Answers Bible Curriculum Year 2 Quarter 3 Lesson 6
This week in Sunday school we are going to consider the significance of God’s foretelling prophecies in the Old Testament. Are God’s prophecies vague and, therefore, easy to fulfill? What are some examples of specific prophecies in the Bible? How do Nostradamus’ predictions compare to the Bible’s? What role should the Bible’s fulfilled prophecies play when it comes to evangelism? We’ll consider these questions and more.
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predictions and prophecies throughout time not just people in the Bible what makes the Bible’s prophecy so special Can someone say when it comes to Bible prophecies oh those are just like the other prophecies made in the world before we get to that question though let’s briefly let’s briefly review what we’ve seen in the first half of this quarter in lesson one we looked at the Kings of Israel in Judah and saw that the Kings of Israel were all idolatrous and wicked the kings of Judah were mixed some were Wicked some were good and the people in both kingdoms they were generally evil and prone to serve idols and lesson two we looked at God’s warning to Israel through Amos remember we focused on the Northern Kingdom of Israel and in these lessons and in lesson two we heard amos’s word which was basically the line is roaring judgment is coming therefore repent because you are vulnerable sheep and lesson three we heard from Hosea and we saw God’s love for Israel even though Israel God says Was a Serial spiritual adulteress about to be judged and disowned by God God nevertheless promised to one day restore Israel under one ruler with Judah and Israel together and giving them a new heart to love him in Lesson Four we saw God’s words of warning realized God judged Israel Israel wouldn’t repent of its syncretistic worship which can God alongside other gods so God brought the Assyrians in 722 BC to attack Israel massacred its people and carry the survivors into Exile beyond the Euphrates and then in lesson five last last week’s lesson we saw God’s prophesied judgment against Assyria through Nahum though God’s though Assyria was God’s instrument of judgment on Israel and other nations Assyria itself would nevertheless be judged for her sins not just the ones that were within her Nation but the sins that she inflicted on other nations God promised that Assyria would be destroyed and any preparation that Assyrian made to save herself from God’s judgment would be futile no one can escape God’s overwhelming wrath against sin only repentance and seeking salvation in God as we saw can result in rescue so this is what we’ve seen this is what we’ve seen so far this quarter any questions about these lessons well now let’s turn to today’s lesson we’ve seen a number of Prophecies of God regarding Israel Judah and other nations this quarter but what makes God’s prophecy so significant we can answer this question in a number of different ways but the answer we’re going to focus on today is the the title of today’s lesson and that is God speaks clearly God gives specific prophecies about the future and you can know plainly when those prophecies have been fulfilled because it’s clear now not every prophecy of God in a Bible is like this some of them are a little bit more General but many of them are very specific and generally they are clear so we’re going to look at two extremely specific Old Testament prophecies today and we’re going to see how God fulfilled them here’s our our specific outline for today’s class so we’ll examine a prophecy made in First Kings 13 and then consider how that prophecy was fulfilled then we’ll examine our prophecy in Isaiah chapters 44 and 45 consider how that prophecy was fulfilled then we’ll look at a famous worldly prophet an astrologer who’s who made some predictions outside the Bible and then we’ll see how those were fulfilled we’ll compare the types of fulfillment we see there and then we’ll consider application what role does the Bible’s fulfilled prophecy play for us today even when it comes to talking with people about Jesus let’s pray and ask God’s blessing on this instruction God in heaven I pray that you would help me to be able to explain this world without this word well and clearly a picture people be built up I pray that we would understand your word and that we would be more in awe of you in Jesus name amen all right so please open your Bibles to First Kings 13 well we’re going to see our first example of a very specific prophecy so First Kings 13.
