The Disappointing Great City Jerusalem

There is, however, another thought upon this subject of the journeys to Jerusalem. At times we find, as in the case of the queen of Sheba, that great city answered all the expectations that had been formed by the heart respecting it. But Jerusalem has at times grievously disappointed the heart. It did the wise men from the east who went there looking for the King of the Jews. They had to pass it and put themselves on another journey down to Bethlehem in the south.
It disappointed the eunuch also, as we have observed. He had gone there to worship, but he left unsatisfied in spirit. He searched for rest which all the religious provisions of that city of the temple and priesthood did not and could not give him.
It disappointed the Lord Jesus likewise. Instead of finding His welcome and His place there, He wept over it, pronounced its doom, and met there in His own Person what we may here rather remember than mention.
It will in the last days, as it were, revive and take again the character that it fulfilled in the first days. It will answer all the richest expectations of those multitudes who will then, like the queen of the south, go up there to see the King in His beauty. The highways will then be thronged with joyous visitors, and the hearts of the thousands of the nations will repeat again what they have found in the holy city.
All nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together: whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. Isa. 2:2, 3; Zech. 14:16; Psa. 122:1-4.
These are among the divine witnesses of the satisfying virtue of these journeys to the city of the great King in the day of the kingdom. The day is coming when the pledge which the journey of the queen of Sheba has given us shall be blessedly redeemed in the joy of the hearts of the thousands of the nations who, in the coming day of Zion's restoration, shall wait there to do willing service to the Lord of the earth.