Episode 44: Can God Tell Time?

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Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope-Episode 44

Gary discusses Bible prophecy and timing. Making predictions about the future is easy if the events are hundreds or thousands of years in the future.

Prophetic commentator J. Dwight Pentecost writes that “It is to be observed that the time element holds a relatively small place in prophecy.” To the contrary, “the time element” plays a major role in prophecy. In fact, it plays the defining role. Without precision of meaning for the time texts prophetic pronouncements are meaningless. For example, what significance could be attached to Jonah’s words of judgment in forty days if Nineveh did not repent? Could the Ninevites have stretched forty days into forty years or four-hundred years by claiming that the “time element holds a relatively small place in prophecy” by quoting a version of Psalm 90:4? “For a thousand years in Thy sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night” (cf. 2 Peter 3:8). The nearness of the promised judgment led the Ninevites to repentance and an adverted judgment (Jonah 3:5).

The biblical writers are straightforward in their claim that certain prophetic events were to happen “soon” for those who first read the prophecies. The eschatological events were near for them. No other interpretation is possible if the words are taken in their “plain, primary, ordinary, usual, or normal” sense; if they are interpreted literally.

If the biblical authors had wanted to be tentative, vague, or ambiguous in the way they described the timing of future events, they would have equivocated by using words expressing probability, similar to the way Paul expresses himself in 1 Corinthians 4:19: “But I will come to you soon [taxu], if the Lord wills. . .” (also see Acts 18:21: “I will return to you again, if God wills.”) If the inspired New Testament writers wanted to tell their first readers that Jesus could come at “any moment,” they would have written “any moment.” They didn’t. They said His coming was “at hand,” that He was coming “quickly,” that the time is “near.”

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Gary discusses Bible prophecy and timing. Making predictions about the future is easy if the events are hundreds or thousands of years in the future. There is no way to verify the veracity of the “prophet,” which means there’s no way to enforce Deuteronomy 13 & 18 and the test of the prophet. The NT is very clear that the events it is speaking about are “soon” to take place.

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American Vision’s mission is to Restore America to its Biblical Foundation—from Genesis to Revelation. American Vision (AV) has been at the heart of worldview study since 1978, providing resources to exhort Christian families and individuals to live by a Biblically based worldview. Visit www.AmericanVision.org for more information, content and resources