before we examine this passage though it’s useful to just give one little clarification when we refer to prophets or prophecy we often think of people telling the future but that’s not actually a Biblical description of a prophet though prophecy can involve predictions about the future what is the essence of biblical prophecy yeah Rob exactly a person speaking um speaking forth the word of the one commission who commissioned him and when we’re talking about prophets of God we’re talking about they just speak on God’s behalf now God doesn’t always say something about the future sometimes he’s just pointing out sin in a nation or teaching the nation something or um calling the nation to repentance that’s all also a part of the prophet’s work a prophet is simply or one preacher said it like this a prophet is not always foretelling but he’s always forth telling he’s bringing forth the word of God now because of this role of a prophet some link biblical Prophecy with what preachers do today I mean because preachers are basically doing the same thing bringing forth the word of God Bible teachers and preachers rather than having that word supernaturally revealed to them through Visions or some other way it’s just revealed in the scriptures and the preacher is the one bringing it forth and explaining it and even the scriptures have some things to say about the future so there is some similarity there but though that is true of the Bible’s prophets and prophecies we are going to be focusing on that foretelling aspect of a prophet today we’ve seen actually the whole gamut of what prophets do in the last couple lessons but really just focusing on that foretelling aspect today so how does God speak about the future well now we’re in First Kings 13 we’re going to read verses one to six and then we’ll make some observations so follow along with me as I read now behold there came a man of God from Judah to Bethel by the word of the Lord while jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn incense he cried against the altar by the word of the Lord and said oh altar altar thus says the Lord Behold a son shall be born to the House of David Josiah by name and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burned incense on you and human bones shall be burned on you then he gave a sign the same day saying this is the sign which the Lord has spoken Behold The Altar shall be split apart and the asses which are on it shall be poured out now when the king heard the saying of the man of God which he cried against the Altar and Bethel jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar saying seize him but his hand which he stretched out against him dried up so that he could not draw it back to himself the altar also was split apart and the ashes were poured out from the altar according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord the king said to the man of God please and treat the Lord your God and pray for me so that my hand may be restored to me so the man of God entreated the Lord and the King’s hand was restored to him and it became as it was before all right let’s observe these verses who is the man of god mentioned in verse one we don’t know this is an unnamed prophet in the Bible this Prophet though at God’s Direction visits King jeroboam at Bethel in Israel that’s the northern kingdom just glance back to the end of chapter 12 for a moment what’s the occasion on which this Prophet visits jeroboam say that again that’s right that’s right so jeroboam has just set up an altar and he set up the golden cast this is the inauguration of the syncretistic idolatrous worship in the northern kingdom this is jeroboam the first and he’s he’s actually proclaimed a religious feast to commemorate the beginning of this worship an imitation of the actual Feast that God commanded his people to do this is a different Feast but similar and he’s about to burn incense on this altar to one of the golden calves at Bethel and that’s when this Prophet comes in what a phrase appears in verses one to three that affirms that the prophet’s message comes from God phrases I guess they’re not all the same the word of the Lord by the word of the Lord thus says the Lord this is which the Lord has spoken it is that which the Lord has spoken what three claims does God’s Prophet make to jeroboam about the future what’s one of them yes the sun shall be born to the House of David but more specifically what do we know about this sun we know his name he will be called Josiah and he’s coming from the House of David all right what else do we know about the future what will Josiah do two two things what’s one of them say that again he’s going to kill the priests is it the language there is he’s going to sacrifice the priest on the altar he’s false priests and oh burn Bones on the altar yes so we have two things that Josiah will do Josiah there’s gonna be a king named Josiah from the House of David he’s going to sacrifice the priest on the Altar and he’s going to burn Bones on the altar how specific would you say these prophecies are pretty specific right here we got the name and we’ve got specific actions that he’s going to do what is significant about burning human bones on an altar design for wish being Yahweh even though it’s a golden calf version of Yahweh What’s significant about burning Bones on the altar human bones Dwayne it defiles the altar we’re going to see that explicitly in a passage a little bit later but that that is a mark of defilement on the altar now what sign does the prophet Proclaim well procure well what sign does the profit vote claim will confirm that these things are really going to take place it says there’s gonna be a sign that you’re going to see and you’ll know that these things are going to happen yeah right exactly the altar is just going to break apart miraculously and the ashes of the sacrifice or of the things that have been offered or burned on that are going to spill onto the ground What’s significant about the altar’s ashes being poured on the ground remember the ashes in the worship prescribed by the Lord had to be disposed of in a special way otherwise there was defilement so same thing here if these ashes are poured out on the ground the worship has been defiled now jeroboam is not pleased with this prophecy and he orders the man of God seized but what happens when jeroboam gives this order that’s right his hand Withers it it freezes it it dries up and he’s not able to pull it back to himself he asks God’s Prophet to heal the withered hand and the prophet does so what does this withering and healing of jeroboam’s hand further confirmed yeah this is the authority of God God’s Prophet has not only given this sign which came to pass as soon as jeroboam gave that sign the altar was split and the ashes spilled on the ground but furthermore jeroboam’s hand was miraculously withered and then miraculously healed by the word of this Prophet so you know that he’s really God’s prophet and you know his words are going to come to pass now this prophecy is given at the beginning of jeroboam the first reign so that would be around 975 BC that’s the date given by Answers in Genesis or 9 30 BC that’s the date given by the MacArthur City Bible so mid 900s uh were the third quarter first quarter of the 900s BC but when was this prophecy fulfilled or was it fulfilled well it was and we could see this right actually in the same book of Kings or rather than Second Kings turn over to Second Kings 23 now Second Kings 23 and we’re going to read verses 15 to 20.
this passage appears during a description of a king named Josiah in Judah so follow along with me starting in verse 15.
