Part 1 -Different Attitudes Of People Many people have negative attitudes toward the study of biblical prophecy. For example, there are those who say, “I’m only concerned about the present, so don’t bother me with ideas about the future.” A scientist friend of mine ran into such people while on a commercial flight. In a letter to me he gave the following account of what happened while he was in the process of reading a book on the Rapture of the Church: I’d read the first several chapters by the time the stewardess had noticed how enthralled I was with the book. She asked what it was that I was finding so interesting (instead of her I presume), so I explained my excitement in such a scholarly treatment of the rapture question. It only took about 17.6 seconds for a frigidness to quash her formerly bubbly self. The next thing I knew was that she was wondering loudly why “people like me are always worrying about that stuff. There isn’t enough love being shown now and if God is love then we should be spreading more of it around instead of worrying about the future.” She had most of the First Class passengers nodding in agreement and looking at me like I had just brought the plague on board. Talk about instant isolation. She didn’t even give me the chance to say that the imminence of the concept would encourage that very lifestyle (as well as other more Godly living, which I began to realize was the real problem). Needless to say it was a long, long six hour flight! Other people express a second negative attitude toward the study of biblical prophecy. It goes like this: “Nobody can understand the prophecies in the Bible, so why bother to study them? Such effort is a useless waste of time.” There was a prominent pastor who spent many years preaching systematically throughout the entire Bible. When he came to the Book of Revelation, this is what he told his congregation:
You will not see me for several weeks. During that time I am not to be disturbed. In essence, I am going into hiding. Here is the reason why: When I was a student in seminary, my professor of New Testament said, “We shall not study the Book of Revelation, because no one can understand it.” Due to this lack in my seminary training, I know almost nothing about the last book of the Bible. Because of this, during the next several weeks I shall bury myself in the study of Revelation so that I can preach it to you. The negative attitude of this pastor’s professor of New Testament toward the study of the Book of Revelation is tragic for at least two reasons. First, those who ignore Revelation will miss the following special blessing that Jesus Christ proclaimed in conjunction with that book: “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein” (Rev. 1:3). Second, the very fact that the Book of Revelation and all other biblical prophecies were given by God to mankind through divine revelation and were recorded accurately through the means of divine inspiration (1 Cor. 2:9-13; 2 Pet. 1:19-21) indicates that God wants human beings to possess these prophecies and to pay attention to them. Otherwise He would never have given them to mankind. In light of this, those persons, who for any reason fail to heed them, will miss what God intends and desires for them. A third negative attitude toward the study of biblical prophecy is expressed by some Christians. In essence it is this: “There are very few, if any, prophecies in the Bible concerning events that will transpire in the future beyond our present time. Almost all biblical prophecies were fulfilled by the end of the First Century A.D. For example, the great tribulation to which Jesus Christ referred in Matthew 24:21-22 was fulfilled by the events associated with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and Israel as a nation state in 70 A. D. This was Christ’s coming in judgment upon the Jewish nation that had rejected Him.” A fourth negative attitude toward the study of biblical prophecy is the result of the mishandling of the prophetic Scriptures by some Bible teachers and preachers. Tragically over the years some have claimed that the prophetic Scriptures gave them information that enabled them to set a date for the Rapture or Second Coming of Christ, or to identify the personal name of the Antichrist. For example, during the era of World War II some prominent Bible teachers and preachers in Great Britain and North America claimed that Bible prophecy indicated that Hitler or Mussolini was the Antichrist. More recently a prominent Christian leader used a book, radio broadcasts, billboards and other means to promote the idea that Christ would return in His Second Coming to destroy the world in the Fall of a specific year that is now past. When time proved these men to be wrong, this not only seriously wounded the credibility of their personal ministries, but it also gave the unsaved more cause to ridicule biblical Christianity and soured the attitude of many Christians toward the study and teaching of biblical prophecy. Two things should be noted in conjunction with this fourth negative attitude. First, instead of learning from the past mistakes of teachers and preachers, some today continue the same mishandling of the prophetic Scriptures by setting dates for the Rapture or Second Coming of Christ, or by claiming that a certain prominent individual today is the Antichrist. Second, those Christians who are negative toward the study and teaching of biblical prophecy because of these past or present abuses are guilty of throwing out the baby with the dirty bath water. Instead of rejecting the study and teaching of biblical prophecy because of abuses, they should reject the abuses, but hold on to the valid study and teaching of the prophetic Scriptures. They should do so because there are significant reasons why the study and teaching of biblical prophecy is important. My next article will look at some of those reasons.
