“I Would, But You Would Not”

"I Would, But You Would Not"

(No. 2381)

A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, OCTOBER 7, 1894.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
22, 1888.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the Prophets, and stone them
which are sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children
together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you
were not willing!" Matthew 23:37.

THIS is not and could not be the language of a mere man. It would be
utterly absurd for any man to say that he would have gathered the
inhabitants of a city together, "even as a hen gathers her chicks under
her wings." Besides, the language implies that for many centuries, by
the sending of the Prophets, and by many other warnings, God would
often have gathered the children of Jerusalem together as a hen gathers
her chicks under her wings. Now, Christ could not have said that
throughout those ages He would have gathered those people, if He had
been only a man. If His life began at Bethlehem, this would be an
absurd statement, but, as the Son of God, always loving the sons of
men, ever desirous the good of Israel, He could say that in sending the
Prophets, even though they were stoned and killed, He had, again and
again, shown His desire to bless His people till He could truly say,
"How often would I have gathered your children together!" Some who have
found difficulties in this lament have said that it was the language of
Christ as Man. I beg to put in a very decided negative to that–it is,
and it must be, the utterance of the Son of Man, the Son of God, the
Christ in His complex Person as Human and Divine. I am not going into
any of the difficulties just now, but you could not fully understand
this passage, from any point of view, unless you believed it to be the
language of One who was both God and Man.

This verse shows, also, that the ruin of men lies with themselves.
Christ puts it very plainly, "I would; but you were not willing." "How
often would I have gathered your children together, and you were not
willing!" That is a Truth of God, about which, I hope, we have never
had any question. We hold tenaciously that salvation is all of Grace,
but we also believe, with equal firmness, that the ruin of man is
entirely the result of His own sin! It is the will of God that
saves–it is the will of man that damns. Jerusalem stands and is
preserved by the Grace and favor of the Most High. But Jerusalem is
burnt and her stones are cast down through the transgression and
iniquity of men who provoked the justice of God.

There are great deeps about these two points, but I have not been
accustomed to lead you into any deeps and I am not going to do so at
this time. The practical part of theology is that which it is most
important for us to understand. Any man may get himself into a terrible
labyrinth who continually thinks only of the Sovereignty of God. And He
may equally get into deeps that are likely to drown him if he meditates
only on the free will of man. The best thing is to take what God
reveals to you and to believe that. If God's Word leads me to the
right, I go there. If it leads me to the left, I go there. If it makes
me stand still, I stand still. If you so act, you will be safe. But if
you try to be wise above that which is written and to understand that
which even angels do not comprehend, you will certainly befog yourself.

I desire to always bring before you practical rather than mysterious
subjects–and our present theme is one that concerns us all. The great
destroyer of man is the will of man. I do not believe that man's free
will has ever saved a soul, but man's free will has been the ruin of
multitudes. "You would not," is still the solemn accusation of Christ
against guilty men. Did He not say, at another time, "You will not come
unto Me, that you might have life"? The human will is desperately set
against God and is the great devourer and destroyer of thousands of
good intentions and emotions which never come to anything permanent
because the will is acting in opposition to that which is right and
true.

That, I think, is the very marrow of the text, and I am going to handle
it in this fashion.

I. First, consider from the very condescending emblem used by our Lord,
WHAT GOD IS TO THOSE WHO COME TO HIM. He gathers them, "as a hen
gathers her chicks under her wings." Let us dwell upon that thought for
a few minutes. It is a very marvelous thing that God should condescend
to be compared to a hen, that the Christ, the Son of the Highest, the
Savior of men, should stoop to so homely a piece of imagery as to liken
Himself to a hen. There must be something very instructive in this
metaphor, or our Lord would not have used it in such a connection.

Those of you who have been gathered unto Christ know, first, that by
this wonderful Gatherer, you have been gathered into happy association.
The chicks, beneath the wings of the hen, look very happy all crowded
together. What a sweet little family party they are! How they hide
themselves away in great contentment and chirp their little note of
joy! You, dear Friends, who have never been converted, find very noisy
fellowship, I am afraid, in this world. You do not get much
companionship that helps you, blesses you, gives you rest of mind. But
if you had been gathered to the Lord's Christ, you would have found
that there are many sweetnesses in this life in being beneath the wings
of the Most High! He who comes to Christ finds father, mother, sister
and brother–he finds many dear and kind friends who are, themselves,
connected with Christ and who, therefore, love those who are joined to
Him.

