Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / VBS 2026 - "Prophecy" by Dale Pollard - Part 2

Transcript

VBS 2026 - "Prophecy" by Dale Pollard - Part 2 · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

0:00
said, I was going to say handed me the notes, pretty much, but he said,
0:04
would you be willing to teach one night? And I said, yeah, sure.
0:07
And then he handed me, you know, all the lesson plans to look through,
0:10
and I started looking at all the topics, and I was like, oh man,
0:14
that looks good. And I was looking for mine, and there was some confusion about
0:18
that a little bit, but then I just started reading through all the lessons.
0:21
I was like, man, I like all this stuff. I like archaeology.
0:23
I like the scientific foreknowledge. I like the predictive prophecy that we're talking
0:27
about. This evening. I just think all this stuff is really neat, really interesting.
0:31
But I wanted to start off with a question. Does anyone have
0:35
a copy of the notes or anything? Oh,
0:38
good. All right, because we're going to do a little bit of that and then
0:41
we're going to do a little off-roading in a little bit. If God
0:45
wrote a book, which we believe he did, what would we expect that book
0:49
to be like? What would we expect out of
0:53
a book that God wrote?
0:57
Powerful. All right, powerful. Yep.
1:00
Everything that's said is correct. All right, that's a big one. Everything in there has
1:03
got to be correct because if the God of the Bible is all-knowing,
1:06
all-powerful, eternal, then He should know what He's talking about.
1:10
So, yeah. All right, what else? History.
1:13
All right, the history. So, the history. If things,
1:17
if historical events are mentioned, then you would expect that those historical events
1:21
should be accurate. I know that there's A lot of things you can't verify even
1:24
in the secular world, but you would expect the things that we can go back
1:27
and verify, you'd expect those things to be right.
1:30
You'd expect certain cities to exist, certain places to exist.
1:34
If there's kings involved, or, you know, any prominent figures
1:38
that are mentioned, then you'd expect that you should be able to go back and
1:41
verify, oh, this person did exist. This person was real. Okay, good. So the
1:46
history is accurate. It's perfect. Powerful. What else? Everything we need to know to
1:50
discern what's right and what isn't right, how to live a good life. Okay,
1:53
good. So, everything we need to know to discern what's right, what's wrong,
1:57
say morally as well.
2:01
If you look at some other religious documents, you can clearly
2:05
tell they're written by human beings. You take the Quran for instance, it's very much
2:09
written by testosterone-fueled men. It's all about conquest and women
2:13
and that kind of thing. So, you say, alright, that can't be right for all
2:16
generations for all time. You'd expect the Bible to be a little bit different.
2:19
If God wrote the Bible, it would be different. Yep. What else?
2:22
Anything else? What happens in the end?
2:26
Okay. All right. So, what happens in the end? Big questions. The big questions.
2:30
And we could tie in a lot of those. I hope I don't step on
2:33
anybody else. I saw a couple other hands. But why are we here? Big questions
2:37
to answer. So, what happens in the end? Why are we here? What's the point?
2:40
You know, we can reason as people. We're different than all the other animals.
2:43
So, what's the deal? What are we up to on earth? And can
2:47
it be written in a way that makes sense for all time to all people?
2:51
Because if it's the Creator of the world and Creator of humans,
2:54
then you'd expect every culture to be able to grasp what is being said on
2:58
various different levels. Okay, good. Anything else?
3:01
Something that has been proven. Oh, okay.
3:04
Something about prophecies that can be proven? Yes, exactly. And that's what we're
3:08
going to be talking about tonight, obviously. But yeah, you'd expect it to be geographically
3:12
accurate, scientifically accurate. In ways that you can prove. And I don't want to— I
3:17
wrote a couple other things, and I don't want to step on tomorrow, because you're
3:21
doing Scientific Foreknowledge, right? Yeah, there's some really cool stuff in that too. I can't
3:25
wait for that. But yeah, you expect every— all the claims inside to be accurate.
3:28
You'd expect it to be a perfect book. You'd also
3:32
expect cohesion and unity. Now, does anyone know how many authors,
3:36
or roughly how many authors wrote the Bible? All right, 40.
3:40
Okay, so we got 40 different human writers writing over anywhere from—
3:44
I've seen 1,400 to 1,600 years. All having diverse backgrounds
3:48
like kings, prophets, shepherds, fishermen. You've got scholars,
3:52
all of them writing across this vast amount of time in
3:56
3 different languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, over 3 different continents:
4:00
Asia, Africa, Europe. And they lived in or wrote from
4:04
7 to 10 different ancient regions or empires. Okay, so it's
4:08
the longest game of telephone, stretches a lot of time,
4:11
and it all makes sense in the end. When it finally comes together,
4:15
it all makes sense. There is a cohesive narrative. There's unity that
4:18
we see there. And I'm going to go ahead and jump into this because we've
4:22
got some examples that we're going to go through and look at predictive
4:27
prophecy. But I don't think we can do a class on this without talking about
4:31
obviously the most important ones, and that being the Messianic prophecies that we have.
