As it was in the days of Noe
Wherein are we endangered by things lawful?
I. WHEN DO LAWFUL THINGS BECOME SIN TO US?
1. When they become hindrances in our way to heaven, instead of helps as they were intended to be.
2. When our hearts are wrapped up in them.
II. HOW WE MAY JUDGE OF OUR HEARTS, AND KNOW WHEN THEY MISCARRY AND OFFEND IN THE PURSUIT, USE, AND ENJOYMENT OF LAWFUL THINGS.
1. When our desire of, and endeavours after, worldly things grow strong and vehement and very eager and impatient.
2. When you have raised expectations and hopes of great contentment and satisfaction from your comforts.
3. When the obedience and willing submission of the soul is brought off to any worldly comfort, and the soul stoops to its sceptre, and the faculties, like the centurion’s servants, do as they are bid. Such comforts which are slavishly obeyed are sinfully enjoyed.
4. When the soul groweth very tender and compassionate towards such a comfort, and begins to spare that above other things; then that becomes a lust, and lust is very tender and delicate, and must be tenderly used.
5. When the care, anxiety, and solicitude of the soul runs out after the comforts of this life, saying, “What shall I eat? what shall I drink? How shall I live and maintain my wife and children? what shall I do to get, to keep such or such a thing?”
6. That comfort which thou art not dead unto, neither is that dead to thee, thou wilt hardly enjoy with safety to thyself, or thou wilt part withal but upon severe terms.
7. If, after God hath been weaning us in a more special manner by His word and rod, and taking off our hearts from our worldly comforts, yet the strong bent of the soul is towards them, it argues much carnal love to them that we are not crucified to those comforts.
III. WHAT ARE THE SINS THAT ATTEND THE IMMODERATE SINFUL USE OR ABUSE OF LAWFUL COMFORTS? I will confine myself to the sins in the text.
1. The first sin in their eating and drinking, etc., was sensuality.
2. Pride, ease, and idleness generally go together.
3. Security follows. (H. Wilkinson, D. D.)
The revelation of the Son of Man
The revelation of the Son of Man is an event which takes more shapes than one in this passage.
1. First our Lord indicates that it implies a period of danger in one place and of the possibility of escape in another place--of safety in the field and not in the house, of safety without, but not within. The revelation of the Son of Man thus takes the shape of a critical period, such as might happen during a siege, or the destruction of a dwelling or of a whole city--where life would be in peril within the walls, but might be saved beyond the walls, and where safety lay only in immediate flight: lingering would be ruin, a quick departure from the doomed city the only way of escape. That is one aspect of the revelation of the Son of Man. And Christ exhorts His disciples, and all who hear Him, to escape with their lives--to escape with the higher life, the better life. Let not the love of property interfere with the love of life; lose all rather than lose life; and let not the love of the lower life interfere with the preservation of the higher life--the life of the spirit, the true life of man. Lose life itself rather than lose that; for in preserving that, all is preserved.
2. Then our Lord speaks of ,the day of the Son of Man--or, altering the phraseology, of the night of the Son of Man--when He is revealed. In that night there shall be two in one bed--the one taken and the other left; two women grinding at the mill--the one taken and the other left; two men in the field--the one taken and the other left. It is a time of separation which is indicated; the figure of the siege disappears, and new figures take its place. It is a time, though not of apparent outward danger, yet of judgment; but on what principle the judgment takes place, these words do not of themselves determine. For aught that appears, it may be a separation of accident or of caprice; it is a separation, and that is all we know. But when the disciples say further, “Where, Lord?” He utters a proverb which casts light on the judgment and also on the siege and separation: “Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together,” a parable that may have been old or new, it matters not; the meaning is plain, and it is twofold.
(1) It evidently means that the judgment is one which is true to nature. Our Lord gives the principles on which the judgment or separation proceeds. It is the dead carcass on which the eagles prey. It is the corrupt city, the corrupt State, the corrupt heart, on which judgment is pronounced: the judgment is not one of accident or caprice, but of truth, of righteousness. That is the principle of separation and judgment. And
(2) in answer to the question “Where, Lord?” Jesus gives, I think, another lesson on this matter,--viz., that this revelation of the Son of Man is not a single and solitary act of judgment at some future and far-distant day, but that it is a revelation often made--made, now on a country, now on a people, now on a Church, now on a system. The revelation of the Son of Man is not a thing of time and place, it is an eternal law in the dispensation of God. The judgment of God is proceeding every day; it is proceeding quietly and unseen. It is only now and then that men’s eyes are open to behold it, and then the judgment is revealed. But it is not the less true that God’s judgment proceeds day by day, whether it is seen and revealed or not. Corruption shall bring about its own recompense--not at a particular time or place; not in some one notable instance years or centuries hence, but wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together. (A. Watson, D. D.)