When the Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990, scientists eagerly anticipated clear pictures of distant galaxies. However, it was soon obvious that something was very wrong with the telescope’s optics. The reflective mirror, built to gather and focus light emitted in the distant past from faraway stars, was too flat at the edges by about 0.00009 inches. This minuscule error distorted the picture and gave astronomers blurred images.
The God of the Bible prophesies events thousands of years in advance, showing us a picture of the distant future. The Apostle Peter called prophecy “a light that shines in a dark place” that we “do well to heed” (2 Peter 1:19). The lens of Bible prophecy allows us to see the future as well as God’s purpose for revealing it. However, that picture can become distorted by even small errors in our reasoning. Peter gives us a sobering warning, that “no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation [origin], for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (vv. 20–21). Bible prophecy is God’s revelation to us, given through His inspired servants—not through our own intellect or effort.
As the days ahead become more troubling, a correct understanding of Bible prophecy will give us hope and stability. Having a good grasp of Bible prophecy is vital for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ’s return to establish the Kingdom of God and for proclaiming the Ezekiel warning to the modern descendants of Israel. There are many ways in which we can view the world around us, but the precious gift of Bible prophecy is the primary lens through which we should view world events.
A worldview can be described as “the set of beliefs about fundamental aspects of Reality that ground and influence all one’s perceiving, thinking, knowing, and doing” (Ken Funk, “What Is a Worldview?,” OregonState.edu, March 21, 2001). We come to a worldview through our individual experiences and through what we learn from our teachers. The prophetic worldview is unique because it is taught to us by Almighty God, through the inspired writers of the Bible. We should continually check our thinking against His word. When we hear ideas concerning trends in the world, we need to check them against Bible prophecy.
It is not surprising that the devil would attack something so vital to the Work and valuable to our stability. Satan cannot change the timing and orchestration of key events that God has ordained, but he can—and does—distract us by offering alternate contexts and explanations. We will consider three common worldviews—incomplete at best, and ultimately false—and see why we should primarily view the news through the lens of Bible prophecy.
“It’s the Technology!”
The materialistic and humanistic worldview is dominant in this world’s Western societies. This view sees our world as the product of science and human effort, and the growth of computing power has indeed provided amazing technological advances throughout the past several decades, from jet aircraft to generative artificial intelligence.
Some see the prospect of technology-driven economic development as a welcome means to lift everyone out of poverty, eliminate sickness, and provide safety and security in all countries. Others, however, see technology as the root of our problems. “Climate change” concerns have gripped politics in such a way that, rather than consider that unprecedented weather events might have anything to do with God’s intervention, the world is being well conditioned to attribute them to the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels.
The prophetic worldview, by contrast, reassures us that even dizzying technological development occurs on God’s timetable. Genesis 11:6–8 reveals that, for His purpose, God slowed down the development of science and technology early in man’s history. The printing press made possible the widespread preaching of the Gospel to the world (Matthew 24:14). The Internet burst onto the scene just when the Church needed a more efficient way to preach the Gospel. In the May 2017 Tomorrow’s World telecast “Future Shocks,” our Presiding Evangelist, Mr. Gerald Weston, described modern technologies that the Bible predicted. Yes, God is in charge, and technological development is not outside His guidance and control.
“It’s the Institutions!”
Another influential worldview sees political and economic theory as the essential force driving the world order. National success, from this perspective, is viewed as the product of a constructive political-economic system, while national decline is the result of straying from such a system. This worldview tries to provide a particularly secular framework for predicting future events, but the Bible offers a moral and spiritual framework instead. Institutions certainly influence people, and some institutions are much better than others, but all worldly systems fall short of God’s Way. God reveals that righteousness and sin are the crucial factors in national success and decline. Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 describe blessings and curses as the consequences of honoring or dishonoring God—sin is front and center (Jeremiah 30:15).
The scattered nations of the Israelites have had a diverse set of political-social-economic systems throughout their long histories. The United Kingdom and the United States have distinct political systems, but both experienced extraordinary prosperity that burst forth at the start of the nineteenth century, as Bible prophecy foretold. (For more on this in great detail, you can read Mr. John Ogwyn’s powerful booklet The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy, which explains why the arrival of God’s blessings was delayed for 2,520 years.) France and Norway also have different systems, but they too have been abundantly blessed in their own ways.
A prophetic worldview makes sense of the consistent blessings that are enjoyed by nations with diverse systems. It is not the systems that have provided these blessings—it is God, who lives up to His promises. Knowing this, we can also see why these same nations are now in decline and headed for disaster.
“It’s a Conspiracy!”
The final competing worldview we will consider in this article is the conspiratorial one. Conspiracy theories have become common across the political spectrum. Typically, the conspiratorial worldview involves the idea of a cabal of elites manipulating events through secret means to gain and maintain power. Most of the public, according to this worldview, is complicit by being gullible rather than evil. Yet although the various conspiracies are supposed to have been implemented by powerful forces able to work in secret, conspiracy theorists claim to have overcome that power, become “aware,” and set out to expose and stir the gullible public to action.
These ideas may seem like they are in line with the Gospel message, talking of good versus evil, but they are in fact a subtle perversion of it. For example, biblical prophecy talks of sin as being pervasive instead of limited to a few (see Romans 3:23; Revelation 12:9). The conspiratorial worldview focuses on secret knowledge and rallying people to political action rather than to personal and national repentance and faith in God.
The Bible describes the times leading up to Christ’s return, and nowhere in its description do we find a one-world government of the type posited by many conspiracy theories. There are three power blocs described: the beast power, comprising ten rulers giving power over to it; the king (singular) of the South, and the confederation of kings (plural) of the East. Though much of humanity has longed for a one-world government ever since the days of the Tower of Babel, attempts to create one have failed again and again. Ultimately, we are looking forward to the one-world government that Jesus Christ will bring to this earth!
It’s Prophesied
Jesus Christ commands us to watch and pray (Mark 13:33). Bible prophecy gives us the lens through which the trends we observe can be accurately interpreted. Using this powerful lens, we should prioritize Bible study to gain a proper perspective on the news we will consume. The Bible reveals to us the mind of God, showing us what is right and wrong while imparting wisdom. The prophecy of Scripture shows God’s supremacy and promise to intervene.
How can we develop a biblical worldview of current events? We should choose news sources carefully—news that stirs toward political action is not what we should primarily be consuming. Instead, we should look for news that describes developments foretold in Scripture.
To that end, we shouldn’t neglect Church resources. Every week, the News and Prophecy updates from Headquarters highlight news items along with explanations of how the Bible is essential to their understanding. Tomorrow’s World telecasts and magazines connect key scriptures to current events to “make sense of our world through the pages of the Bible.” They keep these valuable scriptures fresh in our minds and show how they are relevant. Our booklets and the Tomorrow’s World Bible Study Course provide more in-depth study to ground us in the Bible, and it can be helpful to review the points that they lay out to keep the truth of the Bible firmly in mind.
There is a panoply of worldviews originating from the will of man. Each offers its explanation of individual events and trends, but each is ultimately inconsistent with reality. The true biblical worldview is the only one that we can fully rely on, because it comes from Almighty God.
The Bible’s prophetic worldview looks to God to reveal, to bring to pass, and to make right judgment. It gives us a purpose to support, and through that, it takes our mind away from selfishness and builds love for the people of our world. Let us strive to maintain that worldview!