The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 23

have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and ye would not!” O that thou, a nation favored above
every other, hadst known the time of thy visitation, and the things that
belong unto thy peace! I have stayed the angel of justice, I have called
thee to repentance, but in vain. It is not merely servants, delegates, and
prophets, whom thou hast refused and rejected, but the Holy One of
Israel, thy Redeemer. If thou art destroyed, thou alone art responsible.
“Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life.” Matthew 23:37; John
5:40.
Christ saw in Jerusalem a symbol of the world hardened in unbelief
and rebellion, and hastening on to meet the retributive judgments of
God. The woes of a fallen race, pressing upon His soul, forced from His
lips that exceeding bitter cry. He saw the record of sin traced in human
misery, tears, and blood; His heart was moved with infinite pity for the
afflicted and suffering ones of earth; He yearned to relieve them all. But
even His hand might not turn back the tide of human woe; few would
seek their only Source of help. He was willing to pour out His soul unto
death, to bring salvation within their reach; but few would come to Him
that they might have life.
The Majesty of heaven in tears! the Son of the infinite God troubled
in spirit, bowed down with anguish! The scene filled all heaven with
wonder. That scene reveals to us the exceeding sinfulness of sin; it shows
how hard a task it is, even for Infinite Power, to save the guilty from the
consequences of transgressing the law of God. Jesus, looking down to
the last generation, saw the world involved in a deception similar to that
which caused the destruction of Jerusalem. The great sin of the Jews
was their rejection of Christ; the great sin of the Christian world would
be their rejection of the law of God, the foundation of His government
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

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