Week 43 Acts 4
First the church quoted a psalm:
Why do the nations rage?…The kings of the earth prepare for battle against the Lord and against his anointed one.
Second the church said that that psalm exactly described recent events in Jerusalem:
That is what happened here in this city! For Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were all against Jesus, your holy servant…In fact, everything they did occurred according to your eternal will and plan.
So a forecast that had been collecting dust for a thousand years alongside all the other predictions-that-hadn’t-happened-yet had all of a sudden just happened.
A prophetic prediction has an Element X and an Element Y.
Element X comes first – it says that something will happen.
Element Y comes later – at the moment when Element X comes true.
Until it happens Element X is stored in the file of Non-Actualized Forecasts (and while it sits there it could be classified by people – realistically – as just a Guess.)
It’s only when Element X is taken out of the file & processed & becomes Actualized in the real world that’s it’s reclassified as an Element Y. The prediction has come true.
Since I’m not party to the “eternal will and plan” all Element Xs are abstract to me until they’re concretized.
But I think it’s safe to say that as far as the Lord is concerned Element Xs – except for the detail of time – are already Element Ys.
Note: quotes from Psalm 2:1-2 / Acts 4:25-26 & Acts 4:27-28 (NLT)