During the permission of evil, God has been exercising His great power of the universe with the one exception of planet Earth, where His power is exercised only within certain limits. For example, not one of the consecrated can die before it is his or her time. With regard to the public at large, God’s will is not recognized as being done on earth, yet He is aware of all that happens. When He reigns forever and ever, the exercise of His will on earth will be recognized.

It is profitable to think of this verse in two ways: despise not prophecy and despise not teachings. Especially here in this epistle, which contains a lot about prophecy, that thought should be included in the admonition. “Despise not instruction” is another way of expressing this verse, and the instruction includes heeding times and things in season for the end time. We should be particularly interested in prophecy about the end of the age because of the day in which we are living.

We should not neglect study or hearing the thoughts of elders. Since those who are given to works might neglect study, there is a danger in putting too much emphasis on works.

WHATEVER the character of the watching, and whatever the thing to be looked for, there can be no question that the exhortation to watch for an event whose precise time is not stated, implies that when the event does take place, the watching ones will know it. Watch, because ye know not, in order that at the proper time ye may know, is the thought; and the intimation clearly is, that those who do not watch will not know: that the events which are to be known in due time to the Watchers, will be recognized by them, and not recognized by others, at the time of accomplishment.

This, then, is the import of the days of Noah. As life continues its hectic pace with its eating and drinking, with its marrying and giving in marriage, it is a temptation for the Christian to be swept along in this current of events. Yet, Paul assures us in 1 Thessalonians 5:4, “But ye brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.” Continuing in verse 6, “Therefore let us not sleep, as do others but let us watch and be sober.”

Strong evidences around us of the fulfilling of many of the “end time” scriptures should keep us awake to the righteousness and the service of the Lord, for they indicate the fact of His presence and the imminence of his kingdom. Let us join with others to confirm our faith and let us be ever more alert to the work and activity of the greater-than Noah who is operating amongst us today.

THIS injunction followed our Lord’s great prophecy of the events of the Gospel age, recorded in Matt. 24 and Luke 17and 21. It is not an exhortation to watch the sky in hope of seeing our Lord’s second coming, as some seem to understand it. On the contrary, our Lord had just explained that “in the days of” his second presence the world in general would be eating and drinking, planting and building, marrying and giving in marriage, and know not of his presence. He had told them that in the time of his presence his people would be gathered from the field, the mill and the bed, to the food of present truth which he would supply; and that if at that time anyone should say to them, Lo here! or Lo there! Lo, he is in the secret chambers, or in the desert, they should believe it not, nor seek to see him thus, because the signs or evidences of his presence would not be secret ones, but would be manifest to all, as is the light of the morning sun.

New Testament Scriptures show that the Second Psalm had a partial fulfillment at the time of the First Advent and Jesus’ resurrection. “God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee” (Acts 13:33). “Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done” (Acts 4:25-28).

Jesus, who was anointed to be a King, continues to speak, but he was merely repeating what God will say to him: “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” The translators realized that the anointing was not particularly to a priesthood but was of a King to be a ruler over subjects. Therefore, they preferred to use the word “king” in verse 6 in order to show the type of anointing. Verse 8 is not yet operative, for Jesus has not asked Jehovah for the heathen as his inheritance. The asking is still future and awaits the fulfillment of other circumstances first.

WHOEVER fails to see that Moses and Israel and the Law were types fails of getting the real lesson out of them. Moses was not merely a type of Jesus; but as St. Peter explains, he was a type of the entire Church of Christ, of which Jesus is the Head—the Church of Glory. St. Peter’s words are, “Moses truly said unto the fathers, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me.”— Acts 3:22,23

The object of these parables, then, was not to depict to our minds what the Kingdom would be like after it has been established in the world, but rather to picture before our minds something respecting the processes of development by which the Kingdom-class would be selected from amongst mankind and made ready for the Kingdom which is to be set up at the second coming of Christ in power and great glory,— when he shall establish that Millennial Kingdom for the very purpose of granting a judgment or trial to all the families of the earth—peradventure under the favorable opportunities of knowledge, etc., then granted unto them, many may choose life through obedience to God and attain it.

It is because Christendom as a whole –though nominally a wheat field, is practically a tare field with a scattering of wheat intermingled, that there is to be such a commotion in connection with the separation of the wheat and the tares. True, the Lord who knoweth the heart, who knoweth them that are His, could easily separate them from the others, but He has chosen to make a separation publicly to demonstrate His own justice in the matter. Hence in this harvest time–at the proper time to separate the wheat from the tares–the Lord not only sends the sickle of Truth to gather the wheat, but He also sends the strong delusions to gather the tares.

We continue with the chapter of Matthew 24, explaining the verses which the Lord described the End of the Age (World), Time of the End. We are warned to flee (Mystic Babylon) and take none of her baggage with us. He explains the deceptions and “Lying Signs and Wonders” that Satan will use to ensnare the “Elect” if it were possible. Jesus gives us signs to watch for (One being the restoration of Israel). He describes the Tribulation, “Time of Trouble” that was never since the world began, likening it to the Time period that Noah and even Lot lived, and how God delivered the righteous. Finally we end up with the binding of Satan for the thousand years.