If we follow the flow of politics in the UK at the moment (especially as shepherded by the media), it feels as though our lives are in survival mode. There is more than enough news to cope with day by day - especially with the ongoing uncertainty of Britain’s future in or out of Europe.

The in-fighting over Brexit is causing our political parties to self-destruct; it is enough at times to simply keep up, let alone form a clear opinion of how to move forward. But we cannot understand the situation before us fully without zooming out to understand God’s covenant purposes over all of history, how he works these purposes out and especially where we are in them today.

Time to Stand Back

At Prophecy Today UK we have often echoed the principle of living with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.¹ But increasingly there is a deeper challenge: not only to interpret the daily news in the light of Scripture, but to stand back from the way the news dominates our lives to perceive more fully the higher things of God.

Britain is in a far more serious situation than the daily news is revealing. That is serious enough, with honesty at stake in the corridors of power, with belief in God departing from the centre of our national life, with the weakness of democracy being revealed before our eyes and with a war in the heavenlies to keep us subservient to a global entity which many fear is potentially (even increasingly) anti-Christ.

But the situation is even more serious. With the Bible in both hands, it is time for Christians to consider more fully what God is saying about the days in which we live.

We cannot understand the situation before us fully without zooming out to understand God’s covenant purposes over all of history.

The ‘Ifs’ of Prophecy

I am increasingly suspicious of prophetic words that do not have conditions for their fulfilment. There is almost a ‘noise’ going on as this and that prophecy comes forward for testing. Those which declare an unconditional act of God to revive and benefit Britain seem more and more fanciful to me.

There are only two kinds of unconditional prophecy in Scripture. One relates to the covenant promises given to Abraham. God swore by himself that he would form a community of those who would inherit eternal life. Even in this, there is an ‘if’ regarding individual membership of this community: membership is dependent on faith. Nevertheless, God has determined that this earth will remain until the time when that covenant community is complete.

The other unconditional prophecies relate to what we call the ‘end times’, revealed to the biblical prophets (including Ezekiel and Isaiah) and most fully in the hard-to-understand Book of Revelation. Part of this unconditional picture of the end is that Israel will be regathered and God will send salvation to the Jewish people in terms of the covenant with Abraham. No such yet-to-be-fulfilled component of prophecy stands for any other nation, including Britain.

Apart from the above, prophecy, including that given to Israel through the ages, is conditional. “If you will do this…I will do that”. Prophecies for Britain as a whole (as with any nation) are, likewise, conditional. This is in accord with Jeremiah 18:7-10, which has been much quoted on Prophecy Today over the last couple of years but bears repeating:

If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.

For Israel over the centuries there were always two alternate futures that were possible, depending on obedience. “Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse…” (Deut 11:26) was the framework of these two futures, with ‘if’ standing at the head of each. This principle is echoed in prophecies for all other nations, as shown clearly in Jeremiah 18.

Apart from God’s covenant promises and prophecy relating to the end times, Bible prophecy is conditional.

So What About Britain?

Britain’s future has the same alternate possibilities that are evident throughout Bible prophecy in all but the two main unconditional areas.

It is time for Christians to review these two possible futures with clarity and seriousness. There are still some deeply relevant ‘ifs’ that must be heeded if Britain as a nation is to be brought back into the blessing of God. There is far more to deal with than coming out of Europe, immense though this is.

But as the wrestling match goes on for Brexit, we must also see this in the framework of God’s continuing, but soon to be completed, covenant purposes in the entire world. This puts a different complexion on things and sets a third possible future before us: namely a remnant of the worldwide covenant community persevering through to the end in a growingly anti-Christian world. It is time for us to consider this future most carefully too.

The study of the end times as laid out in the Bible has been a battleground in the Church for years - a matter of division when it should be a matter of unity. It is time for us to consider all of these potential futures, seeking clarity from God and unity among believers, possibly as never before in our history.

References

1 Attributed to theologian Karl Barth.