Among the greatest happinesses of my life, certainly, I put down
Christian fellowship, and I think that many who have come from the
country to London have, for a long time, missed much of this fellowship
till, at last, they have fallen in with Christian people and they have
found themselves happy again. O lonely Sinner, you who come in and out
of this place and say, "Nobody seems to care about me," if you will
come to Christ and join with the Church which is gathered beneath His
wings, you will soon find happy fellowship! I remember that in the
times of persecution, one of the saints said that he had lost his
father and his mother by being driven away from his native country, but
he said, "I have found a hundred fathers, and a hundred mothers, for
into whatever Christian house I have gone, I have been looked upon with
so much kindness by those who have received me as an exile from my
native land, that everyone has seemed to be a father and a mother to
me." If you come to Christ, I feel persuaded that He will introduce you
to many people who will give you happy fellowship!

But that is merely the beginning. A hen is to her little chicks, next,
a cover of safety. There is a hawk in the sky–the mother bird can see
it, though the chicks cannot. She gives her peculiar cluck of warning
and quickly they come and hide beneath her wings. The hawk will not
hurt them now–beneath her wings they are secure. This is what God is
to those who come to Him by Jesus Christ, He is the Giver of safety.
"He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings shall you
trust: His Truth shall be your shield and buckler." Even the attraction
of your old sins, or the danger of future temptations–you shall be
preserved from all these perils when you come to Christ and thus hide
away under Him.

The figure our Lord used is full of meaning, for, in the next place,
the hen is to her chicks the source of comfort. It is a cold night and
they would be frozen if they remained outside. But she calls them in
and when they are under her wings, they derive warmth from their
mother's breast. It is amazing, the care of a hen for her little ones!
She will sit so carefully and keep her wings so widely spread, that
they may all be housed. What a cabin, what a palace it is for the young
chicks to get there under the mother's wings! The snow may fall, or the
rain may come pelting down, but the wings of the hen protect the
chicks. And you, dear Friend, if you come to Christ, shall not only
have safety, but comfort. I speak what I have experienced! There is a
deep, sweet comfort about hiding yourself away in God, for when
troubles come, wave upon wave, blessed is the man who has a God to give
him mercy upon mercy! When affliction comes, or bereavement comes, when
loss of property comes, when sickness comes in your own body, there is
nothing needed but your God! Ten thousand things, apart from Him,
cannot satisfy you, or give you comfort. There, let them all go! But if
God is yours and you hide away under His wings, you are as happy in Him
as the chicks are beneath the hen.

Then, the hen is also to her chicks, the fountain of love. She loves
them. Did you ever see a hen fight for her chicks? She is a timid
enough creature at any other time, but there is no timidity when her
chicks are in danger! What an affection she has for them–not for all
chicks, for I have known her kill the chicks of another brood–but for
her own, what love she has! Her heart is all devoted to them. But, oh,
if you want to know the true Fountain of Love, you must come to Christ!
You will never have to say, "Nobody loves me. I am pining, with an
aching heart, for a love that can fill and satisfy it." The love of
Jesus fills the heart of man to overflowing and makes him well content
under all circumstances. I would that God had gathered you all, my dear
Hearers! I know that He has gathered many of you, blessed be His name,

but still there are some here, chicks without a hen, sinners without a
Savior, men, women and children who have never been reconciled to God.

The hen is also to her chicks, the cherisher of growth. They would not
develop if they were not taken care of–in their weakness they need to
be cherished that they may come to the fullness of their perfection.
And when the child of God lives near to Christ and hides beneath His
wings, how fast he grows! There is no advancing from Grace to Grace,
from feeble faith to strong faith, and from little fervency to great
fervency, except by getting near to God!

The emblem used by our Lord is a far more instructive figure than I
have time to explain. When the Lord gathers sinners to Himself, then it
is that they find in Him all that the chicks find in the hen, and
infinitely more!

II. Now notice, secondly, WHAT GOD DOES TO GATHER MEN. They are
straying and wandering about, but He gathers them. According to the
text, Jesus says, "How often would I have gathered your children
together!" How did God gather those of us who have come to Him?

