Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 24:4

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

Take heed … – Jesus, in reply to their question, first gives them a caution to beware of deception. They were to be constantly on their guard, because many would arise to deceive the people.

Many shall come in my name – Not in the name or by the authority of Jesus, or claiming to be His followers, and to be sent by him, but in the name of the Messiah, or claiming to be the Messiah.

I am Christ – I am the Messiah. See the notes at Mat 1:1. The Messiah was expected at that time, Mat 2:1-2. Many would lay, claims to being the Messiah, and, as He was universally expected, multitudes would easily be led to believe in them. There is abundant evidence that this was fully accomplished. Josephus informs us that there were many who pretended to divine inspiration; who deceived the people, leading out numbers of them into the desert. The land, says He was overrun with magicians, seducers, and impostors, who drew the people after them in multitudes into solitudes and deserts, to see I the signs and miracles which they promised to show by the power of God. Among these are mentioned particularly Dositheus, the Samaritan, who affirmed that He was Christ; Simon Magus, who said He appeared among the Jews as the Son of God; and Theudas, who persuaded many to go with him to the river Jordan, to see the waters divided. The names of 24 false Messiahs are recorded as having appeared between the time of the Emperor Adrian and the year 1682.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 4. Take heed that no man deceive you.] The world is full of deceivers, and it is only by taking heed to the counsel of Christ that even his followers can escape being ruined by them. From this to Mt 24:31, our Lord mentions the signs which should precede his coming.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

And Jesus answered and said unto them,…. Not to indulge their curiosity, but to instruct them in things useful to be known, and which might be cautions to them and others, against deceivers; confirm them in the faith of himself, when they should see his predictions accomplished; and be directions to them, of what might shortly be expected.

Take heed that no man deceive you: by pretending to come from God with a new revelation, setting himself up for the Messiah, after my departure; suggesting himself to be the person designed by God to be the deliverer of Israel, and to be sent by him, to set up a temporal kingdom, in great worldly splendour and glory; promising great names, and high places of honour and trust in it; things which Christ knew his disciples were fond of, and were in danger of being ensnared by; and therefore gives them this suitable and seasonable advice, and caution.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Awful Predictions.

      4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.   5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.   6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.   7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.   8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.   9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.   10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.   11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.   12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.   13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.   14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.   15 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:)   16 Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains:   17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:   18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.   19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!   20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:   21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.   22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.   23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.   24 For 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.   25 Behold, I have told you before.   26 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.   27 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.   28 For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.   29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:   30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.   31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

      The disciples had asked concerning the times, When shall these things be? Christ gives them no answer to that, after what number of days and years his prediction should be accomplished, for it is not for us to know the times (Acts i. 7); but they had asked, What shall be the sign? That question he answers fully, for we are concerned to understand the signs of the times, ch. xvi. 3. Now the prophecy primarily respects the events near at hand–the destruction of Jerusalem, the period of the Jewish church and state, the calling of the Gentiles, and the setting up of Christ’s kingdom in the world; but as the prophecies of the Old Testament, which have an immediate reference to the affairs of the Jews and the revolutions of their state, under the figure of them do certainly look further, to the gospel church and the kingdom of the Messiah, and are so expounded in the New Testament, and such expressions are found in those predictions as are peculiar thereto and not applicable otherwise; so this prophecy, under the type of Jerusalem’s destruction, looks as far forward as the general judgment; and, as is usual in prophecies, some passages are most applicable to the type, and others to the antitype; and toward the close, as usual, it points more particularly to the latter. It is observable, that what Christ here saith to his disciples tends more to engage their caution than to satisfy their curiosity; more to prepare them for the events that should happen than to give them a distinct idea of the events themselves. This is that good understanding of the time which we should all covet, thence to infer what Israel ought to do: and so this prophecy is of standing lasting use to the church, and will be so to the end of time; for the thing that hath been, is that which shall be (Eccl 1:5; Eccl 1:6; Eccl 1:7; Eccl 1:9), and the series, connection, and presages, of events, are much the same still that they were then; so that upon the prophecy of this chapter, pointing at that event, moral prognostications may be made, and such constructions of the signs of the times as the wise man’s heart will know how to improve.

      I. Christ here foretels the going forth of deceivers; he begins with a caution, Take heed that no man deceive you. They expected to be told when these things should be, to be let into that secret; but this caution is a check to their curiosity, “What is that to you? Mind you your duty, follow me, and be not seduced from following me.” Those that are most inquisitive concerning the secret things which belong not to them are most easily imposed upon by seducers, 2 Thess. ii. 3. The disciples, when they heard that the Jews, their most inveterate enemies, should be destroyed, might be in danger of falling into security; “Nay,” saith Christ, “you are more exposed other ways.” Seducers are more dangerous enemies to the church than persecutors.

      Three times in this discourse he mentions the appearing of false prophets, which was, 1. A presage of Jerusalem’s ruin. Justly were they who killed the true prophets, left to be ensnared by false prophets; and they who crucified the true Messiah, left to be deceived and broken by false Christs and pretended Messiahs. The appearing of these was the occasion of dividing that people into parties and factions, which made their ruin the more easy and speedy; and the sin of the many that were led aside by them, helped to fill the measure. 2. It was a trial to the disciples of Christ, and therefore agreeable to their state of probation, that they which are perfect, may be made manifest.

      Now concerning these deceivers, observe here,

      (1.) The pretences they should come under. Satan acts most mischievously, when he appears as an angel of light: the colour of the greatest good is often the cover of the greatest evil.

      [1.] There should appear false prophets (v. 11-24); the deceivers would pretend to divine inspiration, an immediate mission, and a spirit of prophecy, when it was all a lie. Such they had been formerly (Jer 23:16; Ezek 13:6), as was foretold, Deut. xiii. 3. Some think, the seducers here pointed to were such as had been settled teachers in the church, and had gained reputation as such, but afterward betrayed the truth they had taught, and revolted to error; and from such the danger is the greater, because least suspected. One false traitor in the garrison may do more mischief than a thousand avowed enemies without.

      [2.] There should appear false Christs, coming in Christ’s name (v. 5), assuming to themselves the name peculiar to him, and saying, I am Christ, pseudo-christs, v. 24. There was at that time a general expectation of the appearing of the Messiah; they spoke of him; as he that should come; but when he did come, the body of the nation rejected him; which those who were ambitious of making themselves a name, took advantage of, and set up for Christ. Josephus speaks of several such impostors between this and the destruction of Jerusalem; one Theudas, that was defeated by Cospius Fadus; another by Felix, another by Festus. Dosetheus said he was the Christ foretold by Moses. Origen adversus Celsum. See Acts 5:36; Acts 5:37. Simon Magus pretended to be the great power of God, Acts viii. 10. In after-ages there have been such pretenders; one about a hundred years after Christ, that called himself Bar-cochobas–The son of a star, but proved Bar-cosba–The son of a lie. About fifty years ago Sabbati-Levi set up for a Messiah in the Turkish empire, and was greatly caressed by the Jews; but in a short time his folly was made manifest. See Sir Paul Rycaut’s History. The popish religion doth, in effect, set up a false Christ; the Pope comes, in Christ’s name, as his vicar, but invades and usurps all his offices, and so is a rival with him, and, as such, an enemy to him, a deceiver, and an antichrist.

      [3.] These false Christs and false prophets would have their agents and emissaries busy in all places to draw people in to them, v. 23. Then when public troubles are great and threatening, and people will be catching at any thing that looks like deliverance, then Satan will take the advantage of imposing on them; they will say, Lo, here is a Christ, or there is one; but do not mind them: the true Christ did not strive, nor cry; nor was it said of him, Lo, here! or Lo, there! (Luke xvii. 21), therefore if any man say so concerning him, look upon it as a temptation. The hermits, who place religion in a monastical life, say, He is in the desert; the priests, who made the consecrated wafer to be Christ, say, “He is en tois tameiois—in the cupboards, in the secret chambers: lo, he is in this shrine, in that image.” Thus some appropriate Christ’s spiritual presence to one party or persuasion, as if they had the monopoly of Christ and Christianity; and the kingdom of Christ must stand and fall, must live and die, with them; “Lo, he is in this church, in that council:” whereas Christ is All in all, not here or there, but meets his people with a blessing in every place where he records his name.

      (2.) The proof they should offer for the making good of these pretences; They shall show great signs and wonders (v. 24), not true miracles, those are a divine seal, and with those the doctrine of Christ stands confirmed; and therefore if any offer to draw us from that by signs and wonders, we must have recourse to that rule given of old (Deut. xiii. 1-3), If the sign or wonder come to pass, yet follow not him that would draw you to serve other gods, or believe in other Christs, for the Lord your God proveth you. But these were lying wonders (2 Thess. ii. 9), wrought by Satan (God permitting him), who is the prince of the power of the air. It is not said, They shall work miracles, but, They shall show great signs; they are but a show; either they impose upon men’s credulity by false narratives, or deceive their senses by tricks of legerdemain, or arts of divination, as the magicians of Egypt by their enchantments.

      (3.) The success they should have in these attempts,

      [1.] They shall deceive many (v. 5), and again, v. 11. Note, The devil and his instruments may prevail far in deceiving poor souls; few find the strait gate, but many are drawn into the broad way; many will be imposed upon by their signs and wonders, and many drawn in by the hopes of deliverance from their oppressions. Note, Neither miracles nor multitudes are certain signs of a true church; for all the world wonders after the beast, Rev. xiii. 3.

      [2.] They shall deceive, if it were possible, the very elect, v. 24. This bespeaks, First, The strength of the delusion; it is such as many shall be carried away by (so strong shall the stream be), even those that were thought to stand fast. Men’s knowledge, gifts, learning, eminent station, and long profession, will not secure them; but, notwithstanding these, many will be deceived; nothing but the almighty grace of God, pursuant to his eternal purpose, will be a protection. Secondly, The safety of the elect in the midst of this danger, which is taken for granted in that parenthesis, If it were possible, plainly implying that it is not possible, for they are kept by the power of God, that the purpose of God, according to the election, may stand. It is possible for those that have been enlightened to fall away (Heb 6:4; Heb 6:5; Heb 6:6), but not for those that were elected. If God’s chosen ones should be deceived, God’s choice would be defeated, which is not to be imagined, for whom he did predestinate, he called, justified, and glorified, Rom. viii. 30. They were given to Christ; and of all that were given to him, he will lose none, John x. 28. Grotius will have this to be meant of the great difficulty of drawing the primitive Christians from their religion, and quotes it as used proverbially by Galen; when he would express a thing very difficult and morally impossible, he saith, “You may sooner draw away a Christian from Christ.”

      (4.) The repeated cautions which our Saviour gives to his disciples to stand upon their guard against them; therefore he gave them warning, that they might watch ( v. 25); Behold, I have told you before. He that is told before where he will be assaulted, may save himself, as the king of Israel did, 2Kgs 6:9; 2Kgs 6:10. Note, Christ’s warnings are designed to engage our watchfulness; and though the elect shall be preserved from delusion, yet they shall be preserved by the use of appointed means, and a due regard to the cautions of the word; we are kept through faith, faith in Christ’s word, which he has told us before.

      [1.] We must not believe those who say, Lo, here is Christ; or, Lo, he is there, v. 23. We believe that the true Christ is at the right hand of God, and that his spiritual presence is where two or three are gathered together in his name; believe not those therefore who would draw you off from a Christ in heaven, by telling you he is any where on earth; or draw you off from the catholic church on earth, by telling you he is here, or he is there; believe it not. Note, There is not a greater enemy to true faith than vain credulity. The simple believeth every word, and runs after every cry. Memneso apistein—Beware of believing.

      [2.] We must not go forth after those that say, He is in the desert, or, He is in the secret chambers, v. 26. We must not hearken to every empiric and pretender, nor follow every one that puts up the finger to point us to a new Christ, and a new gospel; “Go not forth, for if you do, you are in danger of being taken by them; therefore keep out of harm’s way, be not carried about with every wind; many a man’s vain curiosity to go forth hath led him into a fatal apostasy; your strength at such a time is to sit still, to have the heart established with grace.”

      II. He foretels wars and great commotions among the nations, Matt 24:6; Matt 24:7. When Christ was born, there was a universal peace in the empire, the temple of Janus was shut; but think not that Christ came to send, or continue such a peace (Luke xii. 51); no, his city and his wall are to be built even in troublesome times, and even wars shall forward his work. From the time that the Jews rejected Christ, and he left their house desolate, the sword did never depart from their house, the sword of the Lord was never quiet, because he had given it a charge against a hypocritical nation and the people of his wrath, and by it brought ruin upon them.

      Here is, 1. A prediction of the event of the day; You will now shortly hear of wars, and rumours of wars. When wars are, they will be heard; for every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, Isa. ix. 5. See how terrible it is (Jer. iv. 19), Thou hast heard, O my soul, the alarm of war! Even the quiet in the land, and the least inquisitive after new things, cannot but hear the rumours of war. See what comes of refusing the gospel! Those that will not hear the messengers of peace, shall be made to hear the messengers of war. God has a sword ready to avenge the quarrel of his covenant, his new covenant. Nation shall rise up against nation, that is, one part or province of the Jewish nation against another, one city against another (2Chr 15:5; 2Chr 15:6); and in the same province and city one party or faction shall rise up against another, so that they shall be devoured by, and dashed in pieces against one another, Isa. ix. 19-21.

      2. A prescription of the duty of the day; See that ye be not troubled. Is it possible to hear such sad news, and not be troubled? Yet, where the heart is fixed, trusting in God, it is kept in peace, and is not afraid, no not of the evil tidings of wars, and rumours of wars; no not the noise of Arm, arm. Be not troubled; Me throeithe—Be not put into confusion or commotion; not put into throes, as a woman with child by a fright; see that ye be not orate. Note, There is need of constant care and watchfulness to keep trouble from the heart when there are wars abroad; and it is against the mind of Christ, that his people should have troubled hearts even in troublous times.

      We must not be troubled, for two reasons.

      (1.) Because we are bid to expect this: the Jews must be punished, ruin must be brought upon them; by this the justice of God and the honour of the Redeemer must be asserted; and therefore all those things must come to pass; the word is gone out of God’s mouth, and it shall be accomplished in its season. Note, The consideration of the unchangeableness of the divine counsels, which govern all events, should compose and quiet our spirits, whatever happens. God is but performing the thing that is appointed for us, and our inordinate trouble is an interpretative quarrel with that appointment. Let us therefore acquiesce, because these things must come to pass; not only necessitate decreti–as the product of the divine counsel, but necessitate medii–as a means in order to a further end. The old house must be taken down (though it cannot be done without noise, and dust, and danger), ere the new fabric can be erected: the things that are shaken (and ill shaken they were) must be removed, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain, Heb. xii. 27.

      (2.) Because we are still to expect worse; The end is not yet; the end of time is not, and, while time lasts, we must expect trouble, and that the end of one affliction will be but the beginning of another; or, “The end of these troubles is not yet; there must be more judgments that one made use of to bring down the Jewish power; more vials of wrath must yet be poured out; there is but one woe past, more woes are yet to come, more arrows are yet to be spent upon them out of God’s quiver; therefore be not troubled, do not give way to fear and trouble, sink not under the present burthen, but rather gather in all the strength and spirit you have, to encounter what is yet before you. Be not troubled to hear of wars and rumours of wars; for then what will become of you when the famines and pestilences come?” If it be to us a vexation but to understand the report (Isa. xxviii. 19), what will it be to feel the stroke when it toucheth the bone and the flesh? If running with the footmen weary us, how shall we contend with horses? And if we be frightened at a little brook in our way, what shall we do in the swellings of Jordan? Jer. xii. 5.

      III. He foretels other judgments more immediately sent of God–famines, pestilences, and earthquakes. Famine is often the effect of war, and pestilence of famine. These were the three judgments which David was to choose one out of; and he was in a great strait, for he knew not which was the worst: but what dreadful desolations will they make, when they all pour in together upon a people! Beside war (and that is enough), there shall be,

      1. Famine, signified by the black horse under the third seal, Rev 6:5,6. We read of a famine in Judea, not long after Christ’s time, which was very impoverishing (Act 11:28); but the sorest famine was in Jerusalem during the siege. See Lam 4:9,10.

2. Pestilences, signified by the pale horse, and death upon him, and the grave at his heels, under the fourth seal, Rev 6:7, Rev 6:8. This destroys without distinction, and in a little time lays heaps upon heaps.

3. Earthquakes in divers places, or from place to place, pursuing those that flee from them, as they did from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, Zec 14:5. Great desolations have sometimes been made by earthquakes, of late and formerly; they have been the death of many, and the terror of more. In the apocalyptic visions, it is observable, that earthquakes bode good, and no evil, to the church, Rev 6:12. Compare Rev 6:15; Rev 11:12, 13, Rev 11:19; Rev 16:17-19. When God shakes terribly the earth (Isa 2:21), it is to shake the wicked out of it (Job 38:13), and to introduce the desire of all nations, Hag 2:6, 7. But here they are spoken of as dreadful judgments, and yet but the beginning of sorrows, odinon – of travailing pains, quick, violent, yet tedious too. Note, When God judgeth, he will overcome; when he begins in wrath, he will make a full end, 1Sa 3:12. When we look forward to the eternity of misery that is before the obstinate refusers of Christ and his gospel, we may truly say, concerning the greatest temporal judgments, They are but the beginning of sorrows; bad as things are with them, there are worse behind.

IV. He foretels the persecution of his own people and ministers, and a general apostasy and decay in religion thereupon, Mat 24:9, 10, 12. Observe,

1. The cross itself foretold, Mat 24:9. Note, Of all future events we are as much concerned, though commonly as little desirous, to know of our own sufferings as of any thing else. Then, when famines and pestilences prevail, then they shall impute them to the Christians, and make that a pretence for persecuting them; Christianos ad leones – Away with Christians to the lions. Christ had told his disciples, when he first sent them out, what hard things they should suffer; but they had hitherto experienced little of it, and therefore he reminds them again, that the less they had suffered, the more there was behind to be filled up, Col 1:24.