Why Study Biblical Prophecy? Part 2 In our previous article we noted four negative attitudes that people have toward the study of biblical prophecy. These negative attitudes are unfortunate, because there are significant reasons why the study of biblical prophecy is important. This present article will present three of those reasons. First, one-fifth to one-fourth of the Bible is prophecy. In light of this, those people who reject the study of biblical prophecy because of a negative attitude toward it choose to avoid twenty to twenty-five per cent of the biblical revelation that God has given to mankind—revelation that God wants human beings to possess and heed. This avoidance amounts to willful rejection of a major portion of God’s truth and, therefore, has serious implications. Second, it is impossible to understand God’s purpose for history apart from the study of biblical prophecy. Isaiah 46:9-11 quotes the following divine declaration, “I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:…I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.” Isaiah 14:24, 26-27 states, “The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:…This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? And his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?”
These Scriptures reveal that there is one true God, and that He has a sovereign purpose for this earth’s history. The evidence that He is the true God and that He has a sovereign purpose for history is this: In the past He planned and purposed what would happen on earth throughout history. On the basis of what He planned and purposed, through His prophets God declared to mankind what would happen in the future, even to the end of this earth’s history. Then, during the course of history He sovereignly causes to happen all that He planned and purposed and declared through His prophets. No one can prevent God from fulfilling His sovereign purpose for history. Nebuchadnezzar, ancient Babylon’s greatest king, learned by personal experience that the God of the Bible has a sovereign purpose for what happens in history. After God had completed His infliction of the king with a form of mental illness that caused him to live like a wild animal, Nebuchadnezzar wrote the following: “I blessed the most High, and I praised and honored him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand or say unto him, What doest thou?” (Daniel 4:34-35)
The prophetic Scriptures are the written record of what God through the prophets declared to mankind would happen even to the end of this earth’s history. Since those divine declarations were based upon what God had planned and purposed for history, no one can understand God’s purpose for history apart from the study of biblical prophecy. In light of the facts that God has a sovereign purpose for this earth’s history, that on the basis of that purpose He declared to mankind what would happen to the end of history, and that the prophetic Scriptures are the written record of that divine declaration, it is no mistake that the Book of Revelation was the last book of the Bible written. God intended it to be the capstone of His divine declaration to mankind, because it foretells how He will complete His purpose for history. Because this is so, the person who decides to avoid the study of Revelation will remain completely oblivious to how God will complete His purpose. Third, the study of biblical prophecy is an effective evangelistic tool. God had His declarations of future events recorded in written form in the Scriptures, not to satisfy the curiosity of people concerning what will happen, but to be a life-changing tool for people of every generation. God uses the study of biblical prophecy to serve as a warning to unsaved people: To warn them of the future wrathful judgment that He has purposed for this rebellious world and for all people who fail to receive His gracious gift of salvation through faith in His crucified, buried and resurrected Son, Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit uses biblical prophecy to impress unsaved people with the urgency of their trusting Christ as their Savior now, before it may be too late for them. I personally have witnessed people coming to a personal saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through the study and teaching of biblical prophecy. For example, one church that had asked me to conduct a prophecy conference urged its people to invite unsaved acquaintances to the sessions. One woman invited her eight fellow office-workers to attend the conference. Every one of them came, and all eight trusted Christ as Savior. At the same conference, a believer, who was a custodian at a public school, brought the unsaved superintendent of that city’s public school system to the conference men’s breakfast. In response to the study from biblical prophecy that was presented at that breakfast, the superintendent placed his faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. Any Christian who avoids the study and teaching of biblical prophecy thereby fails to use an effective evangelistic tool that God has given to us. My next article will present the fourth reason why the study of biblical prophecy is important. WHY STUDY BIBLICAL PROPHECY? PART 3 Fourth, it is impossible to understand God’s plan and purpose for Israel apart from the study of biblical prophecy. The Bible reveals that God established a unique relationship with Israel as a nation. Moses made the following statements to the generation of Israelites who were to enter the land of Canaan years after Israel’s exodus out of Egypt: “For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6; see also 14:2). In addition, the Scriptures indicate that God established this unique relationship with Israel forever. 