Luke 19:44, commentary and pictures

Jesus halted on Olivet overlooking Jerusalem during His triumphal entry wept aloud over the doomed city even while the crowd rejoiced around Him. His tears were not for His own coming suffering and death at Calvary in sight before Him, but for the city He had loved and cared for and for a whole nation about to be lost. The time of visitation was God's visit to the city in Jesus with mercy, truth, light, peace and salvation, the precious last years of grace in the ministry of Christ and His apostles. Because its people failed to know that day and persistently rejected light, warnings, miracles and the Messiah Himself who alone could heal and save them, retributive justice would lay the city even with the ground with her children, leaving not one stone upon another and the temple in ruins. Had Jerusalem repented and accepted Him the ruin could have been averted and she might have stood forever as queen of kingdoms, free from Rome and a center of peace to all nations, and the same warning now reaches all who scorn great light with judgment proportionate to light refused.

Scene and Sorrow

Jesus spoke these words while looking over Jerusalem and weeping during His triumphal entry, halted on the crest of Olivet with the Kidron below and Calvary in sight, at sunset as the western sun gilded its towers. He entered as the prophesied Messiah and King, hailed by crowds as their King, while the city's outward beauty and confidence stood in contrast to the destruction He foresaw. His tears amid the rejoicing at that entry were His final pleadings of love and compassion, rejected by its people, with His triumphal entrance, the cleansing of the temple, and the blighting of the barren fig tree also pointing to the city's destruction. His mercy and love in riding in and weeping over the city reveal His mercy and love in dying for sinful people so they would not perish in their sins.

Amid triumphal rejoicing and shouts over His mighty works, His body rocked and wails and groans of insuppressible agony burst from quivering lips, and the palm branches strewn in the way were wet with His tears. The multitude shouted in triumph while He stood in an agony of pitying tears on the crest of Olivet with Jerusalem in glory before Him, grieving amid rejoicing because He saw what they could not see. The crowd saw His tears and heard His groans but did not understand the meaning of His lamentation over the fate of the city He loved. He foresaw what would happen to Jerusalem and wept in anguish over it from deep love and yearning for Israel even as the people resisted mercy and faced destruction.

His tears were not silent tears of gladness and not anticipation of physical suffering and death, though Gethsemane and Calvary and the sheep gate of sacrifice lay in sight, and His sorrow was no selfish fear of pain. His rocking body and tears were not from the thought of His own coming agony, suffering, humiliation and shame, betrayal, trial, cross and death, which He knew from the beginning, including His own cross on Calvary. His grief was for the doomed people facing judgment, not for Himself, for the city and what it might have become if it had accepted Him, not fear of His own coming physical suffering. He saw both what she was in her guilt in rejecting her Redeemer and what she might have been had she accepted Him who alone could heal her wound.

He grieved because Jerusalem had been the child of His care for more than a thousand years, with His temple as His habitation, beautiful for situation and the joy of the whole earth, and as a tender father mourns a wayward son He mourned her loss. His days of personal work for men on earth were ending and He knew comparatively few would accept Him as Redeemer and acknowledge they were lost without His divine aid, while the Jews were rejecting the help God sent to save them from utter ruin, spurning His love that would shelter them and His mercy that would save them from retribution. The whole history and coming doom of the city was distinctly before Him, with centuries of grace resisted, privileges abused, opportunities slighted, and warnings and reproofs of prophets unheeded, with ingratitude, formalism, hypocritical insincerity, Pharisaic pride and national apostasy, yet though the guilty were His property and offended Him, He did nothing to cut them off but bore long with them. The giving up is terrible because one soul is worth more with God than all the world beside, and here a whole nation was to be given up to destruction and lost. His truthful rebuke came with sorrow, not harshness, from deep sorrow and tenderness toward the city He loved, because its people refused to receive Him as Saviour and their rejection broke His heart.

His tears as He looked over the city were His last pleadings of love and compassion, and His sorrowful sacrifice for their salvation stands as the pattern to rebuke self-seeking pleasure and call to self-denial. He wept from tenderness and longing love, grieved because He gave His life for its people yet they refused to answer His voice and come to Him that they might live, and He weeps in the same way over individuals now who refuse His counsel and wander from duty. His tears show the compassion believers should feel for people in spiritual peril, which those who have received great light and gifts should share for those in darkness who will not weep for themselves.

