Smart Questions, Delayed Answers
There is no such thing as a dumb question because even a question that misses the point a mile will reveal something about how to reposition the questioner to his proper thinking.
The disciples spent forty days with Jesus learning about the reset kingdom of God. After all that, they still couldn’t make the rock wall climb out of inbred tradition, and for fifteen years, no one got born of the spirit but Jews.
They asked Jesus, “Will you now restore the kingdom to Israel?” Matthew 24 and Luke 21 did not scratch the surface of their deeply entrenched tradition of “Jew or nothing.” They couldn’t see the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Land even after Jesus showed them a prophetic video.
He taught them kingdom for forty days as a glorified Man, and they were still unable to grasp what Holy Spirit would teach them later by process of “bringing all these things back to your memory in a different context.” Even Simon Peter would argue with God while in a vision of unclean things, so prejudicial that he thought of non-Jews as filthy things.
Jesus Answers Without Answering at All
So, Jesus answers the question, “Will You now restore the kingdom to Israel?” In that context, He does not answer the question at all.
They are asking the wrong question. The apostles miss the point of the entire forty days of teaching and revelation, jumping to a conclusion far afield of His intentions and the reality of what comes next.
After Pentecost, they will respond better, but they will still maintain traditions at the expense of kingdom culture for more than twenty years, and some Judiazers will maintain traditions until they develop erroneous systems with Gnostic origins.
Jesus says, “Father, holds times and seasons in His own hand.”
David once wrote these words: “My times are in Your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors!” David previously rehearsed his seasons of self-confidence and the God-centered trust he enjoyed after semesters in the school of affliction.
Jesus feels the revelation He has imparted will come through later in remembered revelation to His apostles.
Remembered Revelation
“Remembered revelation” comes from the body of work Holy Spirit does in the mundane of life, pulling from that spiritual consciousness, the memory of the spiritual mind, using the brain to process it, and interpreting, applying, and implementing through representatives of Christ His kingdom intentions.
Lesson learned: we are not in charge of remembrance revelation. Holy Spirit is.
Father holds times and seasons in His own hands, and Holy Spirit responds to those times and seasons by pulling up remembered revelations stored in the spiritual memory banks during seasons of exposure, in quiet times of training, in mundane circumstances of submission.
Demanding answers at a specific moment is always a mistake.
- we will make up our minds about some issues long before we face them;
- we will make up our minds to trust God with some problems during the time we continue to face those issues;
- we will learn great lessons proving God’s will by remaining living sacrifices;
- we will test our submission and obedience by continuing to do what we are called to do when it is impossible–it would seem–to continue;
- we will walk through times of pathos–suffering caused by passion–only to discover the meaning of those seasons after they are over.
Jesus does not answer a direct question but offers a very foundational
- Prophetic predictions anticipate these strategic moments to assist us in bold risk-taking decisions.
- Prophetic process clarifies remembered revelations as they are applied to “now words” from God.
- Prophetic revealing often stimulates remembered revelations.
“And He said unto them, ‘It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath set into place in His own authority'” (Acts 1:6-7).
“It is not for you to know.”
Just submit to the teaching I have given you, obey this instruction as a next step, and arrive at the proper place in the appropriate time for remembered revelation.
Father’s times and seasons include the timing of revelation. Holy Spirit reveals to us what Father has prepared for us, but He doesn’t exhaust that revelation. Holy Spirit pulls from the reservoir of spiritual memory we have had ears to hear according to the Father’s timing, not our questions.
Demanding that God reveal something out of Father’s timing is as rebellious as Cain, Balaam, and Korah. It is another form of witchcraft and prophetic sorcery. When we make such a demand in rebellion, we open our souls to another voice that permits us to imagine a vain thing.
The undeniable directives of God always come without exhaustive revelations to satisfy our curiosity. Curiosity isn’t evil until permitted by rebellion to go on revelation expeditions out of time and season.
Father sets the times and seasons of revelation. The right question– “What do we do next?”–is based upon our submission today.
Your revelation of “what to do next” will always be as impure as your present limitations to submission of “what to do now” revelation.
