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COVID – the Affliction of Social Distancing – 2
Affliction

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:

“How?”

Previously, in case you missed part 1:

COVID – the Affliction of Social Distancing

Even though the Lord warned those with ears to hear in advance, their unexpected suffering is real.

Eicha – Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah
- 1:3 Judah has gone into exile under affliction H6040 And under harsh servitude..
- 1:7 In the days of her affliction H6040 and homelessness Jerusalem remembers all her precious things That were from the days of old..
- 1:9 She did not consider her future. Therefore she has fallen astonishingly; She has no comforter. “See, O LORD, my affliction, H6040..
Strong’s H6040 עֳנִי
- affliction, poverty, misery;
  - from H6031; depression, i.e. misery:—afflicted(-ion), trouble.
That’s it! .. with this COVID affliction of A.D. 2020, 2021 and perhaps years of a generation to come, isn’t it?

Jeremiah tells us [in Lamentations 3]:

I am the man who has seen affliction H6040
Because of the rod of His wrath..

Remember my affliction H6040 and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.

Like Jeremiah, we ask: Does the Lord our God not hear our laments of this present affliction?

Lamentations 4 & 5

Hear this 6th c. B.C. prayer with contrition of crushed spirit and acceptance of just punishment for guilt.

Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach..
The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!
Lamentations 5:1,16 KJV

Where is our A.D. 2021 confession of sin against the Lord?

Indeed, the nations are unclean before the Lord our God.

θλῖψις – Strong’s G2347

Not that we require more synonyms for our sufferings, but the NT Greek brings with it hope of the Good News of Jesus Christ our Savior.

TRIBULATION or affliction
- a pressing, pressing together, pressure
- metaph. oppression, affliction, tribulation, distress, straits
  - From θλίβω (G2346); to press (as grapes), press hard upon
  - a compressed way; narrow straitened, contracted
  - metaph. to trouble, afflict, distress
  - Four years ago I addressed this root & persecution in Tribulation? Cheer up.
Tribulation? Cheer up.

Behold the hour is coming

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.
Roger Harned – talk of Jesus .com challenge to the socially distanced church of A.D. 2021

Social Media is not the world
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to be continued...
NEXT: letter to a church persevering through suffering
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January 6, 2021
COVID – the Affliction of Social Distancing
Solomon’s Jerusalem – the end of an era

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.

Prophesy: Affliction Now!

אֵיכָה יָשְׁבָה בָדָד הָעִיר רַבָּתִי עָם הָיְתָה כְּאַלְמָנָה רַּבָּתִי בַגּוֹיִם שָׂרָתִי בַּמְּדִינוֹת הָיְתָה לָמַֽס׃ ס
Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah Eicha 1:1 WLC

Our Loud Cries, “HOW?”

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…”
Introduction to Eicha (Lamentations) 1 :: Septuagint (LXX)

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!
Lamentations 1:1 NASB

Lamentations for the lonely cities

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 Christians into 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
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to be continued...

NEXT: in COVID - the Affliction of Social Distancing - part 2
we will define affliction & look to Scripture for our cure.
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January 4, 2021
JOHN 2020 Good News for A.D. 2020
Intro to the Gospel of John

IN THE BEGINNING: λόγος logos

Intro to talk of Jesus .com

in A. D. 2020

talk of Jesus .com shared the Gospel of John
in the context of A.D. 90, with application to A.D. 2020,
rather than chronologically, culturally or by chapter & verse..
..while during recent months:
- some sought to stream the stage of worship
- some sent seeker-friendly scripture into our homes
- some church communities disintegrated while others diminished & distanced (like our 2020 remote office meetings complete with slides).
To review the Gospel of John, simply click on any link in the outline below & it will open in a new window.
Roger – author of A.D. 2020 series on the Gospel of John

I hope you were blessed by the secure links to reliable sites for further study of Scripture, as well as insight into the 1st century church of John’s Gospel (written ~A.D.- 90).

Scripture encourages us to a more mature faith.

John’s Prologue – Good News!

IN THE BEGINNING was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

ALL THINGS came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of

MANKIND.

And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it.

14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God [Son] who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.
John 1:18 NASB

The Book of the Prologue

John’s Prologue [1:1-18], from which the Apostle next proceeds to the testimony of John the Baptist and the Messiah’s calling of the Twelve, states many important theological themes & along with his Epilogue [21:1-25 {linked below}] provides additional depth of purpose of John’s Gospel.

John’s Prologue & Epilogue

“Follow Me

In A.D. 2020, this is where we began our deep dive into the Good News of John.

Signs – Jesus IS the Messiah

Unless the Father draws you – Signs

Do you believe in the Son of Man?

Life in the Holy Spirit

John 3: “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” …

Teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ
- ‘My Father’s House – John 2
- “You must be born again.
- I am the Messiah – John 4
- Before Abraham was, I AM
- John 11
- “..and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.
- also love one another-John 13
- Jesus prays – John 17
- Jesus answered him – John 19:11
Jesus said:
Gospel of John

“Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! – John 1:29b

As Jesus passed by, He saw a man who had been blind from birth. – John 9:1

Are you greater than our father Abraham who died? And the prophets died. Who do you claim to be?” – John 8:53

“But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. – John 10:26-28

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise from the dead.” .. “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” – John 11:23,25

talk of Jesus .com

About the Author John -2- Sons of Zebedee

The Gatekeeper & the Shepherds – the Door

Before Abraham was, I AM

If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly

Even in the unexpected crisis of these last days what does man fear most?
from Lazarus – HELP from the grave

Death!

It is finished.. + Death’s witnesses

Witnesses to Jesus Risen! – the Eleven, a Passing Witness
The Hour Is Come

“Indeed, an hour is coming, and has come, when each of you will be scattered to his own home..

.. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”

John 16:32-34 excerpt CSB
“Take heart,” the Lord Jesus encourages disciples, I have overcome the world.”
And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book:
John 20:20 KJV

Unrelenting Bad NEWS of A.D. 2020

What must I do with the GOOD NEWS

of Jesus Christ?

Good News for A.D. 2020 – A.D. ∞

Hear all the unrelenting bad news of yesterday or today.

For followers of Jesus, His death diminished life’s hope in eternal life; that is until the Gospel of the Lord’s resurrection reached the eyes and ears and touch of His dearly beloved friends.

John and the Disciples witnessed the Lord Jesus in His Risen Flesh many times after His resurrection.

“Peace be with you.”

And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
John 20:20

Their sorrow had turned into joy and so must ours; for in Christ Jesus his disciples of every generation have eternal life through His sacrifice for our sins. This is our Gospel, His Good News to those who would believe.

NEWS of A.D. 2021

SEE what follows JOHN 2020 in JOHN 2021.

“Peace to you,” yet also a command of the risen Christ Jesus.

& without Him:

EXPECT MORE BAD NEWS

John’s Epilogue
John 20:30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.

But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
John 20:21 CSB

I pray that the Lord has blessed you through the Gospel of John in A.D. 2020
Roger – Roger@talkofJesus.com

May our Lord Jesus Christ draw you into His grace, giving you new hope of Eternal Life in the YEAR OF OUR LORD 2021, in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
December 30, 2020