Prepare or Predict?

       I’m about to make a prediction. I’m going to tell a joke that I predict you will think is really goofy (as in wacky, silly, ridiculous, and “lame-brained!”). Here goes. Have you heard about the preacher who kept making false predictions about the second coming of Christ? The church he preached for finally had to file as a “non-prophet organization.” I’m certain my prediction came true. That joke IS goofy. I know that and you surely know that. But I told it to illustrate a point. Some predictions are fairly easy to make. For instance, I can with 100% accuracy predict the score of any NFL game or even the Super Bowl before it ever starts, and you can, too. It’s always 0 to 0 before it starts! More seriously, most things are not so easy to predict. Things like the weather or the outcome of the next Presidential election or what the stock market will do. In 1903, the President of the Michigan Savings Bank tried to dissuade Henry Ford’s lawyer (Horace Rackham) from investing in the newly formed motor company telling him, “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad.” Oops. In 1920, a “New York Times” article dismissed the possibility of space travel and declared, “A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” The paper issued a light-hearted retraction in 1969 as      Apollo 11 headed to the moon! Niels Bohr accurately stated the situation when he said, “Prediction is a very difficult art, especially if it’s about the future.” The ancient wise man warned in Proverbs 27:1 — “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.”
      Truly we can't. But there is a day (yet future as I write these words and if you are reading them!) we can predict with absolute accuracy. Sort of that is. That day is the day the apostle Paul wrote about in 1 Thessalonians 5:2. There he declared by inspiration to Christians living in the ancient Greek city of Thessalonica, “For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.” More than merely a prediction, those words are a promise from the God who cannot lie (Titus1:2). Verses could be multiplied. Christ is coming again to save those who believe and judge those who have not believed and obeyed the Gospel (see 2 Thess.1:7-10 * Acts 1:11 * John 14:1ff * 1 Thess. :10; 4:13-18, etc.). The verse cited above contains both clarity and obscurity. Clearly, Christ is coming again. We can be certain of that — “you yourselves know the day of the Lord comes.” But there is also obscurity — the coming will be “as a thief in the night.” That is, the coming is uncertain as to the exact day and time. Jesus teaches we can be certain nobody can know for certain when He will come again in Mark 13:35 where He urges His disciples, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” So much for all the prognosticators who come along fairly frequently predicting the day Jesus will come back. You can be trust this — nobody but God knows for certain when that day will be! The take home point: we should all worry about preparing for His eventual return instead of obsessing about predicting when it will be. As Jesus urges in Matthew 24:34, "Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” Are you ready?

Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN