Where Is All of This Headed?

Where Is All of This Headed? - By Gene Lawley - http://www.raptureready.com/2017/03/30/where-is-all-of-this-headed-by-gene-lawley/

 

The long-awaited goal seemed to be in reach when President Obama remarked rather incidentally in an aside last April 30, 2016. He said, "The end of the Republic has never looked better." The coming election appeared to be locked in the hands of Hillary Clinton whose only apparent offer to the American electorate was "the first woman president." (And also a continuation of the Obama administration's obvious destruction of American national sovereignty.)

 

It was eight years of lies and deception, whether in unemployment statistics, economic and social wellbeing, or "if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor," and "if you like your insurance plan, you can keep your insurance plan."

 

His overall goal was "hush-hush" in all of the media, a carryover from the clear refusal to search out and expose Obama's true past history. Federal courts strangely would not permit the continuance of any kind of challenge or evidence presentation that would open up that bombshell of reality. It only highlights Henry Kissinger's elated exclamation after the 2008 election: "He has been primed to lead us into a New World Order."

 

A Christian surely must be asking where God is in all of this seemingly full-throttled effort of the "conspiracy realists" to pull off a giant coup of installing a New World Order over the nations. It is a long-standing theological reality that God is not going to give up His glory to any mortal being which He created.

 

In Ephesians 3:10-11 Paul writes of God's purpose in the revealing of Jesus Christ as God in the flesh of man was "that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord."

 

It is worth noting that when the New Testament writers speak of the church accomplishing anything for God, it has nothing to do with any man-made entity or denomination such as Roman Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, or that building where people assemble for worship and fellowship. It is that born-again body of Christ, the one represented in the statement Jesus made in answer to Peter's identification of Jesus as "the Christ, the Son of the living God" in Matthew 16:16.

 

Jesus answered in verse 17, "...On this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."

 

The angels wonder about the methods of God's purpose, according to 1 Peter 1:12, "things which angels desire to look into." They do not know of mercy and grace in personal experience. However, making the manifold wisdom of God's purpose known to principalities and powers in the heavenly places has another audience-those of evil intent who are opposed to all that is of God, yet will be totally destroyed in the final conclusion of God's plan. It is like the story of Job, whom Satan desired that he might prove what a failure God was in entrusting His glory in a man of the earth such as Job. That issue is described by Paul as how "the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men (bond-slaves of the prince of this world), (1 Corinthians 1:18, 21, 25).

 

The ultimate warfare is between God and Satan, as revealed in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, where back in eternity past that top angel of the host of heaven was allowed to rebel against his Creator and God's glory and sovereignty were challenged. So it is, as Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."

 

In the plan of God for mankind there appears to be four major eras or periods of time in which He deals with man with increasingly more enlightenment of Himself and with resulting more responsibility of man. Those broad periods of time are as follows:

 

1. Creation to Abraham
2. Abraham to Jesus Christ
3. Jesus Christ to His Second Coming
4. Christ's 1,000-year reign-Millennium

Then, eternity, for time will be no more.

 

As I mentioned above, and actual history shows thus far, as more and more revelation of God and His plans unfold, there is more awareness of man's accountability to God. And, unfortunately,  continual failure of man to be accountable and obedient has been the end result  in every era, with the climax of God's judgment.

 

That first period started with perfection...and innocence, and shortly, failure, and mankind no longer was alive, spiritually. Embedded in his conscience, however, was the moral law of good and evil, for they had eaten of that tree's fruit. It took the judgments of a flood and confusion of languages to climax that era.  Obeying their consciences was too much for the people.

 

Then God called a man named Abram out from his relatives and made of him a nation that He called His holy people and gave them written laws which they promised to keep, a covenant of promise. That is the story of the Old Testament, a story, again, of failure of the chosen people, even, to be accountable and obedient to God their Creator.

 

They were scattered among the nations of the world for their judgment but with a promise of a future restoration to the land promised to Abraham and his descendants forever. A future period of seven years, known as "the time of Jacob's trouble," would take place in which His chosen people would finish their judgment and find restoration to God's favor.

 

That third era with the advent of Jesus Christ, had been promised from the beginning. It was God appearing in the form of man, born of God and of a woman. Paul writes of this in 1 Timothy 3:16:

 

"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness:

 

God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory."

 

It was then God walking among men, fully God, fully man, but without the Adam-killing sinfulness that had enslaved mankind since that day in the Garden of Eden. It was God's major revelation of Himself, on whose face it was said that no man could look and live. He was God's personal message to man, as reported in Hebrews 1:1-2:

 

"God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds."

 

John wrote of the fellowship he and the disciples had with Him and recommended that fellowship to all others as well:

 

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life-the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us-that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full" (1 John 1-4).

 

This period is the age of grace, the times of the Gentiles, when God's plan is to "take out of the Gentiles a people for His name" (Acts 15:14), while setting aside the Israelites, in part, while that is being done (Romans 11:25). This period ends, also, with judgment, seven years of it upon the disobedient Jews and people all over the world who remain in rebellion.

 

Even though believers during this "dispensation of grace" (Ephesians 3:2) are indwelt with the Holy Spirit of promise, they, too, are showing an increasing lack of accountability and obedience. Such a marvelous and majestic revelation of God's reality, presence and relativity to mankind still does not impact them exclusively.

 

Multiple scriptures indicate that those who believe in Christ and are born again during this period will be removed from that judgment before it begins and will return with the Savior when He comes to the earth once again to complete that phase of the judgment and begin that final era before eternity, the millennium.

 

Three of the final actions of the Lord in that third period will be casting the Antichrist and his false prophet into the lake of fire to burn forever, killing the others who were against Him, and binding Satan in chains in the bottomless pit for the duration of the millennium.

 

Many passages of Scripture in Isaiah, Jeremiah and other prophetical books of the Bible, such as Zechariah 14 and Revelation 20 describe that time when Jesus will reign over the earth from the throne of David as one with peace, good health and long lives, no warfare, even among animals. Yet, at the end, when Satan is loosed from his chains, he will readily raise up an army to oppose the Lord who will destroy that opposition, finally and forever!

 

Every period ends in judgment upon the inhabitants of the earth, for they do not measure up to the accountability and obedience God requires. It is the glory of God that he, alone, is capable of man's redemption; flesh and blood have no place in His plan. As more and more of God's reality will have been revealed, man continually refuses His free gift of salvation. But God is merciful and saves those who do realize their sinfulness and turn to Him for forgiveness.

 

This article began with consideration of where we are with current events and God's plan for mankind. In light of the pattern of history and its showing of man's inability to choose good over evil, the question remains of whether or not this current new direction for America, as well as Britain and other nations, will endure into the future for any length of time, given the harsh and desperate resistance being shown.

 

America has been looked upon as "the leader of the free world," and her benevolence shown in the restoration of Europe and Japan after defeating that opposition in World War II stands out before the envy of many people. After many centuries of kings, despots and dictators, God allowed man to form the most ideal political entity than any previously known. With that platform, could man finally govern himself justly and righteously?

 

What we are seeing unfold in current events appears to be a rejection, even, of the best for which man could ever hope...without his submission to the God of the universe. Again, the glory of God reigns supreme over the proponents of evil.  These four dispensations of time discussed here show an increasing revelation of God to mankind, yet each period has and will end in judgment on mankind for his decided rejection of that God. It is to His glory in the universe that the created cannot survive without and apart from the mercy, grace and love of the Creator.

 

It seems to highlight, on the spiritual side, the words of John 3:19:

 

"And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."