Amazing Bible Prophecies - What if Christianity is True? Part 2 - David Bercot

Lesson Transcript

We'll be talking this morning about amazing Bible prophecies. Now, last week I mentioned some facts about the Bible to point out what a marvelous book it is. It's the most widely published book in all human history. No other book even comes close to it. It's also been translated into more languages than any other book ever written. And again, there's not even a close second. It's the oldest book in the world. It's also the most quoted book of all time and the most influential book.

So we mentioned all of that last week. But now those facts alone don't prove the Bible is God's word. They do mean that if you're a seeker of truth, then this book should be at the top of your list. The Bible, you're not really a sincere seeker of truth. If you say, "Oh yeah, I want to know what truth is and all that." Well, have you read the Bible? "Oh no, I've never read it." Well, come on. I mean, it's the most widely read published book in the entire world, the most influential book of all time.

You've never even read it and you claim you're a truth seeker. It doesn't make any sense. Now, like I say, all of those facts don't make it God's word, but they'd certainly make it a marvelous book to check out. However, fulfilled Bible prophecies are strong evidence that the Bible is God's word. I think all of us know, just as humans, we can't predict the future. So when you have a book that has hundreds of prophecies about the future that have come true already, it's pretty strong evidence.

This book isn't just a book written by man. Now, like I say, there's hundreds of prophecies, all of which have been fulfilled unless they're prophecies about the end times that haven't come yet. But all of the ones dealing with past events have come about just as the Bible had prophesied. Now, we're not going to be looking at hundreds of prophecies today. Rather, I want to talk about just six amazing prophecies. And let me explain why I chose these particular six.

Now, in the past, in witnessing to people, in talking to people who don't believe in the Bible, I've mentioned, "Well, yeah, there's these amazing prophecies." Some of them are like the book of Daniel. Daniel prophesied about the kingdoms that would be coming in the future, about the Medo-Persian Empire that would overthrow Babylon. And then there would be another one that totally fits Alexander the Great and the Greeks. And then another one that his description fits Rome.

And people say, "Oh, well, yeah, he didn't really write that in advance. That's just history written in the form of prophecy. That isn't true." Now, they don't have any evidence to back that up, but I've heard that a lot. Or different prophecies about what was going to happen to Jerusalem.

"Oh, well, yeah, that was written long after the fact." So the reason I chose these particular six prophecies is that nobody could possibly claim that, "Oh, these were written after the event happened," because they happened so many centuries after they were written. So let's just get into them. The first one I want to talk about is actually two different prophecies. The prophecy that Babylon was going to become uninhabited and that Jerusalem would never be destroyed again. Okay? Now, so let me just read this.

Isaiah, the first one about Babylon, Isaiah 13, verses 19 to 20. "And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah." Sodom and Gomorrah, they no longer exist. We know where they were, but I mean, there is nothing there. "It will never be inhabited, nor will it be settled from generation to generation." Now, to put this in its perspective, it was written about 700 BC by Isaiah. So in the next century, Babylon was a mighty city then.

Well, it didn't start going down right after that. It got bigger. It became the largest city in the entire world. There's an artist's depiction of Babylon in its grandeur. I mean, it was the most beautiful city, the largest city. I mean, the Hanging Gardens were one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. This is Babylon today. Just like Isaiah said, that it was going to, at some point, go down where it would never be settled, never be inhabited. And that's it today. It's for centuries, line like this.

Now, to be sure, not all of the capitals of the empires that interacted with Israel have survived, but most of them have. Like Thebes, it's called today Luxor in Egypt. It was the ancient capital of Egypt. It's still around today, Luxor. Damascus, it was the capital of the Syrian, not the Assyrian, but the Syrian Empire. Still around today. Athens, the capital of the Grecian Empire. It's still around. Alexandria, it became the capital of the empire of the Ptolemies, who were Grecian rulers.

Antioch, it was the capital of the Seleucid Empire, another branch of Grecian rulers. And then Rome. So all of these cities that interacted with Israel, they're still around. So it's like, "Oh, prophesying that a huge city was going to disappear wasn't like, 'Oh, well, yeah, they all disappeared.'" No, most of them didn't. In fact, only three that I could think of, of these large empires that interacted with Israel are not around today.

