Thematic Studies
Prophecy
And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it...
Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation.
For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:19-21)
What determines the future is what God has done in the past and what He has promised to do in the future.
So don't look horizontally at current events.
The poet James Russell Lowell once spoke of ... one far-off, divine event toward which the whole creation moves.
He meant by that the second coming of Jesus Christ to earth, the reappearance of the historic person of Jesus of Nazareth, not as he came the first time, in humiliation and weakness, as a man among men, but coming, as he himself declared, as the Son of God in power and great glory to establish a kingdom that will include the whole earth, and to rule over the nations.
From time to time it happens in human history that the events which are recorded moment by moment on television and radio, and day by day in our newspapers, are most sharply and clearly commented upon in the pages of the Bible. When this happens interest in the biblical account always revives, and we are grateful for this. But we always need to keep the following notion in mind: What determines the future is what God has done in the past and what He has promised to do in the future. So don't look horizontally at current events.
