Abstract

Table of Contents

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part III: Striking Fulfillments of Prophecy

     HERE, THEN, we have some predictions made about two cities in the Middle East, one of them to be torn down and the other to be built up. The circumstances surrounding the fulfillmemts of these predictions are such that the argument for the reality of fulfilled prophecies is proved to be perfectly valid as a clear demonstration that the men who set them down were instructed by One who had complete foreknowledge.
     The evidence cannot be undermined by any of the usual "explanations" which are brought forward by those who argue against such things. There is, for example, no question of literary deceit in which, after the events had transpired, the pretended predictions about them are put back into the mouth of a prophet who is supposed to have lived long before. This would be prediction after the event.
     For example, Higher Critics -- partly because they make the assumption that prophecy in any specific sense is not possible -- argue that Daniel's vision of four successive world empires (Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman) was really written by someone who lived after these powers had already appeared and then put back into Daniel's mouth so as to strengthen the faith of his Jewish brethren by proposing that these events were part of God's purposes and were fully foreseen. These "visions" were really penned, we are told, when the last world empire was already in the making and the other three had already passed into history. If one were to use Daniel's visions and their subsequent fulfillment as proof of the reality of fulfilled prophecy, it is almost certain that someone in the audience would raise the Higher Critics' objection, and a useless argument would result that would probably completely undermine the whole purpose of presenting the evidence in the first place. That is
not the case with these two cities.

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     Second, the possibility that such prophecies as these were what might be called "inspired guesses" which happened to turn out to be correct is surely excluded. For example, in Luke 21:24 the Lord said, "And Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." To the Christian who needs no convincing, "trodden down" was a prophecy that has been fulfilled to the letter many times in the last two thousand years. To the non-Christian, it might well be taken merely as the insight of a wise man who could see that by its very position in the Middle East, at a kind of crossroads between world powers ranged around it, the city was almost bound to be subject to such vicissitudes. Again, the illustrations we have used are remarkable for their very unlikelihood.
     Third, the events that transpired to bring about the exact fulfillment of these prophecies were, most assuredly, not deliberately undertaken in order to guarantee their fulfillment. It is hardly necessary to illustrate this further. The only possible exception might have been the circumstances which led to the modern growth of Jerusalem: but as we have seen, the very people most likely to profit by deliberately sponsoring its fulfillment would be those desiring to exploit real estate values. And apparently these people did not -- except in one or two cases, and rather by accident than design -- make a "killing" when they might easily have done so. It does not appear that any group of people gambled on this prophecy in order to make money. All those who contributed to the fulfillment of the prophecies studied here did so apparently with no other intent than the expedient of achieving an immediate objective each of them had in view at the time.
     Fourth, the original prophetic statements are so clear and straightforward that there is absolutely no question as to their having been specifically fulfilled in the events described. Not a few prophecies in the Old Testament take such a veiled form that a hostile mind might well object that the claim to their fulfillment could be argued at several different points in history. For example, Isaiah (7:14) declared that a virgin should conceive and that before the child should come to know the difference between right and wrong, the ruling king would be deposed. Every believer holds with the New Testament that this was ultimately fulfilled in the birth of Jesus Christ. But it may be argued that Isaiah's immediate reference was to a young child to be born of an unmarried girl living in his own day, for otherwise it could not possibly be a sign to Ahaz. It is, in fact one of the reasons why the word translated "virgin" has also the meaning of an unmarried woman. Quite a few important

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prophecies have this element of dual fulfillment, so that if one wanted to, one might say they were really not very specific and might indeed have been fulfilled even more than twice. The prophecies we have illustrated are not subject to this criticism.
     Finally, the fulfillment is there for anyone to see who has the means and the will to undertake the journey. The columns of Tyre lie in the water, and fishermen spread their nets. One can walk over the plowed ground which once was Zion. One can explore the suburbs of revived Jerusalem and observe for oneself the exact lines of its growth. Many specific prophecies were unmistakably fulfilled by the events of our Lord's life, but we have no proof of this except in the Gospels: and it is only begging the issue to expect this kind of evidence of fulfilled prophecy to be acceptable, since the proof of fulfillment is drawn from the very Scripture which we are trying to validate. It is analogous to defining a word with the word itself in the definition. The prophecies explored in this Paper require no more than the reasonable use of one's critical faculties in evaluating the evidence presented.
     We are left, therefore, with no other alternative than to assume that a real communication took place between God and man -- a communication which involved much more than merely a vague sense that God "is speaking to one" in the kind of way that poets and others say God speaks to them in Nature. In other words, there is a real possibility that the normally accepted channels for passing information and acquiring knowledge which exist in the natural order of things today is not the only means available. If this is true, it would surely be folly not to make at least some effort to explore personally the implications of some of the other prophetic statements which God has assured us will come true in the experience of any individual who fulfills the conditions.
     These too are prophecies. Speaking of man's heart, Jesus said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in and will sup with him and he with Me" (Revelation 3:20). This is a promise of the closest possible fellowship within. And Jesus also said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24).

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