The Bible: Authenticated by Fulfilled Prophecy

Yeah. Well, good evening, everyone. It's nice to see such a large group. Conrad had told me oh, it'll be a small turnout when he asked me to speak, so that sounded comforting, but it's encouraging to see a lot of faces as well.

Since you've been talking about God's Word all week, I thought it would be maybe nice tonight to talk about one of the reasons we know the Bible is God's Word. And to me, one of the most convincing proofs there are a number, but to me, one of the most convincing is the fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

I don't know how many Bible prophecies there are. Hundreds. I'm going to guess over a thousand. I've never sat and has anyone counted them?

Okay. I haven't either. I'm going to guess there's probably a good thousand prophecies in the Bible, and their fulfillment it's just one testimony that this is God's Word, that no human can sit and predict the future. You might predict one thing and get it right, but just, wow, thing after thing, hundreds and hundreds of times. No, that doesn't happen. It's got to be a supernatural being behind it, and that's why it's God's Word and not man's Word.

Now, what I wanted to share tonight we're going to look at just a few of what are, to me, some of the more remarkable Bible prophecies. And why I say they're remarkable there are probably some that are more amazing, like the Virgin Birth, for example.

But these are prophecies that, to me, in talking to a non-believer, to a skeptic, that are a little bit hard for them to dismiss. Many years ago, I was talking to an unbeliever, and we were talking about the Bible, and I pointed to some of the Bible prophecies that were fulfilled. And to me, some of the most amazing are the ones in Daniel. It talks about the coming world powers, the Medes and the Persians, and then the Greeks, Alexander the Great, and so on. And I mean, to me, that was always a prophecy that was just remarkable, and it is. It should impress all of us. I'm sure it does.

But his remark was, "Well, that's just history written as prophecy, that whoever wrote Daniel wrote it long after those things happened and then made it look like prophecy. It's not really prophecy."

I didn't have necessarily an immediate answer to that, but it made me think. And yes, for an unbeliever, a lot of Old Testament prophecies, I guess you couldn't prove exactly when the person wrote it. We know what God's people have believed through the centuries, but sometimes you can't prove it to an unbeliever. But there are quite a number of prophecies that I don't care how skeptical you are, you can't ignore because they weren't fulfilled until long after the person who made the prophecy was dead. And we have copies of the prophecy. For example, Isaiah. We're going to look at a prophecy tonight. In fact, we'll just start off with this that was fulfilled not only after he was dead, even if you are a believer, but if you take what liberals say when Isaiah was written, it was still fulfilled long after that.

It was fulfilled long after we've got copies of Isaiah that are still with us today, and it was fulfilled long after those copies were written down. So yeah, no one can say, "Oh, this is history written as prophecy," because, like I say, we have copies of it that were written long before the prophecy was fulfilled.

Turn with me to Isaiah chapter 13. We're going to look at verses 19 and 20.

When I got here this evening, Conrad asked me if this podium would work for me. I said, "Sure. I don't know why not." I just realized I can't see my notes from if I stand here, I can't read down there. There was a time when I could, but not anymore, so I'll have to just hold them when I'm looking at them. Okay.

Isaiah 13, verses 19 through 20. I'm reading from the New King James. That's perhaps what a lot of you have or your Bible will read similarly. Now, the prophecy is talking about the Chaldeans or the Babylonians, and Isaiah is prophesying how they would be overthrown by the Medes, which was a nation allied with the Persians.

And after talking about this, he says in verses 19 and 20, "And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah." Now, listen to this. "It will never be inhabited, nor will it be settled from generation to generation, nor will the Arabians pitch tents there, nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there."

That's quite a prophecy, a very specific one. Now, Isaiah would have written this about the year 700 BC. That means 700 years before Jesus. Now, skeptical liberals would say, "Nah, he wrote that was somebody else writing it about the year 500."

Fine. It doesn't matter what year you want to put on there. The result is the same. So let's give the skeptics their argument. I mean, not that we're conceding that, but let's just suppose that were true. Okay. The year 500. In the year 500, Babylon was the largest city on earth. I don't know what's the largest city on earth right now. It changes from year to year. I know it's not New York City. New York City was at one time, but it's no longer. But let's just take New York City that we're familiar with it. Let's say someone was to predict New York City would just totally disappear. Nobody would live there, be uninhabited. That'd be quite a prophecy.

