Chapter 1
“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.
For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a
trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every
side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within
thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because
thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” Luke 19:42-44.
From the crest of Olivet, Jesus looked upon Jerusalem. Fair and
peaceful was the scene spread out before Him. It was the season of
the Passover, and from all lands the children of Jacob had gathered
there to celebrate the great national festival. In the midst of gardens
and vineyards, and green slopes studded with pilgrims’ tents, rose the
terraced hills, the stately palaces, and massive bulwarks of Israel’s
capital. The daughter of Zion seemed in her pride to say, I sit a
queen and shall see no sorrow; as lovely then, and deeming herself
as secure in Heaven’s favor, as when, ages before, the royal minstrel
sang: “Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount
Zion, ... the city of the great King.” Psalm 48:2. In full view were
the magnificent buildings of the temple. The rays of the setting sun
lighted up the snowy whiteness of its marble walls and gleamed from
[18] golden gate and tower and pinnacle. “The perfection of beauty” it
stood, the pride of the Jewish nation. What child of Israel could gaze
upon the scene without a thrill of joy and admiration! But far other
thoughts occupied the mind of Jesus. “When He was come near, He
beheld the city, and wept over it.” Luke 19:41. Amid the universal
rejoicing of the triumphal entry, while palm branches waved, while
glad hosannas awoke the echoes of the hills, and thousands of voices
declared Him king, the world’s Redeemer was overwhelmed with a
sudden and mysterious sorrow. He, the Son of God, the Promised One
of Israel, whose power had conquered death and called its captives
from the grave, was in tears, not of ordinary grief, but of intense,
irrepressible agony.
His tears were not for Himself, though He well knew whither His
feet were tending. Before Him lay Gethsemane, the scene of His
approaching agony. The sheepgate also was in sight, through which
for centuries the victims for sacrifice had been led, and which was to
open for Him when He should be “brought as a lamb to the slaughter.”
Isaiah 53:7. Not far distant was Calvary, the place of crucifixion. Upon
the path which Christ was soon to tread must fall the horror of great
darkness as He should make His soul an offering for sin. Yet it was not
the contemplation of these scenes that cast the shadow upon Him in
this hour of gladness. No foreboding of His own superhuman anguish
clouded that unselfish spirit. He wept for the doomed thousands of
Jerusalem—because of the blindness and impenitence of those whom
He came to bless and to save.
The history of more than a thousand years of God’s special favor
and guardian care, manifested to the chosen people, was open to the
eye of Jesus. There was Mount Moriah, where the son of promise,
an unresisting victim, had been bound to the altar—emblem of the
offering of the Son of God. There the covenant of blessing, the glorious
Messianic promise, had been confirmed to the father of the faithful.
Genesis 22:9, 16-18. There the flames of the sacrifice ascending to
heaven from the threshing floor of Ornan had turned aside the sword of [19]
the destroying angel (1 Chronicles 21)—fitting symbol of the Saviour’s
sacrifice and mediation for guilty men. Jerusalem had been honored
of God above all the earth. The Lord had “chosen Zion,” He had
“desired it for His habitation.” Psalm 132:13. There, for ages, holy
prophets had uttered their messages of warning. There priests had
waved their censers, and the cloud of incense, with the prayers of the
worshipers, had ascended before God. There daily the blood of slain
lambs had been offered, pointing forward to the Lamb of God. There
Jehovah had revealed His presence in the cloud of glory above the
mercy seat. There rested the base of that mystic ladder connecting
earth with heaven (Genesis 28:12; John 1:51)—that ladder upon which
angels of God descended and ascended, and which opened to the world
the way into the holiest of all. Had Israel as a nation preserved her
allegiance to Heaven, Jerusalem would have stood forever, the elect of
God. Jeremiah 17:21-25. But the history of that favored people was a
record of backsliding and rebellion. They had resisted Heaven’s grace,
abused their privileges, and slighted their opportunities.
Although Israel had “mocked the messengers of God, and despised
His words, and misused His prophets” (2 Chronicles 36:16), He had
still manifested Himself to them, as “the Lord God, merciful and
gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth” (Exodus
34:6); notwithstanding repeated rejections, His mercy had continued
its pleadings. With more than a father’s pitying love for the son of
his care, God had “sent to them by His messengers, rising up betimes,
and sending; because He had compassion on His people, and on His
dwelling place.” 2 Chronicles 36:15. When remonstrance, entreaty,
and rebuke had failed, He sent to them the best gift of heaven; nay, He
poured out all heaven in that one Gift.
The Son of God Himself was sent to plead with the impenitent city.
It was Christ that had brought Israel as a goodly vine out of Egypt.
[20] Psalm 80:8. His own hand had cast out the heathen before it. He
had planted it “in a very fruitful hill.” His guardian care had hedged
it about. His servants had been sent to nurture it. “What could have
been done more to My vineyard,” He exclaims, “that I have not done
in it?” Isaiah 5:1-4. Though when He looked that it should bring forth
grapes, it brought forth wild grapes, yet with a still yearning hope of
fruitfulness He came in person to His vineyard, if haply it might be
saved from destruction. He digged about His vine; He pruned and
cherished it. He was unwearied in His efforts to save this vine of His
own planting.
For three years the Lord of light and glory had gone in and out
among His people. He “went about doing good, and healing all that
were oppressed of the devil,” binding up the brokenhearted, setting
at liberty them that were bound, restoring sight to the blind, causing
the lame to walk and the deaf to hear, cleansing the lepers, raising the
dead, and preaching the gospel to the poor. Acts 10:38; Luke 4:18;
Matthew 11:5. To all classes alike was addressed the gracious call:
“Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give
you rest.” Matthew 11:28.
Though rewarded with evil for good, and hatred for His love (Psalm
109:5), He had steadfastly pursued His mission of mercy. Never were
those repelled that sought His grace. A homeless wanderer, reproach
and penury His daily lot, He lived to minister to the needs and lighten
the woes of men, to plead with them to accept the gift of life. The
waves of mercy, beaten back by those stubborn hearts, returned in a
stronger tide of pitying, inexpressible love. But Israel had turned from
her best Friend and only Helper. The pleadings of His love had been
despised, His counsels spurned, His warnings ridiculed.
The hour of hope and pardon was fast passing; the cup of God’s
long-deferred wrath was almost full. The cloud that had been gathering
through ages of apostasy and rebellion, now black with woe, was about
to burst upon a guilty people; and He who alone could save them from [21]
their impending fate had been slighted, abused, rejected, and was soon
to be crucified. When Christ should hang upon the cross of Calvary,
Israel’s day as a nation favored and blessed of God would be ended.
The loss of even one soul is a calamity infinitely outweighing the gains
and treasures of a world; but as Christ looked upon Jerusalem, the
doom of a whole city, a whole nation, was before Him—that city, that
nation, which had once been the chosen of God, His peculiar treasure.
Prophets had wept over the apostasy of Israel and the terrible
desolations by which their sins were visited. Jeremiah wished that his
eyes were a fountain of tears, that he might weep day and night for
the slain of the daughter of his people, for the Lord’s flock that was
carried away captive. Jeremiah 9:1; 13:17. What, then, was the grief
of Him whose prophetic glance took in, not years, but ages! He beheld
the destroying angel with sword uplifted against the city which had
so long been Jehovah’s dwelling place. From the ridge of Olivet, the
very spot afterward occupied by Titus and his army, He looked across
the valley upon the sacred courts and porticoes, and with tear-dimmed
eyes He saw, in awful perspective, the walls surrounded by alien hosts.
He heard the tread of armies marshaling for war. He heard the voice of
mothers and children crying for bread in the besieged city. He saw her
holy and beautiful house, her palaces and towers, given to the flames,
and where once they stood, only a heap of smoldering ruins.
