The Future of the World
Biblical prophecies about the end times and future events
2. THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD
The claim “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (see 2 Timothy 3:16) is an extraordinary claim.
There are very few documents that have the pretense of being directly inspired by a divinity. Every extraordinary claim needs solid evidence to be believed: the prophecies in the Bible are the evidence that this book is inspired by God.
📖 2 Timothy 3:16 (KJV)
16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
1. What characteristic distinguishes God from His creatures?
📖 Isaiah 46:9-10 (KJV)
9 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,
10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
There is none like God because He is the only one who can foretell the future with precision. Men cannot do it because they do not know the future.
If we find in the Bible prophecy after prophecy that was fulfilled in history to the very letter then we can know for sure that these prophecies come from God and therefore trust in the Bible as the inspired Word of God.
2. What characteristic has Bible prophecy?
📖 2 Peter 1:19-20 (KJV)
19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
In the previous verses Peter talked about his experience on the mount of transfiguration where he has seen Jesus’ glory and heard the Father’s voice from heaven. Then he declared that the prophetic word is more certain even than what we may see or hear.
Peter compared prophecies to a light that shines in the dark and he invites us to take heed to prophecy as our eyes would focus on a light in a dark room. This world is a dark place and Bible prophecy sheds light on the future of the world.
When morning comes we no longer need lights; so we will need prophecy until the day of Jesus’ second coming. The morning star represents Jesus (see Revelation 22:16).
📖 Revelation 22:16 (KJV)
16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
3. Consider the Prophecy in Daniel 2, a prophecy about the future of the World:
📖 Daniel 2:1-19 (KJV)
1 And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him.
2 Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.
3 And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.
4 Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation.
5 The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if ye will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.
6 But if ye shew the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honour: therefore shew me the dream, and the interpretation thereof.
7 They answered again and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation of it.
8 The king answered and said, I know of certainty that ye would gain the time, because ye see the thing is gone from me.
9 But if ye will not make known unto me the dream, there is but one decree for you: for ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me, till the time be changed: therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can shew me the interpretation thereof.
10 The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king's matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean.
11 And it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.
12 For this cause the king was angry and very furious, and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.
13 And the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain.
14 Then Daniel answered with counsel and wisdom to Arioch the captain of the king's guard, which was gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon:
15 He answered and said to Arioch the king's captain, Why is the decree so hasty from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel.
16 Then Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would give him time, and that he would shew the king the interpretation.
17 Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions:
18 That they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
19 Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.
Daniel was a young Jew taken captive to Babylon by king Nebuchadnezzar about 600 years BC.
Nebuchadnezzar was troubled by a dream he could not remember well. He called the wise men of Babylon who, claiming to be in contact with the gods, were supposed to reveal secrets other men could not.
The king asked them to tell him both the dream and its interpretation. They could not answer and told him his request was so difficult that only the gods could have answered.
Nebuchadnezzar sentenced them to death. Daniel and his friends should have been killed as part of the wise men. When notified about the king’s decree, Daniel went before him to ask for time.
Daniel and his friends prayed and God gave the dream and its interpretation to Daniel in a vision.
4. What did Nebuchadnezzar dream?
📖 Daniel 2:26-36 (KJV)
26 The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof?
27 Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king;
28 But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these;
29 As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass.
30 But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.
31 Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.
32 This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
33 His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
34 Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
35 Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
36 This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.
The king dreamed an image with the head of gold, arms and chest of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron and feet of iron and clay. It was destroyed by a stone that hit it in the feet.
Even before reading the interpretation we have clues about what the dream is about. In his prayer of thanksgiving Daniel said that God “changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings” (v. 21). Then he told the king that God had revealed him “what will be in the latter days” and “what would come to pass after this” (v. 28,29).
Putting everything together, the dream is about the rise and fall of kingdoms from Babylon’s time until the end of the world.
5. The interpretation of the dream:
📖 Daniel 2:37-45 (KJV)
37 Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.
