THE TIME OF VISITATION IS NOW!
Why Jesus Wept Over Jerusalem
In Luke 19:41-44, as Jesus has left Bethany and approaches Jerusalem from the East, He is at a high point looking out over the whole city and the Temple of Israel. As the Bible states, “He saw the city and wept over it saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
The Bible doesn’t record many instances of Jesus weeping, (Lazarus death, praying in the garden of Gethsemane) yet upon reaching the city of Jerusalem pre-Triumphal entry Jesus breaks out in weeping.
If they had committed to Him, He says in Mt 23:37 “How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” In 70 AD, about 40 years later, (32AD-70AD) it happened exactly the way Jesus prophesied. A Roman military force under the command of Titus battered the walls and entered the city. They destroyed everything, including Herod's Temple, exactly as spoken by Jesus Christ 40 years earlier. An estimated 600,000 to 1,000,000 were brutally slaughtered.
When Rome destroyed the ancient Temple of Israel, it left only the outer retaining wall of the Temple Mount platform and complex. This outer wall shell, is known to Jews as the Kotel ha-Ma'aravi, and to us as the “Wailing Wall.” The Roman army then moved over to the city of Caesarea where a great many more Jews were killed and over 90,000 were taken captive, including the historian Flavius Josephus who recorded the events.
900 Jews fled to Masada – known by the movie which showed how all but two women and two children killed each other rather than be killed or enslaved by the Romans.
For the next 1900 years the Jews would have no authority in the land God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This all occurred, according to Jesus, because they missed their time, their day, their moment of “Divine visitation.”
Today is your day of God’s visitation. He is here in this moment and the opportunity is right NOW to set aside the idols we chase, follow Christ, and do what God has called us to do. To become greater due to the Divine calling that rests on your life and not set our destiny in Christ to the side. I’d recommend following Him and not delaying it. There’s much to do to restore the world to a higher, safer, and more-godly place.
With God all things are possible,
Dr. Ben