1. THEN said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe 2 unto him through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these 3 little ones. Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; 4 and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and 5 seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him. And 6 the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you. 7 But which of you having a servant plowing, or feeding cattle, will say unto him by 8 and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I 9 have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank 10 that servant, because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.

THERE is a weak faith, like a grain of mustard seed, and there is a strong faith, like a great tree of the forest. From first to last that which waters and refreshes inward faith is the river of divine truth, constantly kept in its channel and directed to the roots by the Holy Spirit. Truth is at once means and object. Every proposition of the word which is taken up by genuine faith becomes a source of new strength. Some of these are never whispered out of doors, being communications from the Heavenly Spouse within the curtains of the heart’s tabernacle, concerning the person and grace of Jesus. “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant.” Every one of these blessed experiences, often little flowers of heaven, will be found, on examination, to have proceeded from some bud of distinct revealed truth. The more, therefore, truth is added, the more does faith advance. And, as faith is an immediate product of the life of God in the soul, whatever adds to the vigor of that life—that is, whatever increases inward piety—gives strength to the habitude of faith. All the means of grace, therefore, and all that elevates, purifies, and comforts the soul, go to help forward the disposition to believe. J. W. A.

5. Though we cannot be more or less dead, we may be more or less alive. We may believe more or less, we may know more or less, feel more or less, enjoy more or less, be more or less in health. There is progression in the life of faith, as in every life; and this progress is even the condition and the sign of life. Faith may increase in certainty, clearness, vivacity, and energy. It was this that the disciples asked of Jesus when they said, “Increase our faith.” A. V.—Our Lord had just enforced two duties, requiring much self-denial, watchfulness, and prayer. The one was the duty of walking so circumspectly as to give no cause of offence (verses 1, 2); the other was the duty of frank forgiveness (verses 3, 4). The apostles began to see that they were not to advance by a royal road to ease and distinction as followers of the Messiah; but that their first grand duty was to subdue themselves, and this was a warfare which could be conducted only by faith in him who alone could give them the victory.

6. If ye had faith, ye might. As if He had said: You have asked aright. The things of which I have spoken are indeed contrary to all your natural feelings, and seem in themselves almost impossible to acquire; but a living faith in me will so “strengthen” you as to enable you to “do all things.” D. K. D.—This sycamine tree. It is easily propagated merely by planting a stout branch in the ground, and watering it until it has struck roots into the soil. This it does with great rapidity, and to a vast depth. It was with reference to this latter fact that our blessed Lord selected it to illustrate the power of faith. Look at this tree—its ample girth, its wide-spread arms branching off from the parent trunk only a few feet from the ground; then examine its enormous roots, as thick, as numerous, and as wide spread into the deep soil below as the branches extend into the air above—the very type of invincible steadfastness. What power can pluck up such a tree? Heaven’s thunderbolt may strike it down, the tornado may tear it to fragments, but only miraculous power can fairly pluck it up by the roots. W. M. T.

7-9. The connection here is: But when your faith has been so increased as both to avoid and forgive offences, and do things impossible to all but faith, be not puffed up as though you had laid the Lord under obligation to you. 10. Unprofitable: i. e., “We have not, as his servants, profited or benefited God at all.” B.—The apostles, acting simply as servants to Christ, were to call themselves unprofitable servants after they had fulfilled his express commands; they lacked as yet the all-prevailing love that would of itself, without such commands, impel them to every service which his cause required. This disposition obtained, they would be no more servants, but friends; and all disputes for rank, all longing for rewards, would fall away. They would then never think that they had done enough for the Master. To this spirit, the essence of genuine Christianity, they were to be exalted. N.

Needful is it that in hours when we are tempted to draw back, to shun and to evade our tasks, we should feel that a necessity is laid upon us; that while we do them willingly, we do them also the most acceptably: yet, whether willingly or not, they must be done; that we are servants who are not to question our Master’s will, but to do it. Gratitude and love, indeed, must ever be the chief and prominent motive to obedience, and so long as they prove sufficient, the others will not appear; but it is well for us that behind these there should be other sterner summonses to duty, ready to make themselves felt when our corruption causes them to be needed. Well for us, too, that while the Lord is pleased to accept our work and reward it, we should ever be reminded that it is an act of his free grace, of his unmerited mercy, by which our relation to him has been put upon this footing. T.—Only from the merits of Christ may we expect our imperfections to be made up, our omissions overlooked, and our sins forgiven. For in the best of our works all these will meet: and therefore all our confidence and hope must be placed in the mediation and intercession of Christ. Wheatly.

