Gtcotr/ws071316
Life unfolds and revolves in cycles. Some of the most evident cycles are
seen in nature with days and seasons. Whether concerning the lunar cycle or a
life cycle, God has ordered and we all observe cycles in life. If you follow
the stock market or the housing market or the crawfish market, markets follow
predictable cycles. In some greater perspectives individuals, families,
governments and the nations follow cycles. Girls often turn out to be more like
their moms than they imagine and men find it hard not to repeat some of the
same steps their dads took and we end up in life better understanding our
parents’ decisions much better once we have grown children and begin watching
them raise our grandchildren.
Just
as the sun and the moon are predictable so also are the natural and the
spiritual unfolding of Biblical prophecies. Since time began life on planet
earth has continued to follow a prophesied cycle of people coming to God and
being blessed and then using those blessings to fund and facilitate a departure
from God only to bring themselves back into great need for God once again. We
see this in the scriptures over and over. This cycle is not caused by God but
well-known and spoken to throughout the scriptures.
A cycle is simply a predictable unfolding or repeats … We live in a very
predictably repetitive world. Evidently mankind is very predictable and it is
God’s hope that we would learn from our experiences, the experiences of others
and the admonitions in His Word to help us avoid going through the downsides of
life’s certain cycles. It is also God’s hope that when we find ourselves in a
downturn that we would readily assess the situation, take inventory, find the
right path and move ourselves out and back up into His blessed will.
When
we find ourselves thinking, believing, acting or living in a way we never
thought we would repeat, it’s time to go to God’s word and recognize His remedy
for those who have before experienced the same thing we presently face. It is
more common to judge others and know exactly what they should do in their
situation than it is to judge ourselves when that same thing happens in our
lives. And believe me when I tell you that God meant it when He said that … in judging others we only condemn ourselves. For,
the Bible says, the very thing we are critical of in the lives of others we
allow in our own lives without notice. For this reason God calls those who are
judgmental hypocrites. But that’s not what we are focusing on tonight. Rather I
have a spiritual point to this spiritual principle.
Life
unfolds and revolves in cycles. While you turn to the book of Isaiah, chapter
50, let me read a verse written by the Holy Spirit and penned by the Apostle
Paul which is intended to open a window into the greater revelation of the
cycle of life. I believe this verse to a very broad brush intended to overlay
the whole of life. I embrace the revelation of this principle as one of the
“keys” to the Kingdom in understanding life and especially prophecy concerning
things yet to come.
1 Corinthians 15:46 However,
the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.
First
the natural then the spiritual … perhaps this is the greatest cycle in God’s
prophetic plan for mankind. Let’s look at:
Isaiah 50
When
the prophet speaks this word from God he is speaking to a current situation in
the lives and nation of Israel. Isaiah is addressing the Children of God and
their physical departures from God’s will and way which have caused a
separation in relationship between them and God and prescribes throughout the
book those things which will happen to them as a result. He further gives the
Children of Israel hope that if they repent and return, God will forgive and
restore. Well, let’s just read these prophecies which were given to Israel in
their natural circumstances with physical promises and remedies and see how
they now apply to the Church in the spiritual moments we now face in this cycle
of first the natural and then the spiritual.
Isaiah 50
1 ¶ Thus says the LORD:
"Where is the certificate of your mother’s divorce, Whom I have put
away? Or which of My creditors is it to whom I have sold you? For your
iniquities you have sold yourselves, And for your transgressions your mother has
been put away.
Note: God speaks of Himself as the husband of His people. He
has married Israel in the same way as Jesus has married Himself to the Church.
Isaiah 62:5 “As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride so shall your God rejoice
over you.” Isaiah 54:5: “For your Creator is your husband.”; Jeremiah 3:14:
“Turn O backsliding children, says the Lord, for I am married unto you.”;
Revelation 21:9 – the Church is referred to as the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.
Note
2: Here none can claim that God has simply
grown tired of His wife and divorced her for no good reason. These have gone
into Babylonian captivity of their own accord and of their own doing. It is not
God’s will or fault as some imagine that we are going through hardship. He is
well able to respond with enough strength to deliver.
2 Why, when I came, was
there no man? Why, when I called, was there none to answer?
Is My hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to
deliver? Indeed with My rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a
wilderness; Their fish stink because there is no water, And die of
thirst.
3 I clothe the heavens with
blackness, And I make sackcloth their covering."
Note: God came to help but no one responded. It is
not the Lord who is unable to help. Then, there is a sudden change here as a
hope. Messiah takes charge and begins to speak as the Redeemer and Deliverer of
His bride and speaks prophetically to the course He would take to bring about
the vengeance of the Lord on those who have taken advantage of the Children of
God in their separated circumstances, even though they had brought it upon
themselves.
4 ¶ "The Lord GOD has
given Me The tongue of the learned, That I should know how to speak A word in
season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens
My ear To hear as the learned.