4:35
So, you've got— alright, so I say Messianic prophecy, what's the
4:39
first thing that comes to mind? A certain book
4:43
and a certain chapter. Isaiah 53. Okay,
4:46
well, you had Genesis. All right, Isaiah 53 is, you know, obviously the first
4:50
one that tends to come to my mind, a lot of people's minds. But yes,
4:53
we're going to go to Genesis too. But outside of that, you're probably familiar
4:57
with some of these too, but you've got Psalm 22, details resembling
5:01
crucifixion centuries before crucifixion was even practiced
5:05
in Israel. Micah 5:2, you've got the birth in
5:09
Bethlehem mentioned. In Zechariah 9:9, you have
5:12
the entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, which is very specific.
5:17
Zechariah 11:12-13, you've got the 30 pieces of silver
5:21
that are mentioned there. Zechariah 12:10, the One
5:25
who is pierced is referenced there. Psalm 16:10,
5:28
you have the resurrection mentioned. Psalm 110, you have the Messiah
5:32
as both King and a Priest, which is, I think that's a big one,
5:36
to combine both of those things since they were so segmented out.
5:40
And then you've got Genesis 49:10, the ruler from
5:43
Judah. And then you could even go back to the very beginning, which I think
5:47
is probably what you're referring to, correct, with the serpent and the heel?
5:51
Okay. So, depending on how many individual passages are counted,
5:55
scholars will typically identify 300 to 400 Old Testament
5:59
passages. I started digging into that a little bit. You know, why is there such
6:03
a debate about how many prophecies? Why can't you just go through and just
6:07
go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5? Well, there are a couple of different things.
6:09
One, you have multiple different beliefs,
6:12
branches of Christianity that take them to mean different things.
6:16
So, we could be like, alright, well, that muddies the water a little bit.
6:19
And then you have dual fulfillment prophecies.
6:22
So, it's technically one prophecy, but there are 2 meanings
6:26
behind it. There are a couple examples of those we'll get into if we have
6:29
time. But because of that, The question
6:32
kept coming up in my mind as I started putting this class together. Is there
6:36
a way that it could be hoaxed? Is there
6:40
any possible way that it could be hoaxed? That you could have people
6:43
who were like, okay, I'm gonna write this down and then
6:47
you're gonna write this down. Could they talk with one another? Well, we already went
6:51
through some of the things like how spread out they were. So we
6:55
have time, we have distance, we have language, we have culture,
6:58
we have all those separating things, but just Because
7:01
I think that it could possibly be hoaxed, we're going to do a little bit
7:05
of an experiment, and I need 2 volunteers.
7:09
It's really easy. All I need is your imagination.
7:14
Okay, thank you. All right, one more? One more brave
7:19
person? All right, here you go.
7:22
There you are. Here you are.
7:26
And a pen. I'll give
7:30
you the nice one. I want that one back. And do you have a pen?
7:34
There you go. All right. So here's what we're going to do.
7:38
We are going to create the greatest hoax of all time.
7:41
But we're going to have some advantages here that they did not have.
7:45
I'm going to go ahead and give you— we're going to make a prophecy.
7:48
So we're going to have— you are going to make the prediction. And you're
7:53
going to make the fulfillment. All right? So this— I'll give you the name.
7:55
It's a guy. His name is Curtis, and he is going
7:59
to change the world. And here's how he's going to do it. So Curtis was
8:03
born, or he is from— you write the prediction down,
8:06
don't say it out loud. You write the fulfillment down.
8:10
So just a place where he was born. This should
8:14
be easy. We're in the same room speaking the same language.
8:18
Your first impression of Curtis is
8:22
that he blank. Curtis walks into a room,
8:25
you see him for the first time. What's his— what does he give off?
8:28
What's his vibe? What's his aura? Is it aura?
8:31
Aura? Hard word to say. You don't have to write that down, just your
8:36
first impression of him in a word or two. Okay,
8:39
he's an inventor, so I'll go ahead and give you that too. His name's Curtis,
8:42
he's a guy, we know that, and we're all on the same page there.
8:45
He is an inventor, and he changes the world with this invention. He invents Prediction,
8:51
fulfillment,
8:55
and then last, his death.
8:58
Curtis, his death was very unique. He was killed
9:02
by blank. Prediction,
9:06
fulfillment. How did Curtis die?
9:11
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we just made history. Close your
9:15
eyes, imagine the year is 4026.
9:18
Archaeologists are unearthing portions of Mammoth
9:22
Cave and they find a sacred text
9:25
of some sort, and it appears to be a prophecy. Let's see if it changes
9:29
the world. They begin diving into this prophecy
9:32
and they find out that it's about a man named Curtis. And there's one portion
9:37
of the prophecy, it seems to be old, and it says that
9:40
he will change the world and that he was born
9:46
Where? Milwaukee. Milwaukee. And fulfillment.
9:52
Where was he born? Milwaukee, right? Yeah, I said Canada.
9:56
Canada. Milwaukee, Canada? That's close.
10:00
Is it close? Okay. All right. Well, all right. So we're not as far
10:04
off as I was imagining. Okay. Uh, your first
10:08
impression, your first impression of Curtis is that he Prediction?