Meaning of Visitation

The time of visitation was Jerusalem's privilege to know and act on the light God gave in the gift of His beloved Son, her Redeemer who alone could heal her grievous malady, liberate her from bondage, and save her. It was God visiting the city in Jesus with mercy and truth, with light and opportunity, and with what would bring peace and salvation. Jesus foresaw its ruin and wept over those who refused His mercy, still longing for the city to repent before its final opportunity passed, but its continued rejection meant probation was ending and mercy was withdrawing. Because she refused that help she would be surrounded and destroyed, her people killed and her buildings completely thrown down, left under the oppressive Roman yoke, bearing the frown of God and doomed to His retributive justice.

The visitation was the years of the ministry of Christ and His apostles, the precious last years of grace and day of privilege to the chosen people. Absorbed in earthly ambitions, they misinterpreted and misapplied the word of God, rejected the offer of the spiritual kingdom, and spent those years plotting the destruction of the Lord's messengers. The same failure is repeated today when the kingdom of this world absorbs men's thoughts so they take no note of rapidly fulfilling prophecies and the tokens of the swift-coming kingdom of God.

It was a limited day of mercy and opportunity that could be abused and refused and taken from sight, becoming a day of irreversible judgment when they would not repent. He had repeatedly offered mercy and withheld no needed blessing and sought repeatedly to turn the people from their course, but they spurned His appeals and rejected the warnings of God's Spirit, which were their only means of help, so they could no longer be delivered. When they refused to be saved retributive justice took the place of mercy, and as that period neared its close rejection of God's grace brought swift, irreversible ruin with judgment awaiting. As mercy withdrew, the Angel of Mercy folded her wings to give place to Justice, probation ending and mercy’s final plea rejected though Jesus grieved over the doomed city.

Not knowing the visitation means having no living connection with God, no appreciation of the Spirit's working, no power to distinguish between the sacred and the common, and no obedience to God's voice. The time of visitation is God speaking by the manifestation of the Holy Spirit and by the voice of duty, and by mercy’s appeal and the warnings of God’s Word and by light and truth and messages brought to believers and unbelievers. Refusing divine counsel and choosing the way best pleasing to self makes the eyes, the ears, and the heart unimpressible and unable to respond, so that there is no help for them while they will not hear and obey. Those who do not know it are not cured but remain selfish, covetous and idolatrous, misapplying resources, defiling God's sacred place, and handling holy things with uncleansed hearts and hands as common things, unable to distinguish between honor and rectitude and dishonor and fraud, with Satan ruling their minds and hearts. Knowing the day requires being cleansed by the renewing of the mind, seeing what wrong action has resulted in, fearing and trembling at standing before God, repenting with a repentance that needs not to be repented of, and refusing obedience and self-denial no longer lest everlasting life be lost and entrance to the holy city denied.

The time of visitation now is the present time of divine forbearance and mercy before the end, when God is holding back judgment while angels hold back the winds that they shall not blow, but that restraint will not continue long or indefinitely. To know it means to understand the signs of the times and what must be experienced before the end, yet few know it even among those who claim to believe present truth, because of blindness of mind and hardness of heart despite inexpressible mercy, leaving them asleep and unprepared for the closing scenes of earth's history. It is now in these last days, when the last message of mercy is to be given to prepare a people to stand while everything that can be shaken is shaken so that only what cannot be shaken remains. It is the near opportunity for unwarned cities, villages, and neighborhoods and for a dying world to hear the truth and be warned and saved before it is everlastingly too late, missed because nobody is there to tell them. Those converted to the truth are converted in order to become God's messengers, warning one and another they know and those they do not know, doing house-to-house evangelistic labor and carrying and distributing publications on the right hand and on the left, putting on the whole armor of God because the war is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers in high places, loving every soul purchased with His blood and trying to save all who can be reached lest the unwarned confront the negligent in the judgment. To know the visitation requires turning from unimportant things and giving self to God, humbling self before Him and seeking Him with the whole heart, being transformed in character from grace to grace and reconverted from lethargy in order to discern the needs of those perishing around them.

Rejection Brings Ruin

Jerusalem was to be destroyed because its people failed to recognize the time of their visitation and rejected the Messiah, the Son of God and world's Redeemer who alone could heal, liberate, and save. That visitation was God visiting the city in Christ with light and salvation, and refusal of it brought judgment in which enemies would surround the city, lay it level with the ground with its children within, and leave not one stone upon another. The warning concerned the generation that had Christ among them and possessed God's Word, whose rejection made it responsible for the coming ruin, and Jesus wept for the people facing this judgment, not for Himself. That temporal destruction foreshadowed the destruction of the world at Christ's second advent.

