CHAP. 24:15 to 35
Ver. 15. We were noticing last week that what the Lord refers to here is Dan. 12, and it is important to see this. When these events occur there will be a blindness in the mass of the Jews, for they will not be in the secret at all. They will be quite surprised when the Lord returns. These signs will be only understood by the elect. People will be much as they are now in respect to the Lord's coming for His own, scoffers saying, “Where is the promise of His coming?” Every true believer is looking for the coming of the Lord in some way. Intelligence may be lacking as to it, but a true believer wants to be with the Lord. And when Paul speaks about the crown of righteousness, he says “And not to me only, but unto all them also who love His appearing.” Men are willingly ignorant that God has already interfered in the world, and swept one guilty race away. It is the word of God that tells us of the coming of the Lord, and it is the word of God that tells us about the flood. You see wonderful mercy here on the part of the Lord to warn the remnant that they may escape the terrible storm. There are some who accuse of cowardice those who rejoice that the church will not be here then; but it will be God's chastisement, and who would choose that? And if it would be such a grand thing to be there and endure it, why did the Lord warn them to escape?
There will be this covenant, and according to it the Jews will be allowed to worship according to their ritual; but in the middle of the week (i.e., of the last seven years) idolatry is set up—idolatry of a trinity; for “the dragon,” “the beast,” and “the false prophet” (the anti-christ) will all be worshipped by the idolatrous part of the nation. But those who are obedient to the word will flee away when they see this idolatry set up and it will be very urgent. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains. It is quite evident that all this is Jewish. We Christians will then all be in heaven with Christ.
Ver. 17. From the top of the house there would be a stairway outside leading to the court below. All these verses show the urgent necessity of flight, and withal the Lord's tenderness and gracious consideration for his people in this the time of Jacob's trouble! How greater would be their difficulties if having infants in that hour of urgency and distress! And the Lord, foreseeing all, bids them to pray for the absence of hindrances to their flight (ver. 20). Oh, how He cares! This prayer will be beforehand. From Dan. 12 we see there will be wise ones who shall instruct others in righteousness (ver. 3) for “the wise shall understand” (ver. 10); so when they see this coming they will pray that it be not in the winter when the ravines have rushing torrents, making escape dangerous. Here the Lord prepares them, and assuredly we also can profit thereby. No doubt the reference to the Sabbath is to the Sabbath-day's journey when thus restricted they would be likely to be overtaken. There is no reference in the O.T. to a sabbath day's journey, but there is in the N.T., and it has the Lord's sanction.
Then He shows them “then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time no nor ever shall be.” When the Lord quotes scripture further light is given. Indeed we may say that always in the N.T. when there is a quotation from the O.T. additional light is given. So here the Lord goes beyond Daniel by adding “nor ever shall be.” It will never be repeated. It will be the most trying experience any nation has ever had. There is that idolatry and they will be forced to have the mark of the beast either openly or secretly. They must be identified with it either publicly or privately, or be put to death, shut off from all the privileges of society. Whatever pressure we are subjected to, there will be far worse coming, and it ought to keep us from grumbling. The Christian is told his afflictions are accomplished in his brethren in the world. If we are pressed and tried, it is quite natural for us to think no one was ever tried like this! There is a hymn I don't go with at all
“All these sorrows past endurance,
Follow us through life.”
He will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able. I have no doubt when we are tried we have lessons to learn, and I am sure we all have to own how God has been very patient with us, for we have been very poor scholars.
Then the remnant will be persecuted by their brethren, as well as persecuted by anti-christ; and those who delay and do not escape at once will have the door shut. Those in Jerusalem will have two outside enemies, the king of the north and the king of the south, and these while at enmity with each other, are both of them against the Jews. The king of the north is called “the overflowing scourge.” He will have a kingdom north of Palestine, a power then occupying the territory now occupied by the Turk north of Palestine, but he will be backed up by another power, possibly Russia. Altogether it will be a bitter, bitter time. Our hearts may well go out in sympathy as His did. We get the principle in Abraham. He was outside. No fire nor brimstone was coming on him, but his heart went out to any who might be there belonging to the Lord, though I daresay Lot had the chief place in his heart when he prayed for the fifty or thirty righteous that might be there.
Ver. 22. How these few words indicate the pressure of that time. The Assyrian is God's instrument in the punishment of Israel. If we turn to Isai. 10:24, we see that very clearly. So after the Assyrian has done his work (though he is quite unconcerned that he is God's instrument, and goes on boasting, God afterward will deal with him. Those who are used of God to punish His people invariably abuse their commission. Those God thinks of are His elect. Those saved now are His elect, as scripture shows abundantly. There are, too, the elect of God's earthly people, “Israel mine elect,” precious to the Lord—the remnant of that day. And turning to Isai. 65:17-22, the “new heavens and a new earth” there are not the eternal of Rev. 21, but millennial.
