Can You Trust God’s Promises?

JEHOVAH GOD, our Creator, has always been true to his word. “I have even spoken it,” he said. “I shall also do it.” (Isaiah 46:11) After leading the Israelites into the Promised Land, God’s servant Joshua wrote: “Not a promise failed out of all the good promise that Jehovah had made to the house of Israel; it all came true.”​—Joshua 21:45; 23:14.

From Joshua’s day until the coming of the Messiah, hundreds of prophecies inspired by God were fulfilled. An example is when the rebuilder of Jericho suffered a penalty foretold centuries in advance. (Joshua 6:26; 1 Kings 16:34) Yet another is the promise, seemingly impossible to fulfill, that the starving inhabitants of Samaria would receive plenty of food to eat on the day following the prediction. In 2 Kings chapter 7, you can read how God fulfilled that promise.

Rise and Fall of World Powers

God inspired Bible writers to record details about the rise and fall of world powers. For example, God used his prophet Isaiah to foretell the overthrow of mighty Babylon nearly 200 years before it happened. In fact, the Medes, who became aligned with the Persians, were named as the conquerors. (Isaiah 13:17-19) Yet more remarkable, God’s prophet named the Persian king Cyrus as the one who would take the lead in the conquest, even though Cyrus had not even been born when the prophecy was recorded! (Isaiah 45:1) But there is more.

The prophet Isaiah also foretold how the conquest of Babylon would be accomplished. He wrote that the city’s protecting waters, the river Euphrates, ‘must be dried up’ and that “the gates [of Babylon] will not be shut.” (Isaiah 44:27–45:1) These specific details were fulfilled, as the historian Herodotus reported.

While Babylon was still supreme, God also used his prophet Daniel to tell about the world powers that would follow her. Daniel had a vision of a symbolic two-​horned ram that succeeded in conquering all other “wild beasts.” Leaving no question as to whom the two-​horned ram represented, Daniel wrote that it “stands for the kings of Media and Persia.” (Daniel 8:1-4, 20) Indeed, just as foretold, Medo-​Persia became the next world power when it conquered Babylon in 539 B.C.E.

In this vision from God, Daniel next saw “a male of the goats [with] a conspicuous horn between its eyes.” Daniel continued his description: ‘I saw it coming into close touch with the ram, and it struck down the ram and broke its two horns, and the ram proved to have no deliverer. And the male of the goats put on great airs; but as soon as it became mighty, the great horn was broken, and there came up four instead of it.’​—Daniel 8:5-8.

God’s Word does not leave any question as to what all of this means. Note the explanation: “The hairy he-​goat stands for the king of Greece; and as for the great horn that was between its eyes, it stands for the first king. And that one having been broken, so that there were four that finally stood up instead of it, there are four kingdoms from his nation that will stand up, but not with his power.”​—Daniel 8:21, 22.

History shows that this “king of Greece” was Alexander the Great. After his death in 323 B.C.E., his empire was eventually split up among four of his generals​—Seleucus I Nicator, Cassander, Ptolemy I, and Lysimachus. Just as the Bible had foretold, “there were four that finally stood up instead.” As also foretold, none of these ever had the power that Alexander had. Indeed, so remarkable have been the fulfillments that such Bible prophecies have been called “history written in advance.”

The Messiah Promised

God not only promised a Messiah to deliver humans from the effects of sin and death but also provided scores of prophecies to identify that Promised One. Consider only a few of these, prophecies that Jesus could not have arranged to fulfill.

It was foretold hundreds of years in advance that the Promised One would be born in Bethlehem and that he would be born of a virgin. (Compare Micah 5:2 and Matthew 2:3-9; Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:22, 23.) It was prophesied that he would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. (Zechariah 11:12, 13; Matthew 27:3-5) It was also foretold that not a bone of his body would be broken and that lots would be cast for his garments.​—Compare Psalm 34:20 and John 19:36, Psalm 22:18 and Matthew 27:35.

