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Home » Free Books » Bonar, Horatius » Light & Truth: The Gospels !

Chapter 51 - Luke 21:36 - Deliverance in the Day of the Lord Light & Truth: The Gospels by Bonar, Horatius

Quick Access Chapter 1 - Matthew 1:1 - Very Man... Chapter 2 - Matthew 1:16 - Jesus the See... Chapter 3 - Matthew 2:3 - Jesus the Trou... Chapter 4 - Matthew 3:10 - The Desert Vo... Chapter 5 - Matthew 4:23 - Jesus in Seas... Chapter 6 - Matthew 5:45 - His Sun... Chapter 7 - Matthew 8:1-3 - Human Lepros... Chapter 8 - Matthew 8:34 - Man's Dislike... Chapter 9 - Matthew 11:28 - The Rest and... Chapter 10 - Matthew 11:29 - The Three E... Chapter 11 - Matthew 12:41 - Nineveh and... Chapter 12 - Matthew 13:25 - The Two Sow... Chapter 13 - Matthew 19:6 - Herod's Ball... Chapter 14 - Matthew 19:15-16 - Man's Wa... Chapter 15 - Matthew 14:24-31 - The Help... Chapter 16 - Matthew 17:17 - The Graciou... Chapter 17 - Matthew 18:1-4 - The Peerag... Chapter 18 - Matthew 18:2; Luke 19:10 - ... Chapter 19 - Matthew 21:44 - The Stone o... Chapter 20 - Matthew 22:42 - The Things ... Chapter 21 - Matthew 24:12 - The Chill o... Chapter 22 - Matthew 24:42, 44 - True Vi... Chapter 23 - Matthew 25:3 - Religion wit... Chapter 24 - Matthew 25:31, 33 - The Gre... Chapter 25 - Matthew 24:70 - The Denying... Chapter 26 - Matthew 27:4 - The True Con... Chapter 27 - Mark 3:35 - Relationship to... Chapter 28 - Mark 4:39 - The Great Calm... Chapter 29 - Mark 5:36 - Only Believe... Chapter 30 - Mark 6:6 - Jesus Wondering ... Chapter 31 - Mark 6:33, 34 - Christ's Te... Chapter 32 - Mark 6:53-56 - Jesus and Hi... Chapter 34 - Mark 11:13 - The Fruitless ... Chapter 33 - Mark 10:52 - Christ's Recog... Chapter 35 - Mark 11:22 - Faith in God... Chapter 36 - Mark 13:33 - Watch and Pray... Chapter 37 - Mark 13:34-37 - The Master ... Chapter 38 - Mark 14:62 - The Coming of ... Chapter 39 - Luke 4:16-31 - The Gracious... Chapter 40 - Luke 6:19 - Health in Jesus... Chapter 41 - Luke 7:36-50 - Much Forgive... Chapter 42 - Luke 11:13 - How Much More!... Chapter 43 - Luke 15:2 - Jesus Watching ... Chapter 44 - Luke 15:10 - God's Joy Over... Chapter 45 - Luke 15:20 - The Father's L... Chapter 46 - Luke 15:22 - God's Free Lov... Chapter 47 - Luke 17:26, 27 - Noah Days... Chapter 48 - Luke 19:11-27 - The Lowest ... Chapter 49 - Luke 14:40 - Christ Must ha... Chapter 50 - Luke 21:28 - Signs of the T... Chapter 51 - Luke 21:36 - Deliverance in... Chapter 52 - Luke 22:18 - The New Wine o... Chapter 53 - Luke 22:19, 20 - The Heaven... Chapter 54 - Luke 23:32-43 - The Three C... Chapter 55 - Luke 24:29 - The Disciples'... Chapter 56 - John 1:12, 13 - Reception o... Chapter 57 - John 3:2 - The World's Need... Chapter 58 - John 3:14, 15 - Life in Loo... Chapter 59 - John 3:29 - The Filling Up ... Chapter 60 - John 3:34, 35 - The Fullnes... Chapter 61 - John 4:10 - The Living Wate... Chapter 62 - John 5:39, 40 - Bible Testi... Chapter 63 - John 6:17 - Night with Jesu... Chapter 64 - John 6:50 - The Bread of Im... Chapter 65 - John 6:51 - Christ's Flesh ... Chapter 66 - John 7:37 - Come and Drink... Chapter 67 - John 7:53; John 8:1, 12 - J... Chapter 68 - John 8:31, 32 - Truth and L... Chapter 69 - John 8:54 - The Father Hono... Chapter 70 - John 11:40 - The Honour Giv... Chapter 71 - John 12:12 - Inquiring afte... Chapter 72 - John 12:32 - The Great Attr... Chapter 73 - John 12:35-36 - Light and i... Chapter 74 - John 12:46 - Light for the ... Chapter 75 - John 12:48 - The Judging Wo... Chapter 76 - John 14:8-10 - The Revelati... Chapter 77 - John 13:16, 17 - The Abidin... Chapter 78 - John 14:26 - The Mighty Com... Chapter 79 - John 14:27 - The Divine Leg... Chapter 80 - John 16:25-28 - Christ in H... Chapter 81 - John 16:33 - Tribulation, P... Chapter 82 - John 17:26 - The Declaratio... Chapter 84 - John 18:28 - Ritualism and ... Chapter 84 - John 19:2 - The Greater Sin... Chapter 85 - John 20:17 - Christ's Work ... Chapter 86 - John 21:5 - The Tender Love... Light & Truth - The Gospels - Footnotes...

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LI.

Deliverance In The Day Of The Lord.

 

     "Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man."-Luke 21:36

 

 

     This chapter, though relating at its commencement to the days of our Lord, runs on far into the future, and carries us down to his second coming.

