SIMEON'S PRAYER

"Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel" (Words of the aged Simeon who wanted to see the Messiah before he died. Luke 2:29-32).

For me, one of the most inspiring moments of my tour in the Holy Land was the visit to the wailing wall. A military swearing-in ceremony was about to begin. Some young soldiers were flirting with the college women in our group. The atmosphere was such that one couldn't help but think of the huge amount of history connected with this place and the dramatic history that will yet happen in this place.

I am not going to do an unbroken series on prophecy, but through the remainder of the year I do plan to write about Biblical prophecy. I will hit some of the high spots, but I do not plan to be sensational. There is a lot of sensationalism and pseudo scholarship in the popular writings about prophecy. In the ebb and flow of human events there have been an abundance of predictors and date-setters who have ignored the Lord's words, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by His own authority" (Acts 1:7) and have gone on to make identifications and set dates that the grinding-wheels of time have ground to dust. When Isaac Newton predicted that the Lord would not return before 2060 his purpose was not to set a date, but to discourage the date-setters of the 17th century--they were an embarrassment.

During the time of Simeon, because of the prophecies of the Old Testament, there was a great deal of Messianic expectation. His request was to see the Messiah. God granted that request.

At the wailing wall one immediately notices the fervency of prayer by those who are there (I wonder what Obama prayed for?) and the prayer papers jammed into the wall. Most of them are for the Messiah to come, not recognizing that the Messiah has already come. My prayer is that they will recognize Jesus the Messiah and find salvation in Him. My prayer is also like Simeon's prayer in that I would like be alive to witness Jesus' second-coming. I was born in the closing days of 1947, the year of discovery of the dead-sea scrolls, very near the birth year of the modern state of Israel, 1948, both of which I consider to be evidence of Divine providence. Perhaps the generation that was born during that time will not pass away before the return of the Messiah comes to pass. We will see.

Grace&Peace,

Tom