CHRISTIANS & BIBLE PROPHECY

 

“OUR ENTRY INTO A NEW MILLENNIUM HAS BROUGHT ABOUT A RENEWED SPIRITUAL INTEREST IN BIBLE PROPHECY. UNFORTUNATELY, ALONG WITH IT HAVE COME MANY CONFUSING VOICES AND TEACHINGS.”

 I’m Dennis Finnan, host and speaker on the WWY Broadcast and in a moment we’ll talk about it…

…What does everyone ¾ from the committed Christian, to the spiritually curious, to the agnostic ¾ really need to know about Bible prophecy? Well on today’s broadcast I’m going to share with you some important and interesting facets about the predictions of the future that can only come from one true source, the Word of God. Yes, I realize today people from various walks and stations of life are seeking a renewed interest in the future, but it is only the Christian bible that can rightly and accurately predict the future. In a moment I want to share with you the place, power and purpose of Bible prophecy and what it can mean to you, but before I get down to basics, let’s pause one more time for another musical moment, then I’ll come again and talk about, THE CHRISTIAN & BIBLE PROPHECY, stay tuned…

 

…A short time after Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead, two angelic hosts appeared to the disciples and told them,

 

Acts 1:11 (NIV)  ""Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.""

 

Since then true Christians have been watching and waiting for the Lord’s promised return. Yet the idea of His return has through the centuries become a stumbling block to true faith. Sadly, many modern professing Christians today find it hard to believe that the resurrected and living Lord Jesus Christ will actually physically return to this earth in great power and glory. Through the centuries since His departure, some Christians have grown impatient and needed constant reminders from God and His Word that the promise of Christ’s return was and is reality. It is for this reason God gave Bible prophecy, that is clear literal and precise predictions of what is to come and for the believer in Christ what glorious things we can look forward to when they come to pass. So let’s explore a bit of bible prophecy and see what it can do for us.

 

First of let me say this. No one has ever successfully attacked the Bible on the basis of its prophetic teachings. Why? The answer is to date; every single prophecy of the past that has reached its predictive date has come true literally as described and written down in the Word of God! Yes my friend there is no prophecy that has not come true that has been fulfilled in the history of humankind. Now, admittedly there are many prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled, but with the track record of the bible’s accuracy and truthfulness, not to mention the uncanny ability to reveal the future perfectly as described, leads us to no other conclusion that what’s left to be fulfilled will also come true, literally, clearly and accurately has predicted.

 

In the Bible there are at least three main categories of predictive teaching.

(1) Messianic PROPHECIES, that is these are promises of the 1st and 2nd coming of the Messiah who has been revealed as Jesus Christ,

(2) Geopolitical prophecies. For instance the Bible predicted through the Old Testament prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel future events of accurate detail about the rise and fall of empires and nations. Specifically Daniel saw the rise and fall of Medo-Persian, Greek and Roman empires hundreds of years before such nations even arise and any possibility of their existence and even downfall could have been known. But the third category of bible prophecy is,

(3) ESCHATOLOGICAL ProphecIES – This is the area of predicting the future as to God’s plans for humankind in relationship to God’s future will. The Bible in great detail predicts the future for us, and shows us what God has planned for the days, years and eternity ahead. Now with God Himself promising that His Word will come true with a track record of 100% accuracy, everyone ought to heed what predictions still lie ahead for the human race, and particularly for you and me.

 

For starters, what has God predicted for the future of His chosen people the Jews and the Middle East? Here are a few to consider that were predictions made in the year 586 BC,

 

Ezek 37:21 (NIV)  “and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land.”

Ezek 39:27-28 (NIV)  “When I have brought them back from the nations and have gathered them from the countries of their enemies, I will show myself holy through them in the sight of many nations. 28 Then they will know that I am the LORD their God, for though I sent them into exile among the nations, I will gather them to their own land, not leaving any behind.”

 

Today no one can deny that Israel has again become a nation of people after being scattered across the globe fore centuries. Yet the existence and the nation of Israel in their land is NOT a completed fulfillment of God’s promise to re-gather them, for in the process God has also predicted that when that time of fulfillment is completed, He will again reveal His Son Jesus Christ through His 2nd and final coming to the earth. We read of this in,

Isa 66:8 (NIV)  “Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.”