Ver. 23. It would be useless to speak of Christ in this way to the saint of God in this dispensation. We know Christ in a far more blessed way, not after the flesh, Christ on earth is for an earthly people. When He comes for the church He does not come to the earth but in the air, and we go up to meet Him. Afterward when He comes to the earth we come with Him. Scripture makes a great distinction between the coming of Christ for, and the coming of Christ with, His saints. It is not the Christian hope at all that the Lord is on earth. He is going to stand on the mount of Olives. He will suddenly appear in His temple; this is the Jewish hope. Except in the apostate part true repentance will be wrought in all the nation. They will feel the sin of belonging to the nation that said “His blood be on us and on our children.” Compare Psa. 51. Whilst this was David's experience, it will nevertheless be the experience of the future remnant who will feel their blood-guiltiness as David did. God has not in His word formulated Christian prayers and hymns for us, for we have the Holy Ghost; but the earthly people have their psalms and hymns written for them, and they will use them.
“Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation; my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” Here are the people in whom repentance will be wrought, but see what it is connected with, “Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion; build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering, and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.”
There will again be the sacrifices, but they will be commemorative. The sons of Zadok will have their place again, as we find from Ezekiel. God knows where they are. There is one thing definitely told us that all the nations will be responsible for their treatment of the “gospel of kingdom.” The scriptures will be—perhaps even those being now printed in England—used of God in the hands of future missionaries, the Jews. All things serve His might. At Pentecost there was the reverse of God's judgment of Babel—the confusion of tongues. It is God's wondrous grace shining out there. Babel was the beginning of the nations. But in giving all the nations their places in the world it was all in connection with Israel. There are seventy nations mentioned in Gen. 10, and if we turn to Deut. 32 we find “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel” (ver. 8).
“The Most High” is a millennial title. I have often wondered whether in the millennium there will not be seventy nations. There are more than this number now. Then Jerusalem will be the capital of the world. “It is called the city of the great King,” and He will have absolute sway from one end of the earth to the other. The devil will have tremendous power when the Holy Ghost is withdrawn. The Lord is preparing that “generation” for the bitterness of that day, as well as warning them of the false Christ, etc. During the Lord's public ministry there was a terrible display of Satanic power. The Lord was overcoming him, binding him by obedience and dependence, and then. spoiling his goods. If it is almighty power it is almighty at all times and everywhere. Satan's power is great, and can be divided. Some of his power is in heaven and some on earth now. He is to be expelled from heaven with his angels and cast down to the earth, his power will be united and concentrated here below. So “there shall arise false Christs, And false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” There is something very sweet in the Lord's gracious care of the elect. He will not allow them to be deceived.
I was thinking of what He says, in John 10, of His sheep. “A stranger will they not follow,” but “my sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow me.” They are marked in the ear and foot, so here they will be graciously guarded. When the Lord was here “a man approved of God among them by miracles and wonders and signs,” they said, “Show us a sign.” There is something very solemn in this, for I think there is sufficient reason to believe that what they really wanted was an answer by fire as in Elijah's day. We are distinctly told the anti-christ will be able to call down fire from heaven which the Lord refused to do. “Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth. Behold he is in the secret-chambers, believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (vers. 26, 27)—a sudden and terrible surprise to the mass of the Jews as well as to the Gentiles, for “every eye shall see Him.”
This discourse on Olivet is divided into three parts, first that which takes up what is connected with Israel; then what belongs to the church; and lastly, concerning the Gentiles. All we have looked at up to the present has to do with Israel. To tell of the secret chamber or the desert as applying to us Christians we can see would have no bearing, inasmuch as there will be no Christians on the earth at that time to be warned. But those who have the scriptures telling them that He will suddenly come to His temple, or that His feet shall stand on the mount of Olives maybe deceived by the testimony of these false prophets. The Lord is guarding the saints of the coming days against these rumors. The elect have a very large place in His heart. It is the elect of Israel in these verses; the elect remnant. The days will be shortened for the elect's sake, so we see how large a place in His heart they have. All this is very different from the coming Of the Lord for His church, which will have already taken place. That will be a sudden unexpected filling of His enemies with terror, making them mourn; but when He comes for us the world will only know we are gone. The fulfilling of 1 Thess. 4:16, 17 will be secret; for the “shout” here does not affect the wicked dead, but only those who are in relationship to Christ— “the dead in Christ.” His voice “all that are in the graves shall hear,” indeed, but not all “the dead” at one and the same time. Rev. 20:4-14 shows us that the wicked dead are not raised till a thousand years after the righteous and holy dead. The dead of 1 Cor. 15:51-57 are of believers only, and not of unjust.
People say death is a debt that we have all got to pay, but this verse 51 says “we shall not all sleep.” Which are we to believe? What people say, or what the scripture declares? Paul links himself with the believers living when Christ comes. No doubt the world will realize that something has happened, as the people said it thundered when the Father spoke to the Son; but they will find us gone. We must keep resolutely before our souls the coming of the Lord for His saints. Returning to our chapter, what we have here is the coming of the Lord with us as in 2 Thess. 1. I do not care to hear the expression “the Lord's return” in respect to His coming for us, for He will not return to the earth till He comes to judge, and we come with Him. When, as in vers. 4o, 41, it speaks of “one taken and another left” it means one taken away in judgment and another left for blessing on the earth. Of course when the Lord Jesus comes for us, it is the reverse of this, i.e., the saints are caught up for blessing, and the unbeliever left for earthly judgment. During the millennium every transgression will be dealt with, yet many may yield but feigned obedience (Psa. 66:3). As we proceed we shall see that before the thousand years reign, there will be the judgment of the wicked living; after the thousand years there will be the judgment of the wicked dead.
