Information Related to "History Proves the Accuracy of Bible Prophecy"
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History Proves the Accuracy of
Bible Prophecy
and precision of Bible prophecy. Consider, for example, God's prophecies of the fate
of Israel if the Israelites rebelled against Him.
The story begins with Israel's split into two kingdoms, Israel and Judah, in 928
B.C., soon after Solomon's death. Jeroboam, king of Israel (928-907), instituted
idolatry as part of his kingdom's pattern of worship (1Kings 12:26-33). This angered
God because Solomon's idolatry had earlier caused God to choose Jeroboam to lead
the northern kingdom (1Kings 11:30-33).
God warned Jeroboam's wife of the consequences of his, and the kingdom's, idolatry:
"For the Lord will strike Israel . . . He will uproot Israel from
this good land which He gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River
(the Euphrates), because they have made their wooden images, provoking the Lord to
anger" (1Kings 14:15).
God continued, through His prophets, to warn of the punishment sure to come if the
Israelites would not turn from their sinful ways. He waited, patiently and mercifully,
for a repentance that never came.
One such prophet was Micah (ca. 749-722), author of the biblical book that bears
his name. "The word of the Lord that came to Micah . . . which he
saw concerning Samaria (Israel's capital) and Jerusalem. Hear, all you peoples! Listen,
O earth, and all that is in it! Let the Lord God be a witness against you . . .
I will make Samaria a heap of ruins in the field, places for planting a vineyard;
I will pour down her stones into the valley, and I will uncover her foundations"
(Micah 1:1-2,6).
Finally, after successive invasions, the Assyrian Empire devastated Israel, the northern
kingdom, and took most of its population captive (722 B.C.).
"Now the king of Assyria went throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria
and besieged it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria
took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria . . . For so it was that
the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God . . . And
they rejected His statutes and His covenant that He had made with their fathers,
and His testimonies which He had testified against them; they followed idols, became
idolaters, and went after the nations who were all around them, concerning whom the
Lord had charged them that they should not do like them" (2Kings 17:5-7,15).
As noted above, God had prophesied almost 200 years earlier that He would "uproot
Israel from this good land which He gave to their fathers, and will scatter them
beyond the (Euphrates) River . . ." This and many other details of
the prophecies and historical account of the Assyrian invasions and resulting Israelite
captivity are verified by Assyrian records and other archaeological discoveries.
Judah fails to learn a lesson
Even after witnessing the downfall of their northern cousins in the kingdom of
Israel, citizens of the kingdom of Judah themselves drifted into idolatry and disobedience.
God sent prophets to warn them of their fate if they failed to repent.
Through the prophet Jeremiah (ca. 626-587), God delivered a remarkable prophecy of
Judah's future:
". . . The Lord has sent to you all His servants the prophets, rising
early and sending them, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear.
They said, 'Repent now everyone of his evil way and his evil doings, and dwell in
the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers forever and ever. Do not
go after other gods to serve them and worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger
with the works of your hands; and I will not harm you.'
"'Yet you have not listened to Me . . . Because you have not heard
My words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,' says the Lord,
'and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against
this land, against its inhabitants, and against these nations all around, and will
utterly destroy them . . . And this whole land shall be a desolation and
an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
"'Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish
the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,'
says the Lord; 'and I will make it a perpetual desolation'" (Jeremiah 25:4-12).
Judah would fall to the Babylonians, God warned, and would go into captivity in Babylon
for 70 years. At the end of the 70 years God would, in turn, punish Babylon. In another
astonishing prophecy, God revealed through Isaiah the name of the ruler-Cyrus, king
of Persia-who would, many years in the future, permit the Jews' return (Isaiah 44:28;
45:1-4).
Jeremiah's prophecy came to pass. After several invasions (in 597 and 587) Judah
fell to the Babylonians. "(God) brought against them the king of the Chaldeans,
who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had
no compassion . . . He gave them all into his hand . . . Then
they burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces
with fire, and destroyed all its precious possessions. And those who escaped from
the sword he carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons
until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth
of Jeremiah . . ." (2Chronicles 36:17-21).
God's fulfills His promise of restoration
The 70 years in exile passed. Daniel 5 records that the Babylonian monarch Belshazzar
held a great and blasphemous feast at which he and his guests drank wine from gold
and silver vessels looted from the Jerusalem temple years before by Nebuchadnezzar.
The king watched as a ghostly hand appeared and wrote a mysterious message on the
wall. The king "was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs
gave way" (verse 6, NIV).
The prophet Daniel revealed that this original handwriting on the wall signified
God's judgment that Babylon's dominance had come to an end. He told the king, "'Your
kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians' . . . (and) that
very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain . . ." (verses 28,30, NIV).
A century later the Greek historian Herodotus (484-420) confirmed Daniel's account
of the fall of Babylon: "The Persians, drawing off the river (Euphrates) by
a canal into the lake, which was till now a marsh, he (Cyrus) made the stream to
sink till its former channel could be forded. When this happened, the Persians who
were posted with this intent made their way into Babylon by the channel of the Euphrates,
which had now sunk to about the height of the middle of a man's thigh . . .
The Persians thus entered the city . . . and the inhabitants who lived
in the central part of Babylon were unaware of the enemies' presence due to the great
size of the city and since they were celebrating a festival. They continued dancing
and exchanging gifts until they were suddenly told of their sad fate. In this manner
was Babylon conquered" (History, book 1, paragraphs 191-192).
Daniel's prediction, along with the prophecies of other prophets of God about the
downfall of Babylon, was suddenly and dramatically fulfilled.
Jeremiah's prophecy of a 70-year captivity and Isaiah's prophecy of Cyrus allowing
the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar
were also fulfilled down to the last detail. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah record
the Jews' return.
Fulfilled prophecy's meaning for us
A series of remarkable prophecies spanning hundreds of years, five kingdoms and
many prophets and rulers precisely came to pass. As God had said through Isaiah when
He foretold Judah's downfall at the hands of the Babylonians: ". . .
I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the
end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying,
'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure' . . . Indeed I
have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do
it" (Isaiah 46:9-11).
God alone has the power to prophesy events, then bring them to pass. He will yet
bring to pass the many other unfulfilled prophecies recorded in His Word.
For additional proof that the Bible is indeed God's inspired Word, be sure to request
your free copy of Is the Bible True? from our office nearest you.
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