Spurgeon: April AM
* 04/07/AM
"O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame?"
--Psalm 4:2
An instructive writer has made a mournful list of the honours
which the blinded people of Israel awarded to their
long-expected King. (1.) They gave Him a procession of
honour , in which Roman legionaries, Jewish priests, men and
women, took a part, He Himself bearing His cross. This is the
triumph which the world awards to Him who comes to overthrow
man's direst foes. Derisive shouts are His only acclamations,
and cruel taunts His only paeans of praise. (2.) They presented
Him with the wine of honour . Instead of a golden cup of
generous wine they offered Him the criminal's stupefying
death-draught, which He refused because He would preserve an
uninjured taste wherewith to taste of death; and afterwards when
He cried, "I thirst," they gave Him vinegar mixed with gall,
thrust to His mouth upon a sponge. Oh! wretched, detestable
inhospitality to the King's Son. (3.) He was provided with a
guard of honour , who showed their esteem of Him by gambling
over His garments, which they had seized as their booty. Such
was the body-guard of the adored of heaven; a quaternion of
brutal gamblers. (4.) A throne of honour was found for Him
upon the bloody tree; no easier place of rest would rebel men
yield to their liege Lord. The cross was, in fact, the full
expression of the world's feeling towards Him; "There," they
seemed to say, "Thou Son of God, this is the manner in which God
Himself should be treated, could we reach Him." (5.) The title
of honour was nominally "King of the Jews," but that the
blinded nation distinctly repudiated, and really called Him
"King of thieves," by preferring Barabbas, and by placing Jesus
in the place of highest shame between two thieves. His glory was
thus in all things turned into shame by the sons of men, but it
shall yet gladden the eyes of saints and angels, world without
end.