How would you finish this prediction – “the earth will be filled with…”? How do you think the Bible completed such a prediction? Note this is a prediction, not a statement of fact. The fact is “the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord” (Psa. 33:5), His “mercy” (Psa. 119:64) and “His glory” (Isa. 6:3). But what is the prediction? With what did God say “the earth will be filled”?
The Old Testament prophet Habakkuk gives us the answer – “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord” (2:14). The whole earth would not be filled with the Babylonian Empire or the Roman Empire. The whole earth would not be filled with teachings of Buddha or the religion of Islam. The whole earth would be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. Compare this with the extent to which Paul proclaimed that the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ had reached – “…as it has also in all the world …which was preached to every creature under heaven” (Col. 1:6, 23). Within three decades of Jesus’ sacrificial death, the whole world had been filled with that knowledge. What have you done with it?