Prewritten History, Part 2 B

When you start talking about fulfilled prophecy, you begin to see that God wrote this book. And you know, as you look around today, prophecy is still coming to pass, isn't it? My, we see the things that are forming in the world around us as we anticipate the coming of our blessed Lord Christ. And I see God being vindicated in the past, the present, and yet to be in the future. I praise him for pre-written history because it proves that he wrote this book. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. We've harnessed the power of raging rivers. We've turned sand into computer chips. We've made space travel almost commonplace. We're the captains of our destiny, one might say. That's certainly what many of the ancient rulers of the Old Testament thought. And their downfalls serve as warnings to you and me about the dangers of spiritual pride. But that's not all you can learn from those examples. They also demonstrate the trustworthiness of the Word of God.

And how is that so? Find out as John MacArthur continues his series, Is the Bible Reliable? Take your Bible now if you're able and follow along as John begins today's lesson. The following passage is an interesting thing to read and I want to read it to you. It's included in the book entitled, They Wrote on Clay by Edward Chiera, University of Chicago Press 1966.

This particular individual is writing a letter to his wife. This is the man who was excavating the ancient site of Babylon. Actually it was Kish, which is about eight miles from ancient Babylon.

And this is his letter to his wife. This evening I made my usual pilgrimage to the mound covering the ancient temple tower. Seen from below it does not look so high as might be expected of a Babylonian temple tower. Did not that of Babylon pretend to reach to heaven? One gets the answer after ascending it.

Though rather low, it can hardly be more than 500 feet. Still from the top the eye sweeps over an enormous distance on the boundless flat plain. The ruins of Babylon are near. All around the tower small heaps of dirt represent all that remains of Kish, one of the oldest cities of Mesopotamia. The large network of canals which in ancient times distributed the waters of the Euphrates over all this land is now represented by a series of small mounds of dirt running in all directions. Even the Euphrates has abandoned this land by changing its course, a dead city.

The archaeologist writes further, I have visited Pompeii and Ostia and I have taken walks along the empty corridors of the Palatine. But those cities are not dead, they are only temporarily abandoned. The home of life is still heard and life blooms all around.

They are but a step in the progress of that civilization to which they have contributed their full share and which marches on under their very eyes. Here only is real death. Not a column or an arch stands to demonstrate the permanence of human work. Everything has crumbled into dust, the very temple tower, the most imposing of all these ancient constructions has entirely lost its original shape. Where are now its seven stages? Where is the large stairway that led to the top?

Where is the shrine that crowned it? We see nothing but a mound of earth, all that remains of the millions of its bricks. On the very top some traces of walls, but these are shapeless. Time and neglect have completed their work. Under my feet are some holes which have been burrowed by foxes and jackals. That night they descend stealthily from their haunts in their difficult search for food and appear silhouetted against the sky. This evening they appear to sense my presence and stay in hiding, perhaps wondering at this stranger who has come to disturb their peace.

The mound is covered with white bones which represent the accumulated evidences of their hunts. Nothing breaks the deathly silence. A jackal is now sending forth his howl, half cry, half thrust. All the dogs of the Arab village immediately take up its challenge and for a moment the peace is upset by howling and barking. But a certain fascination holds me here. I should like to find a reason for all this desolation. Why should a flourishing city, the seat of an empire, have completely disappeared? Is it the fulfillment of a prophetic curse that changed a superb temple into a den of jackals? Did the actions of the people who lived here have anything to do with this?

Or is it the fatal destiny of mankind that all its civilizations must crumble when they reach their peak? And what are we doing here trying to wrest from the past its secrets when probably we ourselves and our own achievements may become an object of search for people's yet to come?" The Bible solves the man's mystery, doesn't it? Let me tell you about another city, the city of Samaria. In Micah 1.6 we have the prophecy relative to Samaria. It says, mark it, therefore I will make Samaria like a heap of the field, just like a mound, and like plantings of a vineyard, I'll pour down its stones into the valley.

I will uncover the foundations of it. Samaria was a famous city. It was the capital of the northern kingdom. It was to Israel what Jerusalem was to Judah. The indication is it will fall violently. It will become a heap.

