of the Son of man, we may give to what may be called the prophecy proper as distinguished from the pictures of judgment that follow, a title which embodies this unifying thought.

I - THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN (Mat_24:3-44).

In secular history the destruction of Jerusalem is nothing more than the destruction of any other city of equal size and importance. It is indeed marked out from similar events in history by the peculiarly terrible sufferings to which the inhabitants were subjected before the final overthrow. But apart from this, it is to the general historian an event precisely similar to the destruction of Babylon, of Tyre, of Carthage, or of any other ancient city once the seat of a dominion which now has passed away. In sacred history it stands alone. It was not merely the destruction of a city, but the close of a dispensation-the end of that great age whichbegan with the call of Abraham to come out from Ur of the Chaldees, and be the father of a people chosen of the Lord. It was "the end of the world" (comp. R.V, Mat_24:3, margin) to the Jews, the end of the world which then was, the passing away of the old to give place to the new. It was the event which bore the same relation to the Jews as the Flood did to the antediluvians, which was emphatically the end of the world to them. If we bear this in mind it will enable us to appreciate the tremendous importance assigned to this event wherever it is referred to in the sacred Scriptures, and especially in this momentous chapter.

But though the destruction of Jerusalem is the primary subject of the prophecy, in its full sweep it takes a far wider range. The Saviour sees before Him with prophetic eye, not only that great event which was to be the end of the world which then was-the close of the dispensation of grace Which had lasted two thousand years: but also the end of all things, when the last dispensation of grace-not for Israel alone, but for the whole world-shall have come to a close. Though these two events were to be separated from each other by a long interval of time, yet were they so closely related in their nature and issues that our Lord, having in view the needs of those who were to live in the new dispensation, could not speak of the one without also speaking of the other. What He was then saying was intended for the guidance, not only of the disciples then around Him, and of any other Jews who might from them receive the message, but also for the guidance of the whole Christian Church throughout the world to the end of time, -another marvellous illustration of that sublime consciousness of life and power, infinitely beyond the limits of His mere manhood, which is ever betraying itself throughout this wondrous history. Had He confined Himself to the destruction of Jerusalem, His words would have had no special interest for us, any more, for example, than the burden of Babylon or of Tyre or of Dumah in the Old Testament Scriptures; but when He carries us on to that Last Great Day, of which the day of Jerusalems destruction (as closing the Old Testament dispensation) was a type, we recognise at once our own personal interest in the prophecy; for we ourselves are individually concerned with that Day-we shall then either be overwhelmed in the ruins of the old, or shall rejoice in the glories of the new; therefore we should feel that this prophecy has an interest for us as personal as it had for those who first heard it on the Mount of Olives.

As might be expected from the nature of its subject, the interpretation of the prophecy in matters of detail is beset with difficulties. The sources of difficulty are sufficiently obvious. One is in the elimination of time. The time of both events is studiously concealed, according to the principle distinctly announced by our Saviour just before His ascension: "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power." There are in each case signs given, by which the approach of the event may be recognised by those who will give heed to them; but anything in the shape of a date is studiously avoided. It is perhaps not too much to say that nine-tenths of the difficulties which have been encountered in the interpretation of this passage have arisen from the unwarrantable attempts to introduce dates into it.

Another difficulty arises from the similarity of the two events referred to, and the consequent applicability of the same language to both of them. This leads to different opinions as to which of the two is referred to in certain places. To show the source of these difficulties is to suggest their solution; for when we consider that one event is the type of the other, that one is as it were the miniature of the other, the same on a much smaller scale, we need not hesitate to apply the same language to both, - it may be literally in the one case and figuratively in the other; or it may be in a subordinate sense in the one ease, and in the fullest sense in the other; or it may be in precisely the same sense in both cases. In general, however, it will be observed that the lesser event-the destruction of Jerusalem stands out in full prominence in the beginning of the prophecy, and the greater event-the Great Day of our Saviours appearing-in the latter part of it.

Still another source of difficulty is that, while our Saviours object in giving the prophecy was practical, the object of many who study the prophecy is merely speculative. They come to it to satisfy curiosity, and as a matter of course they are disappointed, for our Lord did not intend when He spoke these words to satisfy so unworthy a desire; and, though His word never returns to Him void, it accomplishes that which He pleases, and nothing else; it prospers in the thing to which He has sent it, but not in the thing to which He has not sent it. He has sent us this, not to satisfy our curiosity, but to influence our conduct; and if we use it not for speculative but for practical purposes-not to find support for any favourite theory, which parcels out the future, giving days and hours, which neither the angels in heaven nor the Son of man Himself could tell {Mar_13:32} -but to find food for our souls, then we shall not be troubled with so many difficulties, and we shall certainly not be disappointed.

Before we pass from the difficulties of this. prophecy, observe how strong an argument they furnish for its genuineness. Those who deny the divinity of Christ are greatly troubled with this prophecy, so much so that the only way in which they can get rid of its witness to Him is by suggesting that it was really composed after the destruction of Jerusalem, and therefore never spoken by Christ at all. There are difficulties enough of other kinds in the way of such a disposal of the prophecy; but there is one consideration which absolutely forbids it-viz., that any one writing after the event would have avoided all that vagueness of language which gives trouble to expositors. To those who can judge of internal evidence, its obscurity is clear proof that this discourse could not have been produced in the full light of the subsequent history, but must have been what it professes to be, a foreshadowing of coming events.

We may not, with the limits imposed by the plan of these expositions, attempt a detailed explanation of this difficult prophecy, but must content ourselves with giving only a general view. Our Lord first warns His disciples against expecting the crisis too early (Mat_24:4-14). In this passage He prepares the minds of His disciples for the times of trouble and trial through which they must pass before the coming of "the great and notable day of the Lord" which was at hand: there shall be false Christs and false prophets-there shall be wars and rumours of wars, and shaking of the nations, and famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places; yet will all these be only "the beginning of sorrows." He also prepares their minds for the gigantic work which must be done by them and by their brother-disciples before that great day: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." Thus are the: disciples taught the very important and thoroughly practical truth, that they must pass. through a great trial and do a great work before the Day shall come.

He then gives them a certain sign by which they shall know that the event is imminent, when. it does approach. This is not equivalent to fixing a date. He gives them no idea how long the period of trial shall last, no idea how long time they shall have for the great work before them-He simply gives them a sign, by observing which they shall not be taken completely by surprise, but have at least a brief space to make their escape from the condemned city. And so very little time will elapse between the sign and the event to which it points, that He warns them against any delay, and tells them, as soon as it shall appear, to flee at once to the mountains and escape for their lives. It is sufficiently evident, by comparing this passage with the corresponding place in Luke, where our Lord speaks of Jerusalem being compassed with armies, that the "abomination of desolation standing in the holy place" refers to some particular act of sacrilegious impiety committed in the Temple just at the time the Romans were beginning to invest the city. Attempts have been made historically to identify this profanation, but it is doubtful if these have been successful. It is sufficient to know that whether or not the fact has found a place in history, it served its purpose as a sign to the Christians in the city who had treasured up in their hearts their Saviours warning words.

Having told them what the sign would be, and counselled His disciples to lose no time in making their escape as soon as they should see it, He further warns them, in a few impressive words, of the terrors of those days of tribulation (Mat_24:19-22), and then concludes this portion of the prophecy by warning them against the sup-position-a very natural one in the circumstances-that even then the Son of man should come.

So far we have found the leading ideas to be simple and practical, and all connected with the destruction of Jerusalem.

(1) Do not expect that event too early; for you must pass through many trials and do much work before it.

(2) As soon as you shall see the sign I give you, expect it immediately, and lose no time in making your escape from the horrors of these awful days.

(3) Even then, however, do not expect the personal advent of the Son of man; for though it is a day of judgment, it is only one of those partial judgments which are necessary on the principle that "wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." The personal advent of Christ and the day of final judgment are only foreshadowed by, not realised in, the destruction of Jerusalem and the close of the old dispensation.

The three closing verses of this portion of the prophecy refer pre-eminently to the great Day of the coming of the Son of man (Mat_24:29-31). The word "immediately" has given rise to much difficulty, on account of the hasty conclusion to which some have come that "immediately after the tribulation of those days" must mean immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem; according to Which all this must have taken place long ago. It is, indeed, sufficiently obvious that the tribulation of those days began with the destruction, or rather with the besieging, of Jerusalem. But when did it end? As soon as the city was destroyed? Nay. If we wish to get some idea of the duration of those days of tribulation, let us turn to the same place in the same prophecy as given by St. Luke, {Luk_21:23-24} where it clearly appears that it embraces the whole period of the Jewish dispersion and of the standing of the Gentile Church. "The tribulation of those days" is going on still, and therefore the events of these verses are still future. We look forward to the Day of the Lord of which that terrible day of judgment, to which their thoughts were first turned, was only a dim foreshadowing-a Day far more august in its nature, far more awful in its accompaniments, far more terrible in its aspect to those who are unprepared for it, yet full of glory and of joy to those who "love His appearing."

Appended to the main prophecy are some additional warnings as to time (Mat_24:32-44) setting forth in the most impressive manner the certainty, the suddenness, and, to those who are not looking for it, the unexpectedness of the coming of the Day of the Lord. Here again, in the first portion the destruction of Jerusalem, and in the latter portion the Day of the Son of man, is prominent. If we bear this in mind it will remove a difficulty many have found in Mat_24:34, which seems to say that the events specially referred to in Mat_24:29-31 would be fulfilled before that generation passed away. But when we remember that the prophecy proper closes with the thirty-first verse (Mat_24:31), and that the warning as to the imminency of the events referred to commences with Mat_24:32; the difficulty vanishes; for it is most natural that the practical warning should follow the course of the prophecy itself, referring first to the destruction of Jerusalem, and passing from it to that grand event of which it was the precursor. On this principle Mat_24:32-35 are quite simple and natural, as well as most impressive, and the statement of Mat_24:34 is seen to be literally accurate.

The passage from Mat_24:36 onwards is still quite applicable to the near event, the destruction of Jerusalem; but the language used is evidently such as to carry the mind onward to the more distant event which had been brought prominently forward in the latter part of the prophecy {Mat_24:36-44). In these verses, again, not only is no date given, but we are expressly told that it is deliberately withheld. What then? Are we to dismiss the subject from our minds? Quite the reverse; for though the time is uncertain, the event itself is most certain, and it will come suddenly and unexpectedly. No time will be given for preparation to those who are not already prepared. True, there will be the sign of the Son of man in heaven, whatever that may be; but, like the other sign which was the precursor of Jerusalems destruction, it will appear immediately before the event, barely giving time for those who have their lamps trimmed and oil in their vessels with their lamps to arise and meet the Bridegroom; but for those who are not watching, it will be too late-it will be with them as with those who lived at the close of the very first dispensation, who were "eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh."

II - PARABLES AND PICTURES OF JUDGMENT - {Mat_24:45-25}

The remainder of this great prophecy is taken up with four pictures of judgment, very striking and impressive, having for their special object the enforcement of the great practical lesson with which the first part has closed: "Watch therefore" (Mat_24:42-43); "Be ye also ready" (Mat_24:44). In the former portion of the prophecy the destruction of Jerusalem was in the foreground, and in the background the coming of the Son of man to judgment in the end of the world. In this portion the Great Day of the Son of man is prominent throughout.

The four pictures, though similar in their scope and object, are different in their subjects. The first represents those who occupy positions of trust in the kingdom; the second and third, all professing Christians, -the one setting forth inward grace, the other outward activity; the fourth is a picture of judgment on the whole world.

1. The Servant Set over the Household - {Mat_24:45-51}

As in the case of the man without the wedding garment, a single servant is taken as representing a class; and who constitute this class is made quite clear, not only by the fact that the servant is set over the household, but also by the nature of the service: "to give them their food in due season" (R.V). The application was evidently first to the apostles themselves, and then to all who in the future should be engaged in the same work of providing spiritual nourishment for those under their charge. The very pointed way in which the parable is introduced, together with the fact that only one servant is spoken of, suggests to each one engaged in the work the most careful self-examination. "Who, then, is a faithful and wise servant?" The underlying thought seems to be that such a one is not very easily to be found; and that therefore there is a special benediction for those who through the trying years are found both "faithful and wise," faithful to their high trust, wise in relation to the momentous issues depending on the manner in which they fulfil it. The benediction on the wise and faithful servant is evidently easy to miss and a great thing to gain.

But there is more to be thought of than the missing of the blessing. There is a fearful doom awaiting the unfaithful servant, of which the picture following gives a terrible presentation. Both offence and punishment are painted in the very darkest colours. As to the former, the servant not only neglects his duty, but beats his fellow-servants, and eats and drinks with the drunken. Here a question arises, What was there to suggest such a representation to the Saviours mind? Surely it could not be intended specially for those who were sitting with Him on the mount that day. If Judas was among the rest, his sin was not of the nature that would have suggested the parable in this particular form, and certainly there is no reason to suppose that any of the rest were in the slightest danger of being guilty of such cruelties and excesses as are here spoken of. Is it not plain then, that the Judge of all had in His view the dark days to come, when the clergy of a degenerate Church would be actually guilty of cruelties and excesses such as could not be more fitly set forth in parable than by the disgraceful conduct of "that wicked servant"?

This is still further confirmed by the reason given for such recklessness, -the evil servant saying in his heart, "My Lord delayeth His coming." There is reason to suppose that the early Christians expected the return of the Lord almost immediately. In so far as they made this mistake, it cannot be charged against their Master; for, as we have seen, He warns them against this error throughout the whole of the prophecy. It is plain, however, that those who made this mistake were in no danger of saying in their hearts, "My Lord delayeth His coming." But as time passed on, and the expectation of the Lords speedy return grew fainter, then there would come in all its force the temptation to those who did not watch against it of counting on the Lords delay. When we think of this, we see how necessary it was that the danger should be set forth in language which may have seemed unnecessarily strong at the time, but which the future history of the Church only too sadly justified.

The punishment is correspondingly severe. The word used to picture it ("shall cut him asunder") is one to make us shudder; and some have felt surprised that our Lord did not shrink from the horror of the word. Ah! but it was the horror of the thing which He dreaded, and wished to avert. It was the infinite pity of His heart that led Him to use a word which might prove the very strongest deterrent. Besides, how significant it is! Think, again, of whom He is speaking, -servants set over His household to give food in due season, who instead of doing this maltreat their fellow-servants and ruin themselves with excess. Think of the duplicity of such conduct. By office in the church "exalted unto heaven," by practice "brought down to hell"! That unnatural combination cannot last. These monsters with two faces and one black heart cannot be tolerated in the universe of God. They shall be cut asunder; and then it will appear which of the two faces really belongs to the man: cut asunder, his place shall be appointed with the hypocrites, Where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mat_24:51).

2 and 3. The Virgins; The Talents. {Mat_25:1-30}

The second and third pictures presented in the form of two parables of the kingdom of heaven, set before us the judgment of Christ at His coming on His professed disciples, distinguishing between real and merely nominal Christians, between the pretended and the true members of the kingdom of heaven. In the former parable this distinction is set before us in the contrast between the wise and the foolish virgins; in the latter it appears in the form of the one faithful and the two unfaithful servants. No special significance need be attached to the respective numbers, which are evidently chosen with a view to the consistency of the parables, not to set forth anything in regard to the actual proportion between hypocrites and true disciples in the visible Church.

The relation between the two parables has been already indicated. The first represents the Church as waiting, the second as working, for her Lord; the first shows the necessity of a constant supply of inward grace, the second the need of unremitting outward activity; the teaching of the first is, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life"; of the second, "Do good as ye have opportunity," "Be faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." The parable of the Virgins comes appropriately before that of the Talents, inasmuch as a Christians inner life should be his first care, the outer life being wholly dependent on it. "Keep thy heart with all diligence," is the first command; "Do thy work with all diligence," the second. The first parable calls aloud to every member of the Church, "Be wise"; the second follows it with another call, as urgent as the first, "Be faithful."

The Parable of the Virgins (Mat_25:1-13), with its marriage feast, recalls the parable of the marriage of the Kings Son, so recently spoken in the Temple. The difference between the two is very clearly indicated by the way in which each parable is introduced: there, "the kingdom of heaven is likened"; here, "then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened." The gospel feast which was the subject of the parable spoken in the Temple was already spread; it was a thing of the present; its word was, "All things are ready: come to the marriage": its preparation had been the object of the heavenly Bridegrooms first coming. The wedding feast of this parable is yet to be prepared; it is "the marriage supper of the Lamb" to which the Lord will call His people at His second coming.

An interval, therefore, of unknown length must pass meantime; and herein, as the sequel will unfold, lies the test which distinguishes the wise from the foolish virgins. This interval is represented by a night, with great appropriateness, seeing that the heavenly Bridegroom is the Sun of the soul. It being night, all alike grow drowsy and fall asleep. To make this a fault, as some do, is to spoil the parable. Had it been wrong to sleep, the wise virgins would certainly have been represented as keeping awake. If, then, we give a meaning to the sleep, it is not that of spiritual torpor, but rather such occupation with the concerns of the present life as is natural and necessary. As the whole of "the life that now is," up till the coming of the Lord, is represented in the parable by the night, and as sleep is the business of night, we may fairly consider that the sleep of the parable represents the business of the life that now is, in which Christians, however anxious to be ready for the coming of the Lord, must engage, and not only so, but must give themselves to it with an engrossment which for the time may amount to as entire abstraction from distinctively spiritual duties as sleep is an abstraction from the duties of the day. In this point of view we see how reasonable is our Lords requirement. He does not expect us to be always equally wide awake to spiritual and eternal things. The wise as well as the foolish slumber and sleep.