furthermore the altar that was at Bethel and the high place which jeroboam the son of nebat who made Israel’s sin had made even that Altar and the high place he as jeroboam broke down then he demolished its Stones ground them to dust and burned the Ashraf now when Josiah turned he saw the graves that were there in the mountain and he sent and took the Bones from the graves and burned them on the Altar and defiled it according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed who proclaimed these things then he said what is this monument that I see and the men in the city told him it is the grave of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which you have done against the altar of Bethel he said let him alone let no one disturb his bones so they left his bones undisturbed well the bones of the Prophet who came from Samaria Josiah also removed all the houses of the high places which were in the cities of Samaria wish the king’s Israel had made provoking the Lord and he did to them just as he had done at Bethel all the priests of the high places who were there he slaughtered on the altars and burned human bones on them then he returned to Jerusalem so this is we’re definitely seeing some pretty um specific fulfillment here note that verses 15 to 18 describe what Josiah does at Bethel while verses 19 to 20 describe what Josiah did elsewhere in Israel what did Josiah do elsewhere in Israel according to verses 19 to 20.
two things I mentioned there high places well that is certainly said in the passage but oh yeah yeah they removed all the houses of the high places yeah yeah that’s one of them so actually three things I mentioned there remove the high places yes God had ordered so he had them stored right so slaughtered the priests on the altars and then the third thing burn the human bones we see that in verse 20. he burned human bones on them now there’s a phrase in at the end of verse 19 it says just as he had done at Bethel so whatever he’s doing elsewhere in Israel is the same as what he had done at Bethel so even though versus 15 to 18 give some specific description of what he did at Bethel we should understand that also whatever verses 19 to 20 describe also happened at Bethel because we do see in verses 15 to 18 that Josiah burns the bones on the all-trap battle and he breaks down the Altar and breaks down the idols and things there there’s no mention of any any priests dying but that is described later on in the passage but these are the exact same three things that were prophesied by the man of God in the reign of jeroboam Josiah was the king the davidic king he killed the prophets on the altar sacrificed him on the altars and he burned human bones in the altars defiling them so God’s Prophecy from First Kings 13 and 1-6 was completely accurate and it was completely fulfilled now Josiah reigned in Judah from about 641 to 610 BC so how much time had gone by since the prophet’s prophecy about huge amount of time that’s longer than our country’s been around right in the United States a huge amount of time so this is a significant fulfillment no one could have guessed or hoped that these specific promises or merely hope that these specific promises would come to pass there were too many contingencies no Judean King was able to accomplish what the man of God prophesied until Josiah I mean I’m sure there were other um kings that um we know that there are righteous Kings who didn’t go into Israel and do these things they didn’t kill the priest they didn’t defile the altars no one was able to or no one had the desire to do that there was no premature fulfillment of someone other than Josiah the davidic line and kingship had to continue for these prophecies to come to pass but that wasn’t a guarantee at least from a human perspective there were times where um the kingdom of Judah was attacked and there were times where the kingly line was nearly cut off so there’s no guarantee that the davidic line would continue Josiah himself not have not only happened to be a king of Judah named Josiah and in the line of David but he was a righteous King he desired to do the things that God enabled him to do to move into the northern kingdom and accomplish these religious reforms and he had to have the power to actually step into another kingdom and do these things so there are a lot of things that had to line up for this prophecy to take place these specific prophecies to be fulfilled and they were so this fulfillment then was not simply a coincidence or a lucky guess this was a specific word foretold and fulfilled by God by the way what attributes of God does this kind of prophetic fulfillment display his sovereignty right he has complete authority to make things happen or not happy what else is power I mean that goes hand in hand with his sovereignty say that again his omniscience right he’s able to declare something before it happens we can see his trustworthiness his faithfulness his omnipotence and his Holiness because this is a prophecy of judgment right God is displaying that he is the great God because he’s able to accomplish all this now what we’ve seen here is a prophecy declared in one part of a work that is the the book of kings and fulfilled in another part of the work though we should understand that the writer of Kings was drawing on different historical sources to write his history so it may actually be that some writer in Josiah’s brain recorded that this thing happened another writer in I’m sorry in jeroboam’s reign and then another writer Desiree and the author of Kings has brought those things together under the direction of God’s holy spirit but both the prediction and fulfillment are given in the same work but what about a prophecy that is given in one book but fulfilled in another let’s take a look at such an instance we’ve seen one instance of specific prophecy now let’s look at Isaiah and look at another go to Isaiah 44 please Isaiah 44 we’ll be looking at the end of that chapter in the beginning of the next chapter this is 7 27 in the Pew Bible Isaiah 44 we’re going to read from verse 24 to chapter 45 verse 7.
all right here’s verse 24.
