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Spiritual Contracts
Crosswalk Daily Email 'Today God Is First' Devotion | Os Hillman

Posted on 01/19/2009 8:16:57 PM PST by WhatNot

Daniel 9:2
In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.

When you enter a legal contract, it binds the two parties to fulfill the terms of that contract. In Heaven there are legal contracts that, when fulfilled, allow the spiritual to impact the physical.

Israel had been in captivity to Babylon for 70 years. Daniel, when he investigated the history of his nation, found the prophecy of Jeremiah that revealed there would be 70 years of captivity. He recognized that in order to release his nation from this captivity, there had to be a confession of sin on the part of the nation. Daniel took that responsibility. Although he could not personally repent for his nation, he could acknowledge their sin and repent himself. When Daniel acknowledged this sin before God, something took place in Heaven. God heard this prayer and responded by sending His angel Gabriel to Daniel's side.

We know from history that this was the time when Judah's return from exile began. Daniel's prayer of confession was the spiritual key to the physical manifestation of releasing the nation from captivity to Babylon.

Whenever you want to confront spiritual forces that have dominion over a situation, you must find the source of the problem. Once you find the source of the problem, you must take the necessary steps in the spiritual realm to release God's power into that situation. For Daniel, it meant taking responsibility for the sin of the nation by confessing its sins and asking forgiveness on behalf of the entire nation. This allowed God to begin the process of releasing the nation.

Ask God to show you the source of the problems that may exist in your city, your business, or people you want to see freed to fulfill God's purposes for their lives.


TOPICS: Evangelical Christian
KEYWORDS: crosswalk; devotion; hillman
As long as the sun comes up in the morning, God will keep offering to deliver His children
1 posted on 01/19/2009 8:16:59 PM PST by WhatNot
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To: WhatNot
He has delivered His own from the second death!

I love the passage in Daniel - indicating that he understood the scriptures containing prophesy. We can too....He has not left us in the dark.

2 posted on 01/19/2009 8:23:28 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
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To: anniegetyourgun

Amen, He has sent us the light!


3 posted on 01/19/2009 8:33:50 PM PST by WhatNot
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To: WhatNot

The proposition of a “spiritual contract” is an interesting notion, but I am not sure that it is supported by this scripture. Daniel references:

<< Jeremiah 25 >>
New American Standard Bible ©


Prophecy of the Captivity
1 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), 2 which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, 3 “From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, these twenty-three years the word of the LORD has come to me, and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened. 4 “And the LORD has sent to you all His servants the prophets again and again, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear, 5 saying, ‘Turn now everyone from his evil way and from the evil of your deeds, and dwell on the land which the LORD has given to you and your forefathers forever and ever; 6 and do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the work of your hands, and I will do you no harm.’ 7 “Yet you have not listened to Me,” declares the LORD, “in order that you might provoke Me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm.
8 “Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Because you have not obeyed My words, 9 behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them and make them a horror and a hissing, and an everlasting desolation. 10 ‘Moreover, I will take from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. 11 ‘This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

Babylon Will Be Judged

12 ‘Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,’ declares the LORD, ‘for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it an everlasting desolation. 13 ‘I will bring upon that land all My words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.

The first thing I see here is that our soveriegn God is unilaterally telling the people of Israel what is going to happen, not the formation of a contract. In this case He gives them an option out if they repent, which they did not. While Daniel repented for them, no where do I see that this was a condition of what God said He would do after 70 years. Perhaps we are to infer that, had Daniel not been spiritually perceptive and known to repent, as this contract theory suggests, that God’s prophetic word would have failed?


4 posted on 01/19/2009 8:37:28 PM PST by DBCJR (What would you expect?)
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To: DBCJR

mms://media.winworld.com/voe/mannafest432.wmv

Is a Manna Fest 1/2 preaching on America and its Fullness of Time, “Has America Entered the Fullness of Time? - Part 2.” Very worth the watching.

Home URL=voe.org.

Links to this and other videos= http://voe.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=39&Itemid=52


5 posted on 01/19/2009 9:05:16 PM PST by combat_boots ("In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."Aldous Huxley)
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To: DBCJR

Most interesting interpretation.


6 posted on 01/19/2009 9:06:58 PM PST by Ciexyz (Downloaded Ann Coulter's "Guilty" to my Amazon Kindle for $9.99 - 67% discount.)
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To: combat_boots

I watched part 2; it is food for thought.


7 posted on 01/19/2009 10:18:35 PM PST by KittyKares (.)
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To: DBCJR

Interesting, but my guess is that Daniel was also considering Jeremiah 29:10. And it was this verse that prompted his repentance.


