What we are moving into is a new thing. But we do not throw out everything of the past. The new thing is built upon the past. It is built upon those that have gone before. It is built upon what God has done in the past.
Hebrews 13:7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God; consider the outcome of their life, and imitate their faith. RSV
But we do not want to get stuck in the past we need to move on into the new thing that God has prophesied. Sometimes we only recognize the new thing as we move into. For example on the Day of Pentecost Peter stood up and declared, "this is that which was prophesied." The Holy Spirit gave him a knowing that what they were experiencing was the prophecy that they were familiar with. That prophecy of Joel only had its beginning in that day and is continuing to have its outworking in our day. It still has not come into its fullness.
Acts 2:16 But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
Many in Peter's day, in the early days of the church, were unable to accept and move into the new thing that God was doing and thus missed out on what Jesus had been preaching and what God had prophesied for a few thousand years. I do not want to miss out on the thing that God is doing in my day or in the days ahead because I am stuck in the past. But I do not want to throw out the past either. It is a new day. Each day is a new day and I will rejoice and be glad in it for it is the day that the Lord has made.
Psalm 118:24 This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
Just as those who have gone on before cannot enter into the fullness without us, we cannot enter in without what they have established before us. We need to run the race set out before us.
Hebrews 11:39-12:2 39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: 40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. 12:1Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Each generation was meant to build upon the previous. That is one of the reasons the heart of the fathers must be turned to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers.
Malachi 4:5-6 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: 6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
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