To Encourage You

Matthew 27:41-43 “So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.  He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, “I am the Son of God”’’”

In the account above from Matthew 27 we hear the words of the chief priests, scribes, and elders as they witnessed Jesus’ death on the cross.  Here were the ringleaders of the opposition to Christ, the instigators of the crucifixion, or so they thought.  Little did they know that their rejection of the Messiah had been clearly prophesied hundreds of years before in the very Scriptures of which they claimed to be experts. They should have known better, but they were completely blind spiritually. As Jesus had said of them earlier, “Let them alone; they are blind guides.  And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit” (Matthew 15:14).  They were oblivious to the fact that if Jesus had indeed “saved himself . . . and come down from the cross” any hope for their own redemption would have been lost forever.  Here was the only One who could pay the debt for their own sins so that they might one day be saved, yet they mocked Him for all He did.  

We have the same mockers today, and their mocking words were prophesied as well.  Peter tells us that “you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.’  For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.  But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly” (2 Peter 3:2-7).  

As at the time of the crucifixion, there are mockers today. There are people in places of leadership who for one reason or another have a hearing with the general populace, who deny that God exists, and of course they also deny that Jesus is coming again.  They mockingly deny that the flood at the time of Noah ever happened, and they laugh at the idea that there will be a final judgment. They claim they know what they cannot know, and mockingly, in so many words, say “where is the promise of His coming?”  Like the religious leaders who watched Jesus on the cross, they are blind to the fact that if Jesus did come back right now rather than wait in the face of their mocking, they would be lost for all eternity.  They are blind to the fact that it is only “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail” (Lamentations 3:22).   While He waits for them to repent, they mock, and their destruction hangs over them.  

May the Lord give us the wisdom to listen to Him rather than the mockers of our present day, and to be ready for His return, making the most of every opportunity that He graciously gives us, while He waits.