thus says the Lord your Redeemer and the one who formed you from the womb I the Lord and the maker of all things stretching out the heavens by myself and spreading out the Earth all alone causing the Omens of boasters to fails making fools out of diviners causing wise men to draw back and turning their knowledge into foolishness confirming the word of his servant and Performing the purpose of his Messengers it is I who says of Jerusalem she shall be inhabited and of the cities of Judah they shall be rebuilt and I will raise up her ruins again a desire says the depth of the sea be dried up and I will make your Rivers dry it is I who says of Cyrus he is my shepherd and he will perform All My Desire and he declares of Jerusalem she will be built and of the temple your foundation will be laid thus says the Lord’s Osiris is Anointed whom I have taken by the right hand to subdue Nations before him and to loose the loins of Kings to open doors before him so that Gates will not be shut I will go before you and make a rough places smooth I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through their iron bars I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden wealth of secret places so that you may know that it is I the Lord the god of Israel who calls you by your name for the sake of Jacob my servant and Israel My Chosen One I’ve also called you by your name I’ve given you a title of Honor though you have not known me I am the lord and there is no other besides me there is no God I will gurge you though you have not known me that men may know from the rising to the setting of the Sun that there is no one besides me I am the lord and there is no other the one forming light and creating Darkness causing well-being and creating Calamity I am the Lord who does all these very poignant passage let’s observe what boast does God make in verse 25 don’t mind the Rushing Water sounds yeah Danielle yeah he I mean he makes fools out of the diviners the wise men those who interpret Omens those are basically the the counterpart to God’s prophets right these are the people who are trying to say oh we know what’s going to happen we can interpret these things it makes fools out of them in contrast what boast does God make in the first half of verse 26.
the diviners I make them look foolish but in contrast that’s right we should understand that phrase back in verse 26 confirming the word of his servant and Performing the purpose of his Messengers they just said their word doesn’t the diviners and omen investigators their word doesn’t come to pass but for my servants and there’s a switch from I think the first or third he’s described in the third person here God’s servants their word comes to pass I confirm their word but God gets or God makes a promise about the future also in verse 26.
what’s the promise yeah he says I’m going to Rebel Jerusalem I’m actually going to cause the cities of Judah to be rebuilt not just Jerusalem but also the rest of the cities of Judah and then it gets even more specific God promises to raise up a king named Cyrus and God then makes some declarations regarding Cyrus what’s one of those declarations what will Cyrus do or what’s a quality of Cyrus okay he says whatever I desire him to do he’s going to do but yes he’s going to cause Jerusalem to be rebuilt and not just Jerusalem but the temple in Jerusalem to be rebuilt right Cyrus is going to be the one that causes those things to happen what else uh yes Carol um um I I know that the Bible certainly says hero Israel the Lord your God the Lord is one or the Lord is one that I believe that’s in the pentateuch protect us and our loved ones I think there’s the the sense of that in the Old Testament that they asked God to provide and protect protect them but not those words specifically yeah but here with Cyrus he is going to be the one God says he’s going to be the one that causes proclaims that Jerusalem will be rebuilt and the temple but what else okay yeah he’s going to be a ruler and a leader he’s going to be a Shepherd a kind of a Shepherd let’s see I think it did say the word Shepherd somewhere didn’t it yes he is my shepherd verse 28 so he’s going to be a leader he’s going to be a ruler what else is he going to be from Israel not likely because what does he say about Cyrus’s relationship to God you have not known me yeah this is uh this is not someone who knows the Lord or at least knows the Lord at first this is likely not somebody from from Israel also what does uh what does Cyrus do to the Nations and peoples he seduce them conquers them and he obtains wealth doing so he’s going to attain a huge amount of wealth by doing so so God says I’m going to raise up a guy named Cyrus he’s gonna do whatever I want him to do and part of that is he’s going to conquer subdue the peoples he’s going to gain control he’s going to gain a huge amount of wealth from doing so but he’s not going to be somebody who actually knows me or at least knows me at first he’s going to accomplish all these things now how specific are these processes again we’re seeing some specific prophecies now you say oh so doing Nations that’s kind of General but that’s there’s a degree of specificity there certainly that he’s named Cyrus and that he’s going to cause Jerusalem the temple to be rebuilt that’s very specific and that he has not known Yahweh now God proclaims the reason for these things being accomplished what are the reasons here’s a couple that’s right that’s the the last one he says versus six to seven everyone will know that Yahweh is the only god he has all the power and that he’s the one who accomplished all these things he raised up Cyrus he caused Cyrus to do these things but not just that what else why else is this going to happen just for the sake of his people right verse four it says for Israel’s sake this is going to happen for the sake of Jacob my servant and Israel My Chosen One and then you can also say going back to verse three this is so that Cyrus will know that this is the Lord who did this you may know that it is I the Lord the god of Israel who calls you by your name I’m proclaiming this and I’m accomplishing this so that Cyrus will know on behalf of it and then I’m doing this on behalf of Israel and I’m doing this so that all the world will know that I’m the only God now this prophecy comes from Isaiah Isaiah prophesied during the Reigns of both Uzziah and Hezekiah and Judah and they’re kind of far apart this specific prophecy comes in the book of Isaiah after a description of hezekiah’s Reign so this is probably during the reign of Hezekiah or um yeah towards the later part of hezekiah’s Reign so we’re probably looking at a time close to 700 BC it’s when this prophecy is given now that’s kind of significant because that means that this prophecy was announced to Judah before Jerusalem and its Temple were even destroyed therefore people could not see foresee a need for them to be rebuilt remember that Jerusalem remains intact more or less until 587 BC when Nebuchadnezzar invades Judah for the third time and destroys Jerusalem and its Temple so how are these prophecies fulfilled well Isaiah doesn’t tell us he didn’t see it it was actually another writer I guess a couple of writers that tell us how it’s fulfilled so turn back in your Bibles over to Ezra even though it comes later in the Bible in chronology it’s actually earlier in your Bible in terms of its placement so before job Psalms or proverbs we have Ezra and Nehemiah so go to Ezra chapter four or Ezra one I’m sorry so right after the book of Chronicles and we’re going to read verses one to four here’s what it says in Ezra 104.