He gathers us, first, by making Himself known to us. When we come to
understand who He is and what He is, and know something of His love,
tenderness and greatness, then we come to Him. Ignorance keeps us away
from Him, but to know God and His Son, Jesus Christ, is eternal life!
Therefore, I diligently urge you to study the Scriptures and to be, as
often as you can, hearing a faithful preacher of the Gospel, that,
knowing the Lord, you may, by that knowledge, be drawn towards Him.
These are the cords of love with which the Spirit of God draws men to
Christ. He makes Christ known to us. He shows us Christ in the grandeur
of His Divine and Human Nature, Christ in the humiliation of His
sufferings, Christ in the Glory of His Resurrection, Christ in the love
of His heart, in the power of His arm, in the efficacy of His plea, in
the virtue of His blood and, as we learn these sacred lessons, we say,
"That is the Christ for me, that is the God for me"–and we are
gathered unto Him.

But God gathers many to Himself by the call of His servants. You see
that of old, He sent His Prophets. Now, He sends His ministers. If God
does not send us to you, we shall never gather you. If we come to you
in our own name, we shall come in vain, but if the Lord has sent us,
then He will bless us and our message will be made to you a means of
gathering you to Christ. I would much rather cease to preach than be
allowed to go on preaching but never to gather souls to God! I can
truly say that I have no wish to say a pretty thing, or turn a period,
or utter a nice figure of speech–I want to win your souls, to slay
your sin, to do practical work for God with each man, each woman, each
child who shall come into this Tabernacle–and I ask the prayers of
God's people that it may be so! It is thus that God gathers men to
Him-self–by the message which He gives to them through His servants.

The Lord has, also, many other ways of calling men to Himself. You saw,
this morning, [Sermon #2034, Volume 34–

Peter's Restoration.] that Peter was called to repentance by the
crowing of a cock,

and the Lord can use a great many means of bringing sinners to Himself!
Omnipotence has servants everywhere! And God can use every kind of
agent, even though it appears most unsuitable, to gather together His
own chosen ones. He has called some of you–He has called some of you
who have not yet come to Him. The text says, "How often!" It does not
tell us how often, but it puts it as a matter of wonder, "How often!"
with a note of exclamation.

Let me ask you how often has God called some of you? Conscience has
whispered its message to the most of you. When you come to see men
dying, if you talk seriously with them, they will sometimes tell you
that they are unprepared, but that they have often trembled and been
suspicions. They have long suffered from unrest and, sometimes, they
have been, "almost persuaded." I should not think that there is a
person in this place who has not been made, sometimes, to shake and
tremble at the thought of the world to come! How often has it been so
with you? "How often," says God, "would I have gathered you!"

The Lord sometimes speaks to us, not so much by conscience, as by
Providence. That death in the family, what a voice it was to us! When
your mother died, when your poor father passed away, what a gathering
time it seemed to be! You soon forgot all about it, but you did feel it
then. Ah, my dear woman, when your babe was taken from your bosom, and
the little coffin left the house, you remember how you felt? And you,
father, when your prattling boy sang the Sunday school hymn to you on
his dying bed and well-near broke your heart, then was the Lord going
forth in His Providence to gather you! You were being gathered, but you
were not willing to come. According to our text, you, "would

not."

It has not always been by death that the Lord has spoken to you, for
you have had other calls. When you have been brought low, or have been
out of employment. When, sometimes, a Christian friend has spoken to
you. When you have read something in a tract, or paper which has
compelled you to pull up and made you stand aghast for a while–has not
all that had a reference to this text, "How often, how often, how often
would I have gathered you?" God knocks many times at some men's doors.
I know that there is a call of His which is effectual–oh, that you
might hear it! But there are many other calls which come to men, of
whom Christ says, "Many are called, but few are chosen." How often has
He called you? I wish you would try and reckon up how often the
Almighty God has come to you and spread out His warm wide wings–and
yet this has been true–"I would have gathered you, but you were not
willing."

One more way in which God gathers men is by continuing to have patience
with them and sending the same message to them. I am always afraid that
you who hear me constantly will get to feel, "We have heard him so long
and so often that he cannot say anything fresh." Why, did I not use to
shake you, when first you heard me, and compel you to shed many tears
in the early days of your coming to this house? And now–well, you can
hear it all without a tremor–you are like the blacksmith's dog that
goes to sleep while the sparks are flying from the anvil! Down in
Southwark, at the place where they make the big boilers, a man has to
get inside to hold the hammer while they are riveting. There is an
awful noise– the first time that a man goes in, he feels that he
cannot stand it and that he will die! He loses his hearing, it is such
a terrible din. But they tell me that after a while some have been
known, even, to go to sleep while the men have been hammering!

