NORTHERN STYLE NEWSWATCH No. 30
CREDO (2 of 3)
` . . . . He changes times and seasons . . . . '
The occasion was the American President's visit to Europe during May 2003 and his stop-
over in Poland on his way to the G8 Summit meeting in France. During the visit to Poland
the President and his wife were given a tour of the Auschwitz-Berkenall death camp which
operated in the Second World War, and the newspapers published a photograph of their visit
to the camp. In sharp relief the photograph showed two rather ordinary-looking people
crossing over the railtrack along which tens of thousands of people had travelled on their way
to a terrifying death. Mrs Bush, holding a single red rose and walking with her husband,
preceeded by a guide, stood out sharply against an enormous watchtower through which the
death railtracks would have passed! Slightly out of focus, yet dominating the picture, the
high watchtower with its open gateway seemed to embody the total evil of those terrible
days! What came to mind was that here stood the President of the most powerful nation the
world has ever known, yet appearing inconsequential against the brooding symbol of the
heights which man's wickedness had achieved when harnessing the power of the State to their
evil ideology - yet now brought low and utterly destroyed. Both symbols of great power
were brought together in one photograph in a Sunday newspaper. This brings us to the title
of this Credo `He changes the times and seasons', which comes from a verse in the Book
of Daniel.
No doubt familiar with the `story', readers will know that this verse comes from Daniel's
words following his revelation of the meaning of the dream of Nebuchadnezzar in which `his
mind was troubled and he could not sleep'. The understanding of `the times and the
seasons' which came from that revelation led to praise of the God in Heaven, and in the
words of Scripture Daniel said: (Daniel 2: 20-23)
"Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are His.
He changes times and seasons; He sets up kings and deposes them.
He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.
He reveals deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness,
and light dwells with Him.
I thank and praise You, O God of my fathers;
You have given me wisdom and power,
You have made known to me what we asked of You,
You have made known to us the dream of the king. "
Philosophers, politicians and men of wordly power throughout the ages have all had dreams,
visions - even good ideas - all based on human wisdom, which inevitably leads to grand
illusions depending upon their level of authority, but the man of God turns to `the God in
Heaven' Who alone has true wisdom and power. Sadly, however, many Christians today
appear to have a very limited vision of how God works in and through wordly events - as
can be seen in the many and varied commentaries on the events that daily assail our ears and
eyes through the news media. Daniel, in speaking out the interpretation of the king's dream
which so troubled him, was doing more than speaking into the immediate situation! He was
revealing, in all the times and seasons which would follow, that there would be a limitation
of Gentile power and dominance - the times and seasons allowed by God, through which
He would work to reveal His Glory when finally He would usher in His Kingdom of
Righteousness and Peace!
Fearless Daniel stood before the powerful king and spoke the interpretation of
Nebuchadnezzar's dream: (Daniel 2: 36-45)
" This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king. You, O king, are the king
of kings. The God of Heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; in
your hands He has placed mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds of the air.
Wherever they live, He has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold. After
you, another kingdom will rise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will
rule over the whole earth. Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron - for iron
breaks and smashes everything - and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and
break all the others. Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and
partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom, yet it will have some of the strength of iron
in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay,
so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed
with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united any more than
iron mixes with the clay. In the time of those kings, the God of Heaven will set up a
Kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all
those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure for ever. This is the
meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands - a rock
that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces. The great God
has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and the
interpretation is trustworthy. "
What was revealed to Daniel was not only for the immediate situation, for he did not have
the limited vision that besets so many of our modern-day `prophets'. He spoke of what his
`great God had shown the king, what will take place in the future'. These `times and
seasons' are clearly recorded in what we call `the closed Canon of Scripture', God's full
and final revelation of His times and seasons through which He is working out His
Deliverance for all His creation - through the Person of His Son Jesus! Yet still we hear
- through the many intercessionary prayer groups, the teachers in the Body, the Prophetic
Councils of this and that - what seems to be total confusion when held against the
authoritative Word of God.
In case it can be said that this is a condemnatory generalization, we would look at some of
those times and seasons of `the great God of Heaven'. As we have noted before in previous
Credos, the powerful move of God in the 1960's (which we in the West have labelled the
`Charismatic Movement') spawned many `Christian Ministries' although they have now
largely hardened into somewhat self-righteous groups through attempting to turn a move of
God into a doctrine of the Church. What many failed to `see' was that this was a world-
wide spiritual movement, touching people who then embraced many and varied religions and
ideologies. Militant Islam is but one evidence of this move of God, for those who turned
to Islam tragically missed what God was offering them! Unfortunately many Christians also
missed the time and season of that Spiritual Event and turned it, at best, into an introverted
`Blessing Movement' and at worst into divisive doctrine. We may well be alarmed at the
rise of militant religions and ideologies - for not all responded to the move of God in the
way we would have wished them to - but it is through such momentous moves that our
`great God of Heaven' reveals that He is still in charge of times and seasons.
