{"id":933,"date":"2017-09-01T08:59:32","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T15:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/?p=933"},"modified":"2017-09-01T09:11:04","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T16:11:04","slug":"the-predicament-of-prediction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/?p=933","title":{"rendered":"The Predicament Of Prediction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\">One of the jeopardies of predicting (even with the purest of intention) that the Lord is coming on a certain day or in a certain hour, is that when He may fail to comply with our prognostications, we unintentionally do damage to the credibility of prophetic scripture, and in many ways undermine God&#8217;s own plan re the conclusion of this age. Our well-intended zeal can drive folks away from Kingdom plans. Flipside of that: we&#8217;re challenged to not be like the Pharisees in failing to see the signs of our times, as they did the signs of their own times. Like Paul, we&#8217;re called to warn all men.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\">BTW: We are told we won&#8217;t know the day nor hour, but no one has ever said we won&#8217;t know the season, but we need to be oh so careful, particularly if someone has entrusted you with a microphone or even a computer keyboard. Be careful little fingers what you type.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Jesus called the religious folks hypocrites (GR: &#8220;Hypokrites&#8221; an actor under an assumed character) in that they pretended spirituality and yet they were dull in their ability to see and hear. God wants his people to be seeing and hearing, accurately.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><strong><em>Matthew 16:2-4<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><em>2 He answered and said to them, &#8220;When it is evening you say, &#8216;It will be fair weather, for the sky is red&#8217;;<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><em>3 and in the morning, &#8216;It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.&#8217; Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><em>4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.&#8221; And He left them and departed.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\">To make things yet more challenging, Jesus rebukes them for hungrily looking for signs (v4) and tells them signs will be given to them on God&#8217;s terms, not their terms.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><br \/>\n<strong>FAST FORWARD TO NOW<\/strong> &#8211; The sincere church is thus left in the quandary of:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\">1. Understanding for certain there will be a return of the Lord, in the clouds (Rev 1:8), in flaming fire (2 Thess 1:8), at the appointed time (Matt 24:36); and<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\">2. Recognizing many prophetic components are in place as they&#8217;ve never been before; and<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\">3. Knowing that all the saints before us who thought they knew for certain and pointed to a calendar date in the past, were wrong.<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\">Compound to that the fact that we&#8217;re to be the light of the world, ambassadors of God, walking in the Spirit of Elijah, and you see the predicament.<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\">What is one to do?<br \/>\nThere&#8217;s simply too many signs, number-coordinations of celestial events (eclipses, constellation alignments), occurrences and even dating of geo-political events on earth, and more, that sure appear to be pointing to the imminent (&#8220;imminent&#8221; \u2013 happening very soon) return of our Lord.<br \/>\nWe&#8217;re told some things will become more evident as the Day approaches (confirmed by this popular verse that clearly tells us we will be able to see that approach)\u2026.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><em><strong>Hebrews 10:25<\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><em>not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">as you see the Day approaching<\/span>.<\/em><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\">\u2026..and we&#8217;re also told certain things won&#8217;t be clear at all until the time when our Lord actually does appear, at which many things will become very evident.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\">A notable marker-phrase in the book of Ezekiel, in dealing with lots of eschatological events still awaiting complete fruition, is: &#8220;THEN&#8221;, or THEN they will know&#8221; \u2013 implying not before the THEN (e.g. the certain event), but only when that THEN occurs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><em><strong>Ezekiel 36:11 <\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><em>I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bear young; I will make you inhabited as in former times, and do better for you than at your beginnings. <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Then you shall know<\/span> that I am the Lord.<\/em><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><strong>Ezekiel 38:23 <\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><em>Thus I will magnify Myself and sanctify Myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many nations. <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Then they shall know<\/span> that I am the Lord.&#8221; <\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><strong>Ezekiel 39:6 <\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><em>&#8220;And I will send fire on Magog and on those who live in security in the coastlands. <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Then they shall know<\/span> that I am the Lord.<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\">All this to say, our call\/job\/appointment\/assignment is to intentionally draw as close to God as possible, daily, staying in touch and in tune with heaven, with oil in our lamps.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/090117_1559_ThePredicam1.png\" alt=\"\" align=\"left\" \/><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\">I don&#8217;t see the Ps 32 promise of being led by the eyes of God with any disclaimer that would cause us to believe as things accelerate and heat up, He will not be leading the ones whose eyes are on His. THAT is a huge consolation and comfort.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><br \/>\nWe are safe in Him, in every season.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/090117_1559_ThePredicam2.png\" alt=\"\" align=\"left\" \/><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;\">All scripture NKJV<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the jeopardies of predicting (even with the purest of intention) that the Lord is coming on a certain day or in a certain hour, is that when He may fail to comply with our prognostications, we unintentionally do &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/?p=933\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":937,"href":"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions\/937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ez3728.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}