(1.) They shall be afflicted with bonds and imprisonments, cruel mockings and scourgings, as blessed Paul (2Co 11:23-25); not killed outright, but killed all the day long, in deaths often, killed so as to feel themselves die, made a spectacle to the world, 1Co 4:9, 11.

(2.) They shall be killed; so cruel are the church’s enemies, that nothing less will satisfy them than the blood of the saints, which they thirst after, suck, and shed, like water.

(3.) They shall be hated of all nations for Christ’s name’s sake, as he had told them before, Mat 10:22. The world was generally leavened with enmity and malignity to Christians: the Jews, though spiteful to the Heathen, were never persecuted by them as the Christians were; they were hated by the Jews that were dispersed among the nations, were the common butt of the world’s malice. What shall we think of this world, when the best men had the worst usage in it? It is the cause that makes the martyr, and comforts him; it was for Christ’s sake that they were thus hated; their professing and preaching his name incensed the nations so much against them; the devil, finding a fatal shock thereby given to his kingdom, and that his time was likely to be short, came down, having great wrath.

2. The offence of the cross, Mat 24:10-12. Satan thus carries on his interest by force of arms, though Christ, at length, will bring glory to himself out of the sufferings of his people and ministers. Three ill effects of persecution are here foretold.

(1.) The apostasy of some. When the profession of Christianity begins to cost men dear, then shall many be offended, shall first fall out with, and then fall off fRom. their profession; they will begin to pick quarrels with their religion, sit loose to it, grow weary of it, and at length revolt from it. Note, [1.] It is no new thing (though it is a strange thing) for those that have known the way of righteousness, to turn aside out of it. Paul often complains of deserters, who began well, but something hindered them. They were with us, but went out from us, because never truly of us, 1Jo 2:19. We are told of it before. [2.] Suffering times are shaking times; and those fall in the storm, that stood in fair weather, like the stony ground hearers, Mat 13:21. Many will follow Christ in the sunshine, who will shift for themselves, and leave him to do so to, in the cloudy dark day. They like their religion while they can have it cheap, and sleep with it in a whole skin; but, if their profession cost them any thing, they quit it presently.

(2.) The malignity of others. When persecution is in fashion, envy, enmity, and malice, are strangely diffused into the minds of men by contagion: and charity, tenderness, and moderation, are looked upon as singularities, which make a man like a speckled bird. Then they shall betray one another, that is,Those that have treacherously deserted their religion, shall hate and betray those who adhere to it, for whom they have pretended friendship. Apostates have commonly been the most bitter and violent persecutors. Note, Persecuting times are discovering times. Wolves in sheep’s clothing will then throw off their disguise, and appear wolves: they shall betray one another, and hate one another. The times must needs be perilous, when treachery and hatred, two of the worst things that can be, because directly contrary to two of the best (truth and love), shall have the ascendant. This seems to refer to the barbarous treatment which the several contending factions among the Jews gave to one another; and justly were they who ate up God’s people as they ate bread, left thus to bite and devour one another till they were consumed one of another; or, it may refer to the mischiefs done to Christ’s disciples by those that were nearest to them, as Mat 10:21. The brother shall deliver up the brother to death.

(3.) The general declining and cooling of most, Mat 24:12. In seducing times, when false prophets arise, in persecuting times, when the saints are hated, expect these two things,

[1.] The abounding of iniquity; though the world always lies in wickedness, yet there are some times in which it may be said, that iniquity doth in a special manner abound; as when it is more extensive than ordinary, as in the old world, when all flesh had corrupted their way; and when it is more excessive than ordinary, when violence is risen up to a rod of wickedness (Eze 7:11), so that hell seems to be broke loose in blasphemies against God, and enmities to the saints.

[2.] The abating of love; this is the consequence of the former; Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. Understand it in general of true serious godliness, which is all summed up in love; it is too common for professors of religion to grow cool in their profession, when the wicked are hot in their wickedness; as the church of Ephesus in bad times left her first love, Rev 2:2-4. Or, it may be understood more particularly of brotherly love. When iniquity abounds, seducing iniquity, persecuting iniquity, this grace commonly waxes cold. Christians begin to be shy and suspicious one of another, affections are alienated, distances created, parties made, and so love comes to nothing. The devil is the accuser of the brethren, not only to their enemies, which makes persecuting iniquity abound, but one to another, which makes the love of many to wax cold.

This gives a melancholy prospect of the times, that there shall be such a great decay of love; but, First, It is of the love of many, not of all. In the worst of times, God has his remnant that hold fast their integrity, and retain their zeal, as in Elijah’s days, when he thought himself left alone. Secondly, This love is grown cold, but not dead; it abates, but is not quite cast off. There is life in the root, which will show itself when the winter is past. The new nature may wax cold, but shall not wax old, for then it would decay and vanish away.

3. Comfort administered in reference to this offence of the cross, for the support of the Lord’s people under it (Mat 24:13); He that endures to the end, shall be saved. (1.) It is comfortable to those who wish well to the cause of Christ in general, that, though many are offended, yet some shall endure to the end. When we see so many drawing back, we are ready to fear that the cause of Christ will sink for want of supporters, and his name be left and forgotten for want of some to make profession of it; but even at this time there is a remnant according to the election of grace, Rom 11:5. It is spoken of the same time that this prophecy has reference to; a remnant who are not of them that draw back unto perdition, but believe and persevere to the saving of the soul; they endure to the end, to the end of their lives, to the end of their present state of probation, or to the end of these suffering trying times, to the last encounter, though they should be called to resist unto blood. (2.) It is comfortable to those who do thus endure to the end, and suffer for their constancy, that they shall be saved. Perseverance wins the crown, through free grace, and shall wear it. They shall be saved: perhaps they may be delivered out of their troubles, and comfortably survive them in this world; but it is eternal salvation that is here intended. They that endure to the end of their days, shall then receive the end of their faith and hope, even the salvation of their souls, 1Pe 1:9; Rom 2:7; Rev 3:20. The crown of glory will make amends for all; and a believing regard to that will enable us to choose rather to die at a stake with the persecuted, than to live in a palace with the persecutors.

V. He foretels the preaching of the gospel in all the world (Mat 24:14); This gospel shall be preached, and then shall the end come. Observe here, 1. 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. 2. This gospel, sooner or later, is to be preached in all the world, to every creature, and all nations are to be 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. 3. The gospel is preached for a witness to all nations, that is, a faithful declaration of the mind and will of God concerning the duty which God requires from man, and the recompence which man may expect from God. It is a record (1Jo 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. See Mar 16:16. But how does this come in here?

(1.) It is intimated that the gospel should be, if not heard, yet at least heard of, throughout the then known world, before the destruction of Jerusalem; that the Old Testament church should not be quite dissolved till the New Testament was pretty well settled, had got considerable footing, and began to make some figure. Better is the face of a corrupt degenerate church than none at all. Within forty years after Christ’s death, the sound of the gospel was gone forth to the ends of the earth, Rom 10:18. St. Paul fully preached the gospel from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum; and the other apostles were not idle. The persecuting of the saints at Jerusalem helped to disperse them, so that they went every where, preaching the word, Act 8:1-4. And when the tidings of the Redeemer are sent over all parts of the world, then shall come the end of the Jewish state. Thus, that which they thought to prevent, by putting Christ to death, they thereby procured; all men believed on him, and the Romans came, and took away their place and nation, Joh 11:48. Paul speaks of the gospel being come to all the world, and preached to every creature, Col. 1:6-23.

(2.) It is likewise intimated that even in times of temptation, trouble, and persecution, the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached and propagated, and shall force its way through the greatest opposition. Though the enemies of the church grow very hot, and many of her friends very cool, yet the gospel shall be preached. And even then, when many fall by the sword and by flame, and many do wickedly, and are corrupted by flatteries, yet then the people that do know their God, shall be strengthened to do the greatest exploits of all, in instructing many; see Dan 11:32, 33; and see an instance, Phi 1:12-14.

(3.) That which seems chiefly intended here, is, that the end of the world shall be then, and not till then, when the gospel has done its work in the world. The gospel shall be preached, and that work carried on, when you are dead; so that all nations, first or last, shall have either the enjoyment, or the refusal, of the gospel; and then cometh the end, when the kingdom shall be delivered up to God, even the Father; when the mystery of God shall be finished, the mystical body completed, and the nations either converted and saved, or convicted and silenced, by the gospel; then shall the end come, of which he had said before (Mat 24:6, 7), not yet, not till those intermediate counsels be fulfilled. The world shall stand as long as any of God’s chosen ones remain uncalled; but, when they are all gathered in, it will be set on fire immediately.

VI. He foretels more particularly the ruin that was coming upon the people of the Jews, their city, temple, and nation, Mat 24:15, etc. Here he comes more closely to answer their questions concerning the desolation of the temple; and what he said here, would be of use to his disciples, both for their conduct and for their comfort, in reference to that great event; he describes the several steps of that calamity, such as are usual in war.

1. The Romans setting up the abomination of desolation in the holy place, Mat 24:15. Now, (1.) Some understand by this an image, or statue, set up in the temple by some of the Roman governors, which was very offensive to the Jews, provoked them to rebel, and so brought the desolation upon them. The image of Jupiter Olympius, which Antiochus caused to be set upon the altar of God, is called Bdelugma eremoseos – The abomination of desolation, the very word here used by the historian, 1 Macc. 1:54. Since the captivity in Babylon, nothing was, nor could be, more distasteful to the Jews than an image in the holy place, as appeared by the mighty opposition they made when Caligula offered to set up his statue there, which had been of fatal consequence, if it had not been prevented, and the matter accommodated, by the conduct of Petronius; but Herod did set up an eagle over the temple-gate; and, some say, the statue of Titus was set up in the temple. (2.) Others choose to expound it by the parallel place (Luk 21:20), when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies. Jerusalem was the holy city, Canaan the holy land, the Mount Moriah, which lay about Jerusalem, for its nearness to the temple was, they thought in a particular manner holy ground; on the country lying round about Jerusalem the Roman army was encamped, that was the abomination that made desolate. The land of an enemy is said to be the land which thou abhorrest (Isa 7:16); so an enemy’s army to a weak but wilful people may well be called the abomination. Now this is said to be spoken of by Daniel, the prophet, who spoke more plainly of the Messiah and his kingdom than any of the Old Testament prophets did. He speaks of an abomination making desolate, which should be set up by Antiochus (Dan 11:31; Dan 12:11); but this that our Saviour refers to, we have in the message that the angel brought him (Dan 9:27), of what should come at the end of seventy weeks, long after the former; for the overspreading of abominations, or, as the margin reads it, with the abominable armies (which comes home to the prophecy here), he shall make it desolate. Armies of idolaters may well be called abominable armies; and some think, the tumults, insurrections, and abominable factions and seditions, in the city and temple, may at least be taken in as part of the abomination making desolate. Christ refers them to that prophecy of Daniel, that they might see how the ruin of their city and temple was spoken of in the Old Testament, which would both confirm his prediction, and take off the odium of it. They might likewise from thence gather the time of it – soon after the cutting off of Messiah the prince; the sin that procured it – their rejecting him, and the certainty of it – it is a desolation determined. As Christ by his precepts confirmed the law, so by his predictions he confirmed the prophecies of the Old Testament, and it will be of good use to compare both together.

Reference being here had to a prophecy, which is commonly dark and obscure, Christ inserts this memorandum, Whoso readeth, let him understand; whoso readeth the prophecy of Daniel, let him understand that it is to have its accomplishment now shortly in the desolations of Jerusalem. Note, Those that read the scriptures, should labour to understand the scriptures, else their reading is to little purpose; we cannot use that which we do not understand. See Joh 5:39; Act 8:30. The angel that delivered this prophecy to Daniel, stirred him up to know and understand, Dan 9:25. And we must not despair of understanding even dark prophecies; the great New Testament prophecy is called a revelation, not a secret. Now things revealed belong to us, and therefore must be humbly and diligently searched into. Or, Let him understand, not only the scriptures which speak of those things, but by the scriptures let him understand the times, 1Ch 12:32. Let him observe, and take notice; so some read it; let him be assured, that, notwithstanding the vain hopes with which the deluded people feed themselves, the abominable armies will make desolate.

2. The means of preservation which thinking men should betake themselves to (Mat 24:16, 20); Then let them which are in Judea, flee. Then conclude there is no other way to help yourselves than by flying for the same. We may take this,

(1.) As a prediction of the ruin itself; that it should be irresistible; that it would be impossible for the stoutest hearts to make head against it, or contend with it, but they must have recourse to the last shift, getting out of the way. It bespeaks that which Jeremiah so much insisted upon, but in vain, when Jerusalem was besieged by the Chaldeans, that it would be to no purpose to resist, but that it was their wisdom to yield and capitulate; so Christ here, to show how fruitless it would be to stand it out, bids every one make the best of his way.

(2.) We may take it as a direction to the followers of Christ what to do, not to say, A confederacy with those who fought and warred against the Romans for the preservation of their city and nation, only that they might consume the wealth of both upon their lusts (for to this very affair, the struggles of the Jews against the Roman power, some years before their final overthrow, the apostle refers, Jam 4:1-3); but let them acquiesce in the decree that was gone forth, and with all speed quit the city and country, as they would quit a falling house or a sinking ship, as Lot quitted Sodom, and Israel the tents of Dathan and Abiram; he shows them,

[1.] Whither they must flee – from Judea to the mountains; not the mountains round about Jerusalem, but those in the remote corners of the land, which would be some shelter to them, not so much by their strength as by their secrecy. Israel is said to be scattered upon the mountains (2Ch 18:16); and see Heb 11:38. It would be safer among the lions’ dens, and the mountains of the leopards, than among the seditious Jews or the enraged Romans. Note, 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. There may be a time when even those that are in Judea, where God is known, and his name is great, must flee to the mountains; and while we only go out of the way of danger, not out of the way of duty, we may trust God to provide a dwelling for his outcasts, Isa 16:4, 5. In times of public calamity, when it is manifest that we cannot be serviceable at home and may be safe abroad, Providence calls us to make our escape. He that flees, may fight again.

[2.] What haste they must make, Mat 24:17, 18. The life will be in danger, in imminent danger, the scourge will slay suddenly; and therefore he that is on the house-top, when the alarm comes, let him not come down into the house, to look after his effects there, but go the nearest way down, to make his escape; and so he that shall be in the field, will find it his wisest course to run immediately, and not return to fetch his clothes or the wealth of his house, for two reasons, First, Because the time which would be taken up in packing up his things, would delay his flight. Note, When death is at the door, delays are dangerous; it was the charge to Lot, Look not behind thee. Those that are convinced of the misery of a sinful state, and the ruin that attends them in that state, and, consequently, of the necessity of their fleeing to Christ, must take heed, lest, after all these convictions, they perish eternally by delays. Secondly, Because the carrying of his clothes, and his other movables and valuables with him, would but burthen him, and clog his flight. The Syrians, in their flight, cast away their garments, 2Ki 7:15. At such a time, we must be thankful if our lives be given us for a prey, though we can save nothing, Jer 45:4, 5. For the life is more than meat, Mat 6:25. Those who carried off least, were safest in their flight. Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator – The pennyless traveller can lose nothing by robbers. It was to his own disciples that Christ recommended this forgetfulness of their house and clothes, who had a habitation in heaven, treasure there, and durable clothing, which the enemy could not plunder them of. Omnia mea mecum porto – I have all my property with me, said Bias the philosopher in his flight, empty-handed. He that has grace in his heart carries his all along with him, when tripped of all.

Now those to whom Christ said this immediately, did not live to see this dismal day, none of all the twelve but John only; they needed not to be hidden in the mountains (Christ hid them in heaven), but they left the direction to their successors in profession, who pursued it, and it was of use to them; for when the Christians in Jerusalem and Judea saw the ruin coming on, they all retired to a town called Pella, on the other side Jordan, where they were safe; so that of the many thousands that perished in the destruction of Jerusalem, there was not so much as one Christian. See Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. 3, cap. 5. Thus the prudent man foresees the evil, and hides himself, Pro 22:3; Heb 11:7. This warning was not kept private. St. Matthew’s gospel was published long before that destruction, so that others might have taken the advantage of it; but their perishing through their unbelief of this, was a figure of their eternal perishing through their unbelief of the warnings Christ gave concerning the wrath to come.

[3.] Whom it would go hard with at that time (Mat 24:19); Woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck. To this same event that saying of Christ at his death refers (Luk 23:29), They shall say, Blessed are the wombs that never bare, and the paps that never gave suck. Happy are they that have no children to see the murder of; but most unhappy they whose wombs are then bearing, their paps then giving suck: they of all others will be in the most melancholy circumstances. First, To them the famine would be most grievous, when they should see the tongue of the sucking child cleaving to the roof of his mouth for thirst, and themselves by the calamity made more cruel than the sea monsters, Lam 4:3, Lam 4:4. Secondly, To them the sword would be most terrible, when in the hand of worse than brutal rage. It is a direful midwifery, when the women with child come to be ripped up by the enraged conqueror (2Ki 15:16; Hos 13:16; Amo 1:13), or the children brought forth to their murderer, Hos 9:13. Thirdly, To them also the flight would be most afflictive,; the women with child cannot make haste, or go far; the sucking child cannot be left behind, or, if it should, can a woman forget it, that she should not have compassion on it? If it be carried along, it retards the mother’s flight, and so exposes her life, and is in danger of Mephibosheth’s fate, who was lamed by a fall he got in his nurse’s flight. 2Sa 4:4.

