Does The Bible Predict The Future?

Does the Bible predict the future? What about the future of the saved?

God’s View of the Future

We don’t have to search very hard to discover what God thinks of the future, as Isaiah the Prophet writes, “For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done” (Isaiah 46:9-10). Who else can declare the end from the very beginning? Only God can because He is obviously omnipresent (all-present), and this means He has been in the past, is in the present, and has already been to the future. He knows what’s in the future because He has ordained it, so it must come to pass. We can predict who wins the Super Bowl or if it’ll rain or not, but we have no power to make that happen, however God has knowledge to predict and the power to fulfill what He prophecies through His holy prophets of old. We have seen many of these prophecies already come true, but as we will read, many are more yet to come.

Fulfilled Prophecies

There are hundreds of Bible prophecies that have already been fulfilled, like the Prophet Micah naming the tiny village of Bethlehem as the birthplace of Israel’s Messiah, 700 years before Christ was born (Micah 5:2). Zechariah the Prophet prophesied of Jesus being betrayed for thirty pieces of silver (Zech 11:12-13). David and Zechariah both wrote about a form of punishment that had not yet been invented, called crucifixion (Psalm 22 and 34:20; Zech 12:10). Jeremiah the Prophet predicted the land of Edom (today, in Jordan) which had an abundant water supply at the time, would someday become a barren, un-inhabited wasteland (Jer 49:15-20; Ezk 25:12-14), which it is today. To show us that God is in history because it is “His-story,” Jesus proves that He was the fulfillment of the Messiah by telling His disciples, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44), and of course, all of them were fulfilled prior to or at Calvary. Does the Bible predict the future? The answer is absolutely yes. Not one prophecy has ever missed and none ever will.

The Future Kingdom

We have at least four different views of the Millennium and we are not going to be able to cover each of these views exclusively, so instead, we can look at what we know will happen when the kingdom of God comes down to earth in the form of the New Jerusalem, and with that, a new heaven and a new earth will arrive. The Apostle John wrote “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Rev 21:1-3). Now that God dwells directly with mankind, God does something that humanity has been waiting on for a very long time and that is God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev 21:4). Perhaps the greatest thing about the coming of the kingdom is being in the very presence of God. What can compare with seeing Jesus Christ for the very first time?!

The New Jerusalem

In the final chapter of the Bible, which doesn’t get any better than this, we see John write, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Rev 22:1-2), and then there will “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” (Rev 22:3-4). Once more read that God will be with us and we “will see his face” for the very first time. After salvation, I think the greatest reward of all will be to see God’s face, in Jesus Christ, for the first time in our lives.

Conclusion

Does the Bible predict the future? Absolutely yes! We can trust what God has promised in the future through His written Word, the Bible. Isaiah chapters 65 and 66 also give us a hint about what it will be like once the King of kings rules the earth and it is very much like Revelation 21 and 22 where Isaiah writes “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind” (Isaiah 65:17), and then “I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress” (Isaiah 65:19), and “No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed” (Isaiah 65:2) as “the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands” (Isaiah 65:22b). This will come to pass because not one word will ever fail that comes from the Word of God.