It is not, then, by the temptation to sleep that the interval tests the virgins, but by bringing out a difference which has existed all the while, though at the first it did not appear. All seemed alike at the beginning of the night. Had not every one of them a lamp, with oil in it, and were not the lights of all the ten brightly burning? Yes; and if the Bridegroom had come at that hour, all would have seemed equally ready. But the Bridegroom tarries, and while He tarries the business of the night must go on. In this way time passes, till at an unexpected moment in the very middle of the night as it were, the cry is heard "Behold the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps." Still no difference: each of the ten lamps is trimmed and lighted. But see, five of them are going out almost as soon as they are kindled! What is the reason? There is no store of oil. Here, then, is the difference between the wise and the foolish, and here lies, therefore, the main point of the parable.

What, then, are we to understand in the spiritual sphere by this distinction? That the wise and the foolish represent the watchful and the unwatchful is plain enough; but is there not something here to let us deeper into the secret of the great difference between the one and the other? In order to get this, it is not at all necessary to ask for the significance of each separate detail-the lamp, the wick, the oil, the oil vessel. The details belong to the drapery of the parable; the essentials are manifestly the light and the source whence it comes. The light is the very familiar symbol of the Christian life; the source whence it comes is Divine grace, abiding unseen in the heart. Now, there is a certain superficial goodness which shines for the moment much as the true light of grace shines, but is connected with no perennial supply; there is no oil vessel from which the lamp can be constantly replenished. There may be a flaring up for a moment; but there is no steady enduring light.

All which points to the conclusion that the foolish virgins represent those professing Christians who have religious emotion enough to kindle their lamp of life and make it glow with a flame which looks marvellously like true devotion, but which is little else than the blazing up of natural feeling; while the wise virgins represent those whose constant habit is devotion, whose grace is something they carry with them always, so that at any moment the light of it may shine, the flame glow, pure, bright, steady, inextinguishable. They may be as much engaged in the business of life as the others, so that no flame of devotion may be seen; but deep down, hidden out of sight, like the oil in the vessel, there is abiding grace, which is only waiting the occasion to burst into a flame, of prayer or praise or joyful welcome of the Bridegroom at whatever moment He may come. The distinction, therefore, is between those worldly Christians, whose devotion is a thing of now and then, and those thorough Christians whose devotion is habitual, not always to be recognised on the surface of their life, not always to be seen of men, not so as to hinder their engrossment in business hours with the ordinary duties of life, but so as to be always there, the deep abiding habit of their souls. There is the secret of watchfulness; there the secret of readiness for the coming of the Lord.

This explains why the wise virgins cannot help the foolish. It is not that they are selfish, and will not do it; but that it cannot be done. Some commentators, men of the letter, have puzzled themselves as to the advice to go to them that sell and buy. That, again, belongs to the framework of the parable. The thought conveyed is plain enough to those who think not of the letter but of the spirit. It is simply this, that grace is not transferable. A man may belong to the warmest, devoutest, most gracious community. of disciples in all Christendom; but if he himself has been foolish, if he has not lived in communion with Christ, if he has not kept himself in communication with the Fountain of grace, not all the saints in whose company he has passed the night of the Lords personal absence, however willing they may be, will be able to lend him as much as one drop of the sacred oil.

The same principles are applicable to the solemn close of the parable. The question has been asked, Why did not the Bridegroom open the door? Late though the foolish virgins were, they wished to enter, and why should they not be allowed? Again let us look beyond the letter of the parable to the spirit of it-to the great spiritual facts it pictures for us. If it were the mere opening of a door that would remedy the lateness, assuredly it would be done; but the real fact is, that the lateness is now beyond remedy. The door cannot be opened. Ponder the solemn words: "I know you not." It is a question of the union of the life with Christ. The wise virgins had lived a life that was always, even in sleep, hid with Christ in God; the foolish virgins had not: they had lived a life which had transient shows of devotion in it, but no reality-a mistake too fatal to be in any wise remedied by the spasms of a few minutes at the close. It is the old familiar lesson, that cannot be taught too often or taken to heart too earnestly: that the only way to die the death of the righteous is to live the life of the righteous.

The Parable of the Talents deals with the same subjects-viz., the professed disciples of Christ; only instead of searching the reality of their inner life, it tests the faithfulness of their service. As in the former parable so in this, stress is laid on the time that must elapse before the Lords return. The employer of the servants travels "into a far country"; and it is "after a long time" (Mat_25:19) that "He cometh, and reckoneth with them." Similarly, in the cognate parable of "the pounds," reported by St. Luke, we. are told that it was spoken, "because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear". {Luk_19:11} It would seem, therefore, that both these parables were intended to guard against the temptation to make the anticipation of the Lords return an excuse for neglect of present duty.

There is evidence that within a short time some Christians in Thessalonica fell into this very temptation, -so much so as to render it necessary that the apostle Paul should write them a letter, his second epistle, for the express purpose of reproving them and setting them right. His first Epistle to the Thessalonians had laid stress on the suddenness of the Lords coming, as Christ Himself does again and again throughout this discourse; but the result was that some of them, confounding suddenness with imminence, gave themselves up to idle waiting or feverish expectancy, to the neglect even of the most ordinary duties. To meet this he had to call attention to the Divine ordinance, that "if any would not work, neither should he eat," and to enforce it with all the authority of Christ Himself: "Now them that are such" (viz., those excited "busybodies working not at all") "we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread"; {2Th_3:10-12} following it up with a caution, on the other hand, against allowing the Lords delay to discourage them in their activity in His service: "But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing."

All this helps us to see how necessary it was that the parable of waiting should be followed by a summons to work, and to admire the marvellous insight of our Lord into human nature in recognising beforehand where hidden dangers would lurk in His peoples path. Unhappily, it is not necessary to go back to the case of the Thessalonians to see how needful it is that the parable of work should go along with the parable of waiting; we have painful illustration of it in our own day. Thanks to the clearness and strength of our Lords teaching, the great majority of those who in our day look for His almost immediate return are not only diligent in work, but an example and a rebuke to many who do not share their expectations; but on the other hand, there are not a few who have been so far led astray as to give up positions of great usefulness, and discontinue work in which they had been signally blessed, with the idea that the great event being now so near, the sole duty of the believer is to wait for it.

The parable assumes that all disciples are servants of Christ, and that all of them have work for Christ to do. There is no reason, however, for narrowing the field of service to what is in current phrase distinctively spoken of as "Christian work." All the work of Christian people should be Christian work, and is Christian work, if it be done as it ought to be done, "as to the Lord." There must evidently, however, be the desire and purpose to "serve the Lord Christ," whatever the nature of the service be.

The talents signify ability and opportunity. We must beware of using the word in any limited or conventional sense. In ordinary conversation the word is generally applied to abilities above the average, as, for example, when a man of more than ordinary ability is spoken of as "a man of talent," or "a talented man." The word ability, indeed, is used in the same way. "A man of ability," "an able man," means a man able to do more than most people can; whereas, properly speaking, and in the sense of the parable, a man who is able to do anything-to break stones, to write his name, to speak a sentence of sense-is an able man. He is not generally so called, but he really is a talented man, for God has given him, as He has given to every one, certain ability, and according to that ability is the talent for service with which Christ entrusts him. At first sight this phrase "according to his several ability" seems invidious, as if suggesting that Christ was a respecter of persons, and dealt more liberally with the strong than with the weak. But the talents are not merely gifts, -they are trusts involving responsibility; and therefore it is simple justice to graduate them according to ability. As we shall see, there is no respect of persons in appointing the awards. But as respects the talents, involving as they do the burden of responsibility, it is very evident that it would be no kindness to the man of less ability that he should be made responsible for more than he can easily undertake.

The gradations of five, two, one, appropriately correspond to what we speak of as superior, ordinary, and inferior ability. At this point occurs the main distinction between this parable and the similar one of the pounds, spoken at a different time and with a different purpose. Here the servants all differ at first, but the faithful ones are alike in the end, inasmuch as they have done equally well in proportion to their ability. There the servants are all alike at the beginning, out the faithful ones receive different awards, inasmuch as they have differed in the degree of their diligence and faithfulness. The two together bring out with striking clearness and force the great thought that not success, but faithfulness is what the Lord insists on. The weakest is at no disadvantage; he may not only do as well as the strongest, but if the measure of his diligence and faithfulness is higher, he may even excel him.

It is in keeping with the difference in the scope of the two parables that in the one the sums entrusted should be large (talents), in the other, small (pounds). In the parable which has for its main lesson, "Make the most of the little you have," the amounts entrusted are small; while the large sums are fitly found in the parable which emphasises what may be called the other side of the great lesson, "To whom much is given, of them much shall be required."

Confining our attention now to the parable before us, we have first the encouraging side in the cases of two of the servants. The number is evidently chosen as the very smallest that would bring out the truth that where abilities differ the reward will be the same, if only the diligence and faithfulness be equal. It is quite probable, indeed, that the number of servants thought of was more than three, perhaps ten, to correspond with the number of the virgins, and that only as many cases are taken as were necessary to bring out the truth to be taught.

These two faithful servants lost no time in setting to work. This appears in the Revised Version, where the word "straightway" is restored to its right place, indicating that immediately on receiving the five talents the servant began diligently to use them (Mat_25:16, R.V). The servant with the two talents acted "in like manner" (Mat_25:17). The result was that each doubled his capital, and each received the same gracious welcome and high promotion when their lord returned (Mat_25:20-23). They had been unequally successful; but inasmuch as this was not due to any difference in diligence, but only to difference in ability, they were equal in welcome and reward. It is, however, worthy of remark that while the language is precisely the same in the one case as in the other, it is not such as to determine that their position would be precisely equal in the life to come. There will be differences of ability and of range of service there as well as here. In both cases the verdict on the past was "faithful over a few things," though the few things of the one were more than double the few things of the other; and in the same way, though the promise for the future was for the one as well as for the other, "I will set thee over many things," it might well be that the many things of the future might vary as the few things of the past had done. But all will be alike satisfied, a thought which is beautifully put by Dante in the third canto of his "Paradise," where the sainted Piccarda, in answer to the question whether those who, like her, have the lower places have no envy of those above them, gives an explanation of which this is the concluding passage:

"So that as we, from step to step, Are placed throughout this kingdom, pleases all, Even as our King, Who in us plants His will; And in His will is our tranquillity; It is the mighty ocean, whither tends Whatever it creates and nature makes."

Whereupon Dante himself says:

"Then saw I clearly how each spot in heaven Is Paradise, though with like gracious dew The supreme virtue shower not over all."-Canto III 82-90 (Carey).

It is not suggested, however, in the parable that there is not the same gracious dew showering over all. "The joy of the Lord" would appear to be the same for all; but it is significant that the leading thought of heavenly reward is not joy, but rather promotion, promotion in service, a higher sphere and a wider range of work, the "few things" which have been our glad service here exchanged for "many things," of which we shall be masters there-no more failures, no more bungling, no more mortifications as we look back upon work half done or ill done or much of it undone: "I will set thee over many things (R.V)." That is the great reward; the other follows as of course: "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

As in the parable of the virgins, so here, the force increases as we pass from encouragement to warning. The closing scene is solemn and fearful. That the man with one talent should be selected as an illustration of unfaithfulness is very significant-not certainly in the way of suggesting that unfaithfulness is more likely to be found among those whose abilities are slender and opportunities small; but so as to make it plain that, though all due allowance is made for this, it can in no case be accepted as an excuse for want of faithfulness. It is just as imperative on the man with one talent, as on him with five, to do what he can. Had the illustration been taken from one with higher endowments, it might have been thought that the greatness of the loss had something to do with the severity of the sentence: but, as the parable is constructed, no such thought is admissible: it is perfectly clear that it is no question of gain or loss, but simply of faithfulness or unfaithfulness: "Hast thou done what thou couldst?"

The offence here is not, as in the first of the four pictures of judgment, painted in dark colours. There was no beating of fellow-servants or drinking with the drunken, no conduct like that of the unjust steward or the unmerciful creditor who took his fellow-servant by the throat-it was simple neglect: "I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth." The servant had such a modest estimate of his own abilities that he was even afraid he might do mischief in trying to use the talent he had, so he laid it away and let it alone. The excuse he makes (Mat_25:24-25) is very true to nature. It is not modesty after all that is at the root of the idleness of those who hide their talent in the earth; it is unbelief. They do not believe in God as revealed in the Son of His love; they think of Him as a hard Master; they shrink from having anything to do with religion, rather wonder at those who have the assurance to think of their serving God, or doing anything for the advancement of His kingdom. They know not the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore it is that they hold aloof from Him, refusing to confess Him, declining to employ in His service the talents entrusted to their care.

At this point there is an instructive contrast between the parable of the virgins and the one before us. There the foolish virgins failed because they took their duties too easily; here the servant fails because he thinks his duties too hard. Bearing this in mind, we recognise the appropriateness of the Lords answer. He might have found fault with his excuse, showing him how easily he might have known that his ideas of his Master were entirely wrong, and how if he had only addressed himself to the work to which he was called, his difficulties would have disappeared and he would have found the service easily within his powers; but the Master waives all this, accepts the hard verdict on Himself, admits the difficulties in the way, and then points out that even at the worst, even though he "was afraid," even though he had not courage enough, like the other servants, to go straightway to the work to which he was first called, he might have found some other and less trying form of service, something that would have avoided the risks he had not courage to face, and yet at the same time have secured some return for his Lord (Mat_25:26-27). The Master is ready to make all allowance for the weakness of His servants, so long as it does not amount to absolute unfaithfulness; so long as by any stretch of charity it is possible to call the servant "good and faithful." In this case it was not possible. Not faithful, but slothful, was the word: therefore good it cannot be, but-the only other alternative-wicked: "thou wicked and slothful servant."

Then follows doom. Instead of promotion, degradation: "take the talent from him." And in this there is no arbitrary punishment, no penalty needing to be inflicted-it comes as the result of a great law of the universe, according to which unused powers fall into atrophy, paralysis, and death; while on the other hand, faithful and diligent use of power enlarges it more and more: "Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." As the necessary and natural sequel to promotion in service was the joy of the Lord, so the natural and necessary sequel of degradation is the "outer darkness," where "there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

4. The Final Separation. {Mat_25:31-46}

As in the Sermon on the Mount, and again in the last discourse in the Temple, so here, the language rises into a strain of great majesty and sublimity as the prophecy draws to a close. No one can fail to recognise it. This vision of judgment is the climax of the teaching of the Lord Christ. Alike for magnificence and for pathos it is unsurpassed in literature. There is no departure from His wonted simplicity of style. As little here as everywhere else do we recognise even a trace of effort or of elaboration; yet as we read there is not a word that could be changed, not a clause that could be spared, not a thought that could be added with advantage. It bears the mark of perfection, whether we look at it from the point of view of the Speakers divinity or from the point of view of His humanity. Divine in its sublimity, it is most human in its tenderness. "Truly this was the Son of God." Truly this was the Son of man.

The grandeur of the passage is all the more impressive by contrast with what immediately follows: "And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, He said unto His disciples, Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified."

Into such an abyss was the Son of man looking when in language so calm, so confident, so majestic, so sublime, He spoke of sitting on the throne of His glory as the Judge of all mankind. Did ever man speak like this Man?

It is significant that even when speaking of the coming glory He still retains His favourite designation, "the Son of man." In this we see one of the many minute coincidences which show the inner harmony of the discourses recorded in this Gospel with those of a different style of thought preserved by St. John; for it is in one of these we read that "He the Father hath given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of man." Thus the judgment of humanity proceeds out of humanity itself, and constitutes as it were the final offering up of man to God. This on the God-ward side; and, on the other side, there is for those who stand before the Judge, the certainty that as Son of man He knows by experience all the weaknesses of those He judges and the force of the temptations by which they have been beset.

Nothing could be more impressive than the picture set before us of the throne of glory, on which is seated the Son of man with all the angels around Him and all nations gathered before Him. It is undoubtedly the great assize, the general judgment of mankind. No partial judgment can it be, nothing less than the great event referred to in that passage already quoted from St. Johns Gospel, where after speaking of judgment being committed to the Son of Man, it is added: "Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." This view of the passage is supported not only by the universality implied throughout and expressed in the term "all the nations"; but by every reference to the same subject throughout this Gospel, notably the parables of the Tares and the Net, {see Mat_13:39-43; Mat_13:47-50} the general declaration at Caesarea Philippi; "The Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father, with His angels; and then shall He reward every man according to his works"; {Mat_16:27} and especially the earlier reference to the same event in this discourse, in that portion of it which we have spoken of as the prophecy proper, where the mourning of all the tribes of earth, and the gathering together of the elect from the one end of heaven to the other, are connected with one another and witch the coming of the Son of man. {Mat_24:30-31}

It seems quite certain, then, that whatever subsequent unfoldings there may be in the later books of the New Testament as to the order in which judgment shall proceed, there is no intention here of anticipating them. It is true that the preceding parables have each given a partial view of the judgment, -the first as affecting those in office in the Church, the second and third as applied to the members of the Church; but just as those specially contemplated in the first parable are included in the wider scope of the second and third, so these contemplated in the second and third are included in the universal scope of the great judgment scene with which the whole discourse is fitly and grandly concluded.

In this great picture of the final judgment the prominent thought is separation: "He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left." How easily and with what unerring certainty the separation is made-as easily and as surely as the shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats! Nothing eludes the glance of that all-searching Eye. No need of pleading or counter-pleading, of prosecutor or prisoners counsel, no hope from legal quibble or insufficient proof. All, all is "naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do." He sees all at a glance; and as He sees, He divides by a single dividing line. There is no middle position: each one is either on the right or on the left.

