BW Newton on Why Matthew 24 is for The Church

"It is important to observe that Jerusalem and all her people, including the remnant finally to be spared in Israel (for it is they who will at last say, "Blessed is He that cometh,") are all left at the end of the twenty-third chapter, and are addressed no more.  They are left to their desolation and judgment.  In the twenty-fourth chapter not a word is said to them.  They are spoken OF, but they are not spoken TO.  The body thus addressed in the twenty-third chapter is as diverse from that addressed in the twenty-fourth, as blessing is different from woe.  The first were rejectors of Jesus - refusing to call Him blessed.  They were the representatives of hardened, blinded, unbelieving Israel.  But the others, that is to say, those addressed in the twenty-fourth chapter, were the disciples of Jesus.  They had already called Him blessed.  They were going without the gate bearing His reproach.  Whilst blindness was resting upon Israel, they were to be His ministers, and His witnesses.  They were to walk in light whilst the others were groping in darkness.  They were addressed, therefore, not as the representatives of hardened, unbelieving Israel, or of Israel partially enlightened.  They were addressed as the representatives of the Church of the living God.  To them it had been said, "Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear."  Having Christ they had all things.  How important, therefore, to distinguish between the "ye" of the twenty-third chapter, and the "ye" of the twenty-fourth.  In each case it is a corporate "ye," and has already extended over nearly two thousand years."

Benjamin Wills Newton
December 12, 1807 - June 26, 1899

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Do you know the instruction and truths in Matthew 24?  As followers of Jesus Christ, as citizens of His kingdom, it is very important that we know it.