HASTENING THE FATHER’S PLAN – HANS KIM

I Understanding the Father’s Plan

A The Bible gives us an end-to-end, complete picture of the Father’s plan for this present age. There is a defined beginning; it was about 6,000 years ago. There is also a defined end, which we are nearing. The Father is in complete control, and He is orchestrating this plan so that among a thousand other things, Jesus would receive the pre-eminence (Isaiah 2:17, Colossians 1:18, Ephesians 1:9-10), and the inheritance of a bride equally yoked in voluntary love for Him (Ephesians 1:18, Revelation 19:7).

B In the beginning was a perfect creation, a perfect human body, a perfect relationship with God. Then there was a fall. In the midst of the bad news, the Father reveals the first glimpse in Genesis 3:15, the plan to restore all things (Acts 3:21). God would provide from Eve’s womb a seed (masculine, singular) who will crush the serpent’s seed (anti-christ). Over time, we are given more information throughout the various covenants and prophets, and this seed is developed as the Messiah, the one anointed from God to fulfill the Father’s plan, and bring us into an everlasting Kingdom.

1. 735 prophesies in bible about future, 596 have happened as told. The other 20 percent are about the end-times. 318 prophecies were about the second coming of Jesus, it’s most predicted event in bible

C In Isaiah we’re thrown a curveball and find out that the Messiah would have two appearings, He would come first as a suffering servant (Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Acts 3:18) before returning as a glorious King. If Jesus had come as a King first, and executed the Day of the LORD before the forgiveness of sins, all would have perished in a Lake of Fire, save a handful in Israel. He came as a lamb because nobody with sin is entering into a Kingdom and age of righteousness (Galatians 1:4, 1 Cor. 6:9).

II Understanding the Mission of the Church

A The Nature of Delay
When someone is delayed, it’s out nature to think of the worst-case scenario as that delay gets longer and longer. We find ourselves in this gap of time between the cross and the return of Jesus. The bridegroom has been delayed in His return for 2,000 years (Matthew 25:5). There were huge shifts from apostolic doctrine within the first few hundred centuries of the early church because of the bridegroom’s delay (2 Peter 3:9). We need to discern that this delay of 2,000 years is not because God had somehow forgotten about His plan. Here is how some of our doctrine has broken down from the first century.

1. Some have said that the role of the Church is to be the Kingdom to “Christianize every sphere of society” before Jesus returns. The problem is that according to eschatological scriptures, things get much worse, the nations are given over to the anti-christ. This is the age-old trick of Satan to give us a Kingdom without playing out all of the events in the Father’s plan (Matthew 4:8, Matthew 16:23). There is only one plan that is good, pleasing, and perfect; there is only one judgment that is just and true; there is only one way that is higher than ours, and they belong to the Father.
2. Some have said the Kingdom is here now, a spiritual kingdom that reigns in the heart of believers. The problem is how can the Kingdom be here now if the King is still in a distant land (Luke 19:12). The role of the indwelling Spirit is not to replace Jesus, but to comfort us until He returns. According to many parables of Jesus, specifically addressing the timing of the Kingdom, He alone receives the Kingdom and brings it to the earth. Until the bridegroom returns, we have talents, or tokens, not a Kingdom. Even one death that occurs should make that abundantly clear, Jesus has not yet put all His enemies under His feet (1 Cor. 14:24-26, Revelation 20:14).

III Hastening the Fathers´ Plan (2 Peter 3:12)

Christianity is not conformity with morals and codes, but conformity to a person; that person being Jesus Christ. The mission of the church in this present evil age is to conform to Jesus the suffering servant of the first coming. In the age to come, we get to conform to Jesus our glorious King. Until then, our lives are hidden in Christ (Colossians 3:2-4). Although many churches would emphasize the calling to be blessed and prosperous, or to have a powerful ministry, or to live a balanced life, there are three callings that I believe the body of Christ must highlight.

A The Call to Pray
The prayer movement is not about making Jesus a means to our ends but making our lives a means to Jesus, the end. Jesus is longing to find faith on the earth (Luke 18:8), a bride found watching and praying with oil in their lamps (Matthew 25:1-13). Jesus is not just coming back for a church in every people group on the earth. When He looks on the earth, He desires a bride that is burning with desire for Him. I believe that the Holy Spirit is zealous to give Jesus His inheritance. He is raising a prayer movement all over the earth of lovesick worshippers.

It says in Isaiah 42 that when the entire earth sings together a new song, that it provokes Jesus´ heart to erupt in a war cry like a woman in labor. This is connected with filling the golden bowls of prayer (Revelation 5:8), which trigger the end time events (Revelation 8:3-6). The prayer movement on earth began with a longing for the Messianic seed in Genesis 4:26. It joined a great prayer meeting in heaven around the throne (Revelation 4-5). The strength of this prayer movement is foreshadowed in eschatological Psalms, where there is a cry arising because of the oppression of the wicked, yet our hope and strength is in waiting for YHWH, or the day of the LORD.

