the Sixth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Voice of the Lord
On you will fall the guilt for all the innocent blood that has ever been shed on earth (Matthew 23:35).
When we suffer for obeying God's will, we must never forget that sooner or later God will vindicate us. Yeshua pointed out that Abel's blood cried out to God on his behalf (Genesis 4:10-11), so that he spoke, even though he was dead (Hebrews 11:4). Later rabbis reported that the blood of Zechariah spurted up like a fountain in the Temple until the Babylonians destroyed the Temple and avenged his murder. The way the Hebrew Bible is arranged, Abel was the Bible's first martyr, and Zechariah the last (2 Chronicles 24:20-22).
The aristocrats who ruled Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) for the Romans were about to execute Yeshua, the greatest of the prophets, the Messiah. This was the climax of the previous generations' sins, and invited God's judgment on the current generation—the generation from approximately 30 C.E. to 70 C.E. (Matthew 23:36). This judgment was fulfilled when the Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E. (Matthew 23:38; 24:2). Yet Yeshua promised a different era, one in which his people would welcome him to Yerushalayim (Matthew 23:39).
Yeshua's blood testifies not only of vindication, but of forgiveness; his "sprinkled blood ...speaks better things than that of Hevel [Abel] (Hebrews 12:24).
...trust that whatever the cost of serving Yeshua, he will, someday, vindicate me.
CK
The Voice of the Lord, Copyright © 1998 by the Lewis and Harriet Lederer Foundation, Inc. Published by Messianic Jewish Publishers, Distributed by Messianic Jewish Resources, www.messianicjewish.net. All rights reserved. Used by permission. No part of this article may be reproduced in print or on the web, or transmitted in any form, without the written permission of the publisher.
