Luke 23:26-31 ~ a great multitude of the people

Today in Jerusalem, this is a model of the 2nd Temple with a close-up of Solomon's Porch.






Luke 23:26-31


And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus. 27 And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him.

28 But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ 31 For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

A good question, surely, when we are 2 millenniums past Jesus giving us all of God's promises and changing Heaven forever.

And how often I pictured Jesus dying like "Godspell" with just a few sympathizers. Here we read, the truth, a great multitude of people Mourned for Jesus. These are the people in the Book of Acts who filled the Temple. They are referred to as a multitude again.

Acts 2:6
And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

Acts 5:12 -15
Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon's Portico. 13 None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. 14 And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, 15 so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them.

Joel 3:14
Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

People will forever disagree if the day is all at once, or like the people who come back from near death experiences - immediately. Time belongs to God. It is His invention. I suppose He can use time any way He wants. We, who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus, will find out what time is all about in Heaven when we get there.

What does the Book of Acts, Chapter 2, say about the time when the wood becomes dry? 

But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel [2nd Chapter of Joel]:

17 “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
18 even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
20 the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes,
the great and magnificent day.

21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Thank You, Jesus Christ Our LORD.

I've been thinking this weekend about my son's friend Cory's funeral. He died in Iraq and people turned out for his funeral lining 6 miles of road from the Church to the Interstate. And I knew Cory had 6 really good friends. People wanted to honor the valiant, Christian, Hometown 19 year old. The stood on the overpasses with firetrucks and ladders extended with the flag hanging. Traffic on the interstate - the other side - was halted. It was amazing. I prayed for Cory not to depart this life without seeing what was done for him. Volunteering for that mission. His mom is Christian Child Minister for her Church. I believe he is the only man I've known who died for this country.

He was an excellent young man, encouraging delinquents of the neighborhood to stop setting fire to their fences and play hide and seek they called 'Commandos'. Organizing an intervention for a very young boy, from the country, not to go in the woods & hurt what that boy called "critters." Changed the life of that boy. I really prayed fervently this glory would be revealed to Cory, as my son & I drove the 6 miles behind the hurst. I felt assuredly Cory could see it all. The day Cal told me Cory had gone behind his parent's wishes (and I hear them on that completely) and enlisted, I saw a cloud, as Cal spoke, in the shape of a star.

 

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