FORETELL

Foretelling the Future?

"Johnny, if you do that, this is going to happen!"

And when Johnny actually does that, the prediction actually does come true, and such and such does actually happen to Johnny.

But it was not an iron-clad threat or promise. What if there were intervening or interrupting circumstances that precluded the dire warning predicted?

Can foretelling ever be absolutely certain? Presumably-predictive superstitions abound based upon rumor, heresay, tea leaves, crystal balls, palm reading, astrology, variable factors, etc. It is feared by many that: "Don't say that, or you will call it upon yourself!" Some soothsaying is self-fulfilling, and those adhering to such do make what is predicted in fact occur to themselves, others, or involving physical happenings.....by intrusive human imposition.

So, is ANYTHING absolutely sure?

Ge 8:22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."
Ec 1:4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains for ever.
2Pe 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.
Jer 31:35 Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar--the LORD of hosts is his name:
Isa 38:8 Behold, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz turn back ten steps." So the sun turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had declined.
Isa 13:10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its light.

[The phrase: "under the sun" is used 31 times with the short book of Ecclesiastes. Why?]

Ge 8:21 And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.
Ge 9:11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."
Ge 9:15 I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. [NOTE: It's a sure bet.]

Scripture alludes to both evil contrasted with good, fallacious contrasted with bonafide: predictions.

"Foreknowledge" is more or less synonymous with predictive ability:

Ac 2:23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

Ro 8:29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren.

Ro 11:2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?

And when such foreknowledge is declared in spoken or written form, it is then known as: "prophecy:"

Ge 24:7 The LORD, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me and swore to me, 'To your descendants I will give this land,' he will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there.

Ge 37:10 But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him, and said to him, "What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?"

Ge 49:8 Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father's sons shall bow down before you.

Ex 17:6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, that the people may drink." And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.

Ex 23:27 I will send my terror before you, and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.
Ex 23:28 And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out Hivite, Canaanite, and Hittite from before you.

Ex 23:30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you are increased and possess the land.

Ex 23:31 And I will set your bounds from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.

Ex 33:2 And I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

De 7:22 The LORD your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you may not make an end of them at once, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you.

Sometimes the Lord's prophecy applies to not merely a nation or group of people over a period of nonspecified time, but instead for or against one individual person with relatively specific time-of-occurrence parameters:

Ge 17:19 God said, "No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
Ge 18:10 The LORD said, "I will surely return to you in the spring, and Sarah your wife shall have a son." And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him.
Ge 18:11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.
Ge 18:12 So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?"
Ge 18:13 The LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, and say, 'Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?'
Ge 18:14 Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, in the spring, and Sarah shall have a son."

Ex 9:18 Behold, tomorrow about this time I will cause very heavy hail to fall, such as never has been in Egypt from the day it was founded until now.

1Sa 9:16 "Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines; for I have seen the affliction of my people, because their cry has come to me."

2Ki 7:1 But Elisha said, "Hear the word of the LORD: thus says the LORD, Tomorrow about this time a measure of fine meal shall be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria."

Isa 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Mt 1:23 "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (which means, God with us). [NOTE: Who knows where Matthew's "virgin" insight came from? It certainly was not from Isaiah 7:14, according to correctly-translated Hebrew word and lettering!]

Ro 9:9 For this is what the promise said, "About this time I will return and Sarah shall have a son."

Much of the Old-Testament book of Daniel and the New-Testament books of Second Thessalonians and especially Revelation are loaded with predictive prophecies. Apparently, such Divinely-inspired prophecies have not, are not, and cannot be altered by human interference or manipulation. They will definitely happen - no matter what. Compare that with alterable premonitions which are not from God:

De 18:14 For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you so to do.

Isa 2:6 For thou hast rejected thy people, the house of Jacob, because they are full of diviners from the east and of soothsayers like the Philistines, and they strike hands with foreigners.

Jer 27:9 So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your dreamers, your soothsayers, or your sorcerers, who are saying to you, 'You shall not serve the king of Babylon.'

Jer 28:9 As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the LORD has truly sent the prophet."

Mic 5:12 and I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you shall have no more soothsayers;

Prediction might involve geographical location:

Lu 21:6 "As for these things which you see, the days will come when there shall not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down."

Where exactly (pertaining to precise longitude and latitude, plus depth) is the fabulous buried treasure of gold coins? If one gets rich, will one then be happy? What will he or she then buy: a multi-million-dollar mansion (requiring finances-depleting repeated-expense pricey/spendy and worrisome property taxes, upkeep, security, utilities, etc.); a personal jet (requiring finances-depleting repeated-expense pricey/spendy and worrisome pilot training, fuel costs, hanger storage, security, licensing, insurance, etc.); a submarine (requiring finances-depleting repeated-expense pricey/spendy and worrisome licensing and permits, operating restrictions, a navigation crew, fuel costs, repair, security, etc.)?

