Luke 24:44
All things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): “Search the Scriptures,” says our Lord, John 5:39, “for they are they that testify of me.”
ROWLAND HILL (1744-1833): Christ crucified may be said to be the Alpha and Omega of all the Bible; not a promise given, but it refers to Him; not a threatening is pronounced, but He is represented as a covert from the storm, and a refuge for the guilty; not a prophecy is revealed, but “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy,” Revelation 19:10.
ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): Tom Paine* says the Scripture prophecies are “a book of falsehoods.” Let us examine this charge…The dispute, therefore, between believers and unbelievers, is reducible to a short issue. If Scripture prophecy be Divinely inspired, it will be accomplished; if it be imposture, it will not.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): Let us tell them about fulfilled prophecy. Let us point out to them how things prophesied and predicted hundreds of years before the events were actually verified in the fullest and minutest detail. Let us tell them; they do not know it.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Centuries beforehand, the prophets of God had described step by step the humiliation and suffering which the coming Saviour should undergo. One by one these were wonderfully fulfilled to the very letter. Had prophecy declared that He should be the woman’s seed? (Genesis 3:15), then He was “born of a woman” (Galatians 4:4). Had prophecy announced that His mother should be a virgin? (Isaiah 7:14), then was it literally fulfilled (Matthew 1:18). Had prophecy revealed that He should be of the seed of Abraham? (Genesis 22:18), then mark its fulfilment (Matthew 1:1). Had prophecy made it known that He should be a lineal descendant of David? (II Samuel 7:12,13), then such He actually was (Romans 1:3). Had prophecy said that He should be named before He was born? (Isaiah 49:1), then so it came to pass (Luke 1:30,31). Had prophecy foretold that He should be born in Bethlehem of Judah? (Micah 5:2), then mark how this very village was actually His birthplace…
Now in order to appreciate the force of these marvellous, supernatural prophecies, let the reader seek to foretell the nationality, place and time of the birth of someone who shall be born in the twenty-fifth century.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Let any man who disbelieves the Bible, for instance, answer this question—Did you ever candidly read that book with the view of seeing for yourself whether or not it is the book of God? Did you ever sit down seriously to study the evidences of its being the revelation of God?
A. W. PINK: Had prophecy forewarned that His birth should entail sorrowing for others? (Jeremiah 31:15), then behold its tragic fulfilment (Matthew 2:14,15). Had prophecy foreshown that the Messiah should appear before the scepter of tribal ascendancy had departed from Judah? (Genesis 49:10), then so He did, for though the ten tribes were in captivity, Judah was still in the land at the time of His advent. Had prophecy referred to the flight into Egypt and the subsequent return into Palestine? (Hosea 11:1 and Isaiah 49:3,6), then so it came to pass (Matthew 2:14,15). Had prophecy made mention of one going before Christ to make ready His way? (Malachi 3:1), then see its fulfillment in the person of John the Baptist. Had prophecy made it known that at the Messiah’s appearing the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped? And the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing? (Isaiah 35:5,6) Read the Gospels and see how blessedly this proved true.
ANDREW FULLER: The Spirit of prophecy is [also] called the Spirit of Christ because it testified of His sufferings, I Peter 1:11.