Note: I can still hear the taps on the heels of my
drill sergeant’s shoes at precisely 5:30am morning by morning as he approached
the door to our barracks intending on waking us for morning drill. O the
excitement that he would awaken in those ready for the day’s lesson. He had not
to say a word for we were all awake and expectant yet he roared his command and
we all sprang to attention ready for anything. This is the picture of an
obedient Messiah so willing to hear the voice of the Father and do His will.
Jesus continues …
5 The Lord GOD has opened My
ear; And I was not rebellious, Nor did I turn away.
6 I gave My back to those who
struck Me, And My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not
hide My face from shame and spitting.
7 "For the Lord GOD will
help Me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set My face like a
flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed.
8 He is near who
justifies Me; Who will contend with Me? Let us stand together. Who is My
adversary? Let him come near Me.
9 Surely the Lord GOD will
help Me; Who is he who will condemn Me? Indeed they will all grow
old like a garment; The moth will eat them up.
10 ¶ "Who among you
fears the LORD? Who obeys the voice of His Servant? Who walks in darkness And
has no light? Let him trust in the name of the LORD And rely upon his God.
11 Look, all you who kindle a
fire, Who encircle yourselves with sparks: Walk in the light of your
fire and in the sparks you have kindled — This you shall have from My
hand: You shall lie down in torment.
Note: What folly to trust in your own fire … conversely: God comforts us in our trials and
assures us He can deliver! This was spoken to the Nation of Israel in the time
of their captivity and addressed the current moment of their natural needs. In
the cycle of first the natural and then the spiritual, this prophetic word is
unfolding to the Church as a light of hope in the dark times we know as we face
the last days and we hear the voice of the Messiah telling us to wake up and
look up for we shall be comforted and redeemed.
Isaiah 51
1 ¶ "Listen to Me, you
who follow after righteousness, You who seek the LORD: Look to the rock from
which you were hewn, And to the hole of the pit from which you were
dug.
2 Look to Abraham your
father, And to Sarah who bore you; For I called him alone, And blessed
him and increased him."
3 For the LORD will comfort
Zion, He will comfort all her waste places; He will make her wilderness like
Eden, And her desert like the garden of the LORD; Joy and gladness will be found
in it, Thanksgiving and the voice of melody.
4 ¶ "Listen to Me, My
people; And give ear to Me, O My nation: For law will proceed from Me, And I
will make My justice rest As a light of the peoples.
5 My righteousness is
near, My salvation has gone forth, And My arms will judge the peoples; The
coastlands will wait upon Me, And on My arm they will trust.
6 Lift up your eyes to the
heavens, And look on the earth beneath. For the heavens will vanish away like
smoke, The earth will grow old like a garment, And those who dwell in it will
die in like manner; But My salvation will be forever, And My righteousness will
not be abolished.
7 "Listen to Me, you who
know righteousness, You people in whose heart is My law: Do not fear the
reproach of men, Nor be afraid of their insults.
8 For the moth will eat them
up like a garment, And the worm will eat them like wool; But My righteousness
will be forever, And My salvation from generation to generation."
9 ¶ Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the LORD! Awake as in the ancient days, In the generations of old. Are
You not the arm that cut Rahab apart, And wounded the serpent?
10 Are You not the
One who dried up the sea, The waters of the great deep; That made the
depths of the sea a road For the redeemed to cross over?
11 So the ransomed of the
LORD shall return, And come to Zion with singing, With everlasting joy on their
heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness; Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
12 "I, even I, am
He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid Of a man who
will die, And of the son of a man who will be made like grass?
13 And you forget the LORD
your Maker, Who stretched out the heavens And laid the foundations of the
earth; You have feared continually every day Because of the fury of the
oppressor, When he has prepared to destroy. And where is the fury
of the oppressor?
14 The captive exile hastens,
that he may be loosed, That he should not die in the pit, And that his bread
should not fail.
15 But I am the LORD
your God, Who divided the sea whose waves roared — The LORD of hosts is
His name.
16 And I have put My words in
your mouth; I have covered you with the shadow of My hand, That I may plant the
heavens, Lay the foundations of the earth, And say to Zion, ’You are My
people.’"
Note: God’s word always
ends with His overriding redemptive goal in focus. He only loves and desires to
recover us from these foreseen cycles of departures from His will and
separations in our relationship with Him. God has always been able to deliver
and will ultimately deliver us once and for all to a new covenant and new
creation reality where we shall forevermore be one with Him as a bride that has
married her husband.
Life
cycles … we are in the season of the spiritual fulfillment of the prophetic
word of Almighty God. He has given us clear word and full warning that should
be understood and embraced by the Church. God will not allow His redemptive
plan to go unfulfilled. He will have His final say and all we who look for His
appearing and who follow His Word shall awake unto righteousness and shine as
the lights of heaven eternally.
God
is all powerful and He has put His words in our mouths and He has covered us
with His hand. He has a plan, an eternal plan, to furnish an eternity for His
family.
·
Let us wake up and put on strength
·
Let us not fear the reproach of man
·
Let us not be afraid of their insults
·
Let us lift up our eyes to the heavens
·
Let us look to the Rock from which we were hewn
·
Let us shine as the light of hope in the darkness of this world