Looking down the ages, He saw the covenant people scattered in
every land, “like wrecks on a desert shore.” In the temporal retribution
about to fall upon her children, He saw but the first draft from that
cup of wrath which at the final judgment she must drain to its dregs.
Divine pity, yearning love, found utterance in the mournful words:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest
them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy [22]
children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her
wings, and ye would not!” O that thou, a nation favored above every
other, hadst known the time of thy visitation, and the things that belong
unto thy peace! I have stayed the angel of justice, I have called thee
to repentance, but in vain. It is not merely servants, delegates, 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.” Matthew 23:37;
John 5:40.
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 nought. Millions in bondage to sin, slaves of
[23] 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.” He “chose the tribe
of Judah, the Mount Zion which He loved. And He built His sanctuary
like high palaces.” Psalm 76:2; 78:68, 69. The first temple had been
erected during the most prosperous period of Israel’s history. Vast
stores of treasure for this purpose had been collected by King David,
and the plans for its construction were made by divine inspiration. 1
Chronicles 28:12, 19. Solomon, the wisest of Israel’s monarchs, had
completed the work. This temple was the most magnificent building
which the world ever saw. Yet the Lord had declared by the prophet
Haggai, concerning the second temple: “The glory of this latter house
shall be greater than of the former.” “I will shake all nations, and the
Desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory,
saith the Lord of hosts.” Haggai 2:9, 7.
After the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar it was
rebuilt about five hundred years before the birth of Christ by a people
who from a lifelong captivity had returned to a wasted and almost
deserted country. There were then among them aged men who had
seen the glory of Solomon’s temple, and who wept at the foundation of
the new building, that it must be so inferior to the former. The feeling
that prevailed is forcibly described by the prophet: “Who is left among [24]
you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now?
is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?” Haggai 2:3; Ezra
3:12. Then was given the promise that the glory of this latter house
should be greater than that of the former.
But the second temple had not equaled the first in magnificence;
nor was it hallowed by those visible tokens of the divine presence
which pertained to the first temple. There was no manifestation of
supernatural power to mark its dedication. No cloud of glory was seen
to fill the newly erected sanctuary. No fire from heaven descended to
consume the sacrifice upon its altar. The Shekinah no longer abode
between the cherubim in the most holy place; the ark, the mercy seat,
and the tables of the testimony were not to be found therein. No voice
sounded from heaven to make known to the inquiring priest the will
of Jehovah.
For centuries the Jews had vainly endeavored to show wherein
the promise of God given by Haggai had been fulfilled; yet pride and
unbelief blinded their minds to the true meaning of the prophet’s words.
The second temple was not honored with the cloud of Jehovah’s glory,
but with the living presence of One in whom dwelt the fullness of the
Godhead bodily—who was God Himself manifest in the flesh. The
“Desire of all nations” had indeed come to His temple when the Man
of Nazareth taught and healed in the sacred courts. In the presence
of Christ, and in this only, did the second temple exceed the first
in glory. But Israel had put from her the proffered Gift of heaven.
With the humble Teacher who had that day passed out from its golden
gate, the glory had forever departed from the temple. Already were
the Saviour’s words fulfilled: “Your house is left unto you desolate.”
Matthew 23:38.
The disciples had been filled with awe and wonder at Christ’s prediction
of the overthrow of the temple, and they desired to understand
more fully the meaning of His words. Wealth, labor, and architectural
skill had for more than forty years been freely expended to enhance its
[25] splendors. Herod the Great had lavished upon it both Roman wealth
and Jewish treasure, and even the emperor of the world had enriched it
with his gifts. Massive blocks of white marble, of almost fabulous size,
forwarded from Rome for this purpose, formed a part of its structure;
and to these the disciples had called the attention of their Master, saying:
“See what manner of stones and what buildings are here!” Mark
13:1.
To these words, Jesus made the solemn and startling reply: “Verily
I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another,
that shall not be thrown down.” Matthew 24:2.
With the overthrow of Jerusalem the disciples associated the events
of Christ’s personal coming in temporal glory to take the throne of
universal empire, to punish the impenitent Jews, and to break from
off the nation the Roman yoke. The Lord had told them that He
would come the second time. Hence at the mention of judgments
upon Jerusalem, their minds reverted to that coming; and as they
were gathered about the Saviour upon the Mount of Olives, they asked:
“When shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming,
and of the end of the world?” Verse 3.
The future was mercifully veiled from the disciples. Had they at
that time fully comprehended the two awful facts—the Redeemer’s
sufferings and death, and the destruction of their city and temple—they
would have been overwhelmed with horror. Christ presented before
them an outline of the prominent events to take place before the close
of time. His words were not then fully understood; but their meaning
was to be unfolded as His people should need the instruction therein
given. The prophecy which He uttered was twofold in its meaning;
while foreshadowing the destruction of Jerusalem, it prefigured also
the terrors of the last great day.
Jesus declared to the listening disciples the judgments that were
to fall upon apostate Israel, and especially the retributive vengeance
that would come upon them for their rejection and crucifixion of the
Messiah. Unmistakable signs would precede the awful climax. The
dreaded hour would come suddenly and swiftly. And the Saviour [26]
warned His followers: “When ye therefore shall see the abomination
of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place,
(whoso readeth, let him understand:) then let them which be in Judea
flee into the mountains.” Matthew 24:15, 16; Luke 21:20, 21. When
the idolatrous standards of the Romans should be set up in the holy
ground, which extended some furlongs outside the city walls, then the
followers of Christ were to find safety in flight. When the warning
sign should be seen, those who would escape must make no delay.
Throughout the land of Judea, as well as in Jerusalem itself, the signal
for flight must be immediately obeyed. He who chanced to be upon
the housetop must not go down into his house, even to save his most
valued treasures. Those who were working in the fields or vineyards
must not take time to return for the outer garment laid aside while
they should be toiling in the heat of the day. They must not hesitate a
moment, lest they be involved in the general destruction.
In the reign of Herod, Jerusalem had not only been greatly beautified,
but by the erection of towers, walls, and fortresses, adding to
the natural strength of its situation, it had been rendered apparently
impregnable. He who would at this time have foretold publicly its
destruction, would, like Noah in his day, have been called a crazed
alarmist. But Christ had said: “Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but My words shall not pass away.” Matthew 24:35. Because of her
sins, wrath had been denounced against Jerusalem, and her stubborn
unbelief rendered her doom certain.
The Lord had declared by the prophet Micah: “Hear this, I pray
you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel,
that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. They build up Zion with
blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward,
and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine
for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord
[27] among us? none evil can come upon us.” Micah 3:9-11.
These words faithfully described the corrupt and self-righteous inhabitants
of Jerusalem. While claiming to observe rigidly the precepts
of God’s law, they were transgressing all its principles. They hated
Christ because His purity and holiness revealed their iniquity; and they
accused Him of being the cause of all the troubles which had come
upon them in consequence of their sins. Though they knew Him to be
sinless, they had declared that His death was necessary to their safety
as a nation. “If we let Him thus alone,” said the Jewish leaders, “all
men will believe on Him: and the Romans shall come and take away
both our place and nation.” John 11:48. If Christ were sacrificed, they
might once more become a strong, united people. Thus they reasoned,
and they concurred in the decision of their high priest, that it would be
better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish.
Thus the Jewish leaders had built up “Zion with blood, and
Jerusalem with iniquity.” Micah 3:10. And yet, while they slew
their Saviour because He reproved their sins, such was their self righteousness
that they regarded themselves as God’s favored people
and expected the Lord to deliver them from their enemies. “Therefore,”
continued the prophet, “shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field,
and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as
the high places of the forest.” Verse 12.
