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Today, I thought I would talk a little about the Old Testament and what role it serves. The Old Testament really only has one theme, which is to foretell the coming of Christ and to prepare for that coming.
Apollus used the scriptures to convince many Jews of that Jesus was the Messiah
in Acts 18:28. "For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly,
shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ." He did this using
only the Old Testament. The vast majority of the New Testament had not yet been
written.
In order for a prophecy to display evidence of divine inspiration, it must contain
information that the person speaking or writing the prophecy could not have known by
natural means. One way for this to occur is for the prophecy to occur prior to
the prophesied event.
Therefore, it is important to first show that the 39 books of
the Old Testament are truly ancient. We know that the Old Testament scriptures were
written before the time of Jesus Christ because He frequently quoted from them.
We further know that the scriptures date
back to a time long before the birth of Jesus Christ, due to the discoveries found in the
dead sea scrolls. But besides this, even those Jews who do not believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God, agree that these 39 books were written well before 300
BC.
In the third century BC, the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek.
This translation was called the Septuagint. Of course, all of the Old Testament
scriptures had to have been written for them to have been translated. Malachi, the last
book of the Old Testament, was written around 400 BC.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of prophecies in the Bible. Many have
already been fulfilled. For example, Daniel prophesied the coming of the
Medo-Persian, Greek, and Roman empires, Alexander the Great, and the details of
many military battles.
Many other prophecies are still awaiting their
fulfillment. In the pages that follow, I've listed several examples in which God
shows us through prophecy that the Bible is truly His Word.
I have specifically
chosen prophecies whose fulfillments are either documented in secular
reference books, or being set up before our very eyes today. This
way, the reader will know that I am not just making up the fulfillments, nor
did the Bible writers simply fabricate them in order to add credit to their own
writings.
The prophecies examined below are divided into two groups:
Prophecy fulfillments well documented in secular history include (1.)
Daniel's prophecy of the 70 weeks and (2.) the people of Israel to be scattered into all
nations and to live in fear and persecution.
Prophecies for which we see the fulfillment being set up today include
(3.) Jerusalem to be a burdensome stone for all people, (4.) the people of Israel to be
regathered to the land of Israel, (5.) the sacrificial system of worship in the temple to
be resumed, (6.) a mark in the right hand or forehead to be required to buy or
sell, and (7.) tribulation so severe that no flesh would survive.
1. Daniel's prophecy of the 70 weeks
While the prophet Daniel was captive in Babylon in about 538 BC, God
revealed the prophecy of Israel's 70 weeks to him in Daniel 9:24-26.
"Seventy weeks (Hebrew word: "shabuwa") are determined upon thy people (Israel) and upon thy holy city (Jerusalem), to finish the
transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness,
and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
Know therefore and understand, that from the
going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and
threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
And after threescore
and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off (killed), but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy
the city (Jerusalem) and the sanctuary (the temple) ...." In this prophecy, the following sequence of events
are revealed.
A. There would one day be a commandment to rebuild the city of Jerusalem,
which the Babylonians had destroyed years earlier. This was fulfilled in 445 BC by Artaxerxes,
king of the Medo-Persian Empire (465-424 BC),
nearly a century after the prophecy of Daniel 9 was given. See Nehemiah 2:1-8 for the account of how Nehemiah asked Artaxerxes
for the permission and the means to rebuild the ruins of the city of Jerusalem. In Nehemiah 2:1, we see that this took place
"... in the month Nisan (the first month of the Hebrew calendar which occurs in early spring), in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king (445 BC) ...."
B. From the giving of this commandment to the Messiah would be 69 (seven plus threescore and two) weeks (shabuwa) after which the Messiah
would be cut off (killed). This was fulfilled when Jesus Christ was crucified on the 14th day of
Nisan (the passover) of 32 AD, right on schedule.
In order to calculate the lengths of time mentioned in this prophecy, we first need to understand what a "shabuwa" is
(translated into English in Daniel 9 as "weeks" or "week"). The Hebrew word shabuwa means a "period of seven".
It could be seven days or seven years. In scripture, it is used
both ways, and we have to tell by the context which one it is.
Often, shabuwa is used in scripture to describe the length of a feast
or some other event that obviously is only a matter of days in length.
But sometimes a shabuwa clearly means seven years, such as in Genesis
29:27-28. After Jacob was given Leah, in place of Rachel,
for a wife after serving Laban for seven years, Laban told him. "27 Fulfil her week (shabuwa), and we will give
thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. 28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her
week (shabuwa): and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also."
Like in Genesis 29, shabuwa is used in
Daniel 9 to refer to periods of seven years (not days). Some Bible teachers refer to these as "weeks of years".
When calculating the 69 seven year periods, a shabuwa is a period of seven
years, and seven times 69 is 483 years. But we know from the
detail of the seventieth week provided
in the book of Revelation, that these years are 360 days rather than the
years on our present calendar which, figuring in leap years, are
approximately 365.25 days.
