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Article Date: Mar 21, 2013
It has been estimated that two-thirds of the Bible is prophetic either in type, symbol, or direct statement. Interestingly, none of the so-called holy books and sacred writings of the world’s other religions contain a single line of prophecy. How do we explain this abundance of prophecy in the Holy Bible and absence of it from all other “holy” books?
I believe the answer is obvious. If the uninspired (at least divinely uninspired) authors of the world’s other holy books had attempted to predict the future, their predictions would have proved untrue. As a result, they would have been exposed as frauds, their writings as fictitious, and their teachings as false. To have any hope of perpetrating their religious ruse on the masses, these false prophets had to steer clear of prophecy, abdicating its lofty sphere to God’s true seers.
The Bible teaches that only God can predict the future (Isaiah 46:8-10). Since it is by His divine providence that the future unfolds, it is God alone who can foretell the future (Isaiah 44:6-7). How about the gods of the world’s other religions? According to the Bible, they have all been proven false by their powerlessness to predetermine and their inability to predict future events (Isaiah 41:21-23; 45:20-22). To worship them—nonexistent entities invented in the imaginative minds of men—rather than the one and only true God, who alone determines and declares what the future holds, is the height of folly.
Not only is the God of the Bible shown to be the one and only true God by the fact He alone predicts the future, the Bible is proven to be the Word of God by the fact it alone contains prophecy. Prophecy’s peculiarity to the Bible proves the Holy Bible is the world’s only holy book. All other so-called holy books are exposed as unholy frauds by the absence of prophecy from their pages.
Many people argue that we shouldn’t bother with the study of prophecy. They insist that it’s too difficult to understand. Unfortunately, it’s not just people in our pews who argue against the study of prophecy but also pastors in our pulpits. Many pastors claim to have given up on the study of prophecy in order to focus on evangelism. They maintain that they would rather win the lost than arguments on eschatology. While this sounds pious, noble, and good, it is fatally flawed in at least three ways.
First, the true minister of God is one who declares the whole Word of God. In Acts 20:27, the Apostle Paul declared himself to be a proven minister of God by the fact that he never hesitated to proclaim to others “the whole counsel of God.” The true minister of God does not pick and choose what parts of the Bible to preach and teach. Instead, he preaches the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. Any pastor who refuses to preach and teach on prophecy is withholding from his congregation a great deal of the divine counsel. How, then, can such a pastor be a true minister of God?
Second, in His parable of the faithful and wise servant (Matthew 24:45-51), our Lord explains how those put in charge of the Master’s house have the responsibility of feeding His household “meat in due season.” This parable is an obvious reference to the responsibility of pastors (those put in charge of the Master’s house) to preach and teach to the church (the Master’s household) those portions of Scripture (meat in due season) that are most relevant to the day and time within which the church finds itself. It is only by faithfully discharging this trust that pastors enable their congregations to become like “the sons of Issachar”—men and women who have “understanding of the times” and know what they “ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32).
Finally, the Bible teaches that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation 19:10). The purpose of prophecy is to testify of Jesus so that men might believe in Him. When a couple of His disciples kept stumbling over their doubts on the road to Emmaus, our Lord helped them hop the hurdles of unbelief by explaining how He personally fulfilled what the prophets had predicted (Luke 24:25-27). A little later, in the same chapter, our Lord does the same thing for the rest of His disciples (Luke 24:44-46). He helps them put their doubts to bed once and for all by showing them in the Scriptures how He personally fulfilled all that was “written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning Him.”
Notice, it was prophecy that finally led Jesus’ disciples to a fixed and firm faith in Him. This explains Jesus’ words in John 14:29, “And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, you might believe.” Truly, the purpose of prophecy, especially fulfilled prophecy, is to produce faith in Christ.
The Apostle Peter says an extraordinary thing in 2 Peter 1:19. He claims that the testimony of eyewitnesses like him is not the most persuasive evidence that the Christian has in presenting his case for Christ to a lost and dying world. Instead, Peter says that our best evidence and most persuasive argument is “the more sure word [testimony] of prophecy.” Nothing, according to Peter, is more powerful in persuading men to place their faith in Christ than prophecy.
Any pastor who claims to be ignoring the study of prophecy in order to devote himself to evangelism is foolishly disarming himself of the most powerful weapon he could ever wield in the battle for men’s souls. It is therefore the serious student of prophecy, not the neglecter of it, who is most devoted and best equipped to “go forth ... bearing [the] precious seed” of the gospel and to return “rejoicing bringing [with him] sheaves” of souls for God’s eternal garner (Psalm 126:6).
It is truly inconceivable to me how any Christian could advocate the abandonment of a study of Scripture that proves the Bible to be the divinely inspired Word of God, proves the God of the Bible to be the one and only true God, and proves Jesus Christ to be the one and only Savior of the world. If you ask me, few studies, if any, are more important and profitable to the serious student of God’s Word than the study of prophecy.
Don Walton is pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Zephyrhills and founder of Time for Truth Ministries. This article is an excerpt from Walton’s book, The Rubick’s Cube of Bible Prophecy, the first in a series of volumes, Piecing Together Bible Prophecy.
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