14 - The Witness of Prophecy
XIV- THE WITNESS OF PROPHECY "To make thee know the certainty of the words of truth." Proverbs 22:21.
PROPHECY is equivalent to any miracle, and is itself miraculous. Alexander Keith, in "Evidence of Prophecy," page 13, truly says: "If the prophecies of the Scriptures can be proved to be genuine; if they be of such a nature as no foresight of man could possibly have predicted; if the events foretold in them were described hundreds or even thousands of years before those events became parts of the history of man; and if the history itself correspond with the prediction, then the evidence which the prophecies impart is a sign and a wonder to every age; no clearer testimony or greater assurance of truth can be given; and if men do not believe Moses and the prophets, neither would they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."
If the prophecies were false, nothing could admit of easier detection; if true, nothing could be more impossible to have been conceived by man. Time infallibly must refute or realize them. Of the thousand predictions made in the Bible, some eight hundred have been fulfilled, and others are fulfilling now. Some prophecies are admittedly symbolic, and therefore not easy of interpretation. Men who desire to discredit the Bible prophecies refer to the symbolic utterances as not clear, and use them to discredit the prophecies known as literal. But such a proceeding is neither honest nor scientific. In science, we always proceed from the simple to the complex, from the easy to the difficult. The study of prophecy would fill many volumes like this. However, a few proofs may be given of the many that might be given, any one of which establishes the divine authority of the Scriptures. The wisest of historians admit that no human can foretell the future. John Clark Ridpath, in Christian Work, December 27, 1894, said: "There is not a philosopher in the world who can forecast the historical evolution to the extent of a single day. . . . The tallest son of the morning can neither foretell nor foresee the nature of what is to come in the year that already stands knocking at the door."
It is to be expected, however, that the higher critic will sneer at "arguments from miracles and prophecies which offend rather than impress the modern mind."-"Program of Modernism," page 98. This attitude reminds us of that of the Jews: "For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew Him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning Him." Acts 13:27. The "arguments from miracles and prophecies" offended the "modern" Jewish mind of the first century even more than it offends the minds of our higher critical friends of today. And no wonder the critics are offended by arguments from the prophecies; for the prophecies prove the utter foolishness of their critical fancies, and establish firmer than the foundations of the earth the eternal infallibility of the Bible. In the uncertainty which prevails everywhere, in the paralyzing dread of some sudden and crushing catastrophe, men naturally desire and frantically seek some grounds of certainty with reference to the future. They feel that this soul-harrowing suspense is worse than certainty of even misfortune. The swelling cry is for surety. We have seen that it certainly is not in man and his isms; that it resides only in God’s word. And here is where we shall seek it.
Man is not alone in seeking to learn of the future, for we find that there are "things the angels desire to look into." 1 Peter 1:12. They might well search the Scriptures along with man; "for no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit." 2 Peter 1:21. Coming from such a source, the prophecies are to be accepted as trustworthy. "And we have the word of prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place." 2 Peter 1:19. Even "the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow them. To whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto you, did they minister these things." 1 Peter 1:10-12. And we are told that "God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began." Acts 3:21. A few of the more direct and literal prophecies will now be briefly considered. Not one of them has ever been disproved. Leading writers of all denominations are agreed as to the facts. And if these prophecies are true, both the unbelief of infidels and the cavilings of higher critics are forever discredited.
Nineveh and Assyria bulk large in the history of ancient times. In a few simple words, the Bible tells the whole story: "And He will stretch out His hand against the north, and destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like the wilderness. And herds shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the pelican and the porcupine shall lodge in the capitals thereof; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds. . . . This is the joyous city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none besides me: how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in!" Zephaniah 2:13-15.
True to the prophetic Word, Nineveh has lain in desolation for ages, her very site forgotten for centuries. The one who wrote that, be he who he may, made a remarkable prediction, which history has proved to be in every detail true. How did he know? Was it a clever guess?
Much is said regarding Tyre in Ezekiel: "Behold, I am against thee, 0 Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. . . . And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise: and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water. . . . And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the Lord have spoken it, saith the Lord God." Ezekiel 26:3-4, Ezekiel 26:12, Ezekiel 26:14.
