Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Beware Waiting for End Time Prophecies to be Fulfilled

    Today’s Reading: 
  • Mark 9:1 - 29
  • Psalm 43:1 - 5
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Mark 9:1 - 29
This reading in Mark highlights two stories that I previously read in Matthew.  The second story was where Jesus cast an evil spirit out of a boy.  The first story was the transfiguration of Jesus Christ on top of a mountain.  There a handful of the disciples witnessed Jesus transformed and speaking to Moses and Elijah.  The Lord then spoke to them from a cloud, telling them that Jesus was His son.

The verses that were most interesting to me today were 9:11-13.  In these verses the disciples ask Jesus why they were told that Elijah must come back before the Messiah does.  This same question was asked when I read it in Matthew (17:11-13) and there the disciples realized that John the Baptist was Elijah returned.

What strikes me about this particular passage in the bible is that no one realized that the prophecy had already come to pass.  They were waiting for a specific sign and were totally ill-prepared for the truth of the arrival of the Messiah because of it.

This immediately made me think about a previous post I wrote where Jesus warned us about signs of the end times.  One of the signs in particular stuck out me -- the sign was that Christians throughout the entire world would be prosecuted, killed and hated.

My response to that was basically "I don't see that yet.  Perhaps we aren't as close to the end times as we thought."  Of course I accounted for the fact that the switch could occur practically overnight.  Perhaps it had something to do with the antichrist.  But the bottom line was, I hadn't seen that sign yet.

These verses really spoke to me and corrected my earlier thinking.  We don't have to realize that a prophecy has come to pass for it to actually have happened.  Perhaps it was masked to us.  Perhaps we took it to mean something else.  Perhaps it happened so far in the past that we aren't accounting for it being relevant for the present. 

The bible never ceases to amaze me.  I read this same story in Matthew, yet it didn't speak to me the way it did today.  It just goes to show that the bible always has something to teach you, no matter how many times you read something.  And make sure you are always ready for the return of the Lord -- regardless of what you think, or what scholars tell you about the prophecies that we are waiting on to be fulfilled. 

Psalm 43:1 - 5
This Psalm looks like a continuation of the last one I read.  My study bible mentions that many manuscripts list those two together.  It makes sense to me, because they both share that verse that stuck out to me last time -- the verse about being discouraged yet still putting one's hope in the Lord.

Both of these Psalms are attributed to the "descendents of Korah".  The name Korah was not ringing a bell to me when I read these Psalms (I have much more studying to do!) so I did a little research to find out who these people are.  What I read is that Korah rebelled against Moses.  Since I am still reading Leviticus, I haven't yet gotten to that part of the bible.  I will certainly be on the lookout for Korah and for what his descendents had to endure. 

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