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Having Faith
The ultimate burden
By: Dr. Jeff Kaplan, Community Contributor
Topics: Church Article
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Mon Sep 24, 2007 16:45:54 PDT
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What does it take to really break your heart? What makes you grieve? Learning that your loved one just died? Discovering that you have terminal cancer? Hearing the cry of a lost child? Seeing a smushed dog or cat or some other kind of road kill lying on the road? It's interesting that the things that grieve us may not be high on God's grief list.
Perhaps while allowing His eyes to scan across the Kidron Valley to the City of David, with great emotion Jesus let out His lament:"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!" (Matthew 23:37,38). Jesus wept over Jerusalem because the rebellious inhabitants slaughtered God's leaders, refused to come to their Messiah, and as a result, they were alienated from God's Son.
This refusal of the Jews, as a whole, to come to their Messiah is touched on in John 5:40: "You are unwilling to come to me so that you may have life." In John 1:11, God's chosen people rejected their promised King: "He came to his own, and those who were his own did not receive him." God still has a remnant of Jewish believers. There are exceptions. But by and large the Jewish race has rejected its own Messiah. Now a predictable thing occurs when people reject Jesus and the truth He shares. They automatically listen to someone else who is not worth listening to. Jesus brings this out in John 4:43: "I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him."
Who was Jesus referring to when He spoke of "another"? Take a moment to look at Matthew 24. During the future tribulation time, both Jews and Gentiles will be duped by following false messiahs and false Christs. Several times, especially in Matthew 24, Jesus warned His disciples about this:"See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in my name, saying,'I am the Christ,' and will mislead many" (verse 4f). "Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many" (verse 11); and, "If anyone says to you, 'Behold, here is the Christ,' or 'There he is,' do not believe him. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect" (verse 23f).
I asked myself, "When was the last time I grieved over someone, who was misled by a false prophet or teacher?" Other than praying for lost relatives and others who come to mind, my heart is often not broken over those who are alienated from God's Son. And yet, it's painful for me to think of where my grandmas are. It pangs me to consider where many of my living relatives will go if they don't get right with God.
When was the last time you grieved the spiritually lost condition of an unsaved relative or friend? Does your heart ever get burdened and weighed down over those who are alienated from God's Son? If not, why?