Vineyards will be planted there and stones will be poured into the valley. Seven hundred and twenty-two years BC, Sargon took Samaria. Samaria had been built by Omri. Omri was really bad. He was horrible. First Kings 16, 25 was one of the most wicked kings that ever lived. The only one that was worse was his son, Ahab. First Kings 16, 30 tells us Ahab was worse than Omri.

Ahab's wife was Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Sidon. She killed all the prophets and led the people to worship Baal. Now because of this, God said, I'm going to destroy that city. The city is now gone.

It was wiped out by Sargon 722, later by Alexander in 331 and by John Hyrcanus in 120 B.C. That city was again wiped out. You know what's in Samaria? As far as your eye can see are fields and the dominant kind of field there is the vineyard. This is true. Olives are everywhere in that area as well.

It has been used to cultivate olives and fig trees. Van de Velde says, Samaria, a huge heap of stones. Her foundation has been discovered.

Isn't that what it says? Micah 1, 6, I will uncover what? The foundations. Her streets plowed up and covered with corn fields and olive gardens. Samaria has been destroyed but her rubbish thrown down into the valley.

Her foundation stones lie scattered about on the slope of the hill. You see exactly, exactly what Micah said would happen and that's the comment of an archaeologist. One of the most interesting places that you go to in the Middle East is the area of Moab and Ammon. Ammon is today the modern area of the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan and the capital is Ammon. You know that Ammon was nothing till the 20th century? And even in the 30s, Ammon was an Arab village of 20,000 people.

Today it's a city of multiple hundreds of thousands of people and it's the capital of the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan under Hussein. The Bible says something about Moab and Ammon, that area. It says it in Ezekiel chapter 25, Ezekiel 25, 3. The Lord said to Ezekiel, prophesy against the Ammonites from Ammon and say unto the Ammonites, hear the word of the Lord God, thus saith the Lord God, because thou saidst aha against my sanctuary when it was profaned. When somebody profaned the sanctuary and they said, ha, how about that?

You got what you deserve. And against the land of Israel when it was desolate and against the house of Judah when they went into captivity, behold therefore I'll deliver thee to the men of the east for a possession. They shall set their palaces in thee, make their dwelling in thee. They shall eat thy fruit and drink thy milk. Verse 11, I will execute judgments also upon Moab and they shall know that I am the Lord.

How? Because I said I'll do it and I will do it and that's fulfilled prophecy. And again, God uses the apologetic of fulfilled prophecy to substantiate His own word in history. Now that isn't all that is said about Moab and Ammon. There's more in the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 48, verse 47, yet will I bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter days, saith the Lord, 49, 6. And afterward I will bring again the captivity of the children of Ammon, says the Lord. Now watch, God says, I am going to take those cities and judge them. Ammon will be occupied by the men from the east who will possess it and build their palaces there. But in the end times, I will again restore Moab and again restore Ammon.

How interesting. God never said that about Babylon and Babylon has never been restored. You say, what is going on there now? Do you know for long centuries, for 2,500 years, nothing was there to speak of? Those were powerful kingdoms.

I mean very powerful. They were well-defended kingdoms right there to the east of the Dead Sea and up on the hills. But the prophecy came true and those cities were conquered and those areas were captured and they were captured from the east.

Moab and Ammon became horribly desolate. And it's amazing today as you drive through that area, there is nothing there, absolutely nothing but Bedouins roaming around. You mean this was the garden spot of the world? You mean this is the Promised Land?

I can't imagine. You know why? Because it's all been decimated in the fulfillment of prophecy. But right in the middle of Moab and Ammon is the growth of this amazing city, Ammon, a handful of people, a handful of people in the 20s, 20,000 in the 30s, hundreds of thousands right now and a major airport flying in there with a jet. We flew over that area and we remembered the prophet had said, I will bring again Ammon and Moab. There's another interesting prophecy regarding the land of Edom. Let me show you what the prophet said about Edom, Isaiah 34. Notice Isaiah 34 verse 6. And here is the prophecy against Edom. Verse 5 says it's going to come against Edom. And verse 6 says, the sword of the Lord is filled with blood, is made fat with fatness with the blood of lambs and goats and the fat of the kidneys of rams for the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. And the wild oxen shall come down with them and the bullocks with the bulls and their land shall be soaked with blood and their dust made fat with fatness.