now in the first year of Cyrus King of Persia in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus King of Persia that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing saying thus says Cyrus King of Persia the Lord the god of Heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build him a house in Jerusalem which is in Judah whoever there is among you of all his people may his God be with him let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the Lord the god of Israel he is the god who is in Jerusalem every Survivor at whatever place he may live let the men of that place support him with silver and gold with goods and cattle together with a with a free will offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem see how God’s specific prophecies were again fulfilled God indeed raised up a king named Cyrus this man was not a follower of Yahweh or from Israel he’s Persian and we know from extra biblical sources and inscriptions that he’s a sir servant of the Persian gods Cyrus though acknowledges that the Lord the god of Heaven the god of Israel had given Cyrus all the kingdoms of the Earth more than that Cyrus is specifically stirred up by the spirit of the Lord to send a proclamation throughout his kingdom that those from Israel and Judah May return to their land and rebuild the Temple and this by extension means rebuild Jerusalem make it no longer a ruin Ezra notes that this is in fulfillment of the Prophet Jeremiah now Jeremiah also prophesied some of the same things that Isaiah did though Isaiah’s prophecy is a little bit more specific when did Cyrus make this decree when did this happen well there’s some debate about the exact year but because Cyrus seems to have made multiple degrees but this decree is said to take place in Cyrus first year which is probably 538 or 537 BC so this time we have more than 150 years from Isaiah’s prophecy to the Fulfillment described in Ezra now again that’s significant because that means when Isaiah spoke Cyrus hadn’t been born yet Jerusalem in its Temple hadn’t been destroyed yet there wasn’t even a need for them to be rebuilt Isaiah didn’t live to see God’s word fulfilled but they were fulfilled and the other writers tell us how it happened so again this is a majorly significant prophecy it is specific declared by Isaiah before he could possibly know or make a good guess about these things and then it’s specifically fulfilled by God in every part questions about what we’ve seen so far yes Jim well because it’s something that can be toward apply to someone yeah this is really significant I mean both of these passages and other prophecies in the Bible are just so so different from what anyone or any other scripture in the world offers in terms of Prophecy I mean the quality is so much different and of course it actually came to pass say something else astronomist ah but you never you never really hear that exactly yeah that’s true there’s so much veneration yeah around non-biblical prophets like Nostradamus we’ll talk about him in just a second actually but why not the same sort of reverence and awe over these things and we’ll talk about that a little bit later as well uh Rich yeah this was a prophecy concerning a non-israelite king so there was no I mean somebody could say and has been said well if they were just trying to we have to name this King ‘s brother you couldn’t do this it won’t fit the narrative here with Cyrus he was a totally foreign King who nobody could see coming up 150 years earlier and he certainly wasn’t reading the Hebrew scriptures yeah yeah that’s a good point yeah someone who might retort and say well they were trying Judean Kings were trying to fulfill what was said in the past Cyrus didn’t have that incentive didn’t know about the Hebrew scriptures or care to fulfill them necessarily yeah definitely but uh speaking of Nostradamus we’ve we’ve seen that or let me say this not every prophecy God gives is is as specific as these two but many of them are and we’re going to see more of them as we go through this quarter’s lessons we haven’t mentioned any of the prophecies or many of the prophecies regarding the Messiah and they those get very specific but we’ve seen momentous aspects of God’s foretelling word when God speaks he speaks accurately and God speaks clearly but can man equal God in this area as a sample let’s take a look at a prophecy from Nostradamus you actually have an activity in your student guides on page 48. you can look there we’re gonna I’m gonna be asking the same questions that are there but if you don’t have your student guides then you can simply look up here and I’ll describe how many of you have heard of Nostradamus yeah most of you okay famous French astrologer lived in the 16th century so 1500s he believed that the events of the past and their astrological influences would repeat in the future study the stars study how those affected the events of the past and then you can make predictions about how the stars and the events of the past are going to affect the future things are going to repeat themselves based on this he wrote a number of predictions about the future in Poetic quatrains stanzas of four lines these squat trains are organized by number and we’re going to read one of those quatrains and then try to understand it we’ll ask a few questions about it so here’s our quatrain quatrain 1072 picture Nostradamus there ‘s what he said in the year 1999 in the seventh month from the sky will come the great king of Terror bringing back to life the great king of the Mongols before and after Mars to rain by Good Fortune all right mull over that for a second now let’s try and understand when will this prophecy be fulfilled what’s the seventh one July okay that part seems specific and more or less clear this is going to happen in the year 1999 in July who are the people mentioned in the prophecy I mean we see the names here king of terror King of the Mongols and Mars but who are those people actually kind of hard to tell right I mean King of the Mongols who was the great king of the Mongols Genghis Khan comes to mind is Genghis Khan gonna come back to life and Mars okay Mars God of War maybe that’s a symbolic way to talk about how war is going to come back so with that what events in the seventh month of 1999 could this prophecy be referring to when I tried to do this activity I couldn’t even remember what happened in 1999 more much less the seventh month but I looked on this day in history and on the website for what happened in uh July of 1999 JK Rowling published the third Harry Potter book Prisoner of Azkaban John F Kennedy Jr died in a plane crash a a flight 61 was hijacked in Japan pilate was killed but the hijacker was subdued and the plane landed safely Tony Hawk became the first skateboarder to land a 900.