Nebuchadnezzar soon took the city and spoiled it. The sound of her harps was no more heard (Ezekiel 26:13), the sound of her songs had ceased, and the great and joyous city was desolate. The remaining inhabitants removed to an island half a mile from shore, and here built a new city. The ruins of the old city still remained. The prophecy had declared that the timbers and the stones and even the very dust should be cast into the sea, leaving a bare rock. These words were not fulfilled, and it seemed improbable that they ever would be; for if Nebuchadnezzar, in his anger, had taken a full vengeance, and had not thought of this, who was likely to care enough about the ruins of the city to wreak such a vengeance? It would be the very frenzy of madness. But meanwhile there the words stood in the Book of which Jesus said that not one word should be broken.
Two and a half centuries passed away, and still the ruins stood, a challenge to the accuracy of prophecy. Then through the east the fame of Alexander the Great sent a thrill of terror. He marched to the attack of Tyre. Reaching the shore, he saw the city he had come to take, with half a mile of water between them, built upon an island.
Alexander’s plan of attack was speedily formed and executed. He took the walls, towers, timbers, and ruined houses and palaces of the ancient city, and with them, built a solid causeway through the half-mile of sea to the island city. Even her mounds of ruins were carried away; and so great was the demand for material, that the very dust was scraped from the site and laid in the sea. The city was to be built no more. This divine sentence of judgment has for centuries been a challenge to all time. It is unanswered still.
Take Babylon. "And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall shepherds make their flocks to lie down there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and ostriches shall dwell there, and wild goats shall dance there. And wolves shall cry in their castles, and jackals in the pleasant palaces." "I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith Jehovah of hosts." Isaiah 13:19-22; Isaiah 14:23.
"Behold, I am against thee, 0 destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out Mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain. And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate forever, saith the Lord." Jeremiah 51:25-26.
Here is no ambiguity, no stammering. Here we find a man who was able to write, twenty-five hundred years ago, a history which has been true for all ages, and is undeniably true to-day. No writer of the present time could in so few words, with all the records of twenty-five centuries in his hands, write a more accurate account of Babylon.
Hundreds of years passed after that prophecy was uttered, and there seemed to be no signs of its fulfillment. When captured by Alexander, Babylon was still so great that he contemplated making it his capital. At the beginning of the Christian era, the work of destruction was visible; but a small part of the ancient city was still inhabited, and the prophecy was not yet fulfilled. In A. D. 40, Caligula still further reduced its inhabitants by persecution. In 460, Theodoret tells us that only a few Jews had their habitations scattered among the ruins. The ocean of human life was gradually receding from this immense city. Still the prophecy was unfulfilled, for the city was inhabited. In the twelfth century, however, Benjamin of Tudela passed the utterly desolate site of Chaldea’s ancient capital, but was unable to investigate the ruins, because of the prevalence of vast numbers of scorpions and serpents.
Other cities in prophecy became folds for flocks, but this one was not to have any such history. But, as Rawlinson says, "On the actual ruins of Babylon, the Arabian neither pitches his tent nor pastures his flocks- in the first place, because the nitrous soil produces no pasture to tempt him; secondly, because an evil reputation attaches to the entire site, which is thought to be the haunt of evil spirits."-"Egypt and Babylon," page 206.
"There is one fact," says Mr. Rassam, "connected with the destruction of Babylon and the marvelous fulfillment of prophecy, which struck me more than anything else, which fact seems never to have been noticed by any traveler; and that is the nonexistence, in the several modern buildings in the neighborhood of Babylon, of any sign of stone which had been dug up from its ancient ruins. It seems that in digging for old materials, the Arabs used the bricks for building purposes, but always burnt the stone thus discovered for lime, which fact wonderfully fulfills the divine words of Jeremiah, namely, `And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate forever, saith the Lord."’
Turn to the records of historians, and their accounts teem with records of wild animals and wild birds and pests that infest the ruins of Babylon, and of the lagoons of stagnant water. "Thou shalt be desolate forever," was the verdict written by the divine hand over its ruins; and many centuries she has been desolate, her very site a matter of speculation.