I don't think if you heard someone say that, I think we'd all be skeptical like, "Yeah, that's not very likely to happen." Or if it did happen, I think we'd have to acknowledge this person must be a spokesman for God because none of us could make that kind of prediction.

But this is what Isaiah said about the largest city in the world at that time, Babylon, that it would be uninhabited. Now, this isn't a prophecy like 50 years later it got destroyed and was uninhabited, and someone could say, "Well, he really wrote it in 450 or something like that." It didn't work that way with this prophecy.

Babylon was captured as maybe one of you could tell me. Who captured Babylon? What nation overthrew Babylon? Persia. Persia. Okay. Very good. But when Persia overthrew Babylon, they took the city. They didn't destroy it. They used it as one of their capitals for quite a number of centuries.

They had other capitals, other cities they preferred, and Babylon slowly diminished. I don't know how long it stayed the largest city on earth, probably for a century or so, but it stayed a large city for a couple of centuries anyway.

And then Alexander the Great overthrew the Persians, and he decided, "I'm going to restore Babylon to its former glory." It was once the most magnificent city on earth, and now it's just a large city, but there's other cities that are maybe more grand. "I'm going to make Babylon the capital of my whole Asiatic empire and restore it to its glory." That was about the year 23 BC.

Now, that goes right against what Isaiah prophesied. I guess he could have restored it, and it still could have later become uninhabited. But anyway, Alexander the Great was in a battle with God's Word. Guess who won? God's Word did. Alexander the Great. I mean, no sooner did he go to Babylon getting all ready that he was going to rebuild this I mean, the city was still there, but he was going to make it this magnificent capital, he died.

I mean, that was the end of that. He just died. Not because he was an old man. He was like 32 years old when he died. No one even knows what he died from. When I was a boy, they said it was probably malaria. Now they say it was probably from the wounds he had in battle.

Nobody knows. He was a young man, and he just died maybe just because he was trying to do something that God said wasn't going to happen. I don't know. But that was what? Maybe nearly 400 years after Isaiah prophesied this, but it was still a big city, and it kept on, and it kept on. Later, one of the Grecian rulers built another city, and a lot of the people in Babylon decided they'd rather live in that city, so a lot of people moved out. Babylon began to decline, but it was still around when Jesus was here.

Long after we've got copies of Isaiah written 100 years before Christ, so yeah, no one can say, "Oh, well, this was just written after Babylon became uninhabited," because it was still inhabited in Jesus' day. It was still inhabited next century, next century. In the 700s, 700 years after Christ, it was still there. By now, it had shrunk down to just a village, but people still lived there.

Then at some point, everyone moved away, and that was it. The whole city was abandoned. What had been the largest city on earth, the grandest city on earth, came to nothing. Well, you'd think, "Okay. Wouldn't someone come along and rebuild it?"

I would think so if it was just man's doing. But here it is today. It's still just ruins today. It sat here all of those centuries, but it took 1,300 years before Isaiah's prophecy came true. So like I say, nobody can say, "Oh, well, you just after you knew what was going to happen, then you went and wrote this as a prophecy," because like I say, it was 1,300 years later. So we know this came from God. And again, if you were just going to try to guess, okay, pick a city, you wouldn't pick the biggest city on earth and say it's going to become uninhabited. You might pick some real little city. But it's interesting.

The cities that were around in the days of Isaiah, many of them, quite a number of them, still with us today. Jerusalem was around. It got completely destroyed. Got destroyed a couple of times. It's still there today, as I think all of you know. Damascus, it was an important city. It wasn't anything like Babylon.

It was around in Isaiah's day. It's still around today. Rome was around. It was a pretty new city. Athens, it was around. They're still with us today. You could go through a whole list of cities that were it's not because, "Oh, it was so long ago that it disappeared," because so many of the big cities from that time are still with us. In fact, a lot of the little cities are still with us. Bethlehem, I mean, it was just a village. It's still there today.

Joppa. Have any of you heard of Joppa?

