Why Did God Reveal the Future? by Woodrow Kroll

Transcription

1 Why Did God Reveal the Future? by Woodrow Kroll Today s Radio Study: Woodrow Kroll: We have an awful lot going on in our lives here in the present, don t we? So why take the time to learn about our future? Let me suggest several things to you. First of all, I think one of the reasons why I m interested in prophecy is because prophecy proves the authority of the Bible. See, there are lots of places to get predictions about the future. Some of them will come while you are standing at the checkout at the local grocery store. But I m not sure that tabloid you re getting predictions about the future is the best place to get a complete and full understanding of what s going to happen in the future. When you come to the Bible, you get a more reasoned approach to all these things. The Bible is very different from other religious books. Because there are other religious books that treat the present and treat the past but are silent about the future. The Bible, however, is a religious book that is not silent. Let me take you to the Book of Revelation; today, to the first chapter. And I want to read just a few verses at the end of the first chapter of the Book of Revelation. These are the words of the Lord Jesus now. Listen to what He says verse 18: I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death. Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this. A lot of religious books today deal only with the past or only with the present. And some of them deal only with the future. Now, here s the great thing about the Bible. When you study the Bible, you re going to get information about all three of those. And when you come to the Book of Revelation, understood properly, I think the Bible presents a unified view of prophecy. You can go to the past, the Book of Daniel, for example. And in the Book of Daniel there are things predicted to happen in the future. And you don t understand what those things are until you go to the Book of Revelation. I don t know any other book that can tie Daniel, from centuries before Christ, to Revelation, in the future and tie them together in a unified whole. Only the Bible does that. 1 Why Did God Reveal the Future?

2 2 Why Did God Reveal the Future? So, one of the reasons why you want to study prophecy is because the Bible relates to prophecy in a way that shows this is an authoritative book. This is a book that knows what it s talking about. And understood properly, I think the Bible presents prophecy as a fulfillment of the past, as a culmination of history, not as a frightening freak show about what the future s about. That s not the Bible at all. The Bible is a continuous whole revelation of God to the minds of men. Now, I read Revelation 1. Let me take you all the way to the other end of the book to Revelation 22 and read a passage there, beginning at verse 12. Revelation 22:12. Again, the words of the Lord Jesus, He says: And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie. I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let him who hears say, Come! And let him who thirsts come. And whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely (Revelation 22:12-17). Hey, does that sound like I m reading from the Gospel of John? Does it sound like I m reading from Isaiah in the Old Testament? See, what you have in the Bible is a book that has themes that run all the way through the Bible. And some of those themes, when they were being written by the writers of the New Testament, some of those themes were occurring right then. That s the Gospel of John. Some of those things were past; that s Isaiah, in the Old Testament. Some of those themes are still future; that s the Book of Revelation. So, what we have here is a book that shows us that it addresses, seriously, past, present and future. And you know what? I think the test of all prophecy is fulfillment, right? I mean, I could make a prediction; but if it doesn t come true, what good is that prediction? And it s important for you to know that the things the Bible has to say either already have come true or one day will come true. And we study prophecy to understand that this is a Book that has authority. My friend George Sweeting was writing about how much prophecy there is in the Bible. Let me quote just a paragraph from him. He says this: Over 1800 references appear in the Old Testament, and 17 Old Testament books give prominence to the theme of the return of the Lord Jesus. Eighteen hundred references in the Old Testament, to the return of Christ. Of the 260 chapters in the New Testament, more than 300 references to the Lord s return: one out of every 30 verses. Twenty-three of the 27 books of the New Testament refer to this great event: the return of the Lord. For every prophecy of the first coming of Christ, to Bethlehem, as a babe, there are 8 prophecies of the Second Coming of Christ. Now, put that on the sticky side of your mind for a minute.

