VBS 2026 - "Prophecy" by Dale Pollard - Part 2

said, I was going to say handed me the notes, pretty much, but he said,

would you be willing to teach one night? And I said, yeah, sure.

And then he handed me, you know, all the lesson plans to look through,

and I started looking at all the topics, and I was like, oh man,

that looks good. And I was looking for mine, and there was some confusion about

that a little bit, but then I just started reading through all the lessons.

I was like, man, I like all this stuff. I like archaeology.

I like the scientific foreknowledge. I like the predictive prophecy that we're talking

about. This evening. I just think all this stuff is really neat, really interesting.

But I wanted to start off with a question. Does anyone have

a copy of the notes or anything? Oh,

good. All right, because we're going to do a little bit of that and then

we're going to do a little off-roading in a little bit. If God

wrote a book, which we believe he did, what would we expect that book

to be like? What would we expect out of

a book that God wrote?

Powerful. All right, powerful. Yep.

Everything that's said is correct. All right, that's a big one. Everything in there has

got to be correct because if the God of the Bible is all-knowing,

all-powerful, eternal, then He should know what He's talking about.

So, yeah. All right, what else? History.

All right, the history. So, the history. If things,

if historical events are mentioned, then you would expect that those historical events

should be accurate. I know that there's A lot of things you can't verify even

in the secular world, but you would expect the things that we can go back

and verify, you'd expect those things to be right.

You'd expect certain cities to exist, certain places to exist.

If there's kings involved, or, you know, any prominent figures

that are mentioned, then you'd expect that you should be able to go back and

verify, oh, this person did exist. This person was real. Okay, good. So the

history is accurate. It's perfect. Powerful. What else? Everything we need to know to

discern what's right and what isn't right, how to live a good life. Okay,

good. So, everything we need to know to discern what's right, what's wrong,

say morally as well.

If you look at some other religious documents, you can clearly

tell they're written by human beings. You take the Quran for instance, it's very much

written by testosterone-fueled men. It's all about conquest and women

and that kind of thing. So, you say, alright, that can't be right for all

generations for all time. You'd expect the Bible to be a little bit different.

If God wrote the Bible, it would be different. Yep. What else?

Anything else? What happens in the end?

Okay. All right. So, what happens in the end? Big questions. The big questions.

And we could tie in a lot of those. I hope I don't step on

anybody else. I saw a couple other hands. But why are we here? Big questions

to answer. So, what happens in the end? Why are we here? What's the point?

You know, we can reason as people. We're different than all the other animals.

So, what's the deal? What are we up to on earth? And can

it be written in a way that makes sense for all time to all people?

Because if it's the Creator of the world and Creator of humans,

then you'd expect every culture to be able to grasp what is being said on

various different levels. Okay, good. Anything else?

Something that has been proven. Oh, okay.

Something about prophecies that can be proven? Yes, exactly. And that's what we're

going to be talking about tonight, obviously. But yeah, you'd expect it to be geographically

accurate, scientifically accurate. In ways that you can prove. And I don't want to— I

wrote a couple other things, and I don't want to step on tomorrow, because you're

doing Scientific Foreknowledge, right? Yeah, there's some really cool stuff in that too. I can't

wait for that. But yeah, you expect every— all the claims inside to be accurate.

You'd expect it to be a perfect book. You'd also

expect cohesion and unity. Now, does anyone know how many authors,

or roughly how many authors wrote the Bible? All right, 40.

Okay, so we got 40 different human writers writing over anywhere from—

I've seen 1,400 to 1,600 years. All having diverse backgrounds

like kings, prophets, shepherds, fishermen. You've got scholars,

all of them writing across this vast amount of time in

3 different languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, over 3 different continents:

Asia, Africa, Europe. And they lived in or wrote from

7 to 10 different ancient regions or empires. Okay, so it's

the longest game of telephone, stretches a lot of time,

and it all makes sense in the end. When it finally comes together,

it all makes sense. There is a cohesive narrative. There's unity that

we see there. And I'm going to go ahead and jump into this because we've

got some examples that we're going to go through and look at predictive

prophecy. But I don't think we can do a class on this without talking about

obviously the most important ones, and that being the Messianic prophecies that we have.

