Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr19/olbpnt1.zip/PNT.001/V00800

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)