Luke 13:34-35

WOES AGAINST JERUSALEM

Luke 13:34-35. “ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how frequently did I wish to gather thy children in the manner in which a hen doth gather a brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Jerusalem means “possession of peace,” and is built high up on Mount Zion, surrounded on three sides by the Valleys of Jehoshaphat, Hinnom, Gihon, and Kidron, one continuous, deep, mountain gorge, bearing the above names in different localities and impassable by an invading army, thus rendering it the most impregnable natural fortification of any city on the globe a consideration of greatest moment, when we remember that Jerusalem has been besieged seventeen times and destroyed seven times; as all the kings of the earth, in all ages, seem to hold a grudge against this city, doubtless because they feared her power and influence, as she was universally understood to be the City of God. Not only in the creation of the world and the formation of these great, deep valleys did God favor Jerusalem, but His manifest miraculous interventions in her behalf are more than tongue can tell. Despite the lavish goodness of God and the copious bounty of heaven, which He poured upon her, giving her pre-eminence in all the earth for the inspiration of her prophets, the wisdom of her statesmen, the valor of her warriors, and the thrift and enterprise of her citizens, yet she would reject, persecute, and slay His prophets and saints, and go off after the idolatry of her heathen neighbors, following false prophets. Finally, as Jesus here sees in glowing panorama, moving before His infallible vision, instead of receiving her own Christ, for whom she had waited four thousand years in longing anticipation, she rejected and slew Him, thus provoking the righteous indignation of the merciful and infallible Jehovah, and brining on the Roman armies, with rivers of blood and deluges of fire, to accelerate those awful retributive judgments which expedited her hopeless ruin. “ Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” In A. D. 66 the Roman armies laid siege to Jerusalem, waging an exterminating war, consummating her utter destruction in 73. At the same time they rolled the desolating tide of fire and blood over all Palestine, literally verifying this terrible prophecy. The laud actually went into desolation, a million of Jews at Jerusalem alone perishing by sword, pestilence, and famine; a million more sold into slavery; and the scathed and peeled remnant driven to the ends of the earth, fugitives and tramps in every land. Jesus saw this awful panorama of blood and fire, death and destruction, rolling in horrors indescribable from Dan to Beersheba. Our mortal, finite conceptions, when augmented by the literal history of these awful tragedies, are utterly incompetent even to approximate apprehension; while the omniscience of Jesus saw every suffering, dying victim. It was God's will and purpose that the Jews should receive their own Christ with open arms, and enjoy the exalted honor and blessing of preaching Him to the whole world, thus promoting the children of Abraham to the leadership of all nations. What a wonder that Jerusalem thus failed! N.B. Man has proved a failure in every station, and actually forfeited all responsibility, under most favorable circumstances; and without a shadow of apology, he failed in Eden. After his lamentable fall and expulsion from Paradise, it seems that he should have profited by his failure and done better. But he did not. Going on and getting worse and worse, he so signally failed in antediluvian times as to provoke the righteous indignation of the Almighty and bring on the flood. Then he so failed in the postdiluvian age as actually to land in hopeless slavery. Afterward we see him failing so signally in the Jewish dispensation as to wind it up in the fulfillment of these awful prophecies, the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolation of the land. All this resulted from the long-prevailing maxim of Rome, “To rule or ruin.” Hence when the Jews, in their wild infatuation, because forsaken by the Holy Spirit and manipulated by Satan, persistently revolted against the Romans, they came with invincible armies, destroyed their city, and desolated their land.

“ I say unto you that you can see Me no more until it shall come to pass that you may say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.” Here we see the transcendent sweep of the Divine mind, through all the intervening centuries of their alienation and sojourn among the Gentiles, till the elect remnant shall have been gathered out of every nation, which is so rapidly going on at the present day. Having thus been gathered from every land in a dry-bone state (Ezekiel 37), those bones will stir and rattle, and come together in glorious, spiritual reconstruction, when they will at last find out their awful mistake in rejecting their own Christ, turn to Him by thousands and myriads, and thus get ready, right there at Jerusalem, to hail Him with joyful triumph riding down on a cloud, and shout uproariously, “ Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!” You see the wonderful sweep of this prophecy beginning with the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolation of Zion, following them in their long dispersions, wandering among the Gentiles to the ends of the earth, providentially gathered back to their native land, then gloriously saved and felicitously sanctified, so that when He returns in His glory, His own consanguinity will meet Him with joyous shouts of welcome.