Comprehending the Course of History [Keeping Today's Events in Perspective]

Ligonier ^ | 7/19/13

[SoFloFreeper]

What is striking in this history is the manifest hand of providence in the work of redemption. God is a God of long-range planning. He does not succumb to the all-too-human tendency toward immediate gratification and short-term goals.

God sees the end from the beginning and rules the course of history, moving it inexorably toward its appointed destiny. In the affairs of the life of Abraham, God was providentially directing history toward David’s kingship and far beyond to the kingship of Christ.

The genealogies show that the first advent of Christ was not an afterthought in God’s mind, a sudden quick-fix remedy for a world run amok. Rather, it displays a marvelous drama of redemption that God ordained before the foundation of the world and gradually but surely brought to pass in the footnotes of history.

All who rejoice in the first advent are comforted by the certainty of the promised second advent. We, as twenty-first-century Christians, live in an interim period—the time between two advents that define, condition, and redeem the meaning of our lives.

[SoFloFreeper]

While we are wont to be frustrated by the times (me, too!), it is comforting to remember that God is in control.

[Arlis]

Scripture says to God, nation’s are “a drop in a bucket” - that’s where the phrase came from. He raises them up for His purpose, He brings them down.

Almost always when a nation is one of the few touched by the hand of God - like Britain once was, like the US once was - and it later turns from Him, its declension begins.

First spiritual, then moral, then culture, then government - collapse - and usually takeover by another power.

We are in the midst of that right now. We must pray II Chron. 7:14. But such prayer requires humbling ourselves first, and repentance.

But this does not guarantee God’s intervention in saving our rapidly collapsing nation.

We who know God must seek Him earnestly, cling to Him, walk with Him in faith, “following the Lamb” wherever He leads.

Like Jeremiah in Jerusalem as he watched its collapse from within, we groan. But He alone is our strength and salvation.

Everything else will fail.

[Spok]

Freedom and prosperity are the exceptions to the typical status quo of oppression and suffering. The rule of reason and faith is an aberration that mankind repeatedly proves incapable of sustaining.

[Arlis]

Indeed. How true.

Our little time in history is a short aberration to the norm. We don’t know how blessed we have been, and we’ve all taken it for granted.......part of the reason we are losing it, IMHO.....