10:14
He's handsome. Wow. Okay. Fulfillment?
10:18
He wears glasses. Which can be handsome. All right.
10:22
So he wears glasses. We're getting there. He changes the world by
10:26
inventing— treadmill.
10:29
That's already invented. Okay. The treadmill.
10:34
All right. Fulfillment? Sub sandwiches.
10:40
Ah, winner. Okay. Treadmill and sub sandwiches.
10:44
Wow, man. 2 opposite ends, it seems like. And his death was
10:47
very unique. He was killed by— prediction.
10:50
A bear. A bear. He was running still all the time. He was
10:54
running. He was training for this moment. How did it happen?
10:58
Treadmill. Treadmill. No way.
11:02
Say, we're going to end class right there. That was actually mind-blowing.
11:05
Fulfillment. He choked on a sub sandwich. Is it that he choked? Okay.
11:09
A bear choked on sub sandwiches. You know, if you were really creative,
11:13
you could probably blend that somehow, but really hard to do. That's the point.
11:17
Really hard to do in the same room so we can speak the same language,
11:21
but this is done, and it really is mind-blowing, and it's hard to— I was
11:24
trying to— I was messing around with PowerPoints a little bit to try and give
11:28
this a visual, and it's really difficult to do, but to look at where the
11:32
first texts begin where the first predictions begin, and then where those fulfillments take
11:36
place. Not just in that, because we're turning a page when we're
11:40
reading those things. I mean, perhaps you're flipping, or you're scrolling,
11:43
whatever, but you're jumping through the same book. But a
11:47
lot of the things that we don't have access to, or we can't
11:51
really appreciate, are things like events, like wars that took place,
11:54
regions that shifted entirely. So, cities that aren't
11:57
even under the same name, under the same power. And then you
12:01
have those predictions taking place. And it's absolutely
12:05
amazing, especially when you just look at, maybe I shouldn't say
12:09
just, but when you look at Jesus and this one man fulfilling
12:13
all of these prophecies. And in some cases, you know, it might seem like when
12:17
He says, you know, I've come to fulfill all prophecies, like, oh, He is trying
12:19
to make a checklist. You can't make a checklist about where you're
12:23
born. You can't make a checklist about something that hasn't even been practiced
12:27
yet, you know, when that prophecy was made, things like crucifixion, the way
12:31
that He was going to die being talked about before that was even practiced at
12:34
the time. There's just, there's so much to it that I think is absolutely amazing.
12:38
And that's not really the material that we have here, so I'm going to try
12:40
and move a little bit quickly through that stuff. But just as
12:45
a guess here, which prophecy had the longest
12:48
gap between prediction and fulfillment? Any guesses?
12:52
I would think Jesus would be like Genesis 3:15.
12:56
Okay. Where it is prophesied that He would come. Yeah, Genesis 3:15
13:01
is up there, top candidates. So, you have the seed of woman prediction
13:06
there, roughly 4,000 years. And if you go by, you know,
13:10
the traditional biblical chronology there. So, you've got 4,000 years,
13:14
which is amazing. So, the prophecy is the offspring of the woman would crush the
13:17
serpent's head. And this is given immediately right after the Fall,
13:21
and that fulfillment is Jesus' death and resurrection defeating
13:24
sin, Satan, and death. And so, that time span is roughly 4,000 years.
13:28
Alright, any others? Any long gaps
13:33
in between prediction and fulfillment that you can think of?
13:36
Okay, that's also impressive. We're going in order here. Yeah, so the promise
13:40
to Abraham around 2,000 years. The prophecy is, in your seed
13:45
all nations shall be blessed, Genesis 12:3, and then chapter 22 and verse 18.
13:49
And then the fulfillment, Jesus is the promised descendant who brings blessing to all
13:53
nations, Galatians 3:16. And that gap is again roughly about
13:57
2,000 years. You've got the Davidic Covenant, it's about 1,000
14:01
years, found in 2 Samuel 7:12-16.
14:05
The fulfillment, Jesus is the eternal King, and that comes along about
14:10
1,000 years later. Isaiah the suffering servant, 52,
14:13
53, that's about 700 years. And that fulfillment,
14:18
you can see that fulfilled through Jesus' crucifixion.
14:21
And then someone, I think, mentioned the 4 kingdoms of Daniel
14:25
that are mentioned, and that's about 600 years, 600-plus years.
14:29
And there's a lot of them in Daniel. We're going to look at a few
14:32
of those. But Daniel 2 and Daniel chapter 7 describe successive
14:36
empires, which is very impressive. It describes successive empires
14:40
that will each take the other's place. You've got Babylon,
14:43
Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome all in those different layers of that statue,
14:47
if you remember. I can't off the top of my head think of which one.
14:49
I know there's gold is the head, which is Babylon,
14:53
and then the torso is— Medo-Persian.
14:57
Yeah, Medo-Persian, but that material is something, iron maybe?
