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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 13. Fore-Gleams
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Fore-Gleams
Mark's Gospel contains about the same things as Matthew, in briefer shape, with no additional information. There are the indirect passages referring to the Kingdom, and three passages referring directly to the Coming. These three are:—the transfiguration paragraph; [Note: Mar_8:38 to Mar_9:4.] the reply to the high priest at the trial; [Note: Mar_14:62.] and the Olivet Talk. [Note: Mark 13.] The latter is the chief passage. It is shorter than in Matthew; the latter part of Matthew's account is omitted; [Note: Matthew 25.] there are some details not touched there; but essentially the teaching is the same, with the chief omission just noted. The main teaching is about the tribulation, its characteristics, its opening and closing events, the Coming, and the plea for watchfulness.
Now let us turn to Paul's friend and travelling companion, dear Doctor Luke. He tells us a good bit not in the other Gospels. He had evidently talked with many of our Lord's intimates, including His mother, from whose lips he probably got direct the exquisitely told story of her unusual motherhood. He visited the scene of the Gospels, sifting facts and gleaning all available information. Then he settled to his glad task of writing a Gospel for the non-Jewish world, which Paul's blessed aggressiveness was being used to open up to the message of the Christ.
Here are the same references to the Kingdom as in the other Gospels, which we are to study a little later. Then there are the direct teachings about the Coming. There are five distinct bits here. First comes the transfiguration paragraph, [Note: Luk_9:26-30.] which is here substantially the same as told by Matthew and Mark. Then there are three other bits, which may be called fore-bits of the Olivet Talk, as they are woven into the same warp of thought and fact; and then the Olivet Talk itself.
The Olivet fore-bits all come toward the very end. They suggest that our Lord was thinking much during these last days of the then present rejection, and of the future events, which would make right what was now so terribly wrong. The first of these is in chapter twelve. In the opening paragraph He is telling the disciples of the need of boldness and fearlessness in witnessing for Him, and intimating that it would be in the midst of opposition and persecution. [Note: Luk_12:1-12.]Then the man who wanted our Lord to help him get some money from his brother, drew out the parable of the rich farmer-fool, [Note: Luk_12:13-21.] and leads Him to talk to the disciples about trusting God fully, and putting the things of God first. [Note: Luk_12:22-34.] Then follows a paragraph earnestly pleading that His followers live constantly like men "looking for their Lord." [Note: Luk_12:35-48.] Here is the earnest word about how to watch. We are to be busily and intelligently doing the task our Lord has assigned, while our hearts are ever on the alert for the music of His coming feet.
Then in the short paragraph following [Note: Luk_12:49-53.] the words gets intenser. One can almost see the intensity burning in the Master's eye as the words are read. He has come to cast fire (the greatest of all purifiers) upon the earth, and He longs that the time were ripe for its awful but needful, and really in the results blessed, work to be begun. But He had an awful personal experience to go through first of all, and His soul was in the grip and bondage of His great purpose, with an intense sore longing to have it accomplished. The time was coming when loyalty to Himself would lead to a severing of some of nature's dearest human bonds. It is a distinct sounding ahead of the note of terrible persecution of which a few days later He speaks on Olivet's top to the inner group.
The second Olivet fore-bit is in chapters seventeen and eighteen. [Note: Luk_17:20 to Luk_18:8.] It begins with the Pharisee's question about when the Kingdom was coming, in which there mingles both sarcastic contempt and a critical watching for something which they could use against Him. It's a bit unfortunate that the translation of His reply is not more nearly accurate, even in the revisions. Practically He said to them, "the Kingdom of God is not discerned by narrow-eyed, critical scrutinizing such as you are so apt at. There will be no calling out 'lo here! lo there!' There'll be no need of that. For the Kingdom of God is now in your midst, openly proclaimed and attested by the most unmistakable supernatural power." It's a pity that the translation "the Kingdom of God is within you," so often quoted in quite another setting, still remains even in our American revision. Certainly the Kingdom was not in these Pharisees, who were even then plotting His death, and trying to entangle Him into some utterance which they might use against Him.
Then follows a quiet bit of talk with the inner circle, in which He speaks of what is afterwards repeated in the Olivet Talk, as we found it in Matthew. The Son of Man is coming again after His rejection; the coming will be as open as the lightning. The conditions on earth will be as in the days of Noah and of Lot, utter forgetfulness of God, and unpreparedness for the Coming, which would separate men as they were engaged at their ordinary occupations, some being caught away, and some left behind. Then He tells the story of the judge, the widow, and the adversary, to illustrate the sore pressure in which His followers would find themselves, and especially the great need of "not fainting," but of being insistently persistent in prayer. And He closes with a tremendous question, "when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" And the whole inference of the question is that the faith He is urging will be a very scarce article during the awful time of stress before He comes.
The third of these fore-bits comes on the day of His royal entry into Jerusalem. As He approached the city that day, from the east, He came to the turn in the road which, all at once, shows the city lying stretched out before one's eyes. As He beheld its beauty, and realized its doom, the tears stole down His face, and John walking by His side hears Him talking aloud, but as though to Himself, about the destruction of all this fair beauty. It is the same note as that on which the Olivet minor dirge is sung. [Note: Luk_19:41-44.]