Find Hope: Matthew 1-4Намуна

The Dread of Seeing Prophecy Fulfilled

Seeing prophecy fulfilled is normally exciting and encouraging. But in today’s Bible reading, prophecy being fulfilled looks like hundreds, maybe thousands, of babies being killed. The fulfilment of prophecy here sounds like screams from a chorus of mothers, a flood of tears from weeping fathers, and grief beyond comprehension from grandparents. The fulfilment of prophecy here looks like destruction and devastation; it looks like pure evil.

Which begs the question, why does God allow this to happen? Why allow for this prophecy to come to fruition?

No one likes this part of the story; anyone with a heart hates this part and grieves that this actually happened in history. And that’s the point of this prophecy—hatred and grief towards death and evil.

Too often we forget about evil in our world. Too often we forget about our horrible reality of death and our enemy, the devil.

But in this story, we see evil for what it is; in this story, we taste death and see the work of the devil. The book of Revelation makes it clear that Satan was using Herod to try to destroy Jesus.

So what is the good news of this prophecy being fulfilled? The good news is that one baby did survive. And even though that’s grim, this baby grew up, not to ignore evil, death, or Satan, but to defeat all three at the cross, where more prophecies were fulfilled so we can have hope in this dark world.

Today, ponder this: Have you become too comfortable in this world? Remind yourself how heaven is your home and how Satan is real.