Our paragraph topic is: (The destruction of Jerusalem) Part 5.
Take nothing with you. Run for your life if you are to be saved. Don't turn back for anything, else you loose your life for death is at your heals. Christ delivers a dire message to his disciples and to the people about the coming destruction of Jerusalem. Everyone, all the Jews are praising their city, enjoying the sights and sounds of its beauty. But not Christ. He is warning the people of impending doom.
Those who believe are shocked. Those who disbelieve ignore, pass his prediction off as idle gossip from those who would spread fear. The leaders and rulers of the people are terrified that this man who has captured the minds and hearts of the people is now spreading rumors of destruction of their great city. It means ruin for their leadership. And most horrified are those who are with child or children. He is saying: "But woe to those who are with child."
Women beware that you will suffer most because you are with child! Death and destruction will find you first and foremost because you are unable to flee fast enough to outrun death. You will be swallowed up by the oncoming horrors of destruction. And the women know the truth of what the prediction means because they have seen and heard the meaning of tragedy and war. Women are the possessions of destruction and those with child are ravaged the most.
Even today we see the loss of life due to natural disasters. And those most vulnerable are the women and children especially those with child. Floods and fires and hurricanes and storms and all kinds of natural disasters occur around the world in places where people live that do not have adequate means to prepare themselves for oncoming disasters. Loss of life is precious, something that tears at our hearts when we see and hear of such in places in the world.
Christ was a sort of early warning system in those days in that he was telling the people what was coming that they might prepare themselves for the event. The same as we have today, early warning systems that give us knowledge of impending doom that we might have minutes to escape death. Even at the clutches of death though we must prepare ourselves daily thanking God for his precious gift of life and thanking him for the sacrifice made by Christ Jesus ,on the cross, to give us new life. Believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and know that the promise of Christ is yours for the asking. Death is but a door that we must all go through to transform ourselves to the true spirit of life that Christ has given us. Know that it is yours for the asking, yours for the receiving, yours for the keeping that no one can take away. Take the narrow path and God will be with you.
Read the sign of the times! Read the Highlighted New Testament Bible and lift the scales from your eyes that you may see, that you may know, that you may find the truth of who you are in Christ. Read it as though you would read a good book, from cover to cover, and see for yourself. Do not study it in parts reading one passage nd then skipping to another, but read it for understanding. Read it for knowledge. Read it for faith. Read it that your eyes may be opened, that your ears may hear, that your heart may be filled with the light of Christ . The Holy Spirit awaits you. Christ seeks to know you. Open the door and let him in.