For nearly forty years after the doom of Jerusalem had been pronounced
by Christ Himself, the Lord delayed His judgments upon the
city and the nation. Wonderful was the long-suffering of God toward
the rejectors of His gospel and the murderers of His Son. The parable
of the unfruitful tree represented God’s dealings with the Jewish
nation. The command had gone forth, “Cut it down; why cumbereth
it the ground?” (Luke 13:7) but divine mercy had spared it yet a little
longer. There were still many among the Jews who were ignorant of
the character and the work of Christ. And the children had not enjoyed
[28] the opportunities or received the light which their parents had spurned.
Through the preaching of the apostles and their associates, God would
cause light to shine upon them; they would be permitted to see how
prophecy had been fulfilled, not only in the birth and life of Christ,
but in His death and resurrection. The children were not condemned
for the sins of the parents; but when, with a knowledge of all the light
given to their parents, the children rejected the additional light granted
to themselves, they became partakers of the parents’ sins, and filled
up the measure of their iniquity.
The long-suffering of God toward Jerusalem only confirmed the
Jews in their stubborn impenitence. In their hatred and cruelty toward
the disciples of Jesus they rejected the last offer of mercy. Then God
withdrew His protection from them and removed His restraining power
from Satan and his angels, and the nation was left to the control of the
leader she had chosen. Her children had spurned the grace of Christ,
which would have enabled them to subdue their evil impulses, and
now these became the conquerors. Satan aroused the fiercest and most
debased passions of the soul. Men did not reason; they were beyond
reason—controlled by impulse and blind rage. They became satanic in
their cruelty. In the family and in the nation, among the highest and the
lowest classes alike, there was suspicion, envy, hatred, strife, rebellion,
murder. There was no safety anywhere. Friends and kindred betrayed
one another. Parents slew their children, and children their parents.
The rulers of the people had no power to rule themselves. Uncontrolled
passions made them tyrants. The Jews had accepted false testimony
to condemn the innocent Son of God. Now false accusations made
their own lives uncertain. By their actions they had long been saying:
“Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.” Isaiah 30:11.
Now their desire was granted. The fear of God no longer disturbed
them. Satan was at the head of the nation, and the highest civil and [29]
religious authorities were under his sway.
The leaders of the opposing factions at times united to plunder and
torture their wretched victims, and again they fell upon each other’s
forces and slaughtered without mercy. Even the sanctity of the temple
could not restrain their horrible ferocity. The worshipers were stricken
down before the altar, and the sanctuary was polluted with the bodies
of the slain. Yet in their blind and blasphemous presumption the instigators
of this hellish work publicly declared that they had no fear that
Jerusalem would be destroyed, for it was God’s own city. To establish
their power more firmly, they bribed false prophets to proclaim, even
while Roman legions were besieging the temple, that the people were
to wait for deliverance from God. To the last, multitudes held fast to
the belief that the Most High would interpose for the defeat of their
adversaries. But Israel had spurned the divine protection, and now
she had no defense. Unhappy Jerusalem! rent by internal dissensions,
the blood of her children slain by one another’s hands crimsoning her
streets, while alien armies beat down her fortifications and slew her
men of war!
All the predictions given by Christ concerning the destruction of
Jerusalem were fulfilled to the letter. The Jews experienced the truth
of His words of warning: “With what measure ye mete, it shall be
measured to you again.” Matthew 7:2.
Signs and wonders appeared, foreboding disaster and doom. In
the midst of the night an unnatural light shone over the temple and
the altar. Upon the clouds at sunset were pictured chariots and men
of war gathering for battle. The priests ministering by night in the
sanctuary were terrified by mysterious sounds; the earth trembled,
and a multitude of voices were heard crying: “Let us depart hence.”
The great eastern gate, which was so heavy that it could hardly be
[30] shut by a score of men, and which was secured by immense bars of
iron fastened deep in the pavement of solid stone, opened at midnight,
without visible agency.—Milman, The History of the Jews, book 13.
For seven years a man continued to go up and down the streets of
Jerusalem, declaring the woes that were to come upon the city. By
day and by night he chanted the wild dirge: “A voice from the east!
a voice from the west! a voice from the four winds! a voice against
Jerusalem and against the temple! a voice against the bridegrooms
and the brides! a voice against the whole people!”—Ibid. This strange
being was imprisoned and scourged, but no complaint escaped his
lips. To insult and abuse he answered only: “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!”
“woe, woe to the inhabitants thereof!” His warning cry ceased not until
he was slain in the siege he had foretold.
Not one Christian perished in the destruction of Jerusalem. Christ
had given His disciples warning, and all who believed His words
watched for the promised sign. “When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed
with armies,” said Jesus, “then know that the desolation thereof
is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and
let them which are in the midst of it depart out.” Luke 21:20, 21. After
the Romans under Cestius had surrounded the city, they unexpectedly
abandoned the siege when everything seemed favorable for an immediate
attack. The besieged, despairing of successful resistance, were
on the point of surrender, when the Roman general withdrew his forces
without the least apparent reason. But God’s merciful providence was
directing events for the good of His own people. The promised sign
had been given to the waiting Christians, and now an opportunity was
offered for all who would, to obey the Saviour’s warning. Events were
so overruled that neither Jews nor Romans should hinder the flight of
the Christians. Upon the retreat of Cestius, the Jews, sallying from
Jerusalem, pursued after his retiring army; and while both forces were
thus fully engaged, the Christians had an opportunity to leave the city.
At this time the country also had been cleared of enemies who might [31]
have endeavored to intercept them. At the time of the siege, the Jews
were assembled at Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, and
thus the Christians throughout the land were able to make their escape
unmolested. Without delay they fled to a place of safety—the city of
Pella, in the land of Perea, beyond Jordan.
The Jewish forces, pursuing after Cestius and his army, fell upon
their rear with such fierceness as to threaten them with total destruction.
It was with great difficulty that the Romans succeeded in making their
retreat. The Jews escaped almost without loss, and with their spoils
returned in triumph to Jerusalem. Yet this apparent success brought
them only evil. It inspired them with that spirit of stubborn resistance to
the Romans which speedily brought unutterable woe upon the doomed
city.
Terrible were the calamities that fell upon Jerusalem when the
siege was resumed by Titus. The city was invested at the time of
the Passover, when millions of Jews were assembled within its walls.
Their stores of provision, which if carefully preserved would have supplied
the inhabitants for years, had previously been destroyed through
the jealousy and revenge of the contending factions, and now all the
horrors of starvation were experienced. A measure of wheat was sold
for a talent. So fierce were the pangs of hunger that men would gnaw
the leather of their belts and sandals and the covering of their shields.
Great numbers of the people would steal out at night to gather wild
plants growing outside the city walls, though many were seized and
put to death with cruel torture, and often those who returned in safety
were robbed of what they had gleaned at so great peril. The most
inhuman tortures were inflicted by those in power, to force from the
want-stricken people the last scanty supplies which they might have
concealed. And these cruelties were not infrequently practiced by
men who were themselves well fed, and who were merely desirous of
[32] laying up a store of provision for the future.
Thousands perished from famine and pestilence. Natural affection
seemed to have been destroyed. Husbands robbed their wives, and
wives their husbands. Children would be seen snatching the food from
the mouths of their aged parents. The question of the prophet, “Can a
woman forget her sucking child?” received the answer within the walls
of that doomed city: “The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their
own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter
of my people.” Isaiah 49:15; Lamentations 4:10. Again was fulfilled
the warning prophecy given fourteen centuries before: “The tender
and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the
sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her
eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son,
and toward her daughter, ... and toward her children which she shall
bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege
and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.”
Deuteronomy 28:56, 57.
