Y. Gop’s PROVIDENTIAL DEALINGS WITH HIS PZOPLE. The dispensations of God’s providence prove, while they illustrate, his goodness to his people. In the present instance the Saviour warned his followers; this was the first link in the chain of his love. Acting on this warning, they fied ; and God, in his mercy, favoured their flight and facilitated it. In answer to the petitions previously taught them and presented, we may be sure, by them, their flight was not in winter, or at least needed not to be so, for the siege commenced in the October of 66 a.p.; the final siege began in the April or May of the year of our Lord 70. Thus they had the opportunity of flight before or at the beginning of the siege, and consequently before the rigours of winter had set in; or, if perchance any delayed their flight and lingered on till near the concluding catastrophe, they in like manner avoided the winter. The consequence was that the Christian Jews effected their escape to Pella, now Tabathat Fakkil, near the northern border of Persa, among the hills of Gilead, on the other side of Jordan, and a hundred miles from the besieged city. The merciful dealings of Divine providence were also manifested by the curtailment esemerce of the period of distress. In the midst of wrath he remembered mercy, and for his elect’s sake he so overruled matters that the siege was brought to a speedy termination. So terrible was the time that, in the words of the evangelist, “except the Lord had shortened the days, no flesh would have been saved.” The Scripture statement is fully confirmed by the historical details of Josephus, who makes it attndantly evident that the wretchedness of men and the wickedness of men had then culminated. Unprecedented before, they have remained
om, x1. 1—37.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. 223
without parallel since. It was Passover time, and multitudes thronged the city. What from this state of matters inside the city and the siege outside, famine ensued ; its usua! attendant, pestilence, followed. Men and women seemed to have divested themselves of the instincts of humanity; nameless barbarities were perpetrated. The city was torn by sedition within—three factions being in constant conflict with each other; war raged without, hundreds of Jewish prisoners being crucified in sight of their friends. More than a million Jews perished in the siege, and ninety-seven thousand were taken captive—some of them sold into slavery, some sent to Egyptian mines, and others reserved for the gladiatorial games, ‘“ Those days shall be affliction,” according to the correct rendering ; and never was prediction fulfilled with more terrible literality. But two circumstances, under Providence, abridged this reign of terrors : one was the terrible energy of the besieger, who pressed the siege and at last stormed the city; and the other was the fearful infatuation of the besieged. The city, which had withstood Nebuchadnezzar more than a year and a quarter, fell before the power of the Roman general in less than five months, Had things continued much longer, Judea itself would have been desolated, and its inhabitants, including, no doubt, many sincere Christians, would have perished. But God, for his people’s sake, shortened those days of shocking suffering and unspeakable sadness. The Saviour again, and for the third time, repeats his exhortation to heedfulness against those who at such a crisis deceived, either consciously or unconsciously, themselves, and who should deceive others by holding forth hopes of deliverance by the coming of the Christ.—J. J. G.
Vers. 24—31. Parallel passages: Matt. xxiv. 29—35; Luke xxi. 25—33.—The second advent. I. THE GREATNESS OF THE EVENT. Whether our Lord’s coming shall be pre-millennial or post-millennial we stay not to inquire. The great importance attaches to the fact of the second coming of the Son of man, which this section describes and which all Christians believe. The future coming of the Son of man naturally leads us back in thought to his first coming. The world had waited long for that blessed day. Patriarchs had looked forward to it, but it was in faith; prophets saw it, but it was in vision; saints sighed for its approach, but it was still a great way off—they hoped for its arrival, but they died before the promise was fulfilled ; servants of God longed for its coming, and when it at length arrived they felt so _ satisfied that there seemed nothing further for them to desire—the language of Simeon expressed their thoughts, “ Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” Angels celebrated it on the plains of Bethlehem, and sang in heavenly carol, “Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will to men.” The people of God look forward with equal longing and equal eagerness to the day of Christ’s second coming. They look and long for it as the period of complete redemption; they expect it as the time of home-gathering of all their brethren in the Lord; in anticipation of that great deliver- ance and of that blessed reunion they cry, “ Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly.”
Il. Tue @LoRY OF HI8 comina. He will come, we are taught to believe, personally, visibly, and gloriously. He will come “in the clouds.” The clouds of heaven serve many important purposes; they screen from the heat of the sun by day, and moderate the radiation of the earth by night. Sometimes they supply from their contents moisture to plants, and bring gladness to the thirsty ground; sometimes they pour down the water that originates springs or swells rivers; sometimes they cover with snow the polar regions. Those cloud-masses, as they float in the atmosphere, now approach within a mile of the earth, again ascend to the distance of five or six miles above its surface. Sometimes they curl in thin, parallel, silvery streaks; sometimes they form dense conical or convex heaps; sometimes, at the approach of night, they spread out in wide low-lying horizontal sheets; sometimes, fraught with storm, they move like a dark canopy overhead; again they unite and form various combinations. At all times they claim our attention, and commend themselves to our admiration by their fantastic forms, their changing colours, their varying density, and their strange combinations. The views of a kaleidoscope are nothing compared with the manifolc aspects of the clouds. The clouds of heaven, then, are objects of great beauty, grandeur, and glory. The ancient heathens had a just appreciation of the magnificence ef the clouds, and accordingly associated them with their highest conceptions ot
224 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. (on. xm. 1—37.