Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Accurate Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
I know nothing that will upset an honest skeptic quicker than fulfilled prophecy. There are very few Christians who think of studying this subject. They say that prophecies are mysterious, and it is sometimes difficult to be certain that they have been fulfilled. The Bible does not say that prophecy is a difficult subject to be avoided, but rather that We have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts (2 Peter 1:19). Prophecy is history unfulfilled, and history is prophecy fulfilled.
When I was a boy, I was taught that everything beyond the Mississippi River was the great American desert. But when the first pickax struck into the Comstock lode and they took out more than one hundred million dollars’ worth of silver, the nation realized that there was no desert; and today that part of the country – Nevada, Colorado, Utah, and other western states – is some of the most valuable we possess. Think of the busy cities and flourishing states that have sprung up among the mountains! So it is with many portions of the Bible, but people never think of reading them. They are living on only a few verses and chapters. The greater part of the Bible was written by prophets, yet you do not often hear a sermon on prophecy.
Between five and six hundred Old Testament prophecies have been remarkably and literally fulfilled, and two hundred in regard to Jesus Christ alone. Not a thing happened to Jesus Christ that was not prophesied from seventeen hundred to four hundred years before He was born.
The prophets also spoke about nations and cities. Take the four great cities that existed in the days when the Old Testament was written, and you will find that prophecies regarding them have been fulfilled to the letter. Let me call your attention to a few passages.
First, regarding Babylon:
And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation; Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there, nor will shepherds make their flocks lie down there. But desert creatures will lie down there, and their houses will be full of owls; Ostriches also will live there, and shaggy goats will frolic there. Hyenas will howl in their fortified towers and jackals in their luxurious palaces. Her fateful time also will soon come and her days will not be prolonged. (Isaiah 13:19-22)
And again:
The word which the LORD spoke concerning Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, through Jeremiah the prophet: Declare and proclaim among the nations. Proclaim it and lift up a standard. Do not conceal it but say, Babylon has been captured, Bel has been put to shame, Marduk has been shattered; Her images have been put to shame, her idols have been shattered. For a nation has come up against her out of the north; it will make her land an object of horror, and there will be no inhabitant in it. Both man and beast have wandered off, they have gone away. Because of the indignation of the LORD she will not be inhabited, but she will be completely desolate; Everyone who passes by Babylon will be horrified and will hiss because of all her wounds. How the hammer of the whole earth has been cut off and broken! How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations! I set a snare for you and you were also caught, O Babylon, while you yourself were not aware; You have been found and also seized because you have engaged in conflict with the LORD. (Jeremiah 50:1-3, 13, 23-24)
A hundred years before Nebuchadnezzar ascended the throne, God’s prophets foretold how Babylon would be destroyed, and it came to pass. Scholars tell us that the city stood in the middle of a large and fruitful plain. It was enclosed by a wall sixty miles in circumference. Each side of the square had twenty gates of solid brass, and at every corner was a strong tower, ten feet higher than the wall. The wall was eighty-seven feet broad and three hundred and fifty feet high. These figures give us an idea of the importance of Babylon, yet nothing but ruins now remain to tell of its former grandeur. When Babylon was in its glory and was known as the queen of the earth, prophets predicted that it would be destroyed; how literally it was fulfilled!
A friend going through the valley of the Euphrates tried to get his guide to pitch his tent near the ruins, but the guide would not stay there.
Now take Nineveh:
I will throw filth on you and make you vile, and set you up as a spectacle. And it will come about that all who see you will shrink from you and say, Nineveh is devastated! Who will grieve for her? Where will I seek comforters for you? (Nahum 3:6-7)
Now, how are you going to cover up the city? I will throw filth on you. How are you going to throw filth upon the city? For twenty-five hundred years, Nineveh was buried and an abominable filth lay upon her, but now they have dug up the ruins and brought them to Paris and London. You can go into the British Museum, and people from all over the world are there looking at the artifacts from the ruins of Nineveh. It is just as the prophets prophesied. For twenty-five hundred years, Nineveh was buried; but it is no longer buried.
