Pastor David B. Curtis
Pastor David B. Curtis
"The world as yet knows nothing of this unwritten event; the great Ecclesiasticisms are in total ignorance that it occurred. Lot all those who wish to decide positively in their own minds whether it is true or not read for themselves, in the Revised Bible, Matthew xxiv., Mark xiii., Luke xxi., and John xiv., carefully noting the renderings given in the margin. The four Evangelists stand like four solid pillars bearing witness to its truth. No impartial readers who study these four records of the words uttered by our Lord Jesus Christ, concerning the approaching destruction of Jerusalem and its splendid temple, and His own immediate coming after that awful event, can fail to see the truth for themselves of this new light thrown upon that terrible time, and of this immense importance to us that that time is past, and not still to come. They will only be surprised that this truth, notwithstanding all the sarcasms of the opponents of Christianity, has not been discovered in the centuries that have since passed. According to the words of St. Paul, 'blindness in part' must have happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in (Rom. xi. 25).
"The Gentiles shall come to His light, and kings to the brightness of His rising"
(Isaiah ix. 3). Come they must, as the wheels of time carry them forward to blessing or condemnation, whether they know it or not, whether they believe it or not. That day will come to the nations in the midst of teeming masses of men who rule in the insolence of power and the pride of wealth, or suffer in the bonds of oppression and the pangs of poverty. Thus will the God of Jesus and of Moses appear to judge the Gentiles, as once before to judge the Jews.
"The last day" of the Jewish age was signalized by the most wonderful and terrible events conceivable to mortal mind. A few, the saints, the chosen ones of the Lord, were made immortal. On that day all the parables of Jesus were accomplished. [1] The waiting and wise Virgins were saved (Matt. xxv. 1-13). The labourers received every man his penny (Matt. xx. 1-16). The wheat was gathered into the garner and the tares were burnt up (Matt.. iii. 12; xiii. 24-30, 36-43). The good fish in the not were carried home, the bad were cast out (Matt. xiii. 47-50). The vineyard was taken from the wicked husbandman and given to others; and the wretches of individuals at death. See, however, Note, page 70 -E. H. C.who had said 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him!' miserably perished
(Matt. xxi. 33-45). The marriage supper of the Kin was spread (Matt. xxii. 1-14), and Jesus and His bride (the Ecclesia) were united, never to be other than One again
(Rev. xxi. 2,9). " The time which elapsed between the departure of Jesus and His return for the deliverance of the faithful was brief. It was 'a little while,' as He Himself had said
(John xiv. 19; xvi.16-19). The Twelve had not gone through the cities of Israel with their inviting message or warning proclamation, ere their Deliverer again appeared
(Matt. x. 23). The Second Advent occurred before the generation of that day had disappeared. Some who had listened to Jesus before the Crucifixion were still struggling with adversity when His feet again rested on the Mount of Olives. His friends and foes were brought by angelic power to meet Him. The sheep and the goats were parted
(Matt. xxv. 32). At the word of the Lord, persecuted and persecutors, all stood in His presence to hear His words of approval or of condemnation (Matt. xxv. 34, 41).
"The events of the 'last day' of the Jewish age most probably occurred without the presence of any merely outside spectators. Some who were participators therein disappeared from the world in order to be admitted to the celestial habitations prepared for their reception, and these faithful ones are the saints who are to be with Jesus at His Third Advent. Others were doomed to the second death, where darkness reigns and from whence no tales can be told to the living. The rest were condemned to wander over the face of the earth without king or country. The scene at Olivet at that time was one of solitude and desolation. Jerusalem, bard by, was but a heap of stones, and the Temple a pile of ashes. Pharisees and Scribes, lawyers and doctors, Rabbis and the congregation of the synagogue, had all been killed or carried away captive and sold into slavery among the nations. Who, then, was left to tell the world of the wonderful event, and that the promises of the Lord to His Twelve had been fulfilled to the letter ? Listen to these words of the Christ: ' Verily, I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away till all these things be accomplished. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away' (Matt. xxiv. 34, 35). And this declaration is repeated in Mark xiii. 30, and Luke xxi. 32, and is emphasized in John xiv. 28, 29: 'I go away and come again unto you. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that When it is come to pass, ye may believe.'" The late Lady Caithness, 1894.
(With slight verbal changes.)
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The series of trumpet blasts commencing with the Jewish war, and wonderfully indicating the events which marked its progress, having reached a termination the series of thunder claps, breaking forth with the siege of Jerusalem and strictly in unison with its leading occurrences, having come to a conclusion-the series of sealed envelopes all entirely unfolded and the series of vials all previously exhausted-the seventh thunder rolled away with the crash of the temple, and the seventh trumpet ushered in the consummations of prophecy and the presence of Messiah. Wrapt in clouds over Zion during the siege of Jerusalem, transcendent glory flashes forth with the final blast. Shaking earth and heaven, with a shout paralleled only by that on the cross, Messiah with His presence occupies all His conquest. That the fall of Jerusalem formed a perfect demonstration of Christ's veracity and an awful display of His indefeasible sovereignty-that it left nothing wanting in the proof of His Messiahship and completed the evidence of His being the Coming One and the Come-will be admitted with conviction proportioned to attention. Grand in itself, the fall of Jerusalem was infinitely more so in reference to concurrent but invisible [2] facts. A curtain dropping and covering at its base the shattered fragments of Satanic enterprise, its development veiled a burst of glory such as mortal vision was incapable of sustaining. But invisible' as was the Theocrat at both the commencement and the conclusion of the legal economy, at both the commencement and the conclusion the Theocrat Himself was there. Disparaging is every idea of Messiah's descent which does not suppose Him to have alike descended to the upper world and the under world, and in an instant to have filled all things with His presence and glory. The transcendently grand event of His descent occurring, no part of space was left in which the glory of Messiah may not be perceived by competent faculties."-J. A. Stephenson. The Christology Of The Old And New Testaments. 1838.