15:01
Maybe iron? I want to say silver because it's like gold and silver,
15:05
but there's something different to it. Yeah, and then Greece is the mud and the
15:09
clay and stuff. So, you've got that whole, which is incredible
15:13
in and of itself, that you've got a king who's not a righteous king,
15:15
but he has this dream about what is going to take place over the coming
15:17
years. And what's about that one I think
15:21
is that you've got the dream and then you
15:24
have satisfaction at the end of it. So, you have this king who does not
15:27
believe in the Creator God, he's pagan, he believes in all these other different
15:31
gods. But when he hears the interpretation of his dream he's like, oh, that checks
15:35
out. Sounds right. Sounds right to me. So, it was convincing even for them at
15:39
the time. Now, is it possible that all this could somehow be orchestrated?
15:43
There are these prediction models and things that were made that I was going to
15:47
put up on the screen. It's not, I don't think it's as visual. I don't
15:50
think it would stick as much as as— Janelle, could I have a cup of
15:53
water please? As this. Did you know— thank
15:58
you— the most poisonous creature in the world— now I haven't looked in this
16:02
cup— the most poisonous creature in the world, so I've heard, is the blue-ringed
16:06
octopus. It's about 3 to 4 inches, and it could
16:10
definitely fit inside of this cup. Now, it lives on this planet,
16:14
lives in the oceans, and this is water in here,
16:17
So it could survive probably for a little while. It's not salt water, but I
16:21
have not looked in this cup. Statistically, there is a, there is a, a chance.
16:25
It's not really, it's not probable, but there's a chance that it could be inside
16:29
of this cup. Now, if I was dying of thirst, would I
16:33
drink out of this cup? Would y'all drink out of this cup?
16:36
Are y'all crazy? Are you sure? Those,
16:40
those are, they're real. They could kill you and they could fit in this
16:43
cup. It's not in here. So, it's very improbable.
16:47
It's very unlikely that that would be the case, but it's still possible.
16:51
So, could it be? Is it possible that a series of coincidences
16:55
just took place and around 2,000 different prophecies are made
17:00
throughout the Bible? All those prophecies— 1,000, sorry,
17:04
800 to 1,000. It's 2,000 for the record, 800 to 1,000.
17:08
All those prophecies were made Could all of those just be a series of coincidences?
17:12
Well, technically, I mean, they could.
17:16
Very, very, very improbable. About the same as just
17:19
drinking a cup with a blue-ringed octopus. But more than that,
17:23
the reason I knew beyond shadow of a doubt that this did
17:26
not have a blue-ringed octopus— there's many reasons.
17:30
But it's because Janelle gave it to me. And there is no reason, I don't
17:33
think— I've made her mad before. I have not made her that mad that
17:37
she would give me a cup with a blue-ringed octopus inside.
17:41
I think the prophecies are amazing. I think that they give— I
17:45
think they're faith-building. I think they make the Bible really
17:49
come to life. I think it helps us get to know the Bible a little
17:52
bit more. But I think what's more amazing than that is once you get to
17:55
know who the author is, you realize that author is not feeding you a bunch
17:59
of lies. That author is not trying to fool you. That author is not trying
18:02
to trick you in the same way that Janelle is not trying to kill me.
18:07
Thank you. There's your proof if you didn't get to see inside the cup.
18:10
Thank you. Thanks for that. It was actually well timed. I was thirsty.
18:14
Okay. So we're going to look at a couple of examples. I want—
18:18
I'm going to save this for the end just in case we don't have time
18:20
because I do want to get into the material that we have here. This is
18:24
also not some of that. But there are fortune
18:27
tellers and prediction makers in Bowling Green and I did not know
18:31
that. Yes, I'm up on the screen. I was going to make that as just
18:34
like I was pointing to it and I couldn't find a spot on the PowerPoint,
18:37
so now it just looks like I'm one of the fortune tellers in Bowling Green.
18:40
I'm not. However, they make like $97
18:45
an hour, so I mean, maybe I could get into it. Who knows?
18:48
But yeah, it's a big business right now in America still. There are people
18:52
who go and they get their palms read and they go and get fortune
18:57
cookies. I'm actually not really sure what goes on in there. I've never been in
18:59
there, but I have seen that place next to the car AC psychic tarot
19:03
cards. So, it's in Bowling Green, but it's really in every major city that
19:07
this is still going on. And they are making these predictions, and they are making
19:10
a pretty good living off of doing so. So, it's still
19:14
around. But when you look in the Bible, you have got
19:17
some of the best evidence ever. Now, has anyone ever heard of
19:22
the Fall of Tyre in the Bible as far as that prediction goes?
19:25
I think the name is really clever. I didn't come up with that. That was
19:28
Apologetics Press. But this is the history of Tyre.
19:32
And so, this is the fall of Tyre that's mentioned,
19:35
and it's mentioned in some pretty incredible detail here that
19:40
we're going to look at. The ability to accurately predict the
19:43
future is superhuman, and it's seen in passages like Isaiah 41:22-23.
19:49
It says, let them bring forth and show us what will happen, or declare to
19:53
us things to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter,
19:57
that we might know that you are the God. So, the Bible accurately predicted
20:01
many of the details about the events that hadn't happened yet,
20:05
but have since come true, including this prophecy about the city of
20:08
Tyre, and that's found in Ezekiel 26.