The "last days" are the times more especially referred to; the days which end with his arrival as Judge and King.

I.

These days are days of calamity.

Both for Israel and for the church; nay, for the world also, these were to be days of sorrow.

These sorrows were to be various, as if au past calamities were summed up and gathered together in these.

Then are the vials of divine wrath to be poured out.

Nothing in the past can equal them.

Judgments, terrors, persecutions; earthquakes, overturnings, darkenings of sun and moon and stars; these and such like are to mark that awful day.

The destruction of Jerusalem was only a shadow of this.

The Indian horrors are but preludes of what is coming.

The day of the Lord will be a day of darkness and gloominess.

II.

These calamities are to be very widespread.

They are to be terrible as the doom of Sodom and Gomorrah, but far more universal.

They are not mere judgments on a city or a land, but on a world!

The heavens and the earth; the sea and the land; Israel and the Gentiles; Jerusalem and Babylon; Judea and Idumea; all are to share the judgments, for all have sinned.

God's sword shall smite and not spare; for it is the day of His vengeance; vengeance against sin, against idolatry, against Anti-Christian rebellion, against Jewish unbelief, against Apostate Christianity; vengeance for dishonour done to Himself, to His Son, to His Spirit; to His Bible, to His gospel, to His law.

Like the deluge, the vengeance will overflow the earth.

III.

There will be some that will escape.

Such has always been the way in the execution of judgment.

The great mass of the ungodly have perished, for God's purpose was to shew His hatred of sin; but a few have been preserved to declare His grace and sovereign pleasure in saving whom He will.

The flood swept the world away; but Noah and his family were saved.

The fire of heaven consumed the cities of the plain, yet Lot and his two daughters were preserved.

Tens of thousands perished in the overthrow of Jerusalem, but the Christians in it escaped.

So is it to be in the last and most terrible of God's visitations.

A remnant shall be saved.

Balaam asks, Who shall live when God doeth this?

And certainly it will be a time of trouble such as never was upon the earth, such as seems to make escape impossible.

But some Noahs, some Lots, shall be delivered.

God will shew how He can preserve as well as destroy; how He can rain down judgment on Egypt, and yet keep Israel in safety.

IV.

This deliverance shall be by the direct hand and power of God.

This passage does not say so.

But others intimate that God will interfere to deliver.

Indeed, in such a burst of universal vengeance, it seems difficult to conceive of any escaping save by miracle; either by being caught away from the judgment just before it begins, as in the case of Enoch, or being carried through the midst in safety, as in the case of Noah, or the three children in the furnace.

God speaks of "chambers," into which He calls His people to enter until the indignation be overpast; and He speaks of the righteous being taken away from the evil to come; and the 91st Psalm will be specially fulfilled to these preserved ones in that day of trial and destruction.

V.

They who are saved are they who watch and pray.

There are many allusions in the prophets to a chosen few of faithful worshippers who are to be delivered.

We commonly give these passages a mere general application, as referring to any time of calamity; and no doubt they are so written as to bear this meaning, and to afford comfort to God's believing ones in any day of sorrow.

But like many other words of the prophets, they have a fuller meaning, and point to a prophetic application in the last days.

Such is Psalm 91.

Such is Isaiah 24:13, 14; 33:14-16; Malachi 3:16, 17.

And in these passages the characters of the delivered are fully described.

But our Lord in His exhortation here sets them before us in two words, Watch and pray; two words which He elsewhere used, and which the Apostle Peter, doubtless remembering the Master's words, makes use of, "The end of all things is at hand, be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer."

(1.)

Watch.

Beware of sleep.

It is a drowsy' world; or rather it is a world fast asleep in sin.

It is the world's night, and this induces drowsiness.

It is to be specially the temptation of the church in the last days, "while the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept."

Many things in the present day tend to lull us asleep; worldly prosperity, the progress of the arts, outward comforts, luxury, freedom from danger, want of persecution.

We are in danger of being overcome by these opiates, these soporifics of the evil one.

Therefore let us watch.

Let us be ever on our guard against the drowsiness that is constantly overtaking us.

Let us beware of being led into this by pleasure, or covetousness, or vanity, or love of ease.

Let us watch.

It is not for nothing that God has spoken to us during these late years in such appalling judgments abroad, such afflictive disasters at home.

He says, Awake, to those that are asleep.

He says, Watch, to those who are drowsy.

Let us not sleep as do others.

(2.)

Pray.

While watching, let us pray.

Let us watch upon our knees.

A watching time should be a praying time.

It is to more than merely keeping ourselves awake that the Lord calls us.

Pray; pray always; or literally, in all times and seasons; not yesterday only, but today; not in darkness only, but in the light; not in adversity only, but in prosperity; not in the day of bereavement, and terror, and weariness, but in the time of security, and comfort, and peace.

Pray always.

Pray without ceasing.

It is the watchers and the prayers that shall be saved out of, or carried through, the coming storm.

Only they.

If you fear the day of trouble that is at hand, watch and pray.

That only will avail.

How God is to deliver in that day, I cannot say; but He will, though it should be by a fiery chariot, or by an ark, or by his angel sent down from heaven.

He will deliver.

VI.

These delivered ones shall stand before the Son of man.

This standing has a twofold reference: (1) A standing in judgment (Psalm 1:5), i.e. being acquitted in the day of the Lord; (2.) a standing in the presence of the Lord, as in Revelation 7:9, 14:1, 5, 15:2, 22:4.

There is not merely deliverance in that day for these, but glory and triumph in the presence of the King.

They shall see his face, and his name shall be in their foreheads.

They shall stand before him as part of his glorious retinue, his honoured ones, his chosen ones, his blessed ones.

Having suffered with Him, they shall reign with Him; having been partakers of his shame, they shall be sharers of his glory.