home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Software Vault: The Gold Collection
/
Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO
/
cdr19
/
olbpnt1.zip
/
PNT.001
/
V00800
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1993-04-21
|
19KB
|
464 lines
00801
# Mt 23:27
\\For ye are like whitewashed sepulchres.\\ It is stated that
on the 15th of the month of Adair, before the Passover, the Jews
whitewashed all the spots where graves were situated. This was
done both to beautify them and to mark the spots as to prevent
any one from passing over them, which would occasion Levitical
defilement. For this practice, they cited
# Nu 19:16 Eze 39:15
This custom gave the basis for the Saviour's figure. In
plain view of the Saviour and his hearers, as they stood in the
temple court, could be seen the whitened tombs along the western
slope of Olivet, some of which are still seen to this day.
\\Beautiful outward, but are within full of dead [men's]
\\bones.\\ A powerful figure to show forth the contrast between
the sanctimonious professions of the Pharisees and their unholy
lives.
(PNT 127)
00802
# Mt 23:28
\\Thus ye also outwardly appear righteous.\\ It was only in
appearance and profession.
(PNT 127)
00803
# Mt 23:29-30
\\Ye build the tombs of the prophets,\\ etc. They honoured the
prophets and saints by building monuments to them, instead of
following their teaching, or imitating their lives. Even Herod
the Great, a monster of wickedness, rebuilt the tomb of David.
(PNT 127)
00805
# Mt 23:31
\\Wherefore ye are witnesses\\, etc. They demonstrated by
their hostility to Christ, by their plots and false charges, and
would soon show by their murder of the Lord, that they had just
the same spirit as their fathers who slew Isaiah, persecuted
Jeremiah, and shed the blood of Zacharias between the altar and
the temple. They were therefore their spiritual children as well
as their descendants. It adds to the vividness of this
denunciation that from the temple area where they were standing
the crest of Olivet rose distinctly at the distance of half a
mile, and upon it were clearly visible the white sepulchres of
the prophets which they had built, among them the tomb of
Zacharias, who is named just below as slain between "the temple
and the altar."
(PNT 127)
00806
# Mt 23:32
\\Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.\\ The language
of prophecy as well as irony and invective; as if he had said:
Fill the measure of the guilt of your fathers to the brim.
Crucify the Holy One and thus fill up the cup of iniquity.
(PNT 127-128)
00807
# Mt 23:33
\\[Ye] generations of vipers, how can ye escape?\\ etc. Brood
of vipers, full of venom, deadly as serpent, treacherous as the
lurking serpent. So John had called them nearly four years
before.
# 3:7
(PNT 128)
00808
# Mt 23:34
\\Behold, I send to you\\, etc. In
# Lu 11:49
is a passage much like this. The men sent were inspired apostles
and evangelists. By giving the Jews still further opportunities
after the sin of the cross, the guilt of those continued to
reject the crucified Lord was aggravated.
\\Prophets.\\ Inspired teachers, like the apostles, Philip,
Stephen, etc.
\\Wise men.\\ Faithful, devout and learned, but uninspired
preachers.
\\Scribes.\\ Usually, those who copy and teach the wisdom of
others, but I suppose also embracing those who wrote the NT
Scriptures.
\\[Some] of them ye shall kill and crucify\\. Literally
fulfilled in the next few years.
(PNT 128)
00809
# Mt 23:35
\\That upon you may come all the righteous blood.\\ Thus
would they fill the measure full and become guilty of all the
righteous blood shed by the whole army of martyrs.
\\To the blood of Zacharias.\\ The reference is probably
# 2Ch 24:20
He was slain in the court of the house of the Lord by the
people, and died exclaiming, "The Lord look upon this and
require it."
# 2Ch 24:22
He was the son of Jehoiada. The Siniatic manuscript omits
Barachias in this place, and the error is supposed to have crept
in from the mistake of some early copyist who confused this
Zacharias with Zechariah the prophet, who was the son of
Barachias.
(PNT 128)
00810
# Mt 23:36
\\All these things shall come upon this generation.\\ As the
Amorites were spared until "their iniquity was full,"
# Ge 15:16
so the iniquity of Israel was allowed to accumulate from age to
age, till in that generation it came to the full, and the
collected vengeance of justice broke at once upon it. So it is
often in the destruction of a nation. The French Revolution of
1793 is another example.
(PNT 128)
00811
# Mt 23:37
\\Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [thou] that killest the prophets.\\
The intense feeling that spoke in this utterance comes out first
in the redoubling of the word Jerusalem; next in the picture of
the sins of the city which he draws--a city so wicked that it
was not content with rejecting the messengers of God, but even
slew them. I know of nothing more touching than this apostrophe.