2 Samuel 7:24 records the following statement of King David to God: “For thou hast confirmed to thyself thy people Israel to be a people unto thee forever.” In addition, the Apostle Paul indicated that, in spite of Israel’s unbelief, God’s election or calling of the nation Israel for this unique relationship will never change (Romans 11:26-29). The Bible also reveals that God did not establish this unique relationship with Israel because they were greater than any other people. Moses told them, “The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people” (Deuteronomy 7:7). Instead, God established it because He had a unique, sovereign purpose for Israel as a nation. God sovereignly purposed that the nation Israel play a key role in the fulfillment of His purpose for history. One aspect of that key role was this: God determined to bring great blessing to the whole world through Israel. God promised to bless the world through Abraham’s offspring: “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). The fact that God repeated that promise to Abraham’s son, Isaac (Genesis 26:4), and grandson, Jacob (Genesis 28:14), whose twelve sons became the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel, indicates that God purposed to bring this promised blessing to the world through the nation Israel. God has already brought great blessings to the world through Israel. The Bible came through that nation. The Apostle Paul wrote that unto the Jews “were committed the oracles of God” (Romans 3:1-2). The Messiah-Savior came to the world by birth through Israel. Concerning the Israelites, Paul said, “of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came” (Romans 9:4-5). Since the Messiah, who provided salvation for all people, was a Jew in His humanity, then salvation came through Israel. Jesus Himself said, “salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). Biblical prophecy indicates that another aspect of Israel’s key role is yet future. God will not totally crush Satan and his forces and establish His future theocratic kingdom rule to the world until the nation of Israel repents by recognizing and accepting Jesus Christ as its Messiah-Savior. Zechariah 12-14 reveals that, when the rulers and armies of all the Gentile nations of the world will come against Israel in the future (12:1-9), the remnant of Jews who are still alive will see the Messiah coming out of Heaven. When they see the evidences of His past crucifixion, they will repent (change their minds toward Him) and will mourn over His past rejection (12:10-14). God will cleanse them from their sin (13:1). Messiah will then go to battle and destroy the rulers and armies of the world (14:1-3, 12-15; Rev. 19:11-21) and have Satan imprisoned in the bottomless pit for 1,000 years (Rev. 20:1-3). Then He will establish God’s theocratic kingdom and will rule as “king over all the earth” (Zech. 14:9, 16-21; Rev. 20:4-6). In that theocratic kingdom Israel will be the spiritual leader of the world. The people of Israel will “be named the Priests of the LORD “ and the Gentiles will call them “the Ministers of our God” (Isaiah 61:6). The Gentiles will take hold of the Jews, “saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you” (Zechariah 8:23). Contrary to the divinely inspired statements of King David (2 Samuel 7:24) and the Apostle Paul (Romans 11:26-29) noted earlier, some professing Christians insist that God did not establish His unique relationship with Israel forever. They believe that, because Israel as a nation rejected Jesus Christ in His First Coming, God permanently removed Israel as a nation from that unique relationship and replaced it with the New Testament Church. They claim that God will save individual Jews, but that He has no present or future national program for Israel. This belief definitely affects their thinking concerning the right of Israel to exist as a national entity in the Middle East today. It also causes them to reject the idea that God has purposed Israel to play a future key role in the fulfillment of His purpose for history. A significant part of the reason for this belief is the neglect or allegorical interpretation of biblical prophecy. I received an expression of this belief from a group of four men after a message in which I referred to the 1947 United Nations mandate for a nation-state of Israel to be established in a portion of the land of Palestine. They insisted that the United Nations never issued such a mandate and that the Jews went into Palestine and violently took the land away from its rightful owners without any legal authority. In response to my claim that history books record the United Nations mandate, they said, “It doesn’t matter what the history books say; it never happened.” When I said that they could go to the United Nations building in New York and see the written mandate, they said, “It still doesn’t matter, it never happened.” The next article will present a fifth reason why the study of biblical prophecy is important. WHY STUDY BIBLICAL PROPHECY? PART 4 Fifth, the study of biblical prophecy is intended by God to purify the believer’s life and to change his or her priorities. Two aspects of prophetic revelation serve that