What Did Jesus Mean When He Said, "The Stones Will Cry Out"?

In Luke 19, when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey's colt, the multitude of the disciples threw down their coats and palm branches and said,

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. The Pharisees said, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.

But Jesus answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the stones will cry out. Now often

Jesus' reply is taken to mean that if the people stopped praising Christ, creation itself would sing his praise.

After all, Psalm 69, 34 says, Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in them.

And Isaiah 55, 12 says, The trees will clap their hands. But that's not what Jesus was implying.

His statement in Luke 19, 40 is in the future tense, prophesying of something that will soon take place.

Habakkuk 2, 11 says, Surely the stone will cry out from the wall, referring to the judgment on the

Chaldeans for the wickedness they had done to Israel. Jesus was saying that the judgment of Babylon would be the same judgment that would come to Jerusalem.

In the very next passage, he laments over Jerusalem and prophesies of their destruction. They will level you to the ground.

They will not leave in you one stone upon another because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.

Forty years later, what Jesus prophesied would happen, happened. The King who died on a cross and rose from the dead is coming back again.

If you believe in Him, you will be saved. But whoever did not believe will perish in judgment because you did not recognize the time of your visitation, when we understand the text.