Turning to another `generalization' and looking backwards in time to Martin Luther and
the events which surrounded him. Today we have limited those events to the restoration to
the Church of the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone, but we fail to remember that many
before him had spoken of the grace of God seen in that expression. Because we stayed with
the doctrine instead of seeking the revelation of what God was undertaking in those events,
our doctrinal minds have hardened into a continuous attack upon the evils of (Roman)
Catholicism - Protestant against Catholic - whilst failing to see that to be labelled
`Protestant' is to proclaim that we are merely protesting against the excesses of Catholicism.
What we have failed to understand, because of hardened hearts, is that there was a dramatic
historical change in the then known world of the way in which people would allow
themselves to be governed - the rising up of kingly States which established national
churches to legitimize their power - and this move broke for ever the universal power of
the Church of Rome over the affairs of the princely States that had preceeded that time.
We now move on to a dramatic time and season in the affairs of mankind, now annually
remembered in Christianized countries as the Crucifixion. Hardened hearts over the centuries
have condemned the Jews for their part in `the death of God' and has led to a `superior'
kind of religion, a parody of the glorious Gospel of God and a self-righteous glorifying of
the `Church', combined with fighting over which kind of Church is the right one. We so
often forget Paul's words in his Letter to the Romans: (Romans 6:3-4)
" . . that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death. We
were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was
raised from the death through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. "
Later, in his Letter to the Ephesians, he reveals the truth (not which church is the only true
church) that: (Ephesians 4:4-6)
" There is one Body and one Spirit - just as you were called to one hope when you were
called - one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and
through all and in all. "
We now move further in `generalizations': Israel was a `theocratic nation' when its
religious leaders finally rejected Paul's appeal to accept Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah
of Israel, which led to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Roman armies and
the dispersion of the Jews among the countries of the world. This led to the pernicious
doctrine of the replacement of the Jews as God's chosen people with the Church. But that
historic move of God broke through the introverted attention of His Covenanted people (the
Jews) to ensure that the Good News was indeed proclaimed `in Jerusalem and in all Judea
and Samaria and to the ends of the earth'.
Of more recent history the `Holocaust', which was set within the period of time known as
World War Two (now agreed by historians to be but a continuation of World War One)
brought into sharp focus the horror of European history with its legacy of continual bloody
warfare. The Holocaust, although it was a terrifying foreshadowing of what lies ahead for
the Jewish people, nevertheless led within fourty years to the end of a `war' that had
lasted for seventy years, and it determined a new political system for Europe (and those with
an understanding of numbers in Scripture will know what is being said here) which is now
fast changing into what could be man's last State system before the only True Kingdom is
established!
But enough of examples to justify our `generalization' of the limited vision of Christians
in what we call current events! If the principle of what we have set out is sound, we do
indeed need to return to Scripture and seek in His Word the true meaning of what we see
unfolding in the contemporary world's `times and seasons of our God of Heaven'. We
cannot change what God has ordained, for with His foreknowledge He will work to bring in
His Kingdom of Peace and Righteousness - neither can it be said that this Credo reveals
a narrow fatalistic attitude. The people of God need to seek revelation from Him as to what
the events unfolding with such rapidity mean so that we can more effectively fulfil our
collective call to reveal the Salvation of God in the Person of Jesus to a people who face a
terrifying end outside of Him! A photograph of the President of the most powerful nation
known to mankind, together with his wife holding a single red rose, on a site of the most
terrifying period of world history for God's people, led us back to Scripture, to where Daniel
was able to reveal to the king of the most powerful nation of his day what the king's
magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astromomers were not able to reveal - that there is a
time and a season for man's rule and dominion.
We now stand on the threshold of the time when the rock will strike the mighty statue of
Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and that Rock will become a high mountain and fill the whole
earth. For such a time as this we too need, like Daniel, to turn to God for revelation and
understanding, which will open up our limited vision and calm our concerns over what we
see so that we may rejoice over what we know has been revealed for all who long for His
appearing. Then we too will praise the God of Heaven and cry out:
"Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever;
wisdom and power are His.
He changes times and seasons;
He sets up kings and deposes them. "
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