(Preached on Whitsunday.)
So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.—ST. LUKE xxi. 31.
The event which Whitsuntide commemorates has so many aspects, that it is not wonderful if even an important aspect should be overlooked. But it is strange that we scarcely ever advert to the one which St. Peter puts most prominently forward in his discourse on the day of Pentecost. An old prophet—the oldest, probably, of those whose writings have come down to us—had spoken of an outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh, before a great and terrible day of the Lord should come. St. Peter’s mind is evidently filled with the anticipation of such a day. The gift which he and his brother-fishermen had received, the powers which they were to exercise, had been expressly bestowed to prepare them and their countrymen for such a day. Its meaning and nature might still be obscure to them. The Holy Spirit would gradually remove the obscurity. He would shew them what brightness and glory lay behind the gloom which was thickening and which must at last cover the land. If this be so, there can be scarcely a fitter chapter for Whitsuntide than the one which comes next under our notice. And Whitsuntide, in turn, will be the best interpreter of it.
There is much in it which recalls the latter part of the seventeenth chapter. Why should they have been separated? What need to repeat warnings that seem to have been given already?
I am very anxious that you should observe how much the coming of the Son of man, the downfall of the old polity, the discovery of the Kingdom of Heaven is the subject of the whole Gospel, from the moment that the preacher in the wilderness spoke of an axe which was laid at the root of the trees, till Christ was lifted up. You perceive the order of the Gospels—of this Gospel especially—just in proportion as that fact becomes evident to you. But you will not forget that the former words were spoken as He went up to Jerusalem, because He was asked whether the Kingdom of God would immediately appear. They were suggested by an approach to the city. These are spoken while he is sitting by the Temple. You have heard that He began His work in Jerusalem by purging the Temple; that all His preaching has been in the Temple. The very first words in the chapter have reference to it:
(1.) ‘And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.’
I do not doubt that the real charity of the widow was contrasted, as we have all supposed, with the ostentatious charity of those who gave alms to be seen of men. But I think her real reverence for the glory of the Temple, for the place in which God’s presence dwelt, is also contrasted with the ostentatious care of the rich Jews to adorn the outside of the Temple with their goodly gifts. To these His attention is now drawn; these give the occasion to all the subsequent discourse. ‘And as some spake of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, he said, As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.’ The sentence had a very awful sound indeed. The eager question that follows shews how awful it seemed to the disciples. ‘And they asked him, saying, Master, but when shall these things be? and what sign will there be when these things shall come to pass?’ Had not they heard this before? Was it new to them? They had been prepared for a great crisis, for a day of the Lord; but the destruction of the Temple, of the building which had borne witness for the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, of the barrier, as it seemed, between idolatrous worship, and the true worship, that was something altogether wonderful. Could the Kingdom of God be introduced by such a sign as that? Would it not be the sign that the Kingdom of God was utterly perishing from the earth?
(2.) So assuredly it would be felt. And to this the warning in these verses refers. ‘And he said, Take heed that ye be not deceived: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the time draweth near: go ye not therefore after them. But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by.’ When the city was threatened, there would be an expectation of some Deliverer, some Anointed One from heaven, to drive away the hosts of the heathen. ‘He surely must come to save the Temple. God cannot let that perish.’ The disciples would be open to these deceptions as well as others. ‘They expected the revelation of a kingdom more than any. When they heard of wars in Palestine, of commotions elsewhere, they could not doubt that these were announcements of it. Their Master might be descending Himself to deliver His Father’s house, and to make it the centre of the earth. He might be sending some angelic messenger to do that work. Who could say whether this or that man might not have the authority which he boasted, which he probably believed that He had? The words, ’Go not after them nor follow them,’ which had been spoken before, might well, therefore, be repeated. The Christs who appeared because the Temple was falling would be deceivers like the rest. It was not to be saved. Till it fell, the end of the age had not come, however many preparations there might be for it. To these preparations He directs their thoughts.