The dividing line is one entirely new. All nations are there; but not as nations are they divided now. This is strikingly suggested in the original by the change from the neuter (nations, εθνη) to the masculine (them, αυτους), indicating as by a sudden flash of unexpected light that not as nations, but as individuals, must all be judged. The line is one which crosses all other lines that have divided men from one another, so that of all ranks and conditions of men there will be some on the right and some on the left. Even the family line will be crossed, so that husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters, may be found on opposite sides of it. What, then, is this new and final line of separation? The sentence of the King will mark it out for us.

It is the first and only time that Jesus calls Himself the King. He has displayed His royalty in His acts; He has suggested it in His discourses and His parables; He has claimed it by the manner of His entry into His capital and His Temple; He will afterwards assent when Pilate shall ask Him the plain question; but this is the only place where He uses the title in speaking of Himself. How significant and impressive is this! It is as if He would once for all before He suffered disclose the fulness of His majesty. His royalty, indeed, was suggested at the very beginning by the reference to the throne of His glory; but inasmuch as judgment was the work which lay immediately before Him, He still spoke of Himself as the Son of man; but now that the separation is made, now that the books have been opened and closed, He rises above the Judge and styles Himself THE KING.

We must think of Him now as all radiant with His royal glory-that visage which, was "so marred more than any man" now shining with celestial light-that Form which was distorted "more than the sons of men," now seen to be the very "form of God," "the chiefest among ten thousand" of the highest angels round Him, "altogether lovely," the personal embodiment of that glorious kingdom He has been preparing through all the centuries from the foundation of the world-disclosed at last as the answer to every longing soul, the satisfaction of every pure desire, -THE KING.

All this we must realise before we can imagine the awful gulf which lies between these simple words, "Depart" and "Come." That sweet word "Come"-how He has repeated and repeated it through all these ages, in every possible way, with endless variations! Spoken so tenderly with His own human lips, it has been taken up and given forth by those whom He. has sent in His name: the Spirit has said "Come"; the Bride has said "Come"; the hearers have said "Come"; whosoever would, has been invited to come. The music of the word has never died away. But now its course is nearly run. Once more it will ring out; but with a difference. No longer now to all. The line of separation has been drawn, and across "the great gulf fixed" the old sweet word of grace can reach no longer. It is to those on the right, and these alone, that now the King says "Come." To those on the left there remains the word, a stranger to His lips before, the awful word, "Depart from Me."

In the contrast between these two words, there already is involved all that follows: all the joy of the welcome-"Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world"; all the horror of the doom-"Depart from Me, ye cursed. into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."

Still the great question remains unanswered, What is the dividing liner Inasmuch as this belongs to the hidden man of the heart, to the secrecy of consciousness and conscience, the only way in which it could be made to appear in a picture parable of judgment such as this, is by the introduction of such a conversation as that which follows the sentence in each case. The general distinction between the two classes had been suggested by the simile of the sheep and the goats-the one white, the other black, the one obedient, the other unruly; but it is made much more definite by this dramatic conversation. We call it dramatic, because we regard it as extreme bondage to the letter to suppose this to be a prediction of the words that will actually be used, and therefore look upon it simply as intended to represent, as nothing else could, the new light which both the righteous and the wicked will then see suddenly flashed upon their life on earth, a light so full and clear and self-interpreting that there cannot but be unquestioning acquiescence in the justice of the final award.

There are those who, looking at this conversation in the most superficial way, find in it the doctrine of salvation by works, and imagine that they are warranted on the strength of this passage to set aside all that is written in other parts of Scripture as to the necessity of change of heart, to dismiss from their minds all concern about creed or worship, about doctrine or sacraments or church membership. Be kind to the poor-that will do instead of everything else.

In answer to such a perversion of our Lords language it should surely be enough to call attention to the fact that all is made to turn upon the treatment of Christ by the one class and by the other. Kindness to the poor comes in, not as in itself the ground of the division, but as furnishing the evidence or manifestation of that devotion to God as revealed in Christ which forms the real ground of acceptance, and the want of which is the sole ground of condemnation. True it is that Christ identifies Himself with His people, and accepts the kindness done to the poorest of them as done to Himself; but there is obviously implied, what is elsewhere in a similar connection clearly expressed, that the kindness must be done "in the name of a disciple." In other words, love to Christ must be the motive of the deed of charity, else it is worthless as a test of true discipleship. The more carefully the whole passage is read, the more manifest will it be that the great question which determines the separation is this: "How have you treated Christ?" It is only to bring out more clearly the real answer to this question that the other is added: How have you treated Christs poor? For according to each mans treatment of these will have been his treatment of Christ Himself. It is the same principle applied to the unseen Christ as the apostle applies to the invisible God: "He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God Whom he hath not seen?"

While there is no encouragement here for those who hope to make up for the rejection of Christ by deeds of kindness to poor people, there is abundant room left for the acceptance at the last of those who had no means of knowing Christ, . but who showed by their treatment of their fellow-men in distress that the spirit of Christ was in them. To such the King will be no stranger when they shall see Him on the throne; nor will they be strangers to Him. He will recognise them as His own; and they will recognise Him as the very King of Love for Whom their souls were longing, but Who not till now has been revealed to their delighted gaze. To all such will the gracious words be spoken "Come, ye blessed of My Father"; but they too, as well as all the rest, will be received not on the ground of works as distinguished from faith, but on the ground of a real though implicit faith which worked by love and which was only waiting for the revelation of their King and Lord to make it explicit, to bring it out to light.

Philanthropy can never take the place of faith; and yet no words ever spoken or written on this earth have done so much for philanthropy as these. It were vain to attempt, in so brief a sketch, to bring out even in the way of suggestion the mingled majesty and pathos of the words of the King to the righteous, culminating in that great utterance which touches the very deepest springs of feeling and thrills every fibre of the pure and loving heart: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." Besides the pathos of the words, what depth of suggestion is there in the thought, as shedding light upon His claim to be the Son of man! As Son of God He is the King, seated on the throne of His glory: as Son of man He is identified with all His brethren, even with the least of them, and with each one of them all over all the world and through all the ages: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." How the divinity shines, how the humanity thrills, through these great words of the King!

The scroll of this grand prophecy is finished with the awful words: "These shall go away into eternal punishment; but the righteous into eternal life" (R.V). Eternal punishment, eternal life-such are the issues which hang upon the coming of the Son of man to judgment; such are the issues which hang upon the treatment of the Son of man in these years of our mortal life that are passing over us now. There are those who flatter themselves with the idea that, because the question has been raised by honest and candid interpreters of Scripture whether absolute endlessness is necessarily involved in the word eternal, therefore these words of doom are shorn of much of their terror; but surely this is a pitiful delusion. There is no possible way of reducing the force of the word "eternal" which will bring the awfulness of the doom within the bounds of any finite imagination; and whatever may be said as to what the word necessarily implies, whatever vague surmise there may be that absolute endlessness is not in it, this much is perfectly certain: that there is not the slightest suggestion of hope in the words; no straining of the eyes can discern even the straitest gate out of that eternal punishment into eternal life. Between the one and the other there is "a great gulf fixed." It is the final judgment; it is the final separation; and scarcely with more distinctness could the awful letters have been traced, "Leave every hope behind, all ye who enter here." "These shall go away into eternal punishment; but the righteous"-none but the righteous-"into eternal life."

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

24:1-31 Some believe chapter 24 pertains to the return of Christ at the end of history. Others view the chapter as a prediction of the events of AD 70, when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans. Others believe it refers to both. See also study notes on Mark 13.

24:1 The architecture of the Temple was a source of pride among Jews—see study note on Mark 13:1.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Mat 24:1. Καὶ ἐξελθὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἀπὸ τοῦ ἱεροῦ, ἐπορεύετο, and Jesus having come forth from the temple, went His way) Such is the reading of the Colinæan editions, and of the following MSS., viz.: Bunkleanus, Cantabrigiensis, Paris, 5, 6, Stephanus η or more; also of Chrysostom, and the Æthiopic,[1028] Arabic, Latin, Persian, and Syriac versions: according to which ἘΠΟΡΕΎΕΤΟ (went His way) has greater force, being contrasted with, and in antithesis to, καθημένου δὲ Αὐτοῦ, and as He was sitting.[1029] Modern transcribers have, as though it mattered nothing, written ἐπορεύτο ἀπὸ τοῦ ἱεροῦ, He went His way from the temple.[1030] A discourse, which embraced even the end of the world, was appropriately held in the open air.—οἱ μαθηταὶ, the disciples) one especially, as we learn from Mar 13:1.—ἐπιδεῖξαι, to show) It is possible that Jesus had never looked at the outside of the temple, for He was not curious; cf. Gnomon on Mar 12:15. He had looked, and that deservedly, at the inside of the temple; Ibid. Mat 11:11.—τὰς οἱκοδομὰς, the buildings) The separate parts were in themselves great buildings: even at that time the building was being carried on, which is mentioned in Joh 2:20. And perhaps it was being the more zealously done, on account of the proximity of the Passover.—τοῦ ἱεροῦ, of the temple) which was doomed to destruction: see ch. Mat 23:38; and in that very age, too, only a few years after its completion.

[1028] That portion of the Æthiopic or Abyssinian Version which contains the New Testament, is supposed to have been executed in the fourth century by Frumentius, who, about the year 330, preached Christianity in Æthiopia.—(I. B.)

[1029] The verb πορεύομαι, signifying progressive motion, corresponds with the Latin progredior, or the French marcher.—(I. B.)

[1030] Such is the reading of the E. M., and of Bengel’s own Edition of the Greek Testament.—(I. B.)

BDabc Vulg. place the ἐπορεύετο last: and so Hil. 728. Rec. Text puts ἐπορεύετο, without good authority.—ED.

He had now been in the temple for the last time.—V. g.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat_24:1. On the following discourse generally, see: Dorner, de orat. Chr. eschatologica, 1844; R. Hofmann, Wiederkunft Chr. u. Zeichen d. Menschensohnes, 1850; Hebart, d. zweite sichtb. Zuk. Chr. 1850; Scherer in the Strassb. Beitr. 1851, II. p. 83 ff.; E. J. Meyer, krit. Comment, zu d. eschatolog. Rede Matth. xxiv., xxv., I., 1857; Cremer, d. eschatolog. Rede Matth. xxiv., xxv., 1860; Luthardt, Lehre v. d. letzten Dingen, 1861; Hoelemann, Bibelstudien, 1861, II. p. 129 ff.; Auberlen in the Stud. u. Krit. 1862, p. 213 ff.; Pfleiderer in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1868, p. 134 ff.; Kienlen, ibid. 1869, p. 706 ff., and Commentaire sur lapocalypse, 1870, p. 1 ff.; Wittichen, Idee d. Reiches Gottes, 1872, p. 219 ff.; Weissenbach, d. Wiederkunfts-gedanke Jesu, 1873, p. 69 ff., comp. his Jesu in regno coel. dignitas, 1868, p. 79 ff.; Colani, Jésus Christ et les croyances messian. de son temps, ed. 2, 1864, p. 204 ff.

The parallel passages are Mark 13, Luke 21. Luke, however, in accordance with his own independent way of treating his narrative, does not merely omit many particulars and put somewhat differently many of those which he records (as is likewise the case with Mark), but he introduces not a few in a different, and that an earlier historical connection (ch. Mat_12:17). But this would not justify us, as Luther, Schleiermacher, Neander, Hase suppose, in using Lukes narrative for correcting Matthew (Strauss, II. p. 337 f.; Holtzmann, p. 200 ff.), to whom, as the author of the collection of our Lords sayings, precedence in point of authority is due. It must be admitted, however, that it is precisely the eschatological discourses, more than any others, in regard to which it is impossible to determine how many modifications of their original form may have taken place[14] under the influence of the ideas and expectations of the apostolic age, although the shape in which they appeared first of all was given to them, not by Mark (Holtzmann, p. 95; see, on the other hand, Weiss), but by Matthew in his collection of the sayings of our Lord. This is to be conceded without any hesitation. At the same time, however, we must as readily allow that the discourse is characterized by all the unity and consecutiveness of a skilful piece of composition, and allow it all the more that any attempt to distinguish accurately between the original elements and those that are not original (Keim) only leads to great uncertainty and diversity of opinion in detail. But the idea that portions of a Jewish (Weizsäcker) or Judaeo-Christian (Pfleiderer, Colani, Keim, Weissenbach) apocalyptic writing have been mixed up with the utterances of Jesus, appears not only unwarrantable in itself, but irreconcilable with the early date of the first two Gospels, especially in their relation to the collection of our Lords sayings (λογία).

ἐξελθών] from the temple, Mat_21:23.

ἘΠΟΡΕΎΕΤΟ ἈΠῸ ΤΟῦ ἹΕΡΟῦ] He went away from the temple, withdrew to some distance from it. Comp. Mat_25:41. For this interpretation we require neither a hyperbaton (Fritzsche, de Wette), according to which ἀπὸ τ. ἱεροῦ would belong to ἘΞΕΛΘΏΝ,[15] nor the accentuation ἌΠΟ (Bornemann in the Stud. u. Krit. 1843, p. 108 f.)

τὰς οἰκοδομὰς τοῦ ἱεροῦ] not merely τοῦ ναοῦ, but the whole of the buildings connected with the temple, all of which, with the ναός and the porches and the courts, constituted the ἱερόν. Comp. on Mat_4:5. The magnificent structures (Joseph. Bell. v. 5. 6, vi. 4. 6, 8; Tac. Hist. v. 8. 12) were not then finished as yet, see on Joh_2:21.

Even Chrysostom, Erasmus, and Bengel did not fail to perceive that what led the disciples to direct the attention of Jesus to the temple-buildings was the announcement contained in Mat_23:38, which, though it did not refer exclusively to the temple, necessarily included the fate of this latter as well. This the disciples could not but notice; and so, as they looked back and beheld the splendours of the entire sacred edifice, they could not help asking Jesus further to explain Himself, which He does at once in Mat_24:2, and in terms corresponding with what He had announced in Mat_23:38.

[14] Although the contents of the discourse itself, as well as the earlier date of the first two Gospels generally, decidedly forbid the supposition that it was not composed till after the destruction of Jerusalem, and that, consequently, it assumes this latter to have already taken place (Credner, Baur, Köstlin, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar). If this supposition were correct, the discourse would have to he regarded as a late product of the apostolic age, and therefore as a vaticinium post eventum. Further, the eschatological views of the apostolical Epistles, though they presuppose corresponding teaching on the part of Jesus, by no means imply any knowledge of the specific discourses in ch. 24, 25 (in answer to E. J. Meyer, p. 50 ff.).

[15] This supposition, indeed, has likewise led to the transposition: ἀπὸ (Lachm.: ἐκ, following B) τοῦ ἱεροῦ ἐπορεύετο (B D L Δ א, min. vss. Fathers), which order is adopted by Tisch. 8.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 24:1-3 . Introduction ( cf. Mar 13:1-4 ; Luk 21:5-7 ).

Mat 24:1 . ἐξελθὼν , going out from the temple, within whose precincts the foregoing anti-Pharisaic manifesto had been spoken. The position assigned to ἀπὸ τοῦ ἱεροῦ before the verb, ἐπορ . in the best MSS., suggests connection with ἐξελθὼν . Some, however (Weiss, Schanz, etc.), insist that the words must be taken with ἐπορ . to give to the latter a definite sense. In reality they go along with both, the full meaning being: going out from the temple. He was going away from it, when, etc. ἐπορεύετο : the imperfect, indicating an action in progress when something else happened. There is an emphasis on the idea of the verb. He was going away, like one who did not mean to return. Hence the action of the disciples next reported. ἐπιδεῖξαι : they came to their Master, going before in a deeply preoccupied mood, and tried to change the gloomy current of His thoughts by inviting Him to look back at the sacred structure; innocent, woman-like but vain attempt. τὰς οἰκοδομὰς : the whole group of buildings belonging to the holy house; magnificent, splendid, as described by Josephus (B. J., v., 5, 6), appearing to one approaching from a distance like a snow mountain ( ὄρει χιόνος πλήρει ) topped with golden pinnacles, which for forty years, in his Napoleonic passion for architecture, Herod the Great had been building to the glory of God and of himself.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 24:1-22. PREDICTION OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM

Mar 13:1–end. Luk 21:5-36

This chapter opens with the great discourse of Jesus, which is continued to the end of ch. 25. That discourse contains (1) a prediction of the fall of Jerusalem, (2) a prediction of the end of the world, (3) Parables in relation to these predictions.

It is difficult to determine the limits of the several portions.

(1) Some of the earliest Fathers referred the whole prophecy to the end of the world. (2) Others held that the fall of Jerusalem was alone intended down to the end of Mat 24:22. (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius.)

In an interesting monograph founded on this view the Rev. W. Sherlock has shown a parallelism between the two divisions:

THE FALL OF JERUSALEM (Mat 24:5-22).

THE SECOND ADVENT (Mat 24:23-31).

1. False Christs and false prophets (Mat 24:5; Mat 24:11).

1. False Christs and false prophets (Mat 24:23-24).

2. Persecution and apostasy (Mat 24:9-10; Mat 24:12).

2. Dangers even to the elect (Mat 24:24).

3. Wars, famine, pestilence (Mat 24:6-7).

3. Distress of nations (Mat 24:29).

4. Great tribulation (Mat 24:21).

4. The sun and moon darkened (Mat 24:29).

5. The abomination of desolation (Mat 24:15).

5. The sign of the Son of man (Mat 24:30).

6. The escape of the Christians (Mat 24:16-18).

6. The salvation of the elect (Mat 24:31).

(3) Augustine, Jerome, and Beda, followed by Maldonatus, receive this view in a modified form, holding that while the two events were conceived by the Apostles as coincident in point of time, and while our Lord’s words appeared to them to be describing a single great catastrophe, it is now possible in the light of the past history to detect the distinctive references to the first and the second event.

