For the last Sundays of this year, our theme will be "future things." They are often called "last things" or more technically, eschatology, the study of last things. We stand between two important events---the first and second coming of Jesus. Looking back, we have before us both covenants established and written, sealed by blood. Looking ahead, we have significant biblical information about what lies yet in the future. We live in history for a brief moment to consider all that has gone before and what shall be in the future. What we decide about life and eternity is extraordinarily important. We must be serious and think carefully. Our own destinies are at stake.

"For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come." (Heb. 13:14.)

Here are some milestones that have already been reached. Many pondered the meaning of the promises of God while time seemed to linger. One of the longest promises from the time it was made until fulfilled is the death of Jesus for lost man. Several times the Bible says that Jesus and man’s redemption was planned before the creation of the world. (John 17:5, Eph. 1:4, Rev. 13:8.) Now this has been fulfilled. This was the central target of biblical history. This is the center of man’s history. We date time by this event. The closing event of history on earth will be the second coming of Jesus.

1) Abraham waited for 25 years after God promised him a son, before Isaac was born. (Gen. 12:4, Gen. 16:3, 16; Gen. 21:5.) Abraham was 75 years old when he left the Ur of the Caldees. He was 86 when Ishmael was born; and 100 when Isaac was born.

2) Abraham wanted to know how he would know that he would receive the land of Canaan. God promised it and made a covenant with Abraham. Yet Abraham’s seed would not receive the land until four generations had passed. (Gen. 15:16.) Then God would bring them out of the land of Egypt. Many lived and died in faith waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. (Heb. 11:13.)

3) David (approx. 1000 BC) was promised that through his seed one would come and sit on his throne. This refers to the coming of Jesus.

4) Judah was carried into captivity in Babylon for 70 years. Jeremiah foretold that they would return to Jerusalem and even that Cyrus the King would permit the Jews to return. (Jer. 25:11-12, Ezra 1:1-4.)

5) Mary and Elizabeth were promised sons. They had to wait most of a year until their sons were born. John the Baptist was born first, then Jesus. (Luke 1.)

6) Imagine how long the wait until Jesus was raised on the first day of the week. The disciples were depressed and saddened. How long that Sabbath day must have seemed! But it was just a few hours beyond one full day and night.

What we feel today as Christians waiting for future events to be fulfilled is not different from those above. We need to consider this point well. We need to live and die in faith as they did if the events are not fulfilled during our lives. Some religious people seem to think that these future events promised by God must happen during their lives. Some try to help move these events along! Remember Sarah’s effort to help God out?

The apostle Peter dealt with this matter of time. He explained, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promises, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9.) Some were mocking saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." (3:4.)

1. The eternal view. In the twentieth century, there was a great revolution in concepts of time. It swept through the world like a great tidal wave. A new specialized vocabulary arose to express the various objective and subjective aspects in which the time relationship was extended: relativity, space time, mathematical time, cosmic time, mental time, duration, stream of consciousness, the river of time, time process, and time sense, to mention only a few.

Man began to believe that time and space were eternal. This view of time is linear and continuous. Scientists did not believe that the world would end after a few thousand years of existence.

2. The cyclical view. This view was promoted among the Greeks, Pythagoreans, Stoics, and Platonists. In some of the early systems, the cosmic cycle was elaborated in various combinations of years. The Indian cycle lasted 12,000 years in a sequence of creation-destruction-creation. Each of the years was a divine year, lasting 360 of our regular years, so that a single cosmic cycle spanned 4,320,000 years. A thousand of these cycles constituted a Kalpa; one Kalpa was a day in the life of Brahma, another Kalpa, a night in his life, and a hundred, the span in his life.

The Buddhists had a similar cosmic cycle. Other systems of cosmic cycles appeared among the Caldean, Babylonian, Iranian peoples in the pre-Christian period. A system that became popular in Greece and Rome was the Great Year. The Great Year was 36,000 years long.

It is easy to see how reincarnation fits into this picture. Man lives again and again as the cycles of life continue. There are some things in life that are cyclical. The days of the week, the seasons of the year, the birth and death of generations, etc. Solomon wrote about some of these:

"One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever. The sun also ariseth and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south and turneth about unto the north. It whirleth about continually and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full. Unto to the place from whence the rives come, thither they return again." (Eccl. 1:4-7.)

But the real question is whether man is like that. Do we life in cycles of life? Do we live other lives on earth? Is time linear or cyclical?

3. Time proceeds toward eternity. The Christian view of worldly time rejected the cyclical and eternal view of time. The events between creation and the last Judgment were unique and would never be repeated. The direction of this finite time course was linear and irreversible. Time is related to salvation history. God has a goal in mind. Time was measured on earth for a finite period and would give way to eternity in the end. There is such a thing as the "end of time" as we know it on earth.

