Luke 23:27-32…
But turning to them Jesus said, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. Jesus is pointing to the future. What He was experiencing was indeed a tragedy, but Jerusalem would soon experience its own tragedy. Things will be so bad that blessings such as children will be seen as curses, and people will be wishing they could just die rather than have to go through this experience.
For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry? Green wood still has the sap in it, and the moisture prevents it from burning well. Dry wood has been cut and aged so that it burns very easily. The point Jesus is making is that if the Romans are willing to sanction such injustice and put an innocent man like Him to death, what will they do to the Jews, and what will happen to Jerusalem, when the Romans no longer see them as relevant?
Jesus wants them to consider the rising tide of evil sweeping through Jerusalem. What will happen to Jerusalem is a picture of what hell will be like. Accordingly, people should be concerned for the multitude of souls who face the danger of eternal damnation because of the sin in their lives. This is always the big issue, the eternal state.
Certainly, it isn’t wrong to cry about catastrophe or weep over injustice. But our most correct cries are not about the personal tragedies we can see but the permanent tragedies that we can’t yet see. Christians are supposed to be compassionate, but with an understanding that temporal tragedy is nothing compared to eternal destiny. Do you cry out to the Lord for souls to be saved?
In the end, and as always, God will do what is right. For now, what is right for us to do is to weep for the lost, warn them of the judgment to come, witness to them of Jesus, and hopefully, by God’s grace, win them to Christ.
What are you crying about? Don’t just weep, but warn, witness, and win. Do that, and make your cries count.
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