[4.] What they should pray against at that time – that your flight be not in the winter, nor on the sabbath day, Mat 24:20. Observe, in general, it becomes Christ’s disciples, in times of public trouble and calamity, to be much in prayer; that is a salve for every sore, never out of season, but in a special manner seasonable when we are distressed on every side. There is no remedy but you must flee, the decree is gone forth, so that God will not be entreated to take away his wrath, no, not if Noah, Daniel, and Job, stood before him. Let it suffice thee, speak no more of that matter, but labour to make the best of that which is; and when you cannot in faith pray that you may not be forced to flee, yet pray that the circumstances of it may be graciously ordered, that, though the cup may not pass from you, yet the extremity of the judgment may be prevented. Note, God has the disposing of the circumstances of events, which sometimes make a great alteration one way or other; and therefore in those our eyes must be ever toward him. Christ’s bidding them pray for this favour, intimates his purpose of granting it to them; and in a general calamity we must not overlook a circumstantial kindness, but see and own wherein it might have been worse. Christ still bids his disciples to pray for themselves and their friends, that, whenever they were forced to flee, it might be in the most convenient time. Note, When trouble is in prospect, at a great distance, it is good to lay in a stock of prayers beforehand; they must pray, First, That their flight, if it were the will of God, might not be in the winter, when the days are short, the weather cold, the ways dirty, and therefore travelling very uncomfortable, especially for whole families. Paul hastens Timothy to come to him before winter, 2Ti 4:21. Note, 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 bodily inconveniences, and are encouraged to do so, in that the Lord is for the body. Secondly, That it might not be on the sabbath day; not on the Jewish sabbath, because travelling then would give offence to them who were angry with the disciples for plucking the ears of corn on the day; not on the Christian sabbath, because being forced to travel on the day would be a grief to themselves. This intimates Christ’s design, that a weekly sabbath should be observed in his church after the preaching of the gospel to all the world. We read not of any of the ordinances of the Jewish church, which were purely ceremonial, that Christ ever expressed any care about, because they were all to vanish; but for the sabbath he often showed a concern. It intimates likewise that the sabbath is ordinarily to be observed as a day of rest from travel and worldly labour; but that, according to his own explication of the fourth commandment, works of necessity were lawful on the sabbath day, as this of fleeing from an enemy to save our lives: had it not been lawful, he would have said, Whatever becomes of you, do not flee on the sabbath day, but abide by it, though you die by it. For we must not commit the least sin, to escape the greatest trouble. But it intimates, likewise, that it is very uneasy and uncomfortable to a good man, to be taken off by any work of necessity from the solemn service and worship of God on the sabbath day. We should pray that we may have quiet undisturbed sabbaths, and may have no other work than sabbath work to do on sabbath days; that we may attend upon the Lord without distraction. It was desirable, that, if they must flee, they might have the benefit and comfort of one sabbath more to help to bear their charges. To flee in the winter is uncomfortable to the body; but to flee on the sabbath day is so to the soul, and the more so when it remembers former sabbaths, as Psa 42:4.

3. The greatness of the troubles which should immediately ensue (Mat 24:21); Then shall be great tribulation; then when the measure of iniquity is full; then when the servants of God are sealed and secured, then come the troubles; nothing can be done against Sodom till Lot is entered into Zoar, and then look for fire and brimstone immediately. There shall be great tribulation. Great, indeed, when within the city plague and famine raged, and (worse than either) faction and division, so that every man’s sword was against his fellow; then and there it was that the hands of the pitiful women flayed their own children. Without the city was the Roman army ready to swallow them up, with a particular rage against them, not only as Jews, but as rebellious Jews. War was the only one of the three sore judgments that David excepted against; but that was it by which the Jews were ruined; and there were famine and pestilence in extremity besides. Josephus’s History of the Wars of the Jews, has in it more tragical passages than perhaps any history whatsoever.

(1.) It was a desolation unparalleled, such as was not since the beginning of the world, nor ever shall be. Many a city and kingdom has been made desolate, but never any with a desolation like this. Let not daring sinners think that God has done his worst, he can heat the furnace seven times and yet seven times hotter, and will, when he sees greater and still greater abominations. The Romans, when they destroyed Jerusalem, were degenerated from the honour and virtue of their ancestors, which had made even their victories easy to the vanquished. And the wilfulness and obstinacy of the Jews themselves contributed much to the increase of the tribulation. No wonder that the ruin of Jerusalem was an unparalleled ruin, when the sin of Jerusalem was an unparalleled sin – even their crucifying Christ. The nearer any people are to God in profession and privileges, the greater and heavier will his judgments be upon them, if they abuse those privileges, and be false to that profession, Amo 3:2.

(2.) It was a desolation which, if it should continue long, would be intolerable, so that no flesh should be saved, Mat 24:22. So triumphantly would death ride, in so many dismal shapes, and with such attendants, that there would be no escaping, but, first or last, all would be cut off. He that escaped one sword, would fall by another, Isa 24:17, 18. The computation which Josephus makes of those that were slain in several places, amounts to above two millions. No flesh shall be saved; he doth not say, No soul shall be saved, for the destruction of the flesh may be for the saving of the spirit in the day of the Lord Jesus; but temporal lives will be sacrificed so profusely, that one would think, if it last awhile, it would make a full end.

But here is one word of comfort in the midst of all this terror – that for the elects’ sake these days shall be shortened, not made shorter than what God had determined (for that which is determined, shall be poured upon the desolate, Dan 9:27), but shorter than what he might have decreed, if he had dealt with them according to their sins; shorter than what the enemy designed, who would have cut all off, if God who made use of them to serve his own purpose, had not set bounds to their wrath; shorter than one who judged by human probabilities would have imagined. Note, [1.] In times of common calamity God manifests his favour to the elect remnant; his jewels, which he will then make up; his peculiar treasure, which he will secure when the lumber is abandoned to the spoiler. [2.] The shortening of calamities is a kindness God often grants for the elects’ sake. Instead of complaining that our afflictions last so long, if we consider our defects, we shall see reason to be thankful that they do not last always; when it is bad with us, it becomes us to say, Blessed be God that it is no worse; blessed be God that it is not hell, endless and remediless misery. It was a lamenting church that said, It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed; and it is for the sake of the elect, lest their spirit should fail before them, if he should contend for ever, and lest they should be tempted to put forth, if not their heart, yet their hand, to iniquity.

And now comes in the repeated caution, which was opened before, to take heed of being ensnared by false Christs, and false prophets; (Mat 24:23, etc.), who would promise them deliverance, as the lying prophets in Jeremiah’s time (Jer 14:13; Jer 23:16, 17; Jer 27:16; Jer 28:2), but would delude them. Times of great trouble are times of great temptation, and therefore we have need to double our guard then. If they shall say, Here is a Christ, or there is one, that shall deliver us from the Romans, do not heed them, it is all but talk; such a deliverance is not to be expected, and therefore not such a deliverer.

VII. He foretels the sudden spreading of the gospel in the world, about the time of these great events (Mat 24:27, 28); As the lightning comes out of the east, so shall the coming of the Son of man be. It comes in here as an antidote against the poison of those seducers, that said, Lo, here is Christ, or, Lo, he is there; compare Luk 17:23, 24. Hearken not to them, for the coming of the Son of man will be as the lightning.

1. It seems primarily to be meant of his coming to set up his spiritual kingdom in the world; where the gospel came in its light and power, there the Son of man came, and in a way quite contrary to the fashion of the seducers and false Christs, who came creeping in the desert, or the secret chambers (2Ti 3:6); whereas Christ comes not with such a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. The gospel would be remarkable for two things.

(1.) Its swift spreading; it shall fly as the lightning; so shall the gospel be preached and propagated. The gospel is light (Joh 3:19); and it is not in this as the lightning, that it is a sudden flash, and away, for it is sun-light, and day-light; but it is as lightning in these respects:

[1.] It is light from heaven, as the lightning. It is God, and not man, that sends the lightnings, and summons them, that they may go, and say, Here we are, Job 38:35. It is God that directs it (Job 37:3); to man it is one of nature’s miracles, above his power to effect, and of nature’s mysteries, above his skill to account for: but it is from above; his lightnings enlightened the world, Psa 97:4.

[2.] It is visible and conspicuous as the lightning. The seducers carried on their depths of Satan in the desert and the secret chambers, shunning the light; heretics were called lucifugae – light-shunners. But truth seeks no corners, however it may sometimes be forced into them, as the woman in the wilderness, though clothed with the sun, Rev 12:1, 6. Christ preached his gospel openly (Joh 18:20), and his apostles on the housetop (Mat 10:27), not in a corner, Act 26:26. See Psa 98:2.

[3.] It was sudden and surprising to the world as the lightning; the Jews indeed had predictions of it, but to the Gentiles it was altogether unlooked for, and came upon them with unaccountable energy, or ever they were aware. It was light out of darkness, Mat 4:16; 2Co 4:6. We read of the discomfiting of armies by lightning, 2Sa 22:15; Psa 144:6. The powers of darkness were dispersed and vanquished by the gospel lightning.

[4.] It spread far and wide, and that quickly and irresistibly, like the lightning, which comes, suppose, out of the east (Christ is said to ascend from the east, Rev 7:2; Isa 41:2), and lighteneth to the west. The propagating of Christianity to so many distant countries, of divers languages, by such unlikely instruments, destitute of all secular advantages, and in the face of so much opposition, and this in so short a time, was one of the greatest miracles that was ever wrought for the confirmation of it; here was Christ upon his white horse, denoting speed as well as strength, and going on conquering and to conquer, Rev 6:2. Gospel light rose with the sun, and went with the same, so that the beams of it reached to the ends of the earth, Rom 10:18. Compare with Psa 19:3, 4. Though it was fought against, it could never be cooped up in a desert, or in a secret place, as the seducers were; but by this, according to Gamaliel’s rule, proved itself to be of God, that it could not be overthrown, Act 5:38, 39. Christ speaks of shining into the west, because it spread most effectually into those countries which lay west from Jerusalem, as Mr. Herbert observes in his Church-militant. How soon did the gospel lightning reach this island of Great Britain! Tertullian, who wrote in the second century, takes notice of it, Britannorum in accessa Romanis loca, Christo tamen subdita – The fastnesses of Britain, though inaccessible to the Romans, were occupied by Jesus Christ. This was the Lord’s doing.

(2.) Another thing remarkable concerning the gospel, was, its strange success in those places to which is was spread; it gathered in multitudes, not by external compulsion, but as it were by such a natural instinct and inclination, as brings the birds of prey to their prey; for wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together (Mat 24:28), where Christ is preached, souls will be gathered in to him. The lifting up of Christ from the earth, that is, the preaching of Christ crucified, which, one would think, should drive all men from him, will draw all men to him (Joh 12:32), according to Jacob’s prophecy, that to him shall the gathering of the people be, Gen 49:10. See Isa 60:8. The eagles will be where the carcase is, for it is food for them, it is a feast for them; where the slain are, there is she, Job 39:30. Eagles are said to have a strange sagacity and quickness of scent to find out the prey, and they fly swiftly to it, Job 9:26. So those whose spirits God shall stir up, will be effectually drawn to Jesus Christ, to feed upon him; whither should the eagle go but to the prey? Whither should the soul go but to Jesus Christ, who has the words of eternal life? The eagles will distinguish what is proper for them from that which is not; so those who have spiritual senses exercised, will know the voice of the good Shepherd from that of a thief and a robber. Saints will be where the true Christ is, not the false Christs. This is applicable to the desires that are wrought in every gracious soul after Christ, and communion with him. Where he is in his ordinances, there will his servants choose to be. A living principle of grace is a kind of natural instinct in all the saints, drawing them to Christ to live upon him.

2. Some understand these verses of the coming of the Son of man to destroy Jerusalem, Mal 3:1, 2, 5. So much was there of an extraordinary display of divine power and justice in that event, that it is called the coming of Christ.

Now here are two things intimated concerning it.

(1.) That to the most it would be as unexpected as a flash of lightning, which indeed gives warning of the clap of thunder which follows, but is itself surprising. The seducers say, Lo, here is Christ to deliver us; or there is one, a creature of their own fancies; but ere they are aware, the wrath of the Lamb, the true Christ, will arrest them, and they shall not escape.

(2.) That it might be as justly expected as that the eagle should fly to the carcases; though they put far from them the evil day, yet the desolation will come as certainly as the birds of prey to a dead carcase, that lies exposed in the open field. [1.] The Jews were so corrupt and degenerate, so vile and vicious, that they were become a carcase, obnoxious to the righteous judgment of God; they were also so factious and seditious, and every way so provoking to the Romans, that they had made themselves obnoxious to their resentments, and an inviting prey to them. [2.] The Romans were as an eagle, and the ensign of their armies was an eagle. The army of the Chaldeans is said to fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat, Hab 1:8. The ruin of the New Testament Babylon is represented by a call to the birds of prey to come and feast upon the slain, Rev 19:17, 18. Notorious malefactors have their eyes eaten out by the young eagles (Pro 30:17); the Jews were hung up in chains, Jer 7:33; Jer 16:4. [3.] The Jews can no more preserve themselves from the Romans than the carcase can secure itself from the eagles. [4.] The destruction shall find out the Jews wherever they are, as the eagle scents the prey. Note, When a people do by their sin make themselves carcases, putrid and loathsome, nothing can be expected but that God should send eagles among them, to devour and destroy them.

3. It is very applicable to the day of judgment, the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in that day, and our gathering together unto him, 2Th 2:1. Now see here,

(1.) How he shall come; as the lightning, The time was now at hand, when he should depart out of the world, to go to the Father. Therefore those that enquire after Christ must not go into the desert or the secret place, nor listen to every one that will put up the finger to invite them to a sight of Christ; but let them look upward, for the heavens must contain him, and thence we look for the Saviour (Phi 3:20); he shall come in the clouds, as the lightning doth, and every eye shall see him, as they say it is natural for all living creatures to turn their faces towards the lightning, Rev 1:7. Christ will appear to all the world, from one end of heaven to the other; nor shall any thing be hid from the light and heat of that day.

(2.) How the saints shall be gathered to him; as the eagles are to the carcase by natural instinct, and with the greatest swiftness and alacrity imaginable. Saints, when they shall be fetched to glory, will be carried as on eagles’ wings (Exo 19:4), as on angels’ wings. They shall mount up with wings, like eagles, and like them renew their youth.

VIII. He foretels his second coming at the end of time, Mat 24:29-31. The sun shall be darkened, etc.

1. Some think this is to be understood only of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation; the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars, denotes the eclipse of the glory of that state, its convulsions, and the general confusion that attended that desolation. Great slaughter and devastation are in the Old Testament thus set forth (as Isa 13:10; Isa 34:4; Eze 32:7; Joe 2:31); or by the sun, moon, and stars, may be meant the temple, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, which should all come to ruin. The sign of the Son of man (Mat 24:30) means a signal appearance of the power and justice of the Lord Jesus in it, avenging his own blood on them that imprecated the guilt of it upon themselves and their children; and the gathering of his elect (Mat 24:31) signifies the delivering of a remnant from this sin and ruin.

2. It seems rather to refer to Christ’s second coming. The destruction of the particular enemies of the church was typical of the complete conquest of them all; and therefore what will be done really at the great day, may be applied metaphorically to those destructions: but still we must attend to the principal scope of them; and while we are all agreed to expect Christ’s second coming, what need is there to put such strained constructions as some do, upon these verses, which speak of it so clearly, and so agreeably to other scriptures, especially when Christ is here answering an enquiry concerning his coming at the end of the world, which Christ was never shy of speaking of to his disciples?

The only objection against this, is, that it is said to be immediately after the tribulation of those days; but as to that, (1.) It is usual in the prophetical style to speak of things great and certain as near and just at hand, only to express the greatness and certainty of them. Enoch spoke of Christ’s second coming as within ken, Behold, the Lord cometh, Jud 1:14. (2.) A thousand years are in God’s sight but as one day, 2Pe 3:8. It is there urged, with reference to this very thing, and so it might be said to be immediately after. The tribulation of those days includes not only the destruction of Jerusalem, but all the other tribulations which the church must pass through; not only its share in the calamities of the nations, but the tribulations peculiar to itself; while the nations are torn with wars, and the church with schisms, delusions, and persecutions, we cannot say that the tribulation of those days is over; the whole state of the church on earth is militant, we must count upon that; but when the church’s tribulation is over, her warfare accomplished, and what is behind of the sufferings of Christ filled up, then look for the end.

Now concerning Christ’s second coming, it is here foretold,

[1.] That there shall be then a great and amazing change of the creatures, and particularly the heavenly bodies (Mat 24:29). The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light. The moon shines with a borrowed light, and therefore if the sun, from whom she borrows her light, is turned into darkness, she must fail of course, and become bankrupt. The stars shall fall; they shall lose their light, and disappear, and be as if they were fallen; and the powers of heaven shall be shaken. This intimates,

First, That there shall be a great change, in order to the making of all things new. Then shall be the restitution of all things, when the heavens shall not be cast away as a rag, but changed as a vesture, to be worn in a better fashion, Psa 102:26. They shall pass away with a great noise, that there may be new heavens, 2Pe 3:10-13.

Secondly, It shall be a visible change, and such as all the world must take notice of; for such the darkening of the sun and moon cannot but be: and it would be an amazing change; for the heavenly bodies are not so liable to alteration as the creatures of this lower world are. The days of heaven, and the continuance of the sun and moon, are used to express that which is lasting and unchangeable (As Psa 89:29, 36, 37); yet they shall thus be shaken.

Thirdly, It shall be a universal change. If the sun be turned into darkness, and the powers of heaven be shaken, the earth cannot but be turned into a dungeon, and its foundation made to tremble. Howl, fir trees, if the cedars be shaken. When the stars of heaven drop, no marvel if the everlasting mountains melt, and the perpetual hills bow. Nature shall sustain a general shock and convulsion, which yet shall be no hindrance to the joy and rejoicing of heaven and earth before the Lord, when he cometh to judge the world (Psa 96:11, 13); they shall as it were glory in the tribulation.

