What Went Wrong with God’s Plan?

Chess Desert Game Over

Last time, we talked about God’s plan for mankind and the reason for the Messiah’s coming. Yet something went wrong. This is not to say that this took God by surprise. It most certainly did not. Yet, as usual, Satan has thrown a wrench into the plan. But fear not. God always has a remedy. Let’s take this in two stages.

First, we need to ask and understand the question: What went wrong with Israel? Why did they not expect their Messiah to be as Jesus presented himself to be? Between Malachi and the New Testament was approximately 400 years without a prophet. There was no voice of spiritual correction. The high priesthood became united with the kingship under the Hasmonean Dynasty for a little over 100 years. Kings were not in the lineage of David (i.e., the tribe of Judah) any longer but were out of the tribe of Levi. There were no longer any spiritual checks and balances. These errors became normalized, so the people became unaware, or blind, that their actions were displeasing to God. After all, when one grows up with things a certain way, they don’t know to expect something different if they are never informed things are not as they are supposed to be. When the kingship was ripped away by Rome, the high priesthood became a political position for power and influence. Again, with no recognition this was not pleasing to God. After things remained this way for at least a hundred years, no one thought these actions as being against God’s plan for them.

This is the main reason Jesus came as a prophet to the Jewish people. Both a national and a personal course correction were needed. Israel as a nation had failed its missionary mission to bring other nations to God, and power corrupted both positions of king and high priest. According to Biblical prophecy, Israel will be able to fulfill its ordained role once Christ returns. This means their reward for being part of God’s plan had to be postponed.

However, we as the Church can’t point any fingers because this same error and pattern that occurred in Israel has also occurred within the Church.

We also need to ask and understand another question: What went wrong with the church after the death of the apostles? Between the Early Church and now, approximately 2000 years have passed without a recognized prophet by many. Spiritual corruption seeped in. The church became hierarchal and corrupt. Those in power ensured anyone speaking against them or allowing individuals to read Scripture in their own language, and thereby know what was taught them was incorrect, were killed. Corruption, consolidation of power, and disunity became rampant within the Church. The Church split into the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church. After the Reformation, several denominations rose up. Today, there are hundreds of denominations, of which most cannot get along. Christians today see church history as a normal progression rather than something displeasing to God. The Holy Spirit is a unifier, not a divider. Just as Israel began to think their nation’s corruption was not against God’s plan, have we come to think that the church’s disunity is also not against God’s plan? Just because we grew up with this disunity being normal to us does not mean God wants it to stay this way. I’m sure the Holy Spirit wants to give the Church her opportunity to fulfill her original charge. In the news we already see work toward God moving Christ’s bride, the church, to become more unified. Although painful to see, he is purging certain churches because their church officials have been more concerned with greed, corruption, and power than being shepherds over their members. This will likely continue and hopefully wake the church up to its true role as the bride of Christ.

The church today has lost what Israel had lost, and that is the following traits: Authority, Expectation, Unity, and Vision.

Authority: God stated he had chosen Israel so she could be a testimony to other nations of God’s goodness (Ex 19.:5-6). Instead, Israel became prideful and exclusionary in this authority. Of the church, Paul said the following: I pray that … you may know … his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead … (Ep 1:18-21a). We as Christians have far more authority in Christ because the Holy Spirit dwells within us than we have allowed ourselves to believe. The armor that Paul talks about (Ep 6:10-20), while defensive, is also to be used for offensive warfare. We should treat it as such.

Expectation: God said of himself, “I the LORD do not change” (Ml 3:6a). For Israel, this was a warning because he added, “So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed” (Ml 3:6b). They had been unfaithful, but God remained faithful. They had forgotten God’s power in delivering them from all attacks of the enemy. It was they who inhibited God’s power to act on their behalf. For us, the writer of Hebrews stated, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hb 13:8). If God and Christ do not change, then why are we not expecting God to do for us what he did for his people and his apostles? The limitation placed upon him is not himself, but us.

Unity: Israel had become disunified in serving him. Sects like the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Herodians, and Zealots had risen up, each with different teachings and beliefs about God and about scripture. They debated while the people lived in uncertainty and confusion. The apostle Paul did not want this for the Church. He tells us the following: … the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Ep 4:12b-13). We should be working for, and praying for, unity across all believers. Satan wants us to be divided because that makes us ineffective against him. Let’s pray for unity and war against our enemy, Satan, accordingly.

Vision: In the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah said the following: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jr 29:1a). This was originally for Israel to help them realize they needed to turn back to God and follow the vision he had for them. We are Christ’s bride, so why would we think Christ doesn’t have an even more glorious plan and vision for us? We need to seek God’s vision for us and boldly go in the direction he leads. Proverbs 29:18 (KJV) says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law, happy is he,” or in our case, if we keep his word.

While there may be nothing that has to occur before his return, that does not mean he will not accomplish more before he does and use us to do so, if we are willing to be guided by him. So, we have a lot to relearn about what God wants from us, his expectations for us, and how we are to rely on him. We should pursue and better understand our authority in him, our expectations of him, our unity in him, and his vision for our lives.

He wants, and has, so much for us. Let’s not inhibit him or the Holy Spirit working in and through us to use our authority in him, or inhibit our expectation of what he can accomplish no matter how impossible it may seem to us, but strive to have unity with all of our true brothers and sisters who have accepted him, and to ask him to give us his vision for us to accomplish as his bride. It is difficult to interpret all scripture perfectly and not to ignore any other passages that may add additional detail, so we need to be sure we always follow the leading of the Holy Spirit which can sometimes be different from our preconceived expectations.

There are several lessons we can learn from what we expect biblical prophecy to tell us. Prophecy in the Bible is never delineated by time – only by events. So it is hard for us to always know exactly where we are timewise in God’s event-based prophetic framework. Due to their biases, and the traditions established over a hundred years or so of wrongful conduct which became normalized, the Jewish leaders thought they knew what to expect from a coming Messiah, but they were wrong. They were not wrong about the event, just in how God was going to implement the event. We have also had centuries establishing various conduct and traditions which we have normalized and have not always questioned their correctness. Can that make us miss God’s next steps? Not the event itself but in how he will implement and use us to accomplish his plan and vision. The main conclusion of this is that we need to be open to how the Holy Spirit is leading and not be afraid to follow Him regardless of our expectations.

May we never allow our biases to cause us to inhibit the Holy Spirit from working in our lives and thereby rob ourselves of the blessings he wants to bestow upon us.

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Visit Books & Words to Inspire by Randy C. Dockens