THESE chapters comprise one continued discourse of our Saviour, given two days before the feast of the Passover, at which time the Son of man was betrayed and crucified. Matt. 26: 1, 2. The circumstances that called forth these chapters are of special interest to the Bible student. The Saviour had for the last time left the temple, saying: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.” Matt. 23: 38, 39. The disciples failed to understand these words. They expected that Christ would sit upon the throne of David, in Jerusalem. They wanted to ask Him further, but felt restrained from doing so. As Jesus departed from the temple, His disciples came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple. Could this massive structure be destroyed and left desolate? Could these stones, forty feet long, eight feet wide, and ten feet thick, cemented, some writers say, in the days of Solomon, ever be overthrown? Jesus knew their desire to ask Him further, and so He said unto them: “See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” As Christ sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” They now were emboldened to ask the question that they had desired to ask before. In answering these questions the Saviour used selected words. He gave the disciples what they could bear. He did not answer their questions by taking up separately the destruction of Jerusalem and the great day of His coming; but He mingled the description of these two events. Had He unfolded to them future events as He beheld them, they would have been unable to bear it. In mercy to them, He blends the two great crises, leaving the disciples to study out the meaning for themselves. He referred to the destruction of Jerusalem, but His prophetic words reached beyond that event to the final conflagration, when the Lord shall rise out of His place to punish the world for its iniquity, and when the land shall disclose her blood, and no more cover her slain. The entire discourse was given, not for the disciples only, but especially for those who live in the last days of earth’s history. It was given two days before Christ’s death. As the destruction of the Jewish nation, because of their rejection of Him, their only hope, opened up before Him, He also saw the end of the world, which the destruction of Jerusalem foreshadowed. The Saviour, after admonishing them to take heed that no man deceive them, instructed them concerning several events that would take place consecutively. Many would come in His name, saying, “I am Christ.” When the Jews had put Christ to death, they were in a condition to be deceived by the false Christs who should come. The part that the Roman government took in putting to death the Son of God, also prepared it for internal conflicts and external wars, until, as a united government, it would be no more. Nation would rise against nation; and kingdom against kingdom; and there would be pestilences, famines, and earthquakes in divers places. The judgment of God would come upon that nation until it would be destroyed; the people of God would be delivered up, killed, and hated of all nations; and many false prophets would arise to deceive many. Christ closes that line of events, in the fourteenth verse, by saying: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” In about thirty years from that time the apostle, writing to the Romans, said (Rom. 1: 8): “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.” And to the Colossians he said that the gospel had brought forth fruit in all the world; and even more than this, that it was preached to every creature that is under heaven. Col. 1: 5, 6, 23. Just before the second coming of Christ the gospel of the kingdom will again be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come. It came to the Jewish nation. It will come to the world. In the fifteenth verse the Saviour begins the history of the church and its persecutions. Again He brings the prophecy down to the second coming of Christ, when there shall be many false prophets and false Christs, representing themselves as the One that is to come. But the Saviour gives one test by which every false Christ may be known: “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.” Any person representing himself as the Christ of the present dispensation, who does not appear in the clouds of heaven, as the lightning flashes from one part of the heavens to another, is a false Christ. Those two lines of prophecy reach to the end of this world’s history. The twenty-ninth verse presents the signs in the heavens that precede the second coming of Christ—the darkening of the sun and moon and the falling of the stars. The mourning of the tribes of the earth as they see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, the sending of His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, to gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other, are most positively stated in the thirtieth and thirty-first verses. From the thirty-first to the thirty-fifth verses the Saviour gives the parable of the fig tree, to mark definitely the beginning of the last generation. “When ye shall see all these things,” the signs mentioned in the heavens, “know that it is near, even at the doors.” This generation, the one that lives at that time, shall not pass until all things be fulfilled. The coming of the Lord was preached to take place in 1844. So the attention of the world was called to these signs as early as that date. From this time onward, the condition of the world and the dangers that await the people of God are given as follows: “As it was in the days of Noah, so also shall the coming of the Son of man be.” He does not leave the matter unexplained as to how it was in the days of Noah, but He states how it was before the flood, and how it will be in the closing scenes of this world’s history: “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” The angel from heaven shut the door of the ark, shutting Noah in, seven days before the flood came. But the people that were destroyed by the flood did not realize that the door was forever shut to them, and that the flood was certainly coming, until the clouds gathered and the rain fell on the seventh day after Noah entered the ark. So in the end of this world. Instead of being seven days, it will be one year, and the people of the world will not know even then that probation has ended, until they see the flash as of lightning in the clouds of heaven, which reveals the coming of the Son of man. Then all the tribes of the earth shall mourn as they see Him coming. But when probation ends, there will be two in the field: the one will be taken by the plagues of God’s wrath, and the other will be left. Two will be grinding at the mill: the one will be taken, and the other left. The ending of probation will be as the muffled tread of the thief at night, no one knowing when it will be, and no one prepared but those who are watching. “When the work of the investigative judgment closes, the destiny of all will have been decided for life or death. Probation is ended a short time before the appearing of the Lord in the clouds of heaven. Christ in the Revelation, looking forward to that time, declares: ‘He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: . . . and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.’ “The righteous and the wicked will still be living upon the earth in their mortal state. Men will be planting and building, eating and drinking, all unconscious that the final, irrevocable decision has been pronounced in the sanctuary above. Before the flood, after Noah entered the ark, God shut him in, and shut the ungodly out; but for seven days the people, knowing not that their doom was fixed, continued their careless, pleasure-loving life, and mocked the warnings of impending judgment. ‘So,’ says the Saviour, ‘shall also the coming of the Son of man be.’ Silently, unnoticed as the midnight thief, will come the decisive hour which marks the fixing of every man’s destiny, the final withdrawal of mercy’s offer to guilty men.” “‘Watch ye therefore; . . . lest coming suddenly He find you sleeping.’ Perilous is the condition of those who, growing weary of their watch, turn to the attractions of the world. While the man of business is absorbed in the pursuit of gain, while the pleasure-lover is seeking indulgence, while the daughter of fashion is arranging her adornments,—it may be in that hour the Judge of the earth will pronounce the sentence, ‘Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.’” — “Great Controversy,” page 491.