Why are you interested in prophecy? Is your goal to decipher all the obscure biblical prophecies that await fulfillment? Be careful. God's purpose for prophecy may be different than yours.
by Darris McNeely
I once knew a person who thought he had every detail of prophecy worked out. He had a chart to show when the end-time prophecies would be fulfilled. He even thought he knew the year and day of Christ's return.
There was one problem.
The years and days came and went and the prophecies were not fulfilled. This person was a sincere student of the Bible. He feared God and obeyed His teachings. His mistake was not in having an interest in prophecy. It was in trying to predict the timing of events that are known but to God. He failed to understand how God intends prophecy to be used by His servants.
How about you? Have you done the same?
Do we know more than Jesus?
Prophecy has always held a fascination for people. We want to understand what lies in the future. Whenever a major world event occurs, people scurry to those who profess knowledge of its prophetic significance to try and understand what it all means. Every time a crisis erupts in the Middle East, we see an increase in traffic to our Web sites. People are reading and downloading our prophecy material.
And that is fine. But to what end? Is it to be wiser and smarter in prophecy than someone else? Is there the hope of saving oneself through access to special "secret knowledge" of these ancient prophecies? Whatever our motivation might be, we should be sure it aligns with the purpose and plan of God.
When we study Bible prophecy, we should keep in mind one fundamental principle. God alone knows exactly when and how it will all come together. When His disciples wanted to know the timing of the restoration of the Israelite kingdom, Jesus plainly said, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority" (Acts 1:7).
