The quick answer is 'Because the Bible says so'. But why is this an acceptable answer? How can we be sure that what the Bible says is correct?In the end, we have to recognise that, to some degree at least, this is a matter of faith (ie belief), but faith is founded on evidence, which then becomes itself the evidence of other things which cannot be seen or which have not yet happened. It is the evidence on which our faith is founded which we wish to discuss here briefly.
1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
The evidence of prophecyOne of the very greatest proofs that serious Bible students can hardly ignore is that of fulfilled prophecy. It becomes clear to anyone who reads the Bible that there are so many times that God has predicted what would happen in the future and that He has been right without fail. For simplicity we will take just one example and look at it in some detail. This is a prophecy that has been fulfilled up to a point, but the final part of the prophecy then predicts the very Kingdom of which we speak, when Jesus will come back to the earth to establish God's Kingdom here for ever.
The prophecy is found in Daniel chapter 2, and it is God's interpretation through his prophet Daniel of a dream which Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, had.
In the dream there was an image and its construction was quite odd:
32 This image’s head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze,
33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.
34 You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.
35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors ; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.This image seems of no consequence until you consider what God went on to reveal through Daniel about the interpretation:
36 This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king.
37 You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory;
38 and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold.
39 But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth.
40 And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others.
41 Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay.
42 And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.
43 As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another , just as iron does not mix with clay.
44 And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed ; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
45 Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver , and the gold—the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure.World events have borne out this interpretation exactly. If you consider the empires that followed on from the time when this prophecy was issued, you see the following scenario:
Placed against the irrefutable evidence of the fulfilment of this prophecy so far, it seems reasonable to believe that the rest will one day take place. The stone (Jesus) will come back to overcome (grind to powder) all the political systems of the world as we know them, and to replace them with an everlasting Kingdom of righteousness and peace. So here we see a clear indication of what the world is coming to!
Evidence from within the pages of the BibleThe Bible claims to be God's word, and we believe this to be true:
16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, It also claims that it is not the invention of the men who wrote it, but that they were inspired by God:
21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
The greatest example is that of Balaam, who was a prophet of God, but was tempted to go against His will by Balak, King of Moab, who offered him half of his Kingdom as reward.Balak asked Balaam the prophet to come and curse Israel, because he had noticed that what Balaam said came true (the test of a prophet of God). Balaam, against God's wishes, agreed to do it, but when the time came, see what happened:
5 Then the LORD put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, "Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak ."
6 So he returned to him, and there he was, standing by his burnt offering, he and all the princes of Moab.
7 And he took up his oracle and said: "Balak the king of Moab has brought me from Aram, From the mountains of the east. ‘Come, curse Jacob for me, And come, denounce Israel!’
8 "How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how shall I denounce whom the LORD has not denounced ?
9 For from the top of the rocks I see him, And from the hills I behold him; There! A people dwelling alone, Not reckoning itself among the nations.
10 "Who can count the dust of Jacob, Or number one-fourth of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, And let my end be like his!"
11 Then Balak said to Balaam, "What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and look, you have blessed them bountifully!"
12 So he answered and said, "Must I not take heed to speak what the LORD has put in my mouth ?"This process is repeated twice more (if you read on in Numbers 23 you will see this) and each time the result was the same. Even though Balaam desperately wanted to curse Israel, he was forced to bless them, because he had to speak the word of God. This is the power which God used to ensure that His words were reported correctly by those whom He chose to do it. We should therefore look at the words of the Bible as not just credible, but infallible.
The Bible - written by God - says that Jesus will return. We believe that. Do you?
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