One is Nineveh, and it was prophesied in the Bible that it was going to disappear. Babylon, again, prophesied. And then Susa, it wasn't the main capital of the Persian Empire, but it was one of the capitals. So you could say, "Okay, Isaiah had one chance in three." I mean, you could say, "Yeah, he just got lucky on that one, that Babylon would be uninhabited." But remember, we're talking about two ancient Bible prophecies, not just one.

That Babylon would become uninhabited and Jerusalem would never again be destroyed. Now, picture yourself living back there. Okay, Jerusalem is the capital of just this small little kingdom of Judah. I mean, it was so insignificant. Every other country was pushing it around. Nobody paid much attention to it. Okay? And then you have Babylon, the capital of the Babylonian Empire. Well, in the next century, it gets even the contrast gets even greater because Jerusalem is half destroyed. The people leave it.

It becomes abandoned and desolate. That's Jerusalem. Babylon grows and becomes the largest city in the world. So if any of us were going to make a prediction living back then, I mean, what would we have predicted on these two cities? We'd say, "If you're not a believer," okay, you'd say, "Well, Jerusalem is going down. That's not going to last.

And Babylon, man, that's going to be here forever." So it's amazing that the Bible prophesied, "No, Jerusalem, after the Babylonian destruction, which had been prophesied, that it would never again be destroyed." But that Babylon, like I say, the largest city in the world, that it would become uninhabited. I mean, that is amazing. Nobody just on their own power could know that.

Here's the prophecy about Jerusalem from Jeremiah, who was another prophet who lived back before the destruction and during the destruction of Jerusalem. "Behold, the day shall come," says the Lord, "when the city shall be built." And this is the passage is talking about Jerusalem. "To the Lord from the tower of Hananel to the corner gate. And the measurement of it shall proceed in front of them as far as the hills of Gerib, and it shall be encompassed with a circular wall of choice stones.

And all the Asseramoth, even to the Brook Kidron, as far as the corner of the horse gate eastward, shall be holy to the Lord." Now, this is the key part. "And it shall not fail." That is, it's not going to just become uninhabited or be destroyed anymore forever. So that's quite a prophecy that Jerusalem would never be destroyed again. And it's not something that could be fulfilled in Isaiah's prophecy because he's saying, "Never again." So that carries it all the way to our day.

And he said, "Babylon would never be inhabited." Again, it was inhabited in his day. That brings us to today. So this is Jerusalem today. Okay? He said, "Never be destroyed." It hasn't. There it is. There's Jerusalem. Again, there's Babylon. Okay? I mean, fulfilled just as was prophesied. Even the worst skeptic can't get around these dual prophecies.

Even if they say, "Well, I don't think Isaiah really wrote that back in 600 or 700 BC or Jeremiah." I don't think anyone would claim that Isaiah or Jeremiah were written later than 300 BC because we have a copy of Isaiah that goes back to 200 BC. So we know it's at least that old, but it wasn't something new in 200 BC.

So that's why I said, "I don't think any skeptical scholar that I know of would say, 'Oh, yeah, those books were written after 300 BC.'" Yet Babylon was still inhabited in 300 BC and for at least a thousand years afterwards. So it's not like, "Oh, well, this happened and maybe he knew in advance." No. I mean, this was long, long after this book had been written, had been circulated after the copies that we have of it. It took that long for it to be fulfilled.

So no one can claim that Isaiah's prophecy was history written as prophecy. I'll just briefly give you the history of Babylon. After Isaiah had prophesied it would become uninhabited, as I said, it actually grew, became the largest city in the world. And then the Persians, the Medes and the Persians captured the city. They didn't destroy it. They just captured it and they used it as one of their local capitals. All right? Then Alexander the Great conquered Babylon.

And you might be thinking, "Oh, okay, that's when the destruction begins." No. Alexander the Great, he wanted to make Babylon the capital of his Asian empire. He was going to build it back up, make it even grander than what it had been before. There's one problem with that. He was working against God's prophecy. So he was the mightiest man on earth at that time. And he decided, he probably never heard the prophecy, "I'm going to make Babylon as big city again, and it's going to be grander than ever before.

