in heaven and earth . The precepts of Jehovah would be despised and set at nought . Millions in bondage to sin , slaves of Satan , doomed to suffer the second death , would refuse to listen to the words of truth in their day of visitation . Terrible blindness ! strange infatuation !
Two days before the Passover , when Christ had for the last time departed from the temple , after denouncing the hypocrisy of the Jewish rulers , He again went out with His disciples to the Mount of Olives and seated Himself with them upon the grassy slope overlooking the city . Once more He gazed upon its walls , its towers , and its palaces . Once more He beheld the temple in its dazzling splendor , a diadem of beauty crowning the sacred mount .
A thousand years before , the psalmist had magnified God ' s favor to Israel in making her holy house His dwelling place : " In Salem also is His tabernacle , and His dwelling place in Zion ." He " chose the tribe of Judah , the Mount Zion which He loved . And He built His sanctuary like high palaces ." Psalms 76:2 ; 78:68 , 69 . The first temple had been erected during the most prosperous period of Israel ' s history . Vast stores of treasure for this purpose had been collected by King David , and the plans for its construction were made by divine inspiration . 1 Chronicles 28:12 , 19 . Solomon , the wisest of Israel ' s monarchs , had completed the work . This temple was the most magnificent building which the world ever saw . Yet the Lord had declared by the prophet Haggai , concerning the second temple : " The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former ." " I will shake all nations , and the Desire of all nations shall come : and I will fill this house with glory , saith the Lord of hosts ." Haggai 2:9 , 7 .
After the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar it was rebuilt about five hundred years before the birth of Christ by a people who from a lifelong captivity had returned to a wasted and almost deserted country . There were then among them aged men who had seen the glory of Solomon ' s temple , and who wept at the foundation of the new building , that it must be so inferior to the former . The feeling that prevailed is forcibly described by the prophet : " Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory ? and how do ye see it now ? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing ?" Haggai 2:3 ; Ezra 3:12 . Then was given the promise that the glory of this latter house should be greater than that of the former .
But the second temple had not equaled the first in magnificence ; nor was it hallowed by those visible tokens of the divine presence which pertained to the first temple . There was no manifestation of supernatural power to mark its dedication . No cloud of glory was seen to fill the newly erected sanctuary . No fire from heaven descended to consume the sacrifice upon its altar . The Shekinah no longer abode between the cherubim in the most holy place ; the ark , the
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