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I. OUR LORD'S LOVING REASON FOR HIS SPEECH.

1. The two statements of vers. 1 and 4 are separated by a reiteration of the dark prospect that He has been holding out. The world is the apostate Jewish Church. A formal church is the true world, to-day as then. And such a body will do the cruellest things and believe that it is offering up Christ's witnesses as sacrifices to God. And the bottom of it all is that in the blaze of light, and calling themselves God's, "they do not know" either God or Christ.

2. But that is all parenthetical. Look now at the loving reasons which Christ here suggests for His speech. "That ye should not stumble." There could be nothing more productive of intellectual bewilderment and doubt than to find oneself at odds with the synagogue about the question of the Messiah. A modest man might naturally say, "Perhaps I am wrong and they are right." A coward would be sure to say, "I will sink my convictions and fall in with the majority." And, says Christ, "the only way by which you will ever get over these temptations is to reflect that I told you it would be so, before it came to pass."

3. Of course all that has a special bearing upon the apostles, &c., a secondary bearing upon Christians, who live in a time of persecution. But it also has a bearing upon us. For, if we are trying to live like our Master, we, too, shall often be surrounded by people that take such an entirely opposite view of duty and of truth, as that we shall be only too much disposed to say, "Well, perhaps after all it is better for me to hold my tongue." And then, besides, there are all the cares and griefs which befall each of us. Christ does not try to enlist recruits by highly-coloured pictures. He tells us plainly at the beginning, "If you take My yoke upon you, you will have to carry a heavy burden." The roadway is narrow and rough, and the gateway is very strait, but it all goes steadily up. Will you accept the terms and come in and walk upon it? Jesus Christ will have no service on false pretences. Through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom. And the way by which all these troubles and cares can best be overcome is precisely by this thought, "The Master has told us before."(1) Sorrows anticipated are easier met. It is when the ship is caught with all its sails set that it is almost sure to go down. But when the barometer has been watched, and its fall has given warning, and everything has been made fast, and every spare yard has been sent below, and all tightened up and made ship-shape — then she can ride out the storm. Forewarned is fore-armed.

(2) Sorrow foretold gives us confidence in our guide. We have the chart, and as we look upon it we see marked "waterless country," "pathless rocks," "desert and sand," "wells and palm trees." Well, when we come to the first of these, and find ourselves as the map says; and when, as we go on mile after mile, we find that it is all down there, we say to ourselves, "The remainder will be accurate too." And if we are in Marah to-day, we shall be at Elim to-morrow. He has told us this; if there had been anything worse than this He would have told us that.

(3) Sorrow that comes punctually in accordance with His word plainly comes in obedience to His will. "Their hour" — the time allotted to them by Him. He could tell that they would come, because it was as His instruments that they came. It was only an "hour," a definite, appointed, and brief period in accordance with His loving purpose. It takes all sorts of weathers to make a year; and after all the sorts of weathers are run out the year's results are realized and the calm comes.

II. OUR LORD'S LOVING REASONS FOR PAST SILENCE.

1. "These things" (ver. 4) include the whole of the previous chapter, in which He sets the sorrow as being the consequence of union with Him. In so systematic and detailed fashion our Lord had not spoken in His earlier ministry. And the reason why He had given but passing hints before was because He was there. What a superb confidence that expresses in His ability to shield His poor followers, "as a hen gathereth her chickens," &c. But He is going away, and so it is time to speak, and to speak more plainly.

2. For us, too, difficulties and sorrows, though foretold in general terms, are largely hidden till they are near. It would have been of little use for Christ to have spoken more plainly before. The disciples managed to misunderstand His plain utterances about His own death and resurrection. There needs to be an adaptation between the hearing ear and the spoken word. And there are great tracts of Scripture dealing with the sorrows of life, which lie dark and dead to us, until experience vitalizes them. The old Greeks used to send messages from one army to another by means of a roll of parchment twisted spirally round a baton, and then written upon. And it was perfectly unintelligible when it fell into a man's hands that had not a corresponding baton to twist it upon. Many of Christ's messages to us are like that. You can only understand the utterances when life gives you the frame round which to wrap them, and then they flash up into meaning, and we say at once, "He told us it all before, and I scarcely knew that He had told me until this moment when I need it."(1) It is merciful that there should be a gradual unveiling of what is to come to us, that the road should wind, and that we should see so short a way before us. Did you never say to yourselves, "If I had known all this before, I do not think I could have lived to face it." Thank God for the loving reticence, and for the as loving eloquence of His speech.

(2) There ought to be in our lives times of close communion with that Master, when His presence makes all thought of trials in the future needlessly disturbing. If these disciples had drunk in His Spirit when they were with Him, then they would not have been so bewildered when He left them.

III. THE IMPERFECT APPREHENSION OF OUR LORD'S WORDS WHICH LEADS TO SORROW INSTEAD OF JOY (vers. 5, 6). The one definite idea that they gathered was that He was going. And they said, "Going? What, is to become of us?" If there had been a little less selfishness, and if they had put their question, "Going? What is to become of Him?" then it would not have been sorrow that would have filled their heart, but joy. That gives us a thought that the steadfast contemplation of the ascended Christ is the sovereign antidote against all sense of separation and solitude, the sovereign power by which we may face a hostile world, the sovereign cure for every sorrow. If we could live in the light of that great triumph, then, oh! how small would the babble of a world be. Look up to the Master that has gone, and as the dying martyr outside the city wall "saw the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing" — having sprung to His feet to help His poor servant — "at the right hand of God," so with that vision in our eyes we shall be masters of grief and care, and sin, and feel that the absent is the present Christ, and the present Christ is the conquering power in us.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

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KJV: These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended.

WEB: "These things have I spoken to you, so that you wouldn't be caused to stumble.