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STAND & COMFORT Newsletter October 27, 2001 God's "UNTILS" In The Midst Of Evil Fear is unreasonable because God exists. As Christians, when we are placed in a situation that entertains fear, we cannot allow self-control to take flight. The power of self-control is based on a knowledge of God and who He is: that He is always present, all-powerful, all knowing, faithful to the uttermost and definitely ALL-wise. Through the reading of His word, we come to a knowledge of Him that brings peace beyond understanding, a peace out of which comes the self-control we need in any situation. The Christian is to grow in the knowledge of Him. If he is serious in his Christian walk, he will eventually come to a point where, for the most part, he just rests in the Lord no matter what is happening around Him. By saying that, I am not endorsing passivity or saying that the Christian should throw his brain away. But in his knowledge of God, the Christian should have an unshakeable trust in God and His wisdom, though the flesh may rise against the thought of remaining in His rest. Such a rest comes from knowing who it is that has our trust, and how full that trust must be. I remember thinking about this one time in the past, and I believe the Spirit of God impressed on me the depth of the trust we are to have in Him. Life is eternal. It will never end, and the peace and security of that eternity rests not in anything we can do, but in who He is. Have we realized that we are placing our trust in a God who promises eternity with Him, and eternity will continue forever as He has planned it? In other words, we are trusting in the God of eternity who does not make mistakes and MUST NOT make a mistake, no, NOT EVEN ONE . . . for eternity! We are trusting in God who throughout all eternity will not make one mistake that will demolish the whole program, if I might say it that way. His wisdom is beyond comprehension and His way of doing things must be learned and understood by His people, especially in these times. God knows, the evil one has surely tried for 6,000 years to destroy what God wants, and man, in his ignorance of God, has certainly cooperated with that evil effort. Opposed to God, the devil has raised and implemented his wisdom against the wisdom of God for millennia. But God doesn't think the way we do and certainly not the way the adversary thinks. The devil's wisdom doesn't even come close to competing with God's. After all, God made him; he's only a creature. But this adversary is very wise, being the wisest and most subtle creature in the Garden. When I see what he is causing today in order to bring the world to a sense of a false peace, unity and security, I have to be amazed at the power of his evil wisdom. Solutions looking "so good" are advancing his mystery of lawlessness. It takes immense wisdom to orchestrate a global plan that will succeed in bringing all men to follow him and worship him. So here he is, working in a fallen world to bring fallen humanity into a manifestation of total rebellion against our God who is Sovereign over all. But as I said, God doesn't think the way the creature thinks - any creature. Look at redemption and the wisdom of God that totally overrode and trampled the wisdom of this very wise spirit, the adversary. The devil led man into the fall and had him trapped because man could not bring forth from himself any righteous person to redeem him and his offspring. What did God do? He simply took 4,000 years to tell us about someone He would send, and in that sending of His Son was seen God's absolute wisdom that destroyed the wisdom of the adversary. Who would have thought that the way to be saved from our condition was through the death of an innocent person, and not by the power and effort and agendas of sinful man? Sending Jesus was like dropping a drop of white paint into a bucket of black. That droplet would be swallowed up by the blackness and darkness of the black paint. In this analogy, if that drop of white paint is not retrieved, everything is going to be painted black, including eternity. But could you retrieve that drop? Who would even think of or attempt such an impossible thing? God knew what would happen to His Son and Jesus knew His Father. Even the exhortations of man in the person of Peter could not deter Jesus from doing what He saw the Father doing, and saying what He heard the Father saying. Peter was watching God bring forth His wisdom, but he thought it foolishness and protested against it. But God's ways are not our ways nor are God's thoughts our thoughts. Jesus absolutely refused to act according to man's wisdom, but went to the Cross as the very wisdom of God. The disciples ran and hid for fear and the world rejected Him and darkness seemed to all but swallow Him up as He gave up the ghost. The disciples, I think, thought all hope was lost at this point. All the promises He made, all the hope He brought, all the words of the prophets of the coming of the kingdom seemingly turned to dust. Why hadn't He just called down fire from heaven, for goodness sake? Nobody understood then that God was manifesting His perfect wisdom by sending His Son into this dark, black world which would result in His death. Of those who declared Jesus a just and righteous man, Pilate crucified Him and Peter and the disciples didn't do anything to stop it. God knew they would be afraid and run. He didn't relieve their fears then, but allowed their fear to keep them from interfering with His plan. He would deal with the fear at Pentecost. If we go back to our analogy, because of Jesus' death, the bucket of black paint had swallowed up the droplet of white paint. If we think of making any attempt to retrieve that drop, we can see man's hopelessness and futile effort to bring salvation to this world. Any human analogy fails, but God did the impossible - he raised a man, His Son become flesh, from the dead and wiped out 4,000 years of effort by the adversary to totally destroy His purpose and His plan. The kicker? The adversary thought he was destroying all that God had planned, when actually he was furthering God's plan. The wisdom of God - how unsearchable and unscrutable are His ways. The primary point of my sharing this is to help us realize that God's wisdom is exceedingly, infinitely above anything the adversary - or fallen, spiritually ignorant humanity - can come up with in their own wisdom to stop Him from accomplishing His purpose or save themselves. That statement is true no matter how bad things seem to be or might be or actually are. What did Jesus see around Him when he came to earth? A world alienated