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The Desire of Ages
God; but the plea that we may urge now and ever is our utterly helpless
condition that makes His redeeming power a necessity. Renouncing
all self-dependence, we may look to the cross of Calvary and say,—
“In my hand no price I bring;
Simply to Thy cross I cling.”
The Jews had been instructed from childhood concerning the work
of the Messiah. The inspired utterances of patriarchs and prophets
and the symbolic teaching of the sacrificial service had been theirs.
But they had disregarded the light; and now they saw in Jesus nothing
to be desired. But the centurion, born in heathenism, educated in
the idolatry of imperial Rome, trained as a soldier, seemingly cut off
from spiritual life by his education and surroundings, and still further
shut out by the bigotry of the Jews, and by the contempt of his own
countrymen for the people of Israel,—this man perceived the truth to
which the children of Abraham were blinded. He did not wait to see
whether the Jews themselves would receive the One who claimed to
be their Messiah. As the “light, which lighteth every man that cometh
into the world” (
John 1:9
) had shone upon him, he had, though afar
off, discerned the glory of the Son of God.
To Jesus this was an earnest of the work which the gospel was to
accomplish among the Gentiles. With joy He looked forward to the
gathering of souls from all nations to His kingdom. With deep sadness
He pictured to the Jews the result of their rejection of His grace: “I say
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unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit
down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.
But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness:
there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Alas, how many are still
preparing for the same fatal disappointment! While souls in heathen
darkness accept His grace, how many there are in Christian lands upon
whom the light shines only to be disregarded.
More than twenty miles from Capernaum, on a tableland overlook-
ing the wide, beautiful plain of Esdraelon, lay the village of Nain, and
thither Jesus next bent His steps. Many of His disciples and others
were with Him, and all along the way the people came, longing for
His words of love and pity, bringing their sick for His healing, and
ever with the hope that He who wielded such wondrous power would