\\How often would I have gathered thy children.\\ Not only
had the city been warned again and again by the prophets, but
the Lord had visited it at least six or seven times, and had for
months taught in its streets. Nor did his solicitude end with
the cross. His long suffering, patience and love are shown by
his charge in the commission to the apostles: "To preach
repentance and remission in his name among all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem."
# Lu 24:47
\\Ye would not!\\ "Would not" explains the cause of the
rejection of the gospel. It is not because God in Christ is not
ready: he would gather them. It is not because men cannot come,
but because they will not come. Christ wished that salvation of
Jerusalem; his will was for them to be saved: he sought to
influence their wills to make a choice of salvation, but they
would not. So God still "is not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance," but there are many "who
will not come to Christ that they might have life."
# 2Pe 2:9 Joh 5:40
While God wills the salvation of men, he does not destroy
free agency by coercing the human will, but says: "Whosoever
will, let him come."
(PNT 128-129)
00812
# Mt 23:38
\\Behold, your house is left to you desolate.\\ This was the
consequence of refusing to come to Christ. The temple is the
house meant. God will abandon it and leave it desolate. He will
no longer accept its worship.
(PNT 129)
00813
# Mt 23:39
\\Ye shall not see me henceforth.\\ This seems to imply that
the temple shall be deserted when he leaves it. With his
departure the presence of God departs. He was the Lord of the
temple.
\\Till ye shall say.\\ These were his last words in the
temple precincts, but they do not shut out all hope. Even yet
when the Jews shall join in the hosannahs of those who, on the
Sunday before, had sung his praises, and cry, "Blessed is he
that cometh in the name of the Lord," they may be permitted to
behold their Messiah.
# 21:9
Many have seen in this passage a promise of the final
conversion of Israel.
# Zec 12:10 Ro 11:26 2Co 3:15
seem to favour the same view. When Christ abandoned the temple in
Jerusalem, it was only fit for the destroyer. If we should drive
him out of his spiritual temple, the church, it would be left as
dead as the body without the spirit.
(PNT 129)
00814
# Mt 24:1
SUMMARY OF MATTHEW 24
\\The Judgments on the Jewish Nation\\
The Temple to Be Utterly Destroyed
The Questions Asked on the Mount of Olives
Wars and Rumours of Wars Predicted
False Prophets and Christs
The Sign for Flight from Jerusalem
The Great Tribulation
How the Son of Man Shall Come
The Sun Darkened
The Coming of the Son of Man
This Generation
The Time of Christ's Coming Unknown
Injunction to Be Always in Readiness
\\And Jesus . . . departed from the temple.\\ Immediately
after the discourse in which he pronounced the woes upon the
scribes and Pharisees, upon the temple and Jerusalem. This
remarkable chapter is not one upon which commentators are
agreed, and the conclusions that I have reached on the points of
difference will not be found identical with those of any other
writer. I believe, however, that they will be found harmonious
with the Scripture. Compare
# Mr 13:1-37 Lu 21:3-36
\\His disciples came to [him] to show him the buildings of
\\the temple.\\ He had just foreshadowed its destruction. With
this in mind they point out its splendour, especially the amazing
stones used in its construction. Compare Mark and Luke. The
temple had been rebuilt in great splendour by Herod, and was not
fully completed until about thirty years after the Saviour's
crucifixion.
(PNT 129)
00815
# Mt 24:2
\\There shall not be left\\, etc. Other great temples are
in ruins, but their ruins indicate their former splendour. The
Parthenon, the Acropolis, the temples of Karnak, Luxor, and
Baalbec are examples; but to find even the foundations of the
Jewish temple it is necessary to dig beneath the modern city. It
has entirely disappeared from the face of the earth, and a
Mohammedan mosque stands on the spot where it stood.
(PNT 129)
00816
# Mt 24:3
\\As he sat upon the Mount of Olives.\\ Passing out of the
city, over the valley of Jehoshaphat, he and his disciples
climbed the mount and sat down on its crest overlooking the city
and temple bathed in the sunset.
\\Tell us.\\ The disciples, still thinking of what the Lord
had said, ask three questions:
(1) When shall these things be? That is, the overthrow of the
temple.
(2) What shall be the sign of the coming? And
(3) of the end of the world?
They supposed these events would be simultaneous--a mistake. To
understand what follows we must keep in mind that he has three
questions to answer, nor are the answers blended.