Fourthly, The darkening of the sun, moon, and stars, which were made to rule over the day, and over the night (which is the first dominion we find of any creature, Gen 1:16-18), signifies the putting down of all rule, authority, and power (even that which seems of the greatest antiquity and usefulness), that the kingdom may be delivered up to God, even the Father, and he may be All in all, 1Co 15:24, 28. The sun was darkened at the death of Christ, for then was in one sense the judgment of this world (Joh 12:31), an indication of what would be at the general judgment.

Fifthly, The glorious appearance of our Lord Jesus, who will then show himself as the Brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express Image of his person, will darken the sun and moon, as a candle is darkened in the beams of the noon-day sun; they will have no glory, by reason of the glory that excelleth, 2Co 3:10. Then the sun shall be ashamed, and the moon confounded, when God shall appear, Isa 24:23.

Sixthly, The sun and moon shall be then darkened, because there will be no more occasion for them. To sinners, that choose their portion in this life, all comfort will be eternally denied; as they shall not have a drop of water, so not a ray of light. Now God causeth his sun to rise on the earth, but then Interdico tib sole et luna – I forbid thee the light of the sun and the moon. Darkness must be their portion. To the saints that had their treasure above, such light of joy and comfort will be given as shall supersede that of the sun and moon, and render it useless. What need is there of vessels of light, when we come to the Fountain and Father of light? See Isa 60:19; Rev 22:5.

[2.] That then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven (Mat 24:30), the Son of man himself, as it follows here, They shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds. At his first coming, he was set for a Sign that should be spoken against (Luk 2:34), but at his second coming, a sign that should be admired. Ezekiel was a son of man set for a sign, Eze 12:6. Some make this a prediction of the harbingers and forerunners of his coming, giving notice of his approach; a light shining before him, and the fire devouring (Psa 50:3; 1Ki 19:11, 12), the beams coming out of his hand, where had long been the hiding of his power, Hab 3:4. It is a groundless conceit of some of the ancients, that this sign of the Son of man, will be the sign of the cross displayed as a banner. It will certainly be such a clear convincing sign as will dash infidelity quite out of countenance, and fill their faces with shame, who said, Where is the promise of his coming?

[3.] That then all the tribes of the earth shall mourn, Mat 24:30. See Rev 1:7. All the kindreds of the earth shall then wail because of him; some of all the tribes and kindreds of the earth shall mourn; for the greater part will tremble at his approach, while the chosen remnant, one of a family and two of a tribe, shall lift up their heads with joy, knowing that their redemption draws nigh, and their Redeemer. Note, Sooner or later, all sinners will be mourners; penitent sinners look to Christ, and mourn after a godly sort; and they who sow in those tears, shall shortly reap in joy; impenitent sinners shall look unto him whom they have pierced, and, though they laugh now, shall mourn and weep after a devilish sort, in endless horror and despair.

[4.] That then they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. Note, First, The judgment of the great day will be committed to the Son of man, both in pursuance and in recompence of his great undertaking for us as Mediator, Joh 5:22, 27. Secondly, The Son of man will at that day come in the clouds of heaven. Much of the sensible intercourse between heaven and earth is by the clouds; they are betwixt them, as it were, the medium participationis – the medium of participation, drawn by heaven from the earth, distilled by heaven upon the earth. Christ went to heaven in a cloud, and will in like manner come again, Act 1:9, 11. Behold, he cometh in the clouds, Rev 1:7. A cloud will be the Judge’s chariot (Psa 104:3), his robe (Rev 10:1), his pavilion (Psa 18:11), his throne, Rev 14:14. When the world was destroyed by water, the judgment came in the clouds of heaven, for the windows of heaven were opened; so shall it be when it shall be destroyed by fire. Christ went before Israel in a cloud, which had a bright side and a dark side; so will the cloud have in which Christ will come at the great day, it will bring both comfort and terror. Thirdly, He will come with power and great glory: his first coming was in weakness and great meanness (2Co 13:4); but his second coming will be with power and glory, agreeable both to the dignity of his person and to the purposes of his coming. Fourthly, He will be seen with bodily eyes in his coming: therefore the Son of man will be the Judge, that he may be seen, that sinners thereby may be the more confounded, who shall see him as Balaam did, but not nigh (Num 24:17), see him, but not as theirs. It added to the torment of that damned sinner, that he saw Abraham afar off. Is this he whom we have slighted, and rejected, and rebelled against; whom we have crucified to ourselves afresh; who might have been our Saviour, but is our Judge, and will be our enemy for ever? The Desire of all nations will then be their dread.

[5.] That he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, Mat 24:31. Note, First, The angels shall be attendants upon Christ at his second coming; they are called his angels, which proves him to be God, and Lord of the angels; they shall be obliged to wait upon him. Secondly, These attendants shall be employed by him as officers of the court in the judgment of that day; they are now ministering spirits sent forth by him (Heb 1:14), and will be so then. Thirdly, Their ministration will be ushered in with a great sound of a trumpet, to awaken and alarm a sleeping world. This trumpet is spoken of, 1Co 15:52, and 1Th 4:16. At the giving of the law on mount Sinai, the sound of the trumpet was remarkably terrible (Exo 19:13, 16); but much more will it be so in the great day. By the law, trumpets were to be sounded for the calling of assemblies (Num 10:2), in praising God (Psa 81:3), in offering sacrifices (Num 10:10), and in proclaiming the year of jubilee, Lev 25:9. Very fitly therefore shall there be the sound of a trumpet at the last day, when the general assembly shall be called, when the praises of God shall be gloriously celebrated, when sinners shall fall as sacrifices to divine justice, and when the saints shall enter upon their eternal jubilee.

[6.] That they shall gather together his elect from the four winds. Note, At the second coming of Jesus Christ, there will be a general meeting of all the saints. First, The elect only will be gathered, the chosen remnant, who are but few in comparison with the many that are only called. This is the foundation of the saints’ eternal happiness, that they are God’s elect. The gifts of love to eternity follow the thought of love from eternity; and the Lord knows them that are his. Secondly, The angels shall be employed to bring them together, as Christ’s servants, and as the saints’ friends; we have the commission given them, Psa 50:5 Gather my saints together unto me; nay, it will be said to them, Habetis fratres – These are your brethren; for the elect will then be equal to the angels, Luk 20:36. Thirdly, They shall be gathered from one end of heaven to the other; the elect of God are scattered abroad (Joh 11:52), there are some in all places, in all nations (Rev 7:9); but when that great gathering day comes, there shall not one of them be missing; distance of place shall keep none out of heaven, if distance of affection do not. Undique ad coelos tantundem est viae – Heaven is equally accessible from every place. See Luk 8:11; Isa 43:6; Isa 49:12.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Lead you astray ( ). This warning runs all through the discourse. It is amazing how successful deceivers have been through the ages with their eschatological programs. The word in the passive appears in 18:12 when the one sheep wanders astray. Here it is the active voice with the causative sense to lead astray. Our word planet comes from this root.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Deceive [] . Lit., lead astray, as Rev.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

4. And Jesus answering said to them. They received an answer very different from what they had expected; for whereas they were eager for a triumph, as if they had already finished their warfare, Christ exhorts them to long patience. As if he had said, “You wish to seize the prize at the very outset, but you must first finish the course. You would draw down to earth the kingdom of God, which no man can obtain till he ascend to heaven.” Now while this chapter contains admonitions highly useful for regulating the course of our life, we see that, by a wonderful purpose of God, the mistake into which the apostles fell is made to turn to our advantage. The amount of the present instruction is, that the preaching of the Gospel is like sowing the seed, and therefore we ought to wait patiently for the time of reaping; and that it arises from improper delicacy or effeminacy, if we lose courage on account of the frost, or snow, or clouds of winter or other unpleasant seasons.

Take heed lest any man deceive you. There are two charges which Christ expressly gives to the disciples, to beware of false teachers, and not to be terrified by scandals. By these words he gives warning that his Church, so long as its pilgrimage in the world shall last, will be exposed to these evils. But they might be apt to think that this was inconsistent, since the prophets gave a widely different description of the future reign of Christ. Isaiah predicts that all will then be taught of God, (Isa 54:13.) The words of God are:

I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, (Joe 2:28.)

A still more abundant light of understanding is promised by Jeremiah.

No longer shall any man teach his neighbor, nor a man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know me from the least to the greatest, (Jer 31:34.)

And, therefore, we need not wonder if the Jews expected, that when the Sun of righteousness had arisen, as Malachi (Mal 4:2) had predicted, they would be entirely free from every cloud of error. Hence, also, the woman of Samaria said,

When the Messiah cometh, he will teach us all things, (Joh 4:25.)

Now we know what splendid promises of peace, righteousness, joy, and abundance of all blessings, are to be found everywhere in Scripture. We need not, therefore, wonder if they expected that, at the coming of Christ, they would be delivered from commotions of war, from extortions and every kind of injustice, and, in short, from famine and pestilence.

But Christ warns them, that false teachers will henceforth give no less annoyance to the godly than false prophets gave to the ancient people; and that disturbances will be not less frequent under the Gospel than they formerly were under the Law. Not that those prophecies which I have just mentioned will fail to be accomplished, but because the full accomplishment of them does not immediately appear in one day; for it is enough that believers now obtain a taste of those blessings, so as to cherish the hope of the full enjoyment of them at a future period. And, therefore, they were greatly mistaken, who wished to hay at the commencement of the Gospel, an immediate and perfect exhibition of those things which we see accomplished from day to day. Besides, that happiness which the prophets ascribe to the reign of Christ, though it cannot be altogether annihilated by the depravity of man, is retarded or delayed by it. It is true that the Lord, in contending with the malice of men, opens up a way for his blessings through every obstacle; and, indeed, it would be unreasonable to suppose that what is founded on the undeserved goodness of God, and does not depend on the will of man, should be set aside through their fault.

Yet, that they may receive some punishment for their ingratitude he drops upon them in small measure his favors, which would otherwise flow on them in the richest abundance. Hence arises a labyrinth of evils, through which believers wander all their life, though they are pursuing the straight road to salvation, having Christ for their guide, who holds out to them the torch of his Gospel. Hence arises a multitude of combats, so that they have a hard warfare, though there is no danger of their being vanquished. Hence arise disturbances so numerous and so sudden, that they are kept in perpetual uneasiness, though, resting on Christ, they remain firm to the end. And since Christ enjoins his disciples to beware of impostures, let us know that the means of defense will not be wanting, provided that they are not wanting to themselves. (127) And therefore, whatever arts Satan may employ, let us entertain no doubt that we shall be safe from them, if every one of us keep diligent watch on his own station.

(127) “ Pourveu qu’ils soyent songneux à en user;” — “provided that they are careful to use them.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

II. THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM AND ITS TEMPLE (24:435)
GENERAL WARNING AGAINST MISLEADING SIGNS NOT RELATED TO THE END (24:413)

TEXT: 24:413

(Parallels: Mar. 13:5-13; Luk. 21:8-19)

4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man lead you astray. 5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am the Christ; and shall lead many astray. 6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled: for these things must needs come to pass; but the end is not yet. 7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines and earthquakes in divers places. 8 But all these things are the beginning of travail. 9 Then shall they deliver you up unto tribulation, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all the nations for my names sake. 10 And then shall many stumble, and shall deliver up one another, and shall hate one another. 11 And many false prophets shall arise, and shall lead many astray. 12 And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax cold. 13 But he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

a.

What is important about warning the disciples against being misled?

b.

How could anyone living in Jesus generation, many of whom knew Him personally, be fooled by false Christs and led astray?

c.

What image would the claim, I am the Christ, conjure up in the mind of the Hebrew listener? Did pretenders to this title appear in the first century?

d.

Although the events predicted would be deeply alarming, there is a certain comfort in knowing that they were certain to occur. What significant kind of comfort are these predictions calculated to inspire?

e.

Jesus said: These things must come to pass. Do you think He approves of bloody revolutions, destructive earthquakes and helplessly hungry people? If not, what does He mean?

f.

Popularizers of pet theories of prophecy often point to these great world disasters as signs of the near approaching end of the world. What are the specific phrases Jesus used in this context to convince everyone that these disasters are not signs of anything?

g.

Jesus affirmed that war, famine, pestilence and earthquakes are but the beginning of sufferings. How does this help everyone form a correct concept of world history and a sound eschatology?

h.

To what kind of tribulation would the disciples of Jesus be delivered up? What details do Mark and Luke make specific? What kind of a Messianic Kingdom would the disciples have been expecting, if this warning is thought to be a corrective to their view?

i.

What kind of a Kingdom does Jesus represent, if only the hardiest believers endure to the end and are saved?

j.

Could not Jesus have broken the bad news to His disciples more gently? What is the advantage to His followers in His using such plain speech? How would you have reacted to such a bleak outlook, if you had known what you know now about martyrdom in Church history?

k.

What does this blunt speech predicting a horrible future for the disciples tell you about Jesus as a leader? Can He be a loving Lord, if He talks like that?

1.

What does His blunt speech tell you about Jesus as a Prophet?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

Jesus began His answer to them by saying, Watch out that no one mislead you about this. In fact, many imposters will come using my title, claiming, I am the Christ! and saying, The time of the end is close at hand! They will fool many people, but you must not follow their leadership.
You will be hearing of wars going on and rumors about wars and revolutions being planned. So, when you do, do not panic or be overly alarmed. These are things that must happen first, but the end is still to come. The end will not occur immediately, because one nation will go to war with another; one kingdom will declare war on another.
There will be severe earthquakes in various localities, as well as famines and epidemics. There will be fearful events and great portents in the skies. All this, however, is but the early pains of childbirth.
Be on your guard, because, PREVIOUS TO ALL THIS, they will arrest you and hand you over to Sanhedrins to persecute you. You will be flogged in synagogues and cast into prison. You will be summoned to appear before governors and kings on my account. This will furnish you an opportunity to bear testimony before them. In fact, the gospel must first be proclaimed to all peoples. However, when they lead you away to hand you over, make up your minds not to worry ahead of time or meditate how to defend yourselves or what to say. When that time comes, just say what is given you, because I will provide you such eloquence and such logic that none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute you. This is because it will not merely be you doing the talking, but the Holy Spirit.
One brother will betray another to death. A father will turn his child in to the authorities. Children will rebel against their parents. People will put some of you to death. You will be universally hated because of your allegiance to me.
At that time many will be so stunned as to lose their faith. They will betray each other and hate one another. Numerous false prophets will come on the scene and deceive many people. Because of the spread of lawlessness, the fervency of most peoples love will cool off. However, the disciple who never gives up until it is all over is the one who will be saved. You will not suffer the slightest damagenot even a hair of your head! By standing firm under fire you will gain your lives.

SUMMARY

Jesus warns against all misleading signs of the approaching end, such as false messiahs, wars, natural upheavals, persecutions, apostacy and indifference. However, the period will be marked by victorious gospel proclamation, even if individual Christians must personally endure great difficulties, even martyrdom.

A. Practical Warnings Against Misleading Signs Not Related to the End
1. False Christs are not the signal (24:4, 5)

Mat. 24:4 Take heed that no man lead you astray. Jesus opening sentence forms the ethical and intensely practical backbone of everything else He shall teach. His goal was not to gratify mens curiosity about the end of time, but to protect believers against deception by unscrupulous pretenders as much as by sincere, but misguided, prophecy enthusiasts. He is not interested in furnishing His people with a printed program of Last Days Events. More practical than this, He emphasizes the attitudes they must have on ANY day, for it may be their last.

Because the disciples had connected Jerusalems fall with Christs return to earth, as if they were one momentous event, Jesus must first place them on their guard against deceivers who would lure people into concluding that frightening episodes surrounding the decline and fall of Israel should be interpreted as heralding the grand intervention of God. They were not to be deceived into supposing that His personal, visible Second Coming were near in the context of these events. Any rumor to the contrary must automatically be branded false. In fact, the only absolutely certain information concerning the time of His return is that it would take place when no one could expect it (Mat. 24:39; Mat. 24:42-44; Mat. 24:50; Mat. 25:13). Thus, there would be no sign, no warning. Consequently, any human calculation or announcement is an attempt to lead you astray, or tending to that result.

In times of severe suffering, nothing is so diabolically deceptive or so productive of unreasoning illusions and of such heated debate as fanatical eschatological prejudice that spawns ungrounded, self-deceptive expectations and even enflames racial hatred. And yet the Israel of Jesus day was impregnated with just such a volatile mixture of Messianic hope and nationalistic prejudice that, among other things, laid the groundwork for its destruction. Dana (New Testament World, 135ff.) lists three elements which, in the final days of Jerusalem, would explain Israels tragic blindness and vindicate our Lords counsel of caution. They believed . . .

1.

that God would manifest a special interposition of divine power, either directly or through the Messiah.

2.

that the nation of Israel would be supremely elevated and all other peoples humiliated.

3.

that the absolute subjection of the world to the rule of Jahweh and of His Anointed must necessarily and deterministically eliminate human free will in order to inaugurate an era of endless righteousness where Gods sovereignty could no longer be challenged.

How significant this warning today! The very events which prophecy popularizers cite today as signs of the end of the world were rejected by our Lord as indicative of anything. Interpreters have penned volumes for centuries to point them out in their own era. But Jesus could well foresee how easily false messiahs and teachers could utilize questionable methods of exegesis to mislead disciples, not only in that age, but perpetually. Even to consider the dreadful list of natural and political upheavals as antecedents of the final death-day of the world is to be misled, because Jesus denied these are mysterious indicators of anything special in Gods program.

Note how practically Jesus ministers to His followers needs: He distracts them from an over-interest in future events, emphasizing what kind of people they must be as His servants. (Cf. Peters method, 2Pe. 3:11; 2Pe. 3:14.) Even as He lets them into His secret, He puts brakes on their curiosity. He is not content to furnish them a plan for the future so they can manipulate it for their own purposes. Rather, He pushes them back to common duty and discipleship.