The Roman leaders endeavored to strike terror to the Jews and
thus cause them to surrender. Those prisoners who resisted when
taken, were scourged, tortured, and crucified before the wall of the
city. Hundreds were daily put to death in this manner, and the dreadful
work continued until, along the Valley of Jehoshaphat and at Calvary,
crosses were erected in so great numbers that there was scarcely room
to move among them. So terribly was visited that awful imprecation
uttered before the judgment seat of Pilate: “His blood be on us, and
on our children.” Matthew 27:25.
Titus would willingly have put an end to the fearful scene, and
thus have spared Jerusalem the full measure of her doom. He was
filled with horror as he saw the bodies of the dead lying in heaps in
the valleys. Like one entranced, he looked from the crest of Olivet
upon the magnificent temple and gave command that not one stone of
[33] it be touched. Before attempting to gain possession of this stronghold,
he made an earnest appeal to the Jewish leaders not to force him to
defile the sacred place with blood. If they would come forth and
fight in any other place, no Roman should violate the sanctity of the
temple. Josephus himself, in a most eloquent appeal, entreated them to
surrender, to save themselves, their city, and their place of worship. But
his words were answered with bitter curses. Darts were hurled at him,
their last human mediator, as he stood pleading with them. The Jews
had rejected the entreaties of the Son of God, and now expostulation
and entreaty only made them more determined to resist to the last. In
vain were the efforts of Titus to save the temple; One greater than he
had declared that not one stone was to be left upon another.
The blind obstinacy of the Jewish leaders, and the detestable crimes
perpetrated within the besieged city, excited the horror and indignation
of the Romans, and Titus at last decided to take the temple by storm.
He determined, however, that if possible it should be saved from
destruction. But his commands were disregarded. After he had retired
to his tent at night, the Jews, sallying from the temple, attacked the
soldiers without. In the struggle, a firebrand was flung by a soldier
through an opening in the porch, and immediately the cedar-lined
chambers about the holy house were in a blaze. Titus rushed to the
place, followed by his generals and legionaries, and commanded the
soldiers to quench the flames. His words were unheeded. In their
fury the soldiers hurled blazing brands into the chambers adjoining the
temple, and then with their swords they slaughtered in great numbers
those who had found shelter there. Blood flowed down the temple
steps like water. Thousands upon thousands of Jews perished. Above
the sound of battle, voices were heard shouting: “Ichabod!”—the glory
is departed.
“Titus found it impossible to check the rage of the soldiery; he
entered with his officers, and surveyed the interior of the sacred edifice.
The splendor filled them with wonder; and as the flames had not yet
penetrated to the holy place, he made a last effort to save it, and [34]
springing forth, again exhorted the soldiers to stay the progress of the
conflagration. The centurion Liberalis endeavored to force obedience
with his staff of office; but even respect for the emperor gave way to the
furious animosity against the Jews, to the fierce excitement of battle,
and to the insatiable hope of plunder. The soldiers saw everything
around them radiant with gold, which shone dazzlingly in the wild
light of the flames; they supposed that incalculable treasures were
laid up in the sanctuary. A soldier, unperceived, thrust a lighted torch
between the hinges of the door: the whole building was in flames in
an instant. The blinding smoke and fire forced the officers to retreat,
and the noble edifice was left to its fate.
“It was an appalling spectacle to the Roman—what was it to the
Jew? The whole summit of the hill which commanded the city, blazed
like a volcano. One after another the buildings fell in, with a tremendous
crash, and were swallowed up in the fiery abyss. The roofs of
cedar were like sheets of flame; the gilded pinnacles shone like spikes
of red light; the gate towers sent up tall columns of flame and smoke.
The neighboring hills were lighted up; and dark groups of people were
seen watching in horrible anxiety the progress of the destruction: the
walls and heights of the upper city were crowded with faces, some pale
with the agony of despair, others scowling unavailing vengeance. The
shouts of the Roman soldiery as they ran to and fro, and the howlings
of the insurgents who were perishing in the flames, mingled with the
roaring of the conflagration and the thundering sound of falling timbers.
The echoes of the mountains replied or brought back the shrieks
of the people on the heights; all along the walls resounded screams and
wailings; men who were expiring with famine rallied their remaining
[35] strength to utter a cry of anguish and desolation.
“The slaughter within was even more dreadful than the spectacle
from without. Men and women, old and young, insurgents and priests,
those who fought and those who entreated mercy, were hewn down in
indiscriminate carnage. The number of the slain exceeded that of the
slayers. The legionaries had to clamber over heaps of dead to carry on
the work of extermination.”—Milman, The History of the Jews, book
16.
After the destruction of the temple, the whole city soon fell into
the hands of the Romans. The leaders of the Jews forsook their impregnable
towers, and Titus found them solitary. He gazed upon them
with amazement, and declared that God had given them into his hands;
for no engines, however powerful, could have prevailed against those
stupendous battlements. Both the city and the temple were razed to
their foundations, and the ground upon which the holy house had
stood was “plowed like a field.” Jeremiah 26:18. In the siege and the
slaughter that followed, more than a million of the people perished;
the survivors were carried away as captives, sold as slaves, dragged
to Rome to grace the conqueror’s triumph, thrown to wild beasts in
the amphitheaters, or scattered as 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.” Hosea 13:9; 14:1. 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 [36]
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 rejectors 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 fulfillment, 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 rejected God’s mercy and
trampled upon His law. Dark are the records of human misery that
earth has witnessed during its long centuries of crime. The heart
sickens, and the mind grows faint in contemplation. Terrible have
been the results of rejecting the authority of Heaven. But a scene yet
darker is presented in the revelations of the future. The records of the
[37] past,—the long procession of tumults, conflicts, and revolutions, the
“battle of the warrior ... with confused noise, and garments rolled in
blood” (Isaiah 9:5),—what are these, in contrast with the terrors of that
day when the restraining Spirit of God shall be wholly withdrawn from
the wicked, no longer to hold in check the outburst of human passion
and satanic wrath! The world will then behold, as never before, the
results of Satan’s rule.
But in that day, as in the time of Jerusalem’s destruction, God’s
people will be delivered, everyone that shall be found written among
the living. Isaiah 4:3. Christ has declared that He will come the
second time to gather His faithful ones to Himself: “Then shall all the
tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming
in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall
send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather
together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the
other.” Matthew 24:30, 31. Then shall they that obey not the gospel
be consumed with the spirit of His mouth and be destroyed with the
brightness of His coming. 2 Thessalonians 2:8. Like Israel of old the
wicked destroy themselves; they fall by their iniquity. By a life of sin,
they have placed themselves so out of harmony with God, their natures
have become so debased with evil, that the manifestation of His glory
is to them a consuming fire.
Let men beware lest they neglect the lesson conveyed to them
in the words of Christ. As He warned His disciples of Jerusalem’s
destruction, giving them a sign of the approaching ruin, that they
might make their escape; so He has warned the world of the day of
final destruction and has given them tokens of its approach, that all
who will may flee from the wrath to come. Jesus declares: “There shall
be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the
earth distress of nations.” Luke 21:25; Matthew 24:29; Mark 13:24-26;
Revelation 6:12-17. Those who behold these harbingers of His coming
[38] are to “know that it is near, even at the doors.” Matthew 24:33. “Watch
ye therefore,” are His words of admonition. Mark 13:35. They that
heed the warning shall not be left in darkness, that that day should
overtake them unawares. But to them that will not watch, “the day of
the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” 1 Thessalonians 5:2-5.
The world is no more ready to credit the message for this time than
were the Jews to receive the Saviour’s warning concerning Jerusalem.
Come when it may, the day of God will come unawares to the ungodly.
When life is going on in its unvarying round; when men are absorbed
in pleasure, in business, in traffic, in money-making; when religious
leaders are magnifying the world’s progress and enlightenment, and
the people are lulled in a false security—then, as the midnight thief
steals within the unguarded dwelling, so shall sudden destruction come
upon the careless and ungodly, “and they shall not escape.” Verse 3. [39]
which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.