(4) Another arrangement of the prophecy is: (i) A general answer of the question to the end of Mat 24:14; (ii) a specific reference to the fall of Jerusalem, 15–28; (iii) in Mat 24:29 a resumption of the subject of (i).

1. ἐπορεύετο. placed after ἀπὸ τοῦ ἱεροῦ. The change is certain and much improves the sense.

1. ἐπορεύετο. For the reading see critical notes. He was going on his way across the Valley of Kidron, when his disciples came to Him and stopped Him, and prayed Him to look at the buildings of the Temple where full in view it rose with its colonnades of dazzling white marble, surmounted with golden roof and pinnacles, and founded on a substructure of huge stones. It was in the freshness of recent building, ‘white from the mason’s hand,’ still indeed incomplete, but seeming by its very beauty and solidity to protest against the words of doom just spoken.

Josephus (B. J. Mat 24:2) gives a full description of the Temple which is well worth reading in the original. He speaks of the brilliant effect of ‘the golden plates of great weight which at the first rising of the sun reflected back a very fiery splendour, causing the spectator to turn away his eyes as he would have done at the sun’s own rays. At a distance the whole Temple looked like a mount of snow fretted with golden pinnacles.’

τὰς οἰκοδομὰς τοῦ ἱεροῦ. ‘The various parts of the Temple-building.’ οἰκοδομή, according to Phrynichus, non-Attic, either (1) ‘a building’ for the more usual and classical οἰκοδόμημα, a form not found in N.T., or (2) ‘act of building,’ for which the classical and older forms οἰκοδομία (or οἰκοδομιά) and οἰκοδόμησις do not occur in the N.T., or (3) ‘edification.’ This beautiful figure for the orderly and continuous growth of religious life in individuals and in a society appears to be a purely Christian thought; it is a frequent one with St Paul, ἄρα οὖν τὰ τῆς εἰρήνης διώκωμεν καὶ τὰ τῆς οἰκοδομῆς τῆς εἰς ἀλλήλους, Rom 14:19; εἰς οἰκοδομὴν καὶ οὐκ εἰς καθαίρεσιν ὑμῶν, 2Co 10:8. If the image did not actually spring from the Temple, it gained force and frequency from the building, the stately growth of which must have been an ever prominent sight and thought with the existing generation of Jews; the perfect joining of the stones (πᾶσα οἰκοδομὴ συναρμολογουμένη),—which gave the appearance of one compact mass of rock,—and the exceeding beauty of the whole, suggested an inspiring figure for the progress and unity of the Church.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chap.

24:1-51.] Prophecy of His coming, and of the times of the end. Mar 13:1-37. Luk 21:5-36. Matt. omits the incident of the widow’s mite, Mar 12:41-44.Luk 21:1-4Luk 21:1-4.

1,

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Christ foretells the destruction of the temple, 1, 2.

His disciples inquire when and what shall be the sign of this

destruction, 3.

Our Lord answers, and enumerates them-false Christs, 5.

Wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes, 6-8.

Persecution of his followers, 9.

Apostasy from the truth, 10-13.

General spread of the Gospel, 14.

He foretells the investment of the city by the Romans, 15-18.

The calamities of those times, 19-22.

Warns them against seduction by false prophets, 23-26.

The suddenness of these calamities, 27, 28.

Total destruction of the Jewish polity, 29-31.

The whole illustrated by the parable of the fig-tree, 32, 33.

The certainty of the event, though the time is concealed, 34-36.

Careless state of the people, 37-41.

The necessity of watchfulness and fidelity, illustrated by the

parable of the two servants, one faithful, the other wicked,

42-51

NOTES ON CHAP. XXIV.

This chapter contains a prediction of the utter destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem, and the subversion of the whole political constitution of the Jews; and is one of the most valuable portions of the new covenant Scriptures, with respect to the evidence which it furnishes of the truth of Christianity. Every thing which our Lord foretold should come on the temple, city, and people of the Jews, has been fulfilled in the most correct and astonishing manner; and witnessed by a writer who was present during the whole, who was himself a Jew, and is acknowledged to be an historian of indisputable veracity in all those transactions which concern the destruction of Jerusalem. Without having designed it, he has written a commentary on our Lord's words, and shown how every tittle was punctually fulfilled, though he knew nothing of the Scripture which contained this remarkable prophecy. His account will be frequently referred to in the course of these notes; as also the admirable work of Bishop Newton on the prophecies.

Verse 1. And Jesus went out, and departed from, the temple] Or, And Jesus, going out of the temple, was going away. This is the arrangement of the words in several eminent manuscripts, versions, and fathers; and is much clearer than that in the common translation. The Jews say the temple was built of white and green-spotted marble. See Lightfoot. Josephus says the stones were white and strong; fifty feet long, twenty-four broad, and sixteen thick. Antiq. b. 15. c. xi. See Mr 13:1.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

XXIV.

(1) And Jesus went out.—Better, following the best MSS., Jesus departed from the Temple, and was going on His way, when His disciples. St. Mark and St. Luke report the touching incident of the widow’s mite as connected with our Lord’s departure.

His disciples came to him.—We may well think of their action as following on the words they had just heard. Was that house, with all its goodly buildings and great stones, its golden and its “beautiful” gates (Act_3:2)—through which they had probably passed—its porticos, its marble cupolas, the structural and ornamental offerings which had accumulated during the forty-six years that had passed since Herod had begun his work of improvement (Joh_2:20), to be left “desolate”? Would not the sight of its glories lead Him to recall those words of evil omen? This seems a far more natural explanation than that which sees in what they were doing only the natural wonder of Galilean peasants at the splendour of the Holy City. They had seen it too often, we may add, to feel much wonder.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1. went out, and departed from the temple] Read, on the highest MS. authority, “went out from the temple, and was going on his way.” On leaving the Temple Jesus would descend into the valley of Kedron and ascend the opposite slope of the Mount of Olives. Then full in view the Temple would rise with its colonnade of dazzling white marble, surmounted with golden roof and pinnacles, and founded on a substructure of huge stones. Milman writes (History of the Jews, ii. 322) “At a distance the whole Temple looked literally like a mount of snow, fretted with golden pinnacles.”

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

Ver. 1. Departed from the temple] Never to return more to it. In Eze 9:3; Eze 10:4; Eze 10:18-19; Eze 11:22-23, God departs by degrees, and still as he goes out, some judgment comes in; and when he was quite gone, then followed the fatal calamity in the utter ruin of the city and temple. So it was then, and so it was now, according to that Hos 9:12; "Woe also to them when I depart from them." So Jer 6:8; "Be instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul be disjointed from thee, lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited." Whatever therefore we do, let us retain Christ with us; lay hold on him, as Magdalene did, take him by the feet, as the Shunamite did the prophet, as the Shulamite held her spouse; constrain him to stay with us, as the two disciples going to Emmaus; cry

" Vespera iam venit, nobiscum Christe maneto:

Extingui lucem ne patiare tuam."

To show him the buildings of the temple] As thinking by that goodly sight, haply, he might be moved to moderate the severity of that former sentence of leaving their house desolate unto them, Mat 23:38. True it is, that Herod (to get the people’s good will, which yet he could never do) had been at a wonderful charge in building and beautifying the temple. Josephus the Jew (Antiq. xv. 14) tells us that for eight whole years together he kept 10,000 men at work building it; and that for magnificence and stateliness, it exceeded Solomon’s temple, if his words exceed not the truth of the matter. This the disciples fondly thought would work upon our Saviour to reverse his former sentence, as above said; but his thoughts were not as their thoughts. Animo magno nihil magnum, With great spirits, nothing is great, saith Seneca. The bramble reckoned it a great matter to reign over the trees; not so the vine and olive, Jdg 9:15.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Jesus went out - He was going over to the Mount of Olives, Mat 24:3.

The buildings of the temple - The temple itself, with the surrounding courts, porches, and other edifices. See the notes at Mat 21:12. Mark says that they particularly pointed out the “stones” of the temple, as well as the buildings. “In that temple,” says Josephus, the Jewish historian, “were several stones which were 45 cubits in length, 5 in height, and 6 in breadth;” that is, more than 70 feet long, 10 wide, and 8 high. These stones, of such enormous size, were principally used in building the high wall on the east side, from the base to the top of the mountain. They were also, it is said, beautifully painted with variegated colors.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

After the fatigues of preaching and teaching, Jesus towards evening left the temple, as it is in the Greek, eporeueto apo tou ierou, and went towards Mount Olivet, where he was accustomed to spend his nights, as we learn from St. Luke, chap. xxi. ver. penult. [i.e. ver. 37.] (Jansenius) --- His disciples came to shew him the buildings, not moved by curiosity, for thy had seen them frequently before, but by pity; because he had on a former occasion, and only just before in Jerusalem, threatened the destruction of the temple and city, hoping that the splendour and magnificence of so fine a structure, consecrated to God, might alter his determination, as St. Hilarius [St. Hilary] observes. But the anger of God, provoked by sins, is not to be appeased with stones and buildings. He therefore answered them: (Jansenius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Mark saith, Mar 13:1,2, one of his disciples. Luke saith, Luk 21:5, some. Mark saith, the disciple said, Master, what manner of stones and what buildings are here! Luke saith, they spake how the temple was adorned with goodly stones and gifts. All three evangelists agree in the substance of our Saviour’s reply. Christ had now done his work in the temple, where he never came more, and was going toward the Mount of Olives, where we shall find him in the next verse. His disciples, either one of them or more, probably one in the presence of the rest, either doubting (considering the structure of the temple) whether it could be destroyed, or at least thinking it pity that so famous a structure should come to ruin, come to him, admiring the stones and buildings. Most think this was the temple builded by Zerubbabel, almost six hundred years before, though it received great additions by Herod (for we have no record that that temple was ever destroyed). Incredible stories are related about the dimensions of the stones, and the ornaments of it. Our Saviour saith unto them,

Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another; that is, this brave, goodly temple shall be utterly ruined. Nor (if we may believe other histories) did this prophecy fail as to the letter of it. Titus, the Roman emperor, taking Jerusalem, about forty years after this, commanded his soldiers to spare the temple when they entered the city, but they in their rage burnt of it what was of a combustible nature; and Turnus Rufus, left general of his army when he went away, drew a plough over it, as God had said. Jer 26:18; Mic 3:12, Zion shall be ploughed like a field. And when after this Alippius, by the command of Julian the apostate, attempted the rebuilding of it, with the help of the Jews, it is reported by divers, that balls or globes of fire rose up from the foundations, destroyed many of the workmen, and made the place inaccessible for any further such attempts. So justly are the Divine threatenings to be feared, whatever improbability of the contrary appeareth to us. We are very apt to be taken with the glistering prosperity of sinners, but we ought to measure the duration of it from the revelations of the Divine will, not from our own reason or fancy; to remember the temple of Jerusalem. There are no places so strong but an almighty God is able to destroy, and sin is enough to blow up. We may also observe how little God values splendid houses of prayer when they are made dens of thieves.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Destruction of Jerusalem and the End of the World Foretold

1. Jesus went out] RV 'Jesus went out from the temple, and was going on his way, and his disciples,' etc.

The buildings] The magnificent buildings, a mass of marble and gold, were not yet finished (see Joh_2:20). The rabbis said, 'He who has not seen the temple of Herod, has never seen a beautiful building. The sanctuary was made of green and white marble... Herod intended to have the building covered with gold, but the rabbis dissuaded him, saying that it was sufficiently beautiful as it was, for it appeared like the waves of the sea.' Josephus says, 'The front of the temple was covered all over with plates of gold of great weight, and at the first rising of the sun reflected back a fiery splendour, etc... The temple appeared to strangers, when they were at a distance, like a mountain covered with snow, for those parts of it which were not gilt were exceedingly white. Of its stones some were 45 cubits in length, 5 in height, and 6 in breadth.' (A cubit = 18 in.)

2. One stone] Josephus, an eyewitness, says 'Cæsar (i.e. Titus) now gave orders to demolish the whole city and temple, except the highest towers and the west wall. All the rest was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those who came thither believe that it had ever been inhabited.' The Talmud says, 'On the ninth day of Ab (July-Aug.) the city of Jerusalem was ploughed up.'

3-51. Great prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the end of the world (Mar_13:8; Luk_21:7). Many of the most serious difficulties of this great discourse disappear when it is realised that our Lord referred in it not to one event but to two, and that the first was typical of the second. This is especially clear in St. Matthew's Gospel. The disciples ask Jesus (Mat_24:3) for information on two subjects: (1) the date of the approaching destruction of the Temple, (2) the sign that will precede His second coming at the end of the world. That these two events were clearly distinguished in the mind of Christ Himself, and, therefore, in this discourse as He delivered it, admits of demonstration. Luk_21:24 especially, which speaks of 'the times of the Gentiles,' during which Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the heathen, and the Jews dispersed into all lands 'till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled,' places an indefinite interval between the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the world. Similarly in St. Matthew and St. Mark, Jesus declares that He is ignorant of, or is not allowed to reveal, the date of the end of the world (Mat_24:36; Mar_13:32), but expressly says that the fall of Jerusalem will take place within the lifetime of the Apostles (Mat_10:23). Again the statement that the end will not come till the gospel has been preached to all nations (Mat_24:14) postpones the end indefinitely: cp. also Luk_22:1-14. The reasons why the two events are not equally distinguished in the discourse as we have it, are mainly four: (1) Our Lord's words, as in other cases, are condensed. We have not a full report of the speech, but its most striking passages, which being isolated from their context, are naturally somewhat difficult to interpret. (2) At the time when the speech was committed to writing, the apostles believed that Christ's second coming would occur in their lifetime, and that the fall of Jerusalem and the Last Judgment would be coincident: see on 1Th_4:15. This belief would affect, if not the faithfulness of their report, at any rate the arrangement of it. It would cause the evangelists to group together, as if referring to the same event, sayings which really referred to events widely sundered in time. (3) The discourse perhaps contains some sayings not spoken at this time, but inserted here because believed to refer to the same events. The hypothesis of extensive additions cannot indeed be admitted. Nevertheless, it is quite in the manner of the evangelists, and especially of St. Matthew, to group together in a single discourse utterances delivered at different times. (4) Our Lord for devotional reasons desired His disciples always to regard His coming as if it were near. The time of it was purposely not revealed, in order that Christians might live in a state of continual watchfulness, looking for their Lord's coming. Such continual exhortations to watchfulness were easily understood to imply that the Second Coming was near.

Other views of the scope of the discourse are, (1) that it refers entirely to the destruction of Jerusalem; (2) or entirely to the Last Judgment; (3) or that 'the coming' of Christ is a continuous process lasting from the fall of Jerusalem to the Second Advent; (4) or that Christ's' coming' represents the extension of His kingdom which followed the Resurrection, or Pentecost, or the fall of Jerusalem; (5) or that His coming refers to the coming of the Comforter, in whom Christ Himself returns to earth.

Some suppose (but without sufficient warrant) that the sections Mar_13:7-9, Mar_13:14-20, Mar_13:24, Mar_13:27, Mar_13:30-31 were not spoken by Christ, but formed part of a short Christian apocalypse composed shortly before the fall of Jerusalem.

3. Olives] A magnificent view of the site of the Temple is obtained from this hill. The disciples] viz. Peter, James, John, Andrew (Mk). These things] i.e. the overthrow of the Temple. The end of the world] i.e. the Last Judgment. But those who refer the discourse entirely to the destruction of Jerusalem, understand by it the end of the Jewish dispensation.

4-14. Ebrard regards this section as referring to the last judgment, but in the opinion of most it refers to the fall of Jerusalem, with the possible exception of Mat_24:14, q.v.

5. I am Christ] RV 'I am the Christ,' i.e. the Messiah. The false Messiahs who appeared before the fall of Jerusalem were Simon Magus, Menander, Dositheus, and perhaps Theudas, who raised a rebellion in 45 or 46 a.d.

6. Wars, etc.] There were three threats of war against the Jews by Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, as to the first of which Josephus remarks that the death of Caligula 'happened most happily for our nation in particular, which would have almost utterly perished, if he had not been suddenly slain.' There was also a war between Bardanes king of Parthia and Izates king of Adiabene, and between the same Izates and Bardanes' successor, Vologases. War was also continually threatened between Rome and Parthia. The end] according to the ordinary view is the end of the troubles, i.e. the fall of Jerusalem, not the end of the world.

7. Nation shall rise] i.e. there will be massacres and civil tumults. One fearful massacre happened at Seleucia on the Tigris, where dwelt three hostile nations, Greeks, Syrians, and Jews. The Greeks and Syrians joined together against their common enemies the Jews, and slew about 50,000 of them. Similarly at Cæsarea, in one hour's time about 20,000 Jews were massacred. Famines] Act_11:28. The whole reign of Claudius (41-54 a.d.) was a time of great scarcity. Josephus mentions a famine in Palestine about 46 a.d. in which many died of starvation.

Pestilences] omitted by RV. Earthquakes] There was an unexampled number at this period devastating the provinces of Asia, Achaia, Syria, Macedonia, Campania, etc. Josephus mentions one in Palestine accompanied by 'amazing concussions and bellowings of the earth—a manifest indication that some destruction was coming upon men.'

8. Beginning of sorrows] RV 'of travail.' Jewish writers speak frequently of the socalled 'sorrows of the Messiah,' which are to last nine months, and to be the birthpangs of the coming age. They would be a period of internal corruption, and outward distress, famine, and war, of which Palestine was to be the scene, and Israel the chief sufferers. Some of these sorrows would fall upon the Messiah Himself (Edersheim).

9, 10. See on Mat_10:17-23.

