Born in Bethlehem (Part 5-Weeping in Ramah)
Hello this is Eric again. A friend asked me, “How can I know that the Bible is true?” So, I am taking some time to answer my friends question and to do this I am looking at one of the evidences the Bible gives to answer this question, Prophecy.
(Read the previous blogs here)
There is one part of the Christmas story that I don’t know any songs for. I don’t think anyone has ever penned a rhyme that will remind us of this part of the story, and I don’t think that I’ve seen a Christmas pageant highlight it either. But, God does—He even gave a prophecy to let us know that this was going to happen—and we must ask why.
Jeremiah 31:15 says,
“This is what the Lord says: ‘A cry is heard in Ramah—deep anguish and bitter weeping. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted—for her children are gone.’”
And, Matthew 2:13-18 tells the story of the fulfillment of this prophecy,
"When it was time to leave, they [the wise men] returned to their own country by another route, for God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod. After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. 'Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,' the angel said. 'Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.' That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: 'I called my Son out of Egypt.' Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance. Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: 'A cry was heard in Ramah—weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.'"
God knew that this would happen. Why did He let this happen? How could He?…Aren’t these the initial questions that come to mind?
This presents us with a deep set of philosophical questions that cause us to wrestle with what some call, ‘The Problem of Evil.’ In it’s simplest form the argument is: If God is perfectly good, and all powerful, and all-knowing—how can there be evil? Either God is not perfectly good, and therefore there is evil; or God is not all powerful and evil is bigger than God, or God is not all knowing and this evil caught Him by surprise.
At a first glance this seems like a reasonable argument, but I want to suggest that the Bible teaches us something about God that shows this ‘Problem of Evil’ argument to be logically inconsistent, and lacking objective verifiability that fits with Biblical reality—it isn’t a sound argument.
God is all-knowing. This prophecy in Jeremiah shows us that God knew that this was going to happen. God sent an angel ahead of time to tell the Magi to go home in another direction, and God sent an angel to Joseph to tell him to get up and flee to Egypt to protect the child and His mother. This shows that God certainly knew what was going on—this didn’t catch God by surprise.
God is all-powerful. He was able to rescue Jesus from the hands of Herod, a powerful and wicked King. God was able to send angelic messengers—powerful warriors of light whom God commands—to do God’s bidding and rescue and direct so that God’s will and plan would be done. God was, is, and will be able to orchestrate history, today, and in the future to accomplish His will. That is incredibly powerful.
God is perfectly good. From the beginning of creation God made us to be in relationship with Him—and in order to have relationship there needs to be the ability to choose. If I am forced to be your friend, we are not really friends. God not only gave us the choice to be in relationship with Him—He knew that we would rebel against Him. The Bible says, “While we were still sinners, Jesus came and died for us”—Romans 3:23. God knew that our choice to sin would devastate our lives, and since we all are now born into sin—we would not have hope, and that would ultimately require God in His Holy Justice to judge us, and condemn us to Hell—where we rightly deserve to go due to our sin. Out of God’s love and perfect goodness, He chose to rescue us. God did so by humbling Himself and becoming a human. God put Himself in harm’s way. He took on flesh and suffered, just like we do, in order to rescue us—because of the goodness of His love.
But I hear someone say, “But all those innocent children died, that’s not fair!” Good point. Having lost 2 young children of our own, I trust that God is able to adjudicate and care for those who die young because He is holy. I turn to 2 Samuel 12;23 for comfort--when David had his son die he says, “I will go to him one day, but he cannot return to me.” And I trust God’s love in these difficult situations. But, the reality of sin is—we are born into sin, and we will die because of our sin. God told Adam in Genesis 2:15-17,
“The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, ‘You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden—except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.’”
We inherited that sin, and this is the real problem that needs to be dealt with. If the wickedness of our sin is not dealt with, every generation will have too many examples of this kind of genocide, infanticide, evil—and death. And, every generation will have to stand before God and give an account to Him. God knew that too. God chose to deal with sin and evil, because if God didn’t deal with the evil, He wouldn’t be good. He also loves us, and wanted to make a way to restore that relationship with us—because He is good.
Philippians 2: 6-8 says,
“Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.”
To deal with our sin God humbled himself and became human. Jesus not only became human, He was born into incredible poverty. He was hunted by a madman. He was hated by people because of His love for God and for people. Ultimately, He was murdered on a cross and treated as a criminal—even though Jesus was innocent. God the Father had His Son Jesus die and He treated Jesus as a sinner—in our place—to rescue us. God, in His perfect goodness, planned this before time. He loved us so much that God sent His only Son to die for us, to bear the wrath of God and suffer the torments of Hell—that we deserve—in our place, because He loves us. Jesus, being the perfect God-Man, was able to bear the wrath of God in our place; while being able to suffer all the temptations that we do—and He still did not sin. This allowed Jesus to be the perfect substitute sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sin. Through Jesus' life and death, God the Father and His justice would be satisfied, and He would accept Jesus’ payment for sin.