So it is in hearing the Gospel–men grow hardened and that which was,
at one time, a very powerful call–seems to be, at the last, no call at
all. Yet, here you are and your hair is getting gray! Here you are, you
have long passed the prime of life! Here you are, you were in a
shipwreck, once, or you had an accident, or you caught the fever, but
you did not die, and here you are! God still speaks to you, not saying,
"Go," but, "Come, come!" Christ has not yet said to you, "Depart, you
cursed," but He still cries, "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." This is how God calls and how
He gathers men by the pertinacity of His infinite compassion, in still
inviting them to come unto Him that they may obtain eternal life!

III. Well, now, a third point, and a very important one is this–WHAT
MEN NEED TO MAKE THEM COME TO GOD. According to the text, God gathers
men–but what is needed on their part? Our Savior said of those that
rejected him, "You would not."

What is needed is, first, the real will to come to God. You have heard
a great deal, I dare say, about the wonderful faculty of free will. I
have already told you my opinion of free will, but it also happens that
that is the very thing that is needed–a will towards that which is
good. There is where the sinner fails! What he needs is a real will.
"Oh, yes!" men say, "we are willing, we are willing." But you are not
willing! If we can get the real Truth of God, you are not willing.
There is no true willingness in your hearts, for a true willingness is
a practical willingness. The man who is willing to come to Christ says,
"I must do away with my sins, I must do away with my self-righteousness
and I must seek Him who, alone, can save me."

Men talk about being willing to be saved and dispute about free will,
but when it comes to actual practice, they are not willing. They have
no heart to repent. They will to keep on with their sin. They will to
continue in their self-righteousness, but they do not will, with any
practical resolve, to come to Christ! There is need of an immediate
will. Every unconverted person here is willing to come to Christ before
he dies–I have never met a person, yet, who was not! But are you
willing to come to Christ now? That is the point. "Today, if you will
hear His voice, harden not your hearts." But you answer, "Our hearts
are not hardened! We only ask for a little more time." A little more
time for what? A little more time in which to go on rebelling against
God? A little more time in which to run the awful risk of eternal
destruction?

So, you see, it is a real will and an immediate will that is needed.

With some, it is a settled will that is needed. Oh, yes, they are
ready! They feel as soon as the preacher begins to speak. They are
impressed during the singing of the first hymn. There is a revival
service and after the meeting they begin telling you what they have
felt. Look at those people on Wednesday. They have got over Monday and
Tuesday with some little "rumblings of heart"–but what about
Wednesday? They are as cold as a cucumber! Every feeling that they had
on Sunday is gone from them! They have no memory of it, whatever! Their
goodness is as the morning cloud and, as the early

dew, it passes away. How some people deceive us with their good
resolves, in which there is nothing at all, for there is no settled
will!

With others, what is lacking is a submissive will. Yes, they are
willing to be saved, but then they do not want to be saved by Grace.
They are not willing to give themselves up, altogether, to the Savior.
They will not renounce their own righteousness and submit themselves to
the righteousness of Christ. Well, that practically means that there is
not any willingness at all, for unless you accept God's way of
salvation, it is no use for you to talk about your will! Here is the
great evil that is destroying you and that will destroy you before
long, and land you in Hell–"You would not, you were not willing." Oh,
that God's Grace might come upon you, subduing and renewing your will,
and making you willing in the day of His power!

IV. My last point is a very solemn one. I shall not weary you with it.
WHAT WILL BECOME OF MEN WHO ARE NOT GATHERED TO CHRIST? What will
become of men of whom it continues to be said, "You would not?"