38 And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.
39 And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.
40 And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.
41 And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.
42 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
43 And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.
44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
45 Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.
Head of gold (v. 37-38):
Babylon (605 BC – 539 BC). Gold was a fitting symbol to represent Nebuchadnezzar’s empire. Babylon was a wealthy city. In the temple of the god Marduk it was found a statue of Marduk and a table that together weighed more than 20 tons of gold.
Arms and chest of silver (v. 39a):
Medo-Persia (539 BC – 331 BC). As silver is inferior to gold so Medo-Persia was inferior to Babylon in splendor. Taxes were paid in silver under the Medo-Persian rule. Though Babylon seemed unconquerable the Medo-Persians took it in one night, diverting the Euphrates and marching into the city on the river-bed. About 150 years before God mentioned King Cyrus by name and the way in which he would conquer Babylon (see Isaiah 45:1-2).
📖 Isaiah 45:1-2 (KJV)
1 Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;
2 I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:
Belly and thighs of bronze (v. 39b):
Greece (331 BC – 168 BC). Greek soldiers had bronze armors. Alexander the Great defeated the Persian in the battle of Arbela. The text emphasized the great extension of his empire (from Macedonia to the Indo river).
Legs of iron (v. 40):
Rome (168 BC – 476 AD). Rome was undoubtedly the most powerful empire of the ancient world. Daniel’s description focused on its military power. Rome controlled the great part of Europe and North Africa, Asia Minor, Palestine and Mesopotamia.
The historian Gibbon used the language of the prophecy to describe this empire: “The arms of the Republic… advanced with rapid steps to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the ocean; and the images of gold, or silver, or brass, that might serve to represent the nations or their kings, were successively broken by the iron monarchy of Rome” (“The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, Vol. 3, p. 634).
Feet of iron and clay (v. 41-43):
Divided Rome (476 AD – End of the world). This is a very specific prediction: the fourth kingdom, Rome, was not conquered by a fifth super-power but divided. So, the feet of iron and clay don’t represent a fifth kingdom but the division of the Roman Empire. The 10 toes represent 10 major barbarian tribes that conquered the Western Roman Empire and became the modern nations of Europe.
As the iron and clay do not cleave together these nations wouldn’t unite politically despite the many attempts through marriages between the royal houses of Europe and through military power (Charlemagne, Charles V, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Kaiser William II and Adolph Hitler).
The stone (v. 44-45):
The Kingdom of God. The stone was cut out without hands to indicate that this kingdom will not be set up by men, but by God Himself. The stone will destroy all the image and then fill the earth: God’s kingdom will put an end to all other kingdoms.
God’s kingdom will be set up at Jesus’ second coming, represented by the stone. There are texts in which Jesus is represented by a rock (see 1 Corinthians 10:4, Ephesians 2:20).
📖 1 Corinthians 10:4; Ephesians 2:20 (KJV)
1 Corinthians 10:4:
4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
Ephesians 2:20:
20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
6. What can we conclude from the fulfillment of the prophecy in history?
📖 Isaiah 48:3 (KJV)
3 I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass.
There are 7 predictions in Daniel 2: 6 out 7 predictions of this prophecy have already been fulfilled:
- Babylon conquered by the Medo-Persians;
- The Medo-Persians by the Greeks;
- The Greeks by the Romans;
- The Roman Empire not conquered but divided;
- The attempts of the European nations to politically unite;
- The failure of every attempt.
God linked a prophecy about Jesus’ return to other predictions verifiable in history to give us the assurance that the last prediction, Jesus’ return, will be fulfilled.
God knows the future of the world and also your future. He can see the end from the beginning and therefore knows what is best for your life. He wants to guide you day by day so that you may enter in His eternal kingdom where evil, suffering and death will be no more.
Appeal
📖 John 14:29 (KJV)
29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.
The fulfillment of this prophecy gives us confidence that the Bible is trustworthy. Do you choose to believe in the Bible as the inspired Word of God?