Revelation 12:14 describes the second half
of the tribulation as
"a time, times, and half a time" (1 + 2 + 1/2 = 3 1/2 years). Revelation 12:6 says this is
"a thousand two hundred and threescore (1260) days",
and Revelation 13:5 says it is "forty and two months". Since 1260 / 42 = 30 and 1260 / 3.5 = 360, we know
that in this prophecy, God is counting months
as 30 days each and years as 360 days each.
Since the tribulation
is a part of the 70 weeks of
Daniel's prophecy, we know that the 360-day years must be used. So to
see how many of our years
this is, we calculate 483 * (360 / 365.25) = 476 years, 0 months, and a
few days.
Moving forward from the
445 BC date, this brings us to the early spring of 32 AD (476 - 445 + 1 =
32), when Jesus Christ was crucified.
The one must be added to account for the fact that there is no "year 0".
The year after
1 BC was 1 AD. The calculation here is somewhat simplified and shows
that at a minimum, the prophecy was accurate
to within a very few days.
Some scholars have used additional evidence
for the difficult task of calculating this prophecy to the exact day.
To do this,
they have to know the day of the month that the commandment of
Artaxerxes was given plus the astrological history
of moon phases as viewed from Jerusalem, since the months of the Hebrew
calendar are based upon observance of the moon
phases.
As for me, I am more than satisfied to know that the prophecy
in Daniel 9, given several hundred years in advance,
was accurate to the very month, but readers who are inclined to pursue
the more detailed calculation to the exact day are welcome to do so.
Now one might wonder why God didn't use our 365.25-day years in His prophecy? We cannot be certain, but
perhaps He was using the same number of days
per year that the earth had when He created it.
We know from
Genesis 7:11 and 8:3-4 that a calendar with 30 day months was used before the great flood.
It may
be that in the catastrophe of the flood, the earth's rotational speed was increased slightly. One way this could
happen would be if the earth's density were increased due to the tremendous seismic activity and
the collapse of the water canopy which God used to trigger the flood.
Genesis 7:11-12 says, "... all the fountains of the great
deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days
and forty nights."
This increase of density would have increased
the earth's rotational speed by reducing its
moment of inertia in the same way
that spinning ice skaters spin faster when they pull their out-stretched
arms in closer to their bodies.
If the period of the earth's revolution around the sun did not change,
then there would be more days per
year after the great flood than there were before the flood. Now let's
continue to the next event in the sequence of the Daniel 9 prophecy.
C. The people of the prince which is to come will destroy Jerusalem and the
temple. This was fulfilled by Titus and the Roman Empire in 70 AD. In the war with the Jews, the Roman army besieged and
destroyed Jerusalem, burned the temple, and killed more than one million Jews.
It is interesting to note that when this destruction was prophesied in
538 BC, Jerusalem and temple had not even been rebuilt yet.
The part of this prophecy regarding the "prince which is to come" concerns the AntiChrist who must come from the revived
Roman Empire in the future tribulation which will be the seventieth week of the prophecy (Daniel 9:27).
There are several amazing things about this prophecy: It accurately predicted the time of
Jesus Christ's crucifixion, more than 500 years before it happened.
It sandwiched His death between two future events (A and C) which have both been
very well documented in history.
Both of the events came true even though they were
prophesied hundreds of years in advance. When one considers that this prophecy
amazingly predicted events A and C above, then believing that this prophecy was also correct on event B does
not exactly require a leap of faith.
2. Israel to be scattered into all nations and to live in fear and persecution
One prophecy that occurs again and again in the Old Testament is the prophecy
of the people of Israel being scattered to all nations.
Certainly this has happened. The
northern ten tribes were taken into captivity by Assyrians around 712 BC. The
other two tribes were taken captive by the Babylonians around 606 BC.
Only a small
fraction of the Jews returned from Babylon to resettle the land of Israel in
536 BC. But the biggest blow came in 70 AD when Titus of Rome attacked
Jerusalem, destroying the city and the temple. The Jews that were not killed were scattered
into all nations.
Leviticus 26:33-38 says, "And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will
draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your
cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth
desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and
enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did
not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.
And upon them that are
left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the
lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and
they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none
pursueth. And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword,
when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies.
And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall
eat you up."
Deuteronomy 28:64-67 says, "And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the
one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other
gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.
And
among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of
thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling
heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: And thy
life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and
night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: In the morning thou
shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it
were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for
the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see."
One only needs to look up "Jews" in any encyclopedia for details the long
history of persecution, massacre, and expulsion from various countries.
Hitler's murder of 6,000,000 was not an isolated event, but part of a 2000 year
trend. For example, thousands of Jews were massacred during the time of the
Crusades (1000-1300 AD).
Persecution of Jews was the norm as all Jews were
considered partakers in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In the 14th century
the plague known as the Black Death swept through Europe killing about one
fourth of the population.
Jews were often massacred as a result of the
accusation that they spread the disease by poisoning water supplies.
In 1492,
all Jews were expelled from Spain, as was the case in Portugal just five years
later. And there is much, much more. Just check any encyclopedia.
(To Be Continued Next Sunday)
