Luke 21

Lu 21:1-4.

THE

WIDOW'S

TWO

MITES.

1. looked up--He had "sat down over against the treasury"

(Mr 12:41),

probably to rest, for He had continued long standing as he taught in

the temple court

(Mr 11:27),

and "looking up He saw"--as in Zaccheus' case, not quite casually.

the rich, &c.--"the people," says

Mr 12:41

"cast money into the treasury, and many rich east in much"; that is,

into chests deposited in one of the courts of the temple to receive the

offerings of the people towards its maintenance

(2Ki 12:9;

Joh 8:20).

2. two mites--"which make a farthing"

(Mr 12:42),

the smallest Jewish coin. "She might have kept one" [BENGEL].

3. And he said--"to His disciples," whom He "called to Him"

(Mr 12:43),

to teach from it a great future lesson.

more than . . . all--in proportion to her means, which is God's

standard

(2Co 8:12).

4. of their abundance--their superfluity; what they had to spare,"

or beyond what they needed.

of her penury--or "want"

(Mr 12:44)

--her deficiency, of what was less than her own wants

required, "all the living she had." Mark

(Mr 12:44)

still more emphatically, "all that she had--her whole subsistence."

Note: (1) As temple offerings are needed still for the

service of Christ at home and abroad, so "looking down" now, as then

"up," Me "sees" who "cast in," and how much. (2) Christ's

standard of commendable offering is not our superfluity, but our

deficiency--not what will never be missed, but what costs us some

real sacrifice, and just in proportion to the relative amount of that

sacrifice. (See

2Co 8:1-3.)

Lu 21:5-38.

CHRIST'S

PROPHECY OF THE

DESTRUCTION OF

JERUSALEM AND

WARNINGS TO

PREPARE FOR

HIS

SECOND

COMING,

SUGGESTED BY

IT--HIS

DAYS AND

NIGHTS DURING

HIS

LAST

WEEK.

5-7. (See on

Mt 24:1-3.)

8. the time--of the Kingdom, in its full glory.

go . . . not . . . after them--"I come not

so very soon"

(2Th 2:1, 2)

[STIER].

9-11. not terrified--(See

Lu 21:19;

Isa 8:11-14).

end not by and by--or immediately, not yet

(Mt 24:6;

Mr 13:7):

that is, "Worse must come before all is over."

10. Nation, &c.--Matthew and Mark

(Mt 24:8;

Mr 13:8)

add, "All these are the beginning of sorrows," or travail pangs, to

which heavy calamities are compared

(Jer 4:31,

&c.).

12. brought before, &c.--The book of Acts verifies all this.

13. for a testimony--an opportunity of bearing testimony.

18. not a hair . . . perish--He had just said

(Lu 21:16)

they should be put to death; showing that this precious promise

is far above immunity from mere bodily harm, and furnishing a key to

the right interpretation of the ninety-first Psalm, and such like.

Matthew adds the following

(Mt 24:12):

"And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many," the many or, the

most--the generality of professed disciples--"shall wax cold." But he

that endureth to the end shall be saved. Sad illustrations of the

effect of abounding iniquity in cooling the love of faithful disciples

we have in the Epistle of James, written about this period

referred to, and too frequently ever since

(Heb 10:38, 39;

Re 2:10).

"And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for

a witness, and then shall the end come"

(Mt 24:14).

God never sends judgment without previous warning; and there can be no

doubt that the Jews, already dispersed over most known countries, had

nearly all heard the Gospel "as a witness," before the end of the

Jewish state. The same principle was repeated and will repeat itself to

the end.

20, 21. by armies--encamped armies, that is, besieged: "the abomination

of desolation" (meaning the Roman ensigns, as the symbols of an

idolatrous, pagan, unclean power) "spoken of by Daniel the prophet"

(Da 9:27)

"standing where it ought not"

(Mr 13:14).

"Whoso readeth [that prophecy] let him understand"

(Mt 24:15).

Then . . . flee, &c.--EUSEBIUS

says the Christians fled to Pella, at the north extremity of Perea,

being "prophetically directed"; perhaps

would be their chart.

23. woe unto--"alas for."

with child, &c.--from the greater suffering it would involve; as

also "flight in winter, and on the sabbath," which they were to "pray"

against

(Mt 24:20),

the one as more trying to the body, the other to the soul. "For then

shall be tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world,

nor ever shall be"--language not unusual in the Old Testament for

tremendous calamities, though of this it may perhaps be literally said,

"And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be

saved, but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened"

(Mt 24:21, 22).

But for this merciful "shortening," brought about by a remarkable

concurrence of causes, the whole nation would have perished, in which

there yet remained a remnant to be afterwards gathered out. Here in

Matthew and Mark

(Mt 24:24;

Mr 13:22)

are some particulars about "false Christs," who should, "if

possible"--a precious clause--"deceive the very elect." (Compare

2Th 2:9-11;

Re 13:13.)

24. Jerusalem . . . trodden down . . .

until, &c.--Implying (1) that one day Jerusalem shall cease to be

"trodden down by the Gentiles"

(Re 11:2),

as then by pagan so now by Mohammedan unbelievers; (2) that this shall

be at the "completion" of "the times of the Gentiles," which from

Ro 11:25

(taken from this) we conclude to mean till the Gentiles have had their

full time of that place in the Church which the Jews in their

time had before them--after which, the Jews being again "grafted

into their own olive tree," one Church of Jew and Gentile together

shall fill the earth

(Ro 11:1-36).

What a vista this opens up!

25-28. signs, &c.--Though the grandeur of this language carries the

mind over the head of all periods but that of Christ's second coming,

nearly every expression will be found used of the Lord's coming in

terrible national judgments, as of Babylon, &c.; and from

Lu 21:28, 32,

it seems undeniable that its immediate reference was to the

destruction of Jerusalem, though its ultimate reference beyond

doubt is to Christ's final coming.

28. redemption--from the oppression of ecclesiastical despotism and

legal bondage by the total subversion of the Jewish state and the firm

establishment of the evangelical kingdom

(Lu 21:31).

But the words are of far wider and more precious import. Matthew

(Mt 24:30)

says, "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in

heaven," evidently something distinct from Himself, mentioned

immediately after. What this was intended to mean, interpreters are

not agreed. But as before Christ came to destroy Jerusalem, some

appalling portents were seen in the air, so before His personal

appearing it is likely that something analogous will be

witnessed, though of what nature it is vain to conjecture.

32. This generation--not "this nation," as some interpret it, which,

though admissible in itself, seems very unnatural here. It is rather as

in

Lu 9:27.

34-37. surfeiting, and drunkenness--All animal excesses, quenching

spirituality.

cares of this life--(See on

Mr 4:7;

Mr 4:19).

36. Watch . . . pray, &c.--the two great duties which in prospect of

trial are constantly enjoined. These warnings, suggested by the need of

preparedness for the tremendous calamities approaching, and the total

wreck of the existing state of things, are the general improvement of

the whole discourse, carrying the mind forward to Judgment and Vengeance

of another kind and on a grander and more awful scale--not

ecclesiastical or political but personal, not temporal but eternal--when

all safety and blessedness will be found to lie in being able to

"STAND BEFORE THE

SON OF

MAN" in the glory of His personal appearing.

37, 38. in the daytime--of this His last week.

abode in the mount--that is, at Bethany

(Mt 21:17).