groping in the dark without any guidance. He promised to raise up a prophet like Moses whom we know as our Lord Jesus Christ. He is God’s last Word to a lost world. He tells how these true prophets can be rec ognized (verse 22). Since Jesus Christ has come and done His work, establishing His wit ness through His apostles, there has been nothing more for God to say. His revelation is now complete. This is what we call the Bible. We know we have His complete and accurate revelation. We can te s t I s r a e l’s spokesmen by their sh o rt-ran g e prophecies. Their con tem po raries saw them fulfilled. We can also prove them by their long-range prophecies which they accepted by faith but which now are human history. Yes, biblical prophecy is another authenti cation of the Bible’s complete in spiration and reliability. P art S ixteen T here is no more thrilling subject than that which concerns the in spiration of the Word of God. We believe the Scriptures a re God- breathed from cover to cover. Our materialistic society seeks a natural explanation fo r ev e ry th ing th a t seems to be unusual. Scripture makes it crystal clear that God had His spokesmen in every genera tion (Deut. 18:18 ff). In Isaiah 41:21-29, we see how God works through prophecy, for He is omniscient. Read this portion and see how the Lord validates His servant’s ministry by accurately foretelling th e fu tu re . There are many liberal theologians who refuse to believe Isaiah 40-66. They think someone else wrote this last section of the book. Isaiah point ed out that Jehovah is the only One who knows the end from the begin ning. How did Isaiah, living 150 years before the event ever hap pened, know anything about the Per sian language and a king who had
omniscience of God as well as to the reliability of the Word of God. It strengthens our confidence in the in evitability of the prophecies which are yet to come to pass. The miracles and prophecies furnish the conspicu ous and irrefutable proof of the di vine authority of our faith. We do not need to seek natural explana tions for fulfilled prophecies. There should be no effort to get rid of the supernatural. In Deuteronomy 18:20- 22 we find a good definition for the purpose of biblical prophecy. God pre-wrote events before they ever happened. Prophecy indicates God’s real purpose. The Lord knew that when the children of Israel entered the Holy Land their greatest temp tation would be to take up the wor ship of the gods of the Canaanites. This is why Moses stressed the keep ing of the first commandment which has to do with worshipping the true God of Israel. Deuteronomy 18:9-11 specifically names some of the pagan practices which were forb idden . Some of these may be unthinkable to our civilization today, but we have astrology which is not unfamiliar. How sad to see people taken in by such error. Spiritism is another about which Scripture gives us a definite warning. It’s still a thriving business. Man today is not much dif ferent from the ancient people of Israel. He desires to know the future. The ability to predict tomorrow’s events has always been regarded as a sign of contact with supernatural powers. Man wants to find out God’s plans. God has told us in His book, the Bible, exactly what the future’s going to be like. He wants us to be able to differentiate between right and wrong, truth and error. God vin dicates His wonderful prophets and spokesmen (Deut. 18:18-22). After forbidding all the ways of foretell ing the future which the heathen were practicing, God, through Moses, made the gracious promise that He did not intend to leave His people 30
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