scriptures from Old Testament history. (Many lessons for a 21st c. world.) SHARE history’s lessons with your SOCIAL ‘Friends’ who think the TV News is ‘new.’ What is your WITNESS for Christ Jesus?
Our hearts in this year of our Lord 2021 still struggle with the affliction of COVID and restless crowds of displaced people displaced from work. All the world suffers a great loss of normalcy as we cry out, “HOW?”
COVID – the Affliction of Social Distancing – 1 + talk of Jesus .com
We will return to our 21st century lamentations of COVID, but now return to the 6th century B.C. question of the people of Judah:
This prophesy of Jesus Christ may not sound any more encouraging than the affliction of COVID or our isolation in social distancing; but you with ears to hear, listen to this metaphor of the Lord Jesus for the time ahead.
The Gospel of John
“Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish G2347 because of the joy that a child has been born into the world. – John 16:21 NASB
Does the Lord’s metaphor not apply to these early pangs of pain in these last days?
Jesus continues in His metaphor of labor pain applying it personally to His own approaching Crucifixion for our sins in Jerusalem, which of course is followed by the Lord’s triumphal resurrection!
The Disciples would once again know their Lord in His risen flesh!
COVID may be one cause of our present affliction, but social distancing will not cure the condition of our dejected demeanors of heart and soul.
“Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. – John 16:22 NASB
The Lord assures the Apostles that they will be ALONE.
While Jesus is isolated in death they will think that HE is ALONE. But HE is not.
Jesus will be with the Father.
“Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.
John 16:32 NASB
SCATTERED.. AND ALONE! Sure sounds like our contemporary SOCIAL DISTANCING.
“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, G2347 but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33 NASB– Strong’s G2347 – thlipsis: tribulation, affliction, trouble
COVID – an affliction of God’s Judgment?
Jesus and the Apostles guide the Church to the narrow path along the valley of the shadow of death.
Perhaps the time has come and is now here for Christians to witness Light into the darkness of these foreboding days of COVID’s crumbling impact on the unclean social environment of the world.
Until the death of Solomon in 931 B.C., a glorious city of Jerusalem overlooked a great empire blessed by the LORD God, but then the politics of Israel divided the great land.
In just a few generations Israel (Samaria) succumbed in 722 B.C. and Judah when Jerusalem was sieged and the Temple burned in ~586 B.C.
Jerusalem falls [~586 B.C.]. Three years later the Jews and Jeremiah are forced to depart to Egypt. For forty years from (ca. 645–605 B.C.) Jeremiah had preached to Judah of the LORD’s judgment against it.
The Septuagint [Greek O.T.] introduces the crying out loud of Lamentations:
“And it came to pass, after Israel had been carried away captive…Jeremiah sat weeping [cf. 3:48, 49, etc.]…lamented…and said…”
How lonely sits the city That was full of people! She has become like a widow Who was once great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces Has become a forced laborer!
You may have felt that recently for a virtually empty NYC New Year’s Eve broadcast. Or perhaps the closed shops of your town caused anxiety that maybe you should where a mask in public.
What we knew as home and comfort, security and blessing — all those things have changed until God knows when.
The affliction of our hearts in this year of our Lord 2021 still struggles with COVID and countless crowds of displaced people have NO place to work. Some will be evicted from their meager subsistence in cold rooms rented from the rich princes of our darkness.
All the world suffers a great loss of normalcy as we cry out, “HOW?”
Will we find hope in our despair?
For in A.D. 2021, we feel just as lonely and afflicted as those forced from Jerusalem in 586 B.C. and also in A.D. 70, Jews and Christiansinto a crumbling Roman Empire.
Our journey into this unknown world of COVID doesn’t look so hopeful just now.
excerpts from Lamentations
She weeps bitterly in the night, And her tears are on her cheeks; She has no one to comfort her.. 3 Judah has gone into exile out of affliction..
All her gates are deserted..
Her little ones have gone away As captives led by the enemy. 6 All of her splendor Is gone from the daughter of Zion; Her leaders have become like deer That have found no pasture, And they have fled without strength From the pursuer.
Social Distancing
Fleeing from the world’s uncleanness
It was never just the Jews fleeing Jerusalem or multi-ethnic victims of a holocaust perpetrated by a 20th century thousand-year empire who suffered affliction.
Solomon suggested that there is nothing new under the sun.
Sieges of our empty cities of our empires in the time of Assyria or Rome, the U.S. or China, and even current afflictions of our political princes and their followers or victims do not surprise Almighty God.
