“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
(Matthew 18:6)
This morning I watched one of my daughters excited with her friends in the school playground. There was a beautiful buzz in the atmosphere as they crowded together, flung coats on the ground and climbed play equipment, smiling, chatting and just being innocently wonderful. It was lovely to see them play.
But inside my heart I was also deeply grieving.
Because yesterday I watched a YouTuber (Bald & Bankrupt; 27:38) presenting a video where he was solemnly walking around an empty playground in a suburb of Kryvyi Rihm, a city in central Ukraine. It was covered in cuddly toys, cards and flowers. These children too, had been playing not long ago: also flinging coats on the ground, climbing play equipment, smiling, chatting and just being innocently wonderful – until a missile exploded nearby and shrapnel debris fired across the play area and cut into their bodies.
Nine of them died.
The bomb shrapnel marks from the tragedy in April could be clearly seen on the slides and climbing frames, where the metal spun like a cruel threshing machine across the whole area and killed the little ones.
Nine children lying there dead because of the deliberate actions of adults unknown to them! One moment playing, the next moment gone.
What kind of world do we live in, where these things are allowed to happen?
People ask where God is in such circumstances but we need to listen to what the Bible says. Jesus once warned that it would be BETTER for any adult who hurts a child to tie a large rock around his or her head, and to throw themselves into the deepest part of the ocean. That would be a better outcome for that child abuser, maimer or killer than for him or her to face the wrath of the Living God.
The LORD is not ignoring the injustice. He will judge the Earth, although we have limited understanding about the times and circumstances when it will happen. What we do know, as born again Christians, is that the open gates of hell are not a myth but very, very real. And those guilty of such cruel actions have a limited timeframe to properly repent and turn to Jesus Christ before it’s too late.
‘I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: king of kings and lord of lords.’
(Revelation 19:11-15)
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