And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teachers will not be moved into a corner anymore, but your eyes shall see your teachers. (Isaiah 30:20, NKJV)
Although we have left 2020 behind, we are facing many, many difficulties – foreseen and unforeseen. I want you to look at it spiritually. Yes, vaccines are being rolled out and we look forward to being able to resume more normal activities. But there is political and social turmoil in America; in the UK we are dealing with the aftermath of Brexit; and worldwide, among other things, we are having to face up to the economic responsibilities generated by this Covid pandemic. I don’t think anyone has a clear answer!
But you and I, as Christians, should have a clearer view of the future than the politicians! Politicians can only act in worldly understanding and experience. As Christians, we also base a lot on past experience – but we have confidence in a God who has seen the future before it happens!
In my life, at particular times, God has revealed to me the prophetic future. One time when this happened, back in 1993 when I was about to begin my great campaigns in Russia, I was in the middle of preaching, and what happened was like this: Normally a prophet stands on Friday, and from where he is, he sees what will happen on Sunday. But as I was preaching, it was as if I was already standing on Monday, looking back on the prophecy fulfilled on the Sunday! As if I was already standing on the other side and seeing the fulfilment of prophecy behind me. Even now, as I look to the future prophetically, it’s as if I’m looking back!
I want to encourage you very much from Isaiah 30:18, ‘Therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious to you and – in being gracious to you – He will be exalted, that he may have mercy on you. For the Lord is a God of judgement – but – blessed are they who wait for Him.’
The Lord will WAIT, that He may be gracious to you! That might sound strange. But in other words, God may not be able to be gracious to you today, because He has to WAIT until the appointed time in order to do it!
In v19 it continues, ‘The people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem. You shall weep no more!’ The people that dwell in Zion shall weep no more, because He, the Lord, will be very gracious to you! ‘He will be very gracious to you at the voice of your cry. When He hears it, He will answer you.’
And in v20, ‘Although the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teachers shall not be removed into a corner, but your eyes shall see your teachers…’ I’m sensing, that although your life’s experience will be of adversity and affliction, yet the Lord will give you some teachers and leaders who will have a clear understanding of the future and who will lead you. But, be careful.
When I look back on my life and my 70 years of ministry, it is very clear to me that in order to come to where I am today, the Lord had to take me through adversity. I would not be where I am, seeing the power of the evangelism and the phenomenal miracles unless I had had cancer! Without that cancer, I would not be in this ministry. Oh yes, I’ve had adversity! I had cancer twice! Major! Throat cancer in 1964, and lung cancer in 2002. And in 1972, I was thrown into a communist prison! Those things in my life were the ‘bread of adversity’ and the ‘water of affliction’. Yet through it all, every time, God brought me into a powerful new experience! When you are a child of God, when you are walking in the Will and knowledge of God, many things which happen in your life – which may be painful now – are like an instruction, a teaching, to prepare you for the future!