“And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, 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 19:41-44.
THE ministry of Jesus in Israel was their opportunity to get right with God. Failing in this, they must be exposed to judgment. The same is true for all men. Today Christ is presented by the Holy Spirit through the Word as the only hope of men individually, and of nations collectively. If He and His message are spurned, destruction must follow. Christ alone is the hope of the world. To reject Him is fatal. He came to the Jews as the Prince of Peace to bring in everlasting righteousness (Isa. 9:6,7), but so insensate were they, so utterly blind to the truth of His glorious Person, that they fulfill their own Scriptures in rejecting Him (Acts 13:27). Their day of opportunity was now gone. Long years of suffering must elapse before they should as a people know the blessedness He came to bestow upon them.
“Did Christ o’er sinners weep,
And shall our cheeks be dry?
Let floods of penitential grief
Burst forth from every eye.
The Son of God in tears
The wond’ring angels see;
Be thou astonish’d, O my soul:
He shed those tears for thee.
He wept that we might weep;
Each sin demands a tear:
In heaven alone no sin is found.
And there’s no weeping there.”
—Beddome.