Understand The Times You Are In

God created His plan in Genesis, declaring the end from the beginning.   Through-out history it has always been up to God’s people to understand His plan, so that they knew what to do when the time came.   The following are five examples indicating the importance of understanding the plan.

1. The Promised Land
God declared his plan to Abraham, promising the land of Canaan as an inheritance to him and his descendants (Genesis 17:2-8).   When Israel were on the door step of the land that God had promised Abraham, it had been approximately 450 days since they come out of Egypt.   Was this the time to take the land or not? If anyone understood and followed God's plan, they would have agreed to invade like Joshua and Caleb had advised.   Israel however refused to enter because they were more concerned with the food they enjoyed in Egypt than with what God was saying. As result Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years (Numbers 11, 13, 14).

2. King David
When David was young, God removed the Kingdom from King Saul, and gave it to David, as God had rejected Saul as King because he was rebellious.   God told Samuel the prophet to anoint David, as he was to be King over all Israel.   Many years later King Saul died, and Israel erupted into civil war between the House of Saul and the House of David.   If anyone understood the plan of God they would not have fought for the House of Saul, because they would have known that God had given the Kingdom to David.   The sons of Issachar understood why they fought alongside David, as the scriptures say, they “understood the times”,   that God had anointed David King.

2 Samuel 3:1
Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David.   But David grew stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker.

1 Chronicles 12:31-32
of the half-tribe of Manasseh eighteen thousand, who were designated by name to come and make David king; of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their command;

3. The Captivity of Israel
It was always God’s intention that Israel would go into captivity. Moses declared this to Israel hundreds of years earlier.   Jeremiah the prophet continually warned the people of Jerusalem that the time had come for them to go into captivity.   Those who freely went over to the Babylonians had their life spared.   Those who resisted lived through a terrible siege.

Deuteronomy 4:25-27
"When you beget children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything, and do evil in the sight of the LORD your God to provoke Him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess; you will not prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed.   And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you.

Jeremiah 21:9
He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but he who goes out and defects to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be as a prize to him.

4. Jesus’ First Coming
The prophets spoke about Israel's captivity and that the Messiah was to come and restore the Kingdom.   The Jews knew all to well the scriptures yet when the Messiah (Jesus) came they did not recognise him.   The religious leaders were so removed from God’s plan, that they killed the one who was to save them and proceeded to revolt against the Romans.   If they understood the plan they would have accepted Jesus, and understood to revolt against the Romans was useless, because the captivity was only half-way completed.

Luke 19:41-44
Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.   For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation."

Luke 20:18
Whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder."

5. The second coming of Jesus Christ
Today is no different, if we do not understand where we are up to in God’s plan, we won't know what to do and therefore suffer the consequences.   Just as the remnant of Israel were supposed to recognise Jesus Christ when He came the first time, the Church today is to understand His second coming.

What did Jesus mean when He said “the son of man coming on the clouds”?   What is the third woe in Revelation?   Jesus was talking about “the mysteries of the kingdom”?   All these scriptures and many more, are associated with the second coming of Christ that the Church are expected to understand.