and the U.S ended its mission to find water on the Moon by intentionally crashing its spacecraft into the Moon okay so there’s an idea of like the sky great king of Terror could it be one of those things doesn’t really seem to line up all that well but believe it or not the Nostradamus Society of America has clarified that this prophecy has been fulfilled and they’ll tell us how here’s our explanation from their website the tragic events of 9 11 were truly for foreshadowed here presently we use the Gregorian calendar but during Nostradamus lifetime they use the Julian calendar the seventh month on the Julian calendar is September the date 1999 provides a Time clue of an event around the millennial change however the real clue is that the date 1999 is nothing more than a numeric anagram if we reverse the order of the ones and nines we arrive at the date 9 11 1. date of the 911 attacks it’s obvious that Osama Bin Laden is the great king of Terror who comes from the sky regarding the great king of the Mongols Kabul was the capital of the Mongol Empire during Nostradamus lifetime so it appears to have an additional symbolic reference to Bin Laden here in summation this quatrain provided an astonishing preview of 9 11.
okay I don’t know how persuasive you find that but I do not find that persuasive how does this Prophecy from Nostradamus and its fulfillment compared to what we’ve seen in the passages we just read about Josiah and Cyrus what’s extremely lacking there it’s not very clear at all yeah I mean Nostradamus prophecy is totally cryptic and many of the things it says are very vague and the one part that was specific wasn’t even accurate or it had to be totally reinterpreted to to otherwise save what would what was clearly a false prediction right yeah right yeah not even the whole thing is uh explained but what is explained to make it work you’re right Steve you have to do all these contortion names you have to make things symbolic you have to turn the date into an anagram you have to do all these things that even the text itself doesn’t doesn’t tell you to do so there’s no way you could have known how this is going to be fulfilled uh when Nostradamus first said it in any part because whatever you would have expected when you first wrote it was wrong it had to be symbolically interpreted after the fact yeah I mean yeah that’s exactly what it is isagesis and instance outside the Bible so in conclusion this is obviously just one sample but you would see things like this from other prophets and other scriptures in the world we’ve seen the quality of the Bible’s prophecies versus the quality of the Prophecies of even one of the most well-known prophets of man though there’s some variation among the Bible’s future declaring prophecies they are clear often specific and always accurate man’s prophecies and contrast are usually unclear extremely vague and even then often inaccurate and what is the point of prophecy according to God we saw this in the second Passage when you see these things filled hopefully you know God is the Lord I mean prophecy is all about establishing the authority of the one who speaks right the world can’t establish that Authority because they don’t have it God though brings his if he declares prophecies and he brings them to the past so that man might acknowledge that God is the only God and he accomplished all these things now let’s consider some application questions do the Bible’s fulfilled prophecies prove that the Bible is true yeah Roy what are you going to say yes I I think we can’t say like oh no it doesn’t prove that I mean because we just read that God says this is so that you’ll know that I am the Lord I mean God himself seems to declare the appropriate response to his prophecies though maybe prove is not the best word to use her use here they are part of what I what I’ve been emphasizing in this course is the Bible self-authentication as we hear the Bible’s descriptions about man’s state the world and its creation sin fulfilled prophecy the nature of God it resonates in our hearts as being true we say this does describe reality now we only come to that conclusion based on the spirit of God God opens our eyes to be able to see that but when we read the Bible and all its parts including its fulfilled prophecies we say it’s true it actually is true it accurately describes the way the world is and what has happened in the past I have to acknowledge this as truth and respond accordingly so the Bible’s fulfilled prophecies are part of the Bible’s self-authentication the way it proves itself to be true now God used Miracles at different times to in a similar way confirm his power his trust his truthfulness the authority of His prophets and those Miracles were meant for people to say this message is clearly from God and we saw that in the first passage right where he says this is going to be the sign that this is going to take place the altar is going to split or the man’s jeroboam’s hand was withered and then restore those Miracles took place that people