A. W. PINK: Had prophecy spoken of Him as poor and needy? (Psalm 40:17), then behold Him having nowhere to lay His head. Had prophecy intimated that He should speak in parables? (Psalm 78:2), then such was frequently His method of teaching. Had prophecy depicted Him stilling the tempest? (Psalm 107:29), then this is exactly what He did. Had prophecy heralded His “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem? (Zechariah 9:9), then so it came to pass. Had prophecy announced that His person should be despised? (Isaiah 53:3), that He should be rejected by the Jews? (Isaiah 8:14), that He be hated without a cause? (Psalm 69:4) then, sad to say, such was precisely the case. Had prophecy painted the whole picture of His degradation and crucifixion? Then was it vividly reproduced…
How marvellously complete was the prophetic foreview! No essential item was missing. Every important detail of the great Tragedy had been written down beforehand: the betrayal by a familiar friend (Psalm 41:9); the forsaking of the disciples (Psalm 31:11); the false accusation (Psalm 35:11); the silence before His judges (Isaiah 53:7); the being proven guiltless (Isaiah 53:9); the numbering of Him with transgressors (Isaiah 53:12); being crucified (Psalm 22:16); the mockery of the spectators (Psalm 109:25); the taunt of non-deliverance (Psalm 22:7,8); the gambling for His garments (Psalm 22:18); the prayer for His enemies (Isaiah 53:12); the being forsaken of God (Psalm 22:1); the thirsting (Psalm 69:21); the yielding of His spirit into the hands of the Father (Psalm 31:5); the bones not broken (Psalm 34:20); the burial in a rich man’s tomb (Isaiah 53:9)—all plainly foretold centuries before they came to pass.
J. C. PHILPOT (1802-1869): The resurrection of Jesus Christ was God’s grand attestation to the truth of His divine mission and Sonship, for by it He was “declared to be the son of God with power,” Romans 1:4
ANDREW FULLER: Passing over the predictions of the Messiah, whose birth, place of nativity, time of appearance, manner of life, doctrine, miracles, death and resurrection were each particularly pointed out, let us examine a few examples from the New Testament. Our Lord Jesus Christ foretold the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and limited the time of its accomplishment to the then “present generation” Matthew 24:1-35. Ask Josephus, the Jewish historian, Is this a falsehood?
C. H. SPURGEON: Go ye this day to Jerusalem, look beneath the buildings of the modern town, and mark the excavations which reveal the utter ruin of the holy city. See how fully the prophecy was fulfilled that not one stone should remain upon another.
ANDREW FULLER: It was intimated, at the same time, that the Jewish people should not only fall by the edge of the sword, but that great numbers of them should be “led away captive into all nations;” and that “Jerusalem should be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled,” Luke 21:24. Ask the present descendants of that unhappy people, Is this a falsehood?
A. W. PINK: What a convincing evidence of the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures!
ROBERT HALDANE (1764-1842): When God opens the understanding to understand the Scriptures; when men are made to know that all the prophets, both in the history of the past, and the predictions of the future, bear witness of Christ, and that every circumstance recorded in the Word of God, is a part of the testimony of Jesus, then they are led to exclaim, O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, Romans 11:33.
ANDREW FULLER: Enough has been said to enable us to determine which production it is that deserves to be called “a book of falsehoods”—the prophecies of Scripture, or Tom Paine’s Age of Reason.*
THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): Reason is a short and defective light, not only actually ignorant, but unable to conceive of them…The world is a dark place. Aye; but now, here is a light that shines in a dark place, and that is the Holy Scripture, the “sure word of prophecy,” II Peter 1:19; it showeth us our way to Heaven, and prevents us from stumbling into Hell.
A. W. PINK: It only remains for us to point out that as there was complete set of prophecies which had to do with the first advent of the Saviour, so also is there a complete set of prophecies which have to do with His second advent—the latter as definite, as personal, and as comprehensive in their scope as the former. As then we see the actual fulfilment of those which had to do with His first coming to the earth, we may look forward with absolute confidence and assurance to the fulfillment of those which have to do with His second coming.
C. H. SPURGEON: The Gospel runs thus: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. He that believeth not shall be damned.”
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*Editor’s Note: Tom Paine (1737-1809), was one of the literary “founding fathers” of the United States of America. He is best known for his writings The Rights of Man, Common Sense, and more notoriously, The Age of Reason, which promoted Deism, and attacked Christian doctrines and the Divine inspiration of the Bible. Deism (which denies the deity of Jesus Christ, salvation by grace, and the Divine inspiration of the Bible) was also the creed of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Comparing these historical facts to the recent public comments of some modern American “evangelical” politicians regarding their “founding fathers,” it suggests that many such “evangelicals” really have very little knowledge of their own national history.