(3.) ‘Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.’ The time between the day on which our Lord spoke these words beside the Temple, and that in which the Temple fell, has been described by a dull Jewish historian and by the most profound of Roman historians. If the former tells of the bloody and fruitless encounters of his countrymen against the forces of the empire, the other tells us of the convulsions in the empire itself, of the ruin which was threatening it from its own defenders, of the German race which it could not subdue and which might at last subdue it. Both alike testify of the physical calamities which make a guilty and infidel, and therefore superstitious age, tremble more than any political trials; which seem to come more directly from the powers above. The warnings in this discourse point to much more general and grand events than those in the seventeenth chapter, which alluded to the stuff in the house, to the women grinding at the mill. By those who have the opportunity of comparing what Josephus and Tacitus have written with this passage in the Gospel, and who are eager to build some argument upon their likeness, surprising coincidences will be discovered. These will, of course, be turned the other way by writers who think that a Galilean peasant could have no rare gift of insight or foresight. They will see everywhere the fraud of disciples who change known facts into predictions. What I said before applies here. I can find no such coincidences between the events and the discourse as an inventor would have cared to introduce. No special incidents are thrust in which might make the imposture credible. But I do not expect this observation to have the least weight with those who deny that there is any supernatural order in the universe. They must endure improbabilities rather than accept what seems to them impossible as the solution of them. My appeal would be here, as before, to those who reverence the authority of Jesus, who believe Him to be indeed the King and Prophet of the universe. Do they want to strengthen their own faith in Him, by finding confirmations of it from Jewish or Gentile historians? Surely that cannot be. Do they want then to make others believe in Him by referring to those historians? But our way of appealing to them has the opposite effect. We suggest the notion that language which, read by itself, would sound broad and simple, has been the result of the deepest artifice.
_How, then, may we use the Roman and Jewish historians? Thoughtfully studied, they will shew us what a crisis was betokened by the facts which they are making known to us; how much more wonderful a one than we have ever fancied it to be; how completely it was the shaking of an old order; the announcement that some other must take its place. And if we say to ourselves, ‘But how was it this, seeing that the Roman world did not pass away then’—seeing that the Germans did not for many centuries trample it down?’ the answer seems to me this. The convulsion was in the heart of the body politic. Its belief was shaken. The Temples which had expressed the relation between the visible and the invisible world, were tottering. This was the proof that a revolution had begun which all the subsequent ages would develope, which would not cease to work till the fabric of the polity, as well as of the worship, of the world was thrown down. Suppose, then, with these thoughts on our mind, we go back to this discourse about the Jewish Temple and its fall; we may find in it not a superficial likeness between the records which we have been reading elsewhere, but the very key to those records, that which makes them coherent and intelligible. If the fall of the Jewish Temple was indeed the manifestation of the Son of Man, the unveiling of Him who was the Head of the nations, the living Bond between heaven and earth, we can understand why all lands should have participated in the shock of that time; that the events of it, however disjointed they may have seemed to contemporaries, and may seem to us, were all conspiring to exhibit the true centre of the divine and human order; that the departure of the apparent centre of that order was the sign in which the disciples were to recognise, and we are to recognise, the end of an age, the beginning of that for which it had been the preparation.
(4.) ‘But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name’s sake. And it shall turn to you for a testimony.’
The Apostles in after days must often have been puzzled to connect their words—words spoken in fear and trembling by such weak lips—with the doings of the great world, with the earthquakes, political or physical, of which they heard reports. ‘Their enemies did not suffer them to forget the connection. Was not the traitorous sect which preached salvation to the Gentiles when all Jewish patriots were praying God to destroy the Gentiles, the cause of the calamities that had overtaken the holy land? Were not the tribulations of the empire owing to those who turned away men from the service of the gods? These cries would reach the Caesars, and in spite of their tolerant maxims and their contempt, would induce them—that they might conciliate their Jewish or Gentile subjects—to interfere with the preachers of the Kingdom of Heaven. A time would come when it would openly confront the kingdom of the Caesar, and be recognised as its antagonist. But even in this generation the Apostles would be brought not only before synagogues, but before kings and rulers for His Name’s sake. Their trials would ’turn to them for a testimony’ of the grandeur of the work in which they were engaged, of the strength in which they were to perform it.
(5.) ‘Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer: For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.’ Here is the Pentecostal promise; the assurance that the Spirit with whom their Master had been baptised should be with them; the warning to trust in His calm wisdom, utterly to distrust the rash and vain suggestions of their own fancies; to seek the true zeal which God inspires instead of that zeal which is often inspired by the devil. They would need this strength, for ‘Ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death.’ To be put to death—that might be borne; but to be betrayed by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, who could help them to bear that? Only He who was shortly to say to His own dear circle, ‘One of you shall betray me.’