11. False prophets] see on Mat_24:5. Josephus speaks of 'a body of wicked men, who deceived and deluded the people under pretence of divine inspiration, who prevailed with the multitude to act like madmen, and went before them into the wilderness, pretending that God would there show them the signals of victory': see also 2Pe_2:1; 1Jn_2:18; 1Jn_4:1.

12. Cp. Heb_10:25; Rev_2:4.

13. Shall endure] i.e. shall resist the enticements of false prophets, stand firm in persecution, and not suffer his love of Christ to grow cold. Unto the end] viz. of the tribulation; but it may mean unto the uttermost, or, unto death. Shall be saved] i.e. either literally by flight to Pella (Mat_24:16), or, more probably, saved spiritually.

14. Since the gospel had not been preached to the whole world, or even to the whole Roman world by 70 a.d., as indeed Christ Himself indicated (Mat_10:23), many suppose that 'the end' here is the last judgment. Those who understand it to refer to the fall of Jerusalem, point out that by that time the gospel'had been preached not only in the East, but at Rome, and perhaps in Spain and Gaul (Rom_15:24, Rom_15:28).

15-28. The flight of the Christians before the fall of Jerusalem.

15. The abomination of desolation] i.e. the abomination which makes the Temple desolate, by causing God to forsake it (Dan_9:27). Some definite event is meant, because it is the signal of instant flight (Mat_24:16-20). It is to happen before the fall of Jerusalem, and in 'the holy place,' i.e. in that part of the Temple, which only the priests could enter. The only event which answers this description is the capture of the Temple by the Zealots, or Assassins, 66 or 67 a.d., and the abominations which then ensued. The Zealots turned the Temple into a camp, defiled it with blood, made a creature of their own high priest, and finally caused the daily sacrifices to cease.

St. Luke's version, 'when ye see Jerusalern encompassed by armies,' is not an interpretation of 'the abomination of desolation,' but another sign outside Jerusalem, which took place at the same time as the desolation within. Jerusalem was encompassed with armies, (1) in 66 a.d. by the troops of Cestius Gallus; (2) in 68 a.d. by those of Vespasian; (3) in 70 a.d. by those of Titus. The first investment is St. Luke's signal for flight. Soon after this the Zealots seized the Temple and the city, guarded the gates, and prevented all escape. The prophecy in Daniel originally referred to the profanation of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, 169-168 b.c., but its application to the events of 66-70 a.d. is very suitable.

Other views of the nature of the 'abomination of desolation' worthy of notice are that it is, (1) the Roman eagles, or standards; (2) a statue of Titus erected on the site of the Temple; (3) the appearance of Antichrist at the end of the world: cp. 2Th_2:4.

Whoso readeth, let him understand] not 'let him that readeth the prophet Daniel imderstand,' for the reference to Daniel is absent from St. Mark (see RV), but 'let him that readeth this prophecy of Christ's understand.' The occurrence in both evangelists is a proof that the common authority used by St. Matthew and St. Mark was not oral tradition, but a written document.

16. Flee into the mountains] Eusebius says, 'But the members of the Church in Jerusalem, having been commanded before the war in accordance with a certain oracle given by revelation to the men of repute there, to depart from Jerusalem, and to inhabit a certain city of Persea called Pella, all the believers in Christ in Jerusalem went thither, and when now the saints had abandoned both the royal metropolis itself and the whole land of judæa, the vengeance of God finally overtook the lawless persecutors of Christ and His Apostles.'

17. Not come down] but escape by the outside staircase, or over the roofs of the houses: see on Mat_9:2.

20. On the sabbath day (peculiar to St. Matthew, the Jewish evangelist). Alford says, 'That they were not said as any sanction of observance of the Jewish sabbath is most certain; but merely as referring to positive impediments which might meet them on that day, the shutting of the gates of cities, etc., and their own scruples about travelling further than the ordinary sabbath day's journey (about a mile English); for the Jewish Christians adhered to the Law till the destruction of Jerusalem' (see Intro. § 6).

21. See Dan_12:1. Josephus says, 'The multitude of those that perished exceeded all the destructions that either men or God ever brought upon the world.' 'The number of those that perished during the whole siege was 1,100,000.'

22. Those days] i.e. of the siege of Jerusalem, which occupied less than five months. No flesh] i.e. no inhabitants of the theatre of war, Palestine. Be saved] i.e. be left alive. The elect] i.e. the Christians.

23-26. Chrysostom and others, translating then 'afterwards' (which it may mean), refer these vv. to the Last Judgment, but it is better to suppose that the fall of Jerusalem is still spoken of.

24. False Christs, and false prophets] see on Mat_24:5, Mat_24:11. Signs and wonders] J. Lightfoot illustrates from the Talmud the magical practices of the Jews. 'The senior who is chosen into the council, ought to be skilled in the arts of astrologers, jugglers, diviners, sorcerers,' etc. 'The chamber of Happarva (in the Temple) was built by a certain magician by art magic' 'Rabbi Joshua outdoes a magician in magic and drowns him in the sea.'

26. (Luk_17:23.) If they] i.e. they who are deluded by false Messiahs. Behold, he] viz. the Messiah. In the desert] Some of the false prophets did actually lead out their dupes to the desert. In the secret (RV 'inner') chambers] a poetical expression for 'in hiding.'

27, 28. Whether these vv. describe Christ's coming to destroy Jerusalem, or His second coming to judge the world, or both, is doubtful. The context suggests that the destruction of Jerusalem is meant, but it is just the context which is doubtful, for St. Mark omits both vv., and St. Luke gives them in quite a different connexion. As originally spoken, they probably referred to Christ's second coming.

27. (Luk_17:24) The second advent of the Son of man will be confined to no one locality, but will be manifested instantaneously to the whole universe. But if the reference is to the destruction of Jerusalem, this v. describes the conspicuous and world-renowned nature of the event.

28. A parable or proverb (Luk_17:37). Just as, wherever a carcase may happen to be, eagles or vultures will invariably be found; so at Christ's second coming, wherever a man dead in trespasses and sins is found, there also will Christ be revealed as an avenging judge. Thus 'the carcase' represents the- wicked, and 'the eagles,' Christ and His avenging angels of judgment. Those who suppose the fall of Jerusalem to be meant, understand by 'the carcase,' the Jews, and by 'the eagles,' the Roman armies.

29-42. Most commentators refer these vv. (in the main) to the Second Advent, though some think that the fall of Jerusalem is still meant.

29. Immediately] RV 'But immediately.' This discourse, in the form in which it has come down to us, seems to place the Second Advent immediately after the fall of Jerusalem. Solutions of the difficulty: (1) Plumptre considers 'the boldest answer as the truest and most reverential,' and finds the explanation in Christ's ignorance of 'that day and hour' (Mar_13:32). But although Christ was ignorant, as man, of the exact day and hour of His Second Advent, He at least knew that it was separated from the fall of Jerusalem by an immense interval (see intro. to this discourse). Even if we assume, with Plumptre, His complete ignorance of the date, we are no nearer a solution; for if He did not know the date, He would not attempt to fix it. (2) Stier maintains the theory of 'prophetic perspective.' As men.gazing from a distance on two distant mountain peaks, one behind the other, see them in close proximity, so Christ saw the two events 'in close proximity, overlooking the wide intervening space.' A legitimate hypothesis, but inconsistent with the fact that Christ was fully aware of the 'wide intervening space.' (3) That 'immediately 'is to be interpreted with prophetic latitude, and may mean after an interval of thousands of years, as when our Lord says, 'And behold I come quickly' (Rev_22:20 : see 2Pe_3:8-9). This is the best explanation of the passage as it stands (4) That 'immediately after' means immediately after the premonitory signs of Christ's second coming, which have been omitted in the evangelists' report of the speech, which is doubtless condensed. The sun, etc.] prophetic imagery for the fall of earthly empires, thrones, and powers, and human pride (Isa_13:10).

30. The sign of the Son of man] As Christ does not explain this sign, it is useless to guess what it will be. In tradition it is the Cross. 'Then shall appear the Cross in the sky, shining more brightly than the sun, to convict the Jews' (Theophylact). This interpretation is already found in the 'Didache.'

Moum] lamenting their unbelief and disobedience: cp. Zec_12:12; Dan_7:13; Rev_1:7.

31. Usually explained of the gathering of believers into heaven at the last day. Those who think that the fall of Jerusalem is meant, explain it of the gathering of the heathen into the Church from all quarters of the world after that event, or of the flight of the Christians from all quarters of Palestine to Pella.

34. This generation] i.e. Jerusalem will be destroyed within the lifetime of men now living. This literal meaning is not to be evaded, as, for example, by regarding 'this generation 'as the human race, or the Jewish nation, or the Christian Church, or the universe.

36. But of that day] i.e. the Day of Judgment. Not the angels of heaven] RV adds, 'neither the Son,' which, however, RM omits: see on Mar_13:32.

40, 41. The general idea is that, though to human eyes the righteous and the wicked will appear exactly the same, the angels in the judgment will be able to distinguish.

40. One shall be taken] viz. into glory, by the angels. The other left] viz. for reprobation, or punishment. But if the fall of Jerusalem is meant, the 'taking' means the successful flight from Judæa and Jerusalem; the being 'left' means failure to flee.

43-51. An exhortation to faithfulness and watchfulness addressed specially to the Apostles and other chief ministers of the Church (Luk_12:39-46). It appropriately closes the discourse, but whether it really belongs here may be doubted. St. Luke introduces it in a quite different connexion.

43. The goodman (RV 'master') of the house] i.e. in the application of the parable, the Apostles, and their successors in posts of authority in the Church. The thief] i.e. on account of the suddenness and unexpectedness of His coming, our Lord: see 1Th_5:2; Rev_16:15. Although the second coming is chiefly in view, it must be remembered that Christ comes in judgment to the individual soul at death.

Broken up] RV 'broken through': see Mat_6:19.

45. A faithful and wise servant (RM 'bond-servant')] though referring primarily to the Apostles and ministers of the Church, may be extended to all who have the care of the souls of others, or exercise spiritual influence over 'others (the 'household').

46. When he cometh] viz. at the Second Advent, or at the servant's death.

47. Make him ruler] RV 'set him over all that he hath,' i.e. make him great in the future Kingdom of Heaven, and sharer of His own throne. Our Lord implies that in heaven there will be various degrees of authority: cp. Luk_19:11-27.

49. To smite] a metaphor for the abuse of authority: cp. Act_20:29; 1Pe_5:8.

51. Cut him asunder] RM 'severely scourge him,' i.e. consign him, to the place of final punishment.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 1-51. PROPHECY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM, AND OF THE TIMES OF THE END. (Mar_13:1-37 Luk_21:5-36)

There is no reason to think, with Olshauson, that St. Matthew or his editor has considerably amplified the original discourse of our Lord by introducing details and expressions from other quarters. The discourse, as we now have it (ch. 24 and 25), forms a distinct whole, divided into certain portions closely related to each other and it would have been unnatural in St. Matthew, and opposed to his simple and veracious style, to have put words into our Lord"s mouth at this moment, which were not actually uttered by him on this solemn occasion.

Vers. 1-3. Occasion of the discourse. (Mar_13:1-4 Luk_21:5-7)

From the temple; Revised Version, went out froth the temple, and was going on his way (eporeueto). So the best manuscripts and versions. It was while he was proceeding on the route to Bethany that the disciples interrupted him with their remarks about the temple. He had now taken his final leave of the hallowed courts; the prophecy of the desolation of the house was beginning to be fulfilled. (see on Mat_23:38) His disciples came to him. They were disquieted by Christ"s words recorded at the end of the last chapter, which spoke of a terrible retribution about to fall, of the desolation of the temple, of Christ"s own departure for a time. St. Mark (Mar_13:3) tells us that Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately when these things should be, and what signs should forewarn of their approach, as in ver. 3. St. Matthew records here that his disciples came to him for to show (epideixai , to display) him the buildings of the temple (ierou , the whole sacred enclosure). They had gathered from his words that destruction awaited this edifice, but as they gazed upon it they could scarcely bring themselves to believe in its coming overthrow. So as they gained some commanding point of view, they drew Christ"s attention to its beauty, magnificence, and unequalled solidity, desiring him to explain further the mode and time of the catastrophe. It was popularly said, "He who never saw the temple of Herod has never seen a fine building.

Vers. 1-14. The great prophecy: General predictions of coming sorrows.

I THE TEMPLE.

1. The Lord"s departure. Jesus went out. He had taught in the temple for the last time. He had greatly loved that holy house of God. He had shown a burning zeal for its honour. Twice he had expelled the crowd of traffickers who made it a house of merchandise, a den of thieves. He "would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple." He so strongly insisted upon the duty of regarding the house of prayer with solemn reverence. When but a child, he had spent in the temple the hours during which Mary and Joseph were seeking him. There was no need, he told them, for anxiety; they might have known where he was to be found. He was constantly in the temple during his visits to Jerusalem. At this last visit he had "looked round about upon all things," showing his deep interest in all that pertained to the worship of God. He had watched the people casting money into the treasury for the temple service. Now he went out. The rulers of the temple had rejected him. Chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees, all who had authority in the temple, or were held in reverence as teachers and expounders of the Law, were ranged against him. He had uttered his last awful warnings, his last sorrowful lament for the hardness of their impenitent hearts. He "went out." Simple words, but very awful in the depth of their meaning; they are echoed in the Metabainwmen enteuyen of Josephus, in the "Excedere deos" of Tacitus. "Behold," he said," your house is left unto you desolate." The temple is desolate when the Lord of the temple hath departed. The humblest church is glorious exceedingly when the Lord is present. The costliest and most gorgeous building is desolate in the sight of God when the Lord Jesus is not there. He is found of them that seek him; he is present when two or three are gathered together in his Name. Let us seek him in the Church, and we shall find him there. Let us take heed, whatever we do, never to lose sight of him whose presence gives the truest consecration.

2. Conversation with the apostles. They came to show him the buildings of the temple. They were proud, like all other Jews, of that magnificent structure, those enormous blocks of marble, those costly decorations. They called the Lord"s attention to those goodly stones, those precious gifts. He could not share in the enthusiasm of his disciples. Costly offerings are precious in the sight of the Lord, only as the expression of faith and love. Outward magnificence was nothing to him when the beauty of holiness was gone. The very splendour of the temple saddened the Saviour"s soul. It was like the religion of the Pharisees, fair outwardly; but the services there performed were formal and heartless. And the Lord saw, in the clear vision of his Divine foreknowledge, what in less than forty years was coming. "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." That magnificence was soon to pass away. The holy city would sink in blood and fire, and that while some to whom the Lord was speaking were yet living on the earth. The temple buildings would be levelled with the ground; nothing would remain save those solid substructions, which even now excite the wonder of the pilgrim. The Lord knew all this; he could not take delight, like the apostles, in that short-lived splendour.

II THE MOUNT OF OLIVES.

1. The question of the disciples. The Lord sat on the Mount of Olives, in full view of the holy city with its glorious temple. He sat there in sorrowful silence; his holy soul was filled with sadness as he thought upon his people"s sin, and the coming judgments. The crowd had dispersed. Four of the apostles, Peter and James, John and Andrew, came privately to him. They had listened in awe and wonder to his stern condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees. They had heard him say that they themselves, the Lord"s messengers, would suffer many things, that the accumulated guilt of Jewish history would fall upon the present generation. He had told the Jews that their house was left unto them desolate; that they should see him no more till they, too, like the multitude whom they had blamed on Palm Sunday, should cry, "Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord!" Now he had prophesied in plainer terms the coming destruction of the temple. They were perplexed. "When shall these things be?" they asked; what sign would there be of that Parousia, that presence of which the Lord had spoken, and of the consummation of the age? The Prophet Daniel (Dan_9:25-27) had taught the Jews to associate the times of the Messiah with the destruction of the city and the sanctuary. He had spoken of a consummation, of a desolation: when should these things be? It is a question which has been often asked, which we often ask ourselves in shuddering awe, in trembling expectation.

2. The Lord"s answer. He does not answer the question directly; it was not his wont to satisfy speculative curiosity. When he was asked, "Are there few that shall be saved?" he said, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate." So now his first words are words of warning, "Take heed that no man deceive you." His answer is intended rather to guide the life of Christians than to disclose the awful secrets of the future. The date of the day of judgment is an unsolved and insoluble problem. It is known only to the Father. It is not his will that this mystery should be revealed; it is better for us to be ignorant. Knowledge of the time, if far hence in the remote future, might lull us into security; if near at hand, might fill us with intense excitement, and unfit us for our ordinary duties, as was the case with the Thessalonians when they thought that the day of the Lord was immediate. The Lord gives us no data for discovering when the end shall be. The bearing of his answer is practical; he shows us what ought to be the attitude of the Christian soul toward the solemn future; it should be that of calm and trustful expectation. The Christian should keep in view not only his own death, but the coming of the Lord. He should keep in his thoughts not only the possibility that today, any day, he may die, as he has seen others die; but also the possibility that today, any day, the Lord may come; and with the coming of the Lord may come the end of the world, the resurrection of the dead, the judgment. This is the purpose of the Lord"s words, not to give us that knowledge which (ver. 36) we cannot have, which, if we could have it, would not be for our good. The Lord speaks throughout this chapter in the mysterious tones of prophecy. He speaks of a nearer coming, and of one comparatively distant; of the end of the Jewish dispensation, and of the end of the world. The two comings, the two consummations, are blended together in the prophecy. It is not easy everywhere to disentangle them. In those passages which appear to relate to one only of the two tremendous catastrophes, we find features which seem to belong to the other. From the prophetical point of view, the two seemed nearer together than they now appear to us; the intervening distance was lost sight of. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple was the end of the Jewish dispensation. It might well seem to the Jews like the end of the world. It was so crushing, so tremendous, attended with sufferings so frightful, bloodshed so terrible. To us Christians it is a meet figure of the greater catastrophe which is to come. We are bidden to look forward. It is not simply our own death which we are told to expect. We may die before the coming of the day of the Lord; we may be soon called out of the world; and the world may go on its way for ages. But he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead. This is the prospect which the Lord sets before us in this solemn discourse. We may be among the living when he shall come; we may hear the voice of the archangel and the trump of God; we may see the dead rising at the call of Christ; we may, yet alive, "be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." Then "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." St. Peter"s memory, as he wrote these solemn warnings, seems to reproduce the words which he heard from Christ, when, along with James and John and Andrew, he came unto him privately on the Mount of Olives. The same apostle sums up the practical teaching of this great eschatological discourse in a few striking words. "Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, for and hasting the coming of the day of God.

