Tuesday, August 28, 2018

New Covenant Prophecy (9) Discerning Seasons

I have described how judgments and seasons work in an article called Discerning Seasons. In this article, I set out a framework for understanding events on earth. A nation where people have followed God can go through five stages.

  1. Blessing
    When a large number of Christians live in a city or country, God has considerable authority in that place. He is able to determine most of what happens there.

  2. Door opened
    When the number of Christians in the population declines, God's authority on earth shrinks. As the number of people rejecting God increases, a door is opened to the evil political-spirits and government-spirits (principalities and powers). More of what happens is the result of their influence.

  3. Tipping point
    There is a tipping point where the authority of the political-spirits and government-spirits on earth exceeds the authority of God. When the proportion of Christian on earth reaches this tipping point, the powers of evil have a much greater influence on earth. More and more events will be the consequence of their activities.

  4. God squeezed out
    When the tipping point is passed and the number of Christians shrinks dramatically, God's authority is squeezed out. The forces of evil begin to get a free hand on earth. They get to determine what happens on earth and God has very little influence.

  5. Remnant arises
    When the tipping point is passed and the world is flooded with evil, God raises a remnant. They will be in the world, so they will not escape the pain, but by standing together, they will rise above it to do God's work. He can accomplish more through a small committed than the forces of evil can accomplish with a free hand.

These stages are fully described in Discerning Seasons. As a nation goes through these stages, different types of judgement are experienced. These are described in an article called Prophetic Events. There are four types of event.
  1. Shaking Event
    God does not actually send the shaking. He just withdraws his protection and allows people to experience some of the consequences of their behaviour for a short time. The event occurs when God temporarily lifts his protection in a particular time and place, rather than because he decides to do something evil.

  2. Warning Events
    When the Christian influence declines and society is close to the tipping point, the powers of evil begin to show off. The devil is not very creative, so he just does on a smaller scale, what he would like to do, if he had much more authority, but does not. These events are warning signs for those who alert. Christians who understand their times will able to discern these signs and get an early warning of what is going to happen, if society continues in the way that it is going.

  3. Evil Events
    Once a society has moved past the tipping point, political-spirits and government-spirits have the freedom to do their stuff. God is no longer on the throne, so he is powerless to intervene. He has given authority on earth to humans, so if they have passed it on to the forces of evil, rather than to him, he can do nothing about the situation in the short term.

  4. Protective Judgments
    God sometimes assesses a nation and decides that it has become so evil that it is beyond saving. In this situation, he then has no choice but to allow its destruction to minimise evil. I refer to these as protective judgments, because their primary purpose is to protect the world from evil. God does not engage in mindless destruction. He always destroys empires when that it is the best way to constrain evil.

These are brief summaries. Read the articles to get a full understanding. The first and the last types are the only ones for which God is directly responsible.

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