As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace-but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” Luke 19: 41-44
In these verses, Jesus is predicting the future of Jerusalem.
The future is prophesied about often in the Bible. Even Jesus’ coming was foretold, but I found these verses interesting because Jesus also gives a very specific reason for why Jerusalem would suffer, because they did not recognize the time of God’s coming. I think so often this is the case with human suffering. God’s allows it because of our sin. He gave us free will, but he also gave us intelligence, His Word, and the common sense to figure out what to do with all these things and use them wisely. When we don’t, we suffer, and others around us who may or may not deserve to suffer do so as well. Our sin and our choices affect everyone else too. That’s why it is important to carefully consider what we say and do each day. Terrible, terrible things have been happening all around lately, such as the school shootings that continue to repeat themselves with the loss of life increasing each time. Many people are asking why God would allow these things. It was the sin of the man who shot the sweet children at that school that caused it, not God. It is the build up of sin in our culture, in our world, that has led to such tragedies. It is depending not on God to help us raise our children and our world, but taking God out of our schools and our lives that accelerates the rate at which our world is being corrupted. Look at the start of this verse stating that as Jesus approached the city, he wept over it. God cries with us and for us when we do horrible things to each other, but this is what we chose when Adam and Eve chose to eat the apple and know the things that God knows. God does not want us to suffer.That’s why we have the choice of Him and heaven when we pass on, but He also never said life would be easy. He gives us the tools and the amazing determination and perseverance to survive it, but there will be suffering along the way. Those children never had a chance to live their lives and their families are experiences unfathomable pain, but they are with God now, and they no longer have to endure the suffering of this world. If those families affected most closely by this tragedy cling to God, He will bring great things out of the pain. He will help others through them. He will find a way to show His love and bring many people to a better place because of the loss of their precious babies. They will be able to bring honor to their deaths through the good work they can do to help others. I hope they are able to find God in all of this. I hope they will allow him to help them through the pain because he is the only one who can truly comfort and give peace when something as misguided and tragic as this happens to us personally. There is much more suffering to occur in this world before Jesus returns to take us all home. There’s no avoiding it, but we can work to do whatever we can to make the world we live in a little bit better than it is now by allowing God to work through us and with us as we navigate through this fragile life He gave us.
No comments:
Post a Comment