For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a
trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every
side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within
thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because
thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” Luke 19:42-44.
From the crest of Olivet, Jesus looked upon Jerusalem. Fair and
peaceful was the scene spread out before Him. It was the season of
the Passover, and from all lands the children of Jacob had gathered
there to celebrate the great national festival. In the midst of gardens
and vineyards, and green slopes studded with pilgrims’ tents, rose the
terraced hills, the stately palaces, and massive bulwarks of Israel’s
capital. The daughter of Zion seemed in her pride to say, I sit a
queen and shall see no sorrow; as lovely then, and deeming herself
as secure in Heaven’s favor, as when, ages before, the royal minstrel
sang: “Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount
Zion, ... the city of the great King.” Psalm 48:2. In full view were
the magnificent buildings of the temple. The rays of the setting sun
lighted up the snowy whiteness of its marble walls and gleamed from
[18] golden gate and tower and pinnacle. “The perfection of beauty” it
stood, the pride of the Jewish nation. What child of Israel could gaze
upon the scene without a thrill of joy and admiration! But far other
thoughts occupied the mind of Jesus. “When He was come near, He
beheld the city, and wept over it.” Luke 19:41. Amid the universal
rejoicing of the triumphal entry, while palm branches waved, while
glad hosannas awoke the echoes of the hills, and thousands of voices
declared Him king, the world’s Redeemer was overwhelmed with a
sudden and mysterious sorrow. He, the Son of God, the Promised One
of Israel, whose power had conquered death and called its captives
from the grave, was in tears, not of ordinary grief, but of intense,
irrepressible agony.
His tears were not for Himself, though He well knew whither His
feet were tending. Before Him lay Gethsemane, the scene of His
approaching agony. The sheepgate also was in sight, through which
for centuries the victims for sacrifice had been led, and which was to
open for Him when He should be “brought as a lamb to the slaughter.”
Isaiah 53:7. Not far distant was Calvary, the place of crucifixion. Upon
the path which Christ was soon to tread must fall the horror of great
darkness as He should make His soul an offering for sin. Yet it was not
the contemplation of these scenes that cast the shadow upon Him in
this hour of gladness. No foreboding of His own superhuman anguish
clouded that unselfish spirit. He wept for the doomed thousands of
Jerusalem—because of the blindness and impenitence of those whom
He came to bless and to save.
The history of more than a thousand years of God’s special favor
and guardian care, manifested to the chosen people, was open to the
eye of Jesus. There was Mount Moriah, where the son of promise,
an unresisting victim, had been bound to the altar—emblem of the
offering of the Son of God. There the covenant of blessing, the glorious
Messianic promise, had been confirmed to the father of the faithful.
Genesis 22:9, 16-18. There the flames of the sacrifice ascending to
heaven from the threshing floor of Ornan had turned aside the sword of [19]
the destroying angel (1 Chronicles 21)—fitting symbol of the Saviour’s
sacrifice and mediation for guilty men. Jerusalem had been honored
of God above all the earth. The Lord had “chosen Zion,” He had
“desired it for His habitation.” Psalm 132:13. There, for ages, holy
prophets had uttered their messages of warning. There priests had
waved their censers, and the cloud of incense, with the prayers of the
worshipers, had ascended before God. There daily the blood of slain
lambs had been offered, pointing forward to the Lamb of God. There
Jehovah had revealed His presence in the cloud of glory above the
mercy seat. There rested the base of that mystic ladder connecting
earth with heaven (Genesis 28:12; John 1:51)—that ladder upon which
angels of God descended and ascended, and which opened to the world
the way into the holiest of all. Had Israel as a nation preserved her
allegiance to Heaven, Jerusalem would have stood forever, the elect of
God. Jeremiah 17:21-25. But the history of that favored people was a
record of backsliding and rebellion. They had resisted Heaven’s grace,
abused their privileges, and slighted their opportunities.
Although Israel had “mocked the messengers of God, and despised
His words, and misused His prophets” (2 Chronicles 36:16), He had
still manifested Himself to them, as “the Lord God, merciful and
gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth” (Exodus
34:6); notwithstanding repeated rejections, His mercy had continued
its pleadings. With more than a father’s pitying love for the son of
his care, God had “sent to them by His messengers, rising up betimes,
and sending; because He had compassion on His people, and on His
dwelling place.” 2 Chronicles 36:15. When remonstrance, entreaty,
and rebuke had failed, He sent to them the best gift of heaven; nay, He
poured out all heaven in that one Gift.
The Son of God Himself was sent to plead with the impenitent city.
It was Christ that had brought Israel as a goodly vine out of Egypt.
[20] Psalm 80:8. His own hand had cast out the heathen before it. He
had planted it “in a very fruitful hill.” His guardian care had hedged
it about. His servants had been sent to nurture it. “What could have
been done more to My vineyard,” He exclaims, “that I have not done
in it?” Isaiah 5:1-4. Though when He looked that it should bring forth
grapes, it brought forth wild grapes, yet with a still yearning hope of
fruitfulness He came in person to His vineyard, if haply it might be
saved from destruction. He digged about His vine; He pruned and
cherished it. He was unwearied in His efforts to save this vine of His
own planting.
For three years the Lord of light and glory had gone in and out
among His people. He “went about doing good, and healing all that
were oppressed of the devil,” binding up the brokenhearted, setting
at liberty them that were bound, restoring sight to the blind, causing
the lame to walk and the deaf to hear, cleansing the lepers, raising the
dead, and preaching the gospel to the poor. Acts 10:38; Luke 4:18;
Matthew 11:5. To all classes alike was addressed the gracious call:
“Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give
you rest.” Matthew 11:28.
Though rewarded with evil for good, and hatred for His love (Psalm
109:5), He had steadfastly pursued His mission of mercy. Never were
those repelled that sought His grace. A homeless wanderer, reproach
and penury His daily lot, He lived to minister to the needs and lighten
the woes of men, to plead with them to accept the gift of life. The
waves of mercy, beaten back by those stubborn hearts, returned in a
stronger tide of pitying, inexpressible love. But Israel had turned from
her best Friend and only Helper. The pleadings of His love had been
despised, His counsels spurned, His warnings ridiculed.
The hour of hope and pardon was fast passing; the cup of God’s
long-deferred wrath was almost full. The cloud that had been gathering
through ages of apostasy and rebellion, now black with woe, was about
to burst upon a guilty people; and He who alone could save them from [21]
their impending fate had been slighted, abused, rejected, and was soon
to be crucified. When Christ should hang upon the cross of Calvary,
Israel’s day as a nation favored and blessed of God would be ended.
The loss of even one soul is a calamity infinitely outweighing the gains
and treasures of a world; but as Christ looked upon Jerusalem, the
doom of a whole city, a whole nation, was before Him—that city, that
nation, which had once been the chosen of God, His peculiar treasure.
Prophets had wept over the apostasy of Israel and the terrible
desolations by which their sins were visited. Jeremiah wished that his
eyes were a fountain of tears, that he might weep day and night for
the slain of the daughter of his people, for the Lord’s flock that was
carried away captive. Jeremiah 9:1; 13:17. What, then, was the grief
of Him whose prophetic glance took in, not years, but ages! He beheld
the destroying angel with sword uplifted against the city which had
so long been Jehovah’s dwelling place. From the ridge of Olivet, the
very spot afterward occupied by Titus and his army, He looked across
the valley upon the sacred courts and porticoes, and with tear-dimmed
eyes He saw, in awful perspective, the walls surrounded by alien hosts.
He heard the tread of armies marshaling for war. He heard the voice of
mothers and children crying for bread in the besieged city. He saw her
holy and beautiful house, her palaces and towers, given to the flames,
and where once they stood, only a heap of smoldering ruins.
