<p>14:18- see on Mt. 18:6.</p><p><i>I will not leave you desolate as orphans. I will come to you</i>- The Lord has just addressed them as &quot;little children&quot; (13:33), and senses their panic that He is leaving them. He assures them that He will come to them, just as He has stated in :3; that coming to them would be to receive them for ever to Himself through the ministry of His abiding Spirit. The allusion is to the way the Rabbis spoke of their disciples being left orphans after the Rabbi died. But the Lord's death would not be like that, but the opposite. His death would lead to His abiding personal presence and continual teaching of His disciples deep within their hearts. It is this allusion which explains the emphasis upon the Comforter providing continued teaching to the disciples. The discourse about the Comforter is inserted it seems in place of the Olivet prophecy, which in the Synoptics forms the Lord's promise of literally coming back. John's Gospel was written after them, and he is perhaps addressing the concern that the Lord had not returned, and might delay His return, by reminding them that the Comforter enabled the Lord's presence to be with us just as really as when He was literally present. There is an understandable desire in every true believer for the Lord's literal return; but we must be careful that our enthusiasm for it does not become so obsessive that we fail to sense His very real coming to us now in the Spirit. It is unfortunately significant that some of those most obsessive about the signs of the times fulfilling Bible prophecy and pointing to the Lord's imminent return are in fact those who also deny the operation of the Spirit today.</p>