Temple Cleansed Again
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dust before the wind. And what was it that destroyed the Jews? It was
the rock which, had they built upon it, would have been their security.
It was the goodness of God despised, the righteousness spurned, the
mercy slighted. Men set themselves in opposition to God, and all
that would have been their salvation was turned to their destruction.
All that God ordained unto life they found to be unto death. In the
Jews’ crucifixion of Christ was involved the destruction of Jerusalem.
The blood shed upon Calvary was the weight that sank them to ruin
for this world and for the world to come. So it will be in the great
final day, when judgment shall fall upon the rejecters of God’s grace.
Christ, their rock of offense, will then appear to them as an avenging
mountain. The glory of His countenance, which to the righteous is
life, will be to the wicked a consuming fire. Because of love rejected,
grace despised, the sinner will be destroyed.
By many illustrations and repeated warnings, Jesus showed what
would be the result to the Jews of rejecting the Son of God. In these
words He was addressing all in every age who refuse to receive Him
as their Redeemer. Every warning is for them. The desecrated temple,
the disobedient son, the false husbandmen, the contemptuous builders,
have their counterpart in the experience of every sinner. Unless he
repent, the doom which they foreshadowed will be his.
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