Looking down the ages, He saw the covenant people scattered in
every land, “like wrecks on a desert shore.” In the temporal retribution
about to fall upon her children, He saw but the first draft from that
cup of wrath which at the final judgment she must drain to its dregs.
Divine pity, yearning love, found utterance in the mournful words:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest
them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy [22]
children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her
wings, and ye would not!” O that thou, a nation favored above every
other, hadst known the time of thy visitation, and the things that belong
unto thy peace! I have stayed the angel of justice, I have called thee
to repentance, but in vain. It is not merely servants, delegates, 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.” Matthew 23:37;
John 5:40.
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 nought. Millions in bondage to sin, slaves of
[23] 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.” He “chose the tribe
of Judah, the Mount Zion which He loved. And He built His sanctuary
like high palaces.” Psalm 76:2; 78:68, 69. The first temple had been
erected during the most prosperous period of Israel’s history. Vast
stores of treasure for this purpose had been collected by King David,
and the plans for its construction were made by divine inspiration. 1
Chronicles 28:12, 19. Solomon, the wisest of Israel’s monarchs, had
completed the work. This temple was the most magnificent building
which the world ever saw. Yet the Lord had declared by the prophet
Haggai, concerning the second temple: “The glory of this latter house
shall be greater than of the former.” “I will shake all nations, and the
Desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory,
saith the Lord of hosts.” Haggai 2:9, 7.
After the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar it was
rebuilt about five hundred years before the birth of Christ by a people
who from a lifelong captivity had returned to a wasted and almost
deserted country. There were then among them aged men who had
seen the glory of Solomon’s temple, and who wept at the foundation of
the new building, that it must be so inferior to the former. The feeling
that prevailed is forcibly described by the prophet: “Who is left among [24]
you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now?
is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?” Haggai 2:3; Ezra
3:12. Then was given the promise that the glory of this latter house
should be greater than that of the former.
But the second temple had not equaled the first in magnificence;
nor was it hallowed by those visible tokens of the divine presence
which pertained to the first temple. There was no manifestation of
supernatural power to mark its dedication. No cloud of glory was seen
to fill the newly erected sanctuary. No fire from heaven descended to
consume the sacrifice upon its altar. The Shekinah no longer abode
between the cherubim in the most holy place; the ark, the mercy seat,
and the tables of the testimony were not to be found therein. No voice
sounded from heaven to make known to the inquiring priest the will
of Jehovah.
For centuries the Jews had vainly endeavored to show wherein
the promise of God given by Haggai had been fulfilled; yet pride and
unbelief blinded their minds to the true meaning of the prophet’s words.
The second temple was not honored with the cloud of Jehovah’s glory,
but with the living presence of One in whom dwelt the fullness of the
Godhead bodily—who was God Himself manifest in the flesh. The
“Desire of all nations” had indeed come to His temple when the Man
of Nazareth taught and healed in the sacred courts. In the presence
of Christ, and in this only, did the second temple exceed the first
in glory. But Israel had put from her the proffered Gift of heaven.
With the humble Teacher who had that day passed out from its golden
gate, the glory had forever departed from the temple. Already were
the Saviour’s words fulfilled: “Your house is left unto you desolate.”
Matthew 23:38.
The disciples had been filled with awe and wonder at Christ’s prediction
of the overthrow of the temple, and they desired to understand
more fully the meaning of His words. Wealth, labor, and architectural
skill had for more than forty years been freely expended to enhance its
[25] splendors. Herod the Great had lavished upon it both Roman wealth
and Jewish treasure, and even the emperor of the world had enriched it
with his gifts. Massive blocks of white marble, of almost fabulous size,
forwarded from Rome for this purpose, formed a part of its structure;
and to these the disciples had called the attention of their Master, saying:
“See what manner of stones and what buildings are here!” Mark
13:1.
To these words, Jesus made the solemn and startling reply: “Verily
I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another,
that shall not be thrown down.” Matthew 24:2.
With the overthrow of Jerusalem the disciples associated the events
of Christ’s personal coming in temporal glory to take the throne of
universal empire, to punish the impenitent Jews, and to break from
off the nation the Roman yoke. The Lord had told them that He
would come the second time. Hence at the mention of judgments
upon Jerusalem, their minds reverted to that coming; and as they
were gathered about the Saviour upon the Mount of Olives, they asked:
“When shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming,
and of the end of the world?” Verse 3.
The future was mercifully veiled from the disciples. Had they at
that time fully comprehended the two awful facts—the Redeemer’s
sufferings and death, and the destruction of their city and temple—they
would have been overwhelmed with horror. Christ presented before
them an outline of the prominent events to take place before the close
of time. His words were not then fully understood; but their meaning
was to be unfolded as His people should need the instruction therein
given. The prophecy which He uttered was twofold in its meaning;
while foreshadowing the destruction of Jerusalem, it prefigured also
the terrors of the last great day.
Jesus declared to the listening disciples the judgments that were
to fall upon apostate Israel, and especially the retributive vengeance
that would come upon them for their rejection and crucifixion of the
Messiah. Unmistakable signs would precede the awful climax. The
dreaded hour would come suddenly and swiftly. And the Saviour [26]
warned His followers: “When ye therefore shall see the abomination
of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place,
(whoso readeth, let him understand:) then let them which be in Judea
flee into the mountains.” Matthew 24:15, 16; Luke 21:20, 21. When
the idolatrous standards of the Romans should be set up in the holy
ground, which extended some furlongs outside the city walls, then the
followers of Christ were to find safety in flight. When the warning
sign should be seen, those who would escape must make no delay.
Throughout the land of Judea, as well as in Jerusalem itself, the signal
for flight must be immediately obeyed. He who chanced to be upon
the housetop must not go down into his house, even to save his most
valued treasures. Those who were working in the fields or vineyards
must not take time to return for the outer garment laid aside while
they should be toiling in the heat of the day. They must not hesitate a
moment, lest they be involved in the general destruction.
In the reign of Herod, Jerusalem had not only been greatly beautified,
but by the erection of towers, walls, and fortresses, adding to
the natural strength of its situation, it had been rendered apparently
impregnable. He who would at this time have foretold publicly its
destruction, would, like Noah in his day, have been called a crazed
alarmist. But Christ had said: “Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but My words shall not pass away.” Matthew 24:35. Because of her
sins, wrath had been denounced against Jerusalem, and her stubborn
unbelief rendered her doom certain.
The Lord had declared by the prophet Micah: “Hear this, I pray
you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel,
that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. They build up Zion with
blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward,
and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine
for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord
[27] among us? none evil can come upon us.” Micah 3:9-11.
These words faithfully described the corrupt and self-righteous inhabitants
of Jerusalem. While claiming to observe rigidly the precepts
of God’s law, they were transgressing all its principles. They hated
Christ because His purity and holiness revealed their iniquity; and they
accused Him of being the cause of all the troubles which had come
upon them in consequence of their sins. Though they knew Him to be
sinless, they had declared that His death was necessary to their safety
as a nation. “If we let Him thus alone,” said the Jewish leaders, “all
men will believe on Him: and the Romans shall come and take away
both our place and nation.” John 11:48. If Christ were sacrificed, they
might once more become a strong, united people. Thus they reasoned,
and they concurred in the decision of their high priest, that it would be
better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish.
Thus the Jewish leaders had built up “Zion with blood, and
Jerusalem with iniquity.” Micah 3:10. And yet, while they slew
their Saviour because He reproved their sins, such was their self righteousness
that they regarded themselves as God’s favored people
and expected the Lord to deliver them from their enemies. “Therefore,”
continued the prophet, “shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field,
and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as
the high places of the forest.” Verse 12.
