Mon, Jun 15, 2009
Thank you for all your recent correspondences to us Brother Reggie. I’m sure that others receive them with the same anticipation I do.Brother Reggie, what an increase in speed things concerning Israel and the land have taken on recently. I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice. The Pope was in the Holy Land last month and called for two independent states. President Obama has made his wishes known concerning the same and hopes to accomplish it in two years. And now Netanyahu has proposed an independent demilitarized state for Palestinians. So you have perhaps the most visible Christian religious leader in the world and the most powerful political leader in the world coming out full speed ahead for dividing Israel. And now the Prime Minister of Israel has proposed the same. And Iran’s hard line President has kept his office. I’m aware that everyone knows this but it has been kind of like tighten your seat belts lately.
I just read some of your comments again concerning the controversy of the land that will highlight the last of the last days and things sure look headed that way more so than just a few months ago. Be they Popes or presidents or leaders of Israel itself, the highest and noblest intentions of these leaders will ultimately fall short and that will further add to confusion if one does not have the perspective of the prophets and Jesus Himself. There is a lot of hand wringing these days over conditions in society and the nations and economics but in a certain way I don’t feel so confused because of the perspective of the prophets about things that must come to pass. No, I’m not strong in myself and can’t brag about being able to endure all things but the things the prophets saw that caused them to grow sick and their faces to become pale can also be a guidepost somehow in the midst of it all. One can become perplexed or maybe grieved is a better word and you may not know exactly where you are at but at least you are not lost. The view of the prophets and Jesus concerning things to come can in some way be a lamp and a light even during the most sobering of times.
Thank you and blessings to you,
Thanks. So true.
You touch here on what is for me a real point of passion. It is purpose. Prophecy means purpose, and the more sense that’s made of it, the more one sees the purpose in things, and purpose is everything!
When someone who is weary of the futility of a Godless existence is exposed to prophecy in a way that makes sense of history, there is ground for hope and the possibility of personal meaning. To find a sense of place and purpose in ‘His story’ is simply huge for both heart and mind. The powerful evidence of God in prophecy not only removes the unbeliever’s intellectual refuge, but it also gives hope of a sure foundation for all who are in desperate quest for meaning and purpose.
The want of purpose, particularly eternal purpose, is the world’s great crisis. We have something here that the world desperately needs. If we are debtors to all men, then it behooves us to prepare to give answer for the hope that is in us. Such basic preparation does NOT require great mastery of all the details, or solutions for every difficulty, but just sufficient competency in the prophetic scriptures to make the miracle of prophecy known and accessible to the average person. It is a powerful tool that has been too neglected in our approach to evangelism. Showing the gospel from the evidence of fulfilled prophecy was the ‘modus operandi’ of the early church. That’s my heart for a course of study that some friends are working with me to put together.
I see the church in these days as a ‘sleeping giant’ (in analogy to what the Japanese admiral said after the attack on Pearl Harbor: “I fear we have only awakened a sleeping giant!”). I see the church of the last days in this way. It will be like when a deeply judged and chastened Samson rises up out of blindness to shake himself one last time, and so bring down in one fell stroke the entire house of the false god, Dagon. I must say that I weep in a bitter-sweet of glory when I say this, because I see that it is a church that will see itself as wrong and deeply chastened (1Pet 4:17) that God will use as His final witness to Israel and the nations. I believe it is a church that has been raised up out of the humiliation of its own presumption (in analogy to Samson’s shame) that will lay its life down freely, in love and without fear. Then will the Spirit of the Lord truly rest again again on a corporate Servant Son, who, not incidentally, will fulfill another 3 1/2 years of priestly service anointed for burial.
Furthermore, your statement reminds me that in the ancient world, a small clay lamp did not illuminate every detail of the surrounding landscape, but cast just enough light on the path to make it possible to walk. Just so, prophecy enables us to see just enough to enable us to walk in a straight path. Peter says the ‘more sure Word’ of prophecy is a light that shines in a dark place. Oh, how we thank and bless our God for that precious light! Just think of where we and all this world would be without it. Don’t we owe it to Him to make that light available to others? It doesn’t require great skill or knowledge to be able to show sufficient evidence to convince any open and honest heart that all things are moving according to a divine schedule that is already full of glory for the righteous, even in the midst of the fires (see Isa 24:15-16)), with the ultimate glory as its unfailing goal. “For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev 19:10).
Your brother in the Beloved, Reggie