The judgment followed persistent rejection of the light, mercy, warnings, reproofs, and miracles sent to the city through prophets and through Christ. He had repeatedly offered mercy and sought to turn the people from their course, withholding no needed blessing and giving every means to convince them, with miracles and the power of His ministry giving clear evidence. Yet centuries of grace were resisted, privileges abused, opportunities slighted, and warnings and reproofs unheeded, with ingratitude, formalism, hypocritical insincerity, pharisaic pride and national apostasy, putting prophets to death, abusing servants, and treading His vineyard under foot. Prejudice and unbelief led the people to reject Him, so the responsibility and guilt for refusing His mercy rested with them, and when they refused to be saved retributive justice took the place of mercy and their refusal sealed their doom. Jesus foresaw this ruin as He approached Jerusalem for the last time and wept in agony over those who refused His mercy, bearing long with them though they were His property and offended Him, doing nothing to cut them off while a cloud of vengeance loading for a thousand years was about to burst in destruction.

Their guilt culminated in scorning His love, refusing the evidence of His miracles, and being about to take His life, and the nation's rejection would culminate in putting Him to death. His sorrow was for the city, not for His own coming suffering, betrayal, trial, or death, as He saw both what Jerusalem had become through rejecting its Redeemer and what it could have been had it accepted Him. The whole nation was to be given up to destruction, its probation passed when it crucified the Son of God, with the crucifixion as the final act that brought the nation's downfall and placed it beyond God's patient mercy. That judgment fell on His own nation who crucified the Son of God and cried for His blood to be on them and their children, fulfilled forty years later at the destruction of Jerusalem which no human power could stop even when Titus tried to save the temple, while Christians escaped without one perishing because they heeded His instruction to flee to the mountains when Jerusalem was compassed with armies, for whom God had prepared a refuge.

The ruin was retributive justice exactly according to the light turned away from, leaving the city under the oppressive Roman yoke, bearing the frown of God and doomed to His retributive justice. Their rejection of Christ made them responsible for their ruin, and their disobedience in rejecting God's Word and Christ, the provision God had made to save them, brought ruin upon themselves and their children, whereas obedience to God's laws would have put them in right relation to Him and He would have protected them. People who reject Christ's messengers and counsel are accountable for refusing the light and privileges given to them, and the city's temporal destruction was only the first measure of judgment, pointing to the final judgment. Jesus' tears over Jerusalem's impenitence show the sorrow caused by rejecting God, and a God-fearing mother's tears over a child likewise stand as a witness that will condemn the child in the day of judgment.

The disaster was not yet unavoidable while Jesus pleaded with the city; repentance could still avert its doom before its day of grace ended. Had they accepted His teaching and repented, the calamity that laid their proud city in ruins with its inhabitants suffering starvation and death and its buildings and temple ruined could have been averted. Their prejudice, narrow hopes for national power, bigotry, and refusal to test their expectations by Scripture kept them from accepting the evidence of His Messiahship plainly stated in every detail in the Old Testament and declared fulfilled in their hearing, and because His lessons exposed deficient character and demanded repentance, change of practices, relinquishing of cherished hopes, and sacrifice of human honor, they clung to creed and useless ceremonies instead of accepting the truth of Heaven. Therefore their house was left desolate, though rescue was still possible while the city's day lasted.

Destruction Foretold Fulfilled

Enemies would throw up a trench around Jerusalem, surround her, hold her in on every side and shut her in. They would level her even with the ground with her children inside her and leave not one stone upon another. The laying level would mean Roman armies encompassing the city and closing it in on every side.

Beautiful palaces would be destroyed, and the temple where divine glory was revealed above the mercy-seat would be left in ruins with not one of its walls, lofty pillars and gilded devices left upon another, and the city plowed like a field. Its stones would be thrown down and its inhabitants, including its children, would suffer in its overthrow, its buildings reduced to ruins. The fruitless fig tree represented this destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, whose outward show concealed lack of piety and good works.

The besieged would be driven to starvation and death, enduring terrible suffering. Natural affection would be destroyed by hunger so that mothers fed on their own children and parents and children snatched the last morsel from one another, with torture on the rack and crucifixion. The same stubbornness that rejected salvation would lead to refusing the only remaining safety in submission to the invading armies.

The doom was sealed that night, and about forty years later the Roman army utterly destroyed and burned the city. No human power could stop it even when Titus tried to save the temple, and the temple was completely destroyed with not one stone left upon another. Christians escaped without one perishing because they heeded the instruction to flee to the mountains when Jerusalem was compassed with armies, for whom God had prepared a refuge.