Political Messianic Fanaticism

Mat. 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am the Christ; and shall lead many astray. The name which impostors would apply illegitimately to themselves is not Jesus, His personal name, but Christ, His rightful title. There were hundreds of men in His day named Jesus. (Cf. Col. 4:11; Act. 13:6; Luk. 3:29; Mat. 27:17 margin Jesus Barabbas.) What distinguished THIS Jesus from every other was His well-founded claim to be THE CHRIST. The unsubstantiated claim of the false messiahs was not that they were a reincarnation of Jesus of Nazareth, but that they were attempting to cash in on that title for which He was justly famous.

What special image would the claim, I am the Christ, have conjured up in the mind of the unbelieving Jewish community? For us, to be the Christ is to be that particular Anointed of God authorized to speak in Gods Name. But for anyone who rejected Jesus claims and clung to his own misdirected messianic fantasies, the appearance of ANYONE answering to the popular Messianic dream of an earthly, material kingship would certainly deceive and gather a massive following. Consider the much vaster multitudes Jesus could have commanded, had He but conceded to say, I am the Christ, in the grossly materialistic sense hoped for by His contemporaries. (Cf. Joh. 6:14 f. in contrast with Joh. 18:36; see notes on Mat. 8:4; Mat. 9:30; Mat. 12:16; Mat. 12:19.) Thus, Jesus warns against those who claimed His rightful title and authority, but with totally other motivations, intentions and concepts of Messiahship.

Just how real this danger was is documented by Josephus who reports (Ant. XX, 5, 1).

Now it came to pass, that while Fadus was procurator of Judea (i.e. 4446 A.D.), that a certain magician, whose name was Theudas, persuaded a great part of the people to take their effects with them, and follow him to the river Jordan; for he was a prophet, and that he would, by his own command, divide the river, and afford them an easy passage over it; and many were deluded by his words. However, Fadus did not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt, but sent a troop of horsemen out against them; who falling upon them unexpectedly, slew many of them, and took many of them alive. They also took Theudas alive, and cut off his head, and carried it to Jerusalem.

Concerning the time of Felix (A.D. 5261; cf. Acts 24), Josephus (Wars, II, 13, 45) writes that Jewish affairs were gradually degenerating, not only because of terrorists who used robbery to finance their program but also because of impostors who deceived the multitude:

There was also another body of wicked men gotten together, not so impure in their actions, but more wicked in their intentions who laid waste the happy state of the city no less than did these murderers. These were such men as deceived and deluded the people under pretense of divine inspiration, but were for procuring innovations and changes of government; and these prevailed with the multitude to act like madmen and went before them into the wilderness, as pretending that God would show them the signal of liberty. But Felix thought this procedure was to be the beginning of a revolt; so he sent some horsemen and footmen, both armed, who destroyed a great number of them. But there was an Egyptian false prophet that did the Jews more mischief than the former; for he was a cheat, and pretended to be a prophet also, and got together thirty thousand men that were deluded by him; these he led round about from the wilderness to the mount which is called the Mount of Olives and was ready to break into Jerusalem by force. . . .

The Egyptian promised his victims that he would show them from hence how, at his command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down; and he promised them that he would procure them an entrance into the city through those walls, when they were fallen down (Ant. XX, 8, 56). Felix took a dim view of this, attacked first, slaughtered four hundred of his followers and captured two hundred prisoners. But the Egyptian himself escaped! Again, in the procuratorship of Festus (A.D. 61), Josephus (Ant. XX, 8, 10; cf. Wars, II, 13, 5) documented how

Festus sent forces, both horsemen and footmen to fall upon those that had been seduced by a certain impostor, who promised them deliverance and freedom from the miseries they were under, if they would but follow him as far as the wilderness. Accordingly those forces that were sent destroyed both him that had deluded them and those that were his followers also.

THESE were the kind of Christ that made sense to the first century Jews. So, it was against this kind of false messiah that Jesus alerted His followers.

2. International war is not the signal (24:6, 7a)

Mat. 24:6 Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. In Israels history, wars and rumors of wars were not always bad news, since they offered hope of freedom. (Cf. Jer. 51:45 f.) However, wars of liberation were the exciting logic of misdirected, fanatic Messianism too. Remember: the first-century Palestine Liberation Organization was JEWISH. But Hebrew Christians in every part of the Roman Empire could not but be affected by the unsettling rumors that foreshadow the coming of war. So, the emotional involvement of the Christians must be defused, lest they too be swept up in the political turbulence such rumors must foment.

National upheavals were the order of the day for the entire Roman Empire. Tacitus (Histories, I, 2, 189) sighs dismally,

I am entering on the history of a period rich in disasters, frightful in its wars, torn by civil strife, and even in peace full of horrors. Four emperors perished by the sword. There were three civil wars; there were more with foreign enemies; there were often wars that had both characters at once. There was success in the East and disaster in the West. There were disturbances in Illyricum; Gaul wavered in its allegiance; Britain was thoroughly subdued and immediately abandoned; the tribes of the Suevi and the Sarmatae rose in concert against us; the Dacians had the glory of inflicting as well as suffering defeat; the armies of Parthia were all but set in motion by the cheat of a counterfeit Nero.

Rumors of war were heard as Tiberius (A.D. 1437) ordered Vitellius to attack Aretas of Arabia (Ant. XVIII, 5, 13) and started to march across Palestine with his Roman eagles. Just ten years after Jesus began His ministry, war rumors raced through Jewish cities as Caligula ordered an army to march on Jerusalem to place his statues in the Temple or massacre anyone who attempted to stop the attempt. This abomination of desolation was averted by the heroic Jewish plea at Ptolemais and at Tiberias made to the Roman commander, Petronius (Wars, II, 10, 15), as also by Herod Agrippas timely intercession (Ant. XVIII, 8, 19).

Under Cumanus (48 A.D.), during a Passover feast a tumult in the temple cost 10,000 lives trampled to death, because of the presence of Roman soldiers in and around the Temple (Ant. XX, 5, 3; Wars II, 12, 1). In the same period a fierce war was barely averted between Jews and Samaritans (Wars, II, 12, 37). Gessius Florus (65 A.D.), whose rapacious administration made his corrupt predecessors appear almost righteous by comparison (Wars, II, 14, 2), deliberately provoked the Jews to war (Wars, II, 17, 4). The eloquent Agrippa II formerly pleaded with the Jews not to declare war against Rome solely due to Florus abuses (Wars, II, 16). Nonetheless, Zealot agitation continued and finally forced the suspension of regular sacrifices for the Roman emperor. Since this was a direct repudiation of loyalty to Rome, it marks the true beginning of the Jewish war with Rome (Wars, II, 17, 2). From then on, it was one fierce, almost continuous, civil war between revolutionary terrorists and a determined peace party (Wars, IV, 3, 2); a war, however, wherein Jewish terrorists murdered the high priest and unarmed Romans on the Sabbath (Wars, II, 17)! In a one-hour massacre, 20,000 Jews were butchered by their pagan fellow-citizens at Caesarea (Wars, II, 18, 1), 10,000 at Damascus died (Wars, II, 20, 2). Civil war in Scythopolis left 13,000 corpses (Wars, II, 18, 3). Anti-Jewish bloodbaths accounted for 2,500 dead in Askelon. At Ptolemais 2,000 were killed and many in Tyre. 50,000 died in Alexandria (ibid., 7, 8).

Wars and rumors of wars streamed incessantly from Rome upon the death of Nero (68 A.D.) as three emperors contended for the throne, slaying and being slain in turn: Galba, Otho and Vitellius (68, 69 A.D.). This unsettling news of chaos at the head of the world empire would create tensions everywhere. (See Wars IV, 9, 12, 910.)

See that ye be not troubled. In light of the historical reality meant, the disciples must have grasped with astonishment at Jesus inconceivably calm order not to be alarmed. These conditions would try the strongest faith and determination to hold firm in the face of temptations to surrender to fear or flee prematurely before the Gospel testimony could be given, and still He expects people not to get excited or worry?!

Jack Lewis (Matthew, II, 122) quotes Genesis Rabbah 42:4: When thou seest the kingdoms fighting against one another, look and expect the foot of the Messiah. Our Master sharply repudiated this apocalyptic eschatology based on wishful thinking. Since wars are a part of the negative destiny of sinful men, Jesus is concerned that Christians not throw themselves into some ill-omened political venture under the leadership of self-styled prophets who promise messianic significance for their program.

These things must needs come to pass. God is not the Author of war or human disaster. The direct causes are human selfishness, greed and ambition. Nevertheless, in the purpose of God, these human ingredients, especially human free choice inspired by Satan, will be permitted free rein until Final Judgment. In such a case, these things compose the kind of world in which the Christian will find himself. This assurance of Gods foreknowledge of world history is intended to calm the disciples fears and induce him to reasonableness in the face of these terrors. (Cf. Joh. 16:1 ff.) By announcing Gods intention to permit this frightful state of affairs to continue, Jesus aimed to debunk a Messianic utopia on earth. Jesus the true Messiah came not to bring peace on earth . . . but a sword and a cross (Mat. 10:34-39). Thus, He diverts His followers attention from popular Messianism to the eternal purposes of God and restores his perspective. God has in mind, not the peace of an earthly Jerusalem, but its desolation.

But the end is not yet. The end of what? That end about which the disciples had inquired, i.e. the Temples destruction and anything else actually involved in that event. (See on Mat. 24:3.) He refers, therefore, not to the destruction of the universe, but to the end of the exclusively Jewish age, their world, not ours; the world as they had known it heretofore, not as it became thereafter. Jesus prophetic realism stands out in sharp contrast to those of His age who embraced a view of history that promised Jewish political vindication by God. But history vindicated Jesus, not His contemporaries.

But the end is not yet. To appreciate Jesus meaning, we must feel His points of emphasis, so as not to be misled by some prophecy preaching that blatantly misappropriates the very features just mentioned by Jesus, as if they were signs of His Second Coming. Ironically, such teaching unconscionably contradicts our Lord Himself. Here is what HE said:

1.

Do not go after them (the deceivers) (Luk. 21:8).

2.

See that you are not alarmed; for this must first take place, but the end will not be at once (Mat. 24:6; Mar. 13:7; Luk. 21:9).

3.

All this is but the beginning of sufferings (Mat. 24:8; Mar. 13:8 b).

4.

But before all this they will lay their hands on you . . . (Luk. 21:12).

5.

And the gospel must first be preached to all nations (Mar. 13:10; cf. Mat. 24:14).

6.

This gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come (Mat. 24:14).

7.

When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near (Luk. 21:20).

8.

This generation will not pass away till all these things take place (Mat. 24:34; Mar. 13:30; Luk. 21:32).

9.

No signs will precede the Second Coming to give warning to anyone (Mat. 24:37 to Mat. 25:30).

There is no intention here to say that wars, famines and pestilences on earth and horrors in space have only occurred in the past or shall not do so in the future. Rather, what is acid-clear is that Jesus emphatically denies that these are prophetic indicators that His Second Coming is imminent. This harmonizes with His equally emphatic declarations that deal directly with this subject (Mat. 24:42-44; Mar. 13:33; Mar. 13:35; Luk. 21:34; Mat. 24:50; Mat. 25:13).

Mat. 24:7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. For: his verse explains the foregoing assertion on wars and rumors of wars. Note His parallelisms:

6. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars.

7. For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.

All this is but the beginning of the sufferings.

Amplifying His thought in language reminiscent of 2Ch. 15:6 and Isa. 19:2, Jesus not only depicts the human distress of wartorn countries, but prepares those, who recognize these allusions to Old Testament language and situations, for His later revelation of the coming divine judgment on Israel.

3. Disturbances in nature are not the signal (24:7b, 24:8)

Next, He names the awful fruits of war: there shall be famines and pestilences (Luk. 21:11). In wartime, uncertain living and working conditions hinder the normal production and marketing of food, leading to shortages and famines. These lead to uneven diets, vitamin deficiencies and sickness. Where normal hygiene is interrupted by civil chaos, pestilences fester and spread.

One famine occurred during the reign of Claudius when Fadus was procurator (45:46 A.D. See Ant. III, 15, 3.). Queen Helena of Adiabene bought corn in Egypt and a cargo of dried figs from Cyprus at great expense and distributed it in Judea. Her proselyte son, Isates, furnished money to Jerusalems leaders too (Ant. XX, 2, 15). This is the same famine predicted by Agabus, for which the Christians sent disaster relief (Act. 11:28 f.). Other historians characterize the reign of Claudius as a period hard-hit by famine conditions, one famine in Greece, mentioned by Eusebius, and two in Rome, according to Dion Cassius and Tacitus (Annals, XII 43; Expositors Greek Testament, II, 270).

Not only would crops fail, but the earth itself would seem out of joint with itself: earthquakes in divers places: here, there, anywhere, not more specifically located. Just a few years after the Church began, the Mediterranean world was rocked by disturbances in nature and terrors in the supernatural realm (Luk. 21:11). There will be terrors and great signs from heaven. Alford (I, 236) listed five principle earthquakes within the period 4663 A.D. Tacitus (Annals, XII, 43) describes 51 A.D. as one such ill-omened year:

Several prodigies occurred that year. Birds of evil omen perched on the Capitol; houses were thrown down by frequent shocks of earthquake, and as the panic spread, all the weak were trodden down in the hurry and confusion of the crowd. Scanty crops too, and consequent famine were regarded as a token of calamity.

Concerning the year 62 A.D. Tacitus wrote (XV, 22):

During the same consulship a gymnasium was wholly consumed by a stroke of lightning, and a statue of Nero within it was melted down to a shapeless mass of bronze. An earthquake too demolished a large part of Pompeii, a populous town in Campania.

Near the end of 65 or 66 he relates (XV, 47):

At the close of the year people talked much about prodigies, presaging impending evils. Never was lightning flashes more frequent, and a comet too appeared, for which Nero always made propitiation with noble blood.

According to Tacitus (XVI, 13), the years 65 and 66 encompassed much that chills the blood:

A year of shame and of so many evil deeds heaven was also marked by storms and pestilence. Campania was devastated by a hurricane, which destroyed everywhere country houses, plantations and crops, and carried its fury to the neighborhood of Rome, where a terrible plague was sweeping away all classes of human beings without any derangement of the atmosphere as to be visibly apparent,

Earlier (Histories, I, 2), Tacitus had written:

Now too Italy was prostrated by disasters either entirely novel, or that recurred only after a long succession of ages; cities in Campanias richest plains were swallowed up and overwhelmed; Rome was wasted by conflagrations, its oldest temples consumed, and the Capitol was fired by the hands of citizens. Sacred rites were profaned; there was profligacy in the highest ranks; the sea was crowded with exiles, and its rocks polluted with bloody deeds.

Josephus (Wars, IV, 4, 5) recounts that when an army of Idumeans, sent for by the Zealots, arrived at Jerusalem, they were shut out of the city by Ananus the high priest. That night over Jerusalem broke a terribly violent storm of strong winds with the largest showers of rain and continual lightnings, terrible thunderings and amazing concussions and the bellowing of the earth, that was in an earthquake. Note Josephus personal deduction:

These things were a manifest indication that some destruction was coming upon men, when the system of the world was put into this disorder; and any one would guess that these wonders foreshowed some great calamities were coming.

Josephus personal opinion is remarkable, because it is precisely the sort of guesswork that Jesus warns His followers against: such disasters must not be considered a critical sign of anything special in the plan of God. Close attention is not to be dedicated to these physical disturbances in nature that understandably capture the imagination and demand some theory of their cause. However great and fearful they be, they are emphatically NOT the heaven-sent signal.

Mat. 24:8 But all these things are the beginning of travail. This statement completes Jesus parenthetical amplification of Mat. 24:6 begun in Mat. 24:7, and is parallel to the last half of Mat. 24:6. The basic message of these verses is, whatever you do, DO NOT CONSIDER THESE DISASTERS AS SIGNS OF ANYTHING! They are not indications of the end, but of the beginning! He would rescue His people from that apocalyptists eschatological fever that fondly and confidently points to wars and natural catastrophes as unequivocal cues to the end of the age. These are to be seen, instead, as just so many episodes in the common history of man.

Travail (dnn, pangs of childbirth, birth-pangs), according to some, suggests that, because birth-throes lead to the birth of a child, therefore the travail in question here must lead to a happy outcome, i.e. His return in victory over the world. Several responses are possible.

1.

Granted that the birth of a child follows the travail, it does not follow that the happy event here (supposedly) intended is the Second Coming or Judgment. Rather, the almost unbearable calamities pictured here could be the birthpangs of the new epoch in Gods dealing with man. And, contrary to Jewish expectations, the new era dawning would not be characteristicly Jewish or limited to Hebrew rites and customs, but truly universal, a Kingdom of God open to all men, not Mosaic but Christian. Lenski (Matthew, 931) believes that Jesus adopts the term which was used by the rabbis to designate the sufferings and woes which they thought were to precede the Messiahs coming: cheble hammashiach, dolores Messiae. All these tribulations would bring forth the new era. If He deliberately utilized this language common to earlier Jewish thought (cf. Jubilees 23:1824; IV Ezra 5:112; 6:1424; 8:63-9:12; Sibyl. Orac. III, 796807; II Baruch chaps. 2730; 7072), it would be to correct its mistaken notions. The era to follow this travail would not glorify national Israel nor justify popular concepts thereof, but offer hope and blessing to all the world through the proclamation of the Gospel by a truly universal Church. Could the travail signal the dawn of the regeneration (palingenesa) of Mat. 19:28, when the Apostles reign with Christ would occur, i.e. during the Kingdom, now?

2.