Okay. Good. Some hands up. That's where Jonah left from. It's that old of a city. Not much of a city. It's pretty small. Still there today. I've been there. I've walked the streets. It's still there today. Tarsus, where Paul was from, it was there long before Paul, centuries before Paul, still with us today.

So yeah, it's not because Babylon is so old. It's because God had decreed this city is going to fall, and it's going to become uninhabited, and it's going to stay that way. And it's still a testimony to this very day to that.

Okay. Let's look at another one that yeah, we have to look at till today. No one can say, "Oh, this is history written as prophecy." Turn to Ezekiel chapter 29. We're going to look at verses 13 through 15.

And I just grabbed a handful of prophecies. It was interesting when I sat down to pick which prophecies. It's not like it was like, "Oh, this is going to be hard," to find prophecies that weren't fulfilled until long after the prophet was dead. It was more a problem of, "Okay. Which ones do I pick?" There's such a large number. I start off with quite a long list, and I thought, "No, I don't think you all want to be here until 9:30 tonight." And so I shortened it some more, and I got to think, "No, I don't think they want to be here that long." And so I kept shortening. There's that many prophecies. Like I say, we could talk.

I could talk tomorrow night again and Sunday morning again. We could just keep going through prophecies that were fulfilled long after the prophet was dead that no one can claim this was just made up, that we have the testimony right in front of our eyes. This one is a very interesting one because it's like any century, it could have changed, but no, God's Word has been true. Ezekiel 29:13 through 15.

I'm reading again from the New King James, beginning with verse 13. "Yet thus says the Lord God, at the end of 40 years, I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered. I will bring back the captives of Egypt and cause them to return to the land of Pathros," which was the northern part of Egypt, "to the land of their origin, and there they shall be a lowly kingdom." So a lot of the Egyptians had been taken captive the same time a lot of the Israelites had been, and it was prophesied they would return, and they did return. But now look at verse 15 talking about Egypt. "It shall be the lowliest of kingdoms.

It shall never again exalt itself above the nations, for I will diminish them so that they will not rule over the nations anymore." Now, Egypt had been the first world power, at least the world power that affected God's people that was in that part of the world. It had ruled over nations for centuries. It was like the indomitable kingdom. And then it began to decline. Like I say, the Assyrians were able to conquer it. But the prophecy isn't that, "Oh, somebody would conquer it or this or that," but that it would be the lowliest of kingdoms. It would never exalt itself again. It would never rule over any nations anymore. That's quite a prophecy for a nation that had been one of the major world powers at that time.

It was a major world power and had been the foremost for a long time. Now, that was made, I don't know, about the year 600 BC, 600 years before Christ. But see, the prophecy, it never ends. It says it's never going to rule over other nations. So God has kind of put himself out there to be tested. I mean, centuries pass. Is Egypt going to rise again? Nope. Not this century. Next century passes.

Maybe Egypt will come back. No. That's gone on now for, what, 2,600 years. Egypt is still there, but doesn't rule over anybody. It's just another nation, a very poor nation, in fact. And don't imagine that well because that was a long time ago, and it got overthrown.

Other kingdoms got overthrown, and they bounced back. Persia would be a good example. Alexander the Great, we were just talking about it. He overthrew the Persians, conquered them. The Greeks ruled Persia for centuries, but then Persians came back. They became a mighty empire again. They were a big rival to the Roman Empire. I'd say kind of the nemesis of the Romans.

So yeah, a nation can be overthrown and come back and be very mighty. Rome was overthrown by the Germanic barbarians, at least the Western Empire. And a couple of hundred years later, Justinian, who was Eastern Roman Empire, he was able to reconquer a lot of that land. Didn't last real long, but I don't know, a century perhaps or so. So yeah, just because a nation falls doesn't mean it can't rise again. But he said Egypt never would rise again.

And every century we can keep checking, God's Word has proved to be true, a prophecy that yeah, who would have guessed it would turn out that way? Particularly when you look at Judah. I mean, it was like a minor nation. It was a nation everyone else kind of kicked around. And it got, well, the Assyrians attacked it, and it got completely devastated by the Babylonians. And then the captives were allowed to go back. Most didn't, but a number did. But it was really just a minor little nation. Persia ruled over it. Then later, the Greeks ruled over it.

