30th Mar 26 | 13:54
Studies by Book
LUKE 19 41-44 YOU DID NOT KNOW THE TIME OF YOUR VISITATION 06 We are His bride
📖 Luke 19:41-44
26Jan2021 - *We are His bride* - _Luke 19:41-44_ - YOU DID NOT KNOW THE TIME OF YOUR VISITATION 6 - _Luke 1:67-78_
The visit of God is of a husband who has come to take His bride to Himself. This is how we need to see our relationship with God. He is a husband to us and we are His bride. The Lord’s heart breaks that we as His bride are not aware of His visit.
_Luke 19:42 saying, "If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes._
The Lord is showing us that when we do not respond in total surrender and submission to God, who is our husband, then there will be painful consequences, which is what has happened to the Jews in their history.
_Luke 19:43-44 For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, (44) and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation."_
The people cannot say that they were not prepared for the visitation of God. God had warned the people of Israel even at the time of the inauguration of the temple, which was built by King Solomon that if the people would not be faithful to Him then they would experience death or all of the consequences of being alienated from God.
_I Kings 9:7-9 then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight. Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples. (8) And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss, and say, 'Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?' (9) Then they will answer, 'Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore the LORD has brought all this calamity on them.' "_
Throughout the history of the Jews, prophets were sent to warn them and plead with them to be reconciled with God and live in matrimony with Him. This is why the allegory that is often used of Israel is of a wayward wife, who is not being faithful to her husband. This metaphor of a harlot is too shocking for us but that is what the entire book of Hosea is all about.
God is wanting His people to understand the pain of His heart through the prophet, who has a wife who is a harlot and is repeatedly unfaithful to him. Hosea had to bear the pain of an unfaithful wife and out of the reality of that pain, communicate the pain of God’s heart to the people.
_Jeremiah 35:15 I have also sent to you all My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, 'Turn now everyone from his evil way, amend your doings, and do not go after other gods to serve them; then you will dwell in the land which I have given you and your fathers.' But you have not inclined your ear, nor obeyed Me._
The Lord longs for His people to return to Him and live in a faithful surrendered relationship with Him.
_Jeremiah 3:14-15 “Return, O backsliding children," says the LORD; "*for I am married to you*. I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. (15) And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.
Imagine a wife coming to her husband only when she has a crisis when she needs healing when she needs a solution to a problem but otherwise lives independent of her husband. Would that relationship be even considered as a marriage? Definitely not.
Yet, isn’t that the way, many of us relate with God? We say He is a good God because we went to Him with our problems and He solved them for us. Isn’t that a pathetic relationship to have with God?
God longs for us to come and be totally yielded, surrendered and submitted to Him. We have to come to Him for He is now our all in all. We need nothing else in life, we need only to be found in Him. This is the marriage relationship that God longs to have with us. He longs for us to come into the habitat of God, where He would be a husband to us.
John the Baptist was sent to prepare people to return to the habitat of God.
_Luke 1:67-78 Now his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying: (68) "Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, *For He has visited* and redeemed His people, (69) And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of His servant David, (70) As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, Who have been since the world began, (71) That we should be saved from our enemies And from the hand of all who hate us, (72) To perform the mercy promised to our fathers And to remember His holy covenant, (73) The oath which He swore to our father Abraham: (74) To grant us that we, Being delivered from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, (75) In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life. (76) "And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, (77) To give knowledge of salvation to His people By the remission of their sins, (78) Through the tender mercy of our God, With which *the Dayspring from on high has visited us*;_
*Thought to ponder*
```The husband has come but the wife’s response to Him is restrained and uncertain```