Section 109.—Destruction of the Jewish State.

Perea.

20. And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. 21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you. 22 And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one 23 of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. And they shall say to you, See 24 here! or, See there! Go not after them, nor follow them. For as the lightning that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; 25 so shall also the Son of man be in his day. But first must he suffer many things, and 26 be rejected of this generation. And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in 27 the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and 28 destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they 29 drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. 30, 31 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to 32 take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. Remember 33 Lot’s wife. Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it; and whosoever shall 34 lose his life, shall preserve it. I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one 35 bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding 36 together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; 37 the one shall be taken, and the other left. And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.

As the destruction of the Jewish polity and worship was, in reference to the past, the great climax of temporal judgment on those who had rejected God’s ancient covenants, so, in relation to the future, it forms the great type of the last judgment. Each of God’s three dispensations toward the disobedient is closed by a catastrophe; and all three are included in our Lord’s discourse: the reckless security of those who perished in the flood being a pattern of the folly both of the Jews and of the finally impenitent. S.

20,21. He means to refute the Pharisaic notion that the kingdom of God must make its approach with pomp and circumstance, and to demonstrate at the same time that it is formed and reveals itself from within. C. B.—It was, in its very nature, to come “without observation;” unmarked, for it was not political like earthly kingdoms, but the invisible reign of truth in the souls of men—a kingdom not of this world. G.—His answer indicated that their point of view was wholly mistaken. The coming of the kingdom of God could not be ascertained by the kind of narrow and curious watching to which they were addicted. False

Christs and mistaken rabbis might cry, “Lo here!” and “Lo there!” but that kingdom was already in the midst of them; nay, if they had the will and the wisdom to recognize and to embrace it, that kingdom was within them. F.—As it should be rendered, “in the midst of you.” He in whom the kingdom had its origin stood with them; and the life of loyalty to God, the characteristic of the kingdom, was in him and in the souls of the faithful men whom he had drawn into fellowship with his own Spirit. G. P. F.—In his gospel and his Spirit, Christ is moving through the great inner world which men too much neglect—the world of souls; and there in the solitude of the heart, alone with him, it must be ours to seek and find. Ker.

22. One of the days.** Himself again among them but for one day. This is said to guard against the mistake of supposing that his visible presence would accompany the manifestation and establishment of his kingdom. 24. When the whole polity of the Jews, civil and ecclesiastical alike, was broken up at once, and its continuance rendered impossible, by the destruction of Jerusalem, it became as manifest to all as the lightning of heaven that the kingdom of God had ceased to exist in its old, and had entered on a new and perfectly different, form. So it may be again, ere its final and greatest change at the personal coming of Christ, of which the words in their highest sense are alone true.

26-30. All the ordinary occupations and enjoyments of life. Though the antediluvian world and the cities of the plain were awfully wicked, it is not their wickedness, but their worldliness, their unbelief and indifference to the future, their unpreparedness, that is here held up as a warning. These recorded events of Old Testament history—denied or explained away nowadays by not a few—are referred to here as facts. B.

30. When the Son of man is revealed.** When he will visibly display his power in the destruction of this sinful people. The Jewish nation was as careless and confident as if there was not the least danger; indulging themselves in all kinds of luxury and extravagance, till they saw ruin surrounding them, from which they found it as impossible to escape as it was for the sinners of the old world, or the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorra.

31. The Jewish houses were built with a flat roof, and had stairs on the outside to go down from the top, the readiest way of escape. D.

32. Lot’s wife.** Many centuries after the fact, he directed that it should be kept in memory. These dark monuments have obtained a place in the word that liveth and abideth forever, that their warning may be available in all nations and all times. Arnot.

—34. Two in one bed. Realized before the destruction of Jerusalem, when the Christians found themselves forced by their Lord’s directions at once and forever away from their old associates: but most of all when the second coming of Christ shall burst upon the world. B.—37. A common proverb, applied here to the Jews, pursued by the vengeance of God, the Roman eagles flying upon them as a helpless prey. D.—Josephus asserts that there was no part of Judea which did not partake of the calamities of the capital city. The Romans pursued and took and slew the Jews everywhere; fulfilling again that prediction, “Where-soever the carcass is (the Jewish nation, morally and judicially dead), there will the eagles (the Romans, whose ensign was an eagle) be gathered together.” G. T.

24-37. Is not all history one long, vast commentary on these great prophecies? In the destinies of nations and of races, has not the Christ returned again and again to deliver or to judge? F.

Section 110.—The Importunate Widow. The Pharisee and Publican.

Perea.