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Are We Really Living in the Distant Future?

I’ve been a science fiction fan most of my life and have enjoyed stories of future worlds which would have interplanetary and interstellar space travel as a routine experience. Many science fiction writers have a positive vision of the future where earth would enjoy the benefits of scientific discoveries while others would paint a darker picture and see earth as devastated and in some cases abandoned as the earth’s population migrated to the stars.

In either case, all of this would happen in the distant future, somewhere around 2015 perhaps? You have to realize that back in the 1940’s and 1950’s, 2015 seemed like a lifetime away; that was way off in the future. George Orwell wrote of a dystopian world that would take place in 1984, even that was way into the future when the book was first published in 1949.

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Fortunately Orwell’s vision of his “Big Brother is watching YOU” world didn’t come to pass on schedule although we may be moving in that direction. It still feels sort of strange to be living in the science fiction future world of 2015; while we have made progress, reality comes nowhere close to what the writers had anticipated.

Dystopian or Utopian?

Although the science fiction writers can speculate and imagine futures both dystopian and utopian, those of us who are living in 2015 would likely cast our vote, should we be given the option, for a utopian world. Life is not, however, decided by popular vote; there are forces at work that go far beyond our ability to even imagine. The near and long-term future of our world has already been decided and I’ll promise you that no science fiction writer has ever even come close to what reality will finally reveal. The future of this world and the universe in which it exists is so wild that no human writer could have ever dreamed it up!

That is one of the reasons it’s so easy for me to believe in the divine inspiration of Scripture, the Bible is so far removed from the way mankind thinks as to place it in an entirely different category. Not one science fiction or fantasy writer that I’ve read even comes close to the revelation of the Bible. The Bible is amazing, incredible, fantastic, and totally alien from human thinking in virtually every way; the Bible is not the product of human thinking; it is the product of divine thinking, it brings a dimension of thought that is beyond the imagination of mankind!

Again the Question, Dystopian or Utopian?

When it comes to the future there is only one dependable source of information and that is the Bible; written by the only one who knows the end from the beginning, the only one who can control all things by the counsel of His own will, the only true reality. The Triune God.

While the Bible tells us in general terms what will happen it does not tell us when; there are signs that will provide a clue that some events may be coming closer and we are told to be aware of the signs so we are not taken by surprise.

In broad, general terms, the Bible tells us spiritual conditions in the world will steadily decline until the last seven years before the earthly return of the Lord. Three and one-half years before the Lord’s return, both  spiritual and physical conditions will get dramatically worse but at the return of the Lord conditions will be restored to a perfect state for 1,000 years after which the entire universe will be replaced with a new heaven and earth.

Will this happen in 2015, well not all of it but it may get started; the next prophetic event is the Rapture of the Church and this could happen at any time. It may be that those of us who love the Lord will not even be around for 2015; perhaps we’ll be home with the Lord, only He knows and I’m very happy with that arrangement.

I don’t know what the future holds; but I do know who holds the future.

-Unknown