So, you've got— alright, so I say Messianic prophecy, what's the

first thing that comes to mind? A certain book

and a certain chapter. Isaiah 53. Okay,

well, you had Genesis. All right, Isaiah 53 is, you know, obviously the first

one that tends to come to my mind, a lot of people's minds. But yes,

we're going to go to Genesis too. But outside of that, you're probably familiar

with some of these too, but you've got Psalm 22, details resembling

crucifixion centuries before crucifixion was even practiced

in Israel. Micah 5:2, you've got the birth in

Micah 5:2

Bethlehem mentioned. In Zechariah 9:9, you have

Zechariah 9:9

the entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, which is very specific.

Zechariah 11:12-13, you've got the 30 pieces of silver

Zechariah 11:12–13

that are mentioned there. Zechariah 12:10, the One

Zechariah 12:10

who is pierced is referenced there. Psalm 16:10,

Psalms 16:10

you have the resurrection mentioned. Psalm 110, you have the Messiah

as both King and a Priest, which is, I think that's a big one,

to combine both of those things since they were so segmented out.

And then you've got Genesis 49:10, the ruler from

Genesis 49:10

Judah. And then you could even go back to the very beginning, which I think

is probably what you're referring to, correct, with the serpent and the heel?

Okay. So, depending on how many individual passages are counted,

scholars will typically identify 300 to 400 Old Testament

passages. I started digging into that a little bit. You know, why is there such

a debate about how many prophecies? Why can't you just go through and just

go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5? Well, there are a couple of different things.

One, you have multiple different beliefs,

branches of Christianity that take them to mean different things.

So, we could be like, alright, well, that muddies the water a little bit.

And then you have dual fulfillment prophecies.

So, it's technically one prophecy, but there are 2 meanings

behind it. There are a couple examples of those we'll get into if we have

time. But because of that, The question

kept coming up in my mind as I started putting this class together. Is there

a way that it could be hoaxed? Is there

any possible way that it could be hoaxed? That you could have people

who were like, okay, I'm gonna write this down and then

you're gonna write this down. Could they talk with one another? Well, we already went

through some of the things like how spread out they were. So we

have time, we have distance, we have language, we have culture,

we have all those separating things, but just Because

I think that it could possibly be hoaxed, we're going to do a little bit

of an experiment, and I need 2 volunteers.

It's really easy. All I need is your imagination.

Okay, thank you. All right, one more? One more brave

person? All right, here you go.

There you are. Here you are.

And a pen. I'll give

you the nice one. I want that one back. And do you have a pen?

There you go. All right. So here's what we're going to do.

We are going to create the greatest hoax of all time.

But we're going to have some advantages here that they did not have.

I'm going to go ahead and give you— we're going to make a prophecy.

So we're going to have— you are going to make the prediction. And you're

going to make the fulfillment. All right? So this— I'll give you the name.

It's a guy. His name is Curtis, and he is going

to change the world. And here's how he's going to do it. So Curtis was

born, or he is from— you write the prediction down,

don't say it out loud. You write the fulfillment down.

So just a place where he was born. This should

be easy. We're in the same room speaking the same language.

Your first impression of Curtis is

that he blank. Curtis walks into a room,

you see him for the first time. What's his— what does he give off?

What's his vibe? What's his aura? Is it aura?

Aura? Hard word to say. You don't have to write that down, just your

first impression of him in a word or two. Okay,

he's an inventor, so I'll go ahead and give you that too. His name's Curtis,

he's a guy, we know that, and we're all on the same page there.

He is an inventor, and he changes the world with this invention. He invents Prediction,

fulfillment,

and then last, his death.

Curtis, his death was very unique. He was killed

by blank. Prediction,

fulfillment. How did Curtis die?

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we just made history. Close your

eyes, imagine the year is 4026.

Archaeologists are unearthing portions of Mammoth

Cave and they find a sacred text

of some sort, and it appears to be a prophecy. Let's see if it changes

the world. They begin diving into this prophecy

and they find out that it's about a man named Curtis. And there's one portion

of the prophecy, it seems to be old, and it says that

he will change the world and that he was born

Where? Milwaukee. Milwaukee. And fulfillment.

Where was he born? Milwaukee, right? Yeah, I said Canada.

Canada. Milwaukee, Canada? That's close.

Is it close? Okay. All right. Well, all right. So we're not as far

off as I was imagining. Okay. Uh, your first

impression, your first impression of Curtis is that he Prediction?

He's handsome. Wow. Okay. Fulfillment?

He wears glasses. Which can be handsome. All right.

So he wears glasses. We're getting there. He changes the world by

inventing— treadmill.

That's already invented. Okay. The treadmill.

All right. Fulfillment? Sub sandwiches.

Ah, winner. Okay. Treadmill and sub sandwiches.