In every era some in all nations some will succumb to war and hunger. Souls suffering by circumstance must flee from the wrath that is to come.
A pandemic of sin forces social distancing from the love of the LORD and each other. Throughout the self-idolatrous nations of their ‘mother earth,’ a covert COVID infested world will do what is right in their own eyes.
Wail out from the depths of your soul
The funeral dirge of your affliction
For it is not only for the sins of Jerusalem
But for the afflictions of the world
Fleeing from the Lord God.
Roger@ talkofJesus.com Jan. A.D. 2021
to be continued...
NEXT: in COVID - the Affliction of Social Distancing - part 2
we will define affliction & look to Scripture for our cure.
Then the watchman saw another man running; and the watchman called to the gatekeeper and said, “Behold, another man running by himself.”
And the king said, “This one also is bringing good news.”
2 Samuel 18:16
Watchtowers at gates of old city
Of Gatekeepers and Watchmen
Soldier of Roman Legion
It would have been a Roman Centurion, Roman guards at the gates of first century Jerusalem.
Armed soldiers, some who had marched on Roman roads connecting nearby towns and slaughtering rebellious zealots in the mountain passes guarded the gates.
As each festival approached with its crowds of pilgrims flooding the streets of Jerusalem, each watchtower with its Roman overseers would look to turn back any threat to their subject-king and their Caesar.
A Roman guard in each watchtower of Jerusalem would have sent out an alarm if any opponent approached their captive city.
They were unlike the faithful who worshiped here and the not so casual crowds of curious visitors of this day.
Damascus Gate of Jerusalem
Who approaches our city?
Will they enter through the gate by permission of their king (or city leader)?
Are they any threat to the Emperor’s representative, our leaders and our Legions?
Who may enter?
It was common practice of the people, including shepherds leading sheep for the slaughter of the sacrifice, to travel here from far away hills and trade within Jerusalem’s walls. Then they worshiped within the courts of their Temple, surrounded by walls of watchmen.
The gatekeeper is much more than a ticket taker, so to speak, a man of authority.
Please keep in mind the context of John’s gospel in the earthly journey of Jesus and the Apostles to Jerusalem. Although we pause once more in John’s witness of a man born blind, the context of Jesus’ actions set the stage for what will happen next.
Rome will destroy Jerusalem later, as Babylon and others had destroyed her before. This nervous alliance between a subject king of the region and ruler of Rome governed the day-to-day lives of Judea’s subjects.
Some mattered more than others. A ruling council guarded their revamped religion and culture: Pharisees, Sadducees, rich landowners paying taxes for the Roman army to remain there in peace.
They kept pretense of self-rule under Herod as a self-subjugated nation which could be crushed by Rome at any hint of rebellion.
A Roman legacy of a Judean King
Back in 19 B.C., Rome had allowed their great builder king to start rebuilding the Temple. Ten thousand skilled laborers and a thousand Levites built it with contributions of Jews mostly from the diaspora to the east just beyond Rome’s grip. It would not be completed until A.D. 63, just seven years prior to their destruction of all Jerusalem. – Source
Those now in authority choose who may enter Jerusalem. Several acted as gatekeeper for a gate entering the court of the Temple, a designated religious police poised at its gates. And as always, those judged for crimes were sentenced by a court sitting at the gate.
But now their jewish judgments must be confirmed by Rome’s prefect who cruelly crushed opposition by the constant reminders of their Roman crosses of crucifixion along roads to the city.
Like always, men of no threat to anyone often sat within the gates begging from faithful pilgrims coming and going into the city.
“For you always have the poor with you; but you do not always have Me.
– the words of Jesus, Matthew 26:11 NASB
David’s Watchmen
When David was king, Jerusalem had fought for the LORD rather than bowing down to a Caesar. Yet even David sat as gatekeeper of Israel after opposition by his own son.
David’s great kingdom long forgotten, Jerusalem’s leaders mustered the crowds toward a new faith of confidence by the name of David, although few remembered David’s defeats and difficulties.
One such ne’er-told scripture would have been of David’s time after Absalom’s revolt. It was a day not so grandiose as their many reminders to first century crowds of Solomon’s first Temple.
7 The people of Israel were defeated there before the servants of David [Judah], and the slaughter there that day was great, 20,000 men…
17 They took Absalom and cast him into a deep pit in the forest and erected over him a very great heap of stones. And all Israel fled, each to his tent.
24 Now David was sitting between the two gates; and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate by the wall, and raised his eyes and looked, and behold, a man running by himself. The watchman called and told the king.
