If only you could see your danger! If only you knew what was coming to you! You can see the human side of him. Humanly speaking the Lord would have so much wanted to gather them in, to bless them and help them. We have to realize our need of salvation in this way. We are every one of us so sinful, so fallen in the sight of God. We are so far from God. We have so greatly offended against him. There is no person who by nature isn't a terrible rebel against God. We are consumed by our sins. We are deceitful, and we have within us malice and anger. Not only do we commit sin against God, but we are fools to ourselves. We can't control the malice and anger within us, and it hurts us down life's pathway. Hatred and revenge and resentment and ill will: all these things are both committed by us, and then they consume us, eat us away inside. We are so proud, and we do things for ourselves, and we are so selfish. We are out for gain and for power and for status, and we want to be noticed and flattered. Then of course we are covetous and greedy. We have these terrible appetites. We must have things and these appetites are never satisfied. We have lust within us All these sins are vile in the sight of a holy God, and they are painful destructive. They get worse as we go on down life's pathway. And yet here is the amazing thing: that though God hates sin, and though he is bound to punish all sin, yet so amazing is the love of the Lord Jesus that he is moved with compassion for sinners.
It is very hard to understand the love of God for sinful people, and it is very hard to explain it. Sometimes you know you may be somewhere and you hear a child screaming. Maybe to most people the cry is a raucous unwelcome unwanted sound. But it isn't unwelcome to the mother. If it's a cry of pain, it will stir a maternal compassion and the mother will be concerned to see what is wrong. She knows the different cries of the child. She knows the difference between a cry which is temper, and the sudden change of note which indicates pain or need. Sin is vile and God hates it, and yet the heart of God is moved to compassion at the plight and the folly of men and women.
The Lord hates sin, and yet because he has created us, there is at the same time in the heart of God a great love and compassion for those who are condemned to die for their sin. For this reason the Lord Jesus was ready to come into this world, and to take upon himself the punishment which is due to all those who would turn to him. So great is his love for man that he would go to those lengths of putting himself in the sinner's place. He has to do that if God is going to have mercy upon us and save us. God is a righteous holy God; he must punish sin; he must purge it away, and yet he has a heart of love and compassion too, and he longs to save us from our sin and to forgive us. What a dilemma for God! How can God be holy and just and righteously punish and deal with sin, and at the same time have mercy and compassion and save us and forgive us? There is only one way. The Lord Jesus had to come into this world himself, and take the place of those who would be forgiven, those who would seek forgiveness. He had to stand in their place and take their punishment and purge away their sin.
Perhaps some have the advantage of having been brought up in a home where there were those who loved the Lord and who spoke of him, or perhaps you have had believing friends, or perhaps God has spoken through your conscience and moved you to see some of the terrible things you have done, and you have understood something of the possibility of forgiveness and a new life. What have you done about it? How often has God spoken? It may be that the Lord has approached you very many times. He is the Lord of Glory: why should he bother to continue to approach us when we don’t respond? Why doesn't he just wipe us all off the map for our sin? The most high God dealing with us, appealing to us! And yet when we get that voice of conscience, that testimony, that influence upon our souls, we discard as nothing. It is the Lord personally who is calling us, who is inviting us to himself.
You could have known the Lord, and had his answer your prayers, and guide you and brought you into a very personal relationship with himself. That is true religion. It is a loving Saviour who calls. But you would not come, you would not have it. ‘Behold your house shall be left unto you desolate.’ What a tragedy that is! If only you had repented; if only you had asked; if only you had trusted him. Pray to him. Say, ‘O Lord, forgive me, pardon me, receive me, change me. He will do so, and he will gather you in and bring you close and give you an experience of conversion, which you will feel and know, and which will make you so different. And you will never go back on it.
Here we are, like an abandoned house. If I am without God, I have no real deep happiness. I have no protection from God, no blessing. He doesn't work in my life. He doesn't deal with me. And here is the great tragedy. I will never see him. I will never know him, except in the last day when he is my Judge. The Jews completely failed to recognise their Messiah. ‘You will have no blessing’, he tells them, ‘until you recognize that I am the Messiah.’ Your house is desolate and lifeless until you welcome Jesus Christ, and you fall at his feet and you trust in him as the one who paid the price for sin on your behalf.