Jerusalem's temporal destruction was only the first measure of judgment, pointing to the final judgment. It foreshadowed the destruction of the world at Christ's second advent. It also stands as a symbol of a world that rejects truth, where those who refuse Christ's offer of life remain in bondage to sin and face the second death, as transgression of divine law brings destruction as with the antediluvian world and Sodom. Bible history is to be repeated in transgressing cities destroyed by earthquake, fire and flood through unseen agencies, when one touch of the rightful Ruler brings idolatrous possessions and accumulated riches to nothingness despite scientific safeguarding of buildings, because injustice, grasped masterly power, oppressive man-made unions bringing confusion, violence and strife, and manipulation of power to rule men and acquire means by underhand deception cannot be passed by in silence, for every lie framed is strictly accounted and every transgressor rewarded according to works, though if warnings are heeded and churches repent and return to allegiance other cities may be spared for a time, while those continuing in deception, disregarding divine law and presenting falsehoods are allowed to suffer calamity that their senses may be awakened.

What Acceptance Offered

Had Jerusalem accepted Christ, she could have been healed of her grievous malady, freed from bondage, and saved from utter ruin, for He alone could heal, liberate, and save her. Refusing to come to Him for life left her unsaved, though He had come among her to heal and save from destruction. The same refusal that rejected truth and followed its own ways is what puts others in danger of ruin.

Instead of ruin she might have stood in prosperity as queen of kingdoms, free in God-given power, with no armed soldiers at her gates and no Roman banners on her walls. She could have been established as the mighty metropolis of the earth, the world's diadem of glory, from which peace would go to all nations, and could have stood forever. Had they heeded His teaching and accepted Him, the calamity of Roman destruction and burning about forty years later need not have come.

She would have been exalted as a center of truth and peace, glorifying God above other nations by obedience to His commandments and laws. Obedience would have put the nation in right relation to Him, and He would have protected them. Disobedience and disregard of His Word and of Christ as God's provision to save brought ruin upon themselves and their children.

Christ came as the only One who could heal her wound, break the yoke from their necks, and give peace, hope, rest, triumph and victory. He came to clothe the people with His righteousness, but they rejected Him and put that blessing away. Their guilt in rejecting their Redeemer was matched by what they might have been had they accepted Him, and pronouncing the sentence of coming destruction was an agony to Him.

Had the Jews been loyal to God, heaven would have shielded them. Instead, because they abused privileges and mercies and let the day of grace pass in rebellion, the temple would be burned, the nation dispersed, and its descendants left without a sure home.

Why They Missed

They did not know the time of their visitation because pride, unbelief, self-sufficiency, indifference, and sinful neglect of light and signs already given blinded them, so the Lord passed them by and revealed truth to humble people who welcomed the light they had.
They had prophecies identifying the Messiah's birthplace and the time of His advent, yet they did not prepare for Him or proclaim His arrival.
The humble shepherds and the Gentile magi, who heeded the light they had received, were ready to welcome Him while the leaders were left unaware.
The same pride, ambition, and neglect that kept them from discerning the signs of the times threatens to repeat the failure again.

They misinterpreted and misapplied the word of God, and therefore knew not the time and manner of Christ's first appearing.
They had the testimony of Daniel, the testimony of Isaiah and other prophets, the teaching of Moses, and Christ Himself in their midst declaring the fulfillment of every detail of His ministry in their hearing, yet they searched the Scriptures for evidence of His coming while blind to Him and to what they were doing to Him.
They ascribed the glories of the second appearing to His first advent, and in that blindness did to Christ the very things prophesied they would do, thus fulfilling Scripture.
The visitation was the years of the ministry of Christ and His apostles, the precious last years of grace and day of privilege to the chosen people, but absorbed in earthly ambitions they rejected the offer of the spiritual kingdom and spent those years plotting the destruction of the Lord's messengers.
Honest, earnest, prayerful, humble searching of God's word to test their theories would have made them acquainted with the evidence of His Messiahship, and the same misreading and misinterpreting continues in the present day when the kingdom of this world absorbs thoughts so men take no note of rapidly fulfilling prophecies and tokens of the swift-coming kingdom of God.

