“Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah and all the other nations from the time I began speaking to you in the reign of Josiah till now. Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about every disaster I plan to inflict on them, each of them will turn from his wicked way; then I will forgive their wickedness and their sin.”
Jeremiah 36:2-3
We are a week into 2015. I’ve been looking forward to this year because the Back to the Future movies set the “future” in this year. I’m a little disappointed that we don’t have flying cars, self-drying clothes, and many other of their futuristic ideas. However, I’m fine not having slews of fax machines for messaging. I’ll stick with my smartphone, which was nowhere to be seen in their 2015.
The future is hard to predict. However, one of the tasks of God’s prophets was to tell people what was going to happen. This is not the only or even the primary role of a prophet. A prophet is simply someone who speaks a word from God. More often it is forth-telling than foretelling. They exposed people to what was currently happening in the world. Often that included something like “If you keep doing these bad things, bad things will happen.”
As we look to the future, we remember the promise of Jesus’ return. That is what the future holds, but there isn’t a date known for the momentous event.