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Now was fulfilled the fearful warning given through Moses 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 strait ness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in they gates.” Deuteronomy 28: 56,57.

Roman leaders endeavored to strike terror to the Jews and cause them to surrender. 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, 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.

Terribly were visited those awful words uttered before the judgment seat of Pilate: “His blood be on us, and on our children.” Matthew 27:25

Leaders of opposing factions at times united to plunder and torture their wretched victims, slaughtering without mercy. Even the sanctity of the temple could not restrain their horrible ferocity. Worshipers were stricken down before the altar. 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, they said, “it was God’s own city.” False prophets were bribed to proclaim, even while Roman legions were besieging the temple, that the people were to wait for deliverance from God.

However, Israel had spurned 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, while alien armies beat down her fortifications and slew men of war! Christ’s predictions concerning the destruction of Jerusalem were fulfilling: “With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” Matthew 7:2.

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 it be touched. He made an earnest appeal to the Jewish leaders not to force him to defile their sacred place with blood. If they would come out and fight in any other place, no Roman would violate the sanctity of the temple. One of their own, the Jewish historian Josephus, in a most eloquent appeal, entreated them to surrender in order to save themselves, their city, and their place of worship. However, his words were answered with bitter curses. In vain were the efforts of Titus to save the temple.

The blind obstinacy of 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. However, his commands were disregarded. After he retired to his tent at night, Jews ranging from the temple attacked the Roman soldiers. In the struggle, a soldier through the opening in the porch flung a firebrand, and immediately the cedar-lined chambers about the holy house were ablaze. Titus rushed to the place, followed by his generals and legionnaires, and commanded his soldiers to quench the flames. His words were unheeded. In their fury, the soldiers hurled blazing brands into other chambers adjoining the temple, and then with their swords slaughtered great numbers of those who had found shelter there. Blood flowed down the steps like water. Thousands perished. Above the sound of battle, voices were heard shouting, “Ichabod!” – the glory is departed.

Titus found it impossible to check the rage of his soldiers; he entered with his officers, and surveyed the interior of the temple. Its 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, again exhorting 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 of the soldiers against the Jews, to the fierce excitement of battle and 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.

One soldier thrust a lighted torch between the hinges of the door, and the whole building was in flames in an instant. Blinding smoke and the fire forced the officers to retreat, and the noble temple 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, buildings fell in with a tremendous crash, and were swallowed up in the fiery abyss. Their cedar roofs were like sheets of flame; gilded pinnacles shone like spikes of red light; the gate towers sent up tall columns of flame and smoke.

Neighboring hills were lighted up, and dark groups of people were seen watching in horrible anxiety the progress of the destruction.

“The shouts of the Roman soldiers as they ran to and fro, and the howlings of the insurgents perishing in the flames, mingled with the roaring of the conflagration and the thundering sound of falling timbers. Echoes from the mountains replied and brought back the shrieks of the people on the heights; all along the walls were heard screams and wailings; even those weak with famine found strength to utter cries 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 legionnaires had to clamber over heaps of dead to carry on the work of extermination.” –H.H. Milman, The History of the Jews, book 16.

After the destruction of the temple, the whole city fell into the hands of the Romans. 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.

The Savior’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 siege and the slaughter that followed, more than a million 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 lands.

We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the peace and protection that 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. However, 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 rejecters of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown.

The destruction of Jerusalem is 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.

Terrible have been the results of rejecting the authority of Heaven. However, a scene yet darker is presented in the revelations of the future.

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. In the fate of the chosen city, we may behold the doom of a world that will at last reject God’s mercy and trample upon His law.

The records of the 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 finally impenitent, 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.

However, in that day, as in the time of Jerusalem’s destruction, those who fear God will be delivered, “every one 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 own iniquity. By a life of sin, they have place themselves so out of harmony with God, their natures have become so debased with evil, that the manifestations of His glory is to them a consuming fire.

The world is no more ready to credit the message for this time than were His own people to receive the Savior’s warning concerning Jerusalem. Come when it may, the day of God will come “as a thief” to the ungodly.

When life is going on 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 enters the unguarded dwelling, so sudden destruction come upon the careless and ungodly, “and they shall not escape.” 1 Thessalonians 5:3.

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 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 take heed the warning will not be left in darkness, that the day should not 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.

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 escape, so He has warned the world of the day of final destruction, and given men tokens of its approach, that all who will flee from the wrath to come.

 

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