The Mount of Olives

            I was watching a concert recently by Andre Rieu and it was being performed in a beautiful, peaceful city in the Netherlands. I found some information about the city and watched an advertising video about the city as it is today. It is a beautiful place and one could see how it could be a peaceful place to live. Over the past century, however, a couple of world wars were fought in Europe causing much destruction. Wars go on almost all of the time but they don't always affect us personally until one is fought on our own soil. We then remember them a bit longer but they too, can be forgotten. While there are some very peaceful places in the world today, it is not always as peaceful as we might think. I have remarked before about a newspaper article published in Spain in 1985. It was a lengthy article and was reporting on how many conflicts were going on in the world on that particular day. There were fifty-eight wars of varying degrees going on at that time. Some of the wars were big and some were small and most of them, if not all, had some religious conflict as the root of the problems between the warring factions. The world takes little not of the skirmishes going on until they exist in their own back yard. A time is coming however, when all of the world's attention will be focused on one spot. Zechariah 14:4 says, “And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.” 

          We don't know when this event will take place, but we know from the Word of God that it will take place and when it does, all of the world will take notice. The events in Washington, Portland, Berlin, Madrid, Moscow, Kenosha will all be events of the past and of no importance as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords appears and His feet touch the top of a small mountain, just outside of Jerusalem. It will be the spot where we last saw the Lord Jesus Christ standing in Acts 1 and the spot from which He arose into heaven. When He returns, His feet will touch the Mount of Olives in that day and the world will stop as a large crack appears and half of the mountain moves to the North and the other half to the South. The crack will extend from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea. The clamoring voices of the world will be stopped and all attention will be focused on one place, the Mount of Olives. For the believers of the world, it is a promise of the Sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ that gives us peace and hope for the eternity. We know that His Righteous Judgment will prevail and nothing can stop it. It will be the time when God says, “It is enough.” Until that time, we still live and die in a world of sin and degradation that continues to get worse and worse. We live in a time when Second Timothy 3:1-5 is more real than ever. Where, then, do we put our hope for today? We put it in the only Wise God of the universe. We put our hope and trust in Him whose feet will someday stand on the Mount of Olives. Praise God for the fact that He has each and everything in His control and that nothing will ever catch Him by surprise. Rejoice in Him Who is greater than all of your problems and all the problems of the world.