It'll be the capital of my empire." And he was just a young man, had gone in all these battles, never been killed or anything. And guess what? As soon as he starts working on rebuilding, not rebuilding, I mean, Babylon was a large city, but making Babylon bigger, he dies. And that's the end of Alexander the Great. That was the end of his plans. Babylon was still there. And if he had succeeded, it would probably still be here today.

But it doesn't pay to be trying to do the opposite of what God has prophesied is going to happen. Well, after that, it just kept diminishing. I mean, no one destroyed it. It was still around 1,300 years after this prophecy. Babylon is still there, but it's gone down to a village. And then just eventually people abandon it. And like I say, we saw the pictures of what it is today. I mean, that's an amazing prophecy. What about Jerusalem? I'll give you a little bit of its history.

I've already mentioned that Isaiah had prophesied Jeremiah that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed, not annihilated by Babylon, but I mean, there was major destruction. The walls knocked down and a lot of the people taken captive and then the rest of them fled to Egypt and became desolate. But it had been prophesied that it would be rebuilt, and it was. Okay? So under the Persians, the Jews were allowed to return. Most of them didn't return, but there was a remnant who came back to Jerusalem. They rebuilt it.

It was just still a very small city. Well, then Alexander the Great comes, and they don't even try to fight him. I mean, they just open the city gates to him, and he takes over Jerusalem. Doesn't destroy it. Well, then after he dies, then his kingdom is divided among his four generals. And two of them, Ptolemy, who was a ruler of Egypt, and Seleucus, he became a ruler of what is now Syria and the ancient Assyrian Empire. And those two kings and their successors, I mean, there's empires that went on for centuries.

They kept fighting each other over Jerusalem. One time, Ptolemy and Egypt, they would control Jerusalem, and then the Seleucid Empire would get control of it. But no one destroyed it. I mean, here's this helpless kind of city that just everyone else is playing around with. They can do what they want. But God had prophesied it would never be destroyed again. And it wasn't. It kept on. And then the Jews get their independence. They fight against the Greeks, the Seleucid Empire, which was Grecian.

And they get Jerusalem back, and then the Greeks take it back, and then the Jews get it back. It still doesn't get destroyed. Well, then in 63 BC, we're getting close to the time of Christ. The Romans come, and Pompey conquers Jerusalem and takes it, but he doesn't destroy it. And so it continues. Well, then in 70 AD, this is after the time of Christ, then the Jews rebel. They want their freedom from Rome. And so they gain their freedom for a very brief time. The Roman armies come, and they capture Jerusalem.

They destroy the temple, but they don't destroy Jerusalem. Despite this big upheaval from the Jews, God had said Jerusalem would never be destroyed again. So the Roman armies under Titus did not destroy Jerusalem. They destroyed the temple. There was a lot of destruction, but the city continued on. Well, then in 135 AD, getting to the next century, the Jews rebel again. They've got a new Messiah, and okay, he's going to take over and take the Romans off of our backs.

And they got their freedom again for about two years, maybe less. The Romans come again, recapture Jerusalem. Again, they don't destroy it because God had said this city was never going to be destroyed again. Now, you'd think after all of that, I mean, the Romans didn't mess around. When people were rebellious, I mean, they had totally razed the city of Corinth when Corinth rebelled against their rule. I mean, they just demolished the city. It got rebuilt much later.

But Jerusalem, despite all of this, no, they leave it alone. They tried to make it into a Roman city, gave it a new name for a while. It never stuck, and everyone else still called it Jerusalem. Well, then the Arabs come and conquer it in the 600s. And then the Crusaders come, and it just goes back and forth. But Jerusalem is still here today. I mean, it's an amazing prophecy, the capital of a fairly small kingdom that wasn't even independent very long.

When God says, "No, this is going to happen," that's exactly what happens. Okay, let's look at another prophecy, that Egypt would never more rule over others. Now, Egypt was, as you know, the first great empire that dealt with God's people. This was the prophecy from Ezekiel. This would have been written at the time of, oh, I don't know, around 600 BC.

Yet this says the Lord God, "At the end of 40 years, I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered." The prophecy is dealing with the Assyrian Empire. When they captured countries or invaded them, they liked to take the people captive and move them somewhere else. They did this. They were moving people all over the earth.