However suggestive the foregoing theory may be, the element of PAIN stands foremost in Jesus mind, as everything He says next will show, especially in Mar. 13:9 ff. and Luk. 21:12 ff. Travail, here, foreshadows those more severe troubles that excite horror preliminary to the full maturing of the catastrophe. Odnes (travail) may be utilized for the pains of death, without implying passage to a happier life by birth. (Cf. Act. 2:24; Psa. 18:5 [LXX Psa. 17:6;] Psa. 116:3 [LXX Psa. 114:3]; see also Luk. 2:48 odunmenoi.)

Because these things are the beginning, Jesus would forestall the error that the Second Coming should be expected early in the first century. In the same way He warns that the breaking up of the Jewish State must await the maturing of events. These things are the beginning; the rest He proceeds to sketch in detail clear down to Mat. 24:13 (see also parallels), moving from the general to the specific, from general world conditions to the specific situation, life and problems of the Church. Immediately on the heels of His exposure of the false alarms, Jesus proceeds to sound a warning that was to be more personal, more directly related to the early Christians than the preceding perils. With the ax of confident prediction and with His call to trust His word on good evidence, He effectively severs the roots of fears that could cloud mens minds, especially of those very people upon whom the propagation of His Gospel would depend. This quiet, steady faith and witnessing, not fear of world events, is to be their main concern. Thus, Jesus set the gyro-compass that would hold the Church steady and on course, flying into the teeth of the devils worst.

4. Troubles inside the Church and out are not the signal (24:913)
a. Persecution of the Church (24:9)

Mat. 24:9 Then, as a word in this context, is ambiguous, in that it has two meanings:

1.

At that time, i.e. during the period just described;

2.

Thereupon, next in order of events or time, because very often in Matthew tte represents the Hebrew ww consecutive, and is thus simply continuing the narrative (Souter, Pocket Lexicon, 263).

However, if taken in this second sense, Matthew would appear to contradict Luke, as Matthew seems to affirm that the tribulation suffered by Christians would follow the alarming world events, whereas Luke has But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you . . . (Luk. 21:12). However, as pointed out at Mat. 24:7, Matthews Mat. 24:7-8 are amplificatory in that they furnish further information concerning His prediction of wars and their sociological and economic results. Now in Mat. 24:9 Jesus returns to His original outline which had been interrupted by that parenthetical explanation and takes up the next characteristic of that same troubled time, persecution of the Christians. This, as Luke says, shall occur prior to the end of the epoch torn by mind-boggling tragedies. So, Lukes before all these things aims only at greater chronological precision without controverting His colleagues, Matthew and Mark who merely identify the character of the period without establishing a tight chronology. So, the first definition of then is preferable: during the time just described, then, in those days.

The Choice Between Death and Loyalty to Jesus

They shall deliver you up to tribulation, and shall kill you. Here Matthew briefly summarizes material that Mark and Luke record in considerable detail (Mar. 13:9-13 = Luk. 21:12-19). These warnings addressed to the disciples concerning their future labors include information our Apostle had already recorded in his version of their ordination sermon. (See on Mat. 10:16-22.) This is not new revelation. Rather, it clarifies to what period Jesus earlier words actually apply, i.e. to those years just before the Jewish war with Rome. (See Introductory Notes on Matthew 10, Vol. II, 248255.)

Tribulation (thlpsis) is pressure, hence the suffering caused by pressure: persecution, affliction, distress. Here the pressure is the persecution of Christians who suffer because of their devotion of Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah. This cannot be a general expression for, or type of, the great tribulation mentioned in Mat. 24:21, because there the malevolence is directed at unbelieving Jews, not Christians. (This does not deny attribution of this phrase great tribulation in Rev. 7:14 to Christian suffering, which may well include some of the wretchedness indicated here in Mat. 24:9.) As the Jews are to have their great tribulation, so the Christians are to be subjected to tremendous pressures which find their origin in the clash that must come when the believers new allegiance, his new norms and his wholly new world-view clash with those of everyone and everything else that finds itself in diametric opposition to all that Christ stands for. This tribulation would be characterized in various ways:

1.

JEWISH PERSECUTION. Jesus refers to a time when the Church was considered a Jewish sect and prosecutable as such by Jewish authorities (synagogues and councils cf. Act. 22:19). It was also a time when the Jews themselves did not possess the authority to prosecute capital crimes, hence their accused must be brought before governors and kings for judgment (Mar. 13:9; Luk. 21:12). The fulfilment of Jesus prediction is documented in pain and blood. (Act. 4:3-7; Act. 5:18; Act. 8:1-4; Act. 11:19; Act. 12:1 ff; Act. 13:50; Act. 14:5; Act. 28:22; 2Co. 6:4-10; 2Co. 4:7-12; 2Co. 8:2; 2Co. 11:23-29; 1Th. 2:14-16; 2Th. 1:4; 2Ti. 3:12; Heb. 10:32 ff.; Rev. 2:9 ff; Rev. 3:9 f.) No less than Stephen, James, the Apostle, and James the Lords brother were executed or assassinated before 70 A.D. (Acts 7; Act. 12:1 ff.; Ant. XX, 9, 1; Eusebius, Eccl. History II, 2325.)

2.

FAMILY HATRED TOWARD CHRISTIANS (Mar. 13:12; Luk. 21:16; cf. Mat. 10:21). Terrible persecutions are in store not merely as torture for the body, but also those crushing torments of the heart when ones own family and friends turn against him. Pagan family members feel betrayed by the conversion of one of their own, but this is acutely felt among Jewish families. Tragically, such hatred was not even entirely anti-Christian sentiment. The entire nation would be torn by internecine strife that became virtually a civil war, ripping apart even private families (Wars, IV, 3, 2). Such betrayals were typical of the closing years of the Jewish war.

3.

UNIVERSAL HATRED FOR CHRISTIANS. (Cf. Mat. 12:22.) Ye shall be hated of all the nations for my names sake. Not only hounded and branded by antagonists of their own race (Act. 28:22), early Hebrew Christians would be subjected to pagan molestations wherever the Gospel advanced. All nations confidently envisions the Great Commission (Mat. 28:19) as a foregone conclusion: Christs victorious influence is assured, even in the face of seeming defeat!

One sample of these ordeals occurred when Nero burned Rome, leaving many citizens burned to death. Read Tacitus (Annals XV, 44) whose own antipathy toward Christians is ill-disguised. Schaff (History of the Christian Church, I, 381) summarizes the Roman historians documentation of Neros attack on Christians:

Their Jewish origin, their indifference to politics and public affairs, their abhorrence of heathen customs, were construed into an odium generis humani (hated against mankind) and this made an attempt on their part to destroy the city sufficiently plausible to justify a verdict of guilty.

Tacitus reports a vast multitude of Christians that died in the Neronian persecution of 64 A.D. It was for this that Peter prepared his readers (1Pe. 1:6; 1Pe. 2:12; 1Pe. 3:13-18; 1Pe. 4:12-19; 1Pe. 5:10; cf. Rev. 6:9 f; Rev. 7:14). Later, the apostles, Peter and Paul, experienced death as martyrs.

But these tribulations must be suffered for my names sake, i.e. for all that Jesus stands for as this is revealed in His message. But it must be for Jesus, not our own pride, ignorance or folly, that we suffer (Mat. 5:11 f.; Mat. 10:22; Mat. 10:32 f.; 1Pe. 4:14 ff.). However painful these tortures might be, none of these tribulations mean the end of history for the Christians, because the disciple trusts Jesus to conquer.

b. Religious confusion and widespread faithlessness (24:1012)

4.

APOSTASY AND BETRAYAL. Mat. 24:10 And then shall many stumble, and shall deliver one another, and shall hate one another. Then, see on v. 9. Here is a practical warning: times of suffering produce quite opposite effects! While undergirding the hope and determination of some, such times weaken and break others. Jesus predicts a gradual but serious deterioration in Christian faith and practice.

a.

Many shall stumble (skandalisthsontai, lit. be entrapped, see notes on Mat. 18:6 f.). True to His understanding of human psychology which He expressed in the Parable of the Soils (Mat. 13:3-9; Mat. 13:18-23), the Lord discerns how many will be entrapped by their (often unconscious) lingering attachments to the world. They will walk right into the trap, because they desire the bait! (Cf. Jas. 1:14; contrast 2Pe. 1:4!) Others, seeing that God fails to act decisively by setting up His Kingdom on earth, are shocked and quit. Christ delays His coming, so still others drop their discipleship and turn apostates. Pliny, governor of Bythinia (c. 109111 A.D.), described in his letter to Trajan (Ep. X, 97) some former Christians who willingly repeated after him

. . . an invocation to the gods, and offered adoration, with wine and frankincense to Caesars image . . . together with those of the gods, and who finally cursed Christ, none of which acts, it is said, those who are really Christians can be forced into performing. . . . Others who were named by that informer at first confessed themselves Christians, and then denied it; true, they had been of that persuasion but they had quitted it, some three years, some many years, and a few as much as twenty-five years ago. They all worshiped your statue and the images of the gods, and cursed Christ.

b.

Many shall deliver up one another. This they did in different ways:

(1)

An apostate, by virtue of his inside information and former connections as well as by his abandonment of Christianity, psychologically motivated to turn over to the authorities those whom he has abandoned. Sometimes he could diminish his personal torture by turning traitor to expose his former fellow-Christians.

(2)

Warring Christian sects might justify to themselves the betrayal of those whom they refuse to recognize as Christian brethren. (Cf. Php. 1:15-18.)

(3)

Tacitus (Annals, XV, 44) recorded that such betrayals occurred: Several Christians at first were apprehended, and then, by their discovery, a multitude of others were convicted and cruelly put to death, with derision and insult.

c.

Many shall hate one another. Hate is a cover-word Jesus utilized to express, for example, the jealousy and suspicion that animated the false brethren who endangered Pauls ministry (2Co. 11:26), allured converts away from the truth (Gal. 1:6-9; Gal. 2:4; Gal. 3:1; Gal. 4:16 ff; Gal. 5:7-12; Gal. 6:12) and attempted to discredit him (2Co. 10:1 f., 2Co. 10:10; chap. 11).

5.

FALSE TEACHERS: Mat. 24:11 And many false prophets shall arise, and shall lead many astray. That false teachers and doctrine abounded even in the apostolic age before Jerusalems fall is amply attested by New Testament illustrations and warnings: Mat. 7:15 ff.; Act. 20:29 f.; Rom. 3:8; Rom. 16:17 f.; 1Co. 15:12; 2Co. 11:1 to 2Co. 13:10; Gal. 1:6-9 etc., 1Ti. 1:3-7; 1Ti. 1:19 f.; 2Ti. 2:17 f; 2Ti. 3:8 f.; Tit. 1:10-16; 2Pe. 2:1; 1Jn. 2:18-26; 1Jn. 4:1; 1Jn. 4:3; 2Jn. 1:7; all of Jude. False prophets and teachers would be harder to deal with than overt persecution from outside the Church, because these arose within the ranks of the believers. Motivated by personal animosities, selfish ambition and erroneous convictions, these schismatics would allure earnest disciples to swerve from truth in order to follow their teachers.

History of the Christian Church, Schaff (ibid., I, 564ff.) distinguishes three types of heretical perversions of the Christian message in the first century: the Judaizing tendency, the paganizing tendency of the Gnostics, and the syncretistic tendency to blend Christianity with pagan thought. Each arose as a caricature, respectively, of Jewish Christianity, Gentile Christianity and of the truly universal Christianity that reconciled the genius and truth of both these conceptions.

In every age we must beware of even one, single false notion that distorts Christs teaching. Every heresy has a grain of truth that renders its error palatable to the uncritical. Do not think that a false prophet is exclusively someone who twists the entire body of Christian doctrine or who never says something true.

6.

WIDESPREAD FAITHLESSNESS. Mat. 24:12 And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax cold. Iniquity (anoma; lit. lawlessness) expresses itself in rebellion against restraints of any kind whether inside the Church or without. The first step in Gospel proclamation is the often painful awakening of mans consciousness of his guilt. Preaching this unwelcome truth invites rejection by the majority that refuses it, dampening enthusiasm for righteousness. Further, when the hypocrisy of some insincere Christians is discovered, the sincerity of the honest ones becomes suspect. Disciples become mutually suspicious and dare no longer believe in each other. The unfortunate, natural consequence is the cooling in the intensity of their love for one another. The custom of abandoning the common Christian assembly was already growing in the first century, making mutual encouragement vital even then (Heb. 10:25).

Although He means essentially the same thing, Jesus did not say, The faith of the many shall grow cold, but The love. . . . Here is the real distinction between a shallow, formalistic faith and one that is deeply felt, real and living. Is your faith a love that seizes the imagination, warms the heart, informs the intellect, reinforces the conscience, empowers the will, causing you to love God and people as Jesus did? The kind of love Jesus has in mind is the true definition of spirituality, not, as some hold, the abstinence from a certain list of worldly pleasures. This fervor will show itself in earnest, active, brotherly concern for ones fellows (Mat. 25:34-40; 1Pe. 1:22; 1Pe. 2:17; 1Pe. 4:8; 1Pe. 5:14).

Does this lawlessness (anoma) forepicture that libertinism or antinomianism that began cropping up in early Christianity by turning the grace of God into lasciviousness? (Cf. Jud. 1:4; Rom. 3:7 f; Rom. 6:1 to Rom. 7:6; 2Pe. 2:1 ff.) Further, laxity in doctrine cannot help but involve moral laxity. What one believes does affect how he acts, since the same authority governs both doctrinal correctness and moral practice.

c. Individual perseverance ones only hope (24:13)

7.

INDIVIDUAL PERSEVERANCE. Mat. 24:13 But he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. Potentially, Jesus subtle proverb embraces an (perhaps deliberate?) ambiguity: two ends and two salvations: (1) the salvation of the individuals soul at the conclusion of his life of faithfulness, either at his death or at the worlds end, whichever comes first, and (2) the preservation of the Christians physical life at the end of Jerusalem.

It may be objected that Jesus cannot have three separate ends in view contemporaneously: (1) life; (2) Jerusalem; (3) the world. Further, could the salvation promised be so ambiguous as potentially to involve both physical liberation from the destiny of Jerusalem and spiritual salvation from sin and death contemporaneously? What, too, of those disciples who died a natural death or were martyred for Christ before Jerusalems fall? Surely, early martyrs would not be lost merely because they died before 70 A.D. Would it not also be a senseless truism to argue that the life would be spared of him who endured to the end of his life? So, it is argued that He means, not Jerusalems end, but only the believers death, hence the salvation involved is entirely spiritual.

However, since the believers salvation at the conclusion of his life of obedience and the early Jewish Christians physical preservation beyond the death of Jerusalem are both true to the context, must we choose between them? In the near context (Mat. 24:9), Jesus had predicted martyrdom for some of His people. (Cf. Luk. 21:16.) In this case, those who died would have endured to the end of their life testimony for Christ and so would be saved spiritually. Earlier, Jesus linked fearless testimony during persecution with spiritual salvation and with being acknowledged before the Father (Mat. 10:32 f.). Those who, under fire, denied their faith in Him would not be recognized as His and they would be lost spiritually, even though they live to a ripe old age and die in bed.

Nonetheless, because the Lord proceeds immediately to describe how Christians could avoid the holocaust destined for Jerusalem, it is also conceivable that, for a large sector of the early Church, the end and the being saved would vitally concern their own earth-life quite as really as that to come. The end is the same referred to by the expression, these things (Mat. 24:3; Mat. 24:34 and parallels) and those days (Mat. 24:19; Mat. 24:22 and par.), i.e. the period when Israel would be ruined nationally. It is the same end heralded by the proclamation of the Gospel throughout the whole world for a testimony (Mat. 24:14). Accordingly, the salvation intended refers also to physical escape by precipitate flight to the mountains when Jerusalem would have been surrounded by enemy troops (Luk. 21:20 f.). By believing Jesus to the very last, the believer would escape the doom of the city. Even if some individuals would be martyred, the Church as a whole would elude the bloody end scheduled for the unbelieving Jewish people.

Here, then, is His justification for deliberately speaking ambiguously: The person who believes that I know what I am talking about and trusts me right on past the complete fulfilment of these predictions, is the person who will really save his life. Lifeboth temporal and eternalwill not be the conquest of the wayward doubter who casts in his lot with the unbelieving and the fearful of this nation for whom God has prepared the furious punishment I describe. So, to learn to trust Jesus in the midst of fire and cruel tests of endurance would provide a double benefit for those Christians yet living in Palestine during the last hours of Israels national existence. Their lives would be spared and their souls saved. In those crude, brutal days when human flesh was cheap and the skin of a Christian was worth nothing, many believers would doubt that they could endure. In fact, he that endures to the end is really what will be left of the Church after the defections, the betrayals and apostacies, no less than the staunch believer who outlives the Palestinean tribulation! Hence, the Lord holds out concrete hope for those embattled saints, motivating them to hold firm in holding off false teachers, enduring taunts and keeping enthusiastic for Jesus, even while their entire country was flying apart,

FACT QUESTIONS

1.

Quote the various expressions Jesus used to indicate that disturbing world and local events were not to be considered signals of the approaching end.

2.

List the various events that are not to be interpreted as signaling anything special in Gods plan, but must be considered as merely the beginning of sufferings.

3.

Does history record the appearance of pretenders who claimed, I am Christ? What would Christ have meant to the Jew who did not believe in Jesus?

4.

List some of the wars and rumors of wars that characterized the period prior to 70 A.D.

5.

What must the disciples attitude be toward the world-shaking events surrounding them?

6.

Explain how Jesus means the expression, this must take place: has the purpose of God foreseen or planned wars and tumults? In what sense must they take place?

7.

According to Mark and Luke, what is the tribulation into which men would deliver Jesus disciples? In what chapter of Matthew has Jesus already described these troubled before?

8.

What other characteristics of the period are listed exclusively in Matthew?

9.

According to Jesus, what is the beginning point of this period and what the end point?