Why have not the infidels, whether in the church or out, who are so eager to disprove God’s word, gone and inhabited Babylon? God’s very words on multiplied millions of Bible pages stand a challenge to them to prove that the verdict passed on Babylon is untrue. But despite the pratings of those who say prophecy is history written after the event, no one has ever yet claimed that this prediction was written in this century; yet if their contention be true, the prophecy of the desolation of Assyria and Babylonia must have been written in recent years.
Notwithstanding the blind cavils of unbelievers, there lie the ruins of two magnificent world-ruling empires as impregnable proof of the divine foresight given the writers of these prophecies. Or do the higher critics prefer to account for the remarkable fulfillment of these predictions on the score of clever guessing? It is not the fulfillment they deny - that is unquestionable; but they deny that the writers had the wisdom to foretell. Hence the fulfillment was all accident!
Let us turn to another of the more ancient kingdoms. Of the destruction of Egypt’s two ancient capitals, Thebes and Memphis, we read in Ezekiel 30:13, A. R. V., "I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause the images to cease from Memphis." Memphis was founded by Menes, and Brugsch Bey speaks of it as "the great temple city of Egypt." In the course of the centuries, Thebes was reduced to ruins, but Memphis retained her glory. At the beginning of the Christian era, the fulfillment of this prophecy seemed more improbable still; for not only were images to be found all over Egypt, Thebes, though in ruins for centuries, being no exception, but Strabo found Memphis "large and populous, next to Alexandria in size," and tells us of its gods and temples and statues. Even as late as the seventh century, it was the residence of the governor of Egypt. But there remained on the pages of prophecy the assertion that though the idols and images of the other cities of Egypt would not be destroyed, those of Memphis would be. How the skeptic of that day might have sneered at the prediction, and taunted the Christian with his fallible Bible and failing prophecies, since there stood Memphis in power and glory nearly fifteen hundred years after its predicted destruction!
Even in the thirteenth century, its ruins struck the beholder with admiration. But today? Let the "Encyclopedia Britannica" tell us: "Now the ruins of the city, the great temple of Ptah, the dwelling of Apis, and the palaces of the kings, are traceable only by a few stones among the palm trees and fields and heaps of rubbish." Eleventh edition, article "Memphis." But where are her idols and images and gods and statues? "This is all that remains of Memphis, eldest of cities," says Miss Amelia B. Edwards,- "a few large rubbish heaps, a dozen or so of broken statues, and a name. One can hardly believe a great city ever flourished on this spot, or understand how it should have been effaced so utterly."-"A Thousand Miles up the Nile," pages 97-99. The prophecies concerning Egypt itself were abundant and minute, and a detailed application of them is fascinating; but only a few of them can be admitted here, illustrative of the character of the rest.
It was foretold that the canals of Egypt should be dried up, and the rivers be wasted and stink. Ezekiel 30:12; Isaiah 19:5-6.
"The entire river became a marsh, through which, by the great pressure of water, the stream oozed through innumerable small channels. In fact, the White Nile had disappeared."-"Encyclopedia Britannica," article "Nile."
"The great difference between the Nile of Egypt in the present day and in ancient times is caused by the failure of some of its branches. . . . The river was famous for its seven branches; and under Roman dominion, eleven were counted, of which, however, there were but seven principal ones. . . . Now, as for a long period past, there are no navigable and unobstructed branches but those two that Herodotus distinguishes as the work of man." Reginald Stuart Poole, "Egypt as It Is," page 5.
Wilkinson speaks of the "noxious vapors that rise when the water has retired and left a bed of liquid mud."
Concerning the canals, Mr. Villiers Stuart, who was deputed by the British government to examine into the state of Egypt, says "Canals exist, but many have been allowed to silt up. They all want deepening, and they ought to be connected together on a scientific system."-"Egypt After the War," page 241.