3 3 Why Did God Reveal the Future? Why would you study Bible prophecy? Because it appears that, so much of what we understand about the Bible is predictive in nature. About a quarter of the Bible, when it was written, was predictive in nature. Now, some of that has already been fulfilled. And one of the things we have to do, in our study of the Book of Revelation, over the next several weeks is, we have to discuss things that are fulfilled and things that are yet future. We ll talk a little bit more about that tomorrow. But today, we re thinking about five reasons why you would study prophecy. And the first one is this, because prophecy proves the Bible to be an authoritative book. Let me quickly go on to a second reason. And that is because prophecy reveals both the power of God and the wisdom of God. Now, I m going to take you to an Old Testament book, to the Book of 2 Kings. Second Kings 16 is a story that is the story of King Ahaz, one of the kings of Judah in the Old Testament: 2 Kings 16. By the way, this exact same story is recorded in 2 Chronicles 28. We could have read it in either one, but let me just tell you what the story is in 2 Kings 16. Ahaz is in a predicament. He has a problem, and that is the fact that Judah is under siege. It s been under siege; Ahaz is not all that old, and God comes to Ahaz and He says, The king of Syria and the king of Israel have teamed up against you, the king of Judah. And it doesn t look good. Now, you can read all about that in 2 Kings 16, the first six verses. In those verses, it describes for us an historical event. This actually happened; this is history, not just recorded in the Bible, but recorded elsewhere as well. But there is something that relates to the history that you don t learn from 2 Kings 16. And you don t learn it, either, from 2 Chronicles 28. But there is, interestingly enough, a third place in the Bible that this story is recorded. And it s Isaiah 7. So, I m going to turn to Isaiah 7 because I want you to see that Isaiah is a prophet. He is making predictions, at that point in history, about what s going to happen to King Ahaz. And in the process of doing that, what he has to say is still future. It s been fulfilled now; but when he wrote it, it was future. This is what he says, Isaiah 7: exactly the same event that we read in 2 Kings 16 and in 2 Chronicles 28. But in Isaiah 7, Isaiah the prophet says to the king, You ask God for a sign that God will take care of you. You ask God for a sign that these two kings are not going to destroy my people Judah. And you know what, Ahaz says, I won t do it. I will not ask for a sign, I m not interested in a sign. Verse 10[-12], of Isaiah 7: Moreover the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; ask it either in the depth or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord! (Isaiah 7:10-12). Now, that sounds very spiritual; but it isn t very spiritual because God had told him to ask for a sign. Look at the next verse. Then he said, Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? Now, watch this: Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive

4 4 Why Did God Reveal the Future? and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel (Isaiah 7:13-14). Now, you see, what was predictive, when Isaiah gave it, was fulfilled when Jesus came. So, some prophecy in the Old Testament reveals the power and wisdom of God; and if that prophecy has been fulfilled, we can look back and say, Aha! There it is. And if it hasn t yet been fulfilled, that doesn t mean we distrust it; it just means we have to give a little more time for God to fulfill it. So, why do you study Bible prophecy? Well, I think one of the reasons why you study prophecy is because prophecy reveals the program of God, reveals the power of God, reveals the wisdom of God. And you can t understand that unless you read the whole Book, not just pieces of it, but the whole Book. Tami Weissert: Wood, when prophecy tells us about the program of God, the power of God, and the wisdom of God, we re really getting an insight into our Creator as well as some very important guidelines for living. WK: Yes, you know, Tami, there are just tons of people who live their lives as if there were no rhyme or reason to life. The live haphazard lives no purpose, no direction. But the Bible gives us both purpose and direction. When we study Bible prophecy, we get a sense of where things are going and why the Creator God made us as He did maybe even more importantly, what He is going to do about making things right that seem so wrong today. TW: You know, Wood, you just told us that we can t understand what prophecy reveals, God s program, power, wisdom unless we read the whole Bible. So if someone is listening today but they haven t read the entire Bible, they might be pretty discouraged. So what can someone in this position do at this point? WK: Well, certainly one thing we could do is we could read the whole Bible. That would take care of the problem. You can read the whole Bible, cover to cover, in just 72 hours. So the key is, are we willing to take the time to do it, to understand the plans and the programs of God? Are we willing to appreciate the promises that He has made to us? And even if we haven t gotten through the whole Bible yet, we can ask God to help us understand what we have read and ask the Holy Spirit to lead us into truth from our exposure to the Bible. That s where God s truth is and where we read it and where we understand it. You know, there are some folks who stay away from studying prophecy. They know it s divisive. I ve seen churches split over the issue of prophecy. That should never happen, but sometimes it does happen. So, today we re thinking about why you want to study Bible prophecy if, in fact, if we don t have all the answers that relate to prophecy. I ve mentioned two things already: First of all, prophecy proves the authority of the Bible. This is a very different book from other religious books. And, secondly, the prophecy reveals God s power and His wisdom when you read all of the Book, Genesis to Revelation. Let s now think about a third reason why studying Bible prophecy is important for people like you and me in the 21st century. And it s this: prophecy reveals God s purpose. See, everything God purposes to do, everything He intends to do in the history of the world, has not already happened. God has a purpose in the future, not just a purpose in the past and a purpose in the 21st century.

