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II

Never before, never since, never again, will men have God in Man to do as they desire with, to manifest their hatred against, as at those days of the death of Christ. Hear Peter:"Ye men of Israel,…. the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied Him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted to you; and KILLED THE PRINCE OF LIFE, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses" (Acts 3:12-15).

Those days of Christ upon earth had been long before foretold and longed for, as He declared:"Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear the things which ye hear, and have not heard them" (Lk. 10:23, 24). Seven hundred years before Isaiah had told how the people would harden their hearts against God's truth:"By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand:and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive; for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear" (Matt. 13:14-16).

Some of the saddest words of Christ are those in Luke 13:34,35; 19:41-44; "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how oft would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." "And when He was come near, He beheld the city and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation."

The judgment upon those who hated Christ, and manifested it by rejecting and causing Him to be crucified, was an awful example of the punishment of sin, sin against great light and mercy. But far more terrible days are to come upon the earth when there "shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be" (Matt. 24:21). Verses 29-31 fix the time of this. Revelation 7:9,10,13-17 refers to the same time. It is very likely that this scene is not far off, that its actors are living upon the earth even now, and that the present unparalleled time of trouble is the beginning of what is to be the GREAT TRIBULATION. The world is now having the gospel of Christ offered to it as never before. In almost every part of the world man can hear the glad tidings of the love of God manifested by the sending of the Man Christ Jesus into the world to bear sin. To become a real Saviour He had to become Man, that He might take man's place, be treated as a sinner by a holy God, judged like a sinner, dealt with as God will deal with sinners. But the sin and guilt of the world have been laid upon Christ, He has become the one great and only Saviour of sinners. How are men treating Him today?

Men cannot see Him to treat Him as they did in the body, but in the most enlightened lands, where there is a Bible or a portion of one in almost every house, His name is being blasphemed, vilified, spoken against. All that men lack is the opportunity, and they would treat Christ as badly as they did at His first coming. The Jewish nation imagined that they could wreak vengeance on Him for His righteous rebukes for their sins, and yet go free from judgment. How vain was their imagination! How perfectly God kept His word threatening them with judgment! Just so men now imagine they can defy the living God and not suffer judgment. By His dealings with Jerusalem after Christ was crucified, God gave mankind warning of what they must expect if Christ is hated, scorned, rejected.

The Jewish nation could never be made to realize that they were dealing with a holy God who would not fail to keep His word. Men now have the same God to deal with, whose judgments are announced in Scripture. Since Christ left the world there has never been a people who more completely reject Christ than those found on it today. They are fulfilling prophecy just as those who killed Christ did. The present distress is the beginning of a different way of treatment of a revolting world. Christ lives, Christ hears the blasphemy of His name, and soon men will have to bow to judgments to come. Because Christ was a Man who never used His power to deliver Himself from His enemies, they thought to deal with Him as with a weak man. Men now so despise Him that they will show it in every possible way. "Weep for yourselves and your children," said Christ to the women who bewailed Him as He was led to the cross. They were to see the days of vengeance. They did see them.

Christ warned His people; He told them what to do to escape the judgments coming upon the doomed city and people (Luke 21:20-22). Not one who obeyed Him was overtaken by those judgments. So no member of Christ's body will be in the fast-coming tribulation. He Himself has promised this, and will surely keep His word. He is coming for His own, all of them. It is "they that are Christ's" who will be caught away from the impending doom of the dwellers on the earth. We are not called to weep for what is coming on them, but to pray, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

The world cannot grasp the fact that the Man who was weak enough and meek enough to permit His enemies to take Him and crucify Him is strong enough to overthrow all human power and might. The men who delivered Christ to Pilate were blind to His power; Pilate was blind to it; the world has been blind to it ever since. Yet it was revealed when His prophetic warning was fulfilled in Jerusalem's destruction. But the unbelieving men of the world have never seen the connection between Christ's arrest, trial and crucifixion, and the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the army of Rome. Faith has always seen it, and seen Christ's words fulfilled to the letter.

It is so with the future. Proud unbelievers of every kind scoff at the idea of Christ coming again in the clouds of heaven to execute judgment on this God-defying world. Peter, in the last chapter of his second Epistle, describes both the present days and the scorn which men heap upon the prophet's announcement of fast-coming judgment. The world knows not God, knows not His Christ, despises His offer of salvation, rejects His warnings of coming judgments.

The opposite of this rejection is the path of faith, accepting Christ as our only Saviour from sin, loving Him, trusting Him. What a vast difference there was between Caiaphas and Pilate on the one hand, and Peter, John and Mary on the other. And there is the same difference now between those who reject and those who accept, love, trust, and walk with Christ. We have the same Christ that John had to love; the world has the same Christ to scoff at, despise and hate that Caiaphas and Pilate had. In all the centuries Christ has not changed. He went back to heaven, where He has been since His ascension; but the Christ whom Stephen and Paul saw was the same Christ Peter, John and Mary saw.

He will come again for His own, and the believer of today will see Him, for His coming must be very near. The readers of this-some of them, at least-may be among those who will be "alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord." When He comes He will bring eternal joy to His own. But He is also coming to bring eternal sorrow to the world. The same Christ who is pictured in the Gospels, foretold by the prophets, revealed in the Epistles, is coming both to bless and to judge. He has given 2 Pet. 3 to guide and counsel His waiting people in the days that are fast darkening. Soon our eyes will behold Him, and we shall be made like Him, "for we shall see Him as He is."

"Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent, that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot and blameless" (2 Pet. 3:14). J. W. Newton