For nearly forty years after the doom of Jerusalem had been pronounced
by Christ Himself, the Lord delayed His judgments upon the
city and the nation. Wonderful was the long-suffering of God toward
the rejectors of His gospel and the murderers of His Son. The parable
of the unfruitful tree represented God’s dealings with the Jewish
nation. The command had gone forth, “Cut it down; why cumbereth
it the ground?” (Luke 13:7) but divine mercy had spared it yet a little
longer. There were still many among the Jews who were ignorant of
the character and the work of Christ. And the children had not enjoyed
[28] the opportunities or received the light which their parents had spurned.
Through the preaching of the apostles and their associates, God would
cause light to shine upon them; they would be permitted to see how
prophecy had been fulfilled, not only in the birth and life of Christ,
but in His death and resurrection. The children were not condemned
for the sins of the parents; but when, with a knowledge of all the light
given to their parents, the children rejected the additional light granted
to themselves, they became partakers of the parents’ sins, and filled
up the measure of their iniquity.
The long-suffering of God toward Jerusalem only confirmed the
Jews in their stubborn impenitence. In their hatred and cruelty toward
the disciples of Jesus they rejected the last offer of mercy. Then God
withdrew His protection from them and removed His restraining power
from Satan and his angels, and the nation was left to the control of the
leader she had chosen. Her children had spurned the grace of Christ,
which would have enabled them to subdue their evil impulses, and
now these became the conquerors. Satan aroused the fiercest and most
debased passions of the soul. Men did not reason; they were beyond
reason—controlled by impulse and blind rage. They became satanic in
their cruelty. In the family and in the nation, among the highest and the
lowest classes alike, there was suspicion, envy, hatred, strife, rebellion,
murder. There was no safety anywhere. Friends and kindred betrayed
one another. Parents slew their children, and children their parents.
The rulers of the people had no power to rule themselves. Uncontrolled
passions made them tyrants. The Jews had accepted false testimony
to condemn the innocent Son of God. Now false accusations made
their own lives uncertain. By their actions they had long been saying:
“Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.” Isaiah 30:11.
Now their desire was granted. The fear of God no longer disturbed
them. Satan was at the head of the nation, and the highest civil and [29]
religious authorities were under his sway.
The leaders of the opposing factions at times united to plunder and
torture their wretched victims, and again they fell upon each other’s
forces and slaughtered without mercy. Even the sanctity of the temple
could not restrain their horrible ferocity. The worshipers were stricken
down before the altar, and the sanctuary was polluted with the bodies
of the slain. Yet in their blind and blasphemous presumption the instigators
of this hellish work publicly declared that they had no fear that
Jerusalem would be destroyed, for it was God’s own city. To establish
their power more firmly, they bribed false prophets to proclaim, even
while Roman legions were besieging the temple, that the people were
to wait for deliverance from God. To the last, multitudes held fast to
the belief that the Most High would interpose for the defeat of their
adversaries. But Israel had spurned the divine protection, and now
she had no defense. Unhappy Jerusalem! rent by internal dissensions,
the blood of her children slain by one another’s hands crimsoning her
streets, while alien armies beat down her fortifications and slew her
men of war!
All the predictions given by Christ concerning the destruction of
Jerusalem were fulfilled to the letter. The Jews experienced the truth
of His words of warning: “With what measure ye mete, it shall be
measured to you again.” Matthew 7:2.
Signs and wonders appeared, foreboding disaster and doom. In
the midst of the night an unnatural light shone over the temple and
the altar. Upon the clouds at sunset were pictured chariots and men
of war gathering for battle. The priests ministering by night in the
sanctuary were terrified by mysterious sounds; the earth trembled,
and a multitude of voices were heard crying: “Let us depart hence.”
The great eastern gate, which was so heavy that it could hardly be
[30] shut by a score of men, and which was secured by immense bars of
iron fastened deep in the pavement of solid stone, opened at midnight,
without visible agency.—Milman, The History of the Jews, book 13.
For seven years a man continued to go up and down the streets of
Jerusalem, declaring the woes that were to come upon the city. By
day and by night he chanted the wild dirge: “A voice from the east!
a voice from the west! a voice from the four winds! a voice against
Jerusalem and against the temple! a voice against the bridegrooms
and the brides! a voice against the whole people!”—Ibid. This strange
being was imprisoned and scourged, but no complaint escaped his
lips. To insult and abuse he answered only: “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!”
“woe, woe to the inhabitants thereof!” His warning cry ceased not until
he was slain in the siege he had foretold.
Not one Christian perished in the destruction of Jerusalem. Christ
had given His disciples warning, and all who believed His words
watched for the promised sign. “When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed
with armies,” said Jesus, “then know that the desolation thereof
is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and
let them which are in the midst of it depart out.” Luke 21:20, 21. After
the Romans under Cestius had surrounded the city, they unexpectedly
abandoned the siege when everything seemed favorable for an immediate
attack. The besieged, despairing of successful resistance, were
on the point of surrender, when the Roman general withdrew his forces
without the least apparent reason. But God’s merciful providence was
directing events for the good of His own people. The promised sign
had been given to the waiting Christians, and now an opportunity was
offered for all who would, to obey the Saviour’s warning. Events were
so overruled that neither Jews nor Romans should hinder the flight of
the Christians. Upon the retreat of Cestius, the Jews, sallying from
Jerusalem, pursued after his retiring army; and while both forces were
thus fully engaged, the Christians had an opportunity to leave the city.
At this time the country also had been cleared of enemies who might [31]
have endeavored to intercept them. At the time of the siege, the Jews
were assembled at Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, and
thus the Christians throughout the land were able to make their escape
unmolested. Without delay they fled to a place of safety—the city of
Pella, in the land of Perea, beyond Jordan.
The Jewish forces, pursuing after Cestius and his army, fell upon
their rear with such fierceness as to threaten them with total destruction.
It was with great difficulty that the Romans succeeded in making their
retreat. The Jews escaped almost without loss, and with their spoils
returned in triumph to Jerusalem. Yet this apparent success brought
them only evil. It inspired them with that spirit of stubborn resistance to
the Romans which speedily brought unutterable woe upon the doomed
city.
Terrible were the calamities that fell upon Jerusalem when the
siege was resumed by Titus. The city was invested at the time of
the Passover, when millions of Jews were assembled within its walls.
Their stores of provision, which if carefully preserved would have supplied
the inhabitants for years, had previously been destroyed through
the jealousy and revenge of the contending factions, and now all the
horrors of starvation were experienced. A measure of wheat was sold
for a talent. So fierce were the pangs of hunger that men would gnaw
the leather of their belts and sandals and the covering of their shields.
Great numbers of the people would steal out at night to gather wild
plants growing outside the city walls, though many were seized and
put to death with cruel torture, and often those who returned in safety
were robbed of what they had gleaned at so great peril. The most
inhuman tortures were inflicted by those in power, to force from the
want-stricken people the last scanty supplies which they might have
concealed. And these cruelties were not infrequently practiced by
men who were themselves well fed, and who were merely desirous of
[32] laying up a store of provision for the future.
Thousands perished from famine and pestilence. Natural affection
seemed to have been destroyed. Husbands robbed their wives, and
wives their husbands. Children would be seen snatching the food from
the mouths of their aged parents. The question of the prophet, “Can a
woman forget her sucking child?” received the answer within the walls
of that doomed city: “The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their
own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter
of my people.” Isaiah 49:15; Lamentations 4:10. Again was fulfilled
the warning prophecy given fourteen centuries before: “The tender
and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the
sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her
eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son,
and toward her daughter, ... and toward her children which she shall
bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege
and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.”
Deuteronomy 28:56, 57.