And the king said, “If he is by himself there is good news in his mouth.”
And he came nearer and nearer. Then the watchman saw another man running; and the watchman called to the gatekeeper and said, “Behold, another man running by himself.”
And the king said, “This one also is bringing good news.”
…
Why send two?
Two messengers. King David awaits good news as he sits in the gate as gatekeeper of the City of David.
Men from the watchtowers above see a distant scene long before David has news of what has happened. Two separate messengers approaching the stronghold of Jerusalem where the people had kept their king behind as gatekeeper.
Why two? What details of the battle for the LORD will they reveal?
“O my son Absalom
The report of hope turns into great sorrow for the king.
“Let my lord the king receive good news, for the Lord has freed you this day from the hand of all those who rose up against you.”
“Let the enemies of my lord the king, and all who rise up against you for evil, be as that young man!”
33 The king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept.
Though his victory as King is secured, David would have done anything to have kept his own son from death.
And thus he said as he walked, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
2 Samuel 19:
8 So the king arose and sat in the gate. When they told all the people, saying, “Behold, the king is sitting in the gate,” then all the people came before the king…
After several violent battles between the rebellious tribes of Israel David prevails as king.
Solomon then becomes Israel’s richest and greatest king, building the Temple of the Lord. But in his old age Solomon falls away from his faith and at his death Israel and Judah once again divide.
After some centuries both kingdoms fall, the Temple of Solomon destroyed.
A Babylonian-built Jewish temple
Perhaps you have never considered that the temple in Jerusalem could never have been rebuilt over the ruble where the Law was found without Persia’s and Babylon’s help. Of course, the LORD made it possible as the LORD had influenced Pharaoh before.
“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Ezra 1:2 NASB
Therefore, ‘in order to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia.’ [Ezra 1:1]
For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.
Hebrews 3:3 NASB
Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE,
DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME, AS IN THE DAY OF TRIAL IN THE WILDERNESS…
Hebrews 3:7-8 NASB
Nehemiah & Ezra
Prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel warned both Israel and Judah to return to the LORD, but they also provided hope for later faithful generations of God’s faithfulness.
Although building of the second temple was begun around 516 BC (many centuries after David), it was not completed until about 349 BC under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Then I said to them, “You see the bad situation we are in, that Jerusalem is desolate and its gates burned by fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem so that we will no longer be a reproach.”
Nehemiah 2:17 NASB
Again, note the passage of time and the patience of the LORD in completing His plan of redemption.
Nehemiah 4:
He [Sanballat] spoke in the presence of his brothers and the wealthy men of Samaria and said,
“What are these feeble Jews doing?
Are they going to restore it for themselves? Can they offer sacrifices? Can they finish in a day? Can they revive the stones from the dusty rubble even the burned ones?”
The importance of gatekeepers guarding the gates of the faith, as well as the city continued as it had since the time of David and traditions of Moses.
… And Judah was carried away into exile to Babylon for their unfaithfulness.
17 Now the gatekeepers were Shallum and Akkub and Talmon and Ahiman and their relatives (Shallum the chief being stationed until now at the king’s gate to the east)…
20 Phinehas the son of Eleazar was ruler over them previously, and the Lord was with him. Zechariah the son of Meshelemiah was gatekeeper of the entrance of the tent of meeting. All these who were chosen to be gatekeepers at the thresholds were 212.
The Pharisees and priests (Levites) of the rebuilt temple of the first century had legitimacy of guarding the purity of the faith of the LORD.
Now the leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem, but the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while nine-tenths remained in the other cities.
We will next return to first century Jerusalem, but first hear the words of the Prophet Isaiah. (Without knowing their context you may have heard them before.)
Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. … The Gentiles shall come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising. “Lift up your eyes all around, and see: They all gather together, they come to you; Your sons shall come from afar, And your daughters shall be nursed at your side. Then you shall see and become radiant, And your heart shall swell with joy…
Yet previously Isaiah the Prophet had warned:
His watchmen are blind, All of them know nothing. All of them are mute dogs unable to bark, Dreamers lying down, who love to slumber; And the dogs are greedy, they are not satisfied.
And they are shepherds who have no understanding; They have all turned to their own way, Each one to his unjust gain, to the last one.
Into this same Jerusalem the Messiah Jesus enters the gates, encounters the watchmen and shepherds of Herod. Among other signs the Lord gives a man blind from birth his sight!
Could the LORD have sent a new gatekeeper of heaven to Jerusalem?