(6.) ‘And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake. But there shall not an hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your souls.’ Hated they would be by all kinds of men, by Gentiles as much as Jews; hated by both for declaring that they were one in Christ; hated, therefore, expressly for His name’s sake. But how could it be that not a hair of their heads should perish if some of them were to be put to death? That paradox could only be explained if their Master’s words were fulfilled; if He was given up to death; if He rose from the dead because death could not hold Him. Supposing they had, indeed, a Prince of Life, One mightier than the grave and hell, they might trust their bodies as well as their spirits to Him. And so they might in patience possess their souls, waiting for their own redemption, waiting for the world’s redemption.
(7.) ‘And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.’ We have here only the more distinct announcement of that which has been told so often before; that which it was so hard and so necessary for the disciples to understand and to believe. That Jerusalem should be trodden down of the Gentiles, could that be? We read the words lightly; we turn them merely into some commonplace lamentation over Jewish unbelief, some not more serious expression of thanksgiving for our blessings. But have we ever thought what it was that a heathen empire should tread down the city which had for generations declared that the God of Righteousness, the God of Salvation, is the Lord of the whole earth—that there is none other God but He—that men cannot make gods for themselves? Was there nothing tremendous in that? No shaking of heaven as well as earth? And may there not be something more than we have dreamed of in the words, ‘Until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled?’ If you ask me what is in it, I would reply, ‘Let us meditate earnestly on what the Gentiles have gained by that overthrow of the Jewish Temple—what it signified to them and to mankind.’ Then we may learn the import of these words, as no preacher or commentator could represent it to us. That you may pursue this meditation successfully, and under the highest guidance, study these words:
(8.) ’And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring: men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig-tree, and all the trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
When you hear these words read to you on the Second Sunday in Advent, does not the thought sometimes strike you, ‘Oh, no doubt that is to happen some day. We suppose the Son of man will come in a cloud with power and great glory. But the news is very vague—the coming is a long way off. Divines have not settled the when and the how. They are always disputing about some point connected with the Advent of Christ. Till they have arrived at some agreement among themselves, they cannot expect us to be much moved by the tidings, even though they are uttered by such lips—though they are accompanied by such solemn declarations that the words cannot pass away.’
My friends, these things are said, and will be said, till we have courage to face the question, ‘And did not the Son of man come as He says that He would in that generation?’ Were not the signs in the sun and moon, the distress of the earth with perplexity, the failing of men’s hearts for fear, the vague looking into the future, the wailings after Him,—was not the breaking up of the Temple, with its goodly stones, the witness that, however hidden by clouds from mortal eyes, He was there in power and great glory? If so, the disciples had a right to say, ‘Our redemption is drawing nigh. This is the token that He, whose glory Isaiah saw in the Temple, who preached to us in the Temple, is Himself coming forth as the living human Temple of the Eternal God. As surely as the shooting forth of leaves in trees that had been dried and bare betokens the approaching summer, so surely do these Churches of Jews and Gentiles, rising out of a dying age, and exhibiting all the energies and fruits of youth, testify that the Kingdom is establishing itself in our earth; that it will survive whatever perishes; that of it there can be no end.’ If so, Christ’s words were fulfilled in that generation, as He said they would be. If so, they will not pass away, though heaven and earth should pass away. If so, we are living in the days of the Son of man, and every crisis that has befallen Christendom has been an unveiling of Him whom it had forgotten. If so, there may come a day when the times of this Christendom shall be fulfilled, when its temples and all the outward establishments which have testified of the living God and the Son of man, and have often been used to hide Him from the hearts of men, shall pass away with a great noise, that the Divine Temple may stand forth in its glory.
(9.) My friends, Whitsuntide has been testifying to us from year to year of that Revelation of the Spirit of God—of that indwelling of the Spirit in human temples, which was to prepare the way for the fall of the Temple made with hands. It has been telling, year by year, of a Church composed of men of all kindreds and tongues which rose out of the Jewish nation at the voice of the Spirit. It has been telling us that we are members of this Church—that we are Temples of the living God. The disciples of the first age were in danger of forgetting that they had been brought unto this glorious state, that they had been made members of this Universal and Eternal Kingdom; that they were witnesses of it to mankind. Those who, we should have supposed, were continually reminded by persecution of their calling, had yet need to hear these words:—’And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. Do we not need these warnings—we who live in a world not less luxurious than that of the early Caesars, not less exposed to religious self-exaltation and religious strife than that of the Jews in the days when the Temple was falling? We have both perils to encounter at once. May the Spirit of God enable us to encounter them! May He make us worthy to stand before the Son of man!