God knew about the great evil that occurred, occurs, and will occur on this earth because of our sin. We all deserve punishment, and yet; God’s love and goodness allowed Him to choose to find a way to rescue us, and not dishonor His perfect goodness. Justice was done. Payment for sin was made, and three days later Jesus rose from the dead. Because of the sacrifice that Jesus made--by living the life He did, and then giving up His life and paying the price for our sin—He now is able to offer us forgiveness for our sin. Jesus will apply His payment to our bill, and His perfect record to our stained record. Jesus will come and lead our lives, and give us eternal life with Him, to anyone who wants it—for all who would believe in Him—for free. All you need to do is believe and ask Him. Because He loves us. Because He is perfectly good.
Romans 10:9-11 says,
“If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. As the Scriptures tell us, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced. (Isaiah 28:16)’”
The work that Jesus did not only paid the penalty of sin and satisfied the justice of God; Jesus also defeated Satan, sin, death, and took away the fear of judgement for all those who believe in Jesus. Romans 8:1 says, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” Jesus stepped into our mess to fix our mess, and offer us the relationship with God that we were created for. Jesus makes this promise to us—He says, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.”—Matthew 28:20. Because Jesus lived as a God-Man in our world, and didn’t sin, He understands what we are going through, and is able to help us. Hebrews 4:14-16 says,
“So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”
Jesus also offers us the hope and future of eternal life with Him.
Revelation 21:3-7 says,
“I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, ‘Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.’ And the one sitting on the throne said, ‘Look, I am making everything new!' And then he said to me, ‘Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.’ And he also said, ‘It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.’”
God is going to undo all the sinful brokenness that we have caused in this world through our sin, and He is going to make it as if it was never broken—the way it was intended to be—the way we were intended to be. He also will thrown Satan and death into Hell, and we will no longer have to deal with sin or the effects of sin.
There certainly is a problem of evil in our world, and God Himself stepped into our world to shine light in the darkness, by being the light in our darkness. Jesus came to rescue us from sin, and restore us to right relationship with God; so that we could be adopted as His kids and walk with Him—knowing that one day—the problem of evil will be no more.
Now you must decide, what will you do with Jesus?
Do you want to walk on this journey with us?
Subscribe here
(Read the previous blogs here)
There is one part of the Christmas story that I don’t know any songs for. I don’t think anyone has ever penned a rhyme that will remind us of this part of the story, and I don’t think that I’ve seen a Christmas pageant highlight it either. But, God does—He even gave a prophecy to let us know that this was going to happen—and we must ask why.
Jeremiah 31:15 says,
“This is what the Lord says: ‘A cry is heard in Ramah—deep anguish and bitter weeping. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted—for her children are gone.’”
And, Matthew 2:13-18 tells the story of the fulfillment of this prophecy,
"When it was time to leave, they [the wise men] returned to their own country by another route, for God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod. After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. 'Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,' the angel said. 'Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.' That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: 'I called my Son out of Egypt.' Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance. Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: 'A cry was heard in Ramah—weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.'"
God knew that this would happen. Why did He let this happen? How could He?…Aren’t these the initial questions that come to mind?
This presents us with a deep set of philosophical questions that cause us to wrestle with what some call, ‘The Problem of Evil.’ In it’s simplest form the argument is: If God is perfectly good, and all powerful, and all-knowing—how can there be evil? Either God is not perfectly good, and therefore there is evil; or God is not all powerful and evil is bigger than God, or God is not all knowing and this evil caught Him by surprise.
At a first glance this seems like a reasonable argument, but I want to suggest that the Bible teaches us something about God that shows this ‘Problem of Evil’ argument to be logically inconsistent, and lacking objective verifiability that fits with Biblical reality—it isn’t a sound argument.
God is all-knowing. This prophecy in Jeremiah shows us that God knew that this was going to happen. God sent an angel ahead of time to tell the Magi to go home in another direction, and God sent an angel to Joseph to tell him to get up and flee to Egypt to protect the child and His mother. This shows that God certainly knew what was going on—this didn’t catch God by surprise.
God is all-powerful. He was able to rescue Jesus from the hands of Herod, a powerful and wicked King. God was able to send angelic messengers—powerful warriors of light whom God commands—to do God’s bidding and rescue and direct so that God’s will and plan would be done. God was, is, and will be able to orchestrate history, today, and in the future to accomplish His will. That is incredibly powerful.
