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Section 7 Historic
Prophecies.
Bible Prophecy Fifty
Four
Prophecy about the city
of Jericho.
"Then Joshua charged them at that time, saying,
'Cursed be the man before the LORD who rises up and builds this city
Jericho; he shall lay its foundation with his firstborn, and with his
youngest he shall set up its gates '" (Joshua 6:26).
Joshua 6:26 was written around 1380 B.C. This
prophecy specifically predicted:
1) The city of Jericho would be rebuilt.
Fulfilled when King Ahab had Hiel rebuild
Jericho.
2) When the builder lays the new Jericho 's
foundations his oldest son would die.
Fulfilled when Hiel 's oldest son Abiram died.
3) When the builder sets up the city 's gates his
youngest son would die.
Fulfilled when Hiel 's youngest son Segub died. I
Kings 16:34.
__________
Bible
Prophecy Fifty
Five
Daniel 's prophecy about
the coming of the Messiah to Jerusalem.
One of the most amazing prophecies in the Word of
God is Daniel 's prophecy in Daniel Chapter 9
telling the exact day that Jesus would enter Jerusalem to be
crucified, 500 years before it happened!
Daniel had been shown many prophecies in
visions. Chapter 9 of Daniel records the angel Gabriel coming to
Daniel and speaking the most amazing prophecy to him.
He told him that God 's people would have a
period of 70 weeks cut out of history for them, during which time
several things would take place.
69 of the 70 weeks have been fulfilled in actual
history. There is a pause of thousands of years, and then the last
week will be fulfilled. This is a common thing in Bible prophecy. In
a spiritual way we are in the last week, now in our lives today.
The word week is "shabua," which in Hebrew means
seven; it is like saying a dozen. The entire Old Testament proves
this out; when a week is spoken of it means seven, and it usually
associated with years (Leviticus 25). Daniel was thinking in terms of
periods of seven years for each "week."
We are going to focus on the 69 weeks, which now
is history and prophecy fulfilled in a supernatural way.
The
year in Old Testament terms was not 365 days but 360 days; proven in
Genesis 7:11- 8:3. It verifies that the flood lasted 150 days and
then it gave us the five-month period by dates.
The starting point for this prophetic event was to
be the issuance of a command to rebuild Jerusalem, including the
streets, the walls, and the moat as a protection against the
enemies.
"Know and understand this: From the issuing of the
decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the
ruler, comes, there will be seven 'sevens ', and sixty-two 'sevens. '
It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of
trouble" (Daniel 9:25).
The starting point was the command to rebuild the
City, and that was given in Nehemiah 2:1. It was
the month of Nisan in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes. He began his
reign in 465 BC, + 20 years = 445 BC, so the decree took place in 445
BC the month of Nisan. 445 BC Nisan = March 14.
69 weeks X 7 X 360 days = 173,880 days.
Now for the rest of the math:
Add to March 14, 445 BC 173,880 days = April 6, 32
AD, which is the very day Jesus rode into Jerusalem in his triumphal
entry. What an amazing prophecy and fulfillment!
Bible
Prophecy Fifty Six
One of the
most amazing prophecies was given by Ezekiel
It was the foretelling of the very month (maybe
even to the day) of Israel 's return to the Promised Land after being
away over 1,900 years. The year was 1948!
In 70 AD, a little more than 30 years after Jesus
was resurrected, the Roman General Titus came and destroyed
Jerusalem. The Jews dispersed all over the world. Multitudes of
civilizations have come to Israel to steal God 's promise. Later, in
the 1940s, Hitler tried to destroy the last traces of Jews from the
face of the earth.
They are the only race of people to survive
thousands of years without a country! In 1948 (during my own
lifetime) after World War II and Hitler 's failure, the Jews came
back and formed a new country called Israel. I watched it on TV! I
saw the United Nations vote to ordain this.
Ezekiel
was given this prophecy in a most unusual way from God.
"Moreover take for yourself an iron plate, and
set it as an iron wall between you and the city. Set your face
against it, and it shall be besieged, and you shall lay siege against
it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.
Lie
also on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel
upon it. According to the number of the days that you lie on it, you
shall bear their iniquity.
For I have laid on you the years of their
iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and
ninety days; so you shall bear the iniquity of the house of
Israel.
And when you have completed them, lie again on
your right side; then you shall bear the iniquity of the house of
Judah forty days. I have laid on you a day for each year" (Ezekiel
4:3-6).
God said this would be a sign to Israel. He told
Ezekiel to lie on his left side 390 days (representing 390 years),
and then lie on his right side 40 days (representing 40 years), or a
total of 430 years. This would be a sign to Israel that their
punishment would be for 430 years.
In the spring of 536 BC they were released from
Babylon. If you count the 70 years of captivity in Babylon, they
still had 360 years left (430- 70 = 360).
However,
nothing happened at the end of this 360-year period. The majority of
the Jews were still in Babylon, now known as Iraq and Iran, and they
were still backslidden people. They had failed to repent of their
disobedience.
The solution to this mystery is in Leviticus 26
where it states that the punishments for Israel are based on her
obedience and disobedience to His commands. God said here that if
Israel did not repent, the punishments would be multiplied by 7
.
