| Highlights of DAWN | June 1982 |
Today, Tomorrow in Prophecy
EVERYONE knows that something big is taking place in the history of the world. Many of the world’s intelligent men have looked into the future with hope that the inequitable conditions which now exist in earth’s society will soon give place to a better understanding between peoples and nations. Many men of high ideals have unselfishly devoted years of their lives in an endeavor to bring about conditions better than those which now exist. They hope for a time, somewhere in the future, when this world of ours will not be divided by strife, nor by national interests, but united as one world, for the common good of all.
At the turn of the century, Christian nations were assured by their leaders that within this century’s swinging portals a golden age of peace and goodwill would become the heritage of man, because he had at last learned that war and hate were unable to bring about peace, the desire for which still persists and lingers in human hearts. We are now living in the last half of the century, and still wars have not ceased, nor have they abated. Rather, during the last seventy years wars have increased, both in the number of people involved and in their power to destroy.
So today, at a time of severe international tensions, we hold in our hands the power to annihilate every living thing, and we ask ourselves, what does the future hold? Does it hold the hope of universal peace, or does it hold only forebodings of terrific destruction to come because of human folly? This is an important question for every thinking person to consider. Where shall we look to find the answer? Can the statesmen of today give us the answer? We do not think so—neither do you. Can the Bible answer the question? Can the Word of God tell us what the future holds for humanity? We believe that it can, and that it does. And that is where the study of prophecy plays a part, that we may be informed of the future purposes of the divine plan for man.
About one-third of the Bible is prophetic. The prophets of the Bible were inspired teachers. They foretold many events which have already come to pass—many that are now being fulfilled—and many events which await future fulfillment. So if we really desire to know what has happened in the past in the development of God’s purposes for man, or what is actually taking place today, or what the future holds for the human race, it is incumbent upon us to study the prophecies of the Bible, that we may be informed.
When we look into the future through the eyes of prophecy, we find that the message of the Bible is not one of fumbling uncertainty, but of definite assurance. Not long ago, in a meeting of business men, one of America’s greatest business executives said, “Unfortunately there is no such thing as a future certainty.” That sounded good, but is that statement true? It may be true concerning the future of business, concerning the gyrations of the stock market, concerning the immediate prospects of peace or war. But the statement that “there is no such thing as a future certainty” is wrong as far as it concerns God’s future purposes for the human race. To give us knowledge of the future is the reason God sent his prophets, and their power to predict was from him. Thus inspired, they spoke for him as they announced with assurance and certainty what the future holds for humanity.
II Peter 1:19-21 says: “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.” That is, it is not merely the words of the prophet, “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”
“A light that shineth in a dark place”—that is the Bible’s definition of prophecy. Descriptive, is it not? Darkness covers the earth today, gross darkness the people. We are traversing a dangerous road. But just as a lantern, or a flashlight, may aid to show us our path in the dark, so prophecy is a light shining in this dark world, showing us the way to proceed, in harmony with the expressed will of God.
In verse nineteen of this text we read the expression, “a more sure word of prophecy.” Prophecy is history written in advance. Only God could write history like that, telling what must shortly come to pass. And because he has written it, it is sure, indeed. And in the same verse the apostle continues, saying, “Whereunto ye do well that ye take heed.” Many of the worldly-wise today are not taking heed. Many are wise today, but wise in their own conceits, and wisdom has become to them a snare. Jesus condemned the wise ones of his day for their inability to see the signs of the times; and so in our day, many of the wise according to this world’s wisdom are blind, and in perplexity and fear of the future.
And none are more blind to the great changes which are impending than the leaders of science and religion who have not taken heed to the sure word of prophecy. Only a “fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” (Ps. 14:1) And so these blind, wise fools, who think they can bring in the golden age of science, will be disappointed, for the Bible says they cannot. The child of God, however, does not fear for the future because faith in the prophecies of God casts out fear through an understanding of the purposes of God. Faith and fear cannot live in the same heart.
The prophecies to which we do well to heed were not understood by those who uttered them, for it was not time for them to be understood. As an example, Daniel made a prophecy. He wanted to understand it, but was told, “The words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.” (Dan. 12:8,9) The Apostle Peter also said that the prophets inquired and searched diligently to understand the things which they had spoken as God’s mouthpieces, but they could not. They had been used as servants of God to lay up treasures of wisdom and knowledge for us who, today, take heed to the sure word of prophecy, which reveals the purposes of God in the affairs and events of mankind.
But someone may ask, “How can we be sure that the prophecies are accurate?” That is a good question. Let us look at the prophecies of the Bible which are already fulfilled.
After the betrayal in Eden, God said to the serpent (representative of Satan), “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Gen. 3:15) This was the first prophecy concerning a Savior and Redeemer who was to come to the world. He was not to be of the seed of Adam, but the seed of the woman as far as his humanity was concerned. Had he been of Adam’s seed, he would have partaken of Adam’s condemnation, therefore unable to “redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him.”—Ps. 49:7
But the seed of the woman pointed forward to Christ, who was to be born of a virgin. Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, the prophet of God spoke concerning him, “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Isa. 7:14) The seed of the woman, our Lord Jesus Christ, came in fulfillment of this prophecy.
