reason to hope

I regret to say that I grew up with a fatalistic outlook.  I remember that when I was a young boy, I watched in sickening horror actual scenes from the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, projected on a movie screen in the church we attended.  I recall going to the bathroom in the basement, where I cried my heart out.  In those days, not many years after WWII, the fear of nuclear war was palpable.  There were "Bomb Shelter" signs in all the public schools ~ which then practiced air-raid and nuclear fallout drills with as much regularity as ordinary fire drills.  I still remember crawling under my school desk or crowding shoulder-to-shoulder with the other kids in the coatroom, on numerous occasions when the alarm sounded without warning; all the while wondering when the "real thing" was likely to happen.

My Dad enjoyed studying Bible prophecy.  Yet, his perception of the future was "deterministic;" although I never understood what that meant, until much later in my life.  "The Bible tells us what's going to happen in the future, and there's nothing anyone can do to change what's going to happen," he often said to me.  For some mysterious reason, I didn't think I would live to see my 23rd birthday.  Even long after I had passed that milestone, I still lived with a sense of constant dread that the end of the world was going to occur at any moment.

Evidently the re-birth of the nation of Israel, in 1948, sparked renewed interest in Bible prophecy studies, in the years following that event.  But that was a generation ago.  And there was still then a great deal of prophecy which that generation could not rightly understand.  Nevertheless, the resurgence of interest in prophecy studies, especially amongst certain religious denominations, fostered a culture which seemed to be as much focused on the appearing of the Antichrist, Tribulation, and Armageddon, as it was focused on the Rapture or the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Needless to say, I had no motivation to attempt to build or to achieve anything ~ because, I had no real hope for any meaningful future in this world.  That frame of mind caused me untold disappointment and heartache, as it held me a prisoner to despair.  I have long believed it is God's will to save souls.  But at the same time, I also viewed humanity as laboring under the sentence of death, as I beheld the dark clouds of the day of the LORD gather on the horizon.

But I am being transformed, in order as my mind is being renewed according to the truth.

A few months ago, I saw what apparently were two young mothers each with her newborn baby cradled securely in their respective shopping carts.  The thought suddenly entered my mind: "If God is still willing to send new life into the world, that means He does not fear the future."  That idea filled me with hope.

More recent (and more important) still, the "paradigm shift" I elaborated in my "Between Two Ages" series of essays, has been nothing less than transformative for my perspective of the future.  I really don't know if the ideas and perspective I shared in that series have affected anyone else in that way.  But for me, the concept of what I called the "Great Transition" is still unfolding new meaning and implications regarding God's will.

More than ever in my life previously, I see God as the God who saves.   To be sure, the soon-coming Tribulation shall be a time (as Jesus himself said) of unprecedented trouble and destruction.  Yet, even the events of the Tribulation shall be entirely under God's control.  Whereas the wrath of God poured out in fury during that relatively brief time period shall be necessary ~ but only because of the utter unwillingness to repent, on the part of those who will then perish.  But the rapid pace of events which are leading toward that time of God's judgment in the Tribulation, means that we are on target and moving rapidly toward the advent of that (Millennial Kingdom) Age of incomparable peace and blessing.  And all of the events between now and then are integral to that unfathomably great transition.

But what is the mind of God concerning Today?  God truly does want to pour out His Spirit to as many as will receive Him, before that time (the Rapture) when God must then remove His own people from the world.  The Lord takes no pleasure in destroying the wicked.  That's why God measures out judgment incrementally, in hope that sinners will heed God's warnings and turn from their sin.  Meanwhile, God is seeking for intercessors who will "stand in the gap" before the Lord, and who will yield themselves to the power of God's Spirit to prepare their own hearts to receive what God wants to do in Revival.  

"The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein," wrote the Psalmist.  God is not going to lose the earth, nor anyone that is His.  The devil is not a challenger to God Almighty.  Jesus said he "beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."  God, evidently as He sees fit, allows the devil~on a very short leash, as it were~to chasten men.  The following passage of Scripture is very revealing of that:

O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.  I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.  Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few.  (Isaiah 10:5-7)

God is not going to allow either the devil or ungodly people to continue to corrupt and to destroy God's world.  But what is so amazing to me, is to see how long-suffering is the Lord even toward those who have made themselves to be God's enemies (which we all once were).  God truly is good, and His mercy is very great toward those who will repent and humble themselves before God.

