Matthew 24:31

31. Send his angels To call the nations before his throne, where on different sides they all appear before him. 25-32. Angels are ever described as attending the judgment presence. Matthew 13:40; Rev 1:7 : 1 Thessalonians 4:16. Gather… his elect Separately, in a glorious resurrection order, both living and dead, at Christ’s right hand. Afterward the wicked are in like manner taken, perhaps by evil angels, to the left of the judge. The separation will be awfully sudden, as described in Matthew 24:40-41. From the four winds The ancient mode of describing the entire globe was by the number four; as the earth was held to consist of four quarters, to be subject to the four points of compass, from which the four winds blowing are so called.

Thus the grand prelude is prepared, to be continued and consummated at Matthew 25:31-46.

But before proceeding to that finishing of the picture, our Lord pauses to illustrate what he has given, by parabolic images. In the remainder of this chapter, in contrast with the slow approach of the destruction of Jerusalem, he illustrates the unexpectedness of the advent to a revelling world by the parallel of the flood; its suddenness to the revelling individual by the parable of the drunken servant. In the next chapter he illustrates its inflexible suddenness to the sleeping dead by the slumbering virgins; its graduated justice to each man’s character by the talents; and then, closing chapter 25, does the END come.