"Behold I Have Told You in Advance"

What would we do if we knew God’s plans ahead of time? Would our faith increase? Would our testimony be bolder? Recently I began to see in Scripture more and more that God not only uses dreams, visions, angels, prophets, apostles, and saints to tell us what He’s planning to do. He also tells us directly.

As this truth unfolded before me, I realized that God loves us so much He warns us, He informs us, teaches us, and blesses us with advance knowledge of His plans. He wouldn’t impart this kind of knowledge to us in advance except that He wants to bless us. Think about the book of Revelation. The whole book is a vision given to John, the apostle, who wrote it down. The whole vision is God telling us ahead of time about the end times and the new heaven and new earth.

In the Old Testament the tabernacle was built before the temple to show the children of Israel what worship in the temple would be like–before the temple was built. Later the temple was built to show believers what worship in the kingdom of God would be like–before the kingdom had come. The patterns were all laid out and imparted to the builders of both the tabernacle and the temple before they became reality. (Exodus 25:8.9, 1 Kings 5:5)

The angel, Gabriel, told Mary, the mother of Jesus, about her pregnancy while she was still a virgin and only betrothed. (Luke 1:26-35) Gabriel also told Zacharias that his barren wife, Elizabeth, would become pregnant before she became pregnant with John...later to be John, the Baptist. (Luke 1:11-19) And the Lord told Abraham, the father of our faith, at least one year before Sarah, his wife, became pregnant. (Genesis 18:10)

Jesus himself is the very image in the flesh of all the foretelling God proclaimed to the prophets. He is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, of all that God revealed before it happened. The prophet Amos said in 3:7, "Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets."

God, the Father, proclaimed His secret counsel to the prophets. Jesus, the Son, proclaimed His secret counsel to the apostles. The Holy Spirit proclaims His secret counsel to all believers. How do we know that about the Holy Spirit? Because Jesus tells us in John 16:13, "But when He, the Spirit of truth comes...He will speak, and He will disclose to you what is to come."

Maybe you’re thinking, "I don’t know anything that is coming! I don’t know the secret counsel of God!" Yes, you do. You may be too busy to realize it but you know more than you think you know. And you have God speaking to you in more ways than you can imagine. First of all, God speaks to us through His word. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:10 that, "...we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Good works prepared beforehand. When? Before we were born. Before we were saved and became believers. God’s word is filled with good things that God did for you before you were even born. It is so important that you read God’s word every day in order to learn, digest, and incorporate what God has done in the past, is doing today, and will do in the future. If it were not important, God would not have passed it along to His people. He wants you to know His plans.

He tells us His plans through sermons, through Christian music, through Godly friends and clergy, through the Holy Spirit living in you, and many other ways. Jesus said, "Be alert!" (Matthew 24:42) He said to all seven of the churches in Revelation, "...he who has ears, let him hear." Do you have "ears"? Does your church have ears to hear? Of course, Jesus wasn’t talking about physical ears. He was talking about spiritual ears. Do you or your church have spiritual ears to hear God when He is telling you something in advance of it happening? What does it take to have ears like that?

I submit that it takes time spent alone with God. Prayer, meditation, reading God’s word, listening, fine tuning your ability to hear. I have found through the years that most of the time when God speaks to me I am alone at the time. Sometimes I am praying but more often than not I am busy doing something and not thinking about God at all. But it is the time I had previously spent with God that makes it possible for me to hear Him. God has spoken to me in the car and in the shower and making up the bed and many other places. But I was almost always alone at the time. It’s as if He waits until I’m engrossed in something else, and He’ll say a word or He’ll ask me a question. It’s always a surprise, and I have to stop and ask, "What?" And invariably I’ll look around to see who is there, and of course, there’s no one there. No person, that is.

Some people ask, "How do you know it’s God talking to you and not just your own thoughts?" The difference I find is that when it is God the hair stands up on the back of my neck. There is what I call an "electric feeling." And I know I didn’t do anything to cause it. What God has to say to me I wouldn’t have thought of in a million years on my own. It’s always a totally new thing that I know didn’t come from me.

Jesus even told Peter ahead of time that Peter would betray Him. Had Peter thought of that before? I doubt that he had. In fact he denied that he would do it. He couldn’t imagine betraying his friend in such a way. (Luke 22:34, Matt 26:34, Mark 15:30, John 13:38) But Jesus knew and He told Peter before it happened. Why? So that Peter would not betray Him? Probably not. Or so that Peter would believe Jesus afterwards and then never doubt Him again when He told him anything?

Jesus confided to his inner circle of friends about His death and His resurrection before the events. He wanted them to know. He was trying to prepare them for what lay ahead. Sadly, they still didn’t understand until after the events were over and they remembered that He had previously told them everything. We often don’t understand either. Jesus said, "From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur you may believe that I am He." (John 13:19) He also said to them, "You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it comes to pass, you may believe." (John 14:29)

I believe that it was an important part of the teaching and training of the apostles by Jesus that He told them ahead of time of events and then later when they happened, the apostles could remember that He had already told them. It planted seeds of faith in them. And fortified them with inner assurance so they were already armed with the truth before they needed to act. It must have built their spiritual confidence after they understood. So that when Jesus told them ahead of time to go to the upper room and wait for the Holy Spirit, they obeyed. (Luke 24:49) And when the Holy Spirit came on them they remembered all that He had said, and it made sense, and they were bold in their witness when it was time to give it.

Knowing about God’s habit of foretelling His plans to His people is like a lot of truths in the Bible. Before you were aware of it, you never saw it. After you know about it, it’s everywhere you look. From Genesis to Revelation the pages are full of God’s plans and actions fully laid out to His prophets, His apostles, and His saints. It seems obvious that because God loves His people He doesn’t want them to be in the dark about Him or what He does. We are people of the Light, and God sheds light on all that He does–past, present, and future. If you want to know God’s plans for you, for your church, your family or the world, fine tune your spiritual ears to hear His voice. Spend some time alone in order to be available when God wants to talk with you. Have ears to hear. Be alert! If you listen, God will show up and tell you His plans...before they happen.

Copyright 2010 Gloria Fisher.
All rights reserved.