– S.K Magar
People want to know. Understand and explore. But what is that they want to know, understand and explore of so much? There would be so many answers to this. Isn’t it?
One correct answer of course is the ‘Future’; needless it is to say that there are many other things too, apart from the future that people want to know, understand and explore but the issues or the subject of future is one of those thing that has always made many heads spin with much efforts being made to understand it. Take this for example, when on 11th June 2014 at 11:38 AM, this columnist typed the phrase ‘What will happen in future’ he got 341,000,000 results and while typing the phrase ‘prophecy regarding future’ produced 24,600,000 results in the Google web search in 0.32 and 0.28 seconds respectively.
Can a fortune-telling-Parrot on the street pulling and envelope from the piles of aligned envelopes containing the so called details of one’s fortune really be trustworthy? How genuine is a claim of a Palm-reader to know what will happen to his client tomorrow? Tarot cards, dark room arrangements to talk to the so called spirits from another world to predict the future etc. Are they really worth the time, effort, pain and the investments incurred to know the future? The answer needs to be both credible and factual with total truth backed by something that has withstood the test of times and circumstances in it’s past prediction making it credible for the seeker’s reliance on it to know ‘What will happen in future?’
At the same time proper and enough care has to be given while making effort to know as to what will happen in the future. One must be very humble, sincere and be willing to depend on God Himself-the true Source of knowledge (Proverbs 2:6, 9-11, Matthew 11:25, James 1:17) while interpreting the writings relating to the future specially those of the holy Bible. Solemn indeed are the issues related to the study and desire to know the future in a correct manner.
One of the credibility weighing tools of the holy Bible lies in its ability to predict the future as to how it would be. And it does that remarkably well with no competitor coming even slightly near to it; it has been like that for long. The accuracy with which it foretells the future from the past amazes even it’s sharpest critics. This is much heard, read and understood in this age with God increasing the knowledge of his genuine believers who want to know the deep things of God. The holy Bible says, “All your words are true…”- Psalm 119: 160, NIV.
In our own age we see the so-called prophets here and so-called prophets there all making WRONG predictions with mostly RIGHT Bible verses to support their claims WRONGLY interpreting them to the sorrow of all stakeholders involved and above all discrediting the holy and revered name of ‘YAHWEH’ the great ‘I AM’.
People tend to get confused as to whom to believe and whom not to believe in these times where many strange doctrines are doing the round. In such cases I would like to share what I usually tell others with whom I come in contact, I tell them to; ’seek God’s providence through a heartfelt sincere prayer asking the Lord to make understand these holy words of Christ in His Scriptures’. A prayerful approach to understand prophecies-This is the prerequisite. We need to remember that even prophet Daniel did the same thing (Daniel 2:18-23, 8: 14, 27, 9:3-17, 20-23). God’s heart yearns for his children asking Him to reveal Himself and his purposes to them so that they could both love him and do His will to bring him glory. That is one reason He chose to ‘dwell among’ the ancient Israelites (Exodus 25:8).
As it is clear that there are different schools of prophetic interpretations such as the most popular and traditional schools of interpretations i.e Historicism, Futurism and Preterism. The time limit of the publication would not allow us to go in detail on these three in larger detail, so suffice it is to say for now that one needs to exercise patience, prudence and humble approach to understand the prophecies of the Bible. It is to be noted that ‘a major difference among these three schools of thought is the way in which they use or do not use prophetic time. Preterist and futurist schools use only literal and historical time for certain key passages, while historicist interpreters take these chronological elements as symbolically standing for longer periods of actual historical time.’
One basis upon which I would put my belief on Biblical prophecies about future is it’s 100 percent accurate fulfillment of the past prophecies such as the rise and fall of the earthly empires like Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome (See Daniel 2 and 7). The Bible foretold what would happen to the powerful empire of ‘Alexander the great’ and how Cyrus would be engineering the seize of mighty Babylon etc. Fulfilled prophecies of the past such as just mentioned gives me ample reason to believe in the things that Bible says would occur in the future because what it said of the past has been fulfilled without a single failure (even in the life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus).
History has been preserved so that the sceptics and believers both might feel the power of God’s enduring word. History shows that God is in control of the events no matter what happens and it is He who holds our tomorrow and that act of He taking care of our tomorrow will not start tomorrow, nor will it start today but instead it has already started yesterday. This is what History of our world tells me when I turned my Bible to the prophetic utterances in the Bible.
Best practise in understanding the Biblical prophecies are observed when the Scripture is allowed to interpret itself while the student cross-checks the historical records when required. When we apply this method prayerfully we begin to understand that God has the answer to the question ‘What will happen in future?’ and He does not provide 341,000,000 confusing web results to answer that yearning query of ours rather He points us to a single book called the ‘Holy Bible’.
The only thing is we need to look at the right place and understand them in godly manner to discern the day from the night. And the choice is ours to make:
‘The watchman replies, “Morning is coming, but also the night. If you would ask, then ask; and come back yet again.”- Isaiah 21:12, NIV
Will we?
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