visited upon them by the direct decree of God . It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work . By stubborn rejection of divine love and mercy , the Jews had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn from them , and Satan was permitted to rule them according to his will . The horrible cruelties enacted in the destruction of Jerusalem are a demonstration of Satan ' s vindictive power over those who yield to his control .
We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the peace and protection which 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 . But 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 rejectors of His mercy to themselves , to reap that which they have sown . Every ray of light rejected , every warning despised or unheeded , every passion indulged , every transgression of the law of God , is a seed sown which yields its unfailing harvest . The Spirit of God , persistently resisted , is at last withdrawn from the sinner , and then there is left no power to control the evil passions of the soul , and no protection from the malice and enmity of Satan . The destruction of Jerusalem is a 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 .
The Saviour ' 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 fate of the chosen city we may behold the doom of a world that has rejected God ' s mercy and trampled upon His law . 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 . Terrible have been the results of rejecting the authority of Heaven . But a scene yet darker is presented in the revelations of the future . 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 wicked , 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 .
But in that day , as in the time of Jerusalem ' s destruction , God ' s people will be delivered , everyone that shall be found written among the living . Isaiah 4:3 . Christ has declared that He
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