"The reeds and flags shall wither away. The meadows by the Nile, by the brink of the Nile, and all the sown fields of the Nile, shall become dry, be driven away, and be no more." Isaiah 19:6,
"The fishers shall lament, and all they that cast angle into the Nile shall mourn, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish." Isaiah 19:8. For many hundred years, fish was the food of the poor, and was caught in such abundance that from Lake Morris alone the Pharaohs derived a revenue of five hundred thousand dollars a year. But today, Poole tells us, "the fisheries are scarcely of any moment." But worst of all: "Moreover they that work in combed flax, and they that weave white cloth, shall be confounded. And the pillars of Egypt shall be broken in pieces; all they that work for hire shall be grieved in soul. . . . Neither shall there be for Egypt any work, which head or tail, palm branch or rush, may do." Isaiah 19:9-10, Isaiah 19:15. The arts and industries of Egypt were her chief glories. The combed flax sold for its weight in gold. The other products of Egypt were famed as the best in the world. It would seem that if all the industries of Egypt passed away, so that there was no work of this kind left for high or low to do, the kingdom could not continue. But the prophecy says only that they shall be grieved in soul. As the centuries passed, these words seemed unlikely of fulfillment. When Alexander conquered Egypt, new markets were opened up, and the destruction of Tyre and Sidon gave new life to her industries. Pliny, a hundred years after Christ, still speaks of the arts and commerce of Egypt as at their height. But today agriculture is her one stay and employment, and it is so unskillfully carried on as to awaken the scorn and pity of the nations.
"And I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked: and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers: I the Lord have spoken it." Ezekiel 30:12.
Thus in one brief sentence is summed up the whole history of Egypt since the occupation of the first conquerors, Volney called it a country "of slavery and tyranny." Malte-Brun speaks of "the arbitrary sway of the ruffian masters of Egypt." Much as the Egyptian hated the foreigner and his ways, it seems a poetic punishment that Egypt, the land that oppressed God’s people for hundreds of years, should be oppressed in turn by strangers. Egypt has been treated, for two thousand years and more, as she treated her slaves. The hand of the wicked stranger has made Egyptian history for ages, as the prophet declared.
"It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it any more lift itself up above the nations: and I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations." "And there shall be no more a prince from the land of Egypt." Ezekiel 29:15; Ezekiel 30:13. And what has history to say? Assyria and Babylonia have been destroyed as the prophecy said; but this kingdom was not to be destroyed, but degraded, debased, the oppressed land of rapacious tyrants during all the rest of her history. For two millenniums, she has been subject successively to the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantine Greeks, the Saracens, the Turks, the French, and the British. Not once in that time has one of her own princes risen to power.
"They shall cry unto Jehovah because of oppressors, and He will send them a savior, and a defender, and He will deliver them. . . . And Jehovah will smite Egypt, smiting and healing; and they shall return unto Jehovah, and He will be entreated of them, and will heal them." Isaiah 19:20-22.
Since the English occupation, thirty years ago, the population of Egypt has doubled. The land under cultivation has doubled in area, as well as increased in productiveness, owing to the modern scientific system of irrigation. Manufactures have multiplied, commerce has increased, schools have been established, Christianity is spreading fast. In fact, "the prosperity of the country became more manifest each succeeding year."-"Encyclopedia Britannica," article "Egypt."
Suppose the ancient prophets of the Old Testament, in making their predictions concerning Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt, had by any accident transposed their predictions - that we were told Egypt should never be inhabited, but should remain desolate forever, while Babylon was to be degraded, and her people were to continue subjects of a foreign power. How quick the critics would be to bring forward the fact of non-fulfillment of prophecy! But when history teems with facts which attest the accuracy of predictions made, even, as we have seen, when they extend more than two thousand years beyond the time in which even the most rabid critic claims they were written, he shuts his eyes to the facts, and talks learnedly of prophecy’s being history written after the event!
How can man, without divine aid, foretell the future for ten years, not to say twice ten centuries? Who, in 1905, dreamed of the revolution in Turkey? Who, in 1900, could have foretold the lightning-like rapidity of the revolution in the most sluggish and cumbersome of all nations -who, in short, could have foreseen a Chinese republic? Who, in July, 1914, foretold the beginning, in a few days, of the world’s most awful war? But in the Bible, we have not one instance of such foresight, but hundreds, reaching not ten years into the future, but thousands. If those who foresaw these things were not prophets with divine foresight, those ancient writers are a far greater miracle than we claim for them, and it will tax the acutest ingenuity of the most ingenious critics, whose whole lives are an effort to explain away the truths of the Bible by ingenuity - it will, I say, tax to the utmost all their cautious cunning to explain as guesswork such stupendous foresight.