Author: JC Ryle

The verses before us contain Luke’s account of our Lord’s agony in the garden. It is a passage of Scripture which we should always approach with peculiar reverence. The history which it records is one of the “deep things of God.” While we read it, the words of Exodus should come across our minds, “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet; the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” (Exod. 3:5)

We see, firstly, in this passage, an example of what believers ought to do in time of trouble. The great Head of the Church Himself supplies the pattern. We are told that when He came to the Mount of Olives, the night before He was crucified, “He kneeled down and prayed.”

We learn, from these verses, what a fearful enemy the devil is to believers. We read that “the Lord said, Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.” He was near Christ’s flock, though they saw him not. He was longing to compass their ruin, though they knew it not. The wolf does not crave the blood of the lamb more than the devil desires the destruction of souls.

The personality, activity, and power of the devil are not sufficiently thought of by Christians. This is he who brought sin into the world at the beginning, by tempting Eve. This is he who is described in the book of Job as “going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it.” This is he whom our Lord calls “the prince of this world,” a “murderer,” and a “liar.” This is he whom Peter compares to a “roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” This is he whom John speaks of as “the accuser of the brethren.” This is he who is ever working evil in the churches of Christ, catching away good seed from the hearts of hearers, sowing tares amid the wheat, stirring up persecutions, suggesting false doctrines, and fomenting divisions. The world is a snare to the believer. The flesh is a burden and a clog. But there is no enemy so dangerous as that restless, invisible, experienced enemy, the devil.

Let us observe, in this passage, how firmly pride and love of preeminence can stick to the hearts of good men. We are told that “There was a strife among the disciples, which of them should be accounted the greatest.” The strife was one which had been rebuked by our Lord on a former occasion. The ordinance which the disciples had just been receiving, and the circumstances under which they were assembled, made the strife peculiarly unseemly. And yet at this very season, the last quiet time they could spend with their Master before His death, this little flock begins a dispute, as to who should be the greatest! Such is the heart of man, ever weak, ever deceitful, ever ready, even at its best times, to turn aside to what is evil.

The sin before us is a very old one. Ambition, self-esteem, and self-conceit lie deep at the bottom of all men’s hearts, and often in the hearts where they are least suspected. Thousands fancy that they are humble, who cannot bear to see an equal more honoured and favoured than themselves. Few indeed can be found who rejoice heartily in a neighbour’s promotion over their own heads. The quantity of envy and jealousy in the world is a glaring proof of the prevalence of pride. Men would not envy a brother’s advancement, if they had not a secret thought that their own merit was greater than his.

These verses contain Luke’s account of the institution of the Lord’s supper. It is a passage which every true Christian will always read with deep interest. How wonderful it seems that an ordinance, so beautifully simple at its first appointment, should have been obscured and mystified by man’s inventions! What a painful proof it is of human corruption, that some of the bitterest controversies which have disturbed the Church, have been concerning the table of the Lord! Great indeed is the ingenuity of man, in perverting God’s gifts! The ordinance that should have been for his wealth is too often made an occasion of falling.

We should notice, for one thing in these verses, that the principal object of the Lord’s supper was to remind Christians of Christ’s death for sinners. In appointing the Lord’s supper, Jesus distinctly tells His disciples that they were to do what they did, “In remembrance of him.” In one word, the Lord’s supper is not a sacrifice. It is eminently a commemorative ordinance.

The chapter which opens with these verses, begins Luke’s account of our Lord’s sufferings and death. No part of the Gospels is so important as this. The death of Christ was the life of the world.–No part of our Lord’s history is so fully given by all the gospel writers as this. Only two of them describe the circumstances of Christ’s birth. All four dwell minutely on Christ’s death. And of all the four, no one supplies us with such full and interesting details as Luke.

We see, firstly, in these verses, that high offices in the church do not preserve the holders of them from great blindness and sin. We read that “the chief priests and scribes sought how they might kill” Jesus.

These verses form the practical conclusion of our Lord Jesus Christ’s great prophetical discourse. They supply a striking answer to those who condemn the study of unfulfilled prophecy as speculative and unprofitable. It would be difficult to find a passage more practical, direct, plain, and heart-searching than that which is now before our eyes.

Let us learn from these verses, the spiritual danger to which even the holiest believers are exposed in this world. Our Lord says to His disciples, “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.”

The subject of this portion of our Lord’s great prophecy is His own second coming to judge the world. The strong expressions of the passage appear inapplicable to any event less important than this. To confine the words before us, to the taking of Jerusalem by the Romans, in an unnatural straining of Scripture language.

We see, firstly, in this passage, how terrible will be the circumstances accompanying the second advent of Christ. Our Lord tells us that “there will be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud.”

The subject of the verses before us is the taking of Jerusalem by the Romans. It was meet and right that this great event, which wound up the Old Testament dispensation, should be specially described by our Lord’s mouth. It was fitting that the last days of that holy city, which had been the seat of God’s presence for so many centuries, should receive a special notice in the greatest prophecy which was ever delivered to the Church.

We should mark in this passage, our Lord Jesus Christ’s perfect knowledge. He gives us a fearful picture of the miseries which were coming on Jerusalem. Forty years before the armies of Titus encompassed the city, the dreadful circumstances which would attend the siege are minutely described. The distress of weak and helpless women,–the slaughter of myriads of Jews,–the final scattering of Israel in captivity among all nations,–the treading down of the holy city by the Gentiles for eighteen hundred years, are things which our Lord narrates with as much particularity as if He saw them with His own eyes.

We should notice, for one thing, in this passage, Christ’s prediction concerning the nations of the world. He says, “Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines and pestilences: and fearful sights, and great signs shall there be from heaven.”

These words no doubt received a partial fulfilment in the days when Jerusalem was taken by the Romans, and the Jews were led into captivity. It was a season of unparalleled desolation to Judea, and the countries round about Judea. The last days of the Jewish dispensation were wound up by a struggle which for bloodshed, misery, and tribulation, has never been equalled since the world began.

Let us notice in this passage, our Lord Jesus Christ’s words about the temple at Jerusalem. We read that some spake of it, “how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts.” They praised it for its outward beauty. They admired its size, its architectural grandeur, and its costly decorations. But they met with no response from our Lord. We read that he said, “As for these things which ye behold, the days will come in the which there shall not be left one stone upon anotherm that shall not be thrown down.”

These words were a striking prophecy. How strange and startling they must have sounded to Jewish ears, an English mind can hardly conceive. They were spoken of a building which every Israelite regarded with almost idolatrous veneration. They were spoken of a building which contained the ark, the holy of holies, and the symbolical furniture formed on a pattern given by God Himself. They were spoken of a building associated with most of the principal names in Jewish history; with David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezra, and Nehemiah. They were spoken of a building toward which every devout Jew turned his face in every quarter of the world, when he offered up his daily prayers. (1 Kings 8:44; Jonah 2:4; Dan. 6:10) But they were words spoken advisedly. They were spoken in order to teach us the mighty truth that the true glory of a place of worship does not consist in outward ornaments. “The Lord seeth not as man seeth.” (1 Sam. 16:7) Man looketh at the outward appearance of a building. The Lord looks for spiritual worship, and the presence of the Holy Ghost. In the temple at Jerusalem these things were utterly wanting, and therefore Jesus Christ could take no pleasure in it.