x    The Bible and the Future of the World 

Knowledge of the Future 

    How can someone know the future before it happens? Since people have 

free will, can they not change their minds and thus change the outcome of 

events? 

    Heaven is outside of time; the souls in Heaven are beyond time. And God 

Himself is certainly not constrained or limited by time. From Heaven's point 

of view, what we call the future can be seen as the past, as having already 

occurred, because Heaven is outside of time. 

    An example may help. What did you have for lunch yesterday? Even if 

you freely decided to have one thing instead of another, you cannot change 

that free decision now that it is in the past. In the same way, the future can 

be known with certainty by God and by the holy souls in Heaven without 

any loss of freewill to those within time. Heaven sees the decisions and 

events of our future as having already occurred, though from our point of 

view within time these things are still yet to come. 

    Therefore, we can change our minds and hearts, and thus influence the 

outcome of future events. Yet it is also true that what Heaven sees in our 

future cannot fail to occur, because from Heaven's point of view (outside of 

time) these things have already happened. And the past cannot be changed. 

    That is why God's Holy Scripture can contain true and accurate 

predictions of future events, without compromising our freewill. God knows 

what choices we have made in the future. God knows what He Himself 

does. And God has written down some of those future events in the Bible. 

Thus, through a humble and prayerful interpretation of Holy Scripture, we 

can understand with confidence some of the events which will occur in the 

future. 

The Usefulness of This Book 

    It is my hope that this book will give comfort to those Christians who 

must suffer through future times of great persecution. May they have 

confidence in God's plan for the future of the Church. The kingdom of 

Heaven will be established on earth. It is a blessing from God to know the 

events which will occur along the way.