Fatness means the inside, the pouring out of flesh. For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance and the year of recompense for the controversy of Zion. Now watch verse 9, the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch.

Just that is so interesting. We went to Petra and you get on a horse and you have to go into Petra. Petra is built inside of a tremendous canyon. The only way in it is to go through this, just this long gorge that at some places only a single horse can pass.

Theoretically, Petra could be guarded by one man. You get inside and it opens up and they've carved an entire massive city out of the rocks. It's absolutely astounding.

The most astounding thing I've ever seen in my life. And all the way along as you're riding in, I noticed there was a little thing carved in the side of the canyon walls, a little rut, and it ran all the way in. And there's no other way out and there's no other way into that place. There was no water inside, but there's an amazing spring that continues to bubble up near there and there's plenty of water. And what they did was they ran the water along the little ridges in the walls. And anybody who needed water for their cave just tapped off the ridge and it ran in. And this water kept running in and running in and that's how they got their water supply. When they were conquered, somebody just plugged up the ridge. They just turned off the water and what the prophet said came to pass, the streams thereof shall be...what?...turned to pitch.

That's exactly what happened. The only way the city could ever have been taken would be to starve or to cause the people to be so thirsty that they would surrender rather than die. Verse 10, the destruction that comes on that city shall not be quenched by night or day. Its smoke shall go up forever.

That means it's an eternal desolation from generation to generation. It shall lie waste, none shall pass through it forever and ever. I'm telling you, folks, you can't pass through it.

You go in there, look at it and turn around and come back again. And nobody goes there. The only people who go there are tourists and the Arab boys with their horses who take us there. No one goes there. The prophet said, no one will go there.

There's nothing there. Verse 13, thorns shall come up in its palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortress thereof it shall be an habitation of jackals and a court for owls. The beast of the desert shall meet with the wild beasts of the island, the wild goat shall cry to his fellow and screech owls shall rest there and find a place of rest. The great owl will make her nest, lay and hatch and gather under her shadow. There shall be kites, other kind of birds, gathered every one with her mate. It's going to be a haunt for birds and wild animals. And that's truly what it is. Go to Jeremiah 49, verse 17, it says, also Edom shall be a desolation, every one that goes by shall be appalled and hiss at all its plagues. It'll be like Sodom and Gomorrah. Verse 16, thy terribleness hath deceived thee in the pride of thine heart, O thou that dwellest in the...what?...clefts of the rock. All the people who lived in Petra lived in the rocks.

You can't believe it. After we had taken our little tour in there, I took off on my own because I wanted to explore further. And so I went over this crest, it was kind of a narrow thing, and I kind of walked along the wall of the canyon a little bit, and I came and this whole area opened to me and it was just pockmarked with caves every place. And you could see that an entire civilization had lived in the clefts of the rock, holding the height of the hill. So thou make thy nest as high as the eagle...what?...I'll bring thee down.

They thought they were impregnable. God says, you're not impregnable, I'll tear you down. And boy, I'm telling you, that is the most desolate place you've ever seen. And to stand there in the midst of it and look around at all of the mighty carved out temples and to imagine a tremendous civilization and to see the desolation is there speaks of the power of the Word of God to fulfill itself. Ezekiel has much to say about Edom. In chapter 25 verse 13, therefore thus saith the Lord God, I will stretch My hand upon Edom, cut off man and beast from it. Now watch, I will make it desolate from Teman, T-e-m-a-n, and they of Dedan shall fall by the sword. I'll lay My vengeance on Edom by the hand of My people Israel.

They shall do in Edom according to Mine anger and according to My fury, they shall know My vengeance, saith the Lord God. Interesting little note just to pull out there that Edom would be destroyed to Teman. What's interesting about that is that in the destruction of Edom, the destruction wiped out every city in Edom except Teman, exactly as the Word of God predicted.

