God’s People Delivered
535
be buried beneath the rocks of the mountains rather than meet the face
of Him whom they have despised and rejected.
That voice which penetrates the ear of the dead, they know. How
often have its plaintive, tender tones called them to repentance. How
often has it been heard in the touching entreaties of a friend, a brother,
a Redeemer. To the rejecters of His grace no other could be so full
of condemnation, so burdened with denunciation, as that voice which
has so long pleaded: “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why
will ye die?”
Ezekiel 33:11
. 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 nought 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.
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There are those who mocked Christ in His humiliation. With
thrilling power come to their minds the Sufferer’s words, when, adjured
by the high priest, He solemnly declared: “Hereafter shall ye see the
Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the
clouds of heaven.”
Matthew 26:64
. Now they behold Him in His glory,
and they are yet to see Him sitting on the right hand of power.
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; 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