But guess what? Finally, Judea got its independence, and they went out and conquered a number of small nations, but a number of other nations. So this prophecy wouldn't have even been true of a little nation like Judea. But Egypt, that's quite an amazing prophecy, just an example of why we know this is God's Word. I mean, a human might make one prediction and get it right, but not when you have hundreds of prophecies that come true.

Let's look at another one. We're going to move to the New Testament now. Matthew chapter 24, verses 1 and 2.

Matthew 24:1 and 2.

"Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came up to him to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, 'Do you not see all these things? Assuredly I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down.'" Now, that was quite an amazing prophecy. I mean, the temple had just been built in the days of Herod the Great, who was the ruler when Jesus was born. So it's like it hadn't even been there that long. It was this magnificent temple. When Herod built something, I'm not sure why he's called the Great. Herod the Wicked would be a lot better title, but maybe because of his building.

He was an enormous, tremendous builder. I will say that. He built all kinds of fortresses, cities, the temple, whatnot. And when he built something, I mean, he was a master builder. I mean, he built them to last, and that's how he built the temple. So for Jesus to tell the Jews, "This is going to be torn down, not a stone left upon a stone," I'm sure they just thought that was absurd, unbelievable. And it was not fulfilled while Jesus was living. He didn't say it would be fulfilled in his lifetime. It was AD 70, what, nearly 40 years after he died, that the Romans came and destroyed Jerusalem.

And I mean, they didn't destroy everything in Jerusalem, but they destroyed the walls, most of the city, and the temple. So his prophecy came true that the temple would be destroyed. But his prophecy isn't quite that simple. "Not one stone," he said, "shall be left here upon another." Now, that is quite a going out on a ledge. If you're not the Son of God, I don't think you'd make a prophecy like that, that not only is this temple going to be destroyed, but not a stone is going to be left on a stone on this temple. They're going to all be thrown down because that's not usually what happens. We've got thousands of ancient temples all around the world that are with us today.

Most of them are in ruins, but there's part of the temple there. I mean, there's at least one stone on top of another. And lots of times, there's several pillars and this sort of things. I've seen, I don't know, maybe a hundred of them just in my travels. And like I say, there's got to be thousands of just all over the world, the Far East, the Americas, all over. It's unusual, particularly for a well-built temple, that there wouldn't even be one stone on top of another. And the more remarkable thing, when you saw how this was fulfilled, it was the Roman general Titus who captured Jerusalem. It was his armies that destroyed it. But we have an eyewitness account from Josephus, who was a Jewish historian, but he was there.

And he says, "Titus did not want the temple destroyed." In fact, when they finally broke through the walls, the Roman armies, he told the Jews, "Let's fight somewhere else, not in the temple. I don't want to desecrate your temple. I don't want it to be damaged."

But the Jews refused. He still didn't order it destroyed, but we don't know how it caught on fire. I don't know if it was his soldiers. Probably it could have been just some whatever Jewish zealots who decided, "If we're not going to have the temple, no one is." I don't know, but it got caught on fire. He tried to get the fire put out and couldn't. It raged.

Now, the temple was mainly built of stone. There was a lot of wood there, so I'm not sure that the fire, it wouldn't have left it with a stone not on a stone. And like I say, he didn't want it destroyed. It would have not just been his personal policy. The Romans in general, when they conquered a city, they tried to be very respectful towards the gods that those people worshipped in that city. They didn't usually destroy their temples because they had this notion, I guess, in their way of thinking, it made sense. They believed in all these gods, and they thought, "Now, if we go to a city and when we destroy it, we destroy all of their idols and tear down their temples, then the god of that city isn't going to want us to destroy it.

So he's going to fight back against us, and we're going to have a hard time taking that city. But if when we go to a city, we worship the god of that city, we maybe even enlarge the temple that's there, offer more sacrifices than what they were doing, then the god of that city is going to say, 'Hey, am I out to let these Romans come in because they're going to do a better job of worshipping me?'" So that was their strategy, okay, that, yeah, we want to respect the gods of all these nations that we fight against so that those gods won't be fighting against us. So yeah, their policy wasn't to go in and destroy things.

