Matthew 24:14

14. Gospel of the kingdom The doctrines of Messiah’s universal kingdom. Shall be preached in all the world In all nations, and thereby the Messiah’s universal kingdom, become universally acknowledged. Mark says the Gospel must be published among all nations. It is certainly difficult to study these various phrases, Gospel of the kingdom in all the world unto all nations among all nations, without seeing the necessity of bringing them into association with those many texts which describe the conversion of the world to Christianity. Certainly the narratives of the travels of the apostles into distant countries, as late tradition has specified, are too scanty, if not too apocryphal, to be quoted as the fulfilment of this verse. For a Witness Witness that all men might believe. John 1:7. Our Lord does not here say, as some construe his words, that the Gospel shall be preached for a witness against all nations, but to all nations. Assuredly God does not send the Gospel to increase men’s condemnation. This would make it intentionally the poison rather than the bread of life. Then shall the end come What end? Unless our Lord answered very deceptively, he meant the end about which they inquired, namely, the end of the world. Nor is it of the slightest consequence to argue that our Lord here does not say that all the world will be converted, and that its conversion will last a long mundane period. To describe the millennium is not his purpose. He alludes to it, in order to show his disciples that the tribulation of the destruction of Jerusalem is not the tribulation of the judgment; for the predestined universal spread of the Gospel stands between them. The millennium first, and then the second advent.

We may also add that there is a sort of perspective in prophecy. The nearer event, as in a painting, is drawn full size, but the more distant dwindles to a point. See note on Matthew 23:39.

On the whole, perhaps, all this paragraph is clear. Commotions and persecutions shall come, but these are not the tokens of the END. On the contrary, you shall be preserved from their power, that you may secure that universal Gospel diffusion for which the Church is founded and suffers, and which lies between the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world.