There is not an endless cycle of events, but new things to come: a new life, a new world, a new body. Life is not vain and meaningless. It has purpose and direction.

Even before man received definite information about the future from prophets and apostles of God, man has wondered and even imagined what awaits us in the future. Rather detailed descriptions of the underworld and heaven have been made. Many discussed the possibility of the resurrection of the dead; some accepted the idea while others rejected it. Later Jesus would establish the reality of the resurrection from the dead to live again.

Job asked, "If a man dies, shall he live again?" (Job 14:14.) From the day that Adam buried Abel, man has been asking, Will the body come forth from the grave? The idea of immortality has descended the streams of human generations from the first pair in Paradise to our present day. It is seen in the language, literature, history, philosophy and poetry of all people.

The Babylonians believed that there was life beyond the grave. But concerning the duration of this life, they were uncertain. Meradoch, a sun god, was the judge of men, and by his favor the souls of the just were received into a heavenly abode, where they enjoyed life and happiness. The wicked descended at death into an infernal region where there was no enjoyment and suffered different degrees of punishment according to their deeds.

The Egyptian view was more complete and elaborate than the Babylonian view. The Egyptians believed that the soul was quite distinct from the body, and that, immediately after death the soul descended into the lower world and was brought before forty-two judges who were known as the lords of truth or the judges of the dead. They believed that a pair of scales would be brought forth by which their deeds of life were weighed. A place of bless awaited the just; if found wicked various forms of punishment would occur until the person was purged of sins and made ready to live with God.

The early Hebrews did not have one word revealed to them about the resurrection of the dead in the Law. Later the prophets would speak sparingly on the subject. The fuller revelation would await the coming of Christ. (We Persuade Men, V. P. Black, 89-92.)

Uninspired people have claimed to have some special ability to see into the future. Uninformed and misguided people often pay others to predict their future life on earth.

1) Astrologers, star gazers and monthly prognosticators are all named in Isaiah 47:13. "Let now the astrologers, the star gazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee." They believe that they can predict future events by studying the stars in the heavens. The practice may have begun in ancient Babylon where it was held in high esteem.

In India, astrology always has had a strangle hold upon all of life. The astrologer is perhaps the most important functionary in the social and religious life of the people. No marriage can be performed unless the horoscope of the bride and groom harmonize. Astrology is the right hand of Hinduism and it has supreme authority in the direction of most of its affairs.

Astrologers make extraordinary claims about predicting future events in one’s life. They range from whether one’s travels will be safe, to good or bad fortune in life, even the manner of one’s death. (The Chaos of Cults, Jan Karel Van Baalen, 18-30.)

Who were the wise men, the Magi, from the east who came to worship Jesus when He was born? (Matt. 2:1-9.) Were they astrologers or star gazers? We are not told.

2) Soothsayers and diviners tried to tell future events by interpreting dreams. (Joshua 13:22, Num. 22:7.)

3) Mediums were believed to be people in whom spirits of departed people dwelt. Saul asked the woman of Endor to contact the prophet Samuel. (1 Sam. 28:3-25.) Seeking after mediums was against the Law of Moses and such persons claiming such powers was put to death. (Lev. 19:31.) Isaiah wrote, "And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto wizards that peep and that mutter; should not a people seek unto their God? For the living to the dead? To the Law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." (Isa. 8:19-20.)

A man was interviewed recently on a TV news show who claimed to be able to communicate with the dead. The assumption is that the dead knows future events for us on earth. If we could just talk with them, we could find out what is ahead for us. As Isaiah said, such is false. The only source of future information is God.

Even though all these practices are wrong and superstitious, yet they all illustrate that man desires to know his future. He often goes to the wrong sources, but man seeks to know what is ahead. Many things are not revealed to us, but the important things are. We can know and have control over the things that are really important to us. Material, physical, earthly things are unpredictable, but our relationship with God is our choice.

Isaiah said it well. How can the dead speak to the living? How can they tell us future events? Man should seek such information from God. The Law and the prophets reveal such information. However, seeking information from the dead did show that they believed that the dead were alive in the spirit.

False prophets were condemned by the Law of Moses. God spoke through the prophets, but no man should presume to speak for God. "But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him." (Deut. 18:20-22.)

Neither the dead nor the false prophet can reveal future information to the living. Neither can an uninspired man know the things of God. Listen to Paul:

"But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." (1 Cor. 2:10-16.)

The "natural man" is presented in contrast to the "spiritual man." In the context, the two represent the uninspired and the inspired man, respectively. They are not the non-Christian (natural) and the Christian (spiritual). Paul is talking about how man comes to know the things of God. Man receives such from the Spirit of God. The inspired man can reveal to us the things of God because he has been given God’s Spirit. The point is that only by revelation can man know God’s will and what He has planned for us.