“Now Elisha spoke to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, ‘Arise and go with your household, and sojourn wherever you can sojourn; for the LORD has called for a famine, and it will even come on the land for seven years.’ So the woman arose and did according to the word of the man of God, and she went with her household and sojourned in the land of the Philistines seven years…. So Hazael went to meet him and took a gift in his hand, even every kind of good thing of Damascus, forty camels’ loads; and he came and stood before him and said, ‘Your son Ben-hadad king of Aram has sent me to you, saying, “Will I recover from this sickness?”’ Then Elisha said to him, ‘Go, say to him, “You will surely recover,” but the LORD has shown me that he will certainly die.’ … Then Hazael said, ‘But what is your servant, who is but a dog, that he should do this great thing?’ And Elisha answered, ‘The LORD has shown me that you will be king over Aram’” (2 Kings 8:1–2, 9–10, 13).

Here we encounter two more back-to-back stories in the book of Kings that emphasize the divine accuracy of the prophetic word. Elisha tells two different people exactly what will happen in the future—a woman and the king’s servant—and it is up to them to believe his word and act accordingly. Yet their choice to believe is irrelevant to the outcome. On both occasions, the prophet’s words about the future came to pass, for they are grounded in the foreknowledge of God.

In the context of 1–2 Kings, the point of these stories is to encourage us to shape our understanding of the future—and our actions in the present—by faith in the word of God spoken through His prophets. What a prophet says will always be; it must always be, for it is God’s word, not the personal opinion of the prophet.

So, in hope against hope, and despite the apparent impossibility of fulfillment (e.g., lasting peace in the Middle East, the end of war, universal justice and the knowledge of God, a new Jerusalem, the gift of eternal life, no more death, etc.), let us choose to wait on God, live by faith, and embrace this as the certain outcome of the future.

“For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay. Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him; but the righteous will live by his faith” (Hab 2:3–4).