Good Saturday morning! Can we expect still more snow tomorrow? The warm temps of the past couple of days melted a lot of snow, but we still have quite a bit on roads and lawns. Another good snow storm might be just the thing to keep us all inside like hibernating bears until May. So far I haven't had any luck with that; I still have to get up every morning. Hibernation could save us a lot of money over the winter. Yes, it would be hard to hold school with all the students hibernating, and more frightening still when your kid's teacher claimed she couldn't tell the difference in performance. I guess we had better be content with how the Potter made us; his precisely crafted and wonderfully made little collection of clay pots. Praise the Lord for the new day!
But he answered them, "You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." (Matt 24:2)
Many of us will recognize the prophecy of Jesus regarding the mighty Temple buildings that Herod the Great had constructed before Jesus had been born. Huge stones had been carefully quarried, trimmed, smoothed, and laid with great skill in the construction of these buildings. That construction would take decades to complete and lasted for only about 20 or 30 years as a completed project before the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and fulfilled the prophecy spoken in our verse today. In 1984, I visited Jerusalem and the great Temple had not at that time been reconstructed, even today the spot stands mostly flat, with one notable exception, the Dome of the Rock. Not only do the Hebrew children not have the Temple as Jesus did when he grew into a man in Judea, but the shrine of another religion stands there. The Dome of the Rock is beautiful in appearance, made of many costly and lovely materials, but you can imagine how having your holy site taken would tend to frost your gourd so to speak.
What caused every stone to be thrown down though? Historians actually know the answer to that one! It seems that a lot of gold was used to overlay parts of the construction in Herod's great temple and there were many gold and gilded objects used in the worship services. When the Romans set fire to the building, the gold melted and ran down into cracks in the lower stones and foundation. The temptation of greed caused the Roman soldiers, and many others no doubt, to knock down every stone in search of the gold. God can use even the base instincts of humans to fulfill His words of prophecy. The fire ruined the stones of the temple and with the city also destroyed, the few survivors would have used any intact building material to make shelters and new homes, and the survivors probably searched relentlessly for any gold the Romans might have missed.
Melting gold and letting it run down into every crack and nook in a building would seem to be a rather expensive form of demolition and cleanup. You and I couldn't afford to demolish a building that way. The lesson does kind of make me wonder what "gold" God would pour into the cracks of a nation if He decided to cause its demolition. What form of worldly treasure might not be in the cracks of our nation? Treasure valuable enough that our own people would dig and widen those cracks to hasten that destruction. Greed for money is certainly much in evidence in these times, as is all other lusts of the flesh. The desire for power, both political and economic, has driven many to sin in that pursuit. Even simple selfish desires like laziness and convenience have caused people to have abortions because: "A baby just wouldn't fit my lifestyle right now!" Sin would seem to be the "gold" that causes so many to drive their picks into the cracks of our society and nation.
Sin doesn't seem much like a "gold" that you would search for, does it? There is an important difference between those who believe in Christ and those who do not - how much of a death grip sin has on their lives. A Christ-one still feels the lust of the flesh, but the Holy Spirit within can break those chains binding us to sin, if we will step back, lower the pick, and let Jesus help us make the right decision. The power to decide is still ours in every test between to sin or not to sin. Sometimes we make the right decision, other times we don't. Why is that do you suppose?
Look at it this way: At some point you may have seen the illustration of the devil and the angel on a character's shoulders. One exhorts him to do good, the other to sin. However, that illustration is not quite correct. The illustration for one who does not believe in Jesus should be of a big devil and a little policeman. The devil still exhorts the sinner to more sin, while the policeman tells the sinner about God's law and the laws of society. The policeman is too small, though he is very exact, to move the devil from its place. One time the sinner might regard the law, listen, and decide to do the right thing simply to avoid punishment. Other times that policeman is looking the other way, staring off into space perhaps, and the individual sinner has no defense and falls into more sin. Now the Christ-one is freed from the Law, so no policeman. Instead the illustration should be of a sly little devil and a powerful, muscular angel wearing running shoes on the other shoulder. The angel is much more powerful and is faster, but the devil is sly and hides in small places. If you can picture this illustration, you might wonder why we don't always make the right decision. What slows down our fast powerful angel is, well, us! We don't always listen when God's Holy Spirit gives us that moment of decision between the lust that we feel and the peace that Jesus gave to us. We sometimes give the devil a place to hide, such as a habit leftover from our sinful days.
It will take a lifetime and the direct touch of Jesus to finally cleanse us from all unrighteousness. However, the Spirit assures us that day will come. Look up in hope! Listen to the Spirit of God!
Bucky
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