|
While
we sit and scratch our heads trying to figure out how God is going to
answer a prayer or fulfill His promises, He is calmly and powerfully
working out His plans, oftentimes behind the scenes of life, and in ways
and for reasons that we cannot comprehend. In Isaiah 55, the Lord
described our inability to understand His methods. He said, "'For My
thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' says the
Lord. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways
higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the
rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but
water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed
to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth
from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish
what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent
it'" (vv.8-11).
Although
His reasons may elude us, and His methods may surprise us, God always
fulfills His promises. As the apostle Paul said, "The foolish- ness
of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than
men" (1 Cor. 1:25).
In
what obvious ways does God fulfill His promises? Most of the promises and
prophecies of the Bible have already been fulfilled. In many cases the
fulfillment of the promise was clear and undeniable, just as expected.
When
God told Pharaoh that He was going to send a plague of frogs, He did just
that (Ex. 8). When the Lord told David that his son would build the
temple, Solomon was born and he later built it (2 Sam. 7:1-17; 1 Kin.
5-8). When God said that Judah would be judged for her unfaithfulness and
be sent into exile, that is what happened (Jer. 25). God promised a
Messiah-Savior, and Jesus came (Is. 53; Matt. 1). Jesus said the temple
would be destroyed, and in AD 70 it was demolished (Matt. 24:2). Jesus
promised to build His church, and it has been growing ever since (Matt.
16:18). Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit, and on the Day of
Pentecost the Spirit came (John 14:16,17; Acts 2:1-4). God told the
apostle Paul that he would protect him while he was ministering in
Corinth, and Paul was not harmed (Acts 18:9-11).
The
Bible is full of promises that were fulfilled in obvious ways, just as
one would expect. At other times, though, God's methods are a little
harder to understand.
In
what mysterious ways does God fulfill His promises? Sometimes we may have
a hard time recognizing how God has fulfilled a promise or imagining how
He will fulfill a promise.
When
God promised in the Old Testament that He would send a Messiah, few
people expected a Messiah like Jesus. No one could have predicted the way
God brought both Jew and Gentile together into the body of Christ, the
church. No one anticipated such a long time between Messiah's work as
Redeemer and His work as Judge and King.
On
many different occasions, the apostle Paul used the word mystery to
describe the way God's plan of salvation has been fulfilled in Christ.
The Lord revealed these truths: the inclusion of both Jew and Gentile in
fulfilling God's promises of salvation (Rom. 11:25; Eph. 3:2-6), the
manner in which Jesus provided forgiveness of sins (Rom. 16:25; Col.
1:24-27), the resurrection of believers in glorified bodies (1 Cor.
15:51-54), the glory of the indwelling Christ (Col. 1:27), and
establishing the church as central to God's plan to fulfill His promises
(Eph. 3:8-10).
At
the center of God's mysterious fulfillment of promises about our
salvation, our present life, and the life to come is Jesus Christ. Second
Corinthians 1:20 states, "For all the promises of God in Him are
Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us." Jesus Christ
fulfills the heart of all that "the Law of Moses and the Prophets
and the Psalms" spoke about (Luke 24:44). The Old and the New
Covenant promises are based on and find their fulfillment in what Christ
has done and will do (Rom. 9-11, Gal. 3-5, Heb. 7-10).
How
are some promises fulfilled in ways we may not expect? At times in the
Old Testament, the Lord used means that people could understand. He would
send them into battle with a promise of victory, and He would give the
strength to overcome an enemy. On other occasions, though, He would do
something very unexpected. For example, the defeat of Pharaoh's army as
they pursued the escaping Jews (Ex. 14), the collapse of the walls of
Jericho (Josh. 6), and the killing of 185,000 Assyrians by the angel of
the Lord (2 Kin. 19:35) demonstrated God's ability to fulfill His
promises in unexpected and supernatural ways.
Another
example, this time from the New Testament, shows how some promises are
fulfilled differently than we might have predicted. Jesus told His
disciples, "Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here
who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His
kingdom" (Matt. 16:28). Six days later Jesus took Peter, James, and
John with Him up a mountain. There Jesus' appearance changed, and the
disciples caught a glimpse of Christ's coming glory (17:1-8). They saw a
partial fulfillment of what would be completely fulfilled in the future
when Jesus would come in His glory to establish His rule over all the
earth.
How
does God fulfill some promises in a spiritual way? Although God sometimes
fulfills promises in visible ways, at other times He demonstrates His
faithfulness by providing invisible, spiritual blessings.
The
Psalms contain many statements about the power of God to bless the
righteous with protection, wealth, health, and long life. We would be
wrong, though, to conclude that we can expect nothing but physical
prosperity in this life. One look at the life of David contradicts that
idea. His life was one of repeated conflict and ups and downs of physical
well-being.
It
is true that we will reap what we sow (Gal. 6:7,8), but that does not
mean that we will reap all the benefits right now, in this life, in physical,
tangible ways. Job knew that. His friends, though, made the mistake of
assuming that right living always translates into a trouble-free life
right here and now. Or look at the life of the apostle Paul. He went
through all types of good and bad experiences, yet he found that in all
of life he could be content because God was being faithful to him (Phil.
4:11-13).
Kevin,
a dear friend from my church, after I had delivered the benediction at
his wedding, gave me a gift with a card attached to it. The card had
Isaiah 40 printed on it. Verse 31 states, "But those who wait on the
Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like
eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not
faint."
What
those poetic verses promise is God's strength to do what He wants you and
me to do. In that sense, the words are echoed by Paul's statement:
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Phil.
4:13). The fulfillment of the promise in Isaiah 40, then, comes primarily
through the provision of inner spiritual strength.
I
lean on this strength and I claim the promises of God as I walk through
this world that is full of difficulties, decisions and failures and I
wait upon the Lord with prayer and great expectation. What an awesome God
we serve! He does answer our prayers and He does give us the desires of
our hearts, if only we wait on Him!
"I
wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I put my hope, My soul
waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than
watchmen wait for the morning." (Ps. 130:5-6)
Curtis
|
