Now, it will be seen that there is a momentous revelation contained in these words, respecting the real cause of such dreadful disasters as these two incidents illustrated. When He says, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish,” He clearly intimates that a Divine judgment is going forward in the world, which sooner or later brings suffering and destruction upon men in consequence of their sin. Even what we might call a physical accident, like the fall of a tower which kills eighteen persons, is a warning to men that they are liable to such a death at any moment, and that, therefore, they should repent and be prepared for it. It is an example of what may befall any of us, and of what will befall all of us in one way or another, unless we repent. If we look more particularly into the example of the men whom Pilate slaughtered, we shall realize that it has a peculiarly close application to our own day. These men, who were resisting the Roman Government, were examples of the vehement passions which were at that time surging among the Jewish people. Our Lord Himself was the victim of the fierce hatred of foreign influence which prevailed among the people. The priests and Pharisees said among themselves, “What do we? For this man doeth many miracles, and if we let Him thus alone, all men will believe on Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” And the High Priest, Caiaphas, replied, “Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.” Thus it was that the passions of the Jewish people were worked up into such blindness and wickedness, that they committed the awful crime of putting our Lord to death; and then in forty years the prediction of our Lord was fulfilled, and the great mass of them perished in just such a slaughter as that which Pilate committed, the blood of the nation being shed in torrents in the Courts of the Temple, and amidst its sacrifices. These events--the massacre by Pilate, the murder of our Lord, the destruction of the Jewish people--were not separate and disconnected events. They were all the consequence of the sins and evil passions which our Lord denounced among the Jews of His time; and the disasters which the Jews suffered were the judgments of God’s righteousness upon those sins.