I guess their thought was, "If we move them away from their homeland, then we can control the homeland because there won't be a rebellion because the people aren't there anymore. The newcomers, they're not going to rebel because they're not in their own land." So that was their plan anyway. "I will bring back the captives of Egypt and cause them to return to the land of Pathros, to the land of their origin, and there they shall be a lowly kingdom. 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." So that's the prophecy, that Egypt was not going to rule over nations anymore. Was this fulfilled? Yes, it was. Like I say, the captives from Egypt came back. They reestablished it. It was a strong country. It was able to hold off the Babylonians. The Babylonians were not able to conquer it. But Egypt again never ruled anyone. The Persians next came, and they captured Egypt.

They ruled over it for a while. Then Alexander the Great comes. He captures it. He rules over it. And like I say, his general Ptolemy and the successors, they ruled it for centuries. Then the Romans come. They rule Egypt. And then what happens after the Romans? Well, then the Arabs come, and they conquer Egypt. They rule it. And then after the Arabs, eventually Britain got control of it. And then eventually Egypt got its freedom, which we have today.

It was only like in the 1950s, I think, that it was given its independence. So Egypt, it wasn't prophesied that Egypt would disappear. It was prophesied that it would never rule over others again. And again, I mean, this is long after Ezekiel prophesied this. I don't care what date you want to put on Ezekiel. We have copies of Ezekiel that go back to the year 1 BC or whatever. So we know it was written when Egypt was still a strong country. And yet, yeah, that it would never again rule over anyone else.

I mean, who could guess that? Other empires did. I mean, Persia had been captured by Alexander the Great, but it later got its independence. It became a strong power again. It was a major rival to the Roman Empire. Even lowly Judah, I mean, this small little kingdom that was just totally taken out by the Babylonians, left desolate, it gets restored. And it later, when it gets its independence, it conquers some of the nearby kingdoms around it, but not Egypt. I mean, it's just like God's word said.

It would never again rule over other nations. And that has come true. Okay, let me go back here. Okay, so number three, the temple. Jesus prophesied that not one stone would be left upon another. Let me read this to you. Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple. And his disciples came up 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." Here's a—we don't have a picture of the temple because of Jesus' prophecy was fulfilled. But here's a model of what they think it looked like. This model is there in Jerusalem today. It's quite large. I mean, it's how much? I don't know, an acre of land or something. It's quite big. Okay, now why this prophecy is amazing, you may think, "Well, oh, big deal.

He said this temple would be destroyed." It's not only that Jesus prophesied the temple would be destroyed. Now, that happened to a lot of temples. But that a stone would not be left upon a stone. Now, it's unusual to have a temple just completely disappear like that. I mean, you can go all over the world, in the Far East, in the Mediterranean, in Europe, in the Americas, you have these temples everywhere. And they still have stones upon a stone. I mean, I've seen temples down in Guatemala, Mayan temples.

I've seen the Aztec temples in Mexico. Been in Turkey, saw Laodicea, Ephesus. I mean, those temples are still there. The Parthenon, that was a Grecian temple. I mean, Rome, I mean, there's temples everywhere. I mean, they're in ruins, but I mean, there's still columns. There's still plenty of stones on top of stones. So to prophesy that this temple would be so completely destroyed that there wouldn't even be one stone left on top of another stone, that just doesn't happen in normal human history.

Well, we'll get to the Wailing Wall in a minute. It happened just as Jesus said. So you have this magnificent temple that Herod had built. And then when the Jews rebelled against the Roman Empire, they came and recaptured Jerusalem. Now, this is the interesting thing is the Roman general Titus, who was leading the Roman armies, he did not want to damage the temple.

And so he had told his soldiers, "We're not going to destroy or hurt their temple." Because, I mean, the Romans did try to deal—I mean, they wanted to be obeyed, but they did try to respect the religions and wishes of other nations. And so usually they didn't mess with their temples and that sort of thing. And then during the fighting, when the Romans finally breached the wall, they got into Jerusalem. The Jews then holed up in the temple.

They used that as to, "All right, we'll make our last stand here." Titus begged them. I mean, this is all in Josephus. "Come out of the temple. We'll let you go to another place in the city. We can fight it out there, but let's not fight in your temple. I don't want to damage your temple." The Jews wouldn't listen. They stayed there. And no one knows exactly what happened. A Roman soldier, whatever, set the thing on fire. Even though it was made of stone, there would have been wood there.

