Let us observe the special publicity God has given to the last act of our Lord Jesus Christ -to His death upon the cross. He came to Jerusalem to die, and would have all men to know it. When He taught the deep things of God, He often spoke to none but His disciples; when He delivered His parables, He often addressed only those that followed Him. When He worked His miracles, it was usually but before a few:but when the time came that He should die, He made a public entry into Jerusalem. He drew the attention of rulers, and priests, and elders, and scribes, and Greeks, and Romans to Himself. The most wonderful event that ever happened in this world was about to take place; the eternal Son of God was about to suffer in the stead of sinful men; the great sacrifice for sin was about to be offered up; the great Passover Lamb was about to be slain; the great atonement for the sin of the world was about to be made. He therefore ordered it so that His death was eminently a public death. He overruled things in such a way that the eyes of all should be fixed upon Him; and when He died, He died before a multitude of witnesses.

We can see here one more proof of the unspeakable importance of the death of Christ. Let us treasure up His gracious sayings. Let us strive to walk in the steps of His holy life. Let us prize His intercession. Let us long for His second coming. But let us never forget that the mightiest, the crowning fact in all we know of Jesus Christ in His coming to earth, was His death upon the cross.

From that death flow all our hopes. Without it we should have no basis for our salvation. May we prize that death more and more every year we live; and in all our thoughts about Christ, rejoice in nothing so much as the great fact that He died for us! Bishop Ryle.