What Does a Foggy Beach in Florida Have to do with the Future?

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I’m sitting on an expansive beach dotted with people, somewhere on the east coast. The sun, I believe, is directly overhead. The Atlantic Ocean, I believe, is directly in front of my family and me. But oddly, I can’t see either. A dense fog has settled over and around us and we can only see two feet in any direction. Muffled sounds come from people nearby who look like apparitions, if I can make them out at all.

As I attempt, but fail, to people watch, I hear a loud noise from somewhere off in the distance. The intense sound rumbles through me. I feel it deep in my core as it rolls over and around me, vibrating the very ground on which I sit. I’m startled and puzzled. Is it some kind of alarm? Some piece of heavy machinery? Are we under attack? I’ve never ever heard a sound like this before. Then just as randomly as the sound starts, it stops. But after a minute or two, it begins again. It’s steady and low and loud. It makes me feel like I’m standing beside a band’s enormous speaker, its bass quite literally moving me.

The third time the sound resumes, I understand. I know what it is. Although I’ve never actually heard it before, I’ve heard of it.

It’s a foghorn.

Coming from the direction of the water, it’s a signal, a warning of sorts. The horn’s steady, mournful wail is meant to announce the presence of a boat or a coastline or any other navigational hazard upon which it is mounted. It’s a safety measure, a way to allow sailors to know what’s ahead without actually seeing what’s ahead. The sound alerts them to dangers they cannot visualize, helping them navigate safely. In a word, the foghorn protects them.

During Jesus’s short time on earth, He gave His disciples hints about His impending death and resurrection. At first, He did not fully explain what lay ahead for Him or for them, but instead, He revealed only the amount of information they could handle at the time. While they hung on His every word, many times they were puzzled and could not fully understand what He meant. In Luke 18, Jesus foretold His own death and resurrection—for a third time—to the disciples. But in verse 34, we’re told, “But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.”

Much like Jesus foretold His death and resurrection to His disciples, He has also foretold His return, or second coming, to us. He has given us a yet-to-be-fulfilled prophecy, a look into the future. And much like His disciples, we cannot fully grasp what He’s foretold. We are not ready. We may be near the end of time, or we may be nowhere near the end in human terms, but either way, we’ve been given this glimpse into the future. This fascinat- ing and confusing foretelling lies in the final book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. Just as the disciples couldn’t understand the horror and wonder of Jesus’s upcoming death and resurrection, we cannot understand the horror and wonder of what lies ahead for humanity. We have only been given eyes to see what currently surrounds us. The future is hazy and we are unable to see through the thickness of the twenty-first-century fog to fully grasp what lies ahead.

Although our human eyes can’t perceive the future clearly, we have been given some hints about what will take place. God gave Jesus a revelation to show us what the future holds, and Jesus sent an angel to earth to present this revelation to John. Fortunately for us, John listened and saw and carefully wrote a short book filled with everything the angel disclosed. Maybe John understood the revelation about which he wrote, maybe he did not. But his book is interesting and bizarre and for anyone who’s ever read it, quite a challenge.

The book of Revelation is a foghorn of sorts. It’s a signal, maybe even a warning. Perhaps it’s a safety measure meant for our protection. It’s about future events which will surely take place. But more importantly, it’s about God’s love and His patience and how He gives people chance after chance after chance to turn to Him. It’s about His glorious victory and, as believers, it’s about our glorious destiny. It’s likely none of us will fully understand the future before it arrives, but we can trust in a future with Jesus. We can trust in His past, His present, and according to the book of Revelation, we can trust in His—and our—future.

Let’s jump right in and look directly to John’s book of Revelation for hints about what’s to come. Let’s look into the fog for what we know is out there but cannot clearly see. Ultimately, let’s look to the future through John’s eyes into this revelation from God in order to learn more about Jesus our Savior and God our Heavenly Father.

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

—Revelation 1:1–2

Excerpt from Forever Matters, Iron Stream Media, publisher.