This means that the 360 years of further punishment prophesied by Ezekiel was multiplied by
7 (360 X 7 = 2,520 Biblical years). A Biblical year was 360 days.
Converting this to our calendar years that would total 2,483.8 years
(2,520 X 360 = 907,200 days) / 365.25 = 2,483.8 years)
______________________________________________
Ending of Babylonian
Captivity was
in 536
BC
Plus
2,483.8 calendar years
Equals
1,947.4
Adjust for no zero year.
between 1 BC and AD
1
1
Therefore the captivity of
Israel would end
in
May 1948
Which was the date Israel became a nation; May
14, 1948.
This great day marked the first time since the
days of Solomon that a united Israel took its place as a sovereign
and independent state among the nations of the world.
This is more proof that God is the Author of
the Bible.
Such prophecies being fulfilled in this way are
beyond human manipulation. It also shows that Israel is part of God
's plan and that we are living in very special days; some call it end
times. We do not know when things on this earth will change, when
Jesus will come back, when anything will happen, but we do know that
in 1948 a major Bible historical event took place!
Bible Prophecy
Fifty Seven
Fulfilled Prophecy:
Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible
By Hugh Ross, Ph.D.
Unique
among all books ever written, the Bible accurately foretells specific events-in
detail-many years, sometimes centuries, before they occur.
Approximately 2500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about
2000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letteróno
errors.
(The
remaining 500 or so reach into the future and may be seen unfolding
as days go by.) Since the probability for any one of these prophecies
having been fulfilled by chance averages less than one in ten
(figured very conservatively) and since the prophecies are for the
most part independent of one another, the odds for all these
prophecies having been fulfilled by chance without error is less than
one in 102000 (that is 1 with 2000 zeros written after it)!
God is not the only one, however, who uses forecasts of future events to get people
's attention. Satan does, too. Through clairvoyants (such as Jeanne
Dixon and Edgar Cayce), mediums, spiritists, and others, come
remarkable predictions, though rarely with more than about 60 percent
accuracy, never with total accuracy. Messages from Satan,
furthermore, fail to match the detail of Bible prophecies, nor do
they include a call to repentance.
The acid test for identifying a prophet of God is
recorded by Moses in Deuteronomy 18:21-22. According to this Bible
passage (and others), God 's prophets, as distinct from Satan 's
spokesmen, are 100 percent accurate in their predictions. There is no
room for error.
As economy does not permit an explanation of all
the Biblical prophecies that have been fulfilled, what follows in a
discussion of a few that exemplify the high degree of specificity,
the range of projection, and/or the "supernature" of the predicted
events. Readers are encouraged to select others, as well, and to
carefully examine their historicity.
(1) The prophet Isaiah foretold that a conqueror
named Cyrus would destroy seemingly impregnable Babylon and subdue
Egypt along with most of the rest of the known world. This same man,
said Isaiah, would decide to let the Jewish exiles in his territory
go free without any payment of ransom (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1; and
45:13). Isaiah made this prophecy 150 years before Cyrus was born,
180 years before Cyrus performed any of these feats (and he did,
eventually, perform them all), and 80 years before the Jews were
taken into exile.
(Probability
of chance fulfillment = 1 in 1015.)
(2) Mighty Babylon, 196 miles square, was enclosed
not only by a moat, but also by a double wall 330 feet high, each
part 90 feet thick. It was said by unanimous popular opinion to be
indestructible, yet two Bible prophets declared its doom. These
prophets further claimed that the ruins would be avoided by
travelers, that the city would never again be inhabited, and that its
stones would not even be moved for use as building material (Isaiah
13:17-22 and Jeremiah 51:26, 43). Their description is, in fact, the
well-documented history of the famous citadel.
(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in
109.)
(3) The exact location and construction sequence
of Jerusalem 's nine suburbs was predicted by Jeremiah about 2600
years ago. He referred to the time of this building project as "the
last days," that is, the time period of Israel 's second rebirth as a
nation in the land of Palestine (Jeremiah 31:38-40). this rebirth
became history in 1948, and the construction of the nine suburbs has
gone forward precisely in the locations and in the sequence
predicted.
(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in
1018.)
(4) The prophet Moses foretold (with some
additions by Jeremiah and Jesus) that the ancient Jewish nation would
be conquered twice and that the people would be carried off as slaves
each time, first by the Babylonians (for a period of 70 years), and
then by a fourth world kingdom (which we know as the Roman Empire).
The second conqueror, Moses said, would take the Jews captive to
Egypt in ships, selling them or giving them away as slaves to all
parts of the world. Both of these predictions were fulfilled to the
letter, the first in 607 B.C. and the second in 70 A.D. God 's
spokesmen said, further, that the Jews would remain scattered
throughout the entire world for many generations, but without
becoming assimilated by the peoples or of other nations, and that the
Jews would one day return to the land of Palestine to re-establish
for a second time their nation (Deuteronomy 29; Isaiah 11:11-13;
Jeremiah 25:11; Hosea 3:4-5 and Luke 21:23-24).