The text suggests to us two ways of answering the question. What
becomes of chicks that do not come to the shelter of the hen's wings?
What becomes of chicks that are not gathered to the hen? Well, the hawk
devours some and the cold nips others–they miss the warmth and comfort
that they might have had. That is something. If there were no
hereafter, I should like to be a Christian. If I had to die like a dog,
the joy I find in Christ would make me wish to be His follower. You are
losers in this world if you love not God! You are losers of peace,
comfort, strength and hope, even now! But what will be your loss,
hereafter, with no wings to cover you when the Destroying Angel is
abroad, no feathers beneath which you may hide when the dread
thunderbolts of Justice shall be launched, one after another, from
God's right hand? You have no shelter and, consequently, no safety–

"He that has made his refuge God, Shall find a most secure abode," but
he who has not that refuge shall be among the great multitude who will
call to the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them, to hide them
from the face of Him that sits upon the Throne, and from the wrath of
the Lamb! O Sirs, I pray you, run not the awful risk of attempting to
live without the shelter of God in Christ Jesus!

But the text suggests a second question, What became of Jerusalem in
the end? "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered your
children together, but you were not willing!" Well, what happened to
Jerusalem, after all? I invite you who are without God, and without
Christ, to read Josephus, with the hope that he may be of service to
you. What became of the inhabitants of that guilty city of Jerusalem?
Well, they crucified the Lord of Glory and they hunted out His
disciples, and yet they said to themselves, "We live in the City of
God, no harm can come to us! We have the Temple within our walls and
God will guard His own Holy Place." But very soon they tried to throw
off the Roman yoke and there were different sets of zealots who
determined to fight against the Romans. But they murmured and
complained and began to fight among themselves.

Before the Romans attacked Jerusalem, the inhabitants had begun to kill
one another! The city was divided by the various factions. Three
parties took possession of different portions of the place and they
fought against one another, night and day. This is what happens to
ungodly men–manhood breaks loose against itself. And when there are
inward contentions–one part of man's soul fighting against another
part–there is an internal war of the most horrible kind! What is the
poor wretch to do, who is at enmity with himself, one part of his
nature saying, "Go," another part crying, "Go back," and yet a third
part shouting, "Stop where you are"? Are there not many of you who are
just like battlefields trampled with the hoofs of horses, torn up with
the ruts made by the cannon wheels and stained with blood? Many a man's
heart is just like that. "Rest?" he says, "that has gone from me long
ago."

Look at him in the morning after a drinking bout. Look at him after he
has been quarrelling with everybody. Look at the man who has been
unfaithful to his wife, or that other man who has been dishonest to his
employer, or that other who is gambling away all that he has. Why, how
does he sleep, poor wretch? He does not rest. He dreams, he starts, he
is always in terror. I would not change places with him, no, not for
five minutes! The depths of poverty and an honest conscience are
immeasurably superior to the greatest luxury in the midst of sin! The
man who is evidently without God begins to quarrel with himself.

By-and-by, one morning, they who looked over the battlements of
Jerusalem cried, "The Romans are coming, in very deed they are marching
up towards the city!" Vespasian came with an army of 60,000 men and,
after a while, Titus

had thrown up mounds round about the city so that no one could come in
or go out of it! He had surrounded it so completely that they were all
shut in. It was, as you remember, at the time of the Passover, when the
people had come from every part of the land–a million and more of
them–and he shut them all up in that little city. So, a time comes,
with guilty men, when they are shut up. This sometimes happens before
they die. They are shut up, they cannot have any pleasure in sin as
they used to have–and they have no hope. They seem altogether cooped
up. They have not been gathered by God's love, but now, at last, they
are gathered by an avenging conscience–they are shut up in God's
Justice.

I shall never forget being sent for, in my early days, to see a man who
was dying. As I entered the room, he greeted me with an oath. I was
only a youth, a pastor about seventeen and a half years of age, and he
somewhat staggered me. He would not lie down on his bed. He defied God.
He said he would not die. "Shall I pray for you? "I asked. I knelt down
and I had not uttered many sentences before he cursed me in such
dreadful language that I jumped to my feet. And then, again, he cried
and begged me to pray with him again, though it was not any good. He
said, "It is no use. Your prayer will never be heard for me, I am
already damned!" And the poor wretch spoke as though he really were so,
and were realizing it in his own soul. I tried to persuade him to lie
down upon his bed. It was of no use. He tramped up and down the room as
fast as he could go. He knew that he would die, but he could not die
while he could keep on walking, and so he kept on.

Then again I must pray with him and then would come another awful burst
of blasphemy because it was not possible that the prayer would be
heard. It does not often happen that one sees a person quite as bad as
that, but there is a condition of heart that is not so visible, but
which is quite as sad, and which comes to men dying without Christ.
They are shut up. The Roman soldiers are, as it were, marching all
round the city, and there is no escape–and they begin to feel it and
so they die in despair.

