Prophesies

in Matthew 24:1-14, Jesus predicts the terrible fall of Jerusalem.

Partly, it was because his disciples brought it up. But the other part was for the same reason that we have any prophesy at all.

Prophesies are so that we will know, but not fixate. They are so that when we look back we can understand who God is, and trust him, without becoming consumed about what will come.

So Jesus didn’t describe in great detail things like the mass suicides at Masada, or the overwhelming rage of the Romans that would cause them to sink untold amounts of money into leveling Jerusalem.

But he did say it would be bad.

He was specific enough to be accurate, but no so much that we’d stop living today and think only about tomorrow.

The future will always be difficult. But that’s irrelevant. We don’t have the future. We don’t work in the future (or the past for that matter). We only have and work in the present.

That’s where we’re called to be.

The point of prophesies is to learn about God, not about us.

And that, I think, is an encouragement.