Chapter 1—A Forecast of the World's Destiny

From the crest of the Mount of Olives, Jesus looked at Jerusalem. The magnificent buildings of the temple were in full view. The setting sun lighted up its snowy white marble walls and gleamed from the golden tower and pinnacle. What child of Israel could gaze on that scene without a thrill of joy and admiration! But other thoughts occupied Jesus’ mind. “As He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it” (Luke 19:41). 5TC 16.2

Jesus’ tears were not for Himself, even though ahead of Him lay Gethsemane, the scene of His approaching agony, and Calvary, the place of crucifixion, was not far away. Yet it was not these scenes that cast the shadow over Him in this time of gladness. He wept for the thousands of doomed people in Jerusalem. 5TC 16.3

Jesus saw the history of more than a thousand years of God's special favor and guardian care for the chosen people. God had honored Jerusalem above all the earth. The Lord had “chosen Zion ... for His dwelling place” (Psalm 132:13). For ages, holy prophets had given their messages of warning. Daily the priests had offered the blood of lambs, pointing to the Lamb of God. 5TC 17.1

If Israel as a nation had preserved her loyalty to Heaven, Jerusalem would have stood forever as God's chosen city. But the history of the people God had favored was a record of backsliding and rebellion. With more than a father's tender love, God had “compassion on His people and on His dwelling place” (2 Chronicles 36:15). When appeals and rebuke had failed, He sent the best gift of heaven, the Son of God Himself, to plead with the unrepentant city. 5TC 17.2

For three years the Lord of light and glory had been among His people, “doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil,” setting free those who were bound, restoring sight to the blind, causing the lame to walk and the deaf to hear, cleansing lepers, raising the dead, and preaching the gospel to the poor (see Acts 10:38; Luke 4:18; Matthew 11:5). 5TC 17.3

Jesus lived as a homeless wanderer to minister to people's needs and their troubles, to plead with them to accept the gift of life. The waves of mercy, beaten back by those stubborn hearts, returned in a stronger tide of sympathetic, inexpressible love. But Israel had turned from her best Friend and only Helper, despising the pleadings of His love. 5TC 17.4

The time of hope and pardon was quickly passing. The cloud that had been building through ages of apostasy and rebellion was about to burst upon a guilty people. They had scorned, abused, and rejected the only One who could save them from their approaching fate, and they would soon crucify Him. 5TC 17.5

As Christ looked at Jerusalem, He saw before Him the doom of a whole city and a whole nation. He saw the destroying angel with sword uplifted against the city that had been God's dwelling place for so long. From the very spot that Titus and his army later occupied, He looked across the valley at the sacred courtyards and covered walkways of the temple. With tear-filled eyes He saw foreign forces surrounding the walls. He heard the tread of armies marshaling for war, the voice of mothers and children crying for food in the besieged city. He saw Jerusalem's holy house, her palaces and towers, given to the flames, a heap of smoldering ruins. 5TC 17.6

Looking down the ages, He saw the covenant people scattered in every land, “like wrecks on a desert shore.” Divine pity and yearning love found a voice in the mournful words: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37). 5TC 18.1

Christ saw Jerusalem as a symbol of the world hardened in unbelief and rebellion, hurrying on to meet the judgments of God. His heart was moved with pity for the afflicted and suffering ones of earth. He longed to relieve them all. He was willing to give His last measure of life to bring salvation within their reach. 5TC 18.2

The Majesty of heaven in tears! That scene shows how hard it is to save the guilty from the results of violating the law of God. Jesus saw the world involved in deception similar to that which caused Jerusalem's destruction. The great sin of the Jews was their rejection of Christ; the great sin of the world would be their rejection of God's law, the foundation of His government in heaven and earth. Millions in slavery to sin, doomed to suffer the second death, would refuse to listen to words of truth in their day of opportunity. 5TC 18.3

Magnificent Temple Doomed

Two days before the Passover, Christ went again with His disciples to the Mount of Olives overlooking the city. Once more He gazed on the temple in its dazzling splendor, a crown of beauty. Solomon, the wisest of Israel's rulers, had completed the first temple, the most magnificent building the world ever saw. After Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it, it was rebuilt about five hundred years before the birth of Christ. 5TC 18.4

But the second temple was not as magnificent as the first. No cloud of glory, no fire from heaven, descended on its altar. The ark, the mercy seat, and the tablets of the law were not to be found there. No voice from heaven made known to the priest the will of God. The second temple was not honored with the cloud of God's glory, but with the living presence of One who was God Himself revealed in the flesh. The “Desire of all nations” had come to His temple when the Man of Nazareth taught and healed in its sacred courts. But Israel had refused that Gift from heaven. When the humble Teacher went out from its golden gate that day, the glory had forever departed from the temple. Already the Savior's words were fulfilled: “Your house is left to you desolate” (Matthew 23:38). 5TC 18.5