3. Warnings in detail.

(1) False Messiahs. Many shall come saying. "I am the Christ, the Messiah." Many such there were in New Testament times Theudas, the Egyptian, (Act_21:38) Simon Magus. Many such arose afterwards, Barcochba, Manes, Mohammed, claiming the place and office, if not the name, of Christ. There have been many deceivers; some there are still. God"s people must take heed; they must not believe every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God; for many false prophets, St. John tells us, are gone out into the world.

(2) Wars, famines, earthquakes. These things there must be. There have been again and again in the progress of history times marked with a special intensity of troubles and horrors, when men"s hearts have failed them, and the end of all things seemed close at hand. But the Lord says, "Be not troubled, be not scared, excited; the end is not yet. Be prepared for it, but be calm, collected." Alas! the curse of war is not yet removed. Still the earth which God created is reddened with the blood of men made in the image of God, shed by their brethren"s hand. Yet the end cometh not. These things are the beginning of travail; they are dreadful, and yet they offer hope, for they are birth pangs. The end of the Jewish dispensation is the birth of the Christian Church; the yet more awful signs which are to attend the end of the world are the birth throes of the great regeneration, (the paliggenesia , Mat_19:28) the birth of the "new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

(3) Persecutions. Besides the troubles destined to come upon all the world, the Church of Christ was to have its own special trials; his followers were to be afflicted and slain and hated of all nations for his Name"s sake. And these persecutions would lead to worse things yet to apostasies; and apostasies would produce mutual hatred and the betrayal of Christians by Christians; there would be false prophets, heretical teachers in the Church itself. Iniquity, lawlessness, would abound, as it did when St. Peter and St. Jude wrote their Epistles; and, in sad declension from the truth, the love of the many would wax cold. Christians would leave their first love, like the Church of Ephesus; they would sink into a routine of formal service without heart and without love. But some would remain steadfast even in that evil time; some would endure all these temptations, whether of persecution from without the Church or of evil example from within; their patience would have its perfect work; their endurance would, by God"s grace, be complete, their perseverance final; and such should be saved. "The same shall be saved," the Lord says emphatically; not, alas! all professing Christians, but "he that endureth unto the end." How earnestly, then, should we pray and strive after perseverance! It is not a passing wish of "God forgive me!" that ensures our soul"s salvation, it is not a rush of excited feeling, but the patient continuance in well doing. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

(4) The gospel must be preached in all the world. This gospel of the kingdom is the good news concerning the kingdom of heaven which Christ established upon earth, the good news of salvation through Christ promised to those who endure unto the end. That gospel was to be preached in all the world before the end should come. The world here, as in other places, (e.g. Luk_2:1) may mean no more than the Roman empire. St. Paul seems to have regarded this prophecy as fulfilled even in his time. He says (Col_1:6, Col_1:23) that the gospel was present in all the world, that it had been preached to every creature which is under heaven. In a true sense it was fulfilled when the distinction between Jew and Gentile was abolished, when the apostles were commanded to make disciples of all nations, to go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. Thus the end of which the Lord speaks here might mean the destruction of Jerusalem, the end of the Jewish dispensation. But as knowledge extends itself, as the known world becomes wider till it is coextensive with the surface of the earth, so the area of missionary operations is enlarged. And thus the prophecy acquires another and a wider meaning. "The gospel shall be preached in all the world, for a testimony to all the nations of the earth." Then the end in its most awful meaning, the end of the world, shall come.

LESSONS.

1. The temple without Christ is desolate. Magnificent buildings have no beauty in God"s sight if Christ is not found there.

2. We must, like the apostles, watch for the signs of Christ"s coming.

3. But the truest wisdom is to live in constant expectation of it.

HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD Vers. 1-3. The coming of Christ.

After dooming the temple to desolation, "Jesus went out." The action was significant. (see Luk_19:44) In every case the departure of the Saviour is a solemn event. "His disciples," viz. Peter, James, John, and Andrew, (see Mar_13:3) called his attention to the magnificence of the structure. Men are naturally influenced by material glories. They had especially noticed the greatness of the stones, (see Mar_13:1) and were astonished when Jesus declared that these should become disjointed and overthrown. How "slow of heart" are even good men "to believe all that the prophets have spoken"! (see Mic_3:12 Jer_26:18) What havoc in the material world is wrought through moral obliquity! "And as they sat" in full view of the temple and city (ver. 3), where the Shechinah had rested after leaving the temple and the city, and whence it ascended into the heavens awful presage of the desolation of the temple and city by Nebuchadnezzar, and the captivity of the people by the Babylonians: the (Eze_11:23) action of Jesus here therefore was not only the expression of a tender, sorrowful, patriotic, human sympathy, but moreover a parable and a prophecy of momentous import.

I CHRIST WAS COMING IN HIS KINGDOM.

1. The advent of the King Messiah was the constant subject of ancient promise.

2. It was accordingly the chief expectation of the Jews.

3. But so dazzled were they with the splendour of the imagery, in which the coming of Messiah in his glory is set forth in prophecy, that they overlooked the predictions setting forth an earlier advent of Messiah in humiliation.

4. Hence, when Jesus came in that earlier advent his people were offended in him.

II HE COMES IN SPIRIT AND POWER.

1. So he came upon the memorable Day of Pentecost. Jesus had been corporeally transiently present with his disciples as their Comforter, and he promised, after his removal from them in that capacity, to come again as their permanent or abiding Comforter in his Divine Spirit. (see Joh_14:15-21)

2. That advent was quickly followed by the "end of the world," or, more properly, the "consummation of the age." The Levitical dispensation ended with the destruction of the temple. For the temple was the very centre of that system. "The temple was destroyed:

(1) Justly; because of the sins of the Jews.

(2) Mercifully; to take away from them the occasion of continuing in Judaism.

(3) Mysteriously; to show that the ancient sacrifices were abolished, and that the whole Jewish economy was brought to an end, and the Christian dispensation introduced" (Clarke).

3. The judgment in the destruction of Jerusalem was a figure of the judgment of the great day. The scattered Jew-Christians found relief in the judgment which brought desolation to their persecutors. (cf. Mar_13:13 Jam_5:7-9)

III HE WILL YET COME VISIBLY, IN POWER AND GLORY.

1. He will then come "in the clouds.

(1) He will come upon a glorious throne.

(2) He will come with a myriad retinue. Clouds of angels. Clouds of spirits of just men made perfect. (see Heb_12:1)

2. He will come to introduce the millennium.

(1) He will begin that reign with judgments upon the obstinately wicked. The antichristian nations will be overthrown.

(2) He will end that age with the final judgment upon the dead, small and great.

IV HE COMES IN THE ARTICLE OF DEATH.

1. This is the "end of the age" to us as the term of our probation.

2. It is to us virtually the day of judgment.

3. Christ comes in person to receive to himself his own. (see Joh_14:3)

4. Let us be admonished and prepare. J.A.M.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mark xiii, 1; Luke xxi, 5.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

departed

Jesus leaves that which He abandons to judgment. (See Scofield "Mar 8:23") in light of Mat 11:21; Mat 11:22 Cf., Rev 18:4.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Judgment of God upon Jerusalem and upon the World.

Of the destruction of the Temple:

v. 1. And Jesus went out and departed from the Temple; and His disciples came to Him for to show Him the buildings of the Temple.

v. 2. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.

In this chapter, as Luther writes, there is described the conclusion and the end of both kingdoms, that of the Jews and that of the whole world. Jesus had spent a strenuous day on this Tuesday, teaching and preaching from early morning till the shadows of evening fell. He now left the Temple and the city, in order to return to Bethany for the night. As He was passing out through the Temple-gate, one of His disciples admiringly pointed out to Him the massive, beautiful stones and the rich ornamentation of the Temple, the pride of the Jews, and other disciples eagerly came forward to call attention to special features, to the various porticoes, halls, courts, and other structures. The conversation thus begun continued for some time, probably till they reached the hill opposite the city where they looked down upon the splendor of Herod’s most magnificent building. But the summary of Christ’s words is given in the solemn prediction—all the more impressive since they were standing or sitting in a place which afforded the most comprehensive view of the Temple—that there would not remain one stone in its proper position upon the other, which would not be completely demolished. The beautiful foundation and walls of white marble, the splendid Corinthian columns, the heavy gold ornamentation and veneering, all would be destroyed completely.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 24:6-8

The Storm and Strife of Life.

I. It was with the clearest prevision of the course of the development of Christendom that the Saviour uttered this dark prediction. He knew that strife would sunder, and famine would waste, and sword would slay with a tenfold force and fierceness; and in a measure through that very Gospel of peace which He sent His disciples forth in peril of their lives to proclaim. He knew that the new impulse, the new inspiration, which His Gospel offered would fire with a new intensity every passion of man’s heart, would set the evil as well as the good under the strongest stimulus; would stir them up to fight out their battle with sterner purposes and larger resources; and thus, so profound was the problem of redemption, prolong through ages that discord which it was the deepest desire of His heart to destroy. The action of Christianity in healing sin-struck humanity is like the stimulating treatment in fever. Feed the system; kindle new strength. The disease will be fed as well as the vital power. The pain will be sharper, the battle will be sterner; but if there be vis vitæ in the system, under the stimulus it will conquer at last. And man will conquer through Christ, though the pain be sharper and the conflict longer than any but the Saviour dreams; for the vis vitæ, the vital power in humanity, through the Incarnation, is Christ—Christ in you, in the world, the hope of glory; which hope, unless man wilfully renounces it, God lives to fulfil.

II. Our great comfort under the burden and the strain of our pilgrimage is that the Lord is its Prophet, the Lord who came to share it that He might lift it, that it might not crush but train us, might not exhaust but educate our powers, and strengthen us to win the inheritance of glory. Sadly enough, we may be sure, the Lord prophesies this lot of tribulation to man and to mankind, for He was touched to tears even by human sorrows which a word could heal. But the fact that His lips utter the prophecy robs it of all its terror. The strife may live on and grow; the load may live on and grow, but the life grows with it, stronger, larger, with wider horizon, with firmer standing ground, with more far-reaching arms, with more glorious hopes.

J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 370.

References: Mat 24:6.—F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxii., p. 49. Mat 24:11.—J. H. Hitchens, Ibid., vol. xxvii., p. 228. Mat 24:12, Mat 24:13.—C. Girdlestone, Twenty Parochial Sermons, 3rd series, p. 135; J. Keble, Sermons on Various Occasions, p. 328.

Mat 24:13

Final Perseverance not Inevitable.

When our Lord says that none can pluck from the Father’s hand those who are His, He does not say that they who are His may not themselves break or fall away from Him. What else is the meaning of that terrible question: "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" When St. Paul says that God’s gifts are without repentance on God’s part, he does not add that they cannot be rejected by man, since this had already been the case, with the very generation of Jews about whom he was writing to the Romans. The grace of God does not make our final perseverance inevitable. It makes it possible, probable, morally certain, if you will, but morally and not mechanically certain. God who has made us free respects the freedom which He has given us. He does not crush it even by His own merciful gifts; and grace no more absolutely assures Heaven than does natural will, or the force of habit conquer the road to it. And this leads me to ask what are the causes which make endurance to the end difficult in so very many Christian lives.

I. There is, first of all, what our Lord calls, "the persecution that ariseth because of the word." In some shape or other this is inevitable. Persecution is in any case friction; and as we all know, friction, if only it be continued long enough, brings movement to a standstill, until there be a new supply of the impelling force. Men who have done much for Christ have given way at last under the stress of relentless persecution.

II. And then there are, as our Lord says, the false Christs and the false prophets. Our faith is undermined by people who talk and write in the very best English, and who have so much about them that is winning and agreeable that we cannot believe what is really going on. We cannot go on breathing a bad air, and be as we were when we lived high up on the mountain, unless we take very great precautions. Not to take them under such circumstances as these is to be in a fair way to forfeit perseverance.

III. And then there is the weariness which steals over thought and heart with the lapse of time. Human faculties, after all, are finite. They spend themselves and they fall back into lassitude and exhaustion. After great experiences, there is—I do not say a relapse, but a condition of less keenness of insight, less tension of will, less warmth of affection, less conscious effort of intelligence and of sanctified passion; and lookers on say that the excitement has passed, and that common sense has resumed its sway, and the soul, too, knows that something has passed from it inevitably, no doubt, from the nature of the case. And with this knowledge there comes depression; and this depression is in its way a trial, permitted, as we may believe, in order to make our service of God more unselfish than it would be if it were sustained throughout life by an uninterrupted sense of ecstasy. But it is a trial under which some men have failed. And then it may be the case that all is lost, and that perseverance is forfeited.

IV. And once more, there is the trifling with conscience, not necessarily in great matters, but in a number of little matters—omission of morning and evening prayers, or their curtailment; neglect of a regular review of conscience; carelessness as to the object upon which money is spent, and as to the proportion in which it is given to works of religion and mercy; recklessness in intercourse with others, especially if they are younger or less well informed. These and like matters help forward and dull the inoperative condition of conscience, which is in itself preparatory to a great failure. Perseverance is likely to be secured by three things especially: (1) By a sense of constant dependence on God; (2) by prayer for perseverance; (3) by keeping the mind fixed as much as possible on the end of life and on that which follows it.

H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 1,143.

Mat 24:14

I. The King is our Lord Jesus Christ.

II. The seat of His kingdom is the soul.

III. The spirit of His kingdom is wise and beneficent and holy. Every kingdom has its peculiar character.

IV. The progress of His kingdom is unostentatious. It is irresistible, yet noiseless, like many of the mightier forces in Nature.

V. The boundaries of His kingdom are the boundaries of the dwellings of humankind.

G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines of Sermons, p. 5.

References: Mat 24:14.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 338, vol. v., p. 269; New Manual of Sunday School Addresses, p. 260. Mat 24:15.—B. Warfield, Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 40. Mat 24:24.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 324. Mat 24:26.—J. H. Thom, Laws of Life after the Mind of Christ, p. 131. Mat 24:26, Mat 24:27.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. viii., p. 304; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. vi., p. 32. Mat 24:27.—D. Fraser, The Metaphors of the Gospels, p. 221.

Mat 24:28

The Law of Divine Judgment.

I. When a wild beast falls in the desert, or a beast of burden on the highway, there is no stir in the heavens for a time. But, far above human ken, the vulture is floating poised on his wings; and looking downwards his eye soon distinguishes the motionless thing—for he hunts by an eyesight unequalled in power among all living things, and like a stone he drops through miles of air. Others floating in the same upper region, see their brother’s descent and know its meaning. One dark speck after another grows swiftly from the horizon, and in a few minutes fifty vultures are round the carrion. That illustrates—and with astonishing power and sharpness—for the disciples had often witnessed such a scene—the suddenness, the usefulness and the necessity of judgment. Inevitable, swift, unerring, as the vulture’s descent on the carcase is the judgment-coming of the Son of Man to corrupt communities and corrupted men.

II. From all this we now infer the law of judgment. It is this: Wherever there is entire moral corruption then there is final punishment; wherever there is partial corruption, there is remedial punishment. God in His capacity as Governor of the world, as Educator of mankind, is bound to destroy corruption. It is necessary that the vultures should devour the carcase, lest it pollute the air and breed a pestilence. It is necessary that corrupted nations should be blotted out, lest they infect the world with evil which may delay the whole progress of mankind. And our own sense of justice goes with the destruction. Nor, when we are wise, do we think that such justice shows want of love. We know that the weak man who shrinks from exacting deserved punishment is often the most cruel when his own interests are touched; and we can trust ourselves in the hour of our trouble best to One whose justice we are so sure of, that we know that if our trouble was caused by wrong-doing He would make us feel that wrongness before He would relieve the trouble.

S. A. Brooke, The Spirit of the Christian Life, p. 57.

References: Mat 24:28.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 223; vol. ix., p. 97; D. Fraser, The Metaphors of the Gospels, p. 233. Mat 24:29.—R. Tuck, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 347. Mat 24:29-34.—E. C. Gibson, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 292.

Mat 24:35

The Immutability of the Divine Word.

When the words of the text were uttered the eye of the Saviour was resting on scenes whose stability promised to be of world-long life. The hills round about Jerusalem looked like Nature’s thrown-up fortress to guard from desolation or from the tooth of time, some favoured work of man. But that work cannot live always, says the holy Speaker, nor any other. The seeds of desolation and waste are in everything the eye looks upon. Riches, honours, comforts, friends, youth, beauty, genius, strength; the prospering enterprise, the unfolding hope, the fellowship of kindred minds, and the hallowed, domestic ties, how slight is our hold on these things. Our lesson is to "use the world as not abusing it, for the fashion of this world passeth away." The words of Christ shall not pass away:

I. Because of the eternal power and Godhead of Him who spake them. The doctrine of our Saviour’s Divinity is our life. It stamps all His teaching with the impress of infallible truth; it gives to all His promises the force of a present and felt reality. The matters to which Christ’s words relate are too vital to our soul’s happiness to be received on any authority which is not Divine.