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"'IMMEDIATELY after the tribulation of those days.' Is it conceivable that Jesus intended to speak of an event which was to happen at least eighteen hundred years after it? Some inconsiderate people say, "A thousand years with the Lord are but as a day."
Yes, but He was speaking to men, and used words which would obviously have been altogether misleading, if when He said I immediately' He meant a couple of thousand years. And as if to remove all doubt He adds with great solemnity: I Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.' It looks as if our Lord bad anticipated the manner in which these words would be dealt with by devout Christian people in later times, who have said these things did not happen before that generation passed away. As if to rebuke them by anticipation, He made this solemn affirmation, so rarely occurring in connection with His statements: 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.' The precise hour, the precise day, at which He was to come was not to be revealed; but all that He, had said was to be accomplished within the lifetime of men to whom He was speaking. It is sheer evasion of His words to say that 'this generation' means the Jewish race, and that the Jewish race would be kept in existence until these things were fulfilled. It cannot mean that. That is only an attempt to escape from the difficulties which besot the interpretation of Christ's words. The outward and visible signs which were immediately to precede the appearing of the Son of man in heaven have been enumerated in the preceding verses. All these signs have long ago been accomplished. The vultures-the ministers of Divine anger-gathered together, and the Jewish state was destroyed by the armies of Rome. The sacred city was laid desolate; the temple was consumed by fire; the altars were ruined; the priests, elect of God and consecrated to His service for fifteen centuries, were driven as fugitives into distant lands; the sacrifices ceased. All these things-with the horrors that accompanied them-had their place in the external history of the world, and they are known to us through contemporary historians. What happened in the invisible and eternal world 'immediatly after the tribulation of those days' is made known to us through these words of Christ, as far as can be made known under earthly symbols. The Son of man-who had been crucified, who had risen from the dead and ascended to God-asserted in some new form His august sovereignty. There was given to Him, according to the words of Daniel, I dominion and glory and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations mid languages should serve Him.' Or to use His own words, He came 'on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.' Why this glory did not immediately succeed His ascension to the Father is a question to which only speculative answers can be given. But His own words make it clear that there was to be an interval of delay; when that interval was passed, that which was to lie within the earthly life of persons who listened to His prophecy, would happen. He came to rule and to judge the world. And all the tribes of the earth must see Him, not the men of one generation alone, but of every generation; not a solitary soul can escape that awful glorious vision. Death has but to draw aside the veil from the eyes of men, and they discover at once the invisible world which environs them; and those who asked, ' Where is the promise of His coming ?' find that He has already come; and the vision will fill them with sorrow and with fear.
"But He saves men as well as judges them. He sends forth His angels, His ministers, with the great sound of a trumpet, and they are gathering together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Through age after age, in land after land, the ministers of His grace are gathering into His blessed and eternal kingdom all that will listen to His voice. They are His elect-all that receive His redemption. In the invisible world there is judgment; in the visible world there is salvation. We who are here may still be gathered into the great company of the saved. The Unseen King of men is near, and nearer than we know; and if we listen to the voice of those that call us to His feet, the vision of Christ when it suddenly comes at a moment we look not for it-Christ, King and Judge, sitting on the clouds of heaven with power and with great glory- will occasion no mourning to us. It will be the fulfilment, of all our most passionate hopes and the beginning of our eternal blessedness."- The late R.W. Dale, D.D., 1878.
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NOTE -It may well be, as Dr. Dale has said, that "death has but to draw aside the veil from the eyes of men, and they discover at once the invisible world which environs them." But from this it by no means follows that at death a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself comes to all men. At the time of the Second Advent in 70 A.D. only a certain number of persons then alive upon the earth looked upon their Redeemer and King. To believers who were living prayerful and consecrated lives that glorious sight brought complete sanctification and fulness of blessing. They saw Him even as He is, and so they were changed into His perfect likeness (I John iii. 2). And to hardened unbelievers the vision of their Redeemer and King brought final condemnation and unutterable woe (Matt. xxv. 41). But unless possessing real holiness of character no one within the Christian Church saw the Lord at that tremendous epoch (Heb. ix. 28; xii. 14). And we have every reason to believe that outside the Christian Church He was then seen only by His actual enemies, men whom He came to judge and punish (Luke xix. 27; Phil. iii. 18; 2 Thess. i. 9; Heb. x. 27). If, as seems almost certain, death bears to us the same relation as the Second Advent did to the generation of men contemporary with it, then at death the Lord Jesus Christ is seen only by consecrated believers and hardened unbelievers; the sight of their Redeemer and King being withheld from all the rest of mankind until, at the final judgment, in obedience to His voice they come forth from the Intermediate state (John v. 29; Rev. xx. 12).
[1] But since that date they have also come true in the experience
[2] i.e. to the ordinary eyesight. E.H.C.