Absorbed in earthly ambitions, they longed for a conqueror who would give temporal power, free them from the Roman yoke, and give health, strength, riches, power and honor.
Their enthusiasm cooled when they saw that becoming His disciples meant living righteous lives, denying self and suffering humiliation, and their carnal hearts would not receive His pure and exalted doctrine that He is the bread come down from heaven.
They wanted the food, the meat, that perishes and not that which endures to everlasting life, seeking earthly riches and glory, and they had no relish for words that taught personal purity and thorough reformation of life.
When the promised One, the fulfillment of their sacred types and ceremonies, came among them, ambition and mistaken expectations about His advent, along with human traditions that obscured God's law, blinded them to who He was.
Israel was first offered the opportunity to receive Christ and become a messenger of the gospel to the world, but the leaders' jealousy and distrust became hatred, and the people turned away from Jesus so that He left Jerusalem to proclaim His message to others who would carry it to all nations.

They closed their eyes and ears to the divine evidences set before them in Jesus' teaching with divine authority and His miracles, and did not recognize the time when God visited them.
While He freed the demon-possessed in their synagogue, even devils believed and trembled and confessed Him as the Holy One of God, but Israel refused to see and hear the truth brought before them.
Their prejudice, narrow hopes for national power, and refusal to test their expectations by Scripture kept them from accepting the evidence of His Messiahship.
Their minds were narrowed by bigotry, and because Christ's lessons exposed deficient character and demanded repentance, change of practices, relinquishing of cherished hopes, and sacrifice of human honor, they clung to creed and useless ceremonies instead of accepting the truth of Heaven.
The Jewish leaders rejected Jesus because accepting Him would have required them to give up pride and admit they were wrong, and they also turned others away from Him, rejecting the light because it came in an unwelcome way and hindering others from accepting it.

Not knowing the visitation means having no living connection with God, no appreciation of the Spirit's working, no power to distinguish between the sacred and the common, and no obedience to God's voice in duty, warnings, and messages of grace.
The voice of duty is God's voice, and refusing divine counsel and choosing the way best pleasing to self makes the eyes, the ears, and the heart unimpressible and unable to respond.
Those who profess to follow Christ can be so affected by Satan's influence and by teachings that obscure Christ's value that they do not recognize when Christ visits them and remain blind to the treasure of truth in Christ.
Christ, sent to reveal the Father, brought truth and blessing with enough light to recognize the visitation, but they rejected the light so that what could have been their greatest blessing became a stumbling block and the things belonging to their peace were hidden from their eyes.
Those who do not know it are not cured but remain selfish, covetous and idolatrous, misapplying resources, defiling God's sacred place, and handling holy things with uncleansed hearts and hands as common things, unable to distinguish between honor and rectitude and dishonor and fraud while Satan rules their minds and hearts.
Knowing the day requires being cleansed by the renewing of the mind, seeing what wrong action has resulted in, and fearing and trembling at standing before God, for unbelief brings spiritual darkness and the ignorance caused by rejecting light does not excuse.

Warning Beyond Jerusalem

The grief over Jerusalem reaches beyond the Jews to the close of time, addressing all through the centuries who repay love and admonitions with selfishness, neglect and unconsecrated lives. Failing to recognize the time of divine visitation brings retribution proportionate to light, for those who have had years of light, privileges, warnings, correction and opportunities to develop Christian character yet remain hardened and unworthy of their profession are accountable for gifts entrusted to them. When mercy repeatedly offered with no needed blessing withheld is spurned and salvation refused, retributive justice takes the place of mercy, and continued disobedience desecrates the soul and brings judgment. Those who neglect mercies and blessings in the day of opportunity, scorn counsels and love and despise servants, draw judgments upon themselves and become candidates for wrath, with a retribution more fearful than that of Sodom and Gomorrah or of sinners who never had the light of the gospel.

The Jewish nation in rejection is a symbol of people of all ages who scorn the pleadings of infinite love, and the tears over the city were for the sins of all time and for present impenitence. The denunciation of self-righteous Jews contains the condemnation of those who profess to be representatives on earth while their lives continually deny Him, allowing selfishness and love of money and worldly honor to possess the temple of the heart. As unholy traffic then desecrated the temple courts, so selfishness, love of the world, malice, envy and unholy passions now defile the temple of the heart where Christ should dwell. Great light, reproofs, entreaties, warnings and yearning love once given to the Jews are now given in the same way, yet messages sent to warn sinners of danger and rouse them to repentance are received as idle tales, many professing godliness remain as unsanctified as the Pharisees, and thousands reject the light of truth because it involves a cross and does not harmonize with their practices and natural inclinations.

