If you had known…in this your day, the
things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. —Luke
19:42
Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly and the
city was stirred to its very foundations, but a strange god was there– the
pride of the Pharisees. It was a god that seemed religious and upright, but
Jesus compared it to “whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful
outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matthew
23:27).
What is it that blinds you to the peace of God
“in this your day”? Do you have a strange god– not a
disgusting monster but perhaps an unholy nature that controls your life? More
than once God has brought me face to face with a strange god in my life, and I
knew that I should have given it up, but I didn’t do it. I got through the
crisis “by the skin of my teeth,” only to find myself still under the control
of that strange god. I am blind to the very things that make for my own peace.
It is a shocking thing that we can be in the exact place where the Spirit of
God should be having His completely unhindered way with us, and yet we only make
matters worse, increasing our blame in God’s eyes.
“If you had known….” God’s words here cut
directly to the heart, with the tears of Jesus behind them. These words imply
responsibility for our own faults. God holds us accountable for what we refuse
to see or are unable to see because of our sin. And “now they are hidden from
your eyes” because you have never completely yielded your nature to Him. Oh,
the deep, unending sadness for what might have been! God never again opens the
doors that have been closed. He opens other doors, but He reminds us that there
are doors which we have shut– doors which had no need to be shut. Never be
afraid when God brings back your past. Let your memory have its way with you.
It is a minister of God bringing its rebuke and sorrow to you. God will turn
what might have been into a wonderful lesson of growth for the future.
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