Here then we have a most comprehensive sketch of the entire period from the moment in which our Lord was speaking, down to the time of the end. But the reader will need to bear in mind that there is an unnoticed interval--a parenthesis, a break--in this period, during which the great mystery of the church is unfolded.
This interval or break is entirely passed over in this discourse, inasmuch as the time had not arrived for its development. It was as yet "hid in God," and could not be unfolded until the Messiah was finally rejected and cut off from the earth and received up into glory. The entire of this discourse would have its full and perfect accomplishment, although such a thing as the church had never been heard of. For, let it never be forgotten, the church forms no part of the ways of God with Israel and the earth. And as to the allusion, in verse 14, to the preaching of the gospel, we are not to suppose that it is at all the same thing as "The glorious gospel of the grace of God," as preached by Paul. It is styled, "This gospel of the kingdom;" and, moreover, it is to be preached, not for the purpose of gathering the church, but "as a witness to all nations." We must not confound things which God, in His infinite wisdom, has made to differ. The church must not be confounded with the kingdom: nor yet the gospel of the grace of God with the gospel of the kingdom. The two things are perfectly distinct; and, if we confound them, we shall understand neither the one nor the other. And, further, we would desire to press upon the reader the absolute necessity of seeing the break, parenthesis, or unnoticed interval in which the great mystery of the church is inserted. If this be not clearly seen, Matt. xxiv. cannot be understood.
But we must proceed with our Lord's discourse.
At verse 15, He seems to call His hearers back a little, as it were, to something very specific--something with which a Jewish believer would be familiar from the fact of Daniel's allusion to it. "When ye, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth let him understand): then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains. Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house: neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.... But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day. For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be."
All this is most definite. The quotation from Daniel xii. fixes the application beyond all question. It proves that the reference is not to the siege of Jerusalem, under Titus; for we read in Daniel xii. that, "At that time thy people shall be delivered;" and, most clearly, they were not delivered in the days of Titus. No; the reference is to the time of the end. The scene is laid at Jerusalem. The persons addressed and contemplated are Jewish believers--the pious remnant of Israel, in the great tribulation, after the church has left the scene. How can any imagine that the persons here instructed are viewed as on church ground? What force would there be to such in the allusion to the winter or the Sabbath day?
Then, again, "If any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not.... 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." What possible application could such words have to persons who are instructed to wait for God's Son from heaven, and who know that ere He returns to this earth they shall have met Him in the clouds and returned with Him to the Father's house? Could any Christian, instructed in his proper hope, be deceived by persons saying that Christ is here or there, in the desert or in the secret chambers? Impossible. Such a one is looking out for the Bridegroom to come from heaven; and he knows that it is wholly out of the question that Christ can appear on this earth without bringing all His people with Him.
Thus, the simple truth settles everything; and all we want is to be simple in taking it in. The simplest Christian knows full well that his Lord will not appear to him like a flash of lightning, but as the bright and morning Star, and hence he understands that Matt. xxiv. cannot apply to the church, though most surely the church can study it with interest and profit, as it can all the other prophetic Scriptures; and, we may add, the interest will be all the more intense, and the profit all the deeper, in proportion as we see the true application of such Scriptures.