Making resolutions or thinking about the New Year at home, maybe before a fire? Or, are you with other people, talking and wondering? Wherever you are, may your thoughts include God, who knows your future and has good plans in mind for you. Will you enter into those plans, that future, that hope?
Recently I happened to see a prophecy ad on television. It riveted my attention for a minute. The main man on the advertisement wore a clerical collar. He called himself a prophet.
"Whose prophet is he?" was the instant question.
For his advertisement, people then came into the picture to endorse this man. One was identified as Mark Victor Hansen, also indicating that he collaborated on the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. I heard and saw him endorse the cleric and his gift of prophecy, as it was called.
Mr. Hansen's endorsement shocked me because the man calling himself a prophet was inviting people to call a special telephone line. The call was said to connect them with opportunity for individual prophecies.
Mr. Hansen's endorsement also shocked me because I receive marketing e-mails from Mark Victor Hansen, having subscribed some time ago to his marketing e-mails. I have not followed his marketing advice, for it is more intense and aggressive than I prefer. Yet, I have allowed them to come, having signed up for them last year. Every now and then, I do get an interesting information link.
Offers of individual prophecies by phone send a big hint of something wrong. This experience led my thoughts into prophecies and predictions that are common at every New Year season. The reliable place for the Christian to turn to on this matter is the Bible, which contains real, true prophecies. The remarkable thing about God's messages through His prophets is that not one of God's prophecies ever fails!
Sometimes centuries have passed, as with the prophecies about Jesus and His birth in Bethlehem of Epaphra, of a virgin, and other prophecies about Him, including the rejection that led to His crucifixion.
He was prophesied as the coming Messiah, of the house of David, whose kingdom would never end. His resurrection and His being taken into the heavens (see Mark 16:19-20), to be seated at the right hand of God, fulfilled prophecies that had awaited God's timing throughout history.
Those who put their faith in Jesus Christ eagerly await the fulfillment of the only prophecy not yet fulfilled, the return of Christ to the earth for His church, those who love and worship God through His Son.
Main events in the lives of God's prophets of the Bible included opposition by false prophets. Sometimes the false prophets became so angry that they engineered the imprisonment or deaths of prophets.
Many people in crisis, who do not believe in God, cast about for visions for the future. They turn to astrology and horoscopes, Nostradamus books, crystals, chants, palm readings, and other superstitions. Some dabble in witchcraft. In all of these ways, they look to ideas, gadgets, or "religious" people of the past. They are unaware of relationship with the all-knowing God, Maker of heaven and earth and of all that is in them.
Even people not in crisis but searching for more, perhaps even professing faith in God or in Christ, also turn to such things. Being weak in faith or in understanding, they do not realize what they are playing with or the time they are wasting.
Predictions for this New Year center on economic success or failure, due to the recent global financial crisis. Many experts believe the bottom of this crisis has not yet been reached. The graph of progress goes up and down daily.
Economic predictions then flow into other predictions about such things as home sales or purchases, divorces or marriages, the birth rate, merchandise sales, and so forth.
Promises of man for the New Year are iffy, aren't they? Human promises or resolutions often prove our weaknesses more than our strengths. For that reason not only politicians but also parents, kids, clergy, spouses, business people, teachers, and others have fallen into trouble due to their failure to keep their oaths or vows. Human promises rarely are kept, unless the makers of them rely upon God's help and consider a promise to be something done in the presence of God.
So, what can we rely on in a New Year? What if we cannot see the future? What if wars increase, the financial crisis gets worse, crime escalates, and so forth? What if circumstances change for the better after we have given up, not trusting in God's help for the future?
God never fails, and God is love. These words are true: "Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away" (I Corinthians 13: 8-10).
That scripture is saying that after this life, in the life with God eternally, the time of even God's true prophecies will be over. The time of different languages and knowledge of man, even for good, will be over. Believers in Jesus Christ will live in a completely new day, with a new heaven and a new earth, over which the Lord Jesus Christ reigns.
The prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Malachi, and others were not understood fully by the prophets or their hearers. In the same way, we today cannot envision what that promise of the future heaven and earth means. But we trust it because if is from God. No prophecy of God fails. All have come true except the one of the end of the latter days, in which the world now turns. For that reason, like John the apostle in the Revelation writings, Christians pray, "Even so, return soon, Lord Jesus!"
The false prophecies and predictions, the failed promises of man are not fires worth warming by. They cannot warm. Their words may have temporary heat, sparking hope. But their result soon grows cold.
God's prophet Isaiah warned those who refused to trust God:
All the counsel you have received has only worn you out!
Let your astrologers come forward,
those stargazers who make predictions month by month,
let them save you from what is coming upon you.
Surely they are like stubble;
the fire will burn them up.
They cannot even save themselves
from the power of the flame.
Here are no coals to warm anyone;
here is no fire to sit by ( 47: 12-14).
Look in the Bible and you will find almost numberless promises. Let's consider these true words in this new calendar year: "This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go into the heaven" (Acts 1:11).
Let us look to the promises of God, who also promised in Christ: "I will never leave you nor forsake you." These are prophetic promises that are better than any person's so-called gift or wisdom or any bank or investment. How do I know this for sure? I know that you and I can draw upon them with confidence in Jesus Christ because these promises are of God and His Word, which is the Treasury of God.
Let's draw from many of God's promises in His Treasury every day of this new year! God is love. He delights in loving kindness! Those who put their trust in Him discover this all the time, through the best and worst of unexpected times to come.
(c) Jane Bullard
Jean Purcell is a book publisher and writer. Her first book was Not All Roads Lead Home under her pen name, Jane Bullard. Her web site is http://www.opinebooks.com and her Writing and Publishing Nonfiction Books blog is at http://janebullard.blogspot.com/ Sign up for the free Opinari Quarterly for Christian Writers, Publishing Professionals, Book Lovers, and Reviewers on her web site.
David,
I am glad you read and liked the article. God bless you in Christ. I am glad to pray for you.
Thank you for commenting.
Jane Respond to this comment
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