II. Again, the words of Christ shall never pass away because they form the last of that series of communications vouchsafed by God to a lost world, never to be reopened, never to be added to, never by angel’s or prophet’s voice to be urged again. Christianity always claims for itself the distinction of being a final dispensation; those which went before it never did—not the Patriarchal, not the Levitical, not the Prophetical. Each was to usher in something better than itself, being a figure for the time present. All the revelations which went before pointed to Christianity, terminated and were absorbed in it.

III. The words of Christ shall not pass away because they are founded in eternal truth and in the fixed counsels of the immutable God. As God cannot change, so neither shall the word of truth change. It is everlasting, like Himself; it is a great unity, like Himself. Christ is emphatically the truth; His words contain in them an infinite and Divine essence. Omnipotence spoke them; almightiness accompanied them; immortality dwelt in them;—they could neither turn, change, nor fail.

IV. There can be no passing away of Christ’s words because of their connection with His own final glory as Mediator. The words of Christ have a mission, and He is glorified when that mission is fulfilled. He conquers when we conquer; He is honoured in the success of His work, in the triumphs of His truth, in the power of His grace over rebellious wills, in the diffused and extending reign of sanctity and love and righteousness and peace. "On His head were many crowns," said the beloved Apostle. They were His rejoicing, His recompense, the travail of His soul, the promised seed He should have to serve Him, the proof that His word had not returned unto Him void—had not passed away.

D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3,209.

The Permanence of Christ’s Words.

Let us try to observe some characteristics of our Lord’s reported language which may enable us to understand the confident prediction of the text.

I. That which strikes us first of all in the words of our Lord Jesus is the authority which speaks in them, or rather which is their very soul. One evangelist says that our Lord’s public teaching was so acceptable because "He taught as one having authority, and not as the scribes." The scribes were anxious to bring their countrymen to look at the law in the light of the traditional interpretations of which they were the guardians and exponents; but if the scribes were to do this, it was not enough for them to say, "This is right, and that is wrong." They found themselves confronted with the difficulties which present themselves to any merely human teacher entrusted with the task of recommending a doctrine which he believes to be true to the attention, to the convictions, of the human mind. He knows how solid, how many-sided, is the resistance which awaits him; he feels his way gently; he explains tentatively. He lays siege, as it were, to a fortress which he is bent on capturing, and as if he were directing an intellectual battery against its outworks and defences; and where argument seems to fail him he appeals—perhaps to sentiment, to feeling, to passion. This is what the scribes did in their way. They were masters of a kind of reasoning, which, however little suited to Western or to modern tastes, was in its way subtle and effective. It was the instrument with which they worked, and they only succeeded at all if they could get people to attend to it. With our Lord it was otherwise; He, generally speaking, takes no account whatever of those means of producing conviction which in merely human speakers command success. He does not reason—at least as a rule; He affirms a truth, knowing that it is the truth, and leaving it to make its own way in the soul of man. He feels that He has an ancient welcome prepared for Him within the soul of man; that He possesses the key to its wants and its mysteries; that within it, as no other teacher can be, He will be at home, and will be owned as its rightful Lord.

II. A second characteristic of our Lord’s words is their elevation. His teaching rises above the ripest and largest wisdom of the whole ancient world—the best and truest sayings which the conscience, without the light of revelation, has left for the guidance of human life. As we listen to Him we are conscious always and everywhere of a matchless elevation. He is far above His countrymen, far above the wisest wisdom of the time, far above the wisest wisdom of the ages that have succeeded, or of which He has not been directly or indirectly the author. As we listen to Him we feel that He speaks and lives in an atmosphere to which we poor sinful men only ascend at rare intervals and by considerable efforts. As a Teacher, no less than as our Redeemer and Lord, He invites the praises of His Church—"Thou, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the Father."

III. A third characteristic of the words of Christ is their awful depth. Many of them were addressed to the people, and they were correspondingly simple in form. They were without any of the apparatus of learning, or of the pretence of culture. Each hearer felt at first as if he fully understood them, and saw all their bearings, and had sounded their meaning, and had only to lay up in his heart and mind what was at once so simple and so encouraging. But when they were laid up in memory, and taken down in writing, it was soon seen that there was a great deal more in them than had appeared to be the case at first. It was seen that beyond and beneath the first or superficial meaning there was a second, at once deeper and most adequate, and perhaps there was a third. Our Lord’s words have depths in them which are explored sometimes by divinity, sometimes by the experience of a life, but which always elude complete investigation. They have about them that character of infinitude which belongs to the more than human mind from which they proceed. Their depth is seen in their extraordinary and enduring ascendency over the best of men at the distance of these many centuries. He still has the power of pouring his own Divine enthusiasm, for the highest good of mankind, into the souls of others by means of these imperishable words.

H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, p. 1, 121.

The Perpetuity of the Words of Christ.

I. Here we have a fair and bold comparison of two things: one which seems the slightest and most evanescent you can think of; another which seems the very ideal of all that is substantial and durable. Here are on the one side a few words, and on the other side the great solid world. What more fleeting, we should say, than a few articulated syllables, vibrating each on the ear for its second, and then dying away? what more everlasting than this gigantic world we live on? Yet the Saviour dares the comparison. He invites the comparison between the endurance of the words He utters and the endurance of the stars, the earth, and the ocean.

II. It is approaching towards two thousand years since the days of Christ’s three years’ ministry on earth. Ages are measured out since He spake with His human voice those words of wisdom and mercy, the like of which never man spake; and it is many a day, indeed, since His words, in their prosaic literalness, have passed away, have ceased to stir the audible pulses of the air, have passed to silence. Yet, though no magic was impressed on the syllables which flowed from the lips of the Redeemer to arrest their natural passing away, still it is true and certain that they have not passed away, and cannot pass away while the world stands. For one thing, they have not passed away, in this sense—that when they were spoken the simple narrative of the evangelists took and perpetuated them; and in these four Gospels we have the words of Christ preserved.

III. But it is a little thing to say that Christ’s words were perpetuated on paper. We should not set much store by the fact that upon printed pages by millions and millions the words of our Redeemer have outlived the storms and the wear of ages; we should not mind much about that if it stood by itself; but take it with this, that these words are so marvellously adapted to the needs of our immortal nature that those who have once felt their power, would feel it was parting with life to part with them. Earthquakes, deluges, might sweep this world, but you must unpeople it before the words of Christ could pass away from it.

IV. Though the last Bible perished, as perish it may in the wreck and ruin of this world; though the blessed words of Jesus were to do what they never can—fade away utterly from the remembrance of the glorified soul; even then these words would live on in the effects they had produced. They would live and last in heaven, in the souls they had brought there; in their justification before God, in the purity of their renewed natures, in their changeless and never-ending peace.

A. K. H. B., Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson, 3rd series, p. 310.

References: Mat 24:35.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. x., p. 115; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xvi., p. 174; H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 97; A. Mursell, Ibid., vol. xx., p. 181.

Mat 24:39

The Moral of Accidents.

I. They who search those common Scriptures, the newspapers, will find many things that will trouble their hearts too much, if these hearts be susceptible and sympathising, unless they also search the Holy Scriptures. If we find God in the Holy Scriptures, then we may find a reason for much that happens in the world, or a reason for believing that there are good ends to be answered by accidents, even the most woful and destructive, although we may not be able to discover what these are. We do not get rid of accidents by protesting that they ought not to happen, and that, in our opinion, they never would happen if there were a God and He cared for the world. But if there be a God, and if He does care for the world, then faith in Him will help us when neither prudence nor science can. And this faith will at the same time make our prudence and science more serviceable to us, for it will instruct us to reason thus, we ought to think that, as accidents happen by God’s permission, they have a meaning and a lesson for good; let us then seek this out; let us increase our knowledge of Nature’s law, let us exercise fuller care in our obedience to it. When we are considering sad things that happen we should think: (1) How many accidents are but slight as to the hurt they do in comparison with the service of the lesson they teach; (2) from how many things "going to happen" we are saved when loss and danger appear imminent; (3) how manifest and honourable are the works and courage of man in averting accidents, and in lessening the harm they do; (4) how incessant is the beneficial operation of the great natural laws, and how varied in kind is their benefit; (5) how careless and untrue is the work of many men, how needful is it that they should have a warning they would heed; (6) how certain is it that unfaithfulness in work will bring disasters, small and great, which are misnamed when we call them accidents, for though we knew not, we might have known, that they were sure to happen.

II. Many men have lost their lives by accident; no man ever lost his soul by accident. And yet the accident that cuts short a man’s life may bring his soul into a sad, disgraced condition, whence he has had ample opportunity to have saved it.

T. T. Lynch, Sermons for My Curates, p. 3.

References: Mat 24:39.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 823; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 308. Mat 24:40-42.—T. J. Rowsell, Penny Pulpit, No. 3,665; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. iii., p. 49. Mat 24:41.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xii., p. 114.

Mat 24:42

Who are they that watch? What are the marks, it may be asked, that we are awake, and, according to our duty, looking out always for the coming of Christ, and of death as his messenger?

I. To this question there is one plain answer; no man can be said to be watching, no man has any reasonable ground for thinking he is ready unless he is careful how he lives. We must, it is certain, be constantly taking pains with ourselves, or else we are not even trying to be ready. And unless we look often unto the state of our lives and hearts, to see whether we be ready, and to correct whatever is amiss, we are by no means likely to be well prepared. For we cannot see God, we cannot be prepared for death, without following after holiness; and no man can be said to follow after holiness who does not try to get the better of his bad habits and wrong dispositions, and we cannot get the better of these without trouble and pains and self-denial—and these must be long-continued. In short, we cannot be ready to meet death with a good hope in Christ, unless we are His disciples in deed as well as in name; and He Himself has said that no man can be His disciple who does not bear His cross and come after Him.

II. Again, it is plain that no one can keep himself prepared who is not used to think often and earnestly about those great changes that are coming upon us: such as death itself, and the state after death, the God who shall judge us, and the hope we have of standing in that judgment. A person must give his mind frequently to these things, or he cannot keep his heart disentangled from this world and fixed on a better; and I need hardly say that it is above all things necessary that we should keep ourselves indifferent to fleshly pleasures and worldly pursuits, or else we shall be sure to forget the coming on of death. It is in this way that most people do become so thoughtless about the shortness and uncertainty of life. Their hearts are engaged in pleasure or business belonging to this life, and they hope they may continue long in this world, till at last they persuade themselves they shall. They will not hear the voice of that heavenly love which is graciously warning us: "Watch ye therefore, and pray always."

Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. vii., p. 277.

Christian Watching.

What is Christian Watching. Partially I can answer that questions by two remarks:

I. First of all, in Christian watching there is implied a vigorous exercise of a Christian conscience. (1) When we wish to quicken and increase the power of conscience, we must do so by teaching it to be more and more keen in perception, Conscience must stand before us, as a watcher on a ship stands, guiding the bark of the soul through the wild waves and the thick darkness of this deep night of life, and crying out to us, from moment to moment in the voice of the great Lord whose echo it is: "What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch." (2) But conscience requires more than to be keenly perceptive; it requires also to be wide in its range of vision—it must omit nothing. It must not fret over trifles, but it must not leave them out; it must recollect, it must learn increasingly to recollect that attention to the little things of every day is an element in that attitude of a Christian which the Lord calls watching. (3) You must exercise conscience to assist you in wise decision. (4) Conscience must also finally and above all things be peremptory in command, conscience may be wrong, it may make mistakes, but it must never be disobeyed. To disobey conscience is to commit the last disloyalty—it is to learn to be untrue to yourselves. (5) Conscience needs illumination. It needs the illumination that comes from prayer, from the Scripture, from the wise advice of patient and experienced friends. It needs more; it needs reinforcement; it needs the presence of the Lord of conscience; it needs to feed upon the power of Christ.

II. There is another point in Christian watching which I must note. It is not only by the exercise of conscience; it is by a patient practice of thoughtfulness. To take thought and make it pass into a permanent form; to lay hold upon will and make it act in one definite direction,—to do that is to set the life sweeping onward, like a resistless current, in one direction; it is to place the whole soul in one steady attitude; and this definite directing of the current of life, and this steady fixing of the attitude of soul—this and nothing else is what our blessed Redeemer calls watching. "Watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come."

W. J. Knox-Little, Characteristics of the Christian Life, p. 47.

References: Mat 24:42.—T. Wallace, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 131; Parker, Inner Life of Christ, vol. iii., p. 165.

Mat 24:43-44

The Uncertainty of Life the Great Reason for Holiness.

I. With all our consciousness that there is great mercy in the concealment of the future, we cannot question that there would be far more preparation for death under an arrangement which gave notice when life would terminate, than under another which leaves it wholly uncertain. Why, then, is this information withheld? Though we may not be able to show why God draws a veil before coming days, we may certainly determine enough to induce us to be thankful rather than oppressed. For you must readily perceive that the character of the existing dispensation would be altogether changed, were we enabled to foresee whatever could happen. It would no longer be a dispensation of faith, but a dispensation of sight. It is evident enough that walking by faith is no better to us than would be walking by sight. We find it intensely difficult in our ignorance to submit ourselves to God, in whose hands we are. What would it be if we had acquaintance with the future, and so were in a measure independent; and could make our plans with certainty as to their issue. The wife would be a widow while her husband lived, the child would be an orphan while yet blessed with parents if the funeral were foreknown and the day of separation clearly revealed.

II. It is practically of very little importance whether we can give satisfactory reasons why the future should be hidden, and for the declaration that the unveiling it would produce far greater preparedness for the termination of life. It might on the whole, be advantageous, or it might on the whole be disastrous, that the day of death should be known; but the arrangement to which we are to conform is one in which the day is absolutely unknown; and it must be our business rather to labour at acting agreeably to the circumstances in which we are placed, than to determine what effect would be wrought were those circumstances changed. The goodman of the house is not informed in what watch the thief will approach. No matter, then, whether or not the being informed would make him more vigilant in securing a successful resistance. He cannot gain the information, and the only question therefore is—What can be done now that, search how we will, tomorrow eludes our inquiry? The answer to this is contained in the last verse of our text, in the exhortation which Christ founds on the statement in regard to the dispensation: "Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh."

H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2,501.

The Second Coming of Christ is spoken of in divers passages as an event that will take the world unawares—come when men are not expecting it—when they are immersed in the cares and pleasures and business of life, in such an hour as they think not. But why need we speculate as to the precise hour of that Advent? Death is to each of us the Lord’s coming. Death closes our day of probation. Death puts a stop to preparation. Death seals our eternal destiny. As the tree falls, so it lies; as we die, so shall we rise in the judgment, fit or not fit, ready or not ready, to meet the Lord. And what is it to be ready? In what consists the preparation for Christ’s coming, for death, for judgment—which all will allow ought now to be made.

I. We must be rooted and grounded in religious faith. We must have a strong grasp upon the righteousness of Christ; we must be joined to him by a lively faith; we must have wrought in us a settled conviction of His power to usward.

II. "To every man his work." We have, then, each one of us here a work to do in this world—a work which Christ has set us. Our work, God’s ordained work for us, is that which lies at our feet—the daily task we have to do. We need not look out for other fields, we need not cast about for what are called (often miscalled) larger spheres of usefulness. Let a man labour diligently in his calling; let him put his heart into his daily task, be it the commonest or apparently the least interesting task; let him work at it with a will, as doing it under God’s eye, not as mere pleasure, but as the servant of Jesus Christ, and he may rest assured his labours will not be in vain in the Lord.

III. Again, to be ready for Christ, to be in any sort prepared for His coming, we must have fought and conquered our besetting sin—the evil to which we are most inclined; the bad habit we have contracted; the lust in which we may have indulged. That soul is altogether unfit to meet its God that is living in any known wilful sin.

IV. Once again, I must not omit that which is the very essence of Christian preparation, the having in us the mind that was in Him; some portion of His blessed spirit, the spirit of brotherly kindness, and of charity. "All our doings without charity are nothing worth. Charity is the bond of peace, and of all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before God."

R.D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons, 3rd series, p. 1.

References: Mat 24:44.—C. Girdlestone Twenty Parochial Sermons, 2nd series, p. 291; W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons, vol. ii., p. 247. Mat 24:45-51.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. vii., p. 165.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Our blessed Saviour had often acquainted his disciples with his approaching death at Jerusalem. The Son of man must go up to Jerusalem to be crucified. Now in this chapter he acquaints them with the destruction that should come upon Jerusalem in general, and upon the temple in particular, for their putting him, the Son of God, to death. The disciples, looking upon the temple with wonder and admiration, were apt to think that the temple, in regard of its invincible strength, could not be destroyed; or, at the least, in regard of its incredible magnificence, it was great pity it should be destroyed; and accordingly they say to Christ, See what goodly buildings are here. As if they had said, Master, what great pity it is, that such a magnificent structure should become a ruinous heap!

But hence we learn, 1. That sin brings cities and kingdoms, as well as particular and private persons to their end. There are no places so strong, but an Almighty God is able to destroy them, and sin is sufficient to lay them waste.

Observe, 2. That the threatenings of God are to be feared, and shall be fulfilled, whatever appearing improbabilities there may be to the contrary. God had threatened Jerusalem with destruction for her sin, and now it is not all her strength that can oppose his power.

Learn, 3. That notwithstanding magnificence and worldly glory doth mightily dazzle our eye, yet how little doth it affect Christ’s heart. Even the temple itself, that most magnificent structure. Christ values no more than an heap of rubbish, when the impiety of the worshippers had devoted it to destruction.

Not one stone, says Christ, shall be left upon another unthrown down. This threatening was fulfilled forty years after Christ’s death, when Titus the Roman emperor destroyed the city and burnt the temple, and Turnus Rufus, the general of his army, ploughed up the very foundation upon which the temple stood. Thus was the threatening of God fulfilled, Zion shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps. Jer 26:18.