Obadiah 18 says, there shall not be any remaining in the house of Esau for the Lord has spoken it. It was to be conquered by the heathen and the Jews and it was conquered by both. The Nabataeans took Edom and they are the children of the east mentioned in Ezekiel 25. Sometime in the sixth century, the Nabataeans swept west and gobbled up Edom and they were powerful. They took Petra by cutting off the water and they swept north and they turned that entire area into what is known as Nabataean Arabia and that's the Arabia where Paul spent the years that he spent before he began his ministry. They conquered that whole area and, of course, it became a terrible desolation. Later on, the Jews under John Hyrcanus and Simon of Gerasa attacked and conquered it, fulfilling the prophecy that it would be taken by Israel as well. Listen to this, until the 19th century when Petra was discovered, the skeptics believed that the Edomites never existed but that they were only a legend.

That's how totally they were obliterated. And it wasn't until the 19th century when the archaeologists came upon, and I can't imagine the first guy that walked in that place, when the archaeologists came upon that city and discovered that Petra existed, that they realized that what the Bible said about the Edomites was true, there were such a people, they just got so wiped out that they were hard to find. One of the wonders of the world, that city.

Today absolutely bare, lizards, animals, nobody lives here, not even the Bedouins, nobody. It is silent, it is lonely, it is decaying with the winds of time. Alexander Keith said this, I would that the skeptic could stand as I did among the ruins of this city, among the rocks and there open the sacred book and read the words of the inspired penman written when this desolate place was one of the greatest cities in the world. I see the scoffer arrested, his cheek pale, his lips quivering and his heart quaking with fear as the ruined city cries out to him in a voice loud and powerful as that of one risen from the dead. Though he would not believe Moses and the prophets, he believes the handwriting of God Himself in the desolation and eternal ruin of this city," end quote, and nobody passes through it.

It's the dead end of all dead ends. Listen folks, when you start talking about fulfilled prophecy, you begin to see that God wrote this book. Let me just take you for a minute into Matthew chapter 11 and show you a New Testament prophecy.

This is interesting. Matthew 11 verse 20, our Lord, of course, did much of His ministry in the area around the Sea of Galilee. And it says in verse 20 of Matthew 11, then began He to upbraid the cities in which most of His mighty works were done because they repented not. Woe unto thee, Chorazin, woe unto thee, Bethsaida, for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, which are exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down to hell or Hades, for if the mighty works which had been done...have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained till this day. Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, you know enough to be responsible, terrible judgment. It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for you.

If you think Sodom and Gomorrah got it, you haven't seen anything. Listen, the people in those three little cities of Chorazin, Capernaum, and Bethsaida were favored by God because therein did the Messiah most of His miracles. In fact, do you know that in Matthew 4 it tells us that our Lord Jesus Christ made His home in Capernaum? I would have to say that of all the places that I have been in the world, one of the most lovely places I have ever been is at the Sea of Galilee. And one of the most absolutely beautiful spots that you could ever imagine to build a city, one of the most lovely places you could ever imagine to live would be right in that area where Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida were. Dean Farrar says, there were no such trees and no such gardens anywhere in Palestine as in the land of the Gennesaret, that's that area. Josephus in a passage of glowing admiration after describing the sweetness of its winters and the delicate temperature of its air, its palms and vines and grapes and figs and almonds and pomegranates and warm springs says the seasons seem to compete for the honor of its possession, end quote. The days of Jesus, it was a thickly populated area as well as a very beautiful area. It slopes up from the north end of the Sea of Galilee. It's absolutely just a gorgeous area.

Four main roads converge, the roads going from Egypt north, the roads going to the east, everything crisscrossed right there by Galilee. It was a fabulous place to live, nowhere like it. There is no Chorazin. There is no Bethsaida.

There is no Capernaum. They were wiped out. Historians tell us they were destroyed in an earthquake in 400 A.D.

They came crashing down. Several attempts have been made to try to rebuild it. King Akbaid, king of Damascus around 700 A.D. tried and failed. You want to know something interesting? On the shore of Galilee there's another city. That city is called Tiberias.