Rom 11:1,5 (NIV)  “I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means…, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.” 

Rom 11:25-27 (NIV)  “I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. 27 And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.””

Zec 12:10 (NIV)  “”And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”

 

There you have it! God Himself predicts that a day is coming when He will re-gather His ancient people back into the land promised to them through their Father Abraham. But, when He is the one who does this and fulfills His promise, He will reveal Himself to all Israel, and again in great mercy offer them the love and forgiveness of their Messiah they spurned thousands of years ago. Indeed, Jesus Christ, the Messiah of the Jews and the Savior of the world whom we crucified will return in power and great glory and open the blinded eyes of the Jews who will literally see their Messiah Jesus, still with the wounds suffered on the cross at Calvary! What a sight that will be and with it every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, our Savior and Creator!

 

Ah but in the day other prophecies tell us it will not come before God deals with a rebellious and rejecting humanity. Jesus Christ is promised in prophecy to return after He first brings upon the world of sinners who have spurned and rejected Him, along with the Jews, the terrible physical punishments that appear in what is called the GREAT TRIBULATION. This is a literal period of time, seven years to be exact when God takes His hand of mercy and grace off our planet and nations and allows Satan to rise up in a vain effort to take over the world.

 

During this coming time of great suffering, environmental disaster, and planetary disorder and chaos ¾ the world will be bathed in bloodshed, international wars, and global destruction beyond nightmarish standards, while a one world ruler takes over in brutal control of everyone who is alive at that time. Not a pretty picture of the future that lies ahead, but it is reality and it WILL COME TO PASS, perhaps sooner than we all think. Now for the Christian who knows the Bible, this is not a nightmare we face because God has also predicted and promised us the following,

 

1 Thess. 4:13-17 (NIV)  “Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”

 

For everyone who becomes a Christian before God’s predictions of judgment fall, God PROMISES every believer that they will be raptured, or taken off the earth to meet their Lord and Savior and fulfill His promise to them of their joining together forever with our Lord Jesus Christ. Now with the Church gone, God is going to allow for a brief time, fallen sinful, God rejecting Christ hating men and demons to establish their own world without His grace, mercy and care. This GREAT TRIBULATION period will soon begin with every Christian gone, and will culminate in the worst bloodbath and wickedness the world has ever seen. Amazingly during this time period God is still working to save fallen lost humanity, and He begins by sending the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of exactly 144,000 Jews to see their Messiah is Jesus Christ. They get saved and are empowered to preach the gospel to the world of that day.

 

Rev 7:4 (NLT)  “And I heard how many were marked with the seal of God. There were 144,000 who were sealed from all the tribes of Israel:”

 

As a result of their evangelizing and coupled with the synergism of those evangelized, together this multitude of soul-winners goes forth during the plagues of the Tribulation and wins millions to Christ! We further read in predictive prophecy,

 

Rev 7:9 (NASB)  “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands;”

 

How amazing that God’s love not only spans the centuries of time, but the depths of man’s sin. So during the Tribulation period while God re-gathers His people into the land of Israel, multitudes of Jews are saved as well as Gentiles. But increasingly God pours out His wrath on the earth against sin, sinners, fallen angels and the Devil Himself working in and through this one world ruler known as the Anti-Christ.

However, because these days are so severe and destructive to humanity and the planet God shortens this time period to the last 3 ½ years of the Tribulation Period, and then as the Bible predicts Christ returns to the earth with all His resurrected and living saints to take back the earth from Satan and His demon forces and forever establish His righteous kingdom. Listen to a progression of this in prophecy,

 

Dan 2:44 (NIV)  “”In the time of those kings, [Tribulation Period] the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.”

 

Jude 1:14-15 (NIV)  “…“See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones 15 to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.””

 

Zec 14:4-5 (NIV)  “On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south. 5 You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.”

 

What a day that will be! The Lord Jesus Christ will return with all the holy ones, that is the saints of all ages including the entire Church of Jesus Christ His Bride, and together they will establish the eternal kingdom for all who have loved and followed the God of the Bible and His Son the Messiah and Lord Jesus Christ.

