Prophecy is pretty cool stuff. Today I was reading in Daniel, chapter 7 in particular. In this passage, God reveals to Daniel the general course of future human history (Daniel gets quite a few pre-occurrence history lessons).

That isn’t the only place where prophecy has crossed my radar of late. In this weekend’s message, Dr. Piper concludes his 7-message series on "Spectacular Sins and their Global Purpose in the Glorification of Christ" with a message on the most spectacular sin ever committed, the betrayal and murder of Jesus. In discussing the role of God in the death of Christ, he points out that His betrayal, beating, death, and resurrection were all foretold in significant detail in the prophets. (Desiring God should have the sermon transcript online in the next day or two, if you want to read more.)

What can we learn from this concept of prophecy, and why is it a worthy topic for reflection and meditation? The basic point I’m thinking of today is that God already knows what’s going to happen. He allows us glimpses into that. That should be profoundly comforting — our Father isn’t just running along, hoping everything works out for the salvation He desires to bestow on us. He’s already in the end, and has planned our salvation and deliverance, and He is powerful and able to make His plans come to pass. When things go from crappy to crappier, and it looks like there’s no justice in the world, we can take comfort in the fact that we serve a God who is bigger than that.

A related aspect of this is the limitations it places on the evil one. No matter how hard he tries, our adversary cannot change God’s plan. He couldn’t stop Christ from going to the cross and giving up His life for our damnable sins. He couldn’t keep Christ in the grave. He couldn’t change one whit of God’s plan. And nothing about that has changed. God has made certain promises to those who have yielded themselves to the service of Christ — "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." "He who began a good work is faithful to complete it." "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (verses paraphrased from memory of the NASB). We can bank on these promises. God has made them, and no matter how hard he tries, no matter how much he lies in our ear, Satan can do nothing to stop them. He may tell us that God won’t forgive our sin, but God has said that He is faithful to forgive our sins. God has spoken, God has promised, God has planned and ordained, and Satan is a liar who cannot change any of that.

Praise be to God, who promises and cannot change.