The words which follow seem to give an answer to these questions. "And He said to them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, did you want anything? But they said, Nothing. Then said He unto them, But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a scrip, and he that hath not, let him sell his coat, and buy a sword. For I say to you, that this that is written must yet be fulfilled in Me, 'And with the wicked was He reckoned.' For the things concerning Me have an end. And they said, Lord, behold here are two swords. And He said to them, It is enough." What is this but that our Lord contrasts all the time of His ministry, when He was with them, their visible Master, Lord, and Comforter, when He sent them forth with instructions, after fulfilling which they were to return to Him, with another period—that in which the things concerning Him had an end: when He was to be taken from them: when they were to go forth in His power, but without the resource of His visible Headship and the comfort of His visible presence. That period is the whole time during which the apostolic ministry—the eating and drinking at His table, and the sitting on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel—continues. During all this time the attack of which our Lord spoke is going on: there is one who desires to have them that he may sift them as wheat: there is one also whose faith, in virtue of our Lord's prayer, fails not, and who is appointed to "confirm his brethren." Peter and the eleven, as individual men, passed away and went to their reward; but the kingdom of which our Lord was speaking, and which He disposed to them, did not pass, nor by consequence its rulers, neither those who were to be sifted as wheat, nor he who was to confirm his brethren. Thus during all that time which was to begin after His passion, death, and resurrection, when the kingdom was disposed to the Apostles, when the apostolic ministry was being carried on, and when the undying enmity of the great enemy was to be shown in the persistence of his attack, the chaff is burnt, the wheat is sifted, and the Confirmer, after having been converted, is in the midst of his brethren and performs his work.