Tobit 13:16

Jerusem has great buildings of both material and morontia types, while the embellishment of the purely spiritual zones is no less exquisite and replete. If I only had words to tell you of the morontia counterparts of the marvelous physical equipment of Jerusem! If I could only go on to portray the sublime grandeur and exquisite perfection of the spiritual appointments of this headquarters world! Your most imaginative concept of perfection of beauty and repleteness of appointment would hardly approach these grandeurs. And Jerusem is but the first step on the way to the supernal perfection of Paradise beauty.

Jerusem is indeed a foretaste of paradisiacal glory and grandeur. But you can never hope to gain an adequate idea of these glorious architectural worlds by any attempted description. There is so little that can be compared with aught on your world, and even then the things of Jerusem so transcend the things of Urantia that the comparison is almost grotesque. Until you actually arrive on Jerusem, you can hardly entertain anything like a true concept of the heavenly worlds, but that is not so long a time in the future when your coming experience on the system capital is compared with your sometime arrival on the more remote training spheres of the universe, the superuniverse, and Havona.

These seven circles of the Sons are concentric and successively elevated so that each of the outer and larger circles overlooks the inner and smaller ones, each being surrounded by a public promenade wall. These walls are constructed of crystal gems of gleaming brightness and are so elevated as to overlook all of their respective residential circles. The many gates — from fifty to one hundred and fifty thousand — which penetrate each of these walls consist of single pearly crystals.

On Jerusem you will miss the rugged mountain ranges of Urantia and other evolved worlds since there are neither earthquakes nor rainfalls, but you will enjoy the beauteous highlands and other unique variations of topography and landscape. Enormous areas of Jerusem are preserved in a “natural state,” and the grandeur of such districts is quite beyond the powers of human imagination.

The mountains surrounding the Garden abounded in precious stones and metals, though these received very little attention. The dominant idea was to be the glorification of horticulture and the exaltation of agriculture.

Even after this explicit warning, many of Jesus’ followers interpreted these predictions as referring to the changes which would obviously occur in Jerusalem when the reappearing of the Messiah would result in the establishment of the New Jerusalem and in the enlargement of the city to become the world’s capital. In their minds these Jews were determined to connect the destruction of the temple with the “end of the world.” They believed this New Jerusalem would fill all Palestine; that the end of the world would be followed by the immediate appearance of the “new heavens and the new earth.” And so it was not strange that Peter should say: “Master, we know that all things will pass away when the new heavens and the new earth appear, but how shall we know when you will return to bring all this about?”

Jesus was lighthearted and cheerful as they moved along until he came to the brow of Olivet, where the city and the temple towers came into full view; there the Master stopped the procession, and a great silence came upon all as they beheld him weeping. Looking down upon the vast multitude coming forth from the city to greet him, the Master, with much emotion and with tearful voice, said: “O Jerusalem, if you had only known, even you, at least in this your day, the things which belong to your peace, and which you could so freely have had! But now are these glories about to be hid from your eyes. You are about to reject the Son of Peace and turn your backs upon the gospel of salvation. The days will soon come upon you wherein your enemies will cast a trench around about you and lay siege to you on every side; they shall utterly destroy you, insomuch that not one stone shall be left upon another. And all this shall befall you because you knew not the time of your divine visitation. You are about to reject the gift of God, and all men will reject you.”

The spokesmen for this committee explained to Jesus that Alexandria was destined to become the headquarters of Jewish culture for the entire world; that the Hellenistic trend of Jewish affairs had virtually outdistanced the Babylonian school of thought. They reminded Jesus of the ominous rumblings of rebellion in Jerusalem and throughout Palestine and assured him that any uprising of the Palestinian Jews would be equivalent to national suicide, that the iron hand of Rome would crush the rebellion in three months, and that Jerusalem would be destroyed and the temple demolished, that not one stone would be left upon another.

THIS Tuesday afternoon, as Jesus and the apostles passed out of the temple on their way to the Gethsemane camp, Matthew, calling attention to the temple construction, said: “Master, observe what manner of buildings these are. See the massive stones and the beautiful adornment; can it be that these buildings are to be destroyed?” As they went on toward Olivet, Jesus said: “You see these stones and this massive temple; verily, verily, I say to you: In the days soon to come there shall not be left one stone upon another. They shall all be thrown down.” These remarks depicting the destruction of the sacred temple aroused the curiosity of the apostles as they walked along behind the Master; they could conceive of no event short of the end of the world which would occasion the destruction of the temple.

They pressed on, soon standing on the brink of Olivet, and Jesus saw for the first time (in his memory) the Holy City, the pretentious palaces, and the inspiring temple of his Father. At no time in his life did Jesus ever experience such a purely human thrill as that which at this time so completely enthralled him as he stood there on this April afternoon on the Mount of Olives, drinking in his first view of Jerusalem. And in after years, on this same spot he stood and wept over the city which was about to reject another prophet, the last and the greatest of her heavenly teachers.