The perspective of prophecy

1. The Church Age is a dead spot as far as prophecy is concerned. That is, there is no prophecy in the Church Age except the terminating event, the Rapture of the Church. The Church Age is the age of historical trends, it is not a dispensation of prophecy. No prophecy has to be fulfilled in the Church Age. That includes the regathering of Israel and all of the other freakish things that people use to say the Rapture is going to occur in this generation. This is a false hope. It may occur in this generation; it could occur tonight. By the same token the Rapture could be 1000 years away, and that would lead a lot of people astray and even become a distraction from the perception of Bible doctrine. It is far more important for you to know the doctrine of impersonal love, for example, than it is for you to know the day, the hour, the moment that the Rapture occurs. No one knows the day, the hour, or the moment that the Rapture will occur. It is important therefore in learning doctrine to make our applications to history rather than to prophecy.

2. Therefore this means that no prophecy is being fulfilled during the Church Age. The Church Age is the dispensation of historical trends.

3. The next prophetical event in the Rapture or the resurrection of the Church. In the meantime there are simply historical trends but no prophecy.

4. Historical trends is technical in the sense of relating to the impact of the royal family of God on history. That is what historical trends means in the light of the Word of God, the impact of the Church Age believer; the royal family of God on history. That impact is based upon either objective reality or subjective reality.

5. The primary consideration is the believer’s relationship to the dynaspheres. Which category is the issue: the dynasphere invented by God or the two invented by Satan?

6. Because the believer is weak — and, as a matter of fact, all of homo sapien is weak — and inferior to angels he must depend on a power much greater than himself in order to survive and thrive in the devil’s world. The choice is limited to the power spheres of Satan, which we call the cosmic dynaspheres, or the power system of God known as the divine dynasphere. It is this daily decision on the part of the believer that determines the historical trends in any given generation and in any geographical location during the dispensation of the Church.

7. It therefore becomes imperative that we as believers become aware of the principle of historical trends. It is related to our mandates as believers in Jesus Christ and it is the fulfilment of God’s will and God’s plan that becomes the great issue in the spiritual life. We face an issue that no generation has ever faced before. In previous dispensations there was always unfulfilled prophecy; this dispensation is different, there is no prophecy to be fulfilled. This means that instead of being prophecy conscious with regard to the Christian way of life we must become historical trend conscious.