THE GREAT TRIBULATION.

(Matthew xxiv. 21.)

I. THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

II.—THE REVELATION OF JOHN.

The period A.D. 60-70 is perhaps without a parallel in history, full of events of the most momentous importance for the world at large, for Israel as a nation, for the Christian Church.

Within this decade fall the worst years of the imperial reign of Nero, the embodiment of human depravity and godless power. In that age of unequalled wickedness, storm and earthquake, famine and pestilence, sword and fire, social agony and political terror, civil wars and massacres, swept over Rome and her provinces.

In Palestine, the hatred of the Roman rule which had long burned like fire in the heart of the nation leaped forth into fierce flames. A Jewish revolt began in A.D. 66, which led to the destruction of Jerusalem, the almost complete extermination of the Jews, and the dispersion of the few survivors, wider and more enduring than had ever been before a great tragedy growing in intensity until it reached its climax in the frightful disaster with which the history of Israel as a nation was closed unto this day.

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For the Christian Church it was a time of extreme peril. Under Jewish and Gentile persecution a large number of martyrs fell; among them St. James, the brother of the Lord, the head of the mother Church in Jerusalem, and St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome. Few things in all history are so wonderful as the emerging of the Church from this vortex of suffering, unharmed and with even increased life and vigor.

Among the important events are: the Martyrdom of St. James in 63; the Burning of Rome and the Persecution of Christians under Nero, 64; the Martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul, about 65 to 67; the beginning of the Jewish Revolt, 66; the Flight of the Christians of Jerusalem to Pella, 66; the furious fighting between Jewish factions, and the Reign of Terror in Jerusalem, winter of 66-67; the Death of the Emperor Nero, June, 68; of the Emperor Galba, January, 69; of the Emperor Otho, April, 69; of the Emperor Vitellius, and accession of Vespasian, December, 69; Burning of the great temple of Capitoline Jupiter in Rome, during the fierce fighting of Roman factions, December, 69; Destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, 70, in the autumn.

Probable Dates of New Testament books belonging to this period: II Peter, 65; Jude, 65; Hebrews, 67; Revelation, 68.

THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

[To Hebrew Christians, probably those in Palestine, tempted in a time of Crisis and Suffering to relapse into Judaism. Their first hopes as to the speedy triumphant Return of Christ, and as to the Conversion of all Israel, had been disappointed. The breach between the Church and the Synagogue was widening they had to make a choice between the two. The struggle of the nation against Rome placed Jewish Christians in a strait between their faith and their patriotism, and tempted them to go back in full to that which some of them had never more than half departed from. Their attachment to their old religion had been a real hindrance to their development in the new faith (see v. 11-14). Such of them as had not fully entered into the purely Christian life and hope would be likely, in the circumstances that then existed, to be dismayed at the disasters that were coming on the Church, and attracted to Judaism by its apparent renewal of life and vigor. The three leading Apostles, James, Peter, and Paul, had probably already fallen martyrs. The Church was threatened with annihilation; while the Jewish people, intoxicated by the first successes of the revolt against Rome, were pressing forward with exuberant confidence into the final struggles that seemed to them likely to deliver the nation from the Roman yoke. That the faith of the Church as a whole stood the test in such a wonderful way is in large part due to the man whom God raised up at this critical moment, to shew clearly that He has Fully and Finally Revealed Himself in His Son, and that the Old Covenant may be given up safely because the New Covenant alone is Perfect. The Epistle impressively and conclusively proves this, within sight as it were of the ancient Temple and with the conviction that it could not endure much longer.

The name of the writer will probably remain unknown. That St. Paul wrote the Epistle was the prevailing opinion in the Church from the fourth century to the eighteenth. The uncertainty which now exists among scholars is really a return to the earlier condition of things in which there was a difference of opinion, especially between the Church of the East and that of the West. Many scholars still hold the Pauline authorship, others suppose that Apollos or Barnabas was the author ]

Part 1 The Supremacy of the Son over Angels,

The Testimony of Scripture. The Danger if we reject the Perfect Revelation. The Supremacy of Man over Angels, foretold in Scripture, fulfilled in Jesus the Son of Man, through His Incarnation and His Suffering as High Priest. I. 1-2. 18.

I. I

GOD, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in Him who is Son, whom He appointed Heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the effulgence of His glory and the very image of His essence, and bearing all things onward by the word of His power, when He had made purification of sins sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become by so much better than the angels as He hath inherited a more excellent Name than they. For unto which

of the angels said He at any time

My Son art Thou, I have to-day begotten Thee,

and again

I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son? And when He again bringeth the Firstborn into the world, He saith

And let all the angels of God worship Him.

And of the angels He saith.

Who maketh His angels winds,

And His ministers a flame of fire:

but of the Son

and,

God is Thy throne for ever and ever,

And the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of His kingdom.

Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity: Therefore God hath anointed Thee, Thy God, with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows:

Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth,

And the heavens are works of Thy hands:

They shall perish, but Thou continuest :