20:13
So, in Ezekiel 26, it gives a lot of different details. And if you
20:17
want to go ahead and open up to that, there's a list of some things
20:20
that are mentioned, but I want you to go ahead and look at these things
20:23
too, because I think it's more powerful if you can actually get your eyes on
20:26
the page. And see this. Alright, so concerning the city of
20:30
Tyre, Ezekiel wrote, this is verses
20:34
starting in verse 16, he wrote, by the abundance of
20:39
your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned.
20:43
Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your
20:46
wisdom for the sake of your splendor. You defiled your
20:50
sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities. And that's 16 through 18.
20:55
Because of their wickedness, Ezekiel lists several things in chapter
20:59
26 that were going to happen to the city of Tyre. If you have
21:04
Ezekiel 26 opened, just go ahead and throw out
21:07
some of the things that you notice. What is Nebuchadnezzar going to do?
21:11
What's going to happen to Tyre? Okay,
21:15
so he's going to make it a desolate city.
21:19
Ezekiel 28, sorry. Ezekiel 26,
21:22
but I just read out of Ezekiel 28:16-18.
21:26
Okay, He's going to cover it with what?
21:30
All right, He's going to cover it with water.
21:34
All right, He's going to set up a siege mound or siege wall.
21:38
What else? Okay, so He's
21:42
going to break down the walls.
21:47
Okay, yeah, and that's pretty amazing. So stones, timber,
21:50
soil are going to be laid into the sea. What else?
21:56
What was that? Plundered? Okay, plundered, make you a what?
22:00
Make you a bare rock. And what's the language that it uses there?
22:05
Say anything about fishermen? Okay, yeah, spreading of nets.
22:09
Yeah, so the fishermen are going to spread their nets over this rock. So this—
22:12
where the city used to be, the city of Tyre, where it used to be,
22:13
is eventually it's going to be this bare rock. It's just going to
22:17
be bare rock, and the only thing it's going to be good for is fishermen
22:19
are going to come, and they're going to spread their nets over it to basically
22:22
dry their nets out. All right, any other?
22:26
There's some pretty out there for the time
22:30
claims. Will anybody ever come
22:34
and build another city on top of it? That's pretty
22:37
big, because, I mean, even cities that fall, you've got,
22:41
I mean, even archaeological sites today, one of the frustrations
22:45
there is that they can't get to it because another city was built on top
22:49
of it. People are still living there. They can't excavate. Jerusalem being a big one.
22:53
I know they've done a lot of excavation there, but there are still people living
22:56
on top of it. They are still there. They are still doing stuff. And then
22:59
what about who is going to overthrow Tyre?
23:03
What's that? Nebuchadnezzar. All right,
23:06
Nebuchadnezzar. Many nations are going to come up against Tyre. So, you've got many.
23:10
It's not going to be just one, but there are going to be multiple.
23:12
So, that's a pretty good prophecy. That's not something that you could just read
23:16
into and just be like, oh, okay, well, I could kind of see how this
23:18
would fit. You know, it's kind of like what you do with fortune
23:22
cookies is you like, you read it, you know, you're going to have,
23:25
you're going to hear some good news today. And then you can
23:29
just take that and hang on to it. And then someone comes up to you
23:32
and just says, he's like, oh, hey, by the way, I, you know, I got
23:35
you this hot dog. I just thought you might be hungry. And they're like,
23:36
oh, there it is. You know, there's, it's prophecy. It just happened. You know,
23:39
I got that news and then I got a hot dog. Bing, bing, boom.
23:42
Tire, there's a little bit more to it than that. There's, there's a lot more
23:46
to it. So you've got the siege mound specifically that's used.
23:49
You have many nations are going to come up, they're going to scrape
23:53
the city clean. It's going to be like fishermen are going to come and spread
23:56
their nets on it, and then it's going to become a place for spreading
24:00
nets. It's never going to be rebuilt upon. And then you have exactly
24:04
that taking place. And here is a picture
24:09
of Tyre. There's just stones, and there's actually a picture
24:13
that I couldn't use because it had a stamp over the top of it,
24:16
but it's actually fishermen spreading nets over it. If you just Google Tyre,
24:19
I'm sure that will be in the images. You don't even have to type in
24:23
ancient Tyre or anything, and you can still see the fishermen picture, which I
24:27
find pretty, pretty amazing. Okay, the next example that we have,
24:31
they have titled Dry Me a River. This is talking
24:35
about Babylon the Great. It's another striking, accurate prophecy concerning
24:39
the ancient city of Babylon. Babylon was one of the richest cities
24:43
in the world during the years 740 BC and 680
24:46
BC. Is that for me? Oh,
24:50
okay, good. Whoo! That's all right,
24:54
we're on number 2. Okay, so it was
24:57
one of the richest cities between the years 740
25:01
BC and 680 BC,
25:05
and if you look in Jeremiah 51,
25:10
Jeremiah 51:36 says, I will
25:14
dry up her sea and make her springs dry.