So it's amazing, even though Titus didn't want it destroyed, that the temple ended up being destroyed, but still not a stone upon a stone. No one even knows when that was fulfilled. It probably wasn't there in 70 AD when Titus took it. I mean, the soldiers wanted booty, gold, silver, whatever, money, whatever they could get to take back with them. They weren't interested in taking a big stone back as a souvenir. Oh, this was from the temple of Jerusalem. I mean, they wouldn't have done that. So I don't know that they would have had any motive. Let's tear every stone down from here.

In the year 135, the Jews rebelled again against Rome, and Emperor Hadrian came back, and they took the city again from the Jews. And he decided, "This time, I'm going to just build a temple to Jupiter where the Jewish temple had been. Maybe he knocked down the rest of the stones. I don't know." On the other hand, they may have been there when the Arabs conquered it in the 700s.

We don't know. Nobody knows when these stones disappeared. All we know is that today, if you go to that temple, not only is there not a stone upon a stone, they're in a stone period. I mean, they're all gone. It's totally, totally gone.

So this remarkable prophecy of Jesus, again, fulfilled long after he was on earth, stands there as a monument that what God says happens. And it's why, when we pick up the Bible, just one more evidence that this is God's Word that we're reading. Now, something I had wondered all of my life, and I probably should have dug up the answer, but when I was young, you couldn't just Google something like you can now. It would mean going to the library. And if it wasn't on my mind when I was at the public library, then it'd have to just wait till another time. But I would hear about the wailing wall. The Jews go there and pray and always wonder, "Well, I thought Jesus said there wouldn't be a stone upon a stone.

And so what's the wailing wall?" And I never actually bothered to look it up. I just always wondered. I always thought, "Well, I know God's Word is true. And so there's an explanation, but I don't know what it is."

A number of years ago, I got to visit Jerusalem and visited the wailing wall and found out what the wailing wall is. It's not the temple, which is what I'd wondered about. Herod, like I said, he was a master builder. And when he decided to rebuild the temple, he wanted to make it better than what it had been. Not Solomon. Solomon's temple had been destroyed. So this was a temple that Nehemiah, Ezra, that was built in their day.

And it was on top of Mount Moriah. That kind of comes up to a peak. And he wanted this bigger where more people could assemble. So he actually went in there and took off the top of the mountain just like they do today, except they didn't have big machinery to do it. And then he had to build retaining walls and bring in dirt to make this big level area where he could have a temple and then have these massive courtyards. So the wailing wall is one of the retaining walls that Herod built to hold this dirt that he was bringing in. In fact, when you go there, you can go on a turn, you go underground, and you can see how the wall continues on underground.

And so yeah, it was not part of the temple. It was never holy ground. It was something a Gentile could go to, whatever. Like I say, it's just a retaining wall holding dirt. That's what the wailing wall is. So Jesus' prophecy was fulfilled just like he said it would.

Okay, let's take a couple of more. Some of these, we don't think about. We read them in the New Testament. We don't think about. That is an incredible prophecy. Matthew 24:9, if you still have Matthew open.

We've all heard this verse, I think, a lot of times. But I don't know that I've always thought about this as an incredible prophecy. Matthew 24:9, Jesus said, "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake."

Now, that's not just a statement. I mean, it's a statement we think about that, okay, as a Christian, we can expect to be persecuted, but that's a prophecy. And it's an amazing prophecy because when he said this, nobody was persecuting his followers. Nobody was putting them to death. You could follow Jesus at that moment, and no one was going to do anything to you. That changed fairly quickly. But when he said it, no one was doing that. But he didn't just say there's going to be people persecuting you. He said, "By all nations." So he's not just saying that you're going to be persecuted. He's saying my disciples are going to be in all nations, and they're going to be hated, and they're going to be delivered up in all nations.

Now, this is just what, in people's eyes, was a minor Jewish prophet living in Galilee. I mean, the world would hardly even pay any attention to what was going on there. He's saying the whole world are going to hate his followers. Who is this guy? We've never even heard of him. What do we care about his followers? Why would we want to persecute him?

But he said that would happen. Of course, I think we all know what happened in history. I mean, no sooner did Jesus die, and the persecution started. I mean, first it was the Jews, and then it was the Roman Empire, and then the Persian Empire started persecuting Christians after that. Later, it was the barbarians.