Yeah, the temple ends up collapsing. But Jesus said not just that it would be destroyed. He said, "Not a stone upon a stone." We don't even know when that was fulfilled. It didn't necessarily happen under Titus. Because, like I say, he had no desire to destroy the temple. It was destroyed in the fighting.

But as far as a stone upon a stone, it may have been when the Romans in the next century, 135 AD, when they recaptured Jerusalem again, this was under Emperor Hadrian, he builds a temple to Jupiter on the site of the Jewish temple. I mean, he was done with no more Jews and their religion. I mean, he didn't ban Judaism, but the temple's going to be gone. He banned the Jews from living in Jerusalem. They all had to leave Jerusalem. He built a temple of Jupiter right there on the side of the temple to Jehovah.

That's maybe when the last stone was removed. We don't know. Maybe it's when the Arabs conquered it in the 600s. Maybe they're the ones who took the last stones away. We don't even know how it was fulfilled. We just know it's fulfilled. When you go there today, there is nothing, absolutely. It's not just a stone upon a stone. There's no stones at all. Nothing, nothing exists from the temple. I mean, and this is long after Jesus prophesied this that this would happen. Okay, so now finally get to my slide.

Okay, what about the Wailing Wall? I'd always wondered. I mean, I believed, okay, if Jesus said this, I believe his words, but what about the Wailing Wall? I mean, you're always seeing that. Isn't that a stone upon a stone? So I guess I could have researched this years ago, but I don't know when it was, five years ago, we were able to go on a Bible tour to Israel. And so we went to the Wailing Wall. So I was very curious. We had an Orthodox Jew who was our guide there.

And the Wailing Wall is there, and then you can go underground and you see more of the wall that's not visible. So he explains to us what the Wailing Wall is. It was not part of the temple. Herod had, he was a great builder, a wicked man, but tremendous at building. So when he wanted to rebuild the temple, he wanted it to be a really grand temple. And the present temple that was in existence when Herod came into power, it was right on top of Mount Moriah there in Jerusalem.

And there just wasn't space to make a really big temple like Herod wanted. So he brought in all of this dirt. He flattened out the top of the Mount Moriah there where the temple was. Brought in dirt, he had to build a retaining wall to hold all of this dirt that he was bringing in so he could make a large flat area to build a magnificent temple. So the Wailing Wall is part of Herod's retaining wall that was holding dirt up. It was never part of the temple. It was not something sacred or holy.

Gentiles could touch it, could do whatever. It was just a retaining wall. Now, it's holy to the Jews today because it's the closest thing to the temple that the non-existent temple, okay, this is as close we can get to it is this retaining wall. And so, yeah, it's amazing. It is exactly like Jesus said. And as I said, that is unusual for ancient temples, particularly the only temple the Jews would have, that it would be so utterly destroyed that not one stone is on a stone.

And yeah, no one can test that that was exactly fulfilled. Okay, number four, the Gentiles would believe in Christ. Here's the prophecy. "Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased. 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." Most of you are familiar with this, the Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 42. But notice this last part. "And in his name, the Gentiles will trust." Why is this a remarkable prophecy? Well, again, this is way back written by Isaiah, many centuries before the Jewish Messiah even came.

I mean, again, even if you're an unbeliever, you want to say, "Ah, I don't think Isaiah really wrote that in 700 BC." Okay, say 300 BC, okay? It's still centuries before Jesus was born. It still isn't going to make any difference. You can't get around the prophecy. It was long before the Jewish Messiah came. All right, now, why would a Jewish prophet declare that when their Messiah came, the Gentiles would trust in him?

Now, you'd think he would say, "Ah, yeah, that this Messiah is coming, and the Jews will put their trust in him." No, he says the Gentiles will put their trust in him. I mean, that is incredible. And yet that is exactly what happened. Jesus comes. The Jews as a nation reject him. A number of them believe in the thousands. But as a nation, they reject him and still reject him to this day as a people as a whole. But guess what? The Gentiles end up believing in Jesus.

