Introduction to Prophecy - Church of God - NEO

BABYLONIAN GATEUnfinishedBusinessWe cannot wrap up the lessons ofprophecy with the story of ancientIsrael and Judah. Their prophets had spokenmany words of warning. The peopleignored them and reaped the consequences.But not everything that hadbeen prophesied had been fulfilled. Theprophets' stern warnings were filledwith hope. God was angry, but hewould not be angry forever.The prophets looked through thebleakness of their present to a much,much better time when Israel and Judahwould be once more at peace,dwelling together and sharing blessingseven greater than before. Godwould send them a great deliverer- orMessiah-who would lead them into aglorious future (Isaiah 11 :2 -4).Jerusalem would become the worldcapital, and all nations would go therefor direction and leadership. Theprophecies looked forward to a timewhen there would be no more war orsuffering. Israel's enemies would beallied with her. Even wild beasts wouldlose their animosity toward men, and allmen everywhere would worship the onetrue God. The Messiah- Israel's longawaitedDeliverer-would be King overGod hadpromisedmany things,but muchremained to befulfilled.10all the earth. All this and more God hadpromised, but it had not yet been fulfilled.So what did it all mean? This is whatmakes prophecy so intriguing-and yet sofrustrating. The record of ancient Israeldoesn't seem to be the whole story.Certainly, much of what the prophetssaid can be easily and directly applied totheir situation, but not everything. Thereis a lot of unfinished business.For instance, Ezekiel continued prophesyingto the House of Israel after theyhad been taken captive by the Assyrians(Ezekiel 2:3). Jeremiahshowed that Judah andIsrael would be restoredOeremiah 30). Almost inthe same breath, he announcedthat they wouldsuffer the worst time oftrouble any nation hasever had, but they wouldbe saved, and the longdeadKing David wouldbe restored to them.Obviously, not all theseprophecies were fulfilledby the experiences recordedin the Old Testament.Often the prophetsreferred to events of thefuture- including a timesome of them called "thelatter days."Prophetic DualityAt the time they wrotethey did not have a clearunderstanding of whenthis would be. They wererather like men looking ata distant mountain range.Some features could onlybe described in broadoutline, and it was difficultto judge distance andestablish perspective.God was tellingthem there wouldbe a yet future Israeland a Judah,and a propheticmessage wouldagain need to besent to them.There is an important principleof prophecy known as duality. Anevent ("type") would be the fore ­runner of a similar event ("anti­DANIEL'S DREAMDETAIL FROM GATE type") that would occur in the fu ­ture. In other words, prophecy,like history, sometimes repeats itself. Youwill find this often as you study prophecy.Something that occurred in the distant pastwill be seen as a prototype of a later fulfillment.The duality of the prophetic messagesis an important key in understandingGod's hand in history-and, what is for useven more important-the present.