Later, it was so-called Christians persecuting other Christians. As Christians went to other countries, China, they got persecuted there. India, in the middle or after the Middle Ages, in the age of exploration, missionaries went to Japan. They got crucified there in Japan. Everywhere on earth to this very day, under the communists, under the Nazis, you name it, Christians have been persecuted. They've been persecuted right here in the United States. True Christians have even died here in the United States because of their Christian faith. So what Jesus said has come true, but no one can say, "Oh, that's history written as prophecy." When he wrote this, I mean, no one on earth had hardly heard of him.

And yet it's been remarkably fulfilled. What's interesting, what's extra remarkable is that the first great persecution, well, the Jews persecuted them, but it was from the Roman Empire. And why this is remarkable is that the Romans didn't persecute anyone else.

I've shown you how they felt about the different religions wherever they conquered people. They would, "Hey, let's embrace your religion. Fine. You've got your God. Sure. That's fine." I mean, the Romans had freedom of religion before any other country thought of it. Hey, every religion's welcome. Even the Jews.

Jews were allowed to have their temple and allowed to carry on all of their practices. Only one religion was outlawed by Rome, and that was Christians. And why? I mean, there is no reason other than Satan. I mean, there's just absolutely no reason. Why would they persecute Christians? They allowed all kinds of weird groups. I mean, worshipping crocodiles and worshipping the—I mean, it didn't matter. All kinds of weird rites that they would partake of and stuff like that. Cut themselves, drink animal blood. I mean, you name it. Oh, sure. Yeah. Whatever you want to do. That's fine.

Oh, but not the Christians who weren't doing anything to hurt anybody. But yeah, not the Christians. So for Jesus to say, "You're going to be hated by all people," this was just like, "Wow, this does not fit." And yet it came true in a remarkable way.

Okay, just two more. Matthew 12:18-21. This is a prophecy that was from Isaiah. We're going to read it from Matthew who quotes it. But this was written 700 years before Christ. Or if you're a skeptic, 500 years before Christ, 300, whatever you want to put on there, it was written long before Christ. Nobody could contest that.

Now, it's a Messianic prophecy, meaning it's a prophecy about Jesus. It's about the Jewish Messiah. Now, that's what makes this so amazing. This is talking about the Jewish Messiah. Now, none of the countries on earth, they didn't pay any attention to the Israelite religion.

They all had their gods. The problem was the Israelites wanted to worship all the gods of the other nation. The problem wasn't all the other nations. Oh, we want to worship the God of the Israelites. You weren't finding that at all. It was the other way around. The Israelites kept wanting to worship everyone else's gods. And it was during that time period where Isaiah says, "Behold, my servant whom I have chosen," this is talking about Jesus, "my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased." It's the Father talking about Jesus, his Son. "I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will declare justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.

A bruised reed he will not break, and smoking flax he will not quench till he sends forth justice to victory." That's this last one that I want to focus on. "And in his name, Gentiles will trust." This is written 700 years before Jesus.

And if he said the Jews would believe in him, okay, you could maybe believe a prophecy or expect a prophecy like that. But for an Israelite prophet to say the Gentiles are going to trust in our Messiah, now, who would have ever believed that? Gentiles are going to follow the Jewish Messiah? But like I say, this was written long before Jesus was on earth. Nobody, no matter how skeptical they are, can deny that.

And the amazing thing is it came true. That's exactly what happened. How many of you today are ethnic Jews?

I don't see anyone. So I think it's safe to say we're all Gentiles, right? Is anyone here not a Gentile? Okay, so we're all Gentiles. I mean, we're living proof of this prophecy that in his name, the Gentiles would trust. I mean, you and I are living proof of that here today. But this was prophesied about long before Jesus ever became a man that the Gentiles would trust. And this is not the only one. There's all kinds of prophecies in the Old Testament about the Gentiles coming to faith, that God would take on the Gentiles as among his people.

I don't know. I'm going to guess anywhere between 10, 20, maybe 30 prophecies about the Gentiles believing. And who would have believed it? A Jewish Messiah that the Gentiles would believe in. I mean, it's another evidence that when you're reading the Bible, you are reading God's Word. No human would have made a prediction like that. And if they had, it wouldn't have come true for a human.