But then, when the Roman soldiers did come, the woes of Jerusalem did
not end. There was a famine in the city, a famine so dreadful that what
Moses said was fulfilled, and the tender and delicate women ate the
fruit of her own body. They came to search the houses because they
thought there was food, there, and a woman brought out half of her own
babe, and said, "Well, eat that, if you can," and throughout the city,
they fed upon one another and oh, when there is no God in the heart,
what a famine it makes in a man's soul! How he longs for a something
which he cannot find and that all the world cannot give him–even a
mouthful to stay the ravenousness of his spirit's hunger!

And this doom will be still worse in the next world! You know that
Jerusalem was utterly destroyed–not one stone was left upon
another–and this is what is to happen to you if you refuse your
Savior! You will be destroyed. You will be an eternal ruin. No Temple
of God, but an everlasting ruin. Destroyed–that is the punishment for
you. Destroyed from the Presence of the Lord and the Glory of His power
and so, living forever with no indwelling God, no hope, no comfort! How
terrible will be your doom unless you repent!–

"You sinners, seek His Grace Whose wrath you cannot bear! Fly to the
shelter of His Cross, And find salvation there!"

I pray you do so, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW23229-39; 24:1-21.

Matthew 23:29-31. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
Because you build the tombs of the Prophets and garnish the sepulchers
of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers,
we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the
Prophets. Therefore you are witnesses unto yourselves, that you are the
children of them which killed the Prophets. They talk in the same
conceited manner and they claim self-righteousness, as their fathers
did! And if their ancestors killed the Prophets, these men garnish
their sepulchers, and so are sharers in their forefathers' deeds. How
often it happens that men say they would not have done such crimes as
others have committed–but they do not know the vileness of their own
hearts! If they were under the same conditions as others, they would
act in the same way. It would have been a better sign if the scribes
and Pharisees had lamented before God that they, themselves, were not
treating His Prophets as they ought to be treated. How very faithful
was our Master! He was very tender in spirit, but still, He

spoke very severely. The old proverb says that, "a good surgeon often
cuts deeply," and so it was with the Lord Jesus Christ. He did not film
the evil matter over! He lanced the wound. He is not the most loving
who speaks the smoothest words. True love often compels an honest man
to say that which pains him far more than it affects his callous
hearers.

32, 33. Fill you up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents,
you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of Hell?
This is Christ's utterance, let me remind you. Our modern preachers
would not talk like this, even to scribes and Pharisees who were
crucifying Christ afresh and putting Him to an open flame! They would
search the dictionary through to find very smooth and pretty words to
say to Christ's enemies! We are not of their way of thinking and
speaking, nor shall we be while we desire to follow in the footsteps of
our Lord!

34. Therefore, behold, I send unto you Prophets, and wise men, and
scribes: and some ofthem you shall kill and crucify; and some of them
shall you scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to
city. Which they did–the servants of Christ were thus worried and
harried all over the land.

35, 36. That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the
earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias,
son of Barachias, whom you slew between the Temple and the altar.
Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this
generation. So they did. The destruction of Jerusalem was more terrible
than anything that the world had ever witnessed, either before or
since. There must have been nearly a million and a quarter of people
killed during that terrible siege and even Titus, when he saw the awful
carnage, said, "What must be the folly of this people that they drive
me to such work as this? Surely, the hand of an avenging God must be in
it." Truly, the blood of the martyrs slain in Jerusalem was amply
avenged when the whole city became a veritable Aceldama, or field of
blood.

37, 38. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You that kill the Prophets, and stone
them which are sent unto you, how often would I have gathered your
children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings,
and you were not willing! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
What a picture of pity and disappointed love the King's face must have
presented when, with flowing tears, He spoke these words! It was the
utterance of the righteous Judge, choked with emotion. Jerusalem was
too far gone to be rescued from its self-sought doom and its guilt was
about to culminate in the death of the Son of God!

39. For I say unto you, You shall not see Me henceforth, till you shall
say, Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord.

