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Shield of Protection, April 10
He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
John 1:11
.
He who purchased the human family with His own blood, charges as done
to Himself any insult offered to a child of His. His law is to extend the shield
of divine protection over every soul who puts his trust in Him.
Christ’s denunciations, the woes that He pronounced, were followed by
exclamations of the deepest sorrows....
Just before His crucifixion, He beheld the city [of Jerusalem], and wept
over it, saying, “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the
things which belong unto thy peace!” (
Luke 19:42
). Then He paused. They
had come to the crest of Olivet, and the disciples, catching sight of Jerusalem,
were about to burst forth unto exclamations of praise; but they saw that their
Teacher, in the place of being joyful, was in an agony of tears.
Christ was approaching the end of His mission, and He knew that when
that time should come, Jerusalem’s day of probation would have ended. But
He was reluctant to pronounce the words of doom. For three years He had
come, seeking fruit and finding none. During these years one object was
ever upon His soul—to present before His thankless, disobedient people the
solemn warnings and gracious invitations of heaven. He greatly desired that
the people should receive His words.
How graciously He had invited them. How anxiously He had labored to
awaken in their hearts the comprehension that He was the only hope of Israel,
the promised Messiah.... His lifework was to convince His disobedient people
that He was their only hope. He carried them on His heart. He did all that
He could do to save them. But at the end of His work in this world He was
forced to say in an agony of tears, “Ye would not come unto Me that ye might
have life.”
The cloud of divine wrath was gathering over Jerusalem. Christ saw the
city beleaguered. He saw it lost. In a voice full of tears he exclaimed, “If thou
hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto
thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes” (
Verse 42
).
I present this feeble representation ...to those who are today going over
the same ground, refusing the messages of the grace of God.—
Letter 317a,
April 10, 1905
, to “Dear Brethren in the Ministry and the Medical Missionary
Work.”
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