and prophets, whom thou hast refused and
rejected, but the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer. If thou art destroyed,
thou alone art responsible. 'Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have
life.' "(22)
Christ saw in Jerusalem a symbol of the world hardened in unbelief and
rebellion, and hastening on to meet the retributive judgments of God. The
woes of a fallen race, pressing upon His soul, forced from His lips that
exceeding bitter cry. He saw the record of sin traced in human misery,
tears, and blood; His heart was moved with infinite pity for the afflicted
and suffering ones of earth; He yearned to relieve them all. But even His
hand might not turn back the tide of human woe; few would seek their only
Source of help. He was willing to pour out His soul unto death, to bring
salvation within their reach; but few would come to Him that they might
have life.
The Majesty of heaven in tears! the Son of the infinite God troubled in
spirit, bowed down with anguish! The scene filled all heaven with wonder.
That scene reveals to us the exceeding sinfulness of sin; it shows how
hard a task it is, even for infinite power, to save the guilty from the
consequences of transgressing the law of God. Jesus, looking down to the
last generation, saw the world involved in a deception similar to that
which caused the destruction of Jerusalem. The great sin of the Jews was
their rejection of Christ; the great sin of the Christian world would be
their rejection of the law of God, the foundation of His government in
heaven and earth. The precepts of Jehovah would be despised and set at
naught. Millions in bondage to sin, slaves of Satan, doomed to suffer the
second death, would refuse to listen to the words of truth in their day of
visitation. Terrible blindness! strange infatuation!
Two days before the Passover, when Christ had for the last time departed
from the temple, after denouncing the hypocrisy of the Jewish rulers, He
again went out with His disciples to the Mount of Olives, and seated
Himself with them upon the grassy slope overlooking the city. Once more He
gazed upon its walls, its towers, and its palaces. Once more He beheld the
temple in its dazzling splendor, a diadem of beauty crowning the sacred
mount.
A thousand years before, the psalmist had magnified God's favor to Israel
in making her holy house His dwelling-place: "In Salem also is His
tabernacle, and His dwelling-place in Zion."(23) He "chose the tribe of
Judah,
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