homeless wanderers throughout the earth.

The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had filled for themselves the
cup of vengeance. In the utter destruction that befell them as a nation,
and in all the woes that followed them in their dispersion, they were but
reaping the harvest which their own hands had sown. Says the prophet, "O
Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself;" "for thou hast fallen by thine
iniquity."(48) Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment
visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great
deceiver seeks to conceal his own work. By stubborn rejection of divine
love and mercy, the Jews had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn
from them, and Satan was permitted to rule them according to his will. The
horrible cruelties enacted in the destruction of Jerusalem are a
demonstration of Satan's vindictive power over those who yield to his
control.

We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the peace and protection
which we enjoy. It is the restraining power of God that prevents mankind
from passing fully under the control of Satan. The disobedient and
unthankful have great reason for gratitude for God's mercy and
long-suffering in holding in check the cruel, malignant power of the evil
one. But when men pass the limits of divine forbearance, that restraint is
removed. God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the
sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejecters of His mercy
to themselves, to reap that which they have sown. Every ray of light
rejected, every warning despised or unheeded, every passion indulged,
every transgression of the law of God, is a seed sown, which yields its
unfailing harvest. The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last
withdrawn from the sinner, and then there is left no power to control the
evil passions of the soul, and no protection from the malice and enmity of
Satan. The destruction of Jerusalem is a fearful and solemn warning to all
who are trifling with the offers of divine grace, and resisting the
pleadings of divine mercy. Never was there given a more decisive testimony
to God's hatred of sin, and to the certain punishment that will fall upon
the guilty.

The Saviour's prophecy concerning the visitation of judgments upon
Jerusalem is to have another fulfilment, of which that terrible desolation
was but a faint shadow. In the fate of the chosen city we may behold the
doom of a world that has re