‘As the deer pants for streams of water so my soul pants for you, O God’. (Psalm 42:1)[The Lord] will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. (Micah 4:3 NIV)
The story of Anne Frank has always fascinated me. She was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1929 but spent most of her life in Amsterdam.
In May 1940 her family were trapped in Amsterdam by the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. As persecution of the Jewish population increased, in July 1942, the family went into hiding in some concealed rooms in the building where Anne’s father worked.
After two years, the group was betrayed and transported to concentration camps. Anne and her sister Margot ended up at BergenBelsen where they died in March 1945.
Anne is famous because of a diary she was given on her thirteenth birthday, and which she used to chronicle her life from 12 June 1942 until 1 August 1944.
One of the entries in her diary reads,
In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply cant build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”
The Second World War did end shortly after Anne died and in an attempt to maintain international peace and security fifty countries joined together in 1945 to form the United Nations (UN).
In the garden of the UN building there is a bronze statue, given by Russia to the UN in 1959. It is of a man holding up a very large hammer. With this hammer he is beating a sword into a plowshare. It is a symbol of the aspirations for peace that is the foundation of the UN.
Unfortunately the UN cannot bring real peace; there has been no lasting peace and tranquillity on earth since that time. Only the Lord Jesus Christ can bring the world this sort of peace.
When we read the words of the prophet Micah, who lived 800 years before Christ, he was not referring to this present age but about a time yet future when the Lord Jesus Christ will return to earth and will establish His kingdom.
He will teach us His ways. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes. This is an era of peace that is still to come.
One day He will bring the peace and tranquility to all the earth that Anne Frank longed to see.
May God speed that day!
Prayer
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,
Amen.
Have a good week praying for Gods Kingdom to come.
Pastor Barry
