Predicting the future is no easy matter. Gamblers don’t know for sure, until a second before, which horse is going to win the race. Hence, predicting days or years into the future is no easy matter, either.
In 1968, for instance, ecologist Paul R. Ehrlich wrote a book, The Population Bomb, in which, by the second sentence in the book, he warned that “hundreds of millions of people would starve to death” within the next twenty years. A year later he warned that “England will not exist in the years 2000” and in 1974 he told the U.S. Congress that “a billion or more people” could starve in the 1980s. When his predictions, each one, failed, even miserably, he derided his critics as “idiots” and “morons.”
No question, human attempts to predict the future don’t usually turn out so well. However, when the Bible, which is inspired by God—"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16)—predicts the future, we can be sure of what it says will happen will, indeed happen because, in the past, what it said what would happen did happen, just as it predicted.
From Daniel 2, which predicted the rise and fall of world empires, right up to our time; to the amazing prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27, which gave the exact times of Jesus death; to the predictions of Jesus about His own death and resurrection (Luke 24:7); to the spread of the gospel around the world (Matthew 24:4)—the Bible predictions of the future have been astonishingly accurate.
Hence, we can trust all its predictions, all its promises, and the greatest promise of all: the Second Coming of Jesus. “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him” (Revelation 1:7). Life can be hard; struggles galore engulf us; the world seems to be going crazy; we don’t know what to expect the next day, much less long term.
Amid it all, we have the promises of God in His Word, promises that offer us so much hope—now and in the future, promises that, unlike human predictions, we can trust and draw hope from.
