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End-Time Prophecy Presumption

by David A. DePra

     Human beings tend to have a preoccupation with wanting to
know the future. Somehow we think that knowing the future makes
it easier to face. This is certainly so with regard to the future of
the world. Christians believe they know the world's future. In fact,
many Christians believe they understand, step by step, what is
going to take place in the next few years.
     Just ask yourself: What is going to happen leading up to the
return of Christ? You know. You've heard it so often, through so
many different sources, that you might even be able to create
a time-line on paper by memory. The Beast, false prophet, the
one world government, the mark of the beast, etc., would all be
on this time chart. And at the end of the time-line would, of
course, be the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
     You probably know this end-time scenerio so well that you
are practically incapable of considering an alternative. This HAS
to be right, doesn't it? Here it is, right in the Bible! We know this
is the way it's going to happen!
     In these waning days of the century, Christians have become
somewhat fanatical about these prophetic claims. One book
after another is appearing on the scene affirming that "at last" we
are seeing what we SAID we would see. Y2K is going to result in
a one world government. The Anti-Christ is already alive on
earth today. WE are the last generation. World events prove it.
Assuming Facts from Your Conclusion
     Have you ever, on a day-to-day, elementary level, drew a
conclusion about someone or something, and then made the
mistake of allowing your conclusion to interpret the facts for you?
We probably all have. We decide we know. And then we look
at the facts, interpreting them based on what we think we know.
This is nothing more than a definition of bias. It is a definition of
being presumptious. And when we do this, we can be totally
certain we are right, yet be completely wrong.
     People did this with the Lockness Monster. In the twenties, a
man presented a photo of what appeared to be the neck and
head of a dinosaur-like sea creature. From that time forward,
people went out looking for this creature. Some of them found
him. Some of them even swore that the monster popped up out
of the water and looked right at them. There were literally
hundreds of sightings, some pretty convincing.
     It was only recently that the man who took this picture admitted
that it was a fake. There was no monster in the lake. But even
still, today we have people who see the monster. A little ripple
on the lake, or some animal which is swimming there is often
interpreted as the monster. Some people see it there because
they believe it's there. It MUST be the monster.
     If we think we have this end-time prophecy thing figured out we
are in danger of making the same mistake. If we think we know
every event, each step of the way, which is going to lead up to
the Second Coming, we will probably tend to make any world
event fit into the scheme. It will mean what we make it mean. But
it may, in fact, mean nothing of the kind. We could be interpreting
our facts through our conclusion -- a wrong conclusion.
     There are some constants about Bible prophecy which we
need to remember. One of them is that Bible prophecy is rarely
understood until it is fulfilled. God gives a prophecy and people
believe it. But they usually have no idea what He means. It is
only when the prophecy comes to pass that people grasp what
God really meant.
     We see this all through the Bible. It begins when God promises
a Saviour to Adam and Eve, and continues through the gospels
and the epistles. Even the Bible itself tells us that the prophets
of old did not grasp the facts and reality of what they were
saying. "But," many of us would claim, "We are different. We
understand fully the Book of Revelation. And we now
understand the related prophecies in the Old and New
Testaments. It has been given to us to understand things which
no other generation has ever understood."
     In a word, this claim is simply not true. We don't understand
what we think we understand. But because we insist we do
understand, and because it sells books, we have already
established our conclusions about the end time. Now, as
world events unfold before us, we interpret these world events
according to our ill-fated conclusion. And it is going to end in
dissappointment at best, or deception at the worst. It just isn't
going to happen the way we think it is going to happen.
     There is a danger here. If we have already set our agenda,
and have already decided how things must happen, then we are
not going to have discernment if God does things another way.
We won't believe another way is even possible. And as a
result, the Coming of our Lord will be in a way which we do not
expect.
     Don't misunderstand. No one is saying that the prophecies of
the Bible are untrue. No. They are all true. All of them will be
fulfilled to the full. Rather, it is our interpretation of them that is
faulty. And we need to see the distinction.
     God has many prophecies in the Bible about many issues.
And His consistant pattern has always been, "I am telling you what
is going to happen. But you will have to see it happen before you
really grasp what I mean." May God see to it that we learn this
lesson from His Word and take heed to it. *

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