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The Spirit of Prophecy Volume 4
tread must fall the horror of great darkness as he should make his
soul an offering for sin. Yet it was not a contemplation of these
scenes that cast the shadow upon him in this hour of gladness. No
forebodings 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 save.
The history of a thousand years of privilege and blessing, granted
to the Jewish people, was unfolded to the eye of Jesus. The Lord
had made Zion his holy habitation. There prophets had unsealed
their rolls and uttered their warnings. There priests had waved their
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censers, and daily offered the blood of slain lambs, pointing forward
to the Lamb of God. There had Jehovah dwelt in visible glory,
in the shekinah above the mercy-seat. There rested the base of
that mystic ladder connecting earth with Heaven,—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 metropolis of God. But the history of that favored
people was a record of backsliding and rebellion. They had resisted
Heaven’s grace, abused their privileges, slighted their opportunities.
Amid forgetfulness and apostasy, God had dealt with Israel as
a loving father deals with a rebellious son, admonishing, warning,
correcting, still saying in the tender anguish of a parent’s soul, How
can I give thee up? When remonstrance, entreaty, and rebuke had
failed, God sent to this people the best gift of Heaven; nay, he poured
out to them all Heaven in that one gift.
For three years the Son of God knocked at the gate of the impen-
itent city. He came to his vineyard seeking fruit. Israel had been as
a vine transplanted from Egypt into a genial soil. He dug about his
vine; he pruned and cherished it. He was unwearied in his efforts
to save this vine of his own planting. For three years the Lord of
light and glory had gone in and out among his people. He healed
the sick; he comforted the sorrowing; he raised the dead; he spoke
pardon and peace to the repentant. He gathered about him the weak
and the weary, the helpless and the desponding, and extended to all,
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without respect to age or character, the invitation of mercy: “Come