Mark 13:1-22

44 See 2Co_8:12.

1-8 Compare Mat_24:1-8; Luk_21:5-11.

2 It took forty-six years to build the temple (Joh_2:20). Our Lord had already hinted that it would be razed to the ground. While He was within the sacred precincts, it was the abode of God. Now that He has left it for the last time, it is a tenantless shell, forsaken by Jehovah. Hence He foretells its destruction. In the spiritual hahitation which takes its place, Peter speaks of the saints of the Circumcision as living stones (1Pe_2:5). Hence these stones of the temple may well stand for the whole structure of the priesthood, for not only the sanctuary, but the whole Levitical system was demolished at the siege of Jerusalem, about four decades later.

5 It must be remembered that the present interval of God's transcendent grace was an absolute secret, concealed in God (Eph_3:9) and that even the times and eras of the kingdom could not be revealed at that time (Act_1:7). If these are left out of sight, the events here spoken of by our Lord go right on from His time to the time of the end, just before the kingdom comes. We are in the interval between the demolition of the sanctuary (about 70 A.D.) and the still future course of events which are given in fuller detail under the first four seals in the Unveiling. The white horse rider (Rev_6:2) is the false messiah who comes in His name, the fiery red horse brings on the battles, the black horse corresponds to the famine here foretold, while the fifth seal brings us the fate of those who testify in that day.

10 This is not the evangel of God's grace which we proclaim, but the evangel of the kingdom, which will be heralded once again in the great judgment era which immediately precedes the coming of Christ to reign over the earth. It will be carried on by an elect company in Israel who, like the two witnesses (Rev_11:3), will be upheld by divine power. His coming for us is not contingent on any missionary program of the "church".

6 Compare Rev_6:2. First Seal.

7 Compare Rev_6:4. Second Seal.

8 Compare Rev_6:5-8. Third and Fourth Seals.

9-13 Compare Mat_24:9-14; Luk_21:12-19.

11 The method of salvation varies according to God's administration. To say that it is for those who endure to the end, in this economy of pure unmixed grace, would be most misleading. Only at the time specified, just before the consummation which ushers in the kingdom, is salvation accorded to those who endure. The same is true of preparation in speaking. It has no reference to the preaching of the evangel today, but to the defense of those who answer for their lives in the great affliction.

12-13 See Luk_12:51-53.

14-17 Compare Mat_24:15-22.

14 See Dan_9:27; Dan_12:11.

14 The great chronological monument for the time of the end is the middle of the seventieth heptad, when the prince breaks his covenant with Israel, the daily offering ceases and the detestation of desolation is given (Dan_12:11). This marks the beginning of the great unparalleled affliction, such as has never yet been known even to the persecuted Jew. So terrible will it be that not a soul would be saved through it If God did not cut it short. There seems to be some asylum for those who flee into the mountains of Judea. In the Unveiling this flight is spoken of as if by a woman. " And the woman fled into the wilderness, there where she has a place made ready by God, that there they may be nourishing her a thousand two hundred sixty days" (Rev_12:6). To the wild fastnesses southeast of Judea they fly before the fury of the Satanic onslaught with no preparations, no provisions, nothing to preserve them alive for their three and a half years' sojourn. Yet they will be miraculously fed and sheltered, as they were once before in the forty years' wanderings in the same wilderness. In the inclement weather of a Palestine winter such a flight would be beyond endurance, especially to those not inured to hardship. Yet amidst it all, their safety is assured, for God has already predicted their preservation and salvation, and He is well able to care for His own.

15 See Luk_17:31-33.

19 See Dan_12:1; Rev_6:9-11. Fifth Seal.

21-23 Compare Mat_24:23-28. See Luk_17:22-21.

21 The coming of Christ for His body, the ecclesia to which we belong, will take place more than three and a half years before this time, possibly as many as thirty-seven or sixty-seven. But no one will be able to say when He will come to Israel until the abomination of desolation is set up and the great affliction begins. Then all may be assured that He will not come for three and a half years. By this they will recognize the many false messiahs who will rise at that time. But after three and a half years marvelous portents in the sky will herald the advent of the long-desired Messiah. He will come as a lightning flash, clothed in glorious majesty and might. His first act will be to gather the trembling outcasts of Israel from all quarters of the earth about Him, for theirs is the kingdom for the eons of the eons.