25:19
A drought is against her waters and they will be dried up,
25:23
for it is a land of carved images. That's chapter
25:27
50 and verse 38. And then in chapter
25:31
51 and verse 39 it says, I will prepare their feasts I will make them
25:35
drunk that they might rejoice and sleep a perpetual sleep
25:39
and not wake. So, here's how the story in history
25:43
unfolds, and this is secular history alike. The Euphrates
25:47
River ran underneath the great walls of Babylon.
25:51
After a siege of 2 full years, Cyrus diverted
25:55
the river to make it flow into a huge marsh on the western side of
25:59
the city. By doing this, he dried up the rivers of Babylon,
26:03
and provided an easy way for his soldiers to enter under the city
26:06
walls where the water used to flow. The Babylonians inside
26:10
the city had no idea what was taking place. They could have defended the city,
26:14
but instead they were feasting and getting drunk,
26:17
just like we saw in Jeremiah 51:39.
26:22
Cyrus ordered his men to act like drunken partygoers,
26:26
and by the time the Babylonians knew what had hit them, the city was filled
26:30
with enemy troops who ultimately conquered it. So, even though the above circumstances
26:33
would be enough to prove the accuracy in the prophecy of Jeremiah,
26:37
and thus the Bible, the prophet's predictions do not stop there.
26:41
In chapters 50 and 51 of Jeremiah's book are filled with more futuristic
26:46
condemnations of Babylon, all of which were fulfilled in the
26:50
smallest detail. So, truly the words spoken by the prophet Jeremiah
26:53
did in fact come to pass exactly how it was said,
26:57
which I find that is so amazing. I actually didn't really know all the details
27:00
of going into this, but I found that was so amazing. They were feasting,
27:03
they were drunk, and then that's exactly what was played upon in order
27:07
to throw over Babylon, just like Jeremiah said. And I wonder what the reactions
27:11
to those original messages would have been about Tyre, about Babylon,
27:14
because when you've— when you saw them in their heyday,
27:18
this is just some of the information I found out about Babylon.
27:21
It had 14 miles of wall on each side
27:24
of the city. They were 75 feet thick,
27:27
and then those walls in some places were 300 feet tall.
27:31
So if you were living back then and then you heard Jeremiah,
27:35
the weeping prophet, start talking about the fall of Babylon,
27:38
then you were looking at that city going like, I don't, I don't think so.
27:41
I don't think that that city is going to fall that way. And then to
27:45
have it all unravel exactly how Jeremiah said it would,
27:48
a spokesman for God, shouldn't surprise us, but it's still pretty
27:52
amazing to see. Okay, and then we have Daniel informing
27:57
Nebuchadnezzar in the 4th kingdom. Here's a couple other things
28:01
about the city, some other pictures that I found,
28:04
some artistic renditions of it. You can see the Euphrates,
28:07
massive river running up right next to it. So, again, that's outside
28:12
of just the city, looking at that river and going, it's going to dry up.
28:14
I mean, how is that even possible? And it's
28:18
exactly what happened. Okay,
28:21
then we have the Cyrus name. I'm going to skip that one for time's sake.
28:26
Not this one up on the screen here, but I'm going to skip that one.
28:30
Okay, let's see.
28:35
Any questions so far? Any comments?
28:39
Does anyone find this as cool as I do, by the way? Because as I'm
28:43
putting this together, I'm like, oh, I love this stuff. I've never heard of this.
28:45
Uh, and this one, this one I have heard of, but all the
28:49
details to it are just— they're pretty cool. And as you're reading through Jeremiah 2,
28:52
uh, as you're reading through, uh, Ezekiel, it's hard
28:56
to also step away from that and then see what actually happens. You know,
28:59
you're reading this prophecy and you're like, oh man, like, that sounds terrible. I would,
29:02
I would hate to be living at that time. But then to actually get to
29:05
live in 2026 and then turn around and say, well, what did actually happen
29:10
to Babylon and Tyre? And then, and find out all of that. Was to be
29:13
the case. Pretty awesome. Okay, this is a really cool prophecy.
29:17
Say my name, this is Cyrus.
29:20
Imagine taking a trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and visiting
29:24
the State House where the Constitutional Convention took place in 1787.
29:29
During the tour your guide points to a document dating back
29:33
to the year 1824, and this piece of parchment tells of a man named Joseph
29:37
Robinette Biden Jr. Born in Scranton,
29:39
Pennsylvania, who would be President of the United States within the
29:43
next 200 years? That would be pretty incredible. Well, that's the exact
29:47
same thing that we see within Scripture. Not only
29:51
did Isaiah predict that Cyrus would overthrow Babylon,
29:54
but he also wrote that Cyrus, serving as Jehovah's
29:57
anointed and shepherd, would release the Jews from captivity and assist
30:02
them in their return to Jerusalem for the purpose of rebuilding the Temple.
30:06
And all that was written almost 200 years before Cyrus conquered Babylon.
30:10
Now, I have this underlined in my Bible, the name Cyrus,
30:13
because I think it's pretty amazing because you can see his name there.
