Sent by God

Matthew 23:37-39

Do you recall this statement from Jesus in Matthew 23:34, “Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town.”   And remember Jesus is telling them He sent all these people beginning with Abel to Zechariah, which covers from Genesis to the end of the Hebrew O.T.  And then John the Baptist, Jesus taking on flesh and becoming a man, and the disciples and apostles, and at best they ignored them, but many they killed and some they crucified and others they just persecuted.

It seems hard to believe that you or I would do as the nation Israel did to the messengers of God.  Were they just fickle people, in that God often called them a stiff-necked people?  Do you recall the stoning of Stephen, in Dr. Luke’s account in Acts 7:51-53, “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit.  As your fathers did, so do you.  Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute?  And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, and who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”  And guess what, we can add Stephen’s name to that list above of those they killed.

It is a wonderful thing that you or I will never have the authority to make decisions for such people as they deserve, for we would be bringing quick judgment on them, and it would not be mercy nor grace.  But God, in the form of the God Man Jesus Christ, lamented over them, and over Jerusalem.  These are Jesus’ words: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

I often look into the mirror and recall the warning of 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? --unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” We who claim to be the grace children of God should take serious the words of Stephen,   

“As your fathers did, so do you.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice