Seasons

Our lives are affected by various types of season.

• The natural seasons of summer, autumn, winter and spring have different effects in different parts of the world. Their impact has declined as people have moved away from rural areas into cities with air conditioning and urban transport.

• Each life has changing seasons: birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, parent, grandparent, waning, death.

• The Christian life has season: new birth, growing spiritually, mature servant of God, wise elder (1 John 2).

• Churches pass through seasons: first love, overcoming, luke-warm, compromised lamp removed (Rev 2,3).

• The most common pattern of seasons that nations, churches and people can pass through are blessing, forgetfulness, idolatry, rebellion, curse, disaster, repentance, rescue, obedience/blessing (Deut 8).

But one thing is certain. The Holy Spirit does not go through seasons. He does not have a season where he cannot be bothered doing anything and another when he is keen to be active. The Holy Spirit is always active, seeking to advance the Kingdom of God, regardless of what season is people are in.

For the eyes of the LORD roam throughout the earth to show himself strong for those who are wholeheartedly devoted to him (2 Chron 16:9).

If we are in a bad season, we should not be looking for the Holy Spirit to begin a new season, he does not, as he is always active. We should be striving to get back into the season of first love, of obedience and blessing, of mature servant, so he is free to work in our midst.

New Season?

Reading prophetic websites, I see many prophetic people saying that we are entering a new season. I am not sure what that means. It suggests that God is going to do something new that he was not doing before. It suggests that the Holy Spirit is working in one place and not in another. It makes it seems like God stops and starts, or moves in one place and not in another.
God is not fickle or capricious. He is not lazy. God does not speak like this.

I am not going to do much in India for the next fifty years, because they have had a good run.

I am going to move now in Russia now, because I have not done much there for the last 200 years.

I am not going to much in the United States, because I can’t be bothered.

I am going to more in New Zealand, because I have not been doing much until now.

God has released his Holy Spirit into the world. He is always at work. He does not turn the flow on and off according to his whim.

God does not engage in trial and error. He does not try things to see if they will work. He has a plan. He has been implementing that plan ever since the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was released. He has not changed his plan.

The activity of the Holy Spirit depends on the degree of cooperation that he receives from humans. Humans have authority on earth, so he needs our permission to operate on earth. He has no arms and legs, so he needs people to work through. He has no mouth, so he needs people to speak through.

If the Holy Spirit begins to move in a place, it is because he has found people willing to do what he needs them to do. If the Holy Spirit stops moving in a place, it is because people have stopped cooperating with him. The problem is never with God. The problem is always with us.

So we should be careful about saying that a new season has started, because it makes it sound like God is going to start doing something that he was not doing before. It makes it sound like God is the reason why nothing was happening. This makes him the problem, which removes responsibility from us, but is not fair to God.

If a new level of activity begins in a place, it will be because people in that place have started cooperating with the Holy Spirit in a way that they were not before. It is not because God has changed his mind, and is doing something he was not doing before.

There are seasons in human history, but they are marked by epochal events that change the relationship between earth and heaven. For example, the giving of the law to Moses began a new season, because people on earth had something they did not have before. It gave God’s people the capability to live in peace with each other and with God. It also gave the spiritual powers of evil the right to accuse them of their failure to keep the law.

The death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus was the ultimate epochal event that brought in a new season, because it totally changed the relationship between God and humans Sins have been forgiven, and the way opened for the Holy Spirit to be poured out on all who believe.

Because the Jews, rejected Jesus, we a currently in a season called the Times of the Gentiles. The epochal event that will end this season is the Calling of the Jews. I have explained this at Times and Seasons.

Until that event occurs, we must be careful about calling a new season, when nothing has changed in the spiritual realms to bring about change on earth. If there is no epochal event, there is unlikely to be a new season. The powers of evil are just as defeated as they have been since the cross. God has not defeated them further.

God always wants to do something better on earth. Calling a new season makes it sound like he is going to do something new, regardless of the response of his people. However, he can only do something different, if people on earth cooperate with him more than they did in the past. There could be a new season of cooperation, but God cannot force that to happen.

God will not be doing something new. If something different happens on earth, it will be because people have allowed him to do what he always wanted to do.