The disciples had been amazed at Christ's prediction of the overthrow of the temple, and they wanted to understand what His words meant. Herod the Great had lavished both Roman and Jewish treasure on the temple. Massive blocks of white marble, shipped from Rome, formed part of its structure. The disciples had called the attention of their Master to these, saying, “See what manner of stones and what buildings are here!” (Mark 13:1). 5TC 19.1

Jesus made the solemn and startling reply, “Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2). The Lord had told the disciples that He would come the second time. So when He mentioned judgments on Jerusalem, their minds went to that coming, and they asked: “When will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3). 5TC 19.2

Christ presented to them an outline of important events before the close of time. The prophecy He spoke had two meanings. While foreshadowing the destruction of Jerusalem, it also predicted the terrors of the last great day. 5TC 19.3

Judgments were to fall on Israel for rejecting and crucifying the Messiah. “‘Therefore when you see the “abomination of desolation,” spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place’ (whoever reads, let him understand), ‘then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains’” (Matthew 24:15, 16; see also Luke 21:20, 21). When the pagan banners of the Romans would be set up in the holy ground outside the city walls, then the followers of Christ were to run for safety. To escape, they must not allow any delay. Because of her sins, God had decreed judgment against Jerusalem. Her stubborn unbelief made her doom certain. 5TC 19.4

The inhabitants of Jerusalem accused Christ of being the cause of all the troubles that had come upon them because of their sins. Though they knew that He was sinless, they declared that His death was necessary for their safety as a nation. They agreed with the decision of their high priest that it would be better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish (see John 11:47-53). 5TC 20.1

While they killed their Savior because He condemned their sins, they thought of themselves as God's favored people and expected the Lord to deliver them from their enemies! 5TC 20.2

God's Long-suffering

For nearly forty years the Lord delayed His judgments. There were still many Jews who were ignorant of Christ's character and work. And the children had not had the light that their parents had rejected. God would cause light to shine on them through the apostles’ preaching. They would see how prophecy had been fulfilled not only in Christ's birth and life, but in His death and resurrection. God did not condemn the children for the sins of the parents, but when the children rejected the additional light He gave them, they became partakers of the parents’ sins and filled up the cup of their iniquity. 5TC 20.3

In their stubborn refusal to repent, the Jews rejected the last offer of mercy. Then God withdrew His protection from them. The nation was left to the control of the leader it had chosen. Satan stirred up the fiercest and lowest passions of the heart. People were beyond reason—controlled by impulse and blind rage, and satanic in their cruelty. Friends and relatives betrayed one another. Parents killed their children, and children their parents. Rulers had no power to rule themselves. Uncontrolled passions made them tyrants. The Jews had accepted false testimony to condemn the innocent Son of God. Now false accusations made their lives uncertain. The fear of God no longer disturbed them. Satan was at the head of the nation. 5TC 20.4

Leaders of opposing groups attacked each other's forces and slaughtered without mercy. Even the sacredness of the temple could not restrain their fierce fighting. The sanctuary was polluted with the bodies of the dead. Yet the leaders behind this hellish work declared that they had no fear that Jerusalem would be destroyed, for it was God's own city! Even while Roman legions surrounded the temple, many Jews still strongly believed that the Most High would step in to defeat their enemies. But Israel had turned her back on God's protection, and now they had no defense. 5TC 20.5

Omens of Disaster

All the predictions Christ had given about Jerusalem's destruction were fulfilled to the letter. Signs and wonders appeared. For seven years a man continued to go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, announcing disasters to come. This strange man was imprisoned and whipped, but in the face of insult and abuse he answered only, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!” He was killed in the siege he foretold.^{1Henry Hart Milman, History of the Jews, book 13.} 5TC 21.1

Not one Christian died in the destruction of Jerusalem. After the Romans under their leader Cestius had surrounded the city, they abandoned the siege unexpectedly when everything seemed ready for the attack. The Roman general withdrew his forces for no apparent reason. The waiting Christians recognized the promised sign (Luke 21:20, 21). 5TC 21.2

God so overruled events that neither Jews nor Romans would prevent the Christians’ escape. When Cestius retreated, the Jews pursued, and while both forces were fully engaged, the Christians throughout the land were able to make their escape without interference to a place of safety, the city of Pella. 5TC 21.3

The Jewish forces pursued Cestius and his army and attacked the fleeing forces from behind. Only with great difficulty did the Romans succeed in making their retreat. The Jews returned to Jerusalem in triumph with their spoils. Yet this apparent success brought them only evil. It inspired their spirit of stubborn resistance to the Romans, which soon brought indescribable suffering on the doomed city. 5TC 21.4

Terrible were the disasters that fell on Jerusalem when Titus resumed the siege. The city was surrounded at the time of the Passover, when millions of Jews were assembled within its walls. Supplies of food had previously been destroyed through the revenge of the warring factions. Now the inhabitants experienced all the horrors of starvation. People gnawed the leather of their belts and sandals and the covering of their shields. Great numbers slipped out at night to gather wild plants growing outside the city walls, though the Romans put many to death with cruel torture. Often those who returned in safety were robbed of what they had found. Husbands robbed their wives, and wives their husbands. Children snatched the food from the mouths of their aged parents. 5TC 21.5

