The greatest news forecaster in all of history walked on this earth about 2,000 years ago. What do His insightful prophecies tell us about future world conditions?
by John Ross Schroeder
This Man's disciples were not all that different from modern men today. They wanted to know what would happen to their world in the immediate future. They were anxiously concerned about oppressive national conditions in their nation of Judah.
Given 9/11, the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, thinking men and women today cannot help but conceive of the future with a certain amount of trepidation, especially if they do not understand God's plan and purpose for humankind.
Yet the original disciples were not free men in the same sense we still are today in the Western world. Their birth nation was in the grip of a galling national captivity to the most powerful empire the world has ever known. Their primary concern revolved around getting Judah out from under the Roman yoke. Understandably, they wanted to be free! When would God deliver them from the Roman occupation?
Even after Christ's resurrection to eternal life and miraculous appearance and ministry to them over a period of 40 days, their main concern was still independence from Roman domination: "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6).
A Man of unparalleled vision
However, their Leader and Lord and Master had a much larger vision of the future than just the fortunes of Rome and Judah. Prophets are usually seers of events that will happen after their own days. This particular Prophet saw far beyond first-century national conditions all the way to the time when the Kingdom of God would reign on earth—and on into eternity when a new race of totally transformed human beings would rule the universe forever.