The Roman leaders endeavored to strike terror to the Jews and
thus cause them to surrender. Those prisoners who resisted when
taken, were scourged, tortured, and crucified before the wall of the
city. Hundreds were daily put to death in this manner, and the dreadful
work continued until, along the Valley of Jehoshaphat and at Calvary,
crosses were erected in so great numbers that there was scarcely room
to move among them. So terribly was visited that awful imprecation
uttered before the judgment seat of Pilate: “His blood be on us, and
on our children.” Matthew 27:25.
Titus would willingly have put an end to the fearful scene, and
thus have spared Jerusalem the full measure of her doom. He was
filled with horror as he saw the bodies of the dead lying in heaps in
the valleys. Like one entranced, he looked from the crest of Olivet
upon the magnificent temple and gave command that not one stone of
[33] it be touched. Before attempting to gain possession of this stronghold,
he made an earnest appeal to the Jewish leaders not to force him to
defile the sacred place with blood. If they would come forth and
fight in any other place, no Roman should violate the sanctity of the
temple. Josephus himself, in a most eloquent appeal, entreated them to
surrender, to save themselves, their city, and their place of worship. But
his words were answered with bitter curses. Darts were hurled at him,
their last human mediator, as he stood pleading with them. The Jews
had rejected the entreaties of the Son of God, and now expostulation
and entreaty only made them more determined to resist to the last. In
vain were the efforts of Titus to save the temple; One greater than he
had declared that not one stone was to be left upon another.
The blind obstinacy of the Jewish leaders, and the detestable crimes
perpetrated within the besieged city, excited the horror and indignation
of the Romans, and Titus at last decided to take the temple by storm.
He determined, however, that if possible it should be saved from
destruction. But his commands were disregarded. After he had retired
to his tent at night, the Jews, sallying from the temple, attacked the
soldiers without. In the struggle, a firebrand was flung by a soldier
through an opening in the porch, and immediately the cedar-lined
chambers about the holy house were in a blaze. Titus rushed to the
place, followed by his generals and legionaries, and commanded the
soldiers to quench the flames. His words were unheeded. In their
fury the soldiers hurled blazing brands into the chambers adjoining the
temple, and then with their swords they slaughtered in great numbers
those who had found shelter there. Blood flowed down the temple
steps like water. Thousands upon thousands of Jews perished. Above
the sound of battle, voices were heard shouting: “Ichabod!”—the glory
is departed.
“Titus found it impossible to check the rage of the soldiery; he
entered with his officers, and surveyed the interior of the sacred edifice.
The splendor filled them with wonder; and as the flames had not yet
penetrated to the holy place, he made a last effort to save it, and [34]
springing forth, again exhorted the soldiers to stay the progress of the
conflagration. The centurion Liberalis endeavored to force obedience
with his staff of office; but even respect for the emperor gave way to the
furious animosity against the Jews, to the fierce excitement of battle,
and to the insatiable hope of plunder. The soldiers saw everything
around them radiant with gold, which shone dazzlingly in the wild
light of the flames; they supposed that incalculable treasures were
laid up in the sanctuary. A soldier, unperceived, thrust a lighted torch
between the hinges of the door: the whole building was in flames in
an instant. The blinding smoke and fire forced the officers to retreat,
and the noble edifice was left to its fate.
“It was an appalling spectacle to the Roman—what was it to the
Jew? The whole summit of the hill which commanded the city, blazed
like a volcano. One after another the buildings fell in, with a tremendous
crash, and were swallowed up in the fiery abyss. The roofs of
cedar were like sheets of flame; the gilded pinnacles shone like spikes
of red light; the gate towers sent up tall columns of flame and smoke.
The neighboring hills were lighted up; and dark groups of people were
seen watching in horrible anxiety the progress of the destruction: the
walls and heights of the upper city were crowded with faces, some pale
with the agony of despair, others scowling unavailing vengeance. The
shouts of the Roman soldiery as they ran to and fro, and the howlings
of the insurgents who were perishing in the flames, mingled with the
roaring of the conflagration and the thundering sound of falling timbers.
The echoes of the mountains replied or brought back the shrieks
of the people on the heights; all along the walls resounded screams and
wailings; men who were expiring with famine rallied their remaining
[35] strength to utter a cry of anguish and desolation.
“The slaughter within was even more dreadful than the spectacle
from without. Men and women, old and young, insurgents and priests,
those who fought and those who entreated mercy, were hewn down in
indiscriminate carnage. The number of the slain exceeded that of the
slayers. The legionaries had to clamber over heaps of dead to carry on
the work of extermination.”—Milman, The History of the Jews, book
16.
After the destruction of the temple, the whole city soon fell into
the hands of the Romans. The leaders of the Jews forsook their impregnable
towers, and Titus found them solitary. He gazed upon them
with amazement, and declared that God had given them into his hands;
for no engines, however powerful, could have prevailed against those
stupendous battlements. Both the city and the temple were razed to
their foundations, and the ground upon which the holy house had
stood was “plowed like a field.” Jeremiah 26:18. In the siege and the
slaughter that followed, more than a million of the people perished;
the survivors were carried away as captives, sold as slaves, dragged
to Rome to grace the conqueror’s triumph, thrown to wild beasts in
the amphitheaters, or scattered as 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.” Hosea 13:9; 14:1. 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 [36]
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 rejectors 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 fulfillment, 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 rejected God’s mercy and
trampled upon His law. Dark are the records of human misery that
earth has witnessed during its long centuries of crime. The heart
sickens, and the mind grows faint in contemplation. Terrible have
been the results of rejecting the authority of Heaven. But a scene yet
darker is presented in the revelations of the future. The records of the
[37] past,—the long procession of tumults, conflicts, and revolutions, the
“battle of the warrior ... with confused noise, and garments rolled in
blood” (Isaiah 9:5),—what are these, in contrast with the terrors of that
day when the restraining Spirit of God shall be wholly withdrawn from
the wicked, no longer to hold in check the outburst of human passion
and satanic wrath! The world will then behold, as never before, the
results of Satan’s rule.
But in that day, as in the time of Jerusalem’s destruction, God’s
people will be delivered, everyone that shall be found written among
the living. Isaiah 4:3. Christ has declared that He will come the
second time to gather His faithful ones to Himself: “Then shall all the
tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming
in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall
send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather
together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the
other.” Matthew 24:30, 31. Then shall they that obey not the gospel
be consumed with the spirit of His mouth and be destroyed with the
brightness of His coming. 2 Thessalonians 2:8. Like Israel of old the
wicked destroy themselves; they fall by their iniquity. By a life of sin,
they have placed themselves so out of harmony with God, their natures
have become so debased with evil, that the manifestation of His glory
is to them a consuming fire.
Let men beware lest they neglect the lesson conveyed to them
in the words of Christ. As He warned His disciples of Jerusalem’s
destruction, giving them a sign of the approaching ruin, that they
might make their escape; so He has warned the world of the day of
final destruction and has given them tokens of its approach, that all
who will may flee from the wrath to come. Jesus declares: “There shall
be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the
earth distress of nations.” Luke 21:25; Matthew 24:29; Mark 13:24-26;
Revelation 6:12-17. Those who behold these harbingers of His coming
[38] are to “know that it is near, even at the doors.” Matthew 24:33. “Watch
ye therefore,” are His words of admonition. Mark 13:35. They that
heed the warning shall not be left in darkness, that that day should
overtake them unawares. But to them that will not watch, “the day of
the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” 1 Thessalonians 5:2-5.
The world is no more ready to credit the message for this time than
were the Jews to receive the Saviour’s warning concerning Jerusalem.
Come when it may, the day of God will come unawares to the ungodly.
When life is going on in its unvarying round; when men are absorbed
in pleasure, in business, in traffic, in money-making; when religious
leaders are magnifying the world’s progress and enlightenment, and
the people are lulled in a false security—then, as the midnight thief
steals within the unguarded dwelling, so shall sudden destruction come
upon the careless and ungodly, “and they shall not escape.” Verse 3. [39]
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