The European Union in Prophecy The EU in Prophecy I | Seite 273

The European Union in Prophecy
19. Light Through Darkness
The work of God in the earth presents, from age to age, a striking similarity in
every great reformation or religious movement. The principles of God's dealing with
men are ever the same. The important movements of the present have their parallel
in those of the past, and the experience of the church in former ages has lessons of
great value for our own time. No truth is more clearly taught in the Bible than that
God by His Holy Spirit especially directs His servants on earth in the great
movements for the carrying forward of the work of salvation. Men are instruments in
the hand of God, employed by Him to accomplish His purposes of grace and mercy.
Each has his part to act; to each is granted a measure of light, adapted to the
necessities of his time, and sufficient to enable him to perform the work which God
has given him to do. But no man, however honoured of Heaven, has ever attained to
a full understanding of the great plan of redemption, or even to a perfect appreciation
of the divine purpose in the work for his own time. Men do not fully understand what
God would accomplish by the work which He gives them to do; they do not comprehend,
in all its bearings, the message which they utter in His name.
"Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto
perfection?" "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,
saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher
than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." "I am God, and there is none
like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that
are not yet done." Job 11:7; Isaiah 55:8, 9; 46:9, 10. Even the prophets who were
favoured with the special illumination of the Spirit did not fully comprehend the
import of the revelations committed to them. The meaning was to be unfolded from
age to age, as the people of God should need the instruction therein contained.
Peter, writing of the salvation brought to light through the gospel, says: Of this
salvation "the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the
grace that should come unto you: searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit
of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of
Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto
themselves, but unto us they did minister." 1 Peter 1:10-12.
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