Conclusions

By James M. Rochford

There are many conclusions we might draw from regarding the Bible’s predictions about the end of human history:

First, some of these predictions are speculative, but the majority are not. While we are speculating on many of John’s visions in the book of Revelation, the majority of the predictions that we have considered come directly from Jesus himself and his Olivet Discourse (Mt. 24; Mk. 13; Lk. 21), where he uses clear and concise language.

Second, the Bible’s predictions were given thousands of years ago, and they are more accurate than futurist authors from just a few decades ago. For instance, consider the Back to the Future movies. That series was written by modern screenwriters to depict what the future would be like decades in advance. And yet, they still got details wrong about what our future world would be like. Compare that with biblical prophecy. These authors were writing millennia in advance, and they described our current (or near future) global scenario with chilling accuracy. The fact that the Bible says anything even remotely close to our current, modern situation is incredible.

Third, if the world really is ending, we shouldn’t invest our resources into material wealth and avarice. For instance, imagine if a few years ago a friend of yours was going to invest his life savings into Blockbuster? This wouldn’t make sense, considering the fact that this company would soon go bankrupt. Likewise, as believers, we shouldn’t invest our time, talent, and treasure in pointless materialistic endeavors. While we should invest ourselves in people (who are eternal), we shouldn’t invest ourselves in things (which are temporal).