against Him, wanting to get rid of Him. What do you see today regarding those who truly believe on Christ and are God's? The same? Subtle to some degree, yet the agenda is there and building whether man is ignorant of what he is doing or not. Jesus said that all that He went through, we will go through. What he experienced, we will experience. God isn't going to stop it any more than He stopped the crucifixion. But here's the good news: God's plan includes the resurrection and eternity with a God who works things according to His will, good purpose and wisdom. Why are these things happening today? Why are things getting worse? Where's God? I am telling you a sure thing: God is here working His wisdom through all of this trouble, crisis and crackdown on humanity through new security issues. At this point, I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that it's going to get worse. The good news is Jesus will then come back. When? When we reach the point where each man cries, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" and then decides to believe or not believe in God and His wisdom to bring about a solution that will be as final as His Son dying on the cross and being raised from the dead. The wisdom of God in the death of His only-begotten, followed by the resurrection and Pentecost, made salvation totally available to every man who will ever live. Our total inability and powerlessness to get one little drop of white paint out of the bucket of black paint should give us a hint as to the absolute, and I do mean absolute, power of God that comes when His wisdom brings about the solution. The adversary was furious when Jesus rose from the dead. His own wisdom had betrayed him because he dared to challenge the one whose wisdom is infinite. God's wisdom was, is, and always shall be greater than any creatures'. Knowing this, how can we not trust God in these times and know He is working His wisdom through all of it, even while knowing that in His wisdom He will allow things to get worse? Know this, that the wisdom evil manifests can never outwit the wisdom of God, but will only help bring about God's final purpose:
There's ALWAYS an "UNTIL" with God when evil seems to have its way. The law wasn't evil, that's for sure, but sin is, and God gave the holy law which kept man trapped in sin so he would realize the need for a savior. God allowed the Old Covenant to remain "until" the time came for Him to send the promise made to Abraham (Galatians 3:23,24 4:4,5). Zechariah didn't believe the angel when he announced the birth of John the Baptist and he was struck dumb "until" the child was born (Luke 1:20). Joseph and Mary went down to Egypt "until" the death of Herod so the Scripture could be fulfilled, "Out of Egypt I have called my Son" (Matthew 2:15). All the law and the prophets prophesied "until" John came with the message that the Promise of God was there, in Jerusalem (Matthew 11:13). The martyrdom of Christians will continue "until" what God has determined will be fulfilled (Revelation 6:11). Evil will continue "until" the words of God are fulfilled: Rev 17:17 For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, UNTIL the words of God shall be fulfilled. Remember the bad news and the good news I shared with you earlier? Remember, there's always an "until" with God. Evil will continue "until" Jesus comes, but then comes the reality of the good news: Acts 3:21 Whom the heaven must receive UNTIL the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. Then comes eternity, where the UNTILS disappear. Until then, evil will have its way and grow and snowball and increase. Sometimes it will put on the face of Good. Sometimes it will be obviously Evil. But of this we are sure: evil can only prevail until it reaches a point where it's in position to wipe everything and everyone out. UNTIL that happens, we are to trust in the wisdom of God in allowing what He is allowing: Mat 24:21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. Let me close by using the analogy of the white drop in the black paint in a different and opposite way, hoping that it might give us an inkling of what His glorious coming will be like. When Jesus came the first time, He was a light in the midst of this dark world: Mat 4:16 The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. Jesus himself said, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world" (John 9:5). The world wasn't physically dark. It was spiritually dark. But the Scriptures speak of His return as His coming into a physically dark world in a way that will be seen with the physical eyes. He will come again in the flesh and every eye will see Him. But my point is what that may look like. The physical lights of this world will go out right before He returns and His glory will be the light of this world. Scripture describes a deep darkness enveloping the earth at the time of God's wrath and Christ's return: Zep 1:15 That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, The trumpet judgments describe a deep darkening of this world and the sixth seal in Revelation 6:12-17 indicates this is due to the sun and moon and the stars giving no or little light. In the midst of this deep darkness Jesus returns in the GLORY and power of the Father. Jesus' second coming is to the white drop of paint as the actual darkness of this world is to the black paint. Rather than in my first analogy when the white drop seemed to be swallowed up by the deep darkness, in Jesus' return the white drop - His shining glory - will be all that is seen. It will be obvious to all men that His pure light is holy, all-powerful, godly. All eyes will be on Him because the darkness will be overwhelmed by this One Man who is God. Will the millennium be the same? You can think about all of this by spending some time in Revelation: Rev 21:23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. No need of the sun or the moon to shine? But instead, the glory of God and the Lamb will be its light? The Scriptures give us quite a picture of something we cannot yet imagine with any accuracy except that it will be glorious. This is the God we are to trust in even now, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. Nothing is going to happen that God does not allow and He won't make any mistakes that allow evil to somehow finally triumph. Trust Him because Psalm 2:12 . . . Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. ========== This newsletter will be sent out whenever I think there is something the body of Christ needs to consider, to build it up, to give it encouragement or comfort in hard times. To sign up for this newsletter, email Ed at ejt@ncinter.net |