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The Spirit of Prophecy Volume 4
Oh that it were to them the voice of a stranger! Says Jesus, “I have
called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man
regarded. But ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none
of my reproof.” [
Proverbs 1:24, 25
.] That voice awakens memories
which they would fain blot out,—warnings despised, invitations
refused, privileges slighted.
Those who derided his claim to be the Son of God are speechless
now. There is the haughty Herod who jeered at his royal title, and
bade the mocking soldiers crown him king. There are the very men
who with impious hands placed upon his form the purple robe, upon
his sacred brow the thorny crown, and in his unresisting hand the
mimic scepter, and bowed before him in blasphemous mockery. The
men who smote and spit upon the Prince of life, now turn from his
piercing gaze, and seek to flee from the overpowering glory of his
presence. Those who drove the nails through his hands and feet,
the soldier who pierced his side, behold these marks with terror and
remorse.
With awful distinctness do priests and rulers recall the events
of Calvary. With shuddering horror they remember how, wagging
their heads in Satanic exultation, they exclaimed, “He saved others;
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himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come
down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God;
let him deliver him now, if he will have him.” [
Matthew 27:42, 43
.]
Vividly they recall the Saviour’s parable of the husbandmen who
refused to render to their Lord the fruit of the vineyard, who abused
his servants and slew his son. They remember, too, the sentence
which they themselves pronounced: The Lord of the vineyard will
miserably destroy those wicked men. In the sin and punishment of
those unfaithful men, the priests and elders see their own course and
their own just doom. And now there rises a cry of mortal agony.
Louder than the shout, “Crucify him! crucify him!” which rang
through the streets of Jerusalem, swells the awful, despairing wail,
“He is the Son of God! He is the true Messiah!” They seek to flee
from the presence of the King of kings. In the deep caverns of
the earth, rent asunder by the warring of the elements, they vainly
attempt to hide.
In the lives of all who reject truth, there are moments when con-
science awakens, when memory presents the torturing recollection