Wow, man. 2 opposite ends, it seems like. And his death was

very unique. He was killed by— prediction.

A bear. A bear. He was running still all the time. He was

running. He was training for this moment. How did it happen?

Treadmill. Treadmill. No way.

Say, we're going to end class right there. That was actually mind-blowing.

Fulfillment. He choked on a sub sandwich. Is it that he choked? Okay.

A bear choked on sub sandwiches. You know, if you were really creative,

you could probably blend that somehow, but really hard to do. That's the point.

Really hard to do in the same room so we can speak the same language,

but this is done, and it really is mind-blowing, and it's hard to— I was

trying to— I was messing around with PowerPoints a little bit to try and give

this a visual, and it's really difficult to do, but to look at where the

first texts begin where the first predictions begin, and then where those fulfillments take

place. Not just in that, because we're turning a page when we're

reading those things. I mean, perhaps you're flipping, or you're scrolling,

whatever, but you're jumping through the same book. But a

lot of the things that we don't have access to, or we can't

really appreciate, are things like events, like wars that took place,

regions that shifted entirely. So, cities that aren't

even under the same name, under the same power. And then you

have those predictions taking place. And it's absolutely

amazing, especially when you just look at, maybe I shouldn't say

just, but when you look at Jesus and this one man fulfilling

all of these prophecies. And in some cases, you know, it might seem like when

He says, you know, I've come to fulfill all prophecies, like, oh, He is trying

to make a checklist. You can't make a checklist about where you're

born. You can't make a checklist about something that hasn't even been practiced

yet, you know, when that prophecy was made, things like crucifixion, the way

that He was going to die being talked about before that was even practiced at

the time. There's just, there's so much to it that I think is absolutely amazing.

And that's not really the material that we have here, so I'm going to try

and move a little bit quickly through that stuff. But just as

a guess here, which prophecy had the longest

gap between prediction and fulfillment? Any guesses?

I would think Jesus would be like Genesis 3:15.

Genesis 3:15

Okay. Where it is prophesied that He would come. Yeah, Genesis 3:15

Genesis 3:15

is up there, top candidates. So, you have the seed of woman prediction

there, roughly 4,000 years. And if you go by, you know,

the traditional biblical chronology there. So, you've got 4,000 years,

which is amazing. So, the prophecy is the offspring of the woman would crush the

serpent's head. And this is given immediately right after the Fall,

and that fulfillment is Jesus' death and resurrection defeating

sin, Satan, and death. And so, that time span is roughly 4,000 years.

Alright, any others? Any long gaps

in between prediction and fulfillment that you can think of?

Okay, that's also impressive. We're going in order here. Yeah, so the promise

to Abraham around 2,000 years. The prophecy is, in your seed

all nations shall be blessed, Genesis 12:3, and then chapter 22 and verse 18.

Genesis 12:3

And then the fulfillment, Jesus is the promised descendant who brings blessing to all

nations, Galatians 3:16. And that gap is again roughly about

Galatians 3:16

2,000 years. You've got the Davidic Covenant, it's about 1,000

years, found in 2 Samuel 7:12-16.

2 Samuel 7:12–16

The fulfillment, Jesus is the eternal King, and that comes along about

1,000 years later. Isaiah the suffering servant, 52,

53, that's about 700 years. And that fulfillment,

you can see that fulfilled through Jesus' crucifixion.

And then someone, I think, mentioned the 4 kingdoms of Daniel

that are mentioned, and that's about 600 years, 600-plus years.

And there's a lot of them in Daniel. We're going to look at a few

of those. But Daniel 2 and Daniel chapter 7 describe successive

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

empires, which is very impressive. It describes successive empires

that will each take the other's place. You've got Babylon,

Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome all in those different layers of that statue,

if you remember. I can't off the top of my head think of which one.

I know there's gold is the head, which is Babylon,

and then the torso is— Medo-Persian.

Yeah, Medo-Persian, but that material is something, iron maybe?

Maybe iron? I want to say silver because it's like gold and silver,

but there's something different to it. Yeah, and then Greece is the mud and the

clay and stuff. So, you've got that whole, which is incredible

in and of itself, that you've got a king who's not a righteous king,

but he has this dream about what is going to take place over the coming

years. And what's about that one I think

is that you've got the dream and then you

have satisfaction at the end of it. So, you have this king who does not

believe in the Creator God, he's pagan, he believes in all these other different

gods. But when he hears the interpretation of his dream he's like, oh, that checks

out. Sounds right. Sounds right to me. So, it was convincing even for them at

the time. Now, is it possible that all this could somehow be orchestrated?

