FBC Daily Devotional – November 9, 2020

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A brief bit of encouragement for your day from God’s Word

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of work responsibilities and home responsibilities. I hope you had a good
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Lord's Day yesterday, a good day of rest and break from the
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Monday through Friday routine and you're ready to get back at it for another week.
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Maybe you're watching this at the end of the day and your workday is behind you. Well, again,
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I hope it's been a good start for you. A lot to be praying about and be concerned about during this time of political upheaval and so forth.
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But nevertheless, we can be confident and rejoice in our sovereign
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God and that He's on the throne. His kingdom rules overall and we're so grateful for that today.
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Well, what are you thinking about prophecy these days? Anything? It seems like in the last six months, there's been so much talk about the fulfillment of prophetic scriptures and so forth.
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All began with the outbreak of the COVID pandemic and that just kind of caused things to snowball.
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And then the rioting in the streets, the political upheaval, the violence, and then the hurricanes hitting the country and so on and so forth.
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And those kinds of things all coming together at the same time caused a lot of people to start thinking about, oh, you know, this must be the end, the
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Lord's coming back soon and so forth. Okay, so in the middle of the summer, it seemed like that was a pretty significant theme, common theme running through a lot of threads and so forth that I would see and come across in the course of my reading.
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But what about now? How are you feeling about prophecy now, the fulfillment of prophetic scriptures?
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Have you given it any thought whatsoever? Well, what prompted this today is
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I was reading in the book of Ezekiel the other day, in Old Testament prophetic scriptures. And by the way, let me digress here for just a minute.
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I fully understand that some of these Old Testament prophetic books like the major prophets,
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Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, these can be intimidating, a lot of information, and some of it's hard to follow.
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And then you get into the minor prophets and that as well. Let me encourage you not to ignore those books of the
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Bible. But if you find that kind of a struggle, get yourself a good study Bible, like maybe the
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MacArthur study Bible or the ESV study Bible. And before you sit down to work your way through the reading of those prophecies, let me encourage you to read the introductory material in the study
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Bible. It'll give you a good overview of what's going on in the book.
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And then maybe you can have a better understanding as you wade through it, looking at the outlines and so on and so forth.
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But anyway, so I was reading in Ezekiel the other day and I came across this passage in chapter 12.
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And the end of the chapter, it says, The word of the Lord came to me, Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say,
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The vision that he sees is for many days from now, and he prophesies of times far off.
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And you know, in the routine of our life, the responsibilities that we have every day, it can be pretty easy to kind of have that idea in the back of our minds, that the prophecies of the scripture in the
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New Testament prophetic scriptures. I'm thinking of passages like in 2
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Thessalonians and in 1 Peter, 2 Peter, particularly the Old Book of Revelation, you know, we can look at these prophetic passages and just because of all the stuff we got going on in our everyday life, we can have this idea kind of in the back of our mind that this is for a time far off.
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I mean, after all, you know, however old you are, you've lived your life to this point and you know, you've known about these prophecies, maybe as you know, if you've been a believer for any length of time, and yet nothing.
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And after all, you know, Jesus ascended to heaven a couple thousand years ago, you know, 2 ,000 years have come and gone, you know, maybe it'll be another couple hundred, maybe a couple more millennia before he returns.
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I just don't know. So you can kind of have the default perspective, even if it's an unconscious one in the back of your mind, that this is all for a time far off.
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And, you know, in ancient Israel, that kind of led them to think that, you know, I don't have to worry about it,
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I can be pretty complacent about prophetic scripture and so forth. And you know, it's kind of irrelevant and it, you know, will it even happen?
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I don't know. Well, the Lord says after he recounts what the people of Israel are saying, that the vision is for many days from now and the prophecies of times far off.
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The Lord says, therefore say to them, thus says the Lord God, none of my words will be delayed any longer, but the word that I speak will be performed, declares the
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Lord God. Now, I'm not here to say that the fulfillment of the book of Revelation and so forth is going to happen starting tomorrow or something of that nature.
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But the emphasis of New Testament prophecy is that the coming of the
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Lord is imminent. That means it could be at any moment. There's nothing to hinder him from coming again.
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But again, time has gone by, I have all my responsibilities,
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I didn't even give it a second thought, and I can easily slip into the attitude that, you know, maybe all this is just really irrelevant to me, and, you know, is he coming back?
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It says he is, and I take that by faith, but, eh. Well, I want to emphasize a verse,
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Ezekiel 12, 25. It was kind of like a preface to verses 26 through 28.
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And the Lord says this, he says, for I am the Lord. I will speak the word that I will speak, and it will be performed.
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It will no longer be delayed, but in your days, O rebellious house, I will speak the word and perform it, declares the
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Lord. Now, the Lord was making very specific prophetic announcement to the house of Israel, and it was fulfilled in their days.
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But what I want to zero in on is that opening line where the Lord says, I am the
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Lord. I will speak the word that I will speak, and it will be performed.
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So you open your Bible, and you turn to 1 Peter, and you turn to 2
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Thessalonians, and you turn to the book of Revelation, and you read these prophetic passages. You need to remember, we need to remember, this comes from the
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Lord. All this scripture is given by inspiration of God. And what the word of the
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Lord says will be performed. What he says he will do, he will do it.
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Now, again, I don't have any corner on the market as to when
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Jesus is returning. But what I do know is that the word of the
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Lord has been declared that he is coming again. The word of the
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Lord has been declared that he will recreate the earth and the heavens.
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He will make a new heaven and a new earth. And it will be marked by righteousness, and justice, and peace, and so forth.
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All of those promises of his word. He is the Lord. He has spoken his word, and he will perform it.
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So as we begin this new week, and we face so much uncertainty in our own country, in our time and life, let's not lose sight of the word of the
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Lord that he has declared, and that he will perform it. Our Father and our
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God, we are grateful that we can trust in you because you are the
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Lord. And we can trust your word, that what you have said, you will perform.
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Give us that confidence, that reassurance in our own heart and mind, we pray. And we ask this in Jesus' name, and for his sake, amen.
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All right, well may the Lord give you a great week this week, and may it start off well for your good and for God's glory.