Now, the last one to me is one of the most remarkable. Matthew 24:14. I'd read this so much in my life without reflecting on just how significant, how much this proves that Jesus is who he said he is and that the Bible is what it says it is, God's Word.

He said this, Matthew 24:14, "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." Like I say, we've heard that so much. We may think of it as a, in terms of, okay, a commission that we have, which is good. We should think of it as, yes, we have a commission here.

But think about the person who said this. So this is a Jewish prophet. The Jews were a pretty small group of people, had very little power. They were subjugated by the Romans. But this wasn't like a prominent Jew that people would have heard of. This is a Jewish prophet in Galilee. Now, Galilee was a backwater region. I mean, it would be like Amberson. Well, most of you are not from here, so you don't know where that is. Some little small town. I mean, Galilee was someplace that you would rather not be from or you'd rather be from there, not there. I mean, it was just a nowhere place. So here's this Jewish prophet that no one outside of the Jews would have even heard of.

And he's not even, like I say, in Jerusalem or one of the famous places. He's living in Galilee. And he has the nerve to say, "My kingdom." He doesn't even have a kingdom when he says this. He doesn't even have a kingdom. He says, "The good news of the kingdom," he's talking about his kingdom, "is going to be preached in the whole earth." Imagine somebody making that kind of statement. This is somebody that no one's even heard of. I mean, if you'd said something to one of the Roman emperors, one of Jesus, like, "Who?"

In Galilee. Galilee. Where's that man? Oh, yeah. That's over there in Palestine somewhere. It's like this guy says he's going to have a kingdom and that the whole world, every nation, he says to all the nations, every nation on earth is going to hear the good news or the gospel of his kingdom. Can you imagine what kind of prophecy that is? I mean, if this was just a man, who could say that? If you took Caesar Augustus, one of the mightiest rulers the world had ever seen, maybe has ever seen, if you'd said that about his kingdom, it wouldn't have been true.

His kingdom wasn't preached throughout all the world. Alexander the Great, his kingdom wasn't preached throughout all the world. He was very, very famous, but not throughout every nation on earth. But we're talking about someone who hardly anyone heard of during his lifetime. And he's saying his kingdom, which he didn't have at that moment, is going to be preached throughout all the earth. And this wasn't fulfilled, or you couldn't even argue that it was fulfilled until maybe the 1800s when missionaries started. I mean, missionaries had gone out to a lot of the earth, but it wasn't really till the 1800s that you started getting close to maybe every nation on earth. I think today every nation on earth has been reached, although there are now, now we're getting to focus on people groups within nations.

Okay, this people group doesn't have a Bible in their language. So now we're focusing on getting the Bible into their language, which is marvelous. But I mean, that's how well this is fulfilled. I mean, yeah, you couldn't pick any country on the map. I mean, just blindfold yourself, throw a dart. The good news has been preached there. North Korea, there's Christians in North Korea. In fact, before the communists took over, they were having revivals there and that sort of thing. And the Christians didn't disappear with the communists. They've gone underground, but they're there. Communist China, a lot of the world thought in like the 1970s that there's probably just a few Christians left there. And when finally things opened up, it's like, wow, there's tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.

I don't know. It was just like we were all very surprised in like 1980 and stuff when China began to open up again. It's like, wow, all the Christians withstood all of that persecution, and they're still there. But like I say, it's every country.

There's no prophecy like that. No one could say, oh, well, Jesus, well, yeah, I mean, this book, anyone could make this up. Yeah. Who can say the good news of my kingdom is going to be preached throughout all the world and have that happen?

There just isn't anyone around. That's why we know Jesus is the Son of God and why we know the Bible is God's Word. So yeah, when you go home this week, you've been hearing a lot about the Bible. It really is a book you can totally trust and know when you're reading it, you're not just getting the thoughts of men, but the thoughts of God because it is a supernatural book. It's got prophecies that are still being fulfilled right now, amazing prophecies. And so we can just be grateful to God that he's given this to us. He hasn't left us alone. We have his Holy Spirit abiding in us, but we have a very sure witness with his Word.

It's a living book that is relevant today as it was when it was written.

Why don't we stand and close with prayer?