Matthew 24:1. And Jesus went out and departed from the Temple: and His
disciples came to Him for to show Him the buildings of the Temple. Ah,
me, the rejected King took but slight interest in the Temple of which
His disciples thought so much. To them the appearance was glorious, but
to their Lord it was a sad sight. His Father's House, which ought to
have been a House of Prayer for all nations, had become a den of
thieves and soon would be utterly destroyed.

2. And Jesus said unto them, See you not all these things? Verily I say
unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that
shall not be thrown down. And it was so. Josephus tells us that Titus,
at first, tried to save the Temple, even after it was set on fire, but
his efforts were of no use and, at last, he gave orders that the whole
city and Temple should be leveled, except a small portion reserved for
the garrison. Yet the stones of the Temple were such as men very seldom
see, so exceedingly great. They looked as if, once in their place, they
would stand there throughout eternity–but all are gone, according to
our Lord's prophecy.

2. And as He sat upon the mount of Olives. The little procession
continued ascending the Mount of Olives until Jesus reached a resting
place from which He could see the Temple.

3. The disciples came unto Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall
these things be? And what shall be the sign of Your coming, and of the
end of the world? There are, here, two distinct questions, perhaps
three. The disciples enquired, first, about the time of the destruction
of the Temple, and then about the sign of Christ's coming and of "the
consummation of the age," as it is in the margin of the Revised
Version. The answers of Jesus contained much that was mysterious and
that could only be fully understood as that which He foretold actually
occurred. He told His disciples some things which related to the siege
of Jerusalem, some which concerned His Second Advent and some which
would immediately precede "the end of the world." When we have clearer
light, we may possibly perceive that all our Savior's predictions on
this memorable occasion had some connection with all three of these
great events.

4. And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive
you. Jesus was always practical. The most important thing for His
disciples was not that they might know when, "these things," would be,
but that they might be preserved from the peculiar evils of the time.

5. For many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ; and shall
deceive many. And they did. A large number of impostors came forward
before the destruction of Jerusalem, proclaiming that they were
Messiahs.

6. And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. And they did. The
armies of Rome were soon, after this, on their way to the doomed city.

6-8. See that you are not troubled: for all these things must come to
pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and
kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences,
and earthquake, in divers places. All these are the beginning of
sorrows. One would think that there was sorrow enough in famines,
pestilences and earthquakes in divers places–but our Lord said that
all these were only, "the beginning of sorrows"–the first birth-pangs
of the travail that must precede His coming, either to Jerusalem or to
the whole world.

9-14. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill
you: and you shall be hated of all nations for My name's sake. And then
shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate
one another. And many false Prophets shall rise and shall deceive many.
And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But
he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this
Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness
unto all nations; and then shall the end come. But as for this
destruction of Jerusalem, the Savior gave them clear warning.

15,16. When you, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation,
spoken of by Daniel the Prophet, stand in the Holy Place, (whoso reads,
let him understand), then let them which are in Judeaflee into the
mountains. As soon as Christ's disciples saw "the abomination of
desolation," that is, the Roman ensigns with their idolatrous emblems,
stand in the Holy Place, they knew that the time for them to escape had
arrived and they did "flee into the mountains." You will say to me,
perhaps, "but there were Romans there, before." Yes, the Romans were in
possession, but the eagles and other idolatrous symbols were never
exhibited in Jerusalem. The Romans were often very lenient to the
different people whom they subdued and these symbols were kept out of
sight until the last war came. But, wherever the Jews and Christians
looked and they could see those various images of Caesar and of the
Roman state which were worshipped by the soldiers–then were the
faithful to flee to the mountains. It is a remarkable fact that no
Christians perished in the siege of Jerusalem–the followers of Christ
fled away to the mountain city of Pella, in Perea, where they were
preserved from the general destruction which overthrew the unbelieving
Jews!

17, 18. Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything
out of his house: neither let him which is in the field return back to
take his clothes. They were to flee in all haste, the moment they saw
the Roman standards,

19-21. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give
suck in those days! But pray you that your plight be not in the winter,
neither on the Sabbath Day: for then shall be great tribulation, such
at was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever
shall be. You and I would have believed that all this came true without
any confirmation from outside history, but it was very remarkable that
God should raise up the Jew, Josephus, and put it into his mind to
write a record of the siege of Jerusalem–which curdles the blood of
everyone who reads it–and bears out exactly the statement of the
Master that there was to be "great tribulation, such as was not since
the beginning of the world, no, nor ever shall be."