Imagine you open to the middle of John Grisham’s latest best-seller. Immediately you face unfamiliar names and locations. To make sense of the story you flip to the end. But the ending seems more confusing than the middle. You slam the book shut in disgust. Grisham has really lost his touch, you conclude.

This analogy is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. But it illustrates why so many people have trouble with Bible prophecy. To understand prophecy, we should not start in the middle of the Book—with Ezekiel and Daniel—or at the end with Revelation. No, we should begin at the beginning—with Genesis.

It’s there, in Genesis 12:1-3, that God makes a startling promise to a man named Abraham. All prophecy hangs on this promise, or “covenant.” To better understand this covenant, and how it relates to prophecy, let’s look at the contents of the covenant, the character of the covenant, and the consequences of the covenant.

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