B The Call to be a Witness
The bible tells the story of the Father, through a bridal paradigm, the Father is preparing a pure and spotless bride for His Son. Israel is His bride, and they were partially hardened so that the fullness of gentiles could be grafted into His inheritance. We know that eventually Israel will be provoked to jealousy; they will see the one they have pierced and mourn. Israel will call upon the name of Jesus and be saved. Jesus will not return until this happens (Zechariah 12:19, Matthew 21:9, Romans 11:25-26). The gospel is still Israel-centric.

The Father is looking for a bride who will watch and pray, but also answer the call as messengers of His covenant (Isaiah 40:3-5, Malachi 3:1, Malachi 4:5). God being a God of mercy is in context to the restraint He exhibits in not utterly destroying the wicked, but patiently waiting for His Day, the Day of the LORD. He will not express the fullness of His wrath until the wicked has had a witness. Although He greatly desires to return, He restrains himself to buy time for humanity to repent. (Isaiah 42:14, 2 Peter 3:9) In this context, the church is not just called to professional ministry. We are called like John the Baptist, to the wilderness of humility, hidden-ness, and meekness for the prime of our lives, that we might be sent forth as an actual messenger who prepares the way of the Messiah.

Jesus prophesied that the gospel of the Kingdom would be preached to all people groups and then the end would come (Matthew 24:14). The gospel of the kingdom is not the gospel of grace. Jesus did not come preaching the gospel of the forgiveness of sins, but the gospel of the Kingdom (Luke 16:16). This gospel is a message that must separate (Matthew 3:12, Luke 12:51, Acts 2:37). An apostolic messenger enters into a city with an amnestic ultimatum, the Kingdom of YHWH is at hand and it will overthrow every other kingdom (Daniel 2:44). If you surrender now there will be mercy, but the season of mercy is short and the Day of the LORD is near. The alternative is devastating as it is severe (Joel 2). A messenger doesn’t just have a message, they become the message, they lay down their lives to be used as a parable, they are willing to lay down their lives as martyrs, that the wicked might repent and not enter an eternity in a real Lake of Fire.

C The Call to Suffer
Some streams in the western church suggest that the Father’s plan was completely fulfilled in the first coming, leaving us to enjoy all of the positive prophecy about the age to come without embracing our own cross (Luke 9:23, Acts 9:16). The problem is, if that were true, why were all of the apostles martyred? This theology is the reason why we are trending towards a great falling away of believers (Matthew 13:21, 2 Thessalonians 2:3). We have developed a gospel where Jesus exists for our glory, and not the other way around (Col. 1:18).

It’s clear in the lives of the apostles that they had not yet received a Kingdom. Their doctrine was handed down from Jesus, and they understood that through many tribulations they would enter the Kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). They endured because they had a hope anchored in a real King, a real Kingdom, a real day of evaluation (1 Cor. 4:5).
The prayer movement will crescendo in the fulfillment of martyrs. When the events at the end of the age unfold, there will be a culmination of righteousness and wickedness expressed in the completion of martyrs (Revelation 6:11). At this point, the wrath of God is released on the earth (Revelation 6:17) and the earth becomes ripe for harvest (Matthew 3:10-12, Matthew 13:30, Luke 12:49).

IV Why Hasten a Day of Judgment?

A We want to hasten the Father’s plan because it is the central hope of Christianity (Titus 2:13). There is only one ordained solution to the fall, it’s not found in political parties, or education, or technology, or solving hunger, or even the church. Although these may be good, if they primarily distract us from the longing for a Jewish Messiah to make all things right, it can be likened to building a huge tower in our name. Our lack of urgency and a prophetic spirit is correlated to our comfort and lack of restraint. This is why it was God’s mercy to give humanity divine restraint (Genesis 3:17-19, Genesis 6:3, Genesis 11:9).

B The cry for revival must be understood in the context of the Day of the LORD, lest we grow disheartened. Revival is a season of refreshing that comes from the throne of God (Acts 3:19). It is an act of mercy, where God allows for a period of time and space a window for hearts to respond to the preaching of the word. It’s also an act of divine mercy to confirm the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom with many signs, wonders, and miracles. If we look for miraculous wonders without considering the message that it is sent to serve, than we miss the point. Revival is a signpost pointing to the reality of a coming Kingdom where there will be no more sin, no more demons, and no more sickness. Revival is not the end with Jesus being a means. Jesus is the end, and revival is one of the means. There is only one period of revival that is ordained to never end, and even get better and better, which is the Kingdom of God in the Age to Come.

C The Call for the House of Prayer
The Father has highlighted these two unique ways for the House of Prayer to hasten the Day of YHWH, by joining in the great prayer movement (Genesis 4:26) and answering the call for messengers who are equipped and ready to be faithful witnesses till the end. This generation has one of the most unique opportunities to say yes to this call. To live our lives not for our own will but to do the will of the Father.