The King will answer and say to them, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even to the least of them, you did it to Me.” Matthew 25:40.

My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. John 10:27.

Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you. 1 Peter 5:7.

In our Friday Morning Retreat, we listened to a video by John Ortberg that left us quiet. Titled “Saul – Paul,” it talked about zeal and being zealous. Us vs. Them. Jesus had to stop Saul from persecuting His church because in persecuting them Saul was persecuting Jesus Himself, or as Ortberg put it, “when you hurt them, you hurt Me.” In that broader sense, isn’t that what we all of us in this fallen world are doing? Hurting others. Will each one of us in our fallen world need to experience our own Damascus Road moment with Jesus as did Saul? I thought about all of us in that context as I read our chapter, Revelation 11. And again, the verse just before first…“And they said to me, “You must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.”” Then there was given me a measuring rod like a staff; and someone said, “Get up and measure the temple of God and the altar, and those who worship in it. Leave out the court which is outside the temple and do not measure it, for it has been given to the nations; and they will tread under foot the holy city for forty-two months. And I will grant authority to My two witnesses, and they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.” These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire flows out of their mouth and devours their enemies; so if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way. These have the power to shut up the sky, so that rain will not fall during the days of their prophesying; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire. When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which mystically (spiritually) is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. Those from the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations will look at their dead bodies (body) for three and a half days, and will not permit their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb. And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and celebrate; and they will send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. But after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God came into them, and they stood on their feet; and great fear fell upon those who were watching them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” Then they went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies watched them. And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe is past; behold, the third woe is coming quickly. Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ (Messiah); and He will reign forever and ever.” And the twenty-four elders, who sit on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, “We give You thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who are and who were, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign. And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.” And the temple of God which is in heaven was opened; and the ark of His covenant appeared in His temple, and there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder and an earthquake and a great hailstorm.

Saul was zealous for God. And he was deeply wrong about what God wanted. What are we zealous for that is deeply wrong about what God wants? That question should shake us up, especially we who think we are so righteous because of our zeal for God! And the question John Ortberg asked us? What now, what about us? His answer: Trust Jesus. “When you hurt them…you hurt Me.” Does vindication really mean who gets to go to Heaven? When I googled the Bible meaning, and got the AI Overview, it said, “In the Bible, to vindicate means for God to publicly clear a person of false accusations, prove their innocence, or justify them, often in the face of suffering or injustice. It is a divine, justice-oriented action where God upholds the righteous and proves them correct, rather than an act of personal revenge.” As Ortberg said, who is faithful, vindicated? Jesus. Hatred, death, hell – defeated. Resurrection is the great Vindication. And again, we were all of us left very quiet after the video. And reading our chapter, how can we not then relate that what needs to be deeply shaken – is us? Can we begin to appreciate why Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit, will need to intervene for the benefit of every single one of us? Not one of us can claim we haven’t hurt someone. Hurting is not love. God is Love. Do we truly understand that kind of Love? What will it take for each one of us? One day we will each one of us encounter Jesus personally as we stand before Him. What will we see as we look into His eyes? Remember what God tells us that John wrote? We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. 1 John 4:14-21. Wow. We have so much to unlearn and understand and we need God and His help. He’s here. Always!