Matt. 24.
How the Son of Man will come.
In the time of the great tribulation through which the Jews will pass, when the antichrist is in the land, false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show great signs and wonders, in order to deceive the people of God. The saints who are suffering the horrors of that awful tribulation will look for deliverance in connection with the coming of the Messiah; and the enemy will seek to deceive them by leading them to trust false Christs and false prophets. False reports will be spread around, such as that Christ is in the desert, or that He is in the secret chambers. But Jesus tells them not to believe these reports, nor to go out to the desert. They could only thus be disappointed, for that is not the way in which Jesus will come.
Jesus tells the disciples beforehand just how He will come, so that they may know how to look for Him, and that they may not be deceived by these false reports. He says to them:
“Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore, if they shall say unto you, Behold, He is in the desert; go not forth; Behold, He is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For where the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.”
I dare say some of my young readers have watched the lightning as it flashes through the heavens in a thunderstorm. You have seen it pass from one end of the heavens to the other in an instant of time. Well, that is the way the Son of man will come, when He appears for the deliverance of the godly Jews who will suffer for Him, and wait for Him during that great tribulation. So if the godly ones take heed to these words of Jesus, they need not be deceived. They will turn a deaf ear to all these lies, and will refuse to trust the signs and wonders of these false prophets; and they will suffer and wait, till they see Jesus coming as the lightning flashing through the heavens from the east to the west.
The “carcass” spoken of in verse 28, refers to the apostate followers of the antichrist, who will be found worshipping the idol in the temple. The “eagles” or vultures, are the judgments of God that will fall upon this apostate mass, just as the vultures fall upon a carcass, or dead body, to devour it. The ungodly mass of the Jews will be fit only for the judgment of God, just as a carcass in a field is fit only for the vultures, and they will come under the judgment of the Lord when He appears in glory with His mighty angels, and with His glorified saints.
Oh! how blessed it is to be secured against all these judgments. And this security is assured to all those who now own Jesus as their Saviour and Lord. His precious blood is a shelter to all such, just as the blood on the door posts sheltered the Israelites when the judgment of the Lord came upon the Egyptians.
Dear readers, are you sheltered by the blood of Christ?
ML 04/17/1904