Today is the first day of Spring! Yet the atmosphere is dampened with “Wars and rumours of wars” that are happening just as the Lord Jesus said they would in Matthew Chapter 24 after his disciples stopped to admire the permanence of the architecture.
Yet if you read that chapter He tells us first:
Don’t be deceived:
“For many will come in my name, claiming, `I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.” Matthew 24:5
To our 21st Century educated ears, this sounds rather unlikely, but just stop and think:
Have you ever seen Stonehenge? Or walked around London and seen the Houses of Parliament and listened to Big Ben? Have you ever gazed at Westminster Abbey or waved through the bars at Buckingham Palace? If you have ever done, that don’t you get a sense of permanence? That this will all stand for a long time?
DON’T, says Jesus! Don’t be deceived by buildings that will not last, and don’t be deceived by self-proclaimed saviours, even ones coming in my name, which cannot save! There’s no problem recognising beauty, but don’t place your confidence in it.
Yet when touched by uncertainty, people jump for the easiest answers to help them. Which is why He also said:
Don’t be alarmed!
“You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth-pains.” Matthew 24: 6-8
It’s all very well saying who not to follow – but how bad will it get? Very bad!
The image of birth-pains is one that is very familiar in the Bible as an image of a period of great distress that goes hand-in-hand with the coming of the Messiah as judge, the so-called ‘Day of the Lord’:
Wail, for the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.
Because of this, all hands will go limp, every man’s heart will melt.
Terror will seize them, pain and anguish will grip them; they will writhe like a woman in labour. They will look aghast at each other, their faces aflame. (Isaiah 13: 6-8)
These ‘birth-pains’ are the clear trail of disasters that seem to be happening: wars and their rumours, earthquakes, famines.
The temptation might be to jump for a solution / run for a saviour because it looks like the real one isn’t coming…
People might call their saviour enlightenment or science or philosophy or society or politics or global warming! Yet all of them have been tried and one way or another have failed or will fail to bring real hope…
But don’t be alarmed, says Jesus…. birth-pains precede birth…. or to take the analogy further, ‘It’s just the sign that I’m coming’.
That’s the confidence we are to have in these difficult days.
Spencer Shaw