God never goes backward.  The revelation of God is always progressing, revealing more and more of the glory and greatness of God, as well as of His eternal Kingdom.  For those of us who have become "new creatures" in Christ, the revelation of God is unfolding within our own being, accordingly as we faithfully and diligently follow Him.  And I am learning not to listen to the devil or to the world; neither of which ever has anything good to say.  I am learning not to listen to the naysayers and the doomsayers and the prognosticators of evil to come.  But I have steadfastly fixed my gaze upon "the God who saves;" upon the God who "makes all things new;" as He said:

Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.  I am the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King.  Thus saith the LORD, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters; which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise: they are extinct, they are quenched as tow.   Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.  Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it?  I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.  The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.  (Isaiah 43:14-20)

The Apostle Paul wrote something very similar to that, in Philippians 3:13-14:

[T]his one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and  reaching forth unto those things which are before , I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 

No, it is not easy to do that.  Paul said he had to "reach forth" and "press toward."  Why so?  Because, it is the nature of our spiritual warfare, not only to battle against the spirit of the enemy~who always wants to push us down and bind us in defeat.  But we also war against carnality, that is to say, against the weakness and darkness of a fallen, earth-bound mind.

"Remember ye not the former things," says the Lord.  Don't look back!  We're not ever going back to what was.  "Behold...."  That word is not a literary "filler," or some kind of poetic-sounding verbiage.  But it means to "carefully consider" something that is being said.  "Behold, I will do a new thing."    Forget the past!  "Reach forth unto those things which are before" us.  What are "those things which are before" us?  It means that we must always be looking forward.  And we must be looking, asking, seeking for, and expecting that "new thing" which God said He "will do."  

The passage of Scripture which we have just been considering, goes on to say:

I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.  The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.

God will not only guide but He also will supernaturally provide for His people.  The "wilderness" and the "desert" allude to this present evil world.  Psalm 23 says: "Thou [God] preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies."  "Before me," not behind me.  And "in the presence of mine enemies," means "in the face of opposition."  There is a "table" prepared for every one who belongs to God in Christ.

The devil would only have us to see darkness and trouble in our future.  But God said He has prepared a table of good things for us, and He has set that "before us."  We must "reach forth" and "press toward" laying hold of those good things, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Years ago, the Lord said to my spirit: "I have prepared a table for you, whereon is everything you will ever need or want, not only in this world but in the world to come."  "Then, why do I seem not to have many of those things?" I asked.  "It is because you have an enemy who doesn't want you to have them," the Lord replied.  "You overcome him, and it's all yours."

I'm talking about a perspective of the future which is full of hope, full of the promises of God, and wide open to any child of God who will earnestly pray and seek God to do those things He has promised.  The Rapture will soon happen.  The Tribulation with its demonic hordes will surely then come.  But God is wanting to do great things today!  And He has given us a wealth of wisdom, instruction, and examples, in His Word and in the glorious history of the godly Church: all showing us the way to receive from Him!

What do you want from God?  Have you no real desire in your heart ~ which is not selfish and carnal?  Do you not hunger to know God, and to see His glory revealed?  Have you no genuine compassion for the multitudes who are perishing in their sins?  Do you not hate the works of the devil?  Doesn't the suffering of those who are sick and poor move you to petition God for their deliverance?  Wouldn't you love to be used of God to bring forth a great move of God's Spirit in Revival?

Well, I can tell you, by the authority of the Holy Ghost, that God wants all of that and more.  More? you say?  Yes, more.  God wants to open the heavens to those who will hunger and thirst after God.  There are many different kinds of heavenly experiences which God wants to give as gifts to His faithful servants.  There are wonderful gifts of the Holy Ghost (many ~ but not all ~ of which are identified in Scripture).  Those gifts are not for our "entertainment," but they are for our glory and for the edification of the Body of Christ.  How is it that we have so long been content to live without those divine gifts?

Does that not then reveal something of our true condition, that is, the fact that we are willing to go on and on, day after day, without God and without seeking to obtain His promise of Revival?

I weep for us.  And for the lost.  And for the suffering.

And for God.

Yet I have hope.  My hope is in God.