DOES 24:414 SURVEY CHRISTIAN HISTORY TO THE WORLDS END?

Some would not confine their interpretation of Mat. 24:4-14 to a specially Jewish situation or era limited to the decline and fall of the Jewish state. Rather, say they, these verses depict the chief features of the Christian era down to its end. Even if they involve the nearer history of the great catastrophe of 6670 A.D., they project a decisive, prophetic shadow on the farther future end, as a sign or foretaste of that chain of events from the time of the Church to the final event that summarizes them all in Christs Return. What happens to Jerusalem is seen as typical of general human conduct. Hence, the events preceding the Jerusalem debacle are to be conceived of as signs typical of the final world disaster. Is this analysis correct? Farrar (Life of Christ, 544) argues,

As we learn from many other passages of Scripture, these signs, as they did usher in the destruction of Jerusalem, so shall reappear on a larger scale before the end of all things is at hand. (See 1Th. 5:3; 2Th. 2:2, etc.)

However, the conviction that the end is at hand on the basis of other texts which mention world conditions similar to those mentioned in Mat. 24:4-14 does not require us to consider this paragraph as general or capable of referring both to Jerusalems end and to that of the world as well. Similarity suggests, but does not prove, identity.

Further, while it is true that spiritual decline, international war, political intrigue and world catastrophes may characterize the Christian dispensation with increasing intensity right down to the end, this does not permit us to dismiss lightly the four decades between Jesus prophecy and its fulfillment in that period.

The disciples expression, the sign of your coming and of the end of the world, (Mat. 24:3) does not justify the unfounded conclusions drawn from this chapter, since their question was wrongly framed and needed correction before it could be properly answered. What many interpreters mistake for signs of the end in Mat. 24:4-14, Jesus flatly terms a mistaken clue about which nothing at all should be made. Rather, the painful commonness of such phenomena proves they could never constitute a sign in the normal, specialized sense of the word.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(4) Jesus answered and said unto them . . .The great discourse which follows is given with substantial agreement by St. Mark and St. Luke, the variations being such as were naturally incident to reports made from memory, and probably after an interval of many years. In all probability, the written record came, in the first instance, from the lips of St. Peter, and it will accordingly be instructive to compare its eschatology, or teaching as to the last things, with that which we find in his discourses and epistles. St. Pauls reference to the day of the Lord coming as a thief in the night (1Th. 5:2) suggests the inference that its substance had become known at a comparatively early date; but it was probably not published, i.e., not thrown as a document into circulation, among Christian Jews, till the time was near when its warnings would be needed; and this may, in part, account for the variations with which it then appeared.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

4. Jesus answered and said unto them The discourse consists of three parts. The First is a description of the THESE THINGS of their first question, namely, the destruction of Jerusalem; at the same time distinguishing that event from the second COMING of Christ, Mat 24:4-42.

Secondly, Parabolic illustrations of the second coming, Mat 24:43 to Mat 25:30.

Thirdly, A description of the judgment at the second coming, Mat 25:31-46.

It is with the first of these three divisions that all the difficulty arises. I suppose this whole division to consist of five paragraphs, in which the downfall of the city and state are described, and distinguished from the second coming.

I. A caution not to confound the DESTRUCTION of the city with the END of the world, Mat 24:4-6.

II. The commotions and PERSECUTIONS preceding the destruction of the city described, and then contrasted with the EVANGELIZATION of the world before the end, Mat 24:7-14.

III. A description of the trials of the siege, closing with a contrast between the COMING of the FALSE Christs and the ADVENT of the TRUE Christ, Mat 24:15-27.

IV. The PROLIXITY of the slaughter and captivity attendant upon, and through ages succeeding the destruction of the city, described and contrasted with the SUDDENNESS of the end, Mat 24:28-31. Luk 21:24.

V. The easy CALCULABILITY of the approaching destruction of the city described, and then contrasted with the divine CONCEALMENT of the knowledge of the end, Mat 24:32-41.

Each one of these paragraphs, it is seen, contains a description of the circumstances of the destruction of the city, etc., terminating with some point of contrast with the end.

It would greatly aid a proper understanding of the contrast drawn by our Lord, if the first part of the discourse were printed in five separate paragraphs. Of the five paragraphs, the proper subject is the downfall of Judaism; but each ends with a point of contrast with the end.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I. OUR LORD WARNS THEM NOT TO CONFOUND JERUSALEM’S DESTRUCTION WITH THE END OF THE WORLD, Mat 24:4-6.

4. Take heed that no man deceive you The disciples no doubt believed that the time when Jerusalem would be destroyed would be the end of the world. That they had some doubt of this, appears from the fact that they embraced the two events in two separate questions. Our Lord’s first care was, to set them right, in this paragraph, upon that point. He therefore warns them, that no future false Christ should tempt them to believe that his second advent had arrived; and that no commotion should induce them to fear that the end of the world was nigh.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jesus Is Concerned That The Disciples Are Not Led Astray By Future Happenings (24:4).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

‘And Jesus answered and said to them, “Take care that no man lead you astray.” ’

Jesus is giving these warnings so that none who follow Him might be led astray by events of the future. Men have always had weird ideas about what the future would hold. And they have always looked for, and hoped for, future Messiahs who will arise among men and solve all their problems. But Jesus warns severely against expecting the latter, or interpreting the former in the wrong way. All these things that He is about to describe will come on the world but they are not to be looked on as signs of the end.

We must remember as we consider His words what limited experience of the world the disciples as a whole had. They were largely Galileans whose main adventures in their lives had been regular trips to Jerusalem for particular feasts, and while the twelve had occasionally also visited neighbouring countries with Jesus, they had had little real experience of them. Thus their knowledge of the wider world was almost non-existent. Once they were facing that wider world, therefore, Jesus knew that they might easily have begun to imagine all kinds of things as a result of seeing and experiencing the tumults among nations and the events that took place there, and even more so when they received news of events on an even wider scale. Jesus thus warns them not to take such events, both seen and heard, however spectacular, as signs of the end. They are rather simply to see them as the continual outworking of history,

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

1) Outline of the General Future of The World Describing the Initial Birth Pains Of The New Age (24:4-8).

Jesus begins by outlining the coming initial sufferings of the world, the ‘birth pains’ of the new age. Such, consisting of war, famine and earthquakes, etc. will cause suffering among the nations and will lead up to and include the invasion of Judaea and the destruction of Jerusalem.

Analysis.

a And Jesus answered and said to them, “Take care that no man lead you astray, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah’, and will lead many astray” (Mat 24:4-5).

b “And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars, see that you are not troubled” (Mat 24:6 a).

c “For it is necessary for these things to happen, but the end is not yet” (Mat 24:6 b).

b “For nation will rise against nation, and kingship against kingship” (Mat 24:7 a).

a “And there will be famines and earthquakes in many different places, but all these things are the beginning of birth pains” (Mat 24:7-8).

Note that in ‘a’ they are to be careful not to be led astray by what is to happen, especially by false Messiahs, for in the parallel it is like the beginning of birth pains, which often lead men and women astray into thinking that the time for birth has arrived, when there is in fact still more to come. In ‘b’ there will be wars and rumours of wars, and in the parallel nation will rise against nation. Centrally in ‘c’ is the necessity for these things to be.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Mat 24:4-5. Take heed that no man deceive you Our Saviour mentions false Christs as the first sign of his coming. He begins with this inall the evangelists, and in all uses almost the same words: only in St. Luk 21:8 he adds, the time draweth near; and indeed within a little time this part of the prophesy began to be fulfilled. Very soon after our Saviour’s decease, appeared Simon Magus, who boasted himself among the Jews as the son of God, and gave out among the Samaritans, that he was some great one, Act 8:9-10. Of the same stamp and character was Dositheus the Samaritan, who pretended that he was the Christ foretold by Moses. In the reign of Claudius, about twelve years after the death of our Saviour, an impostor, named Theudas, persuaded a great multitude to follow him, with their best effects, to the river Jordan; for he said that he was a prophet, and promised to divide the river for their passage; and saying these things, he deceived many, says Josephus: but Fadus sent a troop of horse against them, who, falling unexpectedly upon them, killed many, and made many prisoners; and, having taken Theudas himself alive, they cut off his head, and brought it to Jerusalem. A few years afterwards, in the reign of Nero, these impostors rose so frequently, that many of them were apprehended and killed every day. They seduced great numbers of the people, still expecting the Messiah. Our Saviour therefore might well caution his disciples against them. See the note on Mat 24:24. Bishop Newton, and Archbishop Tillotson’s Discourse on this subject.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Mat 24:4 . The reply of Jesus is directed, in the first instance, to the second question ( , . . .), inasmuch as He indicates, as the discourse advances, the things that are to precede His second coming, till, in Mat 24:28 , He reaches the point which borders immediately upon the latter event (see Mat 24:29 ). But this answer to the second question involves, at the same time, an indirect answer to the first, in so far as it was possible to give this latter at all (for see Mat 24:36 ), and in so far as it was advisable to do so, if the watchfulness of the disciples was to be maintained. The discourse proceeds in the following order down to Mat 24:28 : first there is a warning with regard to the appearing of false Messiahs (extending to Mat 24:5 ), then the announcement of the beginning and development of the dolores Messiae on to their termination (Mat 24:6-14 ), and finally the hint that these latter are to end with the destruction of the temple and the accompanying disasters (Mat 24:15-22 ), with a repetition of the warning against false Messiahs (Mat 24:23-28 ). Ebrard ( adv. erroneam nonnull. opinion., qua Christus Christique apost. existumasse perhibentur, fore ut univ. iudicium ipsor. aetate superveniret , 1842) finds in Mat 24:4-14 the reply of Jesus to the disciples’ second question. He thinks that in Mat 24:15 Jesus passes to the first, and that in Mat 24:29 He comes back “ad , i.e . ad secundae quaestionis partem priorem.” This supposition is simply the result of an imperious dogmatic preconception, and cannot be justified on any fair exegetical principle. See below. Dorner, who spiritualizes the discourse, understands Mat 24:4-14 as setting forth the nature of the gospel and its necessary development, while he regards what follows, from Mat 24:15 onward, as describing the historical “decursum Christianae religionis;” he thinks that Jesus desired by this means to dispel the premature Messianic hopes of the disciples, and make them reflect on what they must bear and suffer “ut evangelium munere suo historico perfungi possit.”

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

Mat 24:4-5 . In the first place and how appropriate and necessary, considering the eagerness of the disciples for the second coming! a warning against false Messiahs , and then Mat 24:6 f. the first, far off, indirect prognostics of the second advent, like the roll of the distant thunder.

. . ] on the strength of my name , so that they rest their claim a upon the name of Messiah , which they arrogate to themselves. Comp. Mat 18:5 . The following , . . . is epexegetical. We possess no historical record of any false Messiahs having appeared previous to the destruction of Jerusalem (Barcochba did not make his appearance till the time of Hadrian); for Simon Magus (Act 8:9 ), Theudas (Act 5:36 ), the Egyptian (Act 21:38 ), Menander, Dositheus, who have been referred to as cases in point (Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Grotius, Calovius, Bengel), did not pretend to be the Messiah . Comp. Joseph. Antt. xx. 5. 1; 8. 6; Bell. ii. 13. 5. Then as for the period subsequent to the destruction of the capital , it is not here in question (in answer to Luthardt, Cremer, Lange); for see on Mat 24:29 And consequently it cannot have been intended, as yet, to point to such personages as Manes, Montanus, and least of all Mohammed.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

Ver. 4. Take heed that no man deceive you ] Try the spirits, and turn from false doctrines, as you would do from a serpent in your way, or from poison in your meats. Deceivers are sly and subtle, and that old serpent, more subtle than them all, catcheth the deceived by the deceiver, as the fisher doth one fish by another, that he may make a prey of them both. These, as harpies, a have virgins’ faces, vultures’ talons; they are ravening wolves in sheep’s clothing, &c. Shun them therefore, for they will increase to more ungodliness, and their words will eat as doth a gangrene, 2Ti 2:16-17 . Theodosius tore the writings of the Arians that were presented to him; a and when he desired to confer with Eunomius, his empress Placilla dissuaded him very earnestly, lest being perverted by his speeches he might fall into heresy.

a Gr. and Lat. Myth. A fabulous monster, rapacious and filthy, having a woman’s face and body and a bird’s wings and claws, and supposed to act as a minister of divine vengeance. D

b Theod. Imp. laceravit scripta Arianorum pugnantia cum testimoniis divinis. Selnec., Sozom. vii. 7.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

4, 5. ] Our Lord does not answer the but by admonitions not to be deceived. See a question similarly answered, Luk 13:23-24 .

. ] This was the first danger awaiting them: not of being drawn away from Christ, but of imagining that these persons were Himself . Of such persons, before the destruction of Jerusalem, we have no distinct record; doubtless there were such: but (see above) I believe the prophecy and warning to have a further reference to the latter times in which its complete fulfilment must be looked for. The persons usually cited as fulfilling this (Theudas, Simon Magus, Barchochab, &c.) are all too early or too late, and not correspondent to the condition, . , ‘with My name as the ground of their pretences.’ See Greswell on the Parables, ver. 380 note. Luke gives an addition ( Luk 24:8 ) to the speech of the false Christs, .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mat 24:4-14 . Signs prelusive of the end . (Mar 13:5-13 , Luk 21:8-19 ).

Mat 24:4 . : again ( vide Mat 24:2 ), but here = see to it, take heed. Cf. Heb 3:12 . , lest any one deceive you; striking the practical ethical keynote of the whole discourse: its aim not to gratify curiosity, but to guard against deception and terror ( , Mat 24:6 ) heads cool, hearts brave, in a tragic epoch.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat 24:4-8

4And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. 5For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’and will mislead many. 6You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. 7For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. 8But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.

Mat 24:4 “See to it that no one misleads you” This is a present active imperative with the negative particle which meant stop an act in process. There were and continue to be many false signs or “precursor signs.” This statement was repeated often (cf. Mar 13:5; Mar 13:9; Mar 13:23; Mar 13:33). There is great theological confusion in this area. The church has never had a consensus in eschatology.

Every generation of Christians has tried to force their contemporary history into biblical prophecy. To date they have all been wrong. Part of the problem is that believers are to live in a moment by moment expectation of the Second Coming yet the prophecies are all written for one end time generation of persecuted followers. Rejoice that you do not know!

Mat 24:5 “many will come in My name” This referred to false messiahs (cf. Mat 24:11; Mat 24:23-24; Mar 13:6). It could also be an allusion to the end-time (1) antichrist of 1Jn 2:18; (2) “Man of Sin” of 2 Thessalonians 2; or (3) the Sea Beast of Rev 13:1-10.

“I am the Christ” “Christ” is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew term messiah, which meant “an anointed one.” This shows that many messianic pretenders would come (cf. Mat 24:11; Mat 24:24; 1Jn 2:18).

“and will mislead many” This shows the persuasive power of the false messiahs and the spiritual vacuum of fallen mankind (cf. Mat 24:11; Mat 24:23-26). It also shows the naivete of new believers and/or carnal Christians (cf. 1Co 3:1-3; Col 2:16-23; Heb 5:11-14).

Mat 24:6 “that you are not frightened” This is present passive imperative with the negative particle, which usually means stop an act in process.

“for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end” Wars (Mat 24:6-7), famines (Mat 24:7), earthquakes (Mat 24:7), and false messiahs (Mat 24:5) are not signs of the end, but precursor signs of every age (cf. Mat 24:8). The presence of these kinds of events are not a sign of the end, but of a fallen world.

Mat 24:8

NASB, NRSV”of birth pangs”

NKJV”of sorrows”

TEV”the first pains of childbirth”

NJB”the birthpangs”

This referred to the “birth pangs” of the new age (cf. Isa 13:8; Isa 26:17; Isa 66:7; Mic 4:9-10; Mar 13:8). This reflected the Jewish belief in the intensification of evil before the new age of righteousness. The Jews believed in two ages (see Special Topic at Mat 12:31); the current evil age, characterized by sin and rebellion against God, and the “age to come.” The New Age would be inaugurated by the coming of the Messiah. It would be a time of righteousness and fidelity to God. Although the Jewish view was true to a point, it did not take into account the two comings of the Messiah. We live in the over-lapping of these two ages. The “already” and “not yet” of the kingdom of God!

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

Take heed. Greek. blepo. App-133.

no man = not (me. App-105.) any one.

deceive = lead astray.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

4, 5.] Our Lord does not answer the but by admonitions not to be deceived. See a question similarly answered, Luk 13:23-24.

. ] This was the first danger awaiting them: not of being drawn away from Christ, but of imagining that these persons were Himself. Of such persons, before the destruction of Jerusalem, we have no distinct record; doubtless there were such: but (see above) I believe the prophecy and warning to have a further reference to the latter times in which its complete fulfilment must be looked for. The persons usually cited as fulfilling this (Theudas, Simon Magus, Barchochab, &c.) are all too early or too late, and not correspondent to the condition, . , with My name as the ground of their pretences. See Greswell on the Parables, ver. 380 note. Luke gives an addition (Luk 24:8) to the speech of the false Christs, .

