{"id":6978,"date":"2015-10-04T00:05:20","date_gmt":"2015-10-04T07:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=6978"},"modified":"2015-10-03T17:01:43","modified_gmt":"2015-10-04T00:01:43","slug":"god-has-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/10\/04\/god-has-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"God Has Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is what the LORD of Heaven\u2019s Armies says:
\n\u201cI, myself, have risen against Babylon!
\nI will destroy its children and its children\u2019s children,\u201d
\nsays the LORD.
\n\u201cI will make Babylon a desolate place of owls,
\nfilled with swamps and marshes.
\nI will sweep the land with the broom of destruction.
\nI, the LORD of Heaven\u2019s Armies, have spoken!\u201d
\nThe LORD of Heaven\u2019s Armies has sworn this oath:
\n\u201cIt will all happen as I have planned.
\nIt will be as I have decided.
\nI will break the Assyrians when they are in Israel;
\nI will trample them on my mountains.
\nMy people will no longer be their slaves
\nnor bow down under their heavy loads.
\n I have a plan for the whole earth,
\na hand of judgment upon all the nations.
\nThe LORD of Heaven\u2019s Armies has spoken\u2014
\nwho can change his plans?
\nWhen his hand is raised,
\nwho can stop him?\u201d (Isaiah 14:22-27)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can\u2019t spoil God\u2019s plans. Whatever God has decided to do is what will happen. Babylon and Assyria imagined themselves invincible. They thought that they were in the driver\u2019s seat, the captains of their souls, the architects of their fates. Reality was something else all together and God\u2019s plans for them were a bit different from their plans for themselves. From God\u2019s perspective, the Assyrians and Babylonians were merely tools in his hands that he used for his purposes. When God was done with them, he set them aside.<\/p>\n

For the Babylonians and Assyrians, the end of their power was a disappointment and a surprise. From the standpoint of the Jewish people, however, it was a moment of great pleasure, a time of intense thanksgiving. No more would the Jewish people be enslaved, no longer would they be barred from their homes. At long last their great suffering that they had endured as punishment for their sins would be lifted. Hundreds of years before it came to pass, God let his people know everything would turn out well. He granted them his divine perspective.<\/p>\n

We know how the story of the universe ends: God wins. Since we belong to God we will win too. We have an eternity to spend with him. So things couldn\u2019t be better for us.<\/p>\n

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This is what the LORD of Heaven\u2019s Armies says: \u201cI, myself, have risen against Babylon! I will destroy its children and its children\u2019s children,\u201d says the LORD. \u201cI will make Babylon a desolate place of owls, filled with swamps and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6978"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6979,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6978\/revisions\/6979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}