Churches and individuals repeat Jerusalem's mistake when despite years of warnings, correction and instruction they remain hardened by unbelief, unconsecrated, unholy and at ease, disregarding truth and special directions given. The great sin of neglecting and rejecting present opportunity, with impenitence, ingratitude and rejection of love, mercies, warnings and messengers, is seen among professed followers through the end of time, for whom grace resisted, privileges abused and opportunities slighted treasure up wrath against the day of wrath. Jerusalem stands as a warning to churches and to Battle Creek, for a long departure from just and righteous principles in unjust and selfish ways repeats Jerusalem's sin and can leave people unable to discern light, truth, justice or mercy or feel repentance, moving toward an outcome God sees even when they do not. Where earnest, vital piety should be expected there is insincerity, hollow formalism and pharisaic pride, and ingratitude for mercies and abuse of blood-bought privileges by those entrusted with great and solemn truths stand registered against many in the books of heaven, with vengeance surely visited upon those who have so great light yet are so cold and unimpressible that no light shines from them to the world.

The churches now do not know the time of their visitation, being asleep to danger and in darkness and error, and exposed to destruction. They must be awakened by watchmen ringing the warning bell, for a large work of warning messengers is to be done to awake sleepers to a sense of danger. Canvassers going forth in the name of the Lord are those messengers, and the churches can often best learn the truth through their efforts. They bring reading matter with truth to those who otherwise would never hear it, giving to multitudes in darkness and error the glad tidings of salvation through Christ in obeying the law of God, and all who consecrate themselves to work as canvassers assist in giving the last message of warning to the world.

The phrase time of visitation applies to the present warning of the soon approach, when the last message of mercy is to be given to prepare a people to stand while everything that can be shaken is shaken so that only what cannot be shaken remains. Fires, floods and earthquakes warn the inhabitants of the earth that the Lord's coming and the day of judgment are near, and the destruction of San Francisco with other calamities calls people to recognize their visitation and prepare. God's forbearance holds back judgment while the warning message is given, and this period of restraint calls for urgent efforts to help people recognize the approaching day and prepare. To know the visitation requires turning from unimportant things and giving self to God, humbling self before Him and seeking Him with the whole heart, and those who do so will find Him.

Paris, like Jerusalem, had a chance to receive the gospel when it was preached there for two years as an offered message of peace. Most people rejected it, the opportunity passed, the churches were closed and the stake was set up. Failing to recognize that time of divine visitation meant the loss of peace with judgment and persecution following.

The same failure is seen in refusing present truth at Minneapolis despite clear warnings, with perceptions growing confused so that further privileges may not come. Those settling at Mountain View are under a spell that must be broken, with a great work to be done among them in the home church, and God calls them to awake and recognize their visitation. Not knowing the day of visitation means making and continuing to make large human calculations after message after message has not been received and believed, instead of being humble enough to repent and find one's true position, as seen when continued human calculations persist even though the Lord still has His hand stretched out to save if there is humbling and repentance. Dishonest business and selfish use of time show failure to respond, neglecting the chance to work for cities given over to idolatry brings accountability in the final reckoning, and gathering too many interests at Battle Creek like Jerusalem while neglecting other cities and unwarned places repeats the neglect.

Failing to recognize God's time of visitation when He sends a message of mercy brings calamity and destruction, while accepting His guidance would bring protection and salvation, and refusing it in pride leaves people to follow their own plans and reap what they have sown. The destruction foretold points beyond Jerusalem itself to an impenitent world doomed to destruction, a solemn warning of final judgment in the last great day upon people unaware of what is ahead. The time of destructive judgments is also a time of mercy for people who have had no opportunity to learn the truth, upon whom God looks tenderly and still offers salvation, while the door is closed to those who refused to enter. God is presently exercising forbearance with angels holding back the winds, but this restraint will not last indefinitely. Not knowing the time brings loss, withheld blessings and salvation, blunted perception mistaking good for evil, and being left unprepared when the day of God comes unexpectedly as a snare upon those engrossed in business like Lot's family at Sodom. Knowing it requires cleansing, repentance not to be repented of, fearing before God, loving every soul purchased with blood, and coming to Jesus who gave His life and warning one another house to house with publications on the right hand and on the left, putting on the whole armor and standing because the war is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers in high places.

The same sorrowful lament applies to a professed Christian church joined to the world and the papacy, for those who have received great light may reach a point when the things belonging to their peace are hidden from them after the opportunity has passed. Judgment is coming when that opportunity has passed, yet Christ is still pleading with sinners.