Bible Prophecy 101預覽

Is Bible Prophecy Relevant for Us Today?

Fulfilled Bible prophecy is one of the most compelling evidences that the Bible is from God. Major historical events were told centuries, and in some cases, thousands of years in advance. These prophecies were fulfilled to the exact detail. No other document in the world can make this claim. The only logical explanation is that the book is supernatural in nature.

I can’t show God to you, but I can show you His fingerprints all over fulfilled prophecy. God never expected us to check our brains at the door as we consider the claims of Scripture. For those sincerely seeking patterns of evidence, I believe these patterns will lead you to the God of the Bible.

Fulfilled Bible prophecy demonstrates God’s faithfulness. He is a promise-keeper. One expert states, “It is a well-known fact among prophecy scholars that there were more than one thousand prophecies contained within the Bible at the time that it was written, and over five hundred of these have been fulfilled. The remainder are end-time prophecies whose time has not yet come.”*

Experts report that 27-33% of the Bible is prophecy. More than 10,000 of the 31,102 verses in the Bible contain prophecy, and half of those have already been fulfilled. That is no small down payment. God has put his money where His mouth is and demonstrated His promise-keeping faithfulness to generations of believers.

End-time prophecies predict several breathtaking events, not the least of which is the rapture, in which all true believers in Christ will be taken to be with the Lord in an instant prior to a terrible time on Earth known as the tribulation. If not for the avalanche of already-fulfilled prophecies, it would be extremely difficult to believe some of the amazing claims of end-time prophecies.

Bible prophecy motivates us to share the good news about God’s free gift of salvation with our friends and loved ones. Whether we’ll see the Lord return in our day or not, we are closer to those events than any other generation in history. Furthermore, we are witnessing a convergence of end-time conditions which, at the very least, demonstrate that the world is being readied for end-time prophecies to be fulfilled. As one prophecy expert often says, “Things are not falling apart, they are falling into place!”

Even if the Lord does not return in our lifetime, we all need to be ready to meet Him at death. We are not guaranteed tomorrow. In Christ, we have the answer to everything, and we need to share that!

* Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, Are We Living in the End Times? (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2011), p.304.