HAVING A PROPHETIC VIEW

HAVING A PROPHETIC VIEW



                Why are there so many suicides especially among young people today? What would be so horrible that a person would actually take their own life?  What problem would be so unsolvable that a young person could not see that things do get better with time and that we just have to hang in there until we see light at the end of the tunnel?



                I think that we can live through many horrible things if there is a greater context in which we live. The bad thing we are going through right now is not the end of the world. It is not the sum total of our lives or our purposes in this life… if we have a greater context… a greater purpose than mere existence.



                I think that young people today are not given that greater context. Instead they are learning to live for the moment and when that moment is bad, they can’t see beyond it.



                The greater context in which we live involves God’s care and His purposes for humanity and even for us as individuals. We live within a context of creation, redemption and restoration and a final solution of eternal glory               . As Christians, whether we understand it or not, live within the context of a prophetic view. We know where we came from. We know in general terms our purpose on earth and we know that God has a plan that involves our eventual return to Him or His return to us.



                It is within this greater context of faith, hope and love that we as Christians find our purpose and our strength and our song. Praise acknowledges that there is Someone greater than all of us that has a plan… that loves us and longs to be with us in intimate relationship. Our worship is based upon the same thing and whether we always realize it or not, we have both an intimate and personal context of
God’s care as well as a big picture context in which God leads men and nations and churches towards an ultimate goal of salvation and restoration. God is sovereignly and ultimately in control.



                We are continuing our study of the book of Job and this week we are discussing Job’s utter despair. In spite of his faithfulness and endurance in losing everything he owned and then losing even his personal health by being cast into complete agony from head to toe, we now see that Job’s pain is beginning to overwhelm him. His bigger context is beginning to be swallowed up by the pain that is now consuming him.

                Bonnie and I have managed somehow to care for our loved ones in their final hours. My Dad died of throat cancer that ate away his throat and part of his face. My Mom was otherwise healthy at 92 until she fell and broke her hip and her jagged broken bones pinched her nerves in such a way as to send her into impossible pain. WE had to sedate her and to mask her pain with morphine



                There comes a time in life when even the greater context of life can no longer be maintained and we are left with the option of dosing the suffering with morphine to the point where they are in oblivion and largely unconscious.



                Job didn’t have the advantage of morphine and so his pain drove him nearly to madness and yet he was still able to say these famous words.



                “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is eaten by worms; yet in my flesh I will see God; whom I myself shall behold and whom my eyes shall see and not another.” Job 19:25-27



                My parents and my grandparents all had this greater context, this greater hope that was bigger than even the grave… and it was this hope that carried them to their final destiny.



                We sometimes take this greater hope and context for granted. Large parts of the Body of Christ are ignoring Bible prophecy these days, saying that it is just fear mongering or some such. But the truth is that without that greater context we lose our hope and comfort as well and we lose our perspective and we begin to stray from God’s plans and to fall away from the truth. Yes, God’s prophetic word contains warnings, but it also contains comfort and a solution and a context of hope because we win in the end… and Jesus is in control after all.



                Throughout all time Israel has stood as a physical template of how God deals with mankind. We can look at Israel today and wonder why so many of them are atheists, or Cabbalists. We see that in many ways they are part and parcel of the New World Order and we wonder how God can ever save them… but there is a bigger context. Way back in Abraham’s and Moses’ time Job said: I know that my Redeemer lives and that at the last He will take His stand on the earth. “But is that true? Will Jesus as our Messiah and rightful King of the Jews take His stand upon the earth?



                Well, Zechariah confirmed it by saying. “Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations (that come against Israel in the last days) as when He fights on the day of battle. And in that day His feet will stand on the Mt. of Olives which is in front of Jerusalem…” Zech. 14:3, 4



                Isn’t that the greater context that Job spoke of? Yes it is and then in verse 5 Zechariah says: “Then the Lord my God will come and all the holy ones with Him.” Isn’t that the second coming of Christ? Yes it is and so even in our despair over Israel and its current condition, we see a greater context in which they will yet look upon Him whom they have pierced. Zech. 12:10



                We also have a greater context for Israel found in Romans 11 where it is said that God Himself has imposed a partial blindness upon them until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. God’s gifts and calling are irrevocable. He will yet save Israel. They will yet embrace their true Messiah. God is in control and His great patience with Israel should bring hope and comfort to us as well.



                Like sheep we have all gone astray. All of us have stumbled and fallen and lost our way… and yet the Holy Spirit has drawn us back into His presence and forgiven our sins through the shed blood of Jesus and we have been reconciled to God through Him. We came to the cross. We entered into His death by faith. Then He raised us up by the power of His resurrection and He has taken up His abode in us. We are new creatures. We are now temples of His presence. We have become the living realities of those things pictured for us in symbolic form through Israel.



                Can we not believe that God will do the same for His chosen people Israel through whom He brought His Word and His Messiah? Yes He will and Jesus is yet going to reign for 1000 years from Jerusalem during which time He will tie up all loose ends, and fulfill all promises and restore all things. God is a God of His Word and not one of His prophecies and promises will be left unfilled when all is said and done. We have written off many of God’s promises saying that they were conditional and since Israel failed He is under no obligation to keep His promises.



                Well, there are conditional promises where God said to Israel and to us: “If you do this then I will do that. If you obey me then I will bless you. Yes, there are those promises that Israel failed to benefit from simply because they disobeyed. But Paul assures us that there were also irrevocable promises which God made to Abraham by covenant that can never be broken. Covenant promises can never be broken because they are not based upon man’s performance, but upon God’s name, His character, His Word… His oath is confirmed and signed in the blood of Jesus.



                So while we must admit to Israel’s sins and our sins both as individuals and as a nation… we must also admit that there is a greater context in which all things will work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Rom. 8:28



                I love the story of the prodigal son, because in it Jesus pictures for us a Father who is scanning the horizon… longing for His wayward son. And we, like the older brother may resent our Father’s willingness to forgive the undeserving… and yet we sometimes forget that that same forgiveness has been extended to us and we too have been rescued from our own sins and rebellions.



                In the story of Job I see a man who for a time was so overwhelmed with pain that he couldn’t see the greater context. He regretted the day he was born and he didn’t have morphine to cover his pain. And yet in his deepest agony he saw a suffering Savior and Redeemer that would someday return and stand upon the earth. He would make all things new. He would heal the world of the horrible scars of sin that have ravaged it.



                And we are living in the end times when all of God’s promises and prophecies will come into their ultimate fulfillment. And everything that has happened to Israel in the past happened to them as an example and they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come. 1 Cor. 10:11



                And we too are left with this promise: “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide a way of escape also that you may be able to endure it.” 1 Cor. 10:13.



                Let us learn to live within the bigger context of life. We need to learn this because even tougher times are looming on the horizon and even greater chaos and confusion is in our future. If we have not learned to live within the greater context of God’s love and His ultimate plans for us we will surely fall away. This lesson we can learn from the story of Job. We can and must be faithful to the end. And it is the greater context of a prophetic view that will carry us when others are lost in despair.