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mat 24:4. , …, and Jesus answered and said, unto them, etc.) The disciples had asked without distinguishing their questions-(1) Concerning the time of the destruction of the temple; (2) Concerning the sign of the coming of the Lord and the end of the world, as if both events would occur simultaneously, and consequently have a common time and a common sign. Our Lord answers them distinctly [and separately]-(1) Concerning the destruction of the temple and the city, and the signs of this event, in Mat 24:4-5; Mat 24:15-16; (2) Concerning His coming and the end of the world, and the signs of that event, in Mat 24:29-31; (3) Concerning the time when the temple was to be destroyed, in Mat 24:32-33; (4) Concerning the time of the end of the world, in Mat 24:36. Thus is it also in St Mark, and St Luke, who in ch. Mat 21:11; Mat 21:25, distinguishes the signs of each event.-, see) i.e. take heed. We ought to inquire concerning future events, especially those of the last days, not for the sake of gratifying our curiosity, but from a desire to fortify ourselves. All things in this discourse must be referred to firmness in acknowledging and confessing Jesus Christ; for the drift and object of the prophecy is to enforce this duty: other matters, which we might make use of for mere knowledge, are mentioned abruptly and obscurely. A thesis on the perspicuity and perfection of Scripture might be suitably illustrated from this discourse of our Lord.-, you) This is said not so much to the apostles, who were shortly to receive the Holy Ghost, as to the whole flock of believers whom they then represented, lest they should be seduced by the greater perils to which they would be exposed. The beginning is Prudence; the end, Patience.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Chapter 70

False Christs and the True

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive manyFor then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elects sake those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

(Mat 24:4-5; Mat 24:21-24)

The Word of God warns us plainly and repeatedly that in the last days, the days in which we now live, many false Christs would appear, that many would claim to be Christ who are impostors, false Christs and deceivers, and that many false prophets would arise pointing us to these false Christs, saying, Lo, here is Christ, or there. As you care for your soul, as you care for the souls of your family, as you care for the souls of perishing men and women, and as you care for the truth of God and the glory of God, I urge you to give earnest heed to the words of the Son of God in this passage.

The plain fact is there are many false Christs, many antichrists, by whom the souls of men are deceived and damned. I want to be as charitable, kind, and gracious as I can; but charity, kindness, and grace will not allow me to be silent while immortal souls are deceived and Gods glory is trampled beneath the feet of men. If you trust a false Christ, you cannot be saved any more than you could be saved by trusting a tadpole. We are called of God to trust, love, follow, and obey the true Christ and him only. Salvation is promised to none but those who trust the true Christ. Therefore, we are warned, Take heed that no man deceive you. We must take heed to the teachings of Holy Scripture, lest we be deceived by some false Christ.

The Liberals Christ

The false Christ presented by liberals was a social do-gooder. Of course, we are told, he is not God. The virgin birth, the incarnation, the resurrection are all things that must be understood allegorically. In fact, the Christ of the liberals is considered by many to be a man of very questionable moral character. Any who are deceived by liberal theology and the Christ of the liberals are willingly deceived. We are not deceived by the Christ of the liberals. Only a prating fool would pretend to be a Christian while teaching what liberals do concerning Christ. The Christ of the liberals is a false Christ. All who trust the Christ of the liberals are lost.

The Cults Christ

The false Christ presented by various cults is represented to us as a good man, a prophet, a teacher of morality, the first and greatest creation of God, or even a sort of secondary god. But the Christ of the cults is never represented as the true and eternal God. Their Christ receives his existence from another god, one who is greater than he is. This, of course, is not the Christ of the Bible. We are not deceived by him. The Christ of the cults is a false Christ. All who trust the Christ of the cults are lost.

The Papists Christ

Roman Catholicism proclaims another false Christ. The papists profess that Jesus Christ is God, that he came into the world as a man, that he suffered the wrath of God as a substitute for sinners, that he died, was buried, rose again the third day, ascended back to heaven, and that he is coming again. But the Christ of Romanism is not a complete Savior. The Christ of Rome cannot save sinners without their own good works, the intercessions of priests, and the sacraments of the church. The Christ of Rome is not the Christ of the Bible. We are not deceived by him. Though many are damned by the darkness of Roman Catholic idolatry, that is not a danger and deception by which any who read these lines are likely to be deceived. The Christ of the papists, we know, is a false Christ. All who trust the Christ of Rome are lost.

The Arminians Christ

However, there is a false Christ much more dangerous than the antichrists of the liberals, the cults, and the papists. There is a false Christ by whom the souls of men have been deceived for years, by whom millions are being deceived today. In fact, I am compelled to say, the vast majority of those who profess faith in Christ are followers of this false Christ, who will ultimately lead them to eternal ruin. This Christ, this antichrist, is such a dangerous and deceptive Christ that our Lord tells us he would deceive the very elect, were it not impossible for Gods elect to be deceived (Mat 24:24). He must be identified. The Christ I speak of is the false Christ of Arminian, freewill, works religion.

Few think it uncharitable to denounce the false Christs of liberals, cults, and papists as antichrists, and warn men that following those false Christs will result in everlasting damnation. Yet, whenever anyone boldly asserts that the Christ of Arminian, freewill, works religion is a false Christ, and that all who trust him are lost, he is immediately castigated as an evil man. Be that as it may, as a watchman upon the walls of Zion, I am responsible to warn you of the danger of this antichrist.

The Christ of Arminian, freewill, works religion is extremely dangerous because in many ways he appears to be the true Christ. The free-willers and work-mongers of this age tell us that Christ is the true God, in every way equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. They even assert that he saves by grace alone, without the works of man. They insist vehemently that good works play no part in their salvation. The devotees of this Christ will have nothing to do with the Christ of the liberals, the cults, or the papists. But take heed that no man deceive you. Do not be fooled. The Christ of Arminian, freewill, works religion is not the Christ of the Bible. He is a false Christ. All who trust this false Christ are lost, too.

The Issue

Be sure you understand the issue. The issue is not what or how much does a person have to know to be saved. The issue is who. Who must I know? The answer to that question is plainly stated in Joh 17:3. We must know the true God and the true Christ. Let me make five comparisons of the false Christ of modern religion, the Christ of Arminian, freewill, works religion, with the Christ of the Bible. When you have considered these five comparisons in the light of Holy Scripture, I have no doubt that you will see the obvious distinctions between the false Christs and the true.

1.The Christ of modern, freewill, works religion loves everyone in the universe and wants to save them.

We are told that Christ loves all men alike, desires the salvation of all men alike, and is gracious to all men alike. That makes the love, will, and grace of Christ helpless and useless. But that language cannot be applied to the Christ of the Bible.

If God loves all men without exception and some are not saved, what does the love of God have to do with anyone’s salvation? Absolutely nothing! If that were the case, God’s love would be fickle, changeable, and meaningless. It could give no comfort to anyone. But God says his love is saving (Jer 31:3; Jer 31:38-40). Thank God, he does love many; but he does not love everyone (Rom 9:13).

The true Christ, the Christ of the Bible, the saving Christ loves his people, wills and prays for the salvation of his people, and is gracious to his people, the people unconditionally chosen unto salvation from eternity, whom he came to save (Psa 5:5; Psa 7:11; Psa 11:5; Mat 1:21; Mat 11:27; Joh 10:16; Joh 17:9-10; Act 13:48; Rom 9:21-24; Eph 1:3-6).

2.The Christ of modern, freewill, works religion tries to save everyone.

We are told that he offers salvation to every sinner and does everything he can to save them all; but that his offer is rejected and his work is frustrated by the will of those who refuse to come to him and be saved.

If God the Holy Spirit calls all sinners alike to life and faith in Christ and some die without faith, what does the Spirit’s call have to do with anyone’s salvation? Absolutely nothing! If his grace can be resisted, it is not the distinguishing factor in salvation. But God says it is (Joh 6:63; 1Co 4:7).

The Christ of the Bible does not merely offer salvation. He performs it. Grace is not an offer. It is an operation. The Son of God effectually calls to himself all his elect, his sheep, and sovereignly works salvation in them by the irresistible power and grace of his Holy Spirit. Not one of them will be lost. Is this, or is it not the teaching of Holy Scripture? (Psa 65:4; Psa 110:3; Isa 55:11; Joh 5:21; Joh 6:37-40; Joh 10:3; Joh 10:25-30; Joh 17:2; Php 2:13)

3.The false Christ of Arminianism cannot regenerate and save anyone who does not first choose to be saved by him.

We are told that man has a freewill, but that Christs will is bound by and must wait upon mans will because it would not be right for him to violate mans will.

If it is the will of God that everyone be saved and some perish in hell, what does the will of God have to do with anyone’s salvation? Absolutely nothing! His will would be frustrated, defeated and reversed. But God says his will is absolute, unalterable (Isa 14:24). Salvation comes only by God’s irresistible will (Rom 9:16).

The true, saving Christ does violate mans imaginary freewill; and I am very thankful that he does. Had he not violated my freewill, I would be lost or in hell now. The same is true of you. He sovereignly regenerates and saves every chosen, redeemed sinner. His operations of grace are totally independent of the will and choice of the sinner. Apart from his work of grace in us, spiritually dead sinners never would or could believe on him and come to him in faith. Faith is not our contribution to the work of salvation. Our faith in him is the result, not the cause of Gods saving operations. Let God be true, but every man a liar (Joh 3:3-7; Joh 6:44; Joh 6:65; Joh 15:16; Act 11:18; Rom 2:4; Rom 9:16; Eph 2:1-4; Eph 2:8-10; Php 1:6; Php 1:29; Col 2:12; Heb 12:2).

4.The false Christ of modern, Arminian, freewill, works, man-centered religion died on the cross for everyone in the world, to make it possible for everyone in the world to be saved, but actually secured no ones salvation by his death.

We are told that Christ by his death made it possible for all men to be redeemed, justified, and saved, but that his death has no efficacy and saving power for anyone until they believe on him. Thus, we are informed that the Son of God died in vain for all who perish in unbelief. Though he tried to save them, he failed.

If Christ died to redeem everyone and some yet die under the wrath of God, what does the blood of Christ have to do with anyone’s salvation? Absolutely nothing! If Christ died for those in hell as well as those in glory, his blood is of no value at all. It saves no one. It does not wash away sin. It was shed in vain! But God says all for whom Christ’s blood was shed shall be eternally saved by it (Isa 53:10-11; Joh 10:15; Joh 10:25; Rom 8:34).

The Christ of God is not a frustrated failure. He died for Gods elect and effectually put away our sins by the sacrifice of himself. Having satisfied the justice of God for us, he obtained eternal salvation for us. We were and are forever pardoned, justified, and sanctified by his blood (Isa 42:4; Isa 53:8; Mat 20:28; Joh 10:14-15; Joh 10:26; Act 20:28; Rom 5:9-10; Eph 5:25; Heb 9:12; Heb 10:10-14; 1Pe 3:18; Rev 5:9-10). The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ shall never be discovered a miscarriage.

I realize that there is a great division among religious people regarding Christs atonement. I am sorry such division exists, but it does. Most religious people believe what is called universal, or general redemption. They believe that the Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood for every person in the world and that the intention of Christ in his death was the eternal salvation of all men.

Here are three inescapable conclusions which must be accepted by all who believe that doctrine. (1.) If it was the intention of the Son of God to redeem and save all men and yet some are not saved, then the purpose of Christ in his death has been frustrated. (2.) If the Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood to save every person in the world and some of those for whom He died go to hell anyway, then, for those who perish, Christ died in vain. (3.) If Christ died to make atonement for all men and to save all men, and some yet perish under the wrath of God, then Christ failed in his mission. His work of redemption is a failure.

These blasphemous absurdities no child of God can tolerate. They rob Christ of his glory in redemption, destroy the foundation of hope for sinners, and call into question the very Godhood of our Savior. If he is a failure, if he fails to save all whom he came to save, he is not God. Yet, if the doctrine of universal, general redemption is believed, these blasphemous conclusions must be accepted.

Indeed, there are many who acknowledge these blasphemous absurdities, while claiming to be the servants of God. Noel Smith was my first theology professor. He taught biblical interpretation and theology at Baptist Bible College in Springfield, MO. As he endeavored to describe hell, this is what he wrote

What is hell? It is an infinite negation. And it is more than that. I tell you, and I say it with profound reverence, hell is a ghastly monument to the failure of the triune God to save the multitudes who are there. I say it reverently. I say it with every nerve of my body tense. Sinners go to hell because God almighty himself couldnt save them! He did everything he could. He failed!

Even as an eighteen year old boy, I found that horrendous statement shocking. Yet, I have heard statements similar to it repeated on numerous occasions by radio and television preachers. Jerry Falwell, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, who was one of Mr. Smiths earliest pupils in Springfield, also asserts that God is a failure. Several years ago, I heard him assert, If you go to hell, you will go to that awful place, in spite of the fact that God himself has done everything he possibly could to save you. Shortly after hearing Falwells statement, Al Geisler, who was at the time, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Danville, Kentucky made this statement, as he begged sinners to let Jesus save them at the end of a radio sermon. Jesus loved you, died for you, and has done everything he can to save you; but it will all be in vain unless you believe. What a shame it will be that Jesus death will be in vain for so many. I agree. It would be a terrible shame and embarrassment, not for the lost sinner, but for him! It would not be a failure on the sinners part, but a failure on his part, if he died to save anyone he fails to save! Such statements are nothing less than the blasphemous denial of Christs deity. I repeat, if he is a failure, he is not God.

5.The false Christ of Arminianism loses many who have been saved by him because they do not hang on, hold out, or persevere to the end.

Among the heretical Baptists and most Protestants of our day, some do grant that the sinner has what has come to be called eternal security. But it is not security based upon the will, work, and purpose of God in Christ. It is not security based upon the blood of Christ, or the operations of his Spirit. According to the freewiller, all these things are done for all people alike. So their doctrine of eternal security is a declaration of security based upon the choice and will of man, not the choice and will of God.

The true Christ, the saving Christ, the Christ of the Bible preserves his chosen, redeemed, called ones by his almighty grace so that they cannot fall away and perish at last. We are kept in life, grace, and faith by the immutability of his will, the power of his blood, the efficacy of his grace, the seal of his Spirit, and the perfection of his intercession (Mal 3:6; Joh 5:24; Joh 10:26-29; Rom 8:28-39; 1Pe 1:2-5; Jud 1:24-25).

At first glance, the Christ of modern, Arminian, freewill, works religion may seem to closely resemble the true Christ, the Christ of Scripture. But he does not. The one is a false Christ, antichrist. The other is true, the Christ of God. One is weak and helpless, waiting upon and bowing to the will of man. The other is the sovereign Lord, who wills what he pleases and does what he will. The one is supposed to be able to save with your cooperation. The other is able to save without any cooperation on your part. His salvation produces your cooperation.

Those who believe on and serve the false Christ of freewill, works religion do not believe on and serve the Christ of the Bible. They are deceived. They are lost. And they shall forever perish under the wrath of God, unless they come to know and trust the Christ of God who saves his people from their sins by himself. We must, as we fear God and care for the souls of men, have no fellowship with and give no credibility to Arminian, freewill, works religion (2Co 6:14 to 2Co 7:1; Rev 18:4). We must, in these days of darkness, deception, and delusion, proclaim the Christ of God in all his saving fullness, grace, and glory. He alone is able to save (Rom 1:15-17). Let us ever adore, praise, and extol the Lord Jesus Christ alone and completely as our great Savior (Isa 59:16).

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

Take: Jer 29:8, Mar 13:5, Mar 13:6, Mar 13:22, Luk 21:8, 2Co 11:13-15, Eph 4:14, Eph 5:6, Col 2:8, Col 2:18, 2Th 2:3, 2Pe 2:1-3, 1Jo 4:1

Reciprocal: Deu 4:23 – heed Jer 37:9 – Deceive Mat 7:15 – false Joh 21:21 – Lord 1Co 15:33 – Be Col 2:4 – lest 2Th 2:2 – by spirit Heb 3:12 – Take Heb 13:9 – carried 2Jo 1:8 – Look

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE END OF THE AGE

Take heed that no man deceive you.

Mat 24:4

To understand the drift of this chapter we must carefully keep in view the question which gave rise to our Lords discourseWhen shall these things be? The first fourteen verses apply with equal force to the close of both Jewish and Christian dispensations. What lessons have they to teach us?

I. A warning against deception.Many false Christs and false prophets arose before the destruction of Jerusalem, and the eyes of man are continually blinded in the present day as to things to come. Be not deceived

(a) As to the leading facts of unfulfilled prophecies, or (b) as to the manner in which they will be brought to pass, or (c) as to the time when they will be accomplished.

II. A warning against over-sanguine expectations.As to the things which are to happen before the end comes. Do not expect

(a) A reign of universal peace (Mat 24:6); or,

(b) A time of universal purity of doctrine (Mat 24:11); or,

(c) A universal acceptance of the Gospel (Mat 24:14).

III. Look up.Yet, whatever may happen, look up, and pray daily, Come, Lord Jesus (Mat 22:20).

Bishop J. C. Ryle.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

24:4

The warning to take heed indicates a condition that might be misunderstood or even unnoticed if it were treated with an attitude of indifference. By heeding the signs Jesus gave, the disciples would be able to detect the false prophets.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Mat 24:4. See that no man deceive you. The admonition is prophetic, intimating the perplexity of the whole subject. A caution to Christians regarding specific teaching about these unfulfilled predictions.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

24:4 {2} And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

(2) The Church will have a continual conflict with infinite miseries and offences, and furthermore, with false prophets, until the day of victory and triumph comes.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

2. Jesus’ warning about deception 24:4-6 (cf. Mar 13:5-7; Luk 21:8-9)

Jesus began the Olivet Discourse by warning His disciples about the possibility of their concluding wrongly that He had returned or was just about to return. Kingsbury divided this speech on the "last times" as follows: (I) On Understanding Aright the Signs of the End (Mat 24:4-35); (II) On Being on the Alert for Jesus’ Coming at the Consummation of the Age (Mat 24:36 to Mat 25:30); and (III) On the Second Coming of Jesus and the Final Judgment (Mat 25:31-46). [Note: Kingsbury, Matthew as . . ., p. 112.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The destruction of Jerusalem and other similar catastrophes would not indicate that Messiah’s coming and the end of the present age were just around the corner, as Zechariah’s prophecy seemed to indicate. The future appearance of people who claimed to be the Messiah should not deceive the disciples into concluding that He had arrived either. Those who would come in Messiah’s name refers to those who would come claiming to be Messiah, not those who would come as Jesus’ representatives.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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