Luke 19:41-44 And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,… Thy day! If when the sun sets in the west we were not sure whether he would rise on the morrow, oh what an evening it would be! ONE DAY! "Thy day!" How precious! But if the day is allowed to pass, and the work of the day not done, how terrible the sunset! Jerusalem had her day; the day was passing — it was past. Jerusalem did not know her day, and did not notice that it had passed. Jerusalem, with her day done, was laughing: Jesus, looking on lost Jerusalem, wept. This is not of private interpretation — it is written for our sakes. Our city has a day; ourselves have a day. Throughout this day it is peace — your peace — pressing like the air around us. The night cometh, when that light of life is gone. Men mistake the meaning of Emmanuel's tenderness. It is not tenderness to sin, Men are tender to their own sin, treating it as a spoiled child — blaming it in words, but fondling it all the while; and they think that Christ will turn out such an one as themselves. His grief does not indicate a holding back, a hesitating to cast away the wicked. The earnestness with which the Redeemer strove to snatch the brand from the burning, shows that there is a burning for the brand. The tears He shed over Jerusalem do not prove that He will falter and hesitate to lay her even with the ground when her day is done: if He had thought that Jerusalem might escape in her sin, He would not have wept to see her sinning. No preachers are so terrible as the Redeemer's tears. (W. Arnot.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, |
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