The Lord brought the Jews back from captivity and planted them in their land. They would have had God’s choicest blessings had they obeyed his voice; but they failed him, and plunged into the grossest sins. This criminality culminated in their murdering the Son of God and many of his saints. It was not the crimes of individuals here and there, but the deliberate crimes of the nation. Death is the punishment for deliberate murder. National murder demanded national death. The Jewish nation suffered that death in the destruction of Jerusalem. When God sent his Son into the world, he did not send him to reorganize the Jewish kingdom, but to open up a way of salvation for sinners. He did not fail to accomplish what he was sent to do, as the future-kingdom advocates claim. Hear his own words: “I glorified thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which thou hast given me to do.” (John 17:4.) That statement should settle a lot of speculation about the rejected king and the postponed kingdom. When Jesus comes again, he will not come to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, but to render judgment. (Matt. 25:31-46; 2 Thess. 1:6-10.) His temple is here now. “Upon this rock I will build my church.” (Matt. 16:18.) That church is his temple. “Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, and such are ye.” (1 Cor. 3:16, 17.) “Being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:20-22.) In the old material temple, animal sacrifices and other material sacrifices were offered; in this new spiritual temple, spiritual sacrifices are offered. “Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Pet. 2:5.) Can any one believe that we are to give up this glorious spiritual temple for the old material temple? this spiritual worship for the carnal ordinances of the material temple? If so, he has poor taste for the spiritual.