There are these prediction models and things that were made that I was going to

put up on the screen. It's not, I don't think it's as visual. I don't

think it would stick as much as as— Janelle, could I have a cup of

water please? As this. Did you know— thank

you— the most poisonous creature in the world— now I haven't looked in this

cup— the most poisonous creature in the world, so I've heard, is the blue-ringed

octopus. It's about 3 to 4 inches, and it could

definitely fit inside of this cup. Now, it lives on this planet,

lives in the oceans, and this is water in here,

So it could survive probably for a little while. It's not salt water, but I

have not looked in this cup. Statistically, there is a, there is a, a chance.

It's not really, it's not probable, but there's a chance that it could be inside

of this cup. Now, if I was dying of thirst, would I

drink out of this cup? Would y'all drink out of this cup?

Are y'all crazy? Are you sure? Those,

those are, they're real. They could kill you and they could fit in this

cup. It's not in here. So, it's very improbable.

It's very unlikely that that would be the case, but it's still possible.

So, could it be? Is it possible that a series of coincidences

just took place and around 2,000 different prophecies are made

throughout the Bible? All those prophecies— 1,000, sorry,

800 to 1,000. It's 2,000 for the record, 800 to 1,000.

All those prophecies were made Could all of those just be a series of coincidences?

Well, technically, I mean, they could.

Very, very, very improbable. About the same as just

drinking a cup with a blue-ringed octopus. But more than that,

the reason I knew beyond shadow of a doubt that this did

not have a blue-ringed octopus— there's many reasons.

But it's because Janelle gave it to me. And there is no reason, I don't

think— I've made her mad before. I have not made her that mad that

she would give me a cup with a blue-ringed octopus inside.

I think the prophecies are amazing. I think that they give— I

think they're faith-building. I think they make the Bible really

come to life. I think it helps us get to know the Bible a little

bit more. But I think what's more amazing than that is once you get to

know who the author is, you realize that author is not feeding you a bunch

of lies. That author is not trying to fool you. That author is not trying

to trick you in the same way that Janelle is not trying to kill me.

Thank you. There's your proof if you didn't get to see inside the cup.

Thank you. Thanks for that. It was actually well timed. I was thirsty.

Okay. So we're going to look at a couple of examples. I want—

I'm going to save this for the end just in case we don't have time

because I do want to get into the material that we have here. This is

also not some of that. But there are fortune

tellers and prediction makers in Bowling Green and I did not know

that. Yes, I'm up on the screen. I was going to make that as just

like I was pointing to it and I couldn't find a spot on the PowerPoint,

so now it just looks like I'm one of the fortune tellers in Bowling Green.

I'm not. However, they make like $97

an hour, so I mean, maybe I could get into it. Who knows?

But yeah, it's a big business right now in America still. There are people

who go and they get their palms read and they go and get fortune

cookies. I'm actually not really sure what goes on in there. I've never been in

there, but I have seen that place next to the car AC psychic tarot

cards. So, it's in Bowling Green, but it's really in every major city that

this is still going on. And they are making these predictions, and they are making

a pretty good living off of doing so. So, it's still

around. But when you look in the Bible, you have got

some of the best evidence ever. Now, has anyone ever heard of

the Fall of Tyre in the Bible as far as that prediction goes?

I think the name is really clever. I didn't come up with that. That was

Apologetics Press. But this is the history of Tyre.

And so, this is the fall of Tyre that's mentioned,

and it's mentioned in some pretty incredible detail here that

we're going to look at. The ability to accurately predict the

future is superhuman, and it's seen in passages like Isaiah 41:22-23.

Isaiah 41:22–23

It says, let them bring forth and show us what will happen, or declare to

us things to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter,

that we might know that you are the God. So, the Bible accurately predicted

many of the details about the events that hadn't happened yet,

but have since come true, including this prophecy about the city of

Tyre, and that's found in Ezekiel 26.

So, in Ezekiel 26, it gives a lot of different details. And if you

want to go ahead and open up to that, there's a list of some things

that are mentioned, but I want you to go ahead and look at these things

too, because I think it's more powerful if you can actually get your eyes on

the page. And see this. Alright, so concerning the city of

Tyre, Ezekiel wrote, this is verses

starting in verse 16, he wrote, by the abundance of

your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned.

Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your

wisdom for the sake of your splendor. You defiled your

sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities. And that's 16 through 18.

