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Once upon a time I was interested in knowing the future, UFOs, psychic phenomena, lost continents and what not. I found Nostradamus too cryptic to be worth anything. Edgar Cayce said Atlantis would rise in 1969. I decided UFOs would never be offical until they landed and said "Take us to your leader" or until someone caught one. In those days I thought the Bible was nonsense but then there was a movie advertised on TV, The Late Great Planet Earth based on the best selling book by Hal Lindsey (Naturally he has a web site: Hal Lindsey Oracle). Not being a go out and see a movie type person I went out and bought the book and another one by Hal Lindsey that was on the shelf called There's a New World Coming. Bible prophecy is a bit cryptic too but a lot of it made sense and you could see things happening in the world that correspond to Bible predictions. I also found out that born-again Christianity actually makes sense, but that's a story for another page.

Lindsey has a chronology of events that these days I don't necessarily agree with and certain things in Bible prophecy are fairly vague so I'm not sure that many of the interpretations Lindsey has are actually right. On this page I want to give you a brief summary of some of the important events the Bible predicts, events that are pretty obvious and which ought to make you stop and think that God really was telling us some of the future in the Bible and therefore you ought to take the whole Bible seriously.

Note that knowing the future is also something you can reasonably expect to be possible given what we are learning from modern Physics. One interpretation of modern Physics is called super-determinism where the whole future of the physical world has already been set out, cast in stone so to speak and we are simply moving through space and time to see what happens. With the future out there it is easy then for someone with the right perspective (like God) to know and actually tell us about the future. And for that matter, super-determinism tends to imply that the whole of space-time from the Big Bang out to infinity had to be made in advance and presumably God did it. But that's a story for another page.

The first thing you have to look at from someone who claims to be able to tell you the future is their track record, have they predicted anything really unusual and then did it actually happen? Have they predicted something would happen and then it didn't? I've never seen a psychic get anything right, at least nothing unusual and well ahead of time. After something happens you get claims from a psychic they got it right but these claims are hard to verify. Plenty of things they said would happen don't, like Edgar Cayce predicting the rising of the lost continent of Atlantis. And psychics always had their excuses when they went wrong. Oh, and I don't think the predictions you find in supermarket tabloids are even meant to be taken seriously, I think they concoct those stories just to be entertaining.

Another thing is that you can't trust Christians to make accurate predictions of the future either. Many Christians think God is telling them this or that but I have never seen one of them make a dramatic prediction well in advance and then the event actually happened. Maybe there are such cases but I just haven't seen them. The classic example of failure comes from Pat Robertson, host of the 700 Club and founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network. It was during the term of President Bush #41 that Pat was pretty sure that God was telling him that the president would be re-elected, the economy would fall apart and the world situation would fall apart. And instead of that, Clinton was elected, the economy took off and the world was quiet. If it was me I would have quit the predictions but in 2001 about a week before 9/11 Pat said that THE FOLLOWING YEAR the Arab terrorists would start terrorist attacks in America because of America's support for Israel. About A WEEK later 9/11 happened and in the following year there were no notable terrorist attacks. (One conclusion you can draw is that if Pat predicts it then it won't happen. :-)) I do think Pat should be taken seriously about certain things, clearly God has been with him in the building of the Christian Broadcasting Network, you don't manage to do that unless God is leading you. I think any opinion he has on anything besides the future ought to be considered seriously however as I've said on other pages you should still not believe the first preacher to come along. I also think the "word of knowledge" events are real too, these typically affect individuals and they are done on the spur of the moment whereas Pat's predictions of the future are based on prayer and trying to hear what God is saying. I think maybe it is the "trying" that is Pat's problem, God tells us what we need to know when we need to know it but TRYING to get information we don't need just won't work.

These days there is excitement about hidden messages in the Bible (the Bible Code) but I think this is fairly iffy. More someday.

