How does prophecy work? Does God decree the events? Meaning, is God One who says “such and such is supposed to happen”?
Prophecy is God's foreknowledge of what will happen. God is omniscient and knows all things. It doesn't mean He decrees certain events;
God knew before He created beings and gave them free will that a great majority of them would rebel against Him, but He didn't decree their rebellion. The creature had their free choice in the matter. God just knew. God sits on high, dwells in eternity and from His vantage point, sees all things and all possibilities at once. He knows all potential paths we could take in life and their results, and knows the certain paths we will take.
Let's picture God as someone who is seated atop of high place: a mountain fortress with a valley below. In the valley, there is a highway, a good way that leads from a desert place all the way to the safety of the fortress. Throughout the valley, there is quicksand, dangerous animals, steep chasms, and more, but the road to the castle is protected by barbed wires, walls and guards. The guards protect the travelers from outside threats, but they don't prevent a person from climbing the walls to exit the highway. Next, let's say there are different roads that come up to that main road and lead to diverse places. One leads to a quick sand pit, another to a den of lions, another to a snake pit, and another to a steep chasm. On the way to the castle, there are messagers saying “This way is the only safe way, do not exit at any point or you will die.” They assert that this is what King of the castle is saying. How does the King know this? From a high and lifted up vantage point, He can see all things, all paths, all decisions and their end results. He doesn't decree that people must die, but He knows many will choose death through disobedience. Thinking that from their low vantage point they can see the end results.
This is what happened to Lucifer, the covering cherub and even to Adam and Eve in the garden: They thought they could see things more clearly than God. That they could navigate the moral journey alone. Hence, a possible reason of why the tree is called ‘the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil’. A knowledge to determine whether it’s safer to follow God's guidance or our own understanding, and many of us have fallen into the snake pit mentioned above and experienced its evil result..
This is how prophecy works to a great degree: God sees where we will end up by the decisions we are making. When God gives warnings, He is not giving them to scare us, but out of love to keep us from the dangers we can't see.
Let's use an easier example. The case of Lucifer. He was the greatest creation, but as a created being, still has limited vision on things. He cannot see eternity and the eternal results of his decisions, only the Creator from His vantage point can see so far.
So Lucifer trusted in his wisdom and thought that in rebelling against God, he would ascend higher and create a greater destiny for himself. What he didn’t see was how highly esteemed he was with God, and the invisible cords of love that bounded Him to the Creator to keep him so high. He didn’t see that rebellion against God is not an act of ascendancy, but rather the cutting off of the cords, and the falling into a deep chasm. A bottomless pit of hopeless despair. He rejected the warnings of God because he thought he knew better than His Creator. He thought there were alternatives to God's way, but no such thing exists. God saw that his decision would lead to catastrophic ruin ending up in destruction.
In the case of Peter, Jesus told him "this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.” Matt 26:34 (NLT). Peter rejected the Lord's prophetic warning and assured the Lord, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!" Matt 26:35 (NLT). He rejected the fact that the Lord from His eternal vantage point knows all things. The Lord saw that Peter was on the path of self reliance; He trusted in himself, his wisdom and understanding. The path of self reliance leads directly to Satan's snake den and no man without God is strong enough to overcome him. Peter, in rejecting the Lord's warnings fell right into its fulfillment. When time came to pray in the garden, not seeing the danger he was in, he fell asleep. The Lord couldn't help him because he didn't seek his help. Yet in His mercy, still protected him from falling away completely. When the trial came, when they asked Peter the question repeatedly about his connection to Christ, he denied his Lord. Did the Lord decree that that should happen? Was the prophecy God's will and doing? No! God saw that the path Peter was on, unless repented of, would lead to ruin.
Some prophecies are God's doing. He decrees them because He himself will do it. The coming of Christ was God's doing. The deliverance of Israel from Egypt was also His doing. But many a times the prophecies are simply God revealing what we will do based on which path we take.
The death of Christ was prophecied. But who killed Him? The wages of sin is death, and for man to be saved, Christ must have died to redeem Him & pay His debt. But who killed Him? Wicked men inspired by Satan. God knew then that the human race under the control of Satan and sin would destroy Him if given the chance. Satan hates God, he hates Christ-and God knew that if he was allowed the chance to harm, He would kill Christ. So God allowed Satan's own malice to destroy His Son and put the wages of sin upon Him to pay the debt of sin.
Prophecy for the end times are similar. The human race took the path of evil. What is evil but the pursuit of selfish aims, even at the expense of God, in others? What is the end result of multitudes of people pursuing selfish aims at the expense of each other? Misery and ruin. The end result of the human race, without Divine restraint would be strife, bloodshed and all manner of evils.
So in the end of times, God predicted that this will be the case. He would remove His restraints, since men keep pushing the boundaries. One of the ways God judges a person, or nation is by letting them go their own way, which will always end up in ruins.
When a man is greedy for gain, accumulates wealth at the expense of the masses, hoards it and sells things at high prices, eventually what you end end up with is starvation of the people. Starvation which easily leads to revolutions and all manner of crimes. A scholar in human history can predict with a great degree of accuracy the path of a nations based on its current trajectory. How much more the Lord, who sees all things?
One of the reasons we don't recognize when we are living in a prophetic time is because majority of us are short-sighted. We are not aware of history and thus can't tell where our current paths are leading. But the student of history can see where a particular path will lead to, sooner or later. For example, someone who is a robber will have certain outcomes we all can expect: death or prison. He may not see it at the time, but these are possible destinations for his journey.
In conclusion, prophecies are not always something that God is doing, but rather that God is allowing in order for the creature to take his own path and reap the sure results. God has given his creatures free choice and tells them that this is the way of life and all other ways are the ways of death. Why? Because all other ways lead away from Me who is the source of life, and to go away from Me is to be on the journey towards certain death. So prophecy is here to warn us not to take certain paths so that we do not end up in certain situations.
Also, prophecy warns us on coming events and how to escape them. The sure escape for any prophetic event is to obey God and hide ourselves in His ark of safety, in Christ alone.
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