Then look at Tyre:
Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and I will bring up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves. They will destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers; and I will scrape her debris from her and make her a bare rock. She will be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea, for I have spoken, declares the Lord GOD, and she will become spoil for the nations. (Ezekiel 26:3-5)
Charles Coffin, who was a correspondent for the Boston Journal during the Civil War, travelled around the world in 1868, after the war was over. One night he came to the site of old Tyre, and he said the sun was just going down, and he got his guide to pitch his tent right over by the ruins, where the rocks were scraped bare. Coffin took out his Bible and read where it says, She will be a place for the spreading of nets. He said the fishermen were done fishing and were just spreading their nets on the rocks of Tyre, precisely as it was prophesied hundreds and hundreds of years before. Remember, when they prophesied against these great cities, the cities were like London, Paris, and New York in their glory; but their glory has gone.
Now take the prophecy regarding Jerusalem:
When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side. (Luke 19:41-43)
Didn’t Titus do that? Didn’t the Roman emperor do that very thing? It also happened as Jesus said next: and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation (Luke 19:44).
I have read of two rabbis who went up to Jerusalem and saw a fox playing upon the wall. One rabbi began to weep when he saw the desolation of Zion. The other rabbi smiled and rebuked him, saying that this was proof that the Word of God was true, and that this was one of the prophecies that would be fulfilled: Because of Mount Zion which lies desolate, foxes prowl in it (Lamentations 5:18). It was also said that Jerusalem would be as a plowed field (Micah 3:12). This prophecy has also been fulfilled. The modern city is so restricted that outside of the walls, where part of the old city stood, the plow has been used.
Now take the prophecies regarding Egypt:
It will be the lowest of the kingdoms, and it will never again lift itself up above the nations. And I will make them so small that they will not rule over the nations. (Ezekiel 29:15)
Egypt was in its glory when this was prophesied. It was a great and mighty empire, but has since lost its glory.
Now look at prophecies regarding the Jewish people:
The prophecy of Balaam with regard to the Jews has been already greatly fulfilled: behold, a people who dwells apart, and will not be reckoned among the nations. Who can count the dust of Jacob, or number the fourth part of Israel? (Numbers 23:9-10).
Many people did not want the Jews to be counted among the nations. There is something in this people’s looks and habits, though, that God continues to perpetuate, and they are witnesses in every land of the truth of the Bible.
The Jewish race has remained all these centuries separate and distinct from other nations. In America, there are all kinds of nationalities, but the Jew is as much a Jew as he was when he came over here one hundred years ago. See how the race has been persecuted, yet the Jews cannot be kept down. Egypt, Edom, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Rome, and all the leading nations of the earth have sought to crush the Jews. Frederick the Great said, “Touch them not, for no one has done so and prospered.”
Now the LORD said to Abram, Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. (Genesis 12:1-3)
The people are the same now as they were in the days of Pharaoh, when he tried to destroy all the male children (Exodus 1:15-22). The prophecy is fulfilled. God has made the nation numerous and united. The time is coming when God will reinstate the Jews. For the sons of Israel will remain for many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar and without ephod or household idols (Hosea 3:4). Are they not without a king, without a nation, and without a sacrifice? Are they not scattered among the nations of the earth, a separate and distinct people? And they do not bow down to idols. They crucified their last King, and they will never have another until they restore Him. He was Jesus Christ, as inscribed upon His cross, “The King of the Jews.”
Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It was written, JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS. (John 19:19)
There are many other prophecies in the Bible. We see how it was prophesied that Eli was going to suffer (1 Samuel 2:27-36). He was God’s own high priest, and the only thing against him was that he did not obey God’s word faithfully and diligently. He was like a good many people nowadays. He was one of these good-natured old men who don’t want to make people uncomfortable by saying unpleasant things, so he let his two boys go on in sin and did not restrain them. He was just like some ministers. Oh! let every minister tell the truth, even if he should preach himself out of favor with his people. Everything went all right for twenty years, but then came fulfillment of the prophecy. God’s ark was taken, and the army of Israel was routed by the Philistines. Hophni and Phinehas, old Eli’s two sons, were killed, and when the old man heard of it, he fell back in his chair, broke his neck, and died.
So it was with King Ahab taking the sinful advice of Jezebel. Naboth would not sell him that piece of land, so they got him out of the way. Three years afterwards, the dogs licked Ahab’s blood from his chariot in the very spot where Naboth’s blood had been murderously shed (1 Kings 21:19; 22:34-38).
Moody wrote this, of course, before 1948, when Israel again became a nation.