Especially significant is the fact that the Bible foretold when the Messiah would come. God’s Word prophesied: “From the going forth of the word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Leader, there will be seven weeks, also sixty two weeks.” (Daniel 9:25) According to the Bible, the word to restore and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem was given in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes’ reign, which secular history indicates was in the year 455 B.C.E. (Nehemiah 2:1-8) These 69 weeks of years ended 483 years later (7 x 69 = 483), in 29 C.E. That was the very year Jesus was baptized and was anointed with holy spirit, becoming the Messiah, or Christ!

Significantly, the people in Jesus’ day were expecting the Messiah to appear at that time, as the Christian historian Luke noted. (Luke 3:15) Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius, Jewish historian Josephus, and Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus also testified to this state of expectation. Even Abba Hillel Silver, in his book A History of Messianic Speculation in Israel, acknowledges that “the Messiah was expected around the second quarter of the first century C.E.” This, he said, was because of “the popular chronology of that day,” derived in part from the book of Daniel.

In view of such information, it should not be surprising that the Bible would also indicate when the Messiah would return to begin his kingly rule. Chronological evidence contained in the prophecy of Daniel pinpointed the very time that “the Most High” would hand earth’s rulership over to “the lowliest one of mankind,” Jesus Christ. (Daniel 4:17-25; Matthew 11:29) A period of “seven times,” or seven prophetic years, is mentioned, and this period has been calculated to have run out in the year 1914.a

No Date Given for the End

The year 1914, however, is the date only for the beginning of Christ’s rule “in the midst of [his] enemies.” (Psalm 110:1, 2; Hebrews 10:12, 13) The Bible book of Revelation reveals that at the time that Christ’s rule in heaven would begin, he would hurl Satan the Devil and his angels down to the earth. Before he would put these wicked spirit persons out of existence, the Bible says, they would cause a great deal of trouble on the earth for “a short period of time.”​—Revelation 12:7-12.

Importantly, the Bible does not provide a date for when this “short period of time” would end and when Christ would act as Executioner of God’s enemies at Armageddon. (Revelation 16:16; 19:11-21) In fact, as noted in the preceding article, Jesus said to keep ready because no human knows the date for that event. (Mark 13:32, 33) When someone goes beyond what Jesus said, as did early Christians in Thessalonica and others after them, there will be false, or inaccurate, predictions.​—2 Thessalonians 2:1, 2.

Correction of Viewpoint Needed

Prior to the latter part of the year 1914, many Christians expected Christ to return at that time and to take them away to heaven. Thus, in a discourse given on September 30, 1914, A. H. Macmillan, a Bible Student, stated: “This is probably the last public address I shall ever deliver because we shall be going home [to heaven] soon.” Clearly, Macmillan was mistaken, but that was not the only unfulfilled expectation he or his fellow Bible Students had.

Bible Students, known since 1931 as Jehovah’s Witnesses, also expected that the year 1925 would see the fulfillment of marvelous Bible prophecies. They surmised that at that time the earthly resurrection would begin, bringing back faithful men of old, such as Abraham, David, and Daniel. More recently, many Witnesses conjectured that events associated with the beginning of Christ’s Millennial Reign might start to take place in 1975. Their anticipation was based on the understanding that the seventh millennium of human history would begin then.

These erroneous views did not mean that God’s promises were wrong, that he had made a mistake. By no means! The mistakes or misconceptions, as in the case of first-​century Christians, were due to a failure to heed Jesus’ caution, ‘You do not know the time.’ The wrong conclusions were due, not to malice or to unfaithfulness to Christ, but to a fervent desire to realize the fulfillment of God’s promises in their own time.

Consequently, A. H. Macmillan explained later: “I learned that we should admit our mistakes and continue searching God’s Word for more enlightenment. No matter what adjustments we would have to make from time to time in our views, that would not change the gracious provision of the ransom and God’s promise of eternal life.”

Indeed, God’s promises can be trusted! It is humans who are prone to error. Therefore, true Christians will maintain a waiting attitude in obedience to Jesus’ command. They will keep awake and ready for Christ’s inevitable coming as God’s Executioner. They will not allow false predictions to dull their senses and cause them to ignore the true warning of the world’s end.

What, then, about the belief that this world will end? Is there really evidence that it will occur shortly, within your lifetime?

[Footnotes]

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Specific details were foretold about the fall of Babylon

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Jesus could not have arranged to fulfill many of the prophecies about himself