“Wheresoever the carcass is” (ver. 28). The carcass is the apostate part of the Jewish nation, that which is most offensive to God—only a carcass lifeless, fit only for judgment, and the judgment will fall on them, and there will be no escaping it.
Ver. 29. When the Lord comes there will be the overturning of earthly rule and power. Whilst “the stars” are representative of the subordinate powers, the two “great lights” of the heavens are figures of the higher ruling powers-supreme and derivative—once indeed ordained of God. but now ministers of Satan (Rev. 13:2). Immediately He will come and there will be the subversion of all man's boasted civilization. Even now people wonder at what is going to happen. Well, the worst cannot come while the church is here, for the Holy Spirit is here still in person. Afterward it will rather be as “the seven Spirits of God.” If we weigh what the Lord said in His valedictory address that He shall “abide with you forever,” and know that He formed the church on the day of Pentecost by baptizing it into one body, we see that while the church is here the Holy Spirit is here: and when the church is taken to heaven, He no longer abides here thus personally.
The fact of the Holy Spirit being here convicts the world before God, for why is God's Son not here? The world stands guilty. If the Lord Jesus as a divine person while speaking to Nicodemus could say, “the Son of man which is in heaven,” the Holy Spirit as a divine person, though gone to heaven, will nevertheless be operating here converting souls. Whenever a soul is born again it is the work of the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of God using the word of God. It may be through the lips of an unconverted man—words spoken in mockery. Balaam and Caiaphas, for instance, God in His wisdom saw good to use in prophesying. In every dispensation, if there has been a work of grace in any soul, it has been by the operation of the Spirit of God through His word.
I believe myself that within the last hundred years God has been wonderfully gracious in recovering for us truths, not revealing new truths, but recovered ones. If we read any of the great Reformers, or the old writers, we see how comparatively little they knew of truth compared with what has been recovered during the last hundred years; while at the same time there has been an enormous energy of Satan, in promulgating such evil things manifestly of him, and most of them emanating from the U.S.A. But we see how these evil doctrines are spreading, and it is deplorable how people are receiving them. The Lord Jesus does not come to us as Son of man. No one ever addressed Him as Son of man, but He often spoke of Himself as such, and He only spoke of Himself as Christ to one, and to one other as Son of God. He generally used the title of Son of man. And if He is refused His glories as Messiah, wider glories are His as Son of man (see Psa. 2, 8).
What verse 30 presents is very different from the way in which Christ comes for His saints. Here He comes with them, and they will all be with Him there. There are scriptures which speak of His coming “with His holy angels,” some also “with His saints,” some again, with both (2 Thess. 1). Again it says, “the tribulation of those days,” in another place “the great tribulation.” The Lord says, as we have already remarked, “Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” It is the last three and a half years of Daniel's seventieth week. If we go to where the gap commences, it says, “From the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks.” After these sixty-nine weeks (for the sixty-ninth week ends when the Lord Jesus rides into Jerusalem) He is crucified—not in the sixty-ninth week, and, of course, not in the seventieth). Thus, as we have these circumstances at the beginning of the gap before the church is formed, so after the church is gone, there will likewise be an interval, but we do not know how long.
Ver. 31. “And he shall send his angels” etc. In their gathering we have angelic instrumentality as well as human (see Isai. 66:19, 20). Then in the next verse we see the very opposite of our part. We are not told to look for any sign. That hymn is quite correct-
“No sign to be looked for; the star's in the sky,”
They can see things taking place, so can we. We can see things shaping for the coming judgment. There is nothing said about any sign of the Lord's coming for His saints; all that is said to us is “Ye see the day approaching.” At Pentecost a temple began to be built, out of which God will get glory for all eternity. It takes in all that are really the Lord's in this present economy. “In whom [Christ] all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.” It never speaks of the body thus growing, for this is looked at as a complete thing. But when you speak of a temple you can speak of the last stone being added; and when this by the gospel of salvation is effected, He will come for us. He will not tarry. Yet it does say, “Ye see the day approaching,” but this is not His coming for us but the day of His manifestation. Anyone who is intelligent in the word can look around and see things forming for that day, and we know He is coming before then. It is a moment, an hour, a little while.
The fig tree in scripture is clearly a figure of Israel as a nation: Nathanael was found under the fig tree; and we have the barren fig tree. Luke presents a wider view. Behold the fig tree and “all the trees.” In Matthew the Jews figure largely, while Luke looks more at the Gentiles. I should say Egypt would be another of the trees. Look at the revival there. How extraordinary it has been! Since it has been under the wing of the British nation it has come to be a very important place. Now that is a sign if you like, for there is going to be a “king of the south” who is going to play an important part when the church is removed. When the Jews are restored, he will be their enemy: and there will be another who will play a still more important part, and who is called in Daniel the “king of the north,” and in Isaiah “the Assyrian.”