Christians looking for a new season should understand that God will not change his mind and bless what they were doing previously. Rather, they should be asking him what they need to do differently to receive his blessing.

Too Many New Seasons

I get frustrated when Christian prophesy that a new season is coming. A season of blessing, a season of miracles, a season of victory, or a season of taking back what was lost. These seasons are often linked with the numbers of days in the Jewish calendar in a way that often seem more like Christian astrology than prophecy.

These messages are confused about God’s character and the way that he operates. They seem to project human fickleness on to God. We change our minds. We forget to do things we intended to do. We don’t get round doing things that we want to do. We put effort into doing that we should have done earlier. God is not fickle. He does not act in arbitrary ways.

A change in season can only occur, if there is a change in the covenant relationship between God and his people, or change in the authority situation between God and the power of evil. The death and resurrection of Jesus was the biggest season change in history, because it destroyed the authority of the powers of evil and dealt with the sin allowing us to receive the fullness of his Spirit.

The last big season change occurred in AD 70 when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, bringing the old covenant sacrifices to an end. This opened a season called the Times of the Gentiles, when the Jews people who chose to remain under the old covenant have no spiritual protection, because they has no sacrifice for sin.

The next season change is the fullness of the Jews, when the majority of Jews come to faith in Jesus, bringing great blessing to the world. (These seasons are described in detail in book called Times and Seasons).

In between these big season changes, there is spiritual warfare. What happens on earth depends on the state of the ongoing war. Success or failure depends almost entirely on the church. Changes in the spiritual realms come from binding and releasing on earth, not the other way round (Matt 16:19).

God does not come and go. He does not arbitrarily jump from offering his blessing to withdrawing it. Blessing that were not available last week do not suddenly becomes available this week, because the year has a different number. God is not in a stingy mood one day and in a generous mood the next. He is not miserable last year and happy next year. The angels are not tired one week and strong the next.

God operates consistently according the principles that he has revealed in the scriptures. He has been working on a long-term strategy that began when Adam and Eve sinned. His strategy is consistent with the way he has decided to operate on earth. His way of dealing with the earth does not change.

In any season, they key is alignment with the will of God. If we align with his will, we experience his goodness. His goodness is not just blessings. His goodness might mean blessing with persecutions. If we do not align with God’s will, then things will go badly in every way (although he will work it for our good in the long run).

We do not need prophets giving vague promises about season changes that are disconnected from our circumstances and alignment to God’s will. What we do need is prophetic insights into God will’s in our current situation, so that we can obey his will and receive his blessings. What need less prophecy tell us God is changing, and more telling us how to change so that we can align with his will.

If we understand God's times and seasons. We will not see fickle and arbitary changes in the way that God works on earth.

Epochal Events

We live in a decimal world. Human commentators measure change in terms of years, decades and centuries. Newspapers nominate a “man of the year”. At the beginning of a decade, they prognosticate about shape of the next decade. At then end of century, they try and draw out the themes of the century and guess if the next one will be different. At the turn of a new millennium, they really get carried away. Many Christians think the same way.

God does not operate in a decimal system. He does not see history in decades and centuries. God is eternal, but he sees human history in “time and seasons”. Paul told the Thessalonians that they already understood about times and seasons, as they already understood them.

Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you (1 Thes 5:1).

To see history as God sees it, we must understand the times and in which we are living.

The word "epoch" is derived from a Greek word, which means pause. It is used to describe the breaks between the acts of a play. In God’s plan each new season is started by an epochal event which marks the end of the old season and the beginning of the new one. God breaks in and changes the "state of the play" and starts a new stage of history.

The key epochal events in the Old Testament were the flood, the tower of Babel, the Exodus and the Exile. The incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus was the ultimate epochal event that marked the transition into the new covenant.

The New Testament age has six seasons and the transition from each season to the next is generally marked by an epochal event. We are currently at an epochal point in history, when the world passes into a new season. A season called the Times of the Gentiles is coming to an end. The short season called the Time of Distress is about to begin. The epochal events that mark the end of the times of the Gentiles are described in the four horseman of Revelation 6.

The first two horsemen have already been released.

• The first horseman is the Islamic Revolution that began in Iran 1978.
• The second horseman is the Tribal Conflict that began about the same time.

I have been watching the world for a sign that another next horseman has been released.