Times, Seasons, Calendars
When listening to popular preachers and prophets expound on the “times and seasons,” things quickly become rather bewildering. Every week, if not day, the church enters a new “prophetic season,” and each new shift in the “spirit realm” brings its own set of rules to the game. This next year, month, or day we will enter a season of deliverance, testing, burden, reward, loss, promotion, or demotion. If we fail to keep up, we will be left behind by the Spirit.
These seasonal changes are announced so often it is impossible
to keep pace with the prophetic program. It seems God changes course frequently
and without warning. But we must, for did not Jesus command us to know the
“times and seasons”?
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| [Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash] |
During my early years as a disciple, it was enough to know we were living in the “Last Days.” The clock was running out, so to speak, and now was the time to preach the gospel at every opportunity. If we are in the “end times,” well, what would be the point of discussing the next (and the next, and the next…) “season”? Already we are living in History’s final phase before Jesus arrives in glory.
ENDS OF THE AGES
The apostolic teachings preserved in the New Testament
provide a clear answer to the question: WHEN are we? God sent His Son to
redeem men “in the FULLNESS of time.” With his death and resurrection
and the outpouring of the Spirit, the period known as the “Last Days”
began in earnest.
The followers of Jesus are the ones upon whom “the ENDS of
the AGES” have come. We are living in History’s final season. Ever
since the Cross, the institutions and “forms of this world have been passing away”
- (Acts 2:17-22, Galatians 4:1-6, 1 Corinthians 7:31, 10:11, Hebrews 1:1-4).
As for our discerning the “times and seasons” and what the
Spirit is doing in this hour or the next one, well, when the disciples asked Jesus WHEN
he would “restore the kingdom,” rather than answer their question, he
admonished them – “It is NOT for you to know the TIMES and SEASONS which the
Father appointed to His own authority.” And there it is. “Who can interpret
the times or the seasons”? God and Him alone. The disciples of Jesus are
called to live by faith, not by the clock or lunar cycles - (Acts 1:6-9).
Thus, according to Jesus, we are not called to know “times
and seasons.” This is in keeping with his earlier warnings when the
disciples asked about the “sign of his coming.” To that he responded, “No
one EXCEPT THE FATHER ALONE knows the day or the hour of the coming of the Son
of Man, not even the angels of heaven or the Son of Man.” For that matter,
the “Son of Man is coming in a SEASON when you LEAST EXPECT” – (Mark
13:33).
Jesus used the analogy of the “thief in the night” to
illustrate the point. The homeowner can certainly prepare his household for the
inevitable attack by the “thief,” but he cannot know when the thief will
strike. Likewise, believers must always be ready for the sudden and unexpected return
of Jesus.
Paul used the same analogy to make his point to the assembly in Thessalonica. He had no need to write about “times and seasons” BECAUSE the Thessalonians knew “ACCURATELY” that the “Day of the Lord is coming like a thief in the night.”
Instead of providing “signs” by which they could calculate its
approach, he summoned the members of the church in Thessalonica to live in the
light - to live righteously and be prepared always for that day’s arrival.
GOING BACKWARDS
One of the silliest fads today is the use of calendrical
calculations and prophetic pronouncements based on the Hebrew and even the
Gregorian calendar. By decoding prophetic information from rabbinical year
numbers and Hebrew month names, today’s prophets supposedly discover what God
is about to do in the next “season.”
Yes, the Book of Leviticus details how ISRAEL was
to keep the various feasts throughout the year, but nowhere does it teach that lunar
cycles or any of the features of the calendar can or should be used as a TOOL
OF DIVINATION. For that matter, the church is not ancient Israel.
Moreover, nowhere in the Hebrew Bible do we find Moses,
Elijah, or any of Yahweh’s prophets making predictions or attempting to divine God’s
plans from the monthly calendar or the current year number. For that matter,
where in the New Testament do we find Jesus, John, or Peter making prophetic
pronouncements from any calendar, Hebrew or otherwise?
As for Paul, he was blunt when he criticized the Galatians
for “narrowly observing months and seasons and years,” practices he
categorized as “rudimentary,” elementary things that believers ought to
have abandoned long ago.
To resort to such practices now that Jesus has come, and “in
the FULLNESS of time,” is tantamount to placing oneself once again in servitude
to the “powers and principalities” that remain hostile to the Son of God
and his people.
To the church in Colossae, Paul described the observation of
“feast days, new moons, or sabbath days” as mere “shadows of the coming
things.” They were only “types and shadows” of the coming good things
that are now found in Jesus, who is the substance of what they foreshadowed.
It would be far
better for us to learn and follow what Jesus and the original “prophets and apostles”
taught, and the documents we
collectively refer to as the New Testament are the only reliable historical sources for that information.
