Destruction of Jerusalem
15
His tears were not for Himself, though He well knew whither His
feet were tending. Before Him lay Gethsemane, the scene of His
approaching agony. The sheepgate also was in sight, through which
for centuries the victims for sacrifice had been led, and which was to
open for Him when He should be “brought as a lamb to the slaughter.”
Isaiah 53:7
. Not far distant was Calvary, the place of crucifixion. Upon
the path which Christ was soon to tread must fall the horror of great
darkness as He should make His soul an offering for sin. Yet it was not
the contemplation of these scenes that cast the shadow upon Him in
this hour of gladness. No foreboding of His own superhuman anguish
clouded that unselfish spirit. He wept for the doomed thousands of
Jerusalem—because of the blindness and impenitence of those whom
He came to bless and to save.
The history of more than a thousand years of God’s special favor
and guardian care, manifested to the chosen people, was open to the
eye of Jesus. There was Mount Moriah, where the son of promise,
an unresisting victim, had been bound to the altar—emblem of the
offering of the Son of God. There the covenant of blessing, the glorious
Messianic promise, had been confirmed to the father of the faithful.
Genesis 22:9, 16-18
. There the flames of the sacrifice ascending to
heaven from the threshing floor of Ornan had turned aside the sword of
[19]
the destroying angel (
1 Chronicles 21
)—fitting symbol of the Saviour’s
sacrifice and mediation for guilty men. Jerusalem had been honored
of God above all the earth. The Lord had “chosen Zion,” He had
“desired it for His habitation.”
Psalm 132:13
. There, for ages, holy
prophets had uttered their messages of warning. There priests had
waved their censers, and the cloud of incense, with the prayers of the
worshipers, had ascended before God. There daily the blood of slain
lambs had been offered, pointing forward to the Lamb of God. There
Jehovah had revealed His presence in the cloud of glory above the
mercy seat. There rested the base of that mystic ladder connecting
earth with heaven (
Genesis 28:12
;
John 1:51
)—that ladder upon which
angels of God descended and ascended, and which opened to the world
the way into the holiest of all. Had Israel as a nation preserved her
allegiance to Heaven, Jerusalem would have stood forever, the elect of
God.
Jeremiah 17:21-25
. But the history of that favored people was a
record of backsliding and rebellion. They had resisted Heaven’s grace,
abused their privileges, and slighted their opportunities.