The Roman leaders made efforts to strike terror to the Jews and so cause them to surrender. Prisoners who resisted capture were scourged, tortured, and crucified before the wall of the city. Along the Valley of Jehoshaphat and at Calvary, the Romans erected crosses in great numbers. There was scarcely room to move among them. These things fulfilled that awful curse spoken before Pilate's judgment seat: “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:25). 5TC 22.1

Titus was filled with horror as he saw bodies lying in heaps in the valleys. Like someone under a spell, he looked at the magnificent temple and gave a command that not one stone of it was to be touched. He made an earnest appeal to the Jewish leaders not to force him to defile the sacred place with blood. If they would fight in any other place, no Roman would violate the sacredness of the temple! Josephus himself begged them to surrender, to save themselves, their city, and their place of worship. But with bitter curses, they hurled darts at him, their last human mediator. Titus's efforts to save the temple were in vain. Someone greater than he had declared that not one stone was to be left on another. 5TC 22.2

Titus finally decided to take the temple by storm, determined if possible to save it from destruction. But the troops disregarded his commands. A soldier threw a flaming torch through an opening in the porch, and immediately the cedar-lined rooms around the holy house were in a blaze. Titus rushed to the place and commanded the soldiers to put out the flames. His words went unheeded. In their fury the soldiers hurled blazing torches into the rooms attached to the temple and then slaughtered those who had found shelter there. Blood flowed down the temple steps like water. 5TC 22.3

After the temple was destroyed, the whole city fell to the Romans. The leaders of the Jews abandoned their unconquerable towers. Titus declared that God had given them into his hands, for no war machines, however powerful, could have won against those stupendous defenses. Both the city and the temple were destroyed to their foundations, and the ground on which the holy house had stood was “plowed like a field” (see Jeremiah 26:18). More than a million people died. The survivors were carried away as captives, sold as slaves, dragged to Rome, thrown to wild beasts in the amphitheaters, or scattered as homeless wanderers throughout the earth. 5TC 22.4

The Jews had filled for themselves the cup of vengeance. In all the troubles that followed in their scattering, they were reaping the harvest that their own hands had sown. “O Israel, thou has destroyed thyself”; “for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.” (Hosea 13:9; 14:1, KJV.) People often say that the Jews’ sufferings were a punishment by the direct decree of God. This is the way the great deceiver tries to conceal his own work. By stubbornly rejecting divine love and mercy, the Jews had caused God's protection to be withdrawn from them. 5TC 23.1

We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the peace and protection we enjoy. The restraining power of God prevents mankind from coming fully under the control of Satan. The disobedient and unthankful have every reason to be grateful for God's mercy. But when people pass the limits of God's patient appeals, restraint is removed. God does not act as an executioner of the sentence against transgression. He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to reap what they have sown. Every ray of light rejected is a seed sown, and it yields its unfailing harvest. The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is finally withdrawn. Then there is no power left to control the evil desires of the heart, no protection from the malice and hatred of Satan. 5TC 23.2

Danger of Resisting God's Call

The destruction of Jerusalem is a solemn warning to everyone who is resisting the pleadings of God's mercy. The Savior's prophecy of judgments on Jerusalem is to have another fulfillment. In the fate of that chosen city we can see the doom of a world that has rejected God's mercy and trampled on His law. Dark are the records of human misery that the earth has witnessed. Terrible have been the results of rejecting Heaven's authority. But a scene still darker is presented in the revelations of the future. When the restraining Spirit of God will be completely withdrawn, no longer holding back the outburst of human passion and satanic anger, the world will see the results of Satan's rule like it has never seen them before. 5TC 23.3

In that day, as when Jerusalem was destroyed, God's people will be delivered. Christ will come the second time to gather His faithful ones to Himself. “Then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matthew 24:30, 31). 5TC 24.1

People should be careful not to neglect the words of Christ. As He warned His disciples about Jerusalem's destruction so that they could escape, so He has warned the world of the day of final destruction. All who choose may flee from the wrath to come. “There will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations” (Luke 21:25; see also Matthew 24:29; Mark 13:24-26; Revelation 6:12-17). “Watch therefore,” are Christ's words of counsel (Mark 13:35). Those who obey the warning will not be left in darkness. 5TC 24.2

The world is no more ready to believe the message for this time than the Jews were to receive the Savior's warning about Jerusalem. No matter when it comes, the day of God will come as a surprise to the ungodly. When life is going on in its usual way, when people are absorbed in pleasure, in business, in moneymaking, when religious leaders are praising the world's progress, and people are lulled in a false security—then, as the midnight thief slips into the unguarded home, so shall sudden destruction come upon the careless and ungodly, “and they shall not escape” (see 1 Thessalonians 5:2-5). 5TC 24.3