On this day in 70 AD, the Roman general Titus broke through the middle wall of Jerusalem. Titus was the son of Emperor Vespasian. He was an extremely talented military commander, having seen service in Germany and Britain. In 66 AD he and his father commanded multiple Roman legions during the first Jewish Roman war. Vespasian was called back to Rome to become the Caesar leaving Titus to battle a group of Jews who refused to submit to Rome. The Jewish zealots had been causing a tremendous amount of problems for Rome and Rome was determined to bend their hearts or break their spirits. In April of the same year, Titus took the 5th, 12th, and 15th Roman legions to lay siege against Jerusalem. The siege started 3 days prior to the Passover, which meant that the city would have been filled to capacity with pilgrims to worship God. The Roman legions continued an attempt to starve out the city until an attack was made. The Jewish zealots were greatly outnumbered, with over 70000 highly trained and skilled Roman soldiers against less than 20,000 Jewish soldiers. Today marks the day that Titus broke down the middle wall of Jerusalem but the siege would not end for another 3 months with the burning of David's city, the utter destruction of the second temple, and an estimated 1.1 million non-combatant Jewish people dead. Years after his victory Titus would become the emperor of Rome from 79 to 81 being the first son to take the throne from his biological father.
The siege on Jerusalem caused the Jewish people to be
displaced from their Homeland for nearly 1900 years. It was a shocking event at
that time but not shocking to God. Jesus prophesied about this event in Luke 19:41-44 which says And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that
make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will
come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and
surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground,
you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon
another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” At that
moment Jesus was preparing for His sacrifice on the cross and we find tears
coming from His eyes, not for what lays ahead for Him but for what lays ahead
for a city full of people that had rejected Him. Jesus desired that none of them
would perish and be without Him. He desired to bring them close like a mother
hen does her chicks. He loved them and He came to save them. Likewise today God
does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked, but instead, God desires that
all men will come to repentance and trust him. Rejection brings about tears to
the eyes of the savior, but reception brings joy in heaven. Have you rejected
or received Him? There is no middle ground.
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