God is perfectly good. From the beginning of creation God made us to be in relationship with Him—and in order to have relationship there needs to be the ability to choose. If I am forced to be your friend, we are not really friends. God not only gave us the choice to be in relationship with Him—He knew that we would rebel against Him. The Bible says, “While we were still sinners, Jesus came and died for us”—Romans 3:23. God knew that our choice to sin would devastate our lives, and since we all are now born into sin—we would not have hope, and that would ultimately require God in His Holy Justice to judge us, and condemn us to Hell—where we rightly deserve to go due to our sin. Out of God’s love and perfect goodness, He chose to rescue us. God did so by humbling Himself and becoming a human. God put Himself in harm’s way. He took on flesh and suffered, just like we do, in order to rescue us—because of the goodness of His love.
But I hear someone say, “But all those innocent children died, that’s not fair!” Good point. Having lost 2 young children of our own, I trust that God is able to adjudicate and care for those who die young because He is holy. I turn to 2 Samuel 12;23 for comfort--when David had his son die he says, “I will go to him one day, but he cannot return to me.” And I trust God’s love in these difficult situations. But, the reality of sin is—we are born into sin, and we will die because of our sin. God told Adam in Genesis 2:15-17,
“The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, ‘You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden—except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.’”
We inherited that sin, and this is the real problem that needs to be dealt with. If the wickedness of our sin is not dealt with, every generation will have too many examples of this kind of genocide, infanticide, evil—and death. And, every generation will have to stand before God and give an account to Him. God knew that too. God chose to deal with sin and evil, because if God didn’t deal with the evil, He wouldn’t be good. He also loves us, and wanted to make a way to restore that relationship with us—because He is good.
Philippians 2: 6-8 says,
“Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.”
To deal with our sin God humbled himself and became human. Jesus not only became human, He was born into incredible poverty. He was hunted by a madman. He was hated by people because of His love for God and for people. Ultimately, He was murdered on a cross and treated as a criminal—even though Jesus was innocent. God the Father had His Son Jesus die and He treated Jesus as a sinner—in our place—to rescue us. God, in His perfect goodness, planned this before time. He loved us so much that God sent His only Son to die for us, to bear the wrath of God and suffer the torments of Hell—that we deserve—in our place, because He loves us. Jesus, being the perfect God-Man, was able to bear the wrath of God in our place; while being able to suffer all the temptations that we do—and He still did not sin. This allowed Jesus to be the perfect substitute sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sin. Through Jesus' life and death, God the Father and His justice would be satisfied, and He would accept Jesus’ payment for sin.
God knew about the great evil that occurred, occurs, and will occur on this earth because of our sin. We all deserve punishment, and yet; God’s love and goodness allowed Him to choose to find a way to rescue us, and not dishonor His perfect goodness. Justice was done. Payment for sin was made, and three days later Jesus rose from the dead. Because of the sacrifice that Jesus made--by living the life He did, and then giving up His life and paying the price for our sin—He now is able to offer us forgiveness for our sin. Jesus will apply His payment to our bill, and His perfect record to our stained record. Jesus will come and lead our lives, and give us eternal life with Him, to anyone who wants it—for all who would believe in Him—for free. All you need to do is believe and ask Him. Because He loves us. Because He is perfectly good.
Romans 10:9-11 says,
“If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. As the Scriptures tell us, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced. (Isaiah 28:16)’”
The work that Jesus did not only paid the penalty of sin and satisfied the justice of God; Jesus also defeated Satan, sin, death, and took away the fear of judgement for all those who believe in Jesus. Romans 8:1 says, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” Jesus stepped into our mess to fix our mess, and offer us the relationship with God that we were created for. Jesus makes this promise to us—He says, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.”—Matthew 28:20. Because Jesus lived as a God-Man in our world, and didn’t sin, He understands what we are going through, and is able to help us. Hebrews 4:14-16 says,
“So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”
Jesus also offers us the hope and future of eternal life with Him.
Revelation 21:3-7 says,
“I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, ‘Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.’ And the one sitting on the throne said, ‘Look, I am making everything new!' And then he said to me, ‘Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.’ And he also said, ‘It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.’”
God is going to undo all the sinful brokenness that we have caused in this world through our sin, and He is going to make it as if it was never broken—the way it was intended to be—the way we were intended to be. He also will thrown Satan and death into Hell, and we will no longer have to deal with sin or the effects of sin.
There certainly is a problem of evil in our world, and God Himself stepped into our world to shine light in the darkness, by being the light in our darkness. Jesus came to rescue us from sin, and restore us to right relationship with God; so that we could be adopted as His kids and walk with Him—knowing that one day—the problem of evil will be no more.
Now you must decide, what will you do with Jesus?
Do you want to walk on this journey with us?
Subscribe here
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