You say, well, by this time all those cities have passed away. Do you know Tiberias was there when Jesus was there and Tiberias is still there? I stayed in Tiberias. Tiberias is growing and has some of the most beautiful hotels imaginable. Tiberias is a fabulous city.

It's still there. Two thousand years later, watch this, 985 towns were destroyed by the Romans. Those cities were finally wiped out by the earthquake. Tiberias is still there.

Why? Because Jesus didn't say it would be destroyed. He picked out the right cities.

He never makes a mistake. All you have to do is stand on the ground of Tiberias and look at the spot where Chorus and Bethsaida and Capernaum might be and you know that God wrote the Bible. Well if you added all these prophecies together like Peter Stoner did, he took eleven prophecies and he's a mathematician so he figured out the probability of all eleven coming to pass by accident. I've only given you about nine. He said the possibility of eleven coming to pass and he picked a certain eleven was one in 5.76 times 10 to the 59th power. The odds are absolutely incredible that these things could happen by chance. If they didn't happen by chance, which obviously they didn't, they happened because somebody ordered them.

If somebody ordered them, somebody's up there. And you know as you look around today, prophecy is still coming to pass, isn't it? My, we see the things that are forming in the world around us as we anticipate the coming of our blessed Lord Christ. When I see God being vindicated in the past, the present, and yet to be in the future, I praise him for pre-written history because it proves that he wrote this book.

You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. John calls his current study, Is the Bible Reliable? You know, while some people may have thought that looking at Bible prophecy is mostly about satisfying our curiosity, I think today's message, John, may have demonstrated just the opposite.

There is profound practical benefit if you're willing to put some effort in and study what Scripture says about what's ahead. Well, there's only one book in the Bible that promises a blessing on the one who reads it and understands it. And that's not Proverbs, it's Revelation. That may sound strange given the character of Revelation because for most people who just look at it and give it a cursory reading, it seems profound and some of it even obscure. But the truth of the matter is it is the only book in the Bible that begins by pronouncing a blessing on the one who understands it and ends doing exactly the same thing.

So it is understandable. And in my mind it is, when it comes to prophetic literature, the most clear, easily understood, chronological explanation of the coming events, even of all redemptive history. So its timeline is marvelous, it's clear, it's easy to follow. I think it would help people to be able to see the whole thing in one big view and that's why we have a free copy of a booklet, A Jet Tour Through Revelation.

You just have to ask us for it and we'll send it to you. This booklet will supplement what you've heard, it'll put it in your hands so you can go back over it again. And listen, understanding and benefiting from the book of Revelation is important and that's why it's come to you with blessing promised from God. There's no excuse for not knowing the end of God's redemptive plan. He's laid it out in Revelation. Some people think you can take any view of the end times or eschatology and it's okay because it's too confusing.

It's not and it's wrong to interpret it wrongly. This will give you the truth, the right interpretation right out of the book of Revelation. So if you want a free copy of A Jet Tour Through Revelation, contact us by email, regular mail, whatever it is and order a copy.

Thanks, John. Friend, there is no need to feel intimidated by the book of Revelation. John's booklet will help you make sense of the Bible's final book which will lead to blessing.

The Bible promises blessing to those who read the book of Revelation. So request your copy of A Jet Tour Through Revelation when you get in touch with us today. You can mail your request to Grace to You, Post Office Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or ask for the booklet by email. Our email address, letters at gty.org. Or let us know you'd like a copy when you call us at 800-55-GRACE or you can also visit our website, gty.org. Again John's booklet is titled A Jet Tour Through Revelation and it's free for the asking. Just let us know you want one when you call 800-55-GRACE or when you go online to gty.org. While you're at the website, make sure you take advantage of some of the thousands of free resources including the Grace to You blog, daily devotionals, more than 3600 of John's sermons, free to download in MP3 and transcript format. All of that at our website. The address one more time, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378 or you can watch anytime at the website gty.org and be here tomorrow to see the stark difference between the world's wisdom and God's wisdom and to see if you're placing your confidence in the right source. Just another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace to You.