Foretelling the
Future
But can we really trust the
Bible’s forecasts for the future, including its promises of a ‘righteous new
heavens and new earth’? I think the answer to that
question is pretty clear.(2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21: 3, 4) Well, what
has been the Bible’s record of reliability in the past? Universe created in six days…does that ring a bell of unreliability?
Time and time again prophecies given even hundreds of years in advance have
been fulfilled in exact detail!
For
example, the Bible foretold the overthrow of mighty Babylon nearly 200 years
before it happened. In fact, the Medes, who became aligned with the Persians,
were named as the conquerors. And although Cyrus, the Persian king, had not
even been born as yet, the Bible foretold that he would be prominent in the
conquest. It said that Babylon’s protecting waters, the river Euphrates, “must
be dried up,” and that “the gates [of Babylon] will not be shut.” – Jeremiah
50:38; Isaiah 13:17-19; 44:27 – 45:1.
These
specific details were fulfilled, as the historian Herodotus reported. Ummm, as Herodotus reported:
“He
placed a portion of his army at the point where the river enters the city, and
another body at the back of the place where it issues forth, with orders to
march into the town by the bed of the stream, as soon as the water became
shallow enough: he then himself drew off with the unwarlike portion of his
host, and made for the place where Nitocris dug the basin for the river, where
he did exactly what she had done formerly: he turned the Euphrates by a canal
into the basin, which was then a marsh, on which the river sank to such an
extent that the natural bed of the stream became fordable.”
This does not a dried up river make.
This was a man-made siphoning of a river into a canal. Today people are talking
about the Euphrates actually drying up and are referencing Revelations…maybe
you should get your biblical prophecies straight?
Further, the Bible
foretold that Babylon would eventually become uninhabited ruins. And that is
just what happened. Today Babylon is a desolate heap of mounds. And should I predict that a great superpower of modern times
will fall victim to a financial crisis…oh wait. Any empire, any superpower has
its rise and fall. That doesn’t make it too hard to predict, especially
decades, even centuries before it happens. (Isaiah 13:20-22; Jeremiah
51:37, 41-43) And the Bible is full of other prophecies that have had dramatic
fulfillment. …maybe you should have used one of those,
rather than using these easily assailable “prophecies”.
What
then does the Bible foretell concerning the present world’s system of things?
It says: “The final age of this world is to be a time of troubles. Men will
love nothing but money and self; they will be arrogant, boastful, and abusive;
with no respect for parents, no gratitude, no piety, no natural affection… They
will be men who put pleasure in the place of God, men who preserve the outward
form of religion, but are standing denial of its reality.” – 2 Timothy 3:1-5, The New English Bible. This sounds very much like Babylon, and like Rome, and the
British Empire, and France, and Germany, Japan, China…need I go on? Need I
really?
Surely,
we are seeing the fulfillment of this now! (as well as
back then) But the Bible also foretells for “the final age of this
world” these things: “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against
kingdom, and there will be food shortages.” In addition, “there will be great
earthquakes, and in one place after another pestilences.” – Matthew 24:7; Luke
21:11. Again, do these occurrences not also ring bells
of history lessons long passed? Every age has had battling nations and kingdoms,
food shortages, earthquakes, disease and the like.
Indeed,
Bible prophecies are undergoing fulfillment today! Well, then, what about
yet-to-be-fulfilled promises, such as: “The righteous themselves will possess
the earth, and they will reside forever upon it,” and, “They will have to beat
their swords into plowshares…, neither will they learn was anymore”? – Psalm
37:29; Isaiah 2:4.
‘That’s
just too good to be true,’ some may say. But really, there is no reason for us
to doubt anything that our Creator promises. I’m sure I’ve
just given enough reason. His Word can be trusted! Can it?(Timothy 1:2) By examining the evidence
further, you will become ever more convinced of this. Allow
me to direct you to a wonderful source of biblical prophecies which may help
you to become convinced, once and for all, of their "validity".
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