The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 441

people's sin, e.nd the coming judgments. The crowd he.d disperaed, Four of the 11opostles, Peter e.nd James, John and Andrew, came privlltely to him. They he.d listened in awe and wonder to his stern condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees. They had he&rd him say that they. themselv~s, th~ 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 I" 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 (ix. 26-27) had t.aught 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 hllnd, might fill us with intense excitement, and unfit us for our ordinary duties, e.s was the case with the Thees&I. lonians 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 prac- tical; he shoWB 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 hie thoughts not only the possibility that to-day, any day, he may die, as he has seen -others die; but also the possibility that to-day, aoy 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 tremen- dous catastrophes, we find features which seem to belong to the other. From the proph~ tical point of view, the two seemed nearer together than they now appear to us ; the 1.ntervening distance was lost sight of. One day ii with the Lord as a thousand years, -and a thonsand years a.e one day. The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple was the end of the Jewish dispensation. It might well seeu1 to the Jews like the end of -the WO!'ld. It was so crushing, so tremendous, attended with sufferings so frightful, bloodshed so terrible. To us Christiane it is a meet fignre 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 &!rain0 to judge both the quick and the dead.. This is the prospect which the Lord sets before us in this solemn discourse. We ma,y be among the living when he 1hall come; we may hear the voice of the archangel and the trump of God; we may aee the dead rising at the call of Christ; we may, yet alive, "be caught up t.igether with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." Then "the heavens shall pa8II away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth alao and the works that are therein shall be burned up. . . , Neve~thelcss we, according to bis promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelloth righteoWineu." St. Peter'e memory, as he wrote these solemn warnings, seems to  011. xx1v, 1-51.) THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTIIEW. 4,J7