End Times

With all the lawlessness, chaos, rioting, looting, turmoil, immorality, murders, more frequent earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, and nuclear build-ups going on in the world today, it all prompts one to sense the nearness of the end-times as being absolutely imminent. The prophets of the Bible have much to reveal relating to this matter as they have accurately presented God’s perfection in these foretellings.

Prophet

The word prophet can mean either one of two things:

1) A prophet was a person who was given the gift by God to foretell God’s future events.
2) A prophet is a person who brings forth (preaches) God’s truth from His Words in the Bible.

In both the Old and New Testament Scriptures, prophets were called by God to see or hear His upcoming plan for things to take place, and to declare God’s truths. The prophecies of the future have all been included in the Bible. Therefore, today’s prophets are called by God to only bring forth God’s Word. True prophets have been described as “the mouthpieces of the true God”

True Prophet

James Strong describes:
“a true prophet to be a person who speaks God’s message to the people, under the influence [leading or inspiration] of the divine Spirit.” Hence, in general ‘the prophet’ was one upon whom the Spirit of God rested.  [The New Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, © 2001 by Thomas Nelson Publishers. Hebrew and Aramaic Dictionary Section: p178 and Greek Dictionary of the New Testament Section: p176 #5030]

The words prophecy and prophesy both have to do with telling what God has inspired, but prophecy is a noun, and prophesy is a verb.

Prophecy

The word prophecy, with the last two letters cy, is pronounced like see at the end—prof-e-see. It is a noun which means a foretelling. Noah Webster explains:
“It [a prophecy] is a prediction, or a declaration of something to come. As God only knows future events with certainy, no being but God or some person informed by Him, can utter a real prophecy.”
[American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster 1828, Permission to reprint granted by G. & C, Merriam Company, Copyright 1967 & 1995 (Renewal) by Rosalie J. Slater.]

Quoting Strong’s:

“In general, ‘the prophet’ was one upon whom the Spirit of God rested, Numbers 11:17-29,
one, to whom and through whom God speaks, Numbers 12:2; Amos 3:7, 8.”
[The New Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, © 2001 by Thomas Nelson Publishers, Greek Dictionary Section p 216, #4396.]

God inspired Moses to write what He had said to him:

And he [God] said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. (Numbers 12:6 KJV)

Why Past Tense?

The reason the prophecies were written in past tense was because God told the prophets who foretold the future events what to write by giving them a vision or a dream. The prophets were writing what they had seen in a vision or a dream.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation [origin]. For the prophecy came not in old [any] time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. (2 Peter 1:20-21 KJV)

Noah Webster explains:
“The prophecies recorded in Scriptures, as those who uttered the prophecies could not have foreknown the events predicted without supernatural instruction.” [American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster 1828, Permission to reprint granted by G. & C, Merriam Company, Copyright 1967 & 1995 (Renewal) by Rosalie J. Slater.]

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We will continue with this topic in our next blog post.

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Check out these blog posts:

Prophecy Timeline before the Cross

Prophecy Timeline after the Cross

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