Jesus laments over Jerusalem
There are lots of paintings of Jesus lamenting over the future fate of Jerusalem. Around 30 years after Jesus was crcified and resurrecrcted the people of Jerusalem rebelled against Rome and the Roman Legions defeated the Jews and destroyed the city. Jesus had prophesied of of this destruction.
This brings up the great problem of evil. That is what the philosophers call it when bad things happen to good people. Clearly there WERE some very wicked people in Jerusalem. But the children were not guilty of any crime yet they also suffered and certainly many were killed.
I am sure that I do not have the best answer to the problem of evil. . . but here is what I think:
Before we lived on Earth there was a war in Heaven. Jesus and our Heavenly Father fought against Satan and his followers. In fact, we also fought with Jesus. We won and got the right to come to Earth and receive a body. Satan and 1/3 of our Heavenly Parents' children were cast to Earth without getting a physical body. Those spirits did not go through the veil of forgetfulness that we went through so they know what they missed out on. They can remember our premortal life. They became devils and they tempt us to do evil. Unfortunately many people yeild to the temptations and become evil.
Then the good people (and often other evil people) become victims. In fact often the evil pick on the other evil. But sometimes the evil deliberately victimize the good people. One example of this is in the Book of Mormon. Amulek and Alma were teaching the poeple of the wicked city of Ammonihah. There were many people who chose to beleive and repent. The wicked people and leaders of the city drove the husbands and fathers of all the believers out of the city and burned all the scriptures tha the good people beleived in. Those scriptures were basically the Old Testament books of the Bible plus a few more ....at least those books that dated before 600 B.C.
Then the unthinkable happened. The wicked people threw the women and children who were believers into the fire. Amulek wanted to use th Power of God that he and Alma had to stop the killings but Alma (who also wanted to stop the martyrdom) said that the Spirit of God would not let him because the wicked have to be allowed to do their wickedness that the judgements that would come upon them would be just. Alma also said that God was receiveing the women and children unto himself.
I think that what this tells us is that from an ETERNAL perspective the righteous who die in the Lord are OK. In fact they are way better than OK. They are in the arms of Jesus. They are dwelling in everlasting splendor and at total peace. This is an eternal pestpective and that is hard for us mortals to accept. But this life is only temporary. Our eternal existence is just that ....eternal. So we must try to realize that this life is a test. But if we pass the test our eternal state can be glorious. So this is what hope is about. We read of faith, hope and charity. . . and the hope part is all about hoping for a better eternal existence. If you or a loved one has suffered because of the evil actions of another I hope this gives you some hope.
This brings up the great problem of evil. That is what the philosophers call it when bad things happen to good people. Clearly there WERE some very wicked people in Jerusalem. But the children were not guilty of any crime yet they also suffered and certainly many were killed.
I am sure that I do not have the best answer to the problem of evil. . . but here is what I think:
Before we lived on Earth there was a war in Heaven. Jesus and our Heavenly Father fought against Satan and his followers. In fact, we also fought with Jesus. We won and got the right to come to Earth and receive a body. Satan and 1/3 of our Heavenly Parents' children were cast to Earth without getting a physical body. Those spirits did not go through the veil of forgetfulness that we went through so they know what they missed out on. They can remember our premortal life. They became devils and they tempt us to do evil. Unfortunately many people yeild to the temptations and become evil.
Then the good people (and often other evil people) become victims. In fact often the evil pick on the other evil. But sometimes the evil deliberately victimize the good people. One example of this is in the Book of Mormon. Amulek and Alma were teaching the poeple of the wicked city of Ammonihah. There were many people who chose to beleive and repent. The wicked people and leaders of the city drove the husbands and fathers of all the believers out of the city and burned all the scriptures tha the good people beleived in. Those scriptures were basically the Old Testament books of the Bible plus a few more ....at least those books that dated before 600 B.C.
Then the unthinkable happened. The wicked people threw the women and children who were believers into the fire. Amulek wanted to use th Power of God that he and Alma had to stop the killings but Alma (who also wanted to stop the martyrdom) said that the Spirit of God would not let him because the wicked have to be allowed to do their wickedness that the judgements that would come upon them would be just. Alma also said that God was receiveing the women and children unto himself.
I think that what this tells us is that from an ETERNAL perspective the righteous who die in the Lord are OK. In fact they are way better than OK. They are in the arms of Jesus. They are dwelling in everlasting splendor and at total peace. This is an eternal pestpective and that is hard for us mortals to accept. But this life is only temporary. Our eternal existence is just that ....eternal. So we must try to realize that this life is a test. But if we pass the test our eternal state can be glorious. So this is what hope is about. We read of faith, hope and charity. . . and the hope part is all about hoping for a better eternal existence. If you or a loved one has suffered because of the evil actions of another I hope this gives you some hope.
This drawing is found, in printable form. . . . by clicking on the either of the following buttons up top:
......All Printables...... or...........Religious. Scroll down to the bottom for new drawings like this one.
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