Framework
Part 1 - The Prophetic Framework
We all desire to know the future, for it would give us a great guide to our life now. This is not just our idle curiosity, for such knowledge would be a great advantage for our plans and preparations and in giving direction to our lives.
Can we know the future?
Yes - through a study of Bible Prophecy!
The Importance of Prophecy. Through prophecy God declares the end
from the beginning proving that He is the unique Sovereign God of eternity:
“I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me,declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying,`My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure” (Isaiah 46:9,10).
Thus first of all Prophecy glorifies God.
Moreover, if we judge the importance of a subject by the amount of coverage it is given in the Bible, then we would have to admit that Prophecy is one of the most important areas of study for a Christian, one that will greatly impact and improve his life. Yet, the Church today generally has a different opinion, relegating the study of prophecy to an optional extra, a side-issue, and as a result many neglect vast portions of the Word of God. The Book of Revelation, a book composed almost entirely of prophecy, is uniquely stamped by God as having great importance. Unlike any of the other books it starts with a pronouncement of blessing upon all those who read and accept it:
“Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near” (Revelation 1:3).
Moreover, it is the only book that ends with a curse on those who do not accept it in its entirety: “I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book” (Revelation 22:18,19). If anyone should doubt the importance that God gives to Prophecy, those doubts should now be settled! In particular, this is a command to interpret the Book literally (see Key 1, page 8 on), so that we accept it fully as written and don’t make it what we want it to mean.
We are warned against changing the meaning of the Book, just because we don’t like it. We are not to add or take away from the plain meaning of this Book of Prophecy. Yet this is exactly what people do, who do not interpret Prophecy literally. Thus the only safe method of prophetic interpretation is to take its plain (literal) sense.
Christians need to know what the Bible says about the future (‘Eschatology’) for it affects how we live today and the causes we give ourselves to. It helps us flow with God's purposes for this time and not to be overly disturbed by events because we know where history is going.
But where do we start?
The Jigsaw Puzzle of Prophecy. The Bible contains a massive amount of prophetic material, given by God to many different prophets over thousands
of years, yet all combining to produce a unified vision of the future.
However, each prophecy is just a glimpse of the bigger picture.
It is like one piece of a 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle. The Bible contains all the pieces, but they are not all neatly arranged in order in one book, but scattered all over the Bible, and so it is up to us to study and put these pieces together in the right way, so that we can see the whole picture.
TO SEE THE TRUE PROPHETIC PANORAMA, we must put together the many pieces of the jigsaw of prophetic scriptures into their right place.
When doing a big jigsaw, one helpful step is to gather together pieces that look similar, because they are likely to be close together in the picture.
Likewise, we shall see that the prophets looked into the future and saw
events in certain different and distinguishable time-periods (such as
the First-Coming of Christ, the Church-Age, the Rapture, the Tribulation,
The Second-Coming of Christ, the Millennium, and the Eternal-State).
By learning the characteristics of each of these times, we will be able to
discern roughly where each piece fits.
It is easy to go wrong and put the pieces together incorrectly which leads
to a distorted picture. You can't put the pieces together any old way. You know when you have got it right - all the pieces fit with one another perfectly. If you have an interpretation, it must harmonise with the rest of prophetic scripture. If you think you have found a contradiction, it is simply that you are not fitting the pieces together correctly, for God does not contradict Himself:
Another vital principle in doing a big jigsaw, is to do the outer frame first.
You don't just jump into the middle and get started. Likewise with Prophecy, we need to proceed carefully and construct the FRAME first (the overall scheme or Framework). Then we will be able to see more clearly how to fit the other pieces in, and thus fill in all the details. Thus to understand prophecy rightly, we must first grasp the foundational principles (Keys). If we don’t do this first, but just look at prophetic scriptures randomly, then we won't fit the pieces together correctly and we will get a distorted and incomplete picture.
The aim of this Book (Part 1) is to build this Framework.
Thus, we now present the 12 main Keys for understanding Prophecy. Once we grasp the fundamental principles then we will see how wonderfully and neatly all the pieces fit together and the various issues and questions like, ‘Will the Church go through the Tribulation?’ will be easily answered.