30:16
And again, the significance might be lost if you're just opening it up and
30:20
then looking at it. But then when you actually see that, oh man, he didn't
30:24
even exist yet and his name is mentioned there in Scripture. I'm going to try
30:27
and find that exact passage because I do not have it
30:31
right in front of me. Let's see
30:35
here. It'll probably come up on one of these slides.
30:40
2 Peter 1:20-21,
30:43
secular history verifies that all these events came true. Truly no
30:47
prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy
30:51
never came by the will of man, but holy men of God who spoke as
30:54
they were moved by the Holy Spirit. So, you have this claim in Scripture
30:58
in 2 Peter 1:20-21, 21. And then you can actually see
31:01
all of that to be true when you look at history. You have words that
31:04
were spoken. You can almost look at prophecy as God just
31:08
making a promise. Now, Jude does not forget. We've made him
31:12
promises before. And, you know, tomorrow we'll go to the gas station and we'll
31:16
get candy. And he will remind you of that.
31:19
If you— as soon as he wakes up, the first thing that he's going to
31:22
say is, we're going to get candy. We're going to the gas station.
31:26
Well, God makes being our Holy Father, is basically doing that through prophecy.
31:30
He's saying this city is no longer going to exist, and he keeps his
31:34
promise. I think that even that holds more weight when you look at the Messianic
31:38
prophecies again, because it's basically just saying, I'm going to come to earth one
31:41
day. And then you have all this history unfolding, and then Jesus does
31:45
in fact walk on earth, and God walks among us. That behind
31:49
there, if I didn't mention it, that's the Cyrus Cylinder Seal. These are basically
31:53
all of those records that the— I think they're not called hieroglyphics,
31:57
they're called cuneiform. And all of that is just the
32:01
history, the records where we have the fall of Babylon. That was pretty cool.
32:06
These are some of Daniel's dreams that he had. He had this dream about
32:10
this, the goat and the ram. And there
32:14
are several of those within Daniel that we can look at. In Daniel chapter 8,
32:17
we find one of the most amazing and accurate prophecies ever written. Written, as well
32:21
as a whole bunch of other ones. Daniel has a lot of different prophecies in
32:25
there as well, and they are incredibly detailed. In Daniel 8 we read
32:29
about a vision that Daniel had in the 3rd year of King Belshazzar, which would
32:32
have been around 550 BC. Daniel's vision showed
32:36
him a ram with 2 horns, which was
32:40
symbolic representation of the rise of the empire of the Medes and the Persians.
32:44
And then again secular history, confirms that as well. I don't really need to
32:48
add that last part on there about secular history confirming it,
32:52
but I do think that that's pretty cool, that everyone agrees that these things took
32:55
place, that these are— these things happened. This is all fact.
32:59
I think that that definitely helps the broader message if we're trying
33:03
to spread Christianity and talk to people about these things.
33:06
I've talked with people before who, who have, have tried
33:09
to read things into scripture. One of the
33:13
weirdest I can think of, I guess, is Revelation chapter 9. There's this mention of
33:17
the locusts, and they have long hair and sharp teeth. And there
33:22
is a belief amongst a small group of people, if it's 5, it's too many.
33:25
But there's a belief that these locusts are helicopters, they're military
33:29
helicopters. And so people will try and squeeze some things
33:32
into Scripture. And with
33:36
prophecies, in some cases, there are sections that are ripped
33:40
out of context and people try and turn them into prophecies or try and make
33:42
them mean something something that it doesn't.
33:45
But instead of maybe arguing about what's a prophecy and
33:49
what's not a prophecy, I think that there are a select number
33:53
in Scripture that we can look at and say, this is without a doubt.
33:56
This is talking about Tyre, it's mentioned by name. This is talking
34:00
about the fall of Babylon, it's mentioned by name. Jesus talks about
34:03
the destruction of Jerusalem, it's mentioned by name. It's verifiable
34:07
right there within the text. You don't have to go anywhere else. And then
34:10
the same thing with Cyrus the king that's going to rise.
34:14
You don't have to argue about every single prophecy, what's a prophecy,
34:18
what isn't. You can just go by what you can verify within Scripture.
34:21
And hopefully some of these examples you can take with you,
34:24
put in your back pocket if you're having conversations, or if
34:27
you're talking with people who fall into the category of maybe saying some
34:31
things like, well, I think the Bible has some good teachings
34:35
in there, but over time it's been corrupted, that we can't trust
34:39
it, that it's just been changed up so much. These are good conversations
34:42
with people like that. There's a lot of good application
34:46
to prophecies. It's not just interesting. It's not just cool, which it is,
34:50
but it does help. It's only one of the pillars that we can
34:54
use that support the teachings of Jesus and that the Bible is in fact from
34:58
God. I have a couple of other things to go through here if y'all
35:03
don't have any comments or questions or anything so
35:07
far? All right. Hey,
35:10
Mom. They're going to— over to Jerusalem
35:14
in October-ish, maybe around there.