Because of their wickedness, Ezekiel lists several things in chapter

26 that were going to happen to the city of Tyre. If you have

Ezekiel 26 opened, just go ahead and throw out

some of the things that you notice. What is Nebuchadnezzar going to do?

What's going to happen to Tyre? Okay,

so he's going to make it a desolate city.

Ezekiel 28, sorry. Ezekiel 26,

but I just read out of Ezekiel 28:16-18.

Ezekiel 28:16–18

Okay, He's going to cover it with what?

All right, He's going to cover it with water.

All right, He's going to set up a siege mound or siege wall.

What else? Okay, so He's

going to break down the walls.

Okay, yeah, and that's pretty amazing. So stones, timber,

soil are going to be laid into the sea. What else?

What was that? Plundered? Okay, plundered, make you a what?

Make you a bare rock. And what's the language that it uses there?

Say anything about fishermen? Okay, yeah, spreading of nets.

Yeah, so the fishermen are going to spread their nets over this rock. So this—

where the city used to be, the city of Tyre, where it used to be,

is eventually it's going to be this bare rock. It's just going to

be bare rock, and the only thing it's going to be good for is fishermen

are going to come, and they're going to spread their nets over it to basically

dry their nets out. All right, any other?

There's some pretty out there for the time

claims. Will anybody ever come

and build another city on top of it? That's pretty

big, because, I mean, even cities that fall, you've got,

I mean, even archaeological sites today, one of the frustrations

there is that they can't get to it because another city was built on top

of it. People are still living there. They can't excavate. Jerusalem being a big one.

I know they've done a lot of excavation there, but there are still people living

on top of it. They are still there. They are still doing stuff. And then

what about who is going to overthrow Tyre?

What's that? Nebuchadnezzar. All right,

Nebuchadnezzar. Many nations are going to come up against Tyre. So, you've got many.

It's not going to be just one, but there are going to be multiple.

So, that's a pretty good prophecy. That's not something that you could just read

into and just be like, oh, okay, well, I could kind of see how this

would fit. You know, it's kind of like what you do with fortune

cookies is you like, you read it, you know, you're going to have,

you're going to hear some good news today. And then you can

just take that and hang on to it. And then someone comes up to you

and just says, he's like, oh, hey, by the way, I, you know, I got

you this hot dog. I just thought you might be hungry. And they're like,

oh, there it is. You know, there's, it's prophecy. It just happened. You know,

I got that news and then I got a hot dog. Bing, bing, boom.

Tire, there's a little bit more to it than that. There's, there's a lot more

to it. So you've got the siege mound specifically that's used.

You have many nations are going to come up, they're going to scrape

the city clean. It's going to be like fishermen are going to come and spread

their nets on it, and then it's going to become a place for spreading

nets. It's never going to be rebuilt upon. And then you have exactly

that taking place. And here is a picture

of Tyre. There's just stones, and there's actually a picture

that I couldn't use because it had a stamp over the top of it,

but it's actually fishermen spreading nets over it. If you just Google Tyre,

I'm sure that will be in the images. You don't even have to type in

ancient Tyre or anything, and you can still see the fishermen picture, which I

find pretty, pretty amazing. Okay, the next example that we have,

they have titled Dry Me a River. This is talking

about Babylon the Great. It's another striking, accurate prophecy concerning

the ancient city of Babylon. Babylon was one of the richest cities

in the world during the years 740 BC and 680

BC. Is that for me? Oh,

okay, good. Whoo! That's all right,

we're on number 2. Okay, so it was

one of the richest cities between the years 740

BC and 680 BC,

and if you look in Jeremiah 51,

Jeremiah 51:36 says, I will

Jeremiah 51:36

dry up her sea and make her springs dry.

A drought is against her waters and they will be dried up,

for it is a land of carved images. That's chapter

50 and verse 38. And then in chapter

51 and verse 39 it says, I will prepare their feasts I will make them

drunk that they might rejoice and sleep a perpetual sleep

and not wake. So, here's how the story in history

unfolds, and this is secular history alike. The Euphrates

River ran underneath the great walls of Babylon.

After a siege of 2 full years, Cyrus diverted

the river to make it flow into a huge marsh on the western side of

the city. By doing this, he dried up the rivers of Babylon,

and provided an easy way for his soldiers to enter under the city

walls where the water used to flow. The Babylonians inside

the city had no idea what was taking place. They could have defended the city,

but instead they were feasting and getting drunk,

just like we saw in Jeremiah 51:39.

