The last Book of the New Testament begins with these marvelous words: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass ….” Revelation 1:1
Note that clause … “to show things which must shortly come to pass.” Things that have not yet happened, transpired.
And that situation (revealing future things), in the most accurate sense of the word, constitutes BIBLE PROPHECY. “Unveiling the future,” according to God’s Perfect Perspective.
And this is the Same God Who “touched” Daniel, the PROPHET, by the way. A God Who knows the end from the beginning! “But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days.” Daniel 2:28, the Man of God speaking to King Nebuchadnezzar.
Actually in the Bible, being able to “reveal the future” is one of the very traits of Deity, of a Real God! Here is Isaiah the PROPHET making fun (mocking) the false idols of his day. “Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen.”They can’t, but our God can!
Then Isaiah becomes even bolder, decimating those false gods and goddesses. “Let them declare us things for to come. Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods.” Isaiah 41:22
Furthermore, the mark of any true (human) PROPHET (in the Old Testament) was … “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.” God’s Law, Deuteronomy 18:22
Listen to Jonah, a real PROPHET, for example … “And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God.” God had revealed to His man the future for Nineveh. And the whole City repented, within forty days! They KNEW that God KNEW.
I suppose this particular thought is on my mind this morning because beginning tomorrow night I am to preach a four Service “Bible Prophecy Conference.” The Lord willing, I plan to preach verse-by-verse through one of Scripture’s many Prophetic chapters. (What a host of Material … from which I have to choose!)
Yes, we serve a God Who knows our future!
Including the day we shall die.
Psalm 31:15 … “My times are in thy hand.” David praying to the God he loved so fervently.
And Psalm 139:16, describing a baby yet in his/her mother’s womb, says of God: “Thine eyes did see my substance (fetus, embryo), yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.”
The line here, “which in continuance were fashioned,” uses words which specifically mean: “My DAYS (‘yom’ in Hebrew, literally ‘hours’) WERE FRAMED, FORMED (‘yatzsar’ in Hebrew, meaning ‘shaped as the potter does to the clay’) by God’s Hands!”
Does God know the future?
Isaiah certainly thought so! He often spoke of God … “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done.” Isaiah 46:10
Yes, assuredly … He knows!
— Dr. Mike Bagwell
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