(PNT 129-130)
00817
# Mt 24:4
\\Take heed that no man deceive you.\\ By pretending to be
Christ. As they yet believed that Christ would surely return to
reign at Jerusalem, this admonition was needed.
(PNT 130)
00818
# Mt 24:5
\\Come in my\\ \\name.\\ As the Messiah. We learn from
Josephus that enthusiasts did come about the time of the end of
Jerusalem, claiming to be sent of God. Bar-cocheba, "the son of
the star," appeared in A.D. 120. From time to time other
deceivers have appeared.
(PNT 130)
00819
# Mt 24:6
\\Ye shall hear of wars.\\ The Jewish war began in A.D. 66,
and ended five years after. During this period all the Roman
empire was filled with commotion. Nero, the emperor, was
overthrown by Galba; six months after, Galba was overthrown by
Otho; a few months after, Otho was overthrown by Vitelius; a
little later, he was overthrown by Vespasian. All of these but
the last, who ascended the throne shortly before Jerusalem was
destroyed, died violent deaths.
(PNT 130)
00820
# Mt 24:7
\\Famines.\\ The natural result of civil wars. Tacitus, the
Roman historian, says of this period: "It was full of
calamities, horrible with battles, rent with seditions, savage
in peace itself."
(PNT 130)
00822
# Mt 24:9
\\Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted.\\ To
persecution. Soon literally fulfilled in the Jewish
persecutions. The awful persecution of Nero also soon followed.
\\Ye shall be hated.\\ Tacitus, describing Nero's persecution
begun in A.D. 64, says "the Christians were haters of mankind."
(PNT 130)
00823
# Mt 24:10
\\Then shall many be offended.\\ Shall stumble and fall,
rather than suffer for Christ. The half-hearted always do.
(PNT 130)
00824
# Mt 24:11
\\Many false prophets.\\ False teachers. Compare
# Ga 1:7 1Jo 2:12,18 4:1 2Pe 2:1 1Ti 4:1
See also Josephus, Book VI, 5, sec. 3.
(PNT 130)
00825
# Mt 24:12
\\Because iniquity shall abound,\\ etc. Immorality eats out
the heart of religion.
(PNT 130)
00826
# Mt 24:13
\\He that shall endure to the end,\\ etc. The Christian Jews
who endured to the end were saved by flight to Pella, beyond the
Jordan, at the signal pointed out by the Lord. The principle is
generally applicable.
(PNT 130-131)
00827
# Mt 24:14
\\This gospel of the kingdom,\\ etc. The gospel was preached
throughout the Roman empire, "the world" of the NT, before A.D.
70.
\\Then shall the end come.\\ Of the Jewish state.
(PNT 131)
00828
# Mt 24:15
\\When therefore ye see the abomination of desolation.\\ This
is the sign when Christians should flee from Jerusalem. See
# Da 9:27 11:31 12:11
Luke says, "When ye shall see Jerusalem encompassed with
armies."
# Lu 21:20
This was, therefore, Christ's explanation of the abomination of
desolation. The Roman army, heathen, with heathen images and
standards, ready to sacrifice to idols on the temple altar,
working the desolation of Jerusalem and the temple, is what is
meant.
\\In the holy place.\\ Mark says, "Where it ought not";
around "the holy city." See
# Mr 13:14 Mt 4:5
(PNT 131)
00829
# Mt 24:16
\\Let them who are in Judaea flee.\\ For refuge.
(PNT 131)
00830
# Mt 24:17
\\Let him who is on the housetop.\\ The flat roofs were
sleeping places. All must be done without a moment's delay.
(PNT 131)
00832
# Mt 24:19
would be unfit for flight and the hardships that must be
endured. (PNT 131)
00833
# Mt 24:20
\\Not be in the winter.\\ Because the streams were then
impassable torrents from the heavy rains and the weather cold
and wet, hard on homeless people.
\\Nor on the sabbath.\\ Because then the gates of the city
were closed, preventing departure. History tells us that the
army of Cestius Gallus enclosed Jerusalem in A.D. 67, then
deterred by its strength, retired to Caesarea. This was the
signal for which the church waited, and it then fled beyond the
Jordan.
(PNT 131)
00834
# Mt 24:21
\\Great tribulation.\\ The account given by Josephus, the
Jewish historian who witnessed and recorded the war, is almost
an echo of the predictions of Christ. Women ate their own
children from starvation; the Jews within the city fought each
other as well as the Roman army; on August 10, A.D. 70, the city
was stormed and there was a universal massacre; 1,100,00 persons
perished, and 100,000 survivors were sold into slavery.