would see the evidence and believe that this is God’s true message this same thing happened in Jesus’s time he he told the crowds I I came from heaven I’m declaring God’s message to you and if you don’t want to believe me then look at the works that the father has given me to do these prove that I come from God please prove that I am God but how did many especially the Jewish leaders respond to the obvious evidence that Jesus was from God they rejected it in fact how did they explain the Miracles that Jesus did he has a demon yeah he can’t be from God we know that can’t be right so the only explanation is he’s doing this by the power of State that was the rescuing device from the obvious evidence it’s the same with other miracles in the Bible and I think it’s the same when it comes to prophecy though we will show people we can show people and I think we should show people how the Bible has proven itself true look here’s God’s prophecy that he declared 300 years before it happened or here’s a prophecy he’s declared in one book and it’s so specific and here it is fulfilled in another book we can show this to people and their appropriate response should be you’re right I need to pay attention to this word there’s a quality of Truth and a reality in it but we should understand that many will not react that way they will say oh it’s merely a coincidence or it was written after the fact it already happened and then some writer later filled in that Prophecy in the old book and they said oh look it came to pass but he already knew what was going to happen because he was writing later even though the word should lead them in a certain direction because the hardness of man’s heart because of the deceitfulness of sin they won’t allow prophecy God fulfilled prophecy to do what he designed it to do so it is true in a sense that these fulfilled prophecies are part of the confirming the truthfulness of the Bible but we have to understand that even as we show that to people many are just not going to be willing to see that ah okay yeah we’ll talk about that too some people can say um that all right maybe that’s fulfilled but hey there’s some other prophecies in the Bible that haven’t been fulfilled so or that that weren’t fulfilled they were obviously wrong prophecies so why should I believe the Bible if only it’s partially accurate people can come up with excuses and they will in order to rescue themselves from doing what they totally don’t want to do which is to expose themselves to the light are we going to say Danny right right and we should expect that but that’s not going to be true for everybody and so that’s why we declare the word right to to those that God has called it’s going to it’s going to bring them it’s going to be the the word that or it’s faith comes by hearing hearing by the word of Christ we declare the word of God the word that’s really all about Christ and that’s what’s going to by God’s spirit cause people to believe and so um we we show those fulfilled prophecies we show the way that the word interprets creation for people we show what it declares about man’s sin and salvation all those types of things and to the elect they will believe they will they will draw they will see they will acknowledge the reality of the scripture so it’s not like hey you know no one’s going to believe this don’t even try no that’s not it we know that it’s going to be effective for those that God actually is calling yeah really is anyone reading that clear picture of price of what he would do with respect Redemption weeded in a lot of the synagogues because they don’t realizing hey this is talking about Christ so they avoid that but by the same company again today they use that to do Street evangelism and dis evangelism in Israel yeah definitely and just to repeat your comment briefly that you mentioned that many people Messianic Jews or people ministering to Jews will point out the prophecies in the Old Testament about the Messiah as a way to persuade them this is a Jesus is the Fulfillment of what the scriptures declare and of course that’s what we see in the book of Acts right again and again the the apostles are are going to that Passage uh it seems like they all they always were going to the passage about David told God you’re not going to let my uh you’re not going to allow my you’re not gonna allow your Holy One to see Decay like but David died and buried he couldn’t be talking about himself so who was he talking about he was talking about Jesus so I think that is appropriate and that’s exactly what we see in the Bible where we want to show people who claim to have a adherence to the scriptures well this is what your scriptures say but even there we’re going to see Justice what was true in the book of Acts and um and Jesus So In Time the hardness of heart that’s going to refuse to say no that’s not really about Jesus and I think we were I was here overhearing um some conversation um from different church members talking about how when some Jews see those types of things they get extremely angry they get extremely angry that you pointed that out to them and that you suggested that Jesus was fulfillment because that is what they absolutely do not want to acknowledge and you know many of you know that Isaiah 53 and other passages they they’re rescuing devices to say this is not really about Jesus it’s about Israel Israel is the suffering servant Israel is the servant that’s going to be you know restored and be exalted and those types of things but that’s you know they’re isog eating just like Nostradamus adherence would do but even among the Jews there are elect until God draws the whole nation to himself again until then there will be some that we point out the scripture to them we point out how Jesus had fulfilled the prophecies and they will say you’re right Jesus is the messiah so there is uh there is usefulness in our using the the Prophecies of