The truth and veracity, the faithfulness and fidelity of God, is as much concerned in the execution of his threatenings, as in the performance of his promises.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Matthew Chapter 24

We have already seen that the rejection of the testimony to the kingdom in grace, is the cause of the judgment that falls upon Jerusalem and its inhabitants. Now in chapter 24 we have the position of this testimony in the midst of the people; the condition of the Gentiles, and the relation in which they stood to the testimony rendered by the disciples; after this, the condition of Jerusalem, consequent upon her rejection of the Messiah, and her contempt for the testimony; and then the universal overthrow at the end of those days: a state of things which should be ended by the appearance of the Son of man, and the gathering together of the elect of Israel from the four winds.

We must examine this remarkable passage, at once a prophecy, and instruction to the disciples for their direction in the path they must follow amid the coming events.

Jesus departs from the temple, and that for ever-a solemn act, which, we may say, executed the judgment He had just pronounced. The house was now desolate. The hearts of the disciples were still bound to it by their former prepossessions. They draw His attention to the magnificent buildings that composed it. Jesus announces to them its entire destruction. Seated apart with Him on the Mount of Olives, the disciples inquire when these things were to happen, and what would be the sign of His coming and of the end of the age. They class together the destruction of the temple, the coming of Christ, and the end of the age. We must observe, that here the end of the age is the end of the period during which Israel was subject to the law under the old covenant: a period which was to cease, giving place to the Messiah and to the new covenant. Observe also that God’s government of the earth is the subject, and the judgments that should take place at Christ’s coming, which would put an end to the existing age. The disciples confounded that which the Lord had said of the destruction of the temple with this period. [66] The Lord treats the subject from His own point of view (that is to say, with regard to the testimony which the disciples were to render in connection with the Jews during His absence and to the end of the age). He adds nothing as to the destruction of Jerusalem, which He had already announced. The time of His coming was purposely hidden. Moreover the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus put an end, in fact, to the position which the Lord’s instructions had in view. There was no longer any cognizable testimony among the Jews. When this position shall be resumed, the applicability of the passage will also recommence. After the destruction of Jerusalem until that time the church only is in question.

The Lord’s discourse is divided into three parts:- 1. The general condition of the disciples and of the world during the time of the testimony, to the end of Mat 24:14; (2. The period marked out by the fact that the abomination of desolation stands in the holy place (Mat 24:15); 3. The Lord’s coming and the gathering together of the elect in Israel (Mat 24:29).

The time of the disciples’ testimony is characterised by false Christs and false prophets among the Jews; persecution of those who render testimony, betraying them to the Gentiles. But there is yet something more definite with regard to those days. There would be falseChrists in Israel. There would be wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes. They were not to be troubled: the end would not be yet. These things were only a beginning of sorrows. They were principally outward things. There were other events which would bring them into greater trial, and test them more thoroughly-things more from within. The disciples should be delivered up, put to death, hated of all nations. The consequence of this among those who made profession would be that many would be offended; they would betray one another. False prophets would arise and deceive many, and, because iniquity abounded, the love of many should wax cold-a sorrowful picture. But these things would give occasion for the exercise of a faith that had been put to the proof. He who endured to the end should be saved. This concerns the sphere of testimony in particular. That which the Lord says is not absolutely limited to the testimony in Canaan; but as it is from thence the testimony goes forth, it is all connected with that land as the centre of God’s ways. But, in addition to this, the gospel of the kingdom should be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then should the end come-the end of this age. Now, although heaven is the source of authority when the kingdom shall be established, Canaan and Jerusalem are its earthly centre. So that the idea of the kingdom, while extending throughout the world, turns our thoughts to the land of Israel. It is “this gospel of the kingdom” [67] which is here spoken of; it is not the proclamation of the union of the church with Christ, nor redemption in its fulness, as preached and taught by the apostles after the ascension, but the kingdom which was to be established on the earth, as John the Baptist, and as the Lord Himself, had proclaimed. The establishment of the universal authority of the ascended Christ should be preached in all the world to test their obedience, and to furnish those who had ears to hear with the object of faith.

This is the general history of that which would take place until the end of the age, without entering on the subject of the proclamation which founded the assembly properly so called. The impending destruction of Jerusalem, and the refusal of the Jews to receive the gospel, caused God to raise up a special testimony by the hands of Paul, without annulling the truth of the coming kingdom. That which follows proves that such a going forth of testimony of the kingdom will take place at the end, and that the testimony will reach all nations before the coming of that judgment which will put an end to the age.

But there will be a moment when, within a certain sphere (that is, in Jerusalem and its vicinity) a special time of suffering shall set in as regards the testimony in Israel. In speaking of the abomination that maketh desolate, the Lord refers us to Daniel, that we may understand whereof He speaks. Now Daniel (chap. 12, where this tribulation is spoken of) brings us definitely to the last days-the time when Michael shall stand up for Daniel’s people, that is, the Jews, who are under the domination of the Gentiles-the days in which there shall be a time of trouble, such as never had been nor ever again should be, and in which the remnant should be delivered. In the latter part of the previous chapter of that prophet, this time is called “the time of the end,” and the destruction of the king of the north is prophetically declared. Now the prophet announces that 1335 days before the full blessing (blessed is he that has part therein!) the daily sacrifice should be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up; that from this moment there should be 1290 days (that is, one month more than the 1260 days spoken of in the Apocalypse, during which the woman who flees from the serpent is nourished in the wilderness; and also than the three years and a half of Dan 7:1-28). At the end, as we find here, the judgment comes and the kingdom is given to the saints.

Thus it is proved that this passage refers to the last days and to the position of the Jews at that time. The events of the time past since the Lord uttered it confirm this thought. Neither in 1260 days, nor in 1260 years, after the days of Titus, nor in 30 days or years after, did any event take place which could be the accomplishment of these days in Daniel. The periods are gone by many years ago. Israel has not been delivered, neither has Daniel stood in his lot at the end of those days. It is equally plain that Jerusalem is in question in the passage, and its vicinity, for they that are in Judea are commanded to flee into the mountains. The disciples who shall be there at that time are to pray that their flight may not be on a sabbath day-an additional testimony that it is Jews who are the subject of the prophecy; but a testimony also of the tender care which the Lord takes of those who are His, thinking even in the midst of these unparalleled events, of whether it would be wintry weather at the time of their flight.

Besides this, other circumstances prove, if further proof were needed, that it is the Jewish remnant who are in question, and not the assembly. We know that all believers are to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. They will afterwards return with Him. But here there will be false Christs on the earth, and people will say, “He is here in the wilderness,” “He is there in the secret chambers.” But the saints who shall be caught up and return with the Lord have nothing at all to do with false Christs on earth, since they will go up to heaven to be with Him there, before He returns to the earth; while it is easy to understand that the Jews, who are expecting earthly deliverance, should be liable to such temptations, and that they should be deceived by them unless kept by God Himself.

This part then of the prophecy applies to the last days, the last three years and a half before the judgment which will be suddenly poured out at the coming of the Son of man. The Lord will come suddenly as a flash of lightning, as an eagle to its prey, unto the spot where the object of His judgment is found. Immediately after the tribulation of those last three years and a half, the whole hierarchical system of government shall be shaken and utterly overthrown. Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. This verse (Mat 24:30) contains the answer to the second part of the disciples’ inquiry in Mat 24:3. The Lord gives His disciples the warnings necessary for their guidance; but the world would see no signs, however plain they might be to those that understand. But this sign should be at the moment of the Lord’s appearing. The brightness of His glory whom they had despised would shew them who it was that came; and it would be unexpected. What a terrible moment, when, instead of a Messiah who should answer to their worldly pride, the Christ whom they had despised shall appear in the heavens!

Afterwards the Son of man, thus come and manifested, would send to gather all the elect of Israel from the four corners of the earth. It is this which ends the history of the Jews, and even that of Israel, in answer to the disciples’ question, and unfolds the dealings of God with respect to the testimony among the people who had rejected it, announcing the time of their deep distress, and the judgment that shall be poured out in the midst of this scene when Jesus comes, the subversion of all powers great and small being complete.

The Lord gives the history of the testimony in Israel, and that of the people themselves, from the moment of His departure until His return; but the length of time, during which there should be neither people nor temple nor city, is not specified. It is this which gives importance to the capture of Jerusalem. It is not here spoken of in direct terms-the Lord does not describe it; but it put an end to that order of things to which His discourse applies, and this application is not resumed until Jerusalem and the Jews are again brought forward. The Lord announced it at the beginning. The disciples thought that His coming would take place at the same time. He answers them in such a manner that His discourse should be of use to them until the capture of Jerusalem. But when once the abomination of desolation is mentioned, we find ourselves carried on into the last days.

The disciples were to understand the signs He gave them. I have already said that the destruction of Jerusalem, by the fact itself, interrupted the application of His discourse. The Jewish nation was set aside; but Mat 24:34 has a much wider sense, and one more really proper to it. Unbelieving Jews should exist, as such, until all was accomplished. Compare Deu 32:5, Deu 32:20, where this judgment on Israel is specially in view. God hides His face from them until He shall see what their end will be, for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. This has taken place. They are a distinct race of people unto this day. That generation exists in the same condition-a monument of the abiding certainty of God’s dealings, and of the Lord’s words.

To conclude, the government of God, exercised with regard to this people, has been traced to its end. The Lord comes, and He gathers together the dispersed elect of Israel. The prophetic history continues in Mat 25:31, which is connected with Mat 24:30. And as Mat 24:31 relates the gathering together of Israel after the appearance of the Son of man, Mat 25:31 announces His dealings in judgment with the Gentiles. He will appear doubtless as the lightning with regard to the apostasy, which will be as a dead body in His sight. But when He shall come solemnly to take His earthly place in glory, that will not pass away like lightning. He shall sit upon the throne of His glory, and all nations shall be gathered before Him on His throne of judgment, and they shall be judged according to their treatment of the messengers of the kingdom, who had gone out to preach it unto them. These messengers are the brethren (Mat 24:40); those who had received them are the sheep; those who had neglected their message are the goats. The account then which begins Mat 25:31, of the separation of sheep and goats and of its result, pictures the nations who are judged on earth according to their treatment of these messengers. It is the judgment of the living, so far at least as regards the nations-a judgment as final as that of the dead. It is not Christ’s judgment in battle as in Rev 19:1-21. It is a session of His supreme tribunal in His right of government over the earth, as in Rev 20:4 I speak of the principle or rather of the character of the judgment. I do not doubt that these brethren are Jews, such as the disciples were, that is to say, those who will be in a similar position as to their testimony. The Gentiles, who had received this message, should be accepted, as though they had treated Christ in the same manner. His Father had prepared for them the enjoyment of the kingdom; and they should enter into it, being still on earth, for Christ was come down in the power of eternal life. [68]

I have, for the moment, passed over all between Mat 24:31 and Mat 25:31, because the end of this last chapter completes all that concerns the government and the judgment of the earth. But there is a class of persons whose history is given us in its great moral features intermediately between these two verses I have just mentioned.

These are the disciples of Christ, outside the testimony borne in the midst of Israel, to whom He has committed His service, and a position in connection with Himself, during His absence. This position and this service are in connection with Christ Himself, and not in connection with Israel, wherever it may be that this service is accomplished.

There are however, before we come to these, some verses of which I have not yet spoken, which apply more particularly to the state of things in Israel, as warning to the disciples who are there, and describe the discriminating judgment which takes place among the Jews in the last days. I speak of them here, because all this part of the discourse-namely, from Mat 24:31 to Mat 25:31 -is an exhortation, an address from the Lord, on the subject of their duties during His absence. I refer to Mat 24:32-44. They speak of the continual expectation which their ignorance of the moment when the Son of man would come imposed on the disciples, and in which the disciples were intentionally left (and the judgment is the earthly one); while from Mat 24:45, the Lord addresses Himself more directly, and at the same time in a more general manner, to their conduct during His absence, not in connection with Israel, but with His own-His household. He had committed to them the task of supplying them with suitable food in due season. This is the responsibility of ministry in the assembly.

It is important to remark that in the first parable the state of the assembly is looked at as a whole; the parable of the virgins and that of the talents give individual responsibility. Hence the servant who is unfaithful is cut off and has his portion with hypocrites. The state of the responsible assembly depended on their waiting for Christ, or their heart saying He delays His coming. It would be on His return that judgment should be pronounced on their faithfulness during the interval Faithfulness should be approved in that day. On the other hand, practical forgetfulness of His coming would lead to licence and tyranny. It is not an intellectual system that is meant here: “the evil servant says in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming”; his will was concerned in it. The result was that the fleshly will manifested itself. It was no longer devoted service to His household, with a heart set upon the Master’s approval at His return; but worldliness in conduct, and the assumption of arbitrary authority, to which the service appointed him gave occasion. He eats and drinks with the drunken, he unites himself to the world and partakes in its ways; he smites his fellow-servants at his will. Such is the effect of putting off during His absence, deliberately in heart, the Lord’s return and holding the assembly to be settled down here; instead of faithful service, worldly-mindedness and tyranny. Is it not too true a picture?

What is it that has happened to those who had the place of service in the house of God? The consequences on either hand are these: the faithful servant, who from love and devotion to his Master applied himself to the welfare of His household, should be made ruler on his Master’s return over all His goods; those who have been faithful in the service of the house shall be set over all things by the Lord, when He takes His place of power and acts as King. All things are given into the hands of Jesus by the Father. Those who in humility have been faithful to His service during His absence shall be made rulers over all that is committed to Him, that is, over all things-they are but the “goods” of Jesus. On the other hand, he who during the Lord’s absence had set himself up as master, and followed after the spirit of the flesh and of the world to which he had united himself, should not merely have the world’s portion: his Master should come quite unexpectedly, and he should receive the punishment of hypocrites. What a lesson for those who take to themselves a place of service in the assembly! Observe here, that it is not said he is drunken himself, but that he eats and drinks with those that are so. He allies himself with the world and follows its customs. This moreover is the general aspect which the kingdom will assume in that day, although the heart of the evil servant was wicked. The Bridegroom would indeed tarry; and the consequences that might be expected from the heart of man will not fail to be realised. But the effect, we then find, is to make manifest those who had [69] really the grace of Christ and those who had not.

Footnotes for Matthew Chapter 24

66: In fact, this position of Israel, and the testimony connected with it, were interrupted by the destruction of Jerusalem; and this is the reason why that event presents itself to the mind in connection with this prophecy, of which it is certainly not the fulfilment. The Lord is not yet come, neither the great tribulation; but the state of things to which the Lord alludes, to the end of Mat 24:14, was violently and judicially interrupted, by the destruction of Jerusalem, so that in this point of view there is a connection.

67: The gospel of the kingdom was confined to Israel in chapter 10 and here this, though no subject of the teaching, is the subject supposed up to Mat 24:14, but there is no formal distinction made: the mission in chapter 28 is to the Gentiles; but then there is nothing of the kingdom but rather the contrary, though Christ be only risen, but all power given to Him in heaven and earth.

68: There is no possible ground for applying this parable to what is called the general judgment, an expression indeed wholly unscriptural. First, there are three parties, not merely two-goats, sheep, and brethren; then, it is the judgment of the Gentiles only; and, further, the ground of judgment is wholly inapplicable to the great mass even of these last. The ground of judgment is the way these brethren have been received. Now none have been sent at all to the vast majority of the Gentiles in long ages. The time of this ignorance God winked at, and another ground of judgment as to them is given in the beginning of Romans. Christians and Jews have been already treated of in chapter 24 and the previous part of chapter 25. It is just those whom the Lord finds on earth when He comes, and who will be judged according to their treatment of the messengers He has sent.

69: How solemn the testimony given here to the effect of the assembly’s losing the present expectation of the Lord’s return! What causes the professing church to run into hierarchical oppression and worldliness, so as to be cut off in the end as hypocrites, is saying in the heart, My lord delayeth his coming-giving up the present expectation. That has been the source of the ruin. The true Christian position was lost as soon as they began to put off the Lord’s coming; and they are treated, note, though in this state, as the responsible servant.

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1. And Jesus went out the temple. Immediately after the discourse in which he pronounced the woes upon the scribes and Pharisees, upon the temple and Jerusalem. This remarkable chapter is not one upon which commentators are agreed, and the conclusions that I have reached on the points of difference will not be found identical with those of any other writer. I believe, however, that they will be found harmonious with the Scripture. Compare Mark and Luke. His disciples … shew him the buildings of the temple. He had just foreshadowed its destruction. With this in mind they point out its splendor, especially the amazing stones used in its construction. Compare Mark and Luke. The temple had been rebuilt in great splendor by Herod, and was not fully completed until about thirty years after the Savior's crucifixion.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

Jesus begins to describe events that will happen before he comes again during the end times.

from the temple

It is implied that Jesus was not in the temple itself. He was in the courtyard around the temple. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

Do you not see all these things?

Jesus uses a question to make the disciples think deeply about what he will tell them. AT: "Let me tell you something about all these buildings." (See: Rhetorical Question)

Truly I say to you

"I tell you the truth." This adds emphasis to what Jesus says next.

not one stone will be left on another that will not be torn down

It is implied that enemy soldiers will tear down the stones. This can be stated in active form. AT: "when the enemy soldiers come, they will tear down every stone in these buildings" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information and Active or Passive)

translationWords

Jesus

temple

disciple

amen

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Went out and departed from the temple [εξελθων απο του ιερου επορευετο] . Rev., better : Went out from the temple and was going on his way. The temple, iJerou, not naou : the whole of the buildings connected with the temple, all of which, including the naov, or sanctuary, and the porches and courts, constituted the iJeron. See on Mt 4:5.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.