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The Spirit of Prophecy Volume 4
retribution about to fall upon her children, but the first draught from
that cup of wrath which at the final Judgment she must drain to its
dregs. Divine pity, yearning love, finds utterance in the mournful
words: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and
stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and ye would not!” [
Matthew 23:37
.] Oh that thou,
a nation favored above every other, hadst known the time of thy
visitation, and the things that belong unto thy peace! I have stayed
the angel of justice, I have called thee to repentance, but all in vain.
It is not merely servants, delegates, and prophets, whom thou hast
refused and rejected, but the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer. If
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thou art destroyed, thou art alone responsible. “Ye will not come to
me that ye might have life.”
Christ saw in Jerusalem a symbol of a world hardened in unbelief
and rebellion, and rushing on to meet the retributive judgments of
God. The woes of a fallen race, pressing upon his soul, forced from
his lips that exceeding bitter cry. He saw the record of sin traced in
human misery, in tears and blood; his heart was moved with infinite
pity for the afflicted and suffering ones of earth; he yearned to relieve
all. But he knew that even his hand might not turn back the incoming
tide of human woe; few would seek their only source of help. He
was willing to suffer and to die to bring salvation within their reach;
but few would come to him that they might have life.
The Majesty of Heaven in tears! the Son of the infinite God trou-
bled in spirit, bowed down with anguish! The scene filled all Heaven
with wonder. That scene reveals to us the exceeding sinfulness of
sin; it shows how hard a task it is, even for infinite power, to save the
guilty from the consequences of transgressing the law of God. Jesus,
looking down to the last generation, saw the world inclosed in a
deception similar to that which caused the destruction of Jerusalem.
The great sin of the Jews was their rejection of Christ; the great sin
of the Christian world would be their rejection of the law of God, the
foundation of his government in Heaven and earth. The precepts of
Jehovah would be despised and set at naught. Millions in bondage to
sin, slaves of Satan, doomed to suffer the second death, would refuse
to listen to the words of truth in their day of visitation. Terrible
blindness! strange infatuation!
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