Jesus descended from the Mount of Olives on a young donkey in 30 AD. This short journey would be called the Triumphal Entry. Jesus the Messiah entered the Holy City and entered the Temple Complex. As He drew near to the city, He began to cry. His cry turned into a prophetic pronouncement of the city’s destruction forty years later.
He used the words, “If you had known…” and “because you did not know the time of your visitation.” The ‘City of Peace’ as its name implies, would become a city doomed to destruction because of its rejection of the Messiah. The Roman general Titus destroyed the city and the Jewish Temple in 70 AD.
Right before the eyes of the people and the religious leaders, the promised Messiah stood as flesh and blood. His coming had long ago been prophesied and now was fulfilled before their eyes.. In this crucial time, He was rejected. Consequences of this rejection followed forty years later and beyond.
Jesus did not weep out of self-pity. He wept because of the rejection bringing severe penalties for the city and its people. The Holy City refused its promise and sealed its destruction. The enemy would lay siege to the city and destroy it. This would happened as Jesus said, “because you [Jerusalem] did not know the time of your visitation.”
We live in a very selfish and self-absorbed age. People are more interested in their appearance on social media than their true reputation and character. Even victimhood is a coveted status. Character flaws and bad behavior are now diagnosed as sicknesses. Men do not want to be held accountable for their poor decisions or lack of judgment. Action and lack of action has consequences.
There are outcomes to our decisions in life. We can get forgiveness for our sins and mistakes but often we must bear the consequences. Many of those consequences flow down to many generations.
This biblical story of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem shook my heart again as I read it. These people and this city missed a great opportunity to accept and receive Jesus the Messiah. For their rejection of the Holy One, they would bring great destruction to the Holy City. In our lives, if we reject Jesus, eternal destruction awaits us. Hell is just as real as Heaven.
Life has many opportunities and often there are great consequences to those decisions. We must be careful. There is much hanging in the balance with our decisions. Which way will you tip the scales to your consequences?
Yours on the Journey,
Harry L. Whitt
(41) Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it,
(42) saying, "If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
(43) For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side,
(44) and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.
Luke 19:41-44 NKJV
Pathway Journey 