What Does the Future Hold?

What Does the Future Hold



Is the world really coming to an end? Or is the apocalyptic portrait of life as we know it today somehow distorted? If so, what other explanations might there be for the dire shape of our planet? To put it another way: is the world getting worse or is it possible that the present situation is but the proverbial storm before the blissful calm that will soon wash over us all, in history no less?

These questions broach the subject of millenarianism, the belief that a period of utopia (one thousand years?) will one day be known in the world. At that time righteousness will replace sin; healing will overtake sickness; peace will conquer war; life will swallow up death; or, as Isaiah the prophet eloquently expressed it:

“’Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands. They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them. Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,’ says the Lord.” Isaiah 65:17, 20 25

Actually the hope for the millennium is nothing new. In biblical literature, the eager anticipation of the coming kingdom of God is a theme that dominates both Old and New Testaments, a vision that has sustained the church throughout the centuries. And today when we cut through the fog of war, depression/recession, and sickness, isn’t that really what we long for too the arrival of the millennium? This book answers that question with an emphatic yes!

Excerpted from the book, What Does The Future Hold?

© 2010 by C. Marvin Pate