And they make up probably 99% of the Christian world is Gentile. I mean, how many of you here today are fleshly Jews? Yeah, I mean, that's pretty typical in most Christian audiences. Everybody's a Gentile. I mean, it's exactly what Isaiah said. But no one could say, "Oh, well, that's history written like it was a prophecy." Because this, like I say, we have copies of Isaiah that go back to 200 BC. So we know this was long before Jesus ever came.

I mean, even more remarkable is that when Jesus came, he never left the land of Palestine. That is where he stayed. He didn't go off into other countries. The prophecy is the nations will trust in him, but he doesn't go off to the nations to preach. In fact, he even said, "I've been sent to none except the lost house of Israel." So Jesus just stays there in Israel. And guess what? It's the Gentiles who put trust in him. And like I say, we're proof of this today. How could any human just predict that on their own?

I mean, that's unbelievable that you'd have a prophecy like that and more unbelievable that it came true. I mean, to me, it does show that when you read the Bible, you're not reading man's word. I mean, you're reading God's word. Humans cannot make those kinds of prophecies and have them come true. Now, it gets even better. Number five, the gospel of the kingdom would be preached throughout all the earth. Now, here's the prophecy. This is Jesus speaking.

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. Okay, it's an illustration. I don't even know what country that is because every country, missionaries have gone and carried their prophecy. So why is this an absolutely incredible prophecy? Well, you think about this for a moment. Okay, here's, let's say you don't believe in Jesus Christ. You think he was just a man. I mean, I think everyone would agree historically there was such a person.

We have records in the Romans mention him and things like that. Okay, who is he? He's the son of a lowly, uneducated Jewish carpenter, not in Jerusalem, but in the backwater area of Galilee. And not even in a big city in Galilee. He's in this little village of Nazareth. Jesus grows up. He's uneducated by the world's means. Just the son of a Jewish carpenter. Now, he says, "This good news," go back to it, "gospel of the kingdom," he's talking about his kingdom, will be preached in all the world.

Now, what kind of audacious prophecy is that? I mean, this nobody, I mean, just the son of a Jewish carpenter? I mean, it's like, "Your kingdom?" When he said this, he didn't even have a kingdom. But the good news of my kingdom is going to be preached in all the world. Now, if Caesar Augustus had said that, it would not have come true. I mean, at least it would have sounded believable. But imagine putting yourself in the shoes of anyone living in the first century. Huh?

This Jewish nobody, he says he's going to have a kingdom and that the good news of it is going to be preached in every nation in the world. I mean, how could any person, if Jesus was just an ordinary person, how could anyone make a prediction like that and have it come true? I mean, today, I don't care where you go on earth, there are Christians in every single nation on earth, just as Jesus said. And the gospel of the kingdom has been preached in every nation on the earth. Not just in every nation.

It's going to every tribe, every people group, getting the Bible translated into their languages. It's that thorough. Even in countries like North Korea, where Christianity is banned, you cannot be a Christian. Guess what? There are Christians in North Korea. There are Christians in China. There are Christians in Muslim countries that forbid Christianity, etc. I mean, amazing that anybody, and to me, I mean, this is an absolute proof of that Jesus was no ordinary human. He truly was the Son of God.

And the Bible is no ordinary book because someone like that could not possibly make such a prediction and have it come true. I mean, no one else on earth has had a kingdom that's been preached throughout the entire world. Okay. Our last one. That Jesus' followers would be hated by all peoples. This is what Jesus prophesied. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you. And you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. Here's a picture. You've seen this before. It's a fairly famous painting.

Christians being persecuted by the Romans, being thrown to the lions, which did historically happen. This is from today in India. These are Christians just having a peaceful protest against the persecution. A lot of people don't realize that Christians are persecuted in India, not officially by the government, but just by Hindu mobs. This is a foreign religion. We don't want it here. And Christians have been killed, mob, beaten up, things like that. Okay, why is this prophecy so marvelous?

Well, when Jesus said those words, nobody was persecuting his disciples. Again, I mean, this is just a Jewish prophet. Most of the nations hadn't even heard about him. Why would they hate him and his disciples? They'd never even heard of this man. He said, "You're going to be hated by all nations." I mean, if the other nations had heard this, they would say, "No, you're not. We've never even heard of you. We don't care about you. We don't hate you." But this exactly happened. I mean, Jesus himself died as a martyr.