purpose. The first aspect: The imminency of Christ’s return. The English word “imminent” means “hanging over one’s head, ready to befall or overtake one; close at hand in its incidence” (“imminent,” The Oxford English Dictionary, 1901, V, 66). Thus, an imminent event is one that is always hanging overhead, is constantly ready to befall or overtake a person, is always close at hand in the sense that it could happen at any moment. Other things may happen before the imminent event, but nothing else must take place before it happens. If something else must take place before an event can happen, that event is not imminent. One never knows exactly when an imminent event will happen. Because of this, a person cannot count on a certain amount of time transpiring before an imminent event occurs. Thus, one should always be prepared for it to happen at any moment. In light of the meaning of “imminent” and the fact that the next coming of Christ has not yet occurred, the concept of the imminent coming of Christ is as follows: His next coming is always hanging overhead, is constantly ready to befall or overtake us, is always close at hand in the sense that it could happen at any moment. Other things may happen before His coming, but biblically nothing else must happen before it takes place. If something else must happen first, then His next coming is not imminent. The concept of the imminent coming of Christ prompts the conclusion that we do not know exactly when He will come. Because of this, we cannot count on a certain amount of time transpiring before His coming. Therefore, we should always be ready for Him to come at any moment. Numerous Bible scholars from various church and theological backgrounds have concluded that the New Testament teaches or implies the imminent coming of Christ in the following passages: 1 Corinthians 1:7; 4:5; 15:51-52; 16:22; Philippians 3:20; 4:5; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12; Titus 2:13; James 5:8-9; 1 John 2:28; Revelation 3:11; 22:7, 12, 17, 20. We shall examine James 5:8-9 as an example of a passage that teaches the imminence of Christ’s return. James wrote the following to believers: “Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.” It is important to note that James used the Greek perfect tense in the verb forms translated “draweth” in the expression “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh” and “standeth” in the expression “the judge standeth before the door.” The Greek perfect tense refers to an action that was completed in the past, but the results of that action continue into the present. Thus, in the first expression James was saying that the next coming of Christ drew near in the past before he wrote his epistle, and that it continued to be near in the present while he was writing his epistle. In the second expression James was claiming that there was a genuine sense in which Christ took His stand as judge at the door of Heaven before he wrote his epistle, and that He continued to stand at the door of Heaven in the present while he was writing his epistle. James thereby implied that Christ could step through the door of Heaven at any moment and confront His Church saints as judge at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Romans 14:10-12; 1 Corinthians 3:10-4:5; 2 Corinthians 5:10). James clearly indicated that, in light of the fact that Christ could return at any moment and confront His Church saints as judge, Christians should be careful how they treat their fellow believers (v. 9). He thereby implied the following truth: The fact that Christ’s next coming is imminent should make a difference in the way Christians live. They should be living holy, godly lives every moment of every day, because in the very next moment Christ could step through the door of Heaven and confront them face-to-face. The Apostle John emphasized the same truth when he wrote the following to Christians: “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming” (1 John 2:28).
The second aspect: The future destruction of the present earth and universe. In 2Peter 3 the Apostle Peter wrote, “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and all the works that are therein shall be burned up” (v. 10). Peter thereby foretold the future destruction of the present earth and universe, including every thing that mankind has designed and made during the history of this earth. This means that all of our present material possessions will be totally destroyed. In light of the certainty of this future destruction, Peter then said the following to Christians: “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness” (v. 11). His point was this: The fact that the present earth, universe and all our material possessions will be destroyed in the future should make a difference in our values, priorities and how we live in the present. We should be holy in our daily conduct. The thing that should motivate us and give us ultimate meaning and purpose in life is the glory and pleasing of God, not money, material things, or the present world system. Because all these earthly things are temporary and doomed for destruction, we should conform our values and priorities to those of the future eternal state (vv. 13-14). Are you investing your life in the things that will perish or the things that will last forever? How are you training your children to invest their lives? Is your bank in Heaven, or is your heaven in the bank? | 
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