This prophetic statement sweeps across 3500
years of history to its complete fulfillmentóin our lifetime.
(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in
120.)
(5)
Jeremiah predicted that despite its fertility and despite the
accessibility of its water supply, the land of Edom (today a part of
Jordan) would become a barren, uninhabited wasteland (Jeremiah
49:15-20; Ezekiel 25:12-14). His description accurately tells the
history of that now bleak region.
(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in
105.)
(6) The day of Elijah's supernatural departure
from Earth was predicted unanimouslyóand accurately, according
to the eye-witness accountóby a group of fifty prophets (II
Kings 2:3-11).
(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in
109).
(7) Jahaziel prophesied that King Jehoshaphat and
a tiny band of men would defeat an enormous, well-equipped,
well-trained army without even having to fight. Just as predicted,
the King and his troops stood looking on as their foes were
supernaturally destroyed to the last man (II Chronicles 20).
(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in
108).
(8) One prophet of God (unnamed, but probably
Shemiah) said that a future king of Judah, named Josiah, would take
the bones of all the occultic priests (priests of the "high places")
of Israel 's King Jeroboam and burn them on Jeroboam 's altar (I
Kings 13:2 and II Kings 23:15-18). This event occurred approximately
300 years after it was foretold.
(Probability
of chance fulfillment = 1 in 1013).
Given that the Bible proves so reliable a
document, there is every reason to expect that the remaining 500
prophecies, those slated for the "time of the end," also will be
fulfilled to the last letter.
Who can afford to ignore these coming
events, much less miss out on the immeasurable
blessings offered to anyone and everyone who submits to the control
of the Bible 's author, Jesus Christ? (See the paper entitled Grace
for a list of these benefits.) Would a reasonable person take lightly
God 's warning of judgment for those who reject what they know to be
true about Jesus Christ and the Bible, or who reject Jesus ' claim on
their lives?
Bible Prophecy
Fifty Eight
Prophecies about Israel coming back into their
land.
In
70 AD the Romans destroyed Israel and scattered the Jewish (Hebrew)
people all over the world. In the late 1930 and early 1940s, Hitler
attempted to destroy all the Jewish people living in Europe.
Israel
had never ceased being a people, but they also never had a land, or a
country. They were scattered among all the nations of the world.
"I will scatter you among the nations and
draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your
cities waste" (Leviticus 26:33).
"And the LORD will scatter you among the
peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where
the LORD will drive you" (Deuteronomy 4:27).
"Then
the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the
earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which
neither you nor your fathers have known--wood and stone" (Deuteronomy
28:64).
The
chances of Israel surviving were nearly impossible. No other society
or group of people has ever survived without a country! However God
prophesied not only Israel 's scattering, but also their
re-gathering!
"I will restore the captivity of my people,
Israel I will plant them in their land, and they will not again be
rooted out from their land, which I have given them, says the Lord
your God." (Amos 9:14, 15)
Ezekiel 36:24-30 says, "For I will take you
from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring
you into your own land.
25 "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you,
and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness
and from all your idols.
26 "I will give you a new heart and put a new
spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh
and give you a heart of flesh.
27 "I will put My Spirit within you and cause
you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do
them.
28 "Then you shall dwell in the land that I
gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your
God.
29 "I will deliver you from all your
uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring
no famine upon you.
30 "And I will multiply the fruit of your trees
and the increase of your fields, so that you need never again bear
the reproach of famine among the nations."
There are equally profound prophecies in Ezekiel
37, Jeremiah 16 and dozens of other Scriptures.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s Jews began
returning to the Land once know as Israel. There were world wars
through which God used Briton and the United States to bring about
His purposes.
In 1948, on May 14th, Israel officially
became a nation once more. Later in 1967 and 1976, during wars with
their neighboring nations, Israel also possessed Jerusalem again.
This was the "beginning of the end." This event
was needed before the King, or the Messiah could return to earth. I
feel privileged that I actually saw that event take place on TV. I
was only eight years old.
According to Bible prophecy about the future, and
the Second coming of the King or Messiah, this event put the "end
time clock" into motion. It has been ticking ever since!
The Dead Sea
Scrolls ñ Supernatural Evidence!
Just
prior to, even on the eve of, Israel becoming established as a nation
in 1947-1948, an amazing discovery was made of many ancient Scripture
scrolls that had been hidden in caves in Israel by the Essences sect
of Israelites. These scrolls were over 2,000 years old.
A
shepherd boy had thrown a stone into a cave near Qumran Israel, and
instead of scarring off a predator, he heard his stone "clink '
against an object. He discovered several beautiful clay pots filled
with ancient scrolls.
The result is that the entire Book of Isaiah
was recovered together with the Psalms, Job, Habakkuk, seven complete
Bible books and many other partial scrolls.
Also was discovered a record of how this sect
believed. They were very prophetic and believed that an "end times"
would come in which the "children of darkness" would have one last
confrontation with the "children of light." They were looking for the
Messiah. Their life was one of total and continual consecration to
the Lord reflected in their daily living. These scrolls are now in a
museum in Jerusalem.
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