He's put to death by the Jews. So from day one, Christianity began with, like I say, the founder being put to death, then his disciples being imprisoned, killed, chased, whatever, first by the Jews. Then the Romans get in on the act. They make Christianity an illegal religion. Now, this is a marvelous fulfillment because the Romans were tolerant of all religions. I mean, they had the largest empire up to that time in human history, at least in the Western world.

But one reason they held it together is they respected the different people groups. They wanted them to keep having their own religion, have their temples. In fact, the Romans would actually build temples and donate money to the priesthood of these different religions throughout the empire. I mean, they tolerated everyone. Even the Jews were given special permission that they didn't have to have images to Caesar in their temple or that sort of thing. They didn't have to believe he was a god.

Everyone is tolerated except the Christians. I mean, Christianity should have had centuries and centuries of growing without any persecution. But no, the Romans who tolerated every other religion, even the religion of Mithras. I mean, this came from Persia. Persia was the rival empire of the Romans. And yet they allowed this foreign religion to come in. And a lot of the soldiers, it was very popular among the Roman soldiers, this religion from Persia.

They allowed these different Egyptian mystery religions with all kinds of weird rites and things like that. Whatever you wanted to worship was fine unless you're a Christian. So right off the bat, first the Jews, then the Romans. Well, then Constantine, as you know, converted to Christianity or at least made a profession of it. And the Romans quit persecuting Christians in general. Well, then the Persian Empire is like, "Wait a minute.

If the Romans are our arch enemies, if they like the Christians and they're helping the Christians, hmm, I think these Christians are dangerous." So then they're persecuted in Persia. They were also persecuted in ancient China way back when the first Christian missionaries went there. In ancient India, they were persecuted. They were persecuted when they tried to take the gospel to different barbarian countries among the Germanic tribes and the Celts and different people groups.

There has never, never been a century, I don't think there's ever even been a year in human history since the time of Christ that Christians have not been persecuted somewhere on the earth. And they faced persecution in every nation at one time or another across the world. And this continues today. A lot of people don't realize that Christians are still persecuted today. It goes on in China, in North Korea, most Muslim countries.

Like I say, you maybe can be a Christian, but if you have Bible studies or if you try to evangelize or preach, persecuted, on the average, every single day, 12 Christian churches somewhere on the earth are burned or destroyed. Every single day, every single day, at least a dozen Christians are imprisoned, beaten up, put to death for being a Christian. That's today. I mean, like I say, it's continued on to this time. And yet when Jesus prophesied this, no one was persecuting his disciples. And who would have cared?

I mean, this little Jewish prophet, I mean, we don't care about you. I mean, what an amazing prophecy that my disciples would be hated by all the nations everywhere, even though he never went to those nations, even though they hadn't heard of him. Well, so these six prophecies, along with hundreds of others, demonstrate that, again, the Bible, I mean, this is no ordinary book. If those of you who are here today, I hope it's built up your confidence if you've ever wavered in your faith about the Bible.

I mean, this is no ordinary book. No human could have written just these six prophecies we've looked at today. But there's hundreds of prophecies in the Bible, all of which have been fulfilled. I mean, we can truly have confidence that the Bible is God's word. And if you're somebody who has never even read the Bible, if you've just dismissed it as, "Oh, that's a book of fairy tales and fables," well, it's not. Like I say, it contains the most amazing prophecies ever.

And no one can doubt their fulfillment because they're being fulfilled right now before our very eyes. Yeah, if your faith ever wavers, I mean, there was a time in my life, I grew up at Jehovah's Witness and left. And there was a time when I had doubts. Well, how do I know this is really true?

And the prophecy that impacted me the most was the fifth one we looked at, Jesus saying, "This good news of the kingdom will be preached throughout all the inhabited world." I thought, "Wow, if this wasn't the Son of God, if this was just some, the son of a Jewish carpenter, I mean, he's talking about his kingdom when he doesn't even have a kingdom? He's going to be preached throughout the whole world?" And yet it happened. I mean, I knew it had happened.

I mean, that God's kingdom is preached everywhere, that there is a kingdom, it exists. You're part of it here today. I mean, that's just incredible. I thought, "No, no human could possibly make such a prediction like that and have it come true."