Or, prediction might involve mortality timing.

Does anyone want to know the day and hour of their death? How they will die? Can such be changed, postponed, or happen before the predicted time? The more detailed the prediction, the more chances for errors, but the more the potential for believability.

Job 19:25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth;
26 and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God,
27 whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

Lu 14:14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just."
Joh 5:29 and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.

Joh 11:24 Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

Ac 2:31 he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. [NOTE: the phrase "abondoned to Hades" means that after Christ was crucified to death, He did not "decend into Hell, nor Hades" - contrary to what some cultic-catholic creeds state. The Lord never spent any purgatorial time in Hades being tortured with flames while His body rotted away down in some cave, because He was sinless, and whatever sins of others were imputed to Him were not His fault nor His own doing. Admittedly, the Son of God did "descend into the lower parts of the earth" as interpreted by going down into Sheol, which Sheol was merely the abode of the dead and neither tormenting Hades nor blissful Paradise].

Ac 17:32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, "We will hear you again about this."

Ac 23:8 For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. [NOTE: That is why the Sadduccees were sad, you see].

Re 20:6 Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and they shall reign with him a thousand years. [NOTE: Thus the existence of TWO raptures related to TWO resurrections - one post-tribulational before the Millennium, and one after the Millennium as described in Revelation 20:7-10.]

Re 20:7 And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed from his prison
8 and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth, that is, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea.
9 And they marched up over the broad earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city; but fire came down from heaven and consumed them,
10 and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it; from his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them.
12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done.
13 And the sea gave up the dead in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead in them, and all were judged by what they had done.
14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire;
15 and if any one's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

If it was possible to go back in a time machine, could one change history? Changing the most minute thing in the past would interdependently change everything else from there on. There have been movies based upon such fantasy which fall far short of giving entire logical scenarios. Indeed, if one could go back to warn of a disasterous event later recorded in history for the purpose of trying to prevent the catastrophe, that person himself or herself would be considered the threat and instigator of such tragedy potentially happening, and not only be disbelieved but also probably (though not always) shackled in various ways:

2Ki 8:12 And Hazael said, "Why does my lord weep?" He answered, "Because I know the evil that you [a super abortionist] will do to the people of Israel; you will set on fire their fortresses, and you will slay their young men with the sword, and dash in pieces their little ones, and rip up their women with child."

Jer 28:1 In that same year, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fifth month of the fourth year, Hananiah the son of Azzur, the prophet from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the LORD, in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying,
Jer 28:5 Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to Hananiah the prophet in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the LORD;
Jer 28:10 Then the prophet Hananiah took the yoke-bars from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet, and broke them.
Jer 28:11 And Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people, saying, "Thus says the LORD: Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all the nations within two years." But Jeremiah the prophet went his way.
Jer 28:12 Sometime after the prophet Hananiah had broken the yoke-bars from off the neck of Jeremiah the prophet, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:
Jer 28:13 "Go, tell Hananiah, 'Thus says the LORD: You have broken wooden bars, but I will make in their place bars of iron.
Jer 28:15 And Jeremiah the prophet said to the prophet Hananiah, "Listen, Hananiah, the LORD has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie.
Jer 28:17 In that same year, in the seventh month, the prophet Hananiah died.

Ac 5:9 But Peter said to her, "How is it that you have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Hark, the feet of those that have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out."

If the LORD designated a day for one to die, one would die - no matter where one was, what one was doing, or however one would try to prevent it from happening. But:

Mt 24:36 "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
Mr 13:32 "But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Ec 3:21 Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down to the earth?

Ec 6:12 For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun?

Ec 10:14 A fool multiplies words, though no man knows what is to be, and who can tell him what will be after him?

Why is it that when a person starts to get a cold, they sneeze and sneeze and their brain feels like it's been kicked by a mule or hit by a Mack truck.....knocked for a loop? Someone ought to do some serious research into that, and publish their findings in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Along those lines, that brings to mind Christ's prophecy about Saint Peter:

Joh 21:18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go."

Humans-fearing (rather than God-fearing) cultic catholics have their superstitious take on that in concocting and perpetuating their fairy-tale myth that Christ predicted Peter would be "crucified upside-down." NO where in the Bible does it even remotely infer that! Personally, I prefer the possibility that impetuous exaggerator Peter got senile and the equivalent of eventually-fatal Alzheimer's Disease. That would be understandable for that one who vehemently professed loyalty to Christ, then vehemently denied knowing of Him.