8 posted on 01/20/2009 6:52:10 PM PST by WhatNot
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To: WhatNot

Jeremiah 29:10 For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.

Jeremiah 29:10 wouldn’t indicate that but maybe 12-14. Many theologians see those verses applying to yet another period in time, when the UN re-established the nation of Israel in 1947. Otherwise, if it referred to the return from Babylon, the fulfillment would not be exact due to the plural of “nations”. The other tribes were taken captive by Assyria and were not returned from captivity. Only the re-establishment of Israel as a nation fits this prophecy.


9 posted on 01/20/2009 7:08:22 PM PST by DBCJR (What would you expect?)
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To: DBCJR

I believe that the number seventy symbolizes completion and fulfillment of God’s sovereign plans for creation and all of human history. The completion of the years of the kingdom of Babylon would also be the completion of Judah’s exile.


10 posted on 01/20/2009 7:32:31 PM PST by WhatNot
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To: WhatNot

So, if 70 symbolizes completion rather than a specific number of years, how did Daniel recognize it was time for the fulfillment of the prophecy?


11 posted on 01/21/2009 5:44:55 AM PST by DBCJR (What would you expect?)
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To: DBCJR
We know from Jer 25:11, 12 and 29:10-14, the desolation of Jerusalm would be fulfilled in seventy years. Daniel's own captivity ocurred in 605 B.C, It was now 538 B.C, some 67 years after the conquest. Daniel recognized the period of captivity was almost over.

Zechariah refers to the seventy year period as begining with the destruction of the temple,which took place in 586 B.C (Zech 7:5). The temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C (Ezra 6:15).

This is why I believe the seventy years has several beginings and endings.

12 posted on 01/21/2009 9:33:06 AM PST by WhatNot
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To: WhatNot

Yes, but here you are speaking in literal terms, not symbolic.


13 posted on 01/21/2009 6:28:11 PM PST by DBCJR (What would you expect?)
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To: WhatNot

If the 70 years is symbolic, not literal years, then there would be a symbolic, not literal, fulfillment.

The “roaming time frames” of Hebrew prophecies are well known. Joel 2:28 was fulfilled in Joel’s lifetime, in Acts 2nd chapter according to Peter, and yet remains to be fulfilled in the endtimes.


14 posted on 01/21/2009 6:33:36 PM PST by DBCJR (What would you expect?)
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To: DBCJR
The number seventy is symbolic of completion and fulfillment. The seventy years which have several beginings and endings, are literal years.
15 posted on 01/21/2009 9:22:52 PM PST by WhatNot
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To: WhatNot

That is a very different concept of symbolic! Congratulations upon some original thought, a hybrid symbolic/literal interpretation. I’ll have to give that some thought. Most advocates of a symbolic interpretation of numbers do not allow for literal numbers.

The concept of several fulfillments of prophesies is not original, i.e., several beginnings and endings as you suggest. That hermaneutic has been applied for centuries to many prophesies.


16 posted on 01/22/2009 3:49:00 PM PST by DBCJR (What would you expect?)
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To: DBCJR
Thanks, but I'm not sure that the idea of a number being symbolic, and also having a practical application is all that original. The number seven also signifies completeness. We have seven days in a week, a complete week, there are seven notes in a musical scale.

Also, the book of Rev makes use of the number seven to signify completeness. There are the seven churches of the Apocalypse (these were real Churches), seven spirits, there are even seven beatitudes in the book of Rev.

17 posted on 01/22/2009 5:16:41 PM PST by WhatNot
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To: WhatNot

this might sound a weird question but i’m sure you could answer and what is iorthodox jewish tradition? please let me know

Thank!
MDGVT


18 posted on 01/23/2009 3:49:52 AM PST by MissDairyGoodnessVT (Scooters work good in Vermont snow)
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To: WhatNot

this might sound a weird question but i’m sure you could answer and what is iorthodox jewish tradition? please let me know

Thank!
MDGVT


19 posted on 01/23/2009 3:49:56 AM PST by MissDairyGoodnessVT (Scooters work good in Vermont snow)
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To: MissDairyGoodnessVT
I don't think that's a weird question, of course I don't think any question is a weird question, lot's of weird answers, but not weird questions! :^)
But, if by your question you mean to ask, what do Orthodox Jews, hold to in their beliefs, perhaps Acts 21:20 describes it best,

And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law,

Short answer, Orthodox Jews hold to strict interpretation of Talmudic laws. But, for more on their beliefs, political leanings, etc.This site has some good information

Conservepedia/Orthodox Judaism

20 posted on 01/23/2009 10:01:44 AM PST by WhatNot
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