GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 13:19
The Father’s Hand in Terrible Times
Alice and I were working at a counter when I saw a small radio. I told her it was the radio in my office, and I remember hearing the reports on September 11, 2001, over it. There are events like that which indelibly print themselves on the mind as reference points: marriage, the birth of children, the death of a parent, or winning the lottery (which I never DID).
Every one of Jesus’ contemporaries knew the stories of the Deluge, the wars with the Canaanites, the drowning of Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, the destruction of Nineveh, the Babylonian conquest, and other such events. These were historical and mental markers. But Jesus warned his disciples that those events would seem rather small compared with the violent and dreadful overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus. “For those days will be tribulation, such a time as has not happened from the beginning of creation, which God created, until now, and will never ever be again.” (Mark 13:19)
Taken as a whole, Jesus’ warnings here do not make up a large part of his teaching; he was not a prophet of doom. In fact, most of his message radiates victory and fulfillment. However, every believer knows there are hills, some very high, and valleys, some very low, in the path of faith. He said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
A boy sat calmly in the cabin of a ship caught in a violent, dangerous storm. A passenger asked the boy how he could be so calm during such a terrible storm. He replied, “My father is the captain.” This is a lesson for me today and likely for many other readers.
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