Matthew 23:34-39
Suggested further reading: Luke 10:1-16
These verses form a conclusion to our Lord's address on the
scribes and Pharisees. We learn that God takes notice of the treatment
which his messengers and ministers receive and will one day pay it
back. The Jews as a nation had often given the servants of God most
shameful usage. They had often dealt with them as enemies because
they told them the truth. Some they had persecuted, some they
had scourged and some they had even killed (v. 34). They thought
perhaps that no account would be required of their conduct. But
our Lord tells them they are all mistaken. There was an eye that
saw their actions. There was a hand that registered all the innocent
blood they shed in the books of everlasting remembrance. The dying
words of Zacharias would be found after eight hundred and fifty years
not to have fallen to the ground (2 Chron. 24:22). Yet a few years
and there would be such an inquisition for blood at Jerusalem as
the world had never seen. The holy city would be destroyed. The
nation which had murdered and destroyed so many prophets would
itself be wasted by famine, pestilence and the sword. And even those
that escaped would be scattered to the four winds and become
fugitives. Well might our Lord speak as he did! (v. 36).
It is good for us to mark this lesson well. We are too apt to
think that `bygones are bygones' and that things which to us are past
and done and old will never be raked up again. But we forget that
with God one day is as a thousand years and that the events of a
thousand years ago are as fresh in his sight as the events of this very
hour. God will require an account of the treatment of his saints — all
in every age. The world will yet see that God judges righteously
(Ps. 58:11).
Present persecutors should know that all who injure,
ridicule, mock or slander others on account of religion commit a great
sin. Christ takes notice of everyone who persecutes his neighbour
because he is better than himself, or because he prays, reads his
Bible and thinks about his soul (Zech. 2:8).
For meditation: As pains in the body send signals to the brain,
so pains in Christ's body send messages to the Head.
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