The Changing Tides of History

 Posted at Reformation Scotland:

It seems that globally, our turbulent times are only becoming more uncertain, with threats of war on an increasing scale, and oppressive regimes across the world getting the upper hand. The tides of history are changing yet again, with once unchallengeable dogmas now being overturned and conventional wisdom seeming suddenly outdated. Francis Fukuyama, who coined the term “the end of history,” once argued that Western liberalism was the end point of mankind’s ideological development. Now, however, in response to the landslide US election, he has suggested that classical liberalism itself is in decline. Whatever stance we take in discussions like this, the Lord is still working inexorably towards accomplishing His own purposes, even though the process may be inexplicable and the outcome unimaginable to us. In his analysis of the prophecy of Joel, George Hutcheson identifies several seemingly incompatible strands to the Lord’s care of His church. For one thing, the Lord allows His church to be suppressed and harassed by His enemies. For another thing, this experience of evil actually works for the church’s good. Then again, all the hostile activity of the enemies against the church only ends up contributing to their own destruction. Whatever changes and upheavals take place, and whatever our opinion of the rise and fall of political parties, the Lord’s flock is at the centre of all His workings in human history and, as the following updated extract from Hutcheson’s commentary shows, faith grasps the fact that the Lord’s glory will not be diminished in all of this.

The Lord is still able to save His people

We see from Joel 3 that in opposition to the cruelty of their enemies, and indeed for a recompense of their cruelty, the Lord passes sentence in favour of His people. He commits Himself to gather His people, and bring them out from under their bondage, and to reward these enemies.

We learn from this that, whatever projects there may be against the church, yet they will never win their point against her. Though they wanted to have the Jews so far removed that they would never return, yet, He says, “I will raise them up” (Joel 3:7).

The Lord can restore His people whenever it pleases Him, and when His time comes, neither His former rejecting of them, nor their desperate condition, will hinder it. Though they were sold, so that they would never return, yet, He says, “I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them” (v.7).

God can deliver His people, even though their condition seems as hopeless as that of raising dead men (Eze. 37:11–12), and even supposing they themselves have as little thought of deliverance as someone who is asleep. “I will raise them” in the original means “I will awake them.”

Continue here.