WHAT GOD IS DOING
(From Two Minutes With The Bible, Oct 31)

The distress and confusion which prevails in the world about us does not upset the instructed believer in the Word of God.

He understands the divine plan and knows what God is doing. He does not expect peace on earth while the Prince of Peace remains an Exile from His own world. He has no illusions about this age, or about what statesmen and politicians can accomplish therein, for God calls it "this present evil age" (Gal. 1:4).

The instructed believer knows too why God does not intervene in the affairs of men and why our Lord remains a voluntary Exile from the world. "This present evil age," he knows, is also "the age of grace." It began when God saved Saul of Tarsus, the "chief of sinners," the leader of the world's rebellion against Christ (I Tim. 1:13-16) and sent him forth with the "gospel [good news] of the grace of God" (Acts 20:24).

The instructed believer understands clearly that God is not saving the wreck that man has made. He is rather
saving individuals from the wreck and uniting them, by the Spirit, to Christ and His Body, "for by one Spirit are we all baptized into one Body.. ." (I Cor. 12:13).

The instructed believer knows too that this world will not always be a scene of trouble and sorrow, of war and bloodshed, of misery and death. He knows that after our Lord has come for His own, after He has recalled His ambassadors from this world, He will put down man's rebellion and set up His own beneficent reign, when government will be purified (Jer. 23:5), war and bloodshed will be abolished
(Isa. 2:4), health and long life will be restored (Isa. 35:5,6;65:20), the animal creation will be tamed (Isa. 11:6-9), the desert will blossom as a rose (Isa. 35:1,2,6,7) and Israel will become a spiritual blessing to all nations (Zech. 8:13,23).

Meantime, the instructed Bible believer takes advantage of "the dispensation of grace," telling others how men may be "justified freely, by [God's] grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 3:24).

visit Ed's Message Board, at http://pub30.bravenet.com/forum/show.asp?usernum=2500475413

Return to Index of Ed and Sharrie's Writings

e-mail Ed and Sharrie Yarber