35:17
So as soon as I saw her walk in, I was like, all right,
35:19
we're going to steer clear of any of my Jerusalem material because she's going to
35:22
be like, it's not true. I've walked there. No, actually,
35:26
I really want to go. I hope they get to go again. Okay,
35:29
this is a portion of an article that I found by Wayne Jackson,
35:33
and he basically takes prophecy and kind of breaks it down
35:37
into ways that I think are more digestible. But here's just a
35:41
section of his article. He says, Prophecy affords a powerful base of evidence
35:45
that corroborates the Scripture's
35:49
claim of divine origin. Scholars suggest that there are about 1,000 prophecies
35:53
altogether in the Bible, some 800 in the Old Testament, and then around
35:57
300 of those are Messianic, and about 200 in the
36:01
New Testament. Now, he says in his article, consider the following broad categories
36:05
of prophetic data. So, you have number one, what he refers to as national
36:09
prophecies. These are prophecies that detail centuries in
36:13
advance the fortunes and fates of nations. When the Babylonian
36:17
Empire was at its zenith with utterly no military political
36:21
weakness apparent, Daniel then at that point foretold its demise
36:25
along with the subsequent rise of the Medo-Persians, the Greeks,
36:28
and the Romans. And we referenced that in Daniel chapter
36:32
2 and chapter 7. No one could have dreamed that these international
36:36
events would occur, and yet they did, as every student of history knows.
36:40
The prophecies are so astounding that radical critics have felt
36:43
compelled to redate the book of Daniel, placing it in the 2nd century BC,
36:47
so as to suggest history instead of prophecy,
36:50
which is actually really, really crazy to look at how they try and
36:55
fit that in. They have to stretch pretty hard.
36:59
I was going to put some examples of those up, but you can find it
37:02
very easy. The second category that he has in his article is personal
37:06
prophecies. So, some Old Testament prophecies deal specifically
37:10
with individual persons. The role of Josiah, 1 Kings
37:13
13, 13, 2 Kings 23, was prophesied
37:17
3 centuries before the king's birth. The mission
37:20
of Cyrus, King of Persia, that we mentioned where his name is actually there in
37:24
Scripture to deliver Judah from Babylonian captivity, also is
37:28
described 150 years before the illustrious ruler came to
37:32
the throne. And if you want that reference where you can actually see his name
37:35
in your Bible, it's Isaiah 44:28,
37:39
and then again Isaiah 45:1-7,
37:43
where you can actually read the name of someone who was not born and
37:47
did not exist yet. Pretty, pretty amazing. Okay, and then my
37:51
favorite, Messianic prophecies. The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophecies
37:55
that focus upon the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.
37:59
He was to be of the woman's seed, Genesis 3:15, from the
38:03
lineage of Abraham, Genesis 22:17-18,
38:07
and Bethlehem, Micah 5:2, to a
38:11
virgin, Isaiah 7:14.
38:14
And then mathematician Peter Stoner estimated that the odds
38:18
of one person accidentally fulfilling just 8 of the many Old Testament
38:22
prophecies regarding the Messiah is on
38:27
the order of 1 in 1,017, a figure
38:31
far beyond circumstantial possibility. Possibility. I'm going to read that again just because I'm
38:37
not good at math and I need to hear that again. But math magician Peter
38:40
Stoner estimated that the odds of one person accidentally fulfilling just 8
38:45
of the many Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah, and again this is just one
38:48
category of all the prophecies that we have, is on
38:52
the order of 1 in 1,017, a figure
38:56
far beyond circumstantial possibility. I think that that is absolutely incredible,
39:00
especially when you break it down like that. So, you've got national
39:04
prophecies. You've got personal prophecies. And then you have the third category
39:08
that he has, Messianic prophecies. You've got all of those, and if you just took
39:12
one of those categories, like the Messianic prophecies,
39:15
just to randomly get 8 of those right, or if you happen to get 8
39:19
of those right, that's still very, very unlikely. Now, there was a
39:23
really big number and a lot of math that if you want I could send
39:26
it to you. It was just, it was going to be way— I tried to
39:28
practice just reading it and I was like, I'm not going to say that,
39:30
it's just too much of a mouthful. About if you took all the prophecies,
39:34
so what about all of them? What's the likelihood of one person coming
39:38
up with all of those different prophecies? And it was just, it was
39:42
so impossible, that's where the blue-ringed octopus in the cup thing came from.
39:47
I love this stuff and I can send you all of these and give you
39:50
a copy of these notes since we don't have time to go through all of
39:53
them. But any, any comments? Did I miss your
39:57
favorite prophecy?
40:04
Oh yeah, go ahead.
40:08
And what does that mean?
40:13
And that's just for the Messianic prophets?
40:16
Wow. No,
40:20
thank you so much. I really, I appreciate
40:24
it. Say it one more time. What was the— man,
40:28
wow, that is incredible. No, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
40:32
That's awesome.
40:37
That's so cool. So cool.
40:42
All right, anything else? Thank you.
40:45
All right, well, y'all are free to, oh, I guess stay here until the kids
40:48
come out, unless you don't have kids, and then, yeah, you can, you are allowed
40:51
to go home. Thank y'all.