5 I m going to go to the Book of Genesis because there is a passage in Genesis when God is revealing to Abraham His purpose. God is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities, because of particular sins of those two cities. God says, I must destroy them. That s part of the judgment on these sins. But He s revealing the purpose for doing so to Abraham. Now, watch this: This is Genesis 18, beginning at verse 17: And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing. Now, there s a good question. See, God doesn t reveal to me everything He plans to do. God didn t write down in the Bible everything He plans to do. But isn t it interesting that God says, Should I hide from Abraham what I m planning to do to Sodom and Gomorrah. And He decides, No, I m going to reveal My purpose to Abraham, so he knows how to respond. Let me read on: 5 Why Did God Reveal the Future? Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him (Genesis 18:17-19). Now, why does God reveal to Abraham what He s going to do to Sodom and Gomorrah? How does this affect Abraham? Abraham doesn t live in Sodom and Gomorrah. But, you remember, Lot does. And Lot is the nephew of Abraham. So, God says, Look, I have to take into My confidence, Abraham. I have to tell him what I m going to do because this impacts what he and the generations after him are going to understand about My program, going to understand about what pleases Me and what displeases Me. You and I could learn a lot about the judgment of God in the 21st century if we learn the program of God back in the century of Abraham. So, one of the reasons why we study prophecy is because prophecy reveals the purpose of God. God doesn t change His purpose. Now, sometimes He changes how He makes that purpose happen in our lives, how it works out in our lives; but the purpose of God is established long before the creation of the world. It s never going to change. So, when you read prophecy you understand, Aha! This is why God did what He did back in the Book of Genesis. Or, This is why He says what He says in the Book of Ezekiel. It helps you understand the purpose of God. Well, another one: We re interested in studying Bible prophecy because Bible prophecy brings peace to God s people. You know, I ve read a lot of crazy books about what s going to happen in the future. I ve read a lot of predictive books people going on and on about what they see happening in the future. And, frankly, these books sometimes scare people to death. I want you to know that if you read the Book of Revelation (and we will over the next several weeks), when you read the Book of Revelation, you will find things that are very, very scary but should never be scary to God s people. Here s what prophecy relates to God s people; let me just read a passage to you from the words of Jesus. This will bring to your heart, peace; not bring to your heart great consternation. John 14:1: Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

6 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also (John 14:1-3). Now, here s the great news: where Jesus is today, I am not. He s in heaven, and I m here. Now, listen, I like it here. I enjoy where I live; I enjoy the people I work with; and I enjoy teaching the Bible. But if this is heaven, I m really disappointed. One of the things Bible prophecy does is, it brings peace when you know what God s plans are for you in the future. Unless otherwise indicated, scripture references are from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright 2012 The Good News Broadcasting Association, Inc. All rights reserved. Back to the Bible P.O. Box Lincoln, NE backtothebible.org 6 Why Did God Reveal the Future?