the scriptures even though we know the hardness of man’s heart now one of the excuses I mentioned that people might say towards prophecy is that they were written after the fact an editor put that back in the the reason the prophecies are clear specific and fulfilled is because these prophecies were written after the fact how can we respond to that kind of excuse yeah I mean yeah that’s a great that’s a great response yeah to just asking to prove it because that excuse is not based on evidence it’s just based off of a desire to not and not want to acknowledge what the scriptures say say well uh we we should seek to point out that it’s unreasonable to say oh These Things are Written after the fact that um the things that the prophet knew at that particular time say Isaiah and hezekiah’s Reign these things couldn’t have been known later the evidence that these things have been at an older time now again some people are not going to be persuaded by that we want to show them that their objections aren’t that don’t make sense but ultimately we can’t force them to see what they should see but we can try to persuade them now bill you mentioned not all the Bible’s prophecies are fulfilled including some of the specific ones some of them that we’ve even seen this quarter regarding Israel they those specific prophecies have not been fulfilled based on what we’ve seen today and what we’re trying to understand about biblical prophecy what should we expect regarding these prophecies these specific unfulfilled prophecies never mind yeah that’s what I would say we should expect that they will be fulfilled there’s no need for us to do as the Nostradamus Society did contorting the prophecies to mean something symbolic in order to say that they’ve been fulfilled oh this thing was declared about Israel here that they were going to be restored to the land and they were going to have you know this happened to them but that was just symbolic and that that describes something else no we don’t need to do that just because it hasn’t been fulfilled doesn’t mean it won’t be fulfilled God always fulfills his word that’s what he declared in Isaiah I confirmed the word of my servants so where there are specific prophecies in the Bible that have not been fulfilled we trust that they will come to pass because God is the one who accomplishes those things final comments or questions yeah Steve it had to be because of character right if you repent you know we see that because God our character reversible and forgiving yeah a lot of people have that are right that’s really helpful Steve you mentioned how some people might point to judgments being withheld by God or blessings being withheld by God and say oh he promised this thing and now he’s withdrawing it but as you were saying God always acts in accord with his character and even if it’s not stated explicitly those who repent he’s going to relent on his judgment and if he’s promised um I had to be a little bit careful with this one but think about Eli Eli was one of the priests of one of the priests in the line of um Aaron and he’s supposed he was supposed to have that blessed position but God says to him far be it for me to let you be blessed when you don’t honor me I’m going to remove you from your position so there’s there’s even something on the The Blessing side too where God says I’m still going to act in a court of my own nature so it’s not that God goes back on his word it’s that he’s there’s always that understanding when he gives judgment or um even sometimes when he’s proclaiming blessing that it’s going to still be in accord with his nature everyone says something it doesn’t come so that’s the god thus the god thus saith the Lord or from where that word is coming from yeah definitely um that’s that’s a use for a minor too we talked about that and then someone that early Sunday school lessons we were talking about prophecies and um how do you know something is really from God but it’s useful to point out as you were saying boy that God is 100 accurate he says that you’ll know that he’s a prophet from God when what he says comes to pass if it doesn’t come to pass it’s not from God and if he if he was right most of the time and wrong at one time that he’s not a prophet from God and he may have been right one time or a couple of times just as the testing from God if he’s proclaiming you something different from God and he’s not right all the time in Old Testament times he was to be stoned but certainly today we would reject those prophets so if you were if you’re thinking about maybe those who Proclaim to be Christian prophets today or prophets of another kind I recommend going back and listening to quarter one lesson five and six and the first year of our curriculum the two lessons God’s word is complete and don’t change God’s word get some more info on profits there we’re out of time so uh I didn’t get your question or comment please see me afterwards next week oh so we spent this time talking about prophecy today next week now that we’ve finished talking about the Kingdom of Israel it’s gone now we turn to the kingdom of Judah we’re going to look at Hezekiah next week and how when Assyria invaded the city surrounded or invaded Judah surrounded Jerusalem what does Hezekiah do he prays we’ll see how God responds to his prayer let’s close or let’s pray right now God thank you for this time Sunday School you are great you bring everything to pass you accomplish all the the things that happen in the world and it is according to your great plan thank you Lord for what you’ve revealed in the scriptures because not only did you bring it to pass but you showed what would happen before it happened so that we might believe so God we pray that you would um encourage your people today and also God we pray that you would use your word how it self-authenticates itself as we declare God to cause people to turn to you in Jesus name amen