Matthew 12:38-42
It is totally impossible for anyone to understand God, or to
say, if I was God I would do such and such, and here is the simple reason why, you
cannot conceive of the heart of God. You
might dream of a time without sin, a time of being able to walk on planet earth
without lust, greed, hate, or selfishness, but that time happened, and guess
what man blew it. So God chose Abram,
who later became Abraham, who fathered a nation, a people that would follow the
Lord’s commandments, but that also did not work. Then God sent prophets and judges, and even
kings to lead the people and that did not work.
And in the end times God sent His Son, His only Son, to be born of a
virgin named Mary. The Gospel according
to John gives this account of what the actions of man were toward the Son of
God. “The
true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He
was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not
know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not
receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his
name, he gave the right to become children of
God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the
flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:9-13)
Now the clock is ticking down, and yet no one but God knows
the date or the hour, but we have been given insight into the signs of the
close of the age and the soon return of our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ, the
only Son of God, in Matthew 24. As I
study and look in the Scriptures, I believe we are in the generation Jesus
calls an evil and adulterous generation seeking for a sign. And Jesus gives us examples of things to look
for: “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See
that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For
nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be
famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are
but the beginning of the birth pains.” (Matthew 24:6-8)
I’m
not sure, but it seems like we are into the birth pains; famines and
earthquakes and wars and rumors of wars, this world is in a mess. And yet we, like the scribes and Pharisees,
are asking for more information, and Jesus is telling us that none will be
given. This was Jesus’ answer to them
and to us: “An evil and adulterous
generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of
the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the
great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart
of the earth. The men of Nineveh will
rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented
at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this
generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the
wisdom of Solomon, and
behold, something greater than Solomon is here.” (Matthew
12:39-42)
The
statement that keeps coming into my mind is; it’s time to act and live life as
if Jesus tells the truth, anything less is rebellion.
From
the Back Porch,
Bob
Rice
No comments:
Post a Comment