One of the first things Hal Lindsey covers in The Late Great Planet Earth is the fact that the prophets in the Bible have a good track record. They predicted events that happened within their lifetimes as well as events for the distant future and the short-term events actually happened. Also if a prophet went so far as to say that God says X will happen and X does not happen then 1) that prophet was to be stoned to death and 2) all his other predictions were ignored. (Pat Robertson has been careful to never go so far as to say he is certain God said something and that's that, he hedges a little by saying something like "If I'm reading him right I think God is saying ...".). I'm going to skip the record of the Old Testament prophets, if you're interested read a source like The Late Great Planet Earth. Instead I'm going to move on to the obvious big events predicted for the future.

The general outline of the future you find from Bible prophecy analysts goes about like this:

• God returns the Jews to Israel.
• Christians are taken out of the world in the Rapture.
• The Anti-Christ takes over the world for seven years and wars and natural disasters happen.
• The world unites against Israel and invades (Armageddon).
• Jesus returns to save Israel at the last minute.
• There is 1000 years of peace (The Millenium) as Jesus rules the world from Jerusalem.

The Russian invasion of Israel is described in Ezekiel 38 and 39. This is from the sixth century BC. It is worth reading all of Ezekiel 38 and 39 but here I will mention some important points. Here is Ezekiel 38:1-7 (from The Book translation) we have a list of the invaders:

Here is another message to me from the Lord: "Son of dust, face northward toward the land of Magog, and prophesy against Gog, king of Meshech and Tubal. Tell him that the Lord God says: I am against you, Gog. I will put hooks into your jaws and pull you to your doom. I will mobilize your troops and armored cavalry, and make you a might host, all fully armed. Peras, Cush and Put shall join you too with all their weaponry, and so shall Gomer and all his hordes and the armies of Togarmah from the distant north, as well as many others. Be prepared! Stay movilized. You are their leader, Gog".

"Meshech" is supposed to have been turned into Moscow and you can find the city of Tubal (or Tobolsk) on the Tubal river east of the Urals. Before the fall of Communism in Russia this prophecy looked absolutely wonderful because Russia was busy supplying the Arabs with weaponry. At the moment Russia is fairly weak however but still capable of leading an invasion. Perhaps in a few years they will get stronger. Then we have Peras (Persia), Cush (Ethiopia), Put (Libya), Togarmah (apparently Turkey or an area near Turkey) and Gomer (apparently Germany). This is fairly good for 2600 years ago since today the Islamic nations are hell-bent on destroying Israel. Plus pretty much the rest of the world except for the United States is against Israel because of the Palestinian issue.

In Ezekiel 38:8-11 (from The Book translation) we have God speaking to the invaders:

"A long time from now you will be called to action. In distant years you will swoop down onto the land of Israel, that will be lying in peace after the return of its people from many lands. You and your allies -- a vast and awesome army -- will roll down upon them like a storm and cover the land like a cloud. For at that time an evil thought will have come to your mind. You will have said, 'Israel is an unprotected land of unwalled villages! I will march against her and destroy these people living in such confidence! I will go to those once-desolate cities that are now filled with people again -- those who have returned from all the nations -- and I will capture vast amounts of loot and many slaves. For the people are rich with cattle now, and the whole earth revolves around them!'"

Here you can note that the Jews have been returned to Israel. Also notice the reference to "unwalled villages". In the days of Ezekiel villages had walls to keep out invaders but these days walls are just not effective against modern weapons. God also goes on to say why He did this in Ezekiel 38:16:

... This will happen in the distant future -- in the latter years of history. I will bring you against my land, and my holiness will be vindicated in your terrible destruction before their eyes so that all nations will know that I am God.

"And from that time onward, the people of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God. And the nations will know why Israel was sent away to exile -- it was punishment for their sin, for they acted in treachery against their God. Therefore I turned my face away from them and let their enemies destroy them. I turned my face away and punished them in proportion to the vileness of their sins.

Indeed there are several more references in Ezekiel 38 and 39 stating why God staged it: to let everyone know that the God of the Bible is indeed in control and that he punishes sin.

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