(PNT 131)
00835
# Mt 24:22
\\There should no flesh be saved.\\ If such awful work should
continue, it would exterminate the human race.
\\For the elect's sake.\\ On their account, because there is
salt to save the earth, and end shall be put to the awful work
of death. The \\elect\\ are the believers in Christ.
# Ro 11:5-7
(PNT 131)
00836
# Mt 24:23-26
\\Then.\\ During this period of tribulation, give no heed to
false prophets, false Christs, or to those who say Christ is
here or there.
(PNT 131)
00840
# Mt 24:27
about Christ's coming when he does appear; no need for any
one to point it out. It will be an overwhelming event,
startling as the flash of lightning across the sky.
(PNT 132 edited)
00841
# Mt 24:28
\\Wherever the carcase is, there will the eagles be
\\gathered.\\ The term "carcase" well represents the utterly
corrupted Jewish state; the "eagles" is a fit symbol of the
Roman army, every legion of which bore the eagle as its
standard.
(PNT 132)
00842
# Mt 24:29
\\Immediately after the tribulation of those days.\\ The
first question, "When shall these things be?" has now been
answered. Here begins the answer to the second, concerning the
coming of the Lord. For other passages on the second coming, see
# 1Th 2:19 3:13 4:15 5:23 2Th 2:1,8,9 1Co 15:23
# Jas 5:7 2Pe 1:16 3:12 1Jo 2:28
"Immediately" after the destruction of Jerusalem (the
tribulation) the series of events begins that leads to the
coming of Christ.
\\Shall the sun be darkened.\\ I take what follows to be
symbolical, as is usual for prophecy, rather than literal.
Christ is "the Sun of Righteousness."
# Mal 4:2
After the destruction of Jerusalem, the causes began to work
that led to the great apostasy of the church and produced "the
Dark Ages" of the church.
\\The moon shall not give her light.\\ The moon shines by
reflected light of the sun and if it is darkened so will be the
moon. So, too, the church shines by the light of Christ. When
Christ's light was darkened by taking the Bible from the people
the church give forth little light during the long night of the
Middle Ages.
\\The stars shall fall.\\ Stars represent great teachers of
the church, apostles and evangelists. See
# Re 1:20
When the apostles were dethroned by the Romish apostasy, "the
stars fell from heaven," figuratively. Other stars, great
church lights who apostatized, fell from heaven in another
sense.
(PNT 132)
00843
# Mt 24:30
\\Then.\\ After the long period of apostasy.
\\Shall appear the sign of the Son of man.\\ Some sign of his
coming that every one will recognize when it is manifested.
\\All the tribes of the earth mourn.\\ Because of their sins.
\\They shall see the Son of man coming.\\ It will be visible
to every eye and will be in splendour.
(PNT 132)
00844
# Mt 24:31
\\With a great sound of a trumpet.\\ Compare
# 1Th 4:16
\\Shall gather his elect.\\ Before the judgment on the world.
The believers will be in all countries, mingled with the
population of earth, and then shall be separated.
\\Four winds.\\ The four quarters of the earth.
(PNT 133)
00845
# Mt 24:32-33
\\Learn a parable of the fig tree.\\ The putting forth of the
leaves is the sign that summer is near. It puts forth leaves
usually in April. So "all these things" show when the Lord is at
hand.
(PNT 133)
00847
# Mt 24:34-35
\\Till all these things shall be fulfilled.\\ Some hold that
"all these things," both in verse 33 and 34, refer only to what
was said of the fall of Jerusalem, ending with verse 28. Others
have contended that the phrase includes the second coming, but
refers directly to the end of Jerusalem, which was a type of the
end of the world.
I believe, rather, that "all these things" embraces all thus
far predicted, and that "this generation" means the Jewish race,
instead of only those then living. The Greek word so rendered
here \\[genea]\\ is used in the sense of race in the Greek
classics, and as examples of such use in the NT, Alford points
to
# 12:45 Lu 16:8
Christ has described the awful end of the Jewish state; after
such a destruction and scattering of the remnant to the ends of
the earth, all the examples of history would declare that the
Jewish race would become extinct. Christ, however, declares
that, contrary to all probability, it shall not pass away until
he comes. They still exist, 1850 years after the prediction,
distinct, but without a country.
(PNT 133)
00849
# Mt 24:36
\\Of that day and hour knoweth no [man].\\ How foolish then
to be figuring out the time of the Lord's coming.
(PNT 133)