Then God will further fulfill His ancient promise to Abraham and his saved children, to bring in the Millennium, that 1000-year period of earthly bliss and the lifting of the curse. In short we read,

 

Rev 20:2 (NIV)  “He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.”

 

As Christ personally and literally takes the throne of the world and Israel and the nations,

 

Isa 2:4 (NIV)  “He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”

 

Isa 65:25 (NIV)  “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the LORD.”

 

Then we are told following the thousand years of God personal earthly rule through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ, God will usher in eternity when all sin and sinners finally are sent to their place, the Lake of Fire. Then God will make all things new and the earth will again be the Garden of Eden and all who have come to Jesus and taken Him as their Savior and Lord will live and enjoy eternity forever.

 

Rev 21:1-2 (NIV)  “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”

 

But how shall it all end for those who refuse to receive Jesus Christ, who choose to live their lives without Him and God’s authority over them? For those in every age who refuse and or neglect to turn their hearts and lives over to Christ we read of their fate at the Great White Throne Judgment…

 

Rev 20:11-15 (NIV)  “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

 

Friend this is a small summation of what lies ahead for the sinner and the saint, for the unbeliever and the believer in Christ. This is a serious matter, and the day this all begins we are told is a future date no one can know. It will come as a thief in the night, which begins with the removal of the Church of Jesus Christ. I say to you if you do not know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior today, don’t delay that day may come before any of us know it, and most of all for the vast majority in this age of grace, there will not be another chance for you to be saved from your sins. Why do I say that? Listen to this scripture warning,

 

2 Thess. 2:8-12 (NIV)  “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10 and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”

 

It appears that those who clearly hear the gospel in this age of the church’s presence, when the Rapture of the saints comes, such people will not be given another chance to be saved and will be sealed in their state of unbelief and will perish in Hell for all eternity when their death comes. Now I’ll not be dogmatic on this but it appears to be a clear warning, NOW IS THE DAY OF SALVATION, NOW IS THE ACCEPTED TIME to be saved. Dear Listener, if you don’t know Jesus, come to Him now by a prayer of faith and call upon Him to save you. He will when you come repenting of your sins and claiming Him as your Lord God and Savior!

 

Yes prophecy is given to us so we can know the future, but most of all so we can know that the God of the future our Lord Jesus Christ loves us and wants to save us from our sins. Will you come? Have you come? May God grant all who listen special grace to know and receive Him…

 

…The Bible is packed with prophecy action and truth. Take time to understand it and learn about it from those who biblically revere the Bible and rightly divide the Word of God. You can find such in what we call Bible believing churches that teach the truth of God’s Word. Who and where are they? We like to call them the fundamental/evangelical churches of the world that believe the Bible is literally to be read and accepted, who believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah, Savior and Lord of the world, who accept His death on the cross and the full and final payment for all sins, and who believe what God says about the future as described today for your listening ears. Join them, learn from them and be a part of God’s forever family that waits that glorious day of resurrection and restoration. May God grant this to everyone listening today.   

·         Radio talk #2701

·         Broadcast date: July 08, 2001

·         Speaker: Dennis L. Finnan, Commentator

·         Program: The World, the Word & You! Radio Broadcast

·         Address: P.O. Box 40133 Grand Junction, CO 81504

The World, the Word & You! Broadcast is a non-denominational ministry based on the historic fundamental evangelical interpretation of the Scriptures. A copy of our doctrinal statement is available upon request. These weekly radio commentaries are not exhaustive studies of any particular subject due to the time limit of broadcasting. Actual broadcasts can be heard in selected areas around the nation, as funding provides. Dennis Finnan has been the speaker for over 21 years, and serves as General Director.

These transcripts are available free of charge to all who desire them. Also available are actual radio cassette tapes and printed booklets of each message. A free listing of recent messages is available upon request also.

For further information, reprints, or a listing of all topics, please write to our speaker, Dennis L. Finnan(dennis@wwy.org),or visit our webpage at http://www.wwy.org/