Micah 5:2 tells us, “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from old, from everlasting.” Bethlehem the beautiful was to be the place of his birth, according to this prophecy, and so it was. His virgin mother, the village of his birth—these are not opinions, they are facts of history. Could the infant Jesus have shaped the accomplishment of these predictions made hundreds of years before?
But these are only two events—there are many more. The death that he should die; the cup that he should drink; the sepulchre in which he should be laid—could Jesus, the man, have shaped their accomplishment to exactly fulfill the prophecy? The length of time he spent in the tomb; his resurrection from the dead; the sending of the Holy Spirit to his disciples at Pentecost—all were predicted; all were beyond human conclusions, or contrivance; but all were accomplished. Cannot these be recognized as being by the hand of God? Is not this evidence of the accuracy of the sure word of prophecy in past performance? That all these prophecies were fulfilled in one life is sufficient reason for Jew or Gentile to consider the clear implication that Jesus Christ was the Son of God.
As the prophecies which applied to times past have accurately come to pass, so today many prophecies are being fulfilled. Some of these refer to the return of the Jewish people to their homeland. Everyone knows that this is an event of modern history. The facts presented by their return are within themselves sufficient evidence to prove that we are living at a time when the prophecies of the Bible are even now in course of fulfillment.
The survival of the Jewish people is itself a rare event in human history. Many nations besides Israel have lost their independence under the heel of their invaders. But no people other than Israel who were so scattered have been able to preserve their identity for centuries, and finally manifest a capacity to recuperate. But Israel has accomplished this.
For long centuries Israel wandered to the ends of the earth, without a homeland, but she never lost her undying hope to return some day to the land of Palestine. This hope, based on great faith, has been rewarded, and so today Israel in her promised land is one of the political realities of our time—a wonder to the believers in prophecy and to unbelievers too.
At a time when many strong governments have become weak; at a time when empires have collapsed; at a time when conflict and turmoil have beset existing kingdoms and governments, Israel has been reborn. Its birth has arrested the eyes of the world. Why? Because everyone knows that the prophecies have declared that she would come back. Everyone knows that “the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
Four thousand years ago the land of Israel was promised to Abraham, the father of the Jewish race. The nation of Israel, therefore, as it exists today, is more, much more, to the student of the Bible than a historical event—it is the fulfillment of a Bible prophecy! No serious-minded person will lightly assume that Israel just happened. She overcame too many obstacles to have been like Topsy and “just growed.” Her existence fulfills a promise made by God long centuries ago, and recorded in Genesis 13:14,15 as follows: “And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever.”
As students of prophecy, we cannot but be thrilled at what we see in Israel today. Two million six hundred thousand Jews live in Israel. Everywhere one senses the pioneering spirit that leads to toil and sacrifice as a wilderness is being transformed at least to a semblance of the land that formerly overflowed with milk and honey.
To the student of prophecy, Israel is not merely a political, but a religious event. It is a beehive of activity as the problems of agriculture and industry and government present themselves for solution, and we watch with interest and hail with joy every token of blessing which we see coming to this people.
Twenty-five hundred years ago Jeremiah prophesied the return of the Jews to Palestine. “Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers. Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.”—Jer. 16:14-16
Amos 9:14,15 says: “I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them saith the Lord thy God.”
And again Jeremiah says, “And fields shall be bought in this land, whereof ye say, It is desolate without man or beast; it is given into the hands of the Chaldeans. Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe evidences, and seal them, and take witnesses in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the mountains, and in the cities of the valley, and in the cities of the south: for I will cause their captivity to return, saith the Lord.”—Jer. 32:43,44
Isaiah tells us: “I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together: that they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.”—Isa 41:18-20
Today, one can see evidence all over Israel that these prophecies are being fulfilled. God’s dealings with Israel constitute one of the keys which unlock the prophecies of the Bible, assisting us to an understanding of God’s plan for human redemption and salvation.
We are now living in the closing days of the Gospel Age. Since the day of Pentecost the great work of salvation has been the call and selection of the Gospel church. But the Bible says that these Christians who constitute the Christian church are but a “little flock.” Their reward for faithfulness is a heavenly one. They will “live and reign with Christ a thousand years.”
The Millennial Age is about to dawn for sin-sick humanity. During the thousand years of Christ’s reign, the earthly phase of the kingdom of God will be established, and God’s will done in earth, as it is in heaven, in fulfillment of the petition which Jesus taught his disciples to pray.
During this one-thousand-year reign, the promises of God will be fulfilled, and all the families of the earth will be blessed. This will include both Jew and Gentile, bond and free, male and female. For then the “knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.” For then all men shall know the Lord. The prophet says, “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”—Jer. 31:34
The prophecies which have already been fulfilled have been accomplished with definite accuracy. And from this fact we know that the future will see the promises of the golden age of prophecy bring both Jew and Gentile into a full appreciation of the blessings of Messiah’s kingdom, soon to be available to all people who will render willing obedience to the righteous rule of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.