Jeremiah 51:39

Cyrus ordered his men to act like drunken partygoers,

and by the time the Babylonians knew what had hit them, the city was filled

with enemy troops who ultimately conquered it. So, even though the above circumstances

would be enough to prove the accuracy in the prophecy of Jeremiah,

and thus the Bible, the prophet's predictions do not stop there.

In chapters 50 and 51 of Jeremiah's book are filled with more futuristic

condemnations of Babylon, all of which were fulfilled in the

smallest detail. So, truly the words spoken by the prophet Jeremiah

did in fact come to pass exactly how it was said,

which I find that is so amazing. I actually didn't really know all the details

of going into this, but I found that was so amazing. They were feasting,

they were drunk, and then that's exactly what was played upon in order

to throw over Babylon, just like Jeremiah said. And I wonder what the reactions

to those original messages would have been about Tyre, about Babylon,

because when you've— when you saw them in their heyday,

this is just some of the information I found out about Babylon.

It had 14 miles of wall on each side

of the city. They were 75 feet thick,

and then those walls in some places were 300 feet tall.

So if you were living back then and then you heard Jeremiah,

the weeping prophet, start talking about the fall of Babylon,

then you were looking at that city going like, I don't, I don't think so.

I don't think that that city is going to fall that way. And then to

have it all unravel exactly how Jeremiah said it would,

a spokesman for God, shouldn't surprise us, but it's still pretty

amazing to see. Okay, and then we have Daniel informing

Nebuchadnezzar in the 4th kingdom. Here's a couple other things

about the city, some other pictures that I found,

some artistic renditions of it. You can see the Euphrates,

massive river running up right next to it. So, again, that's outside

of just the city, looking at that river and going, it's going to dry up.

I mean, how is that even possible? And it's

exactly what happened. Okay,

then we have the Cyrus name. I'm going to skip that one for time's sake.

Not this one up on the screen here, but I'm going to skip that one.

Okay, let's see.

Any questions so far? Any comments?

Does anyone find this as cool as I do, by the way? Because as I'm

putting this together, I'm like, oh, I love this stuff. I've never heard of this.

Uh, and this one, this one I have heard of, but all the

details to it are just— they're pretty cool. And as you're reading through Jeremiah 2,

uh, as you're reading through, uh, Ezekiel, it's hard

to also step away from that and then see what actually happens. You know,

you're reading this prophecy and you're like, oh man, like, that sounds terrible. I would,

I would hate to be living at that time. But then to actually get to

live in 2026 and then turn around and say, well, what did actually happen

to Babylon and Tyre? And then, and find out all of that. Was to be

the case. Pretty awesome. Okay, this is a really cool prophecy.

Say my name, this is Cyrus.

Imagine taking a trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and visiting

the State House where the Constitutional Convention took place in 1787.

During the tour your guide points to a document dating back

to the year 1824, and this piece of parchment tells of a man named Joseph

Robinette Biden Jr. Born in Scranton,

Pennsylvania, who would be President of the United States within the

next 200 years? That would be pretty incredible. Well, that's the exact

same thing that we see within Scripture. Not only

did Isaiah predict that Cyrus would overthrow Babylon,

but he also wrote that Cyrus, serving as Jehovah's

anointed and shepherd, would release the Jews from captivity and assist

them in their return to Jerusalem for the purpose of rebuilding the Temple.

And all that was written almost 200 years before Cyrus conquered Babylon.

Now, I have this underlined in my Bible, the name Cyrus,

because I think it's pretty amazing because you can see his name there.

And again, the significance might be lost if you're just opening it up and

then looking at it. But then when you actually see that, oh man, he didn't

even exist yet and his name is mentioned there in Scripture. I'm going to try

and find that exact passage because I do not have it

right in front of me. Let's see

here. It'll probably come up on one of these slides.

2 Peter 1:20-21,

2 Peter 1:20–21

secular history verifies that all these events came true. Truly no

prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy

never came by the will of man, but holy men of God who spoke as

they were moved by the Holy Spirit. So, you have this claim in Scripture

in 2 Peter 1:20-21, 21. And then you can actually see

2 Peter 1:20–21

all of that to be true when you look at history. You have words that

were spoken. You can almost look at prophecy as God just

making a promise. Now, Jude does not forget. We've made him

promises before. And, you know, tomorrow we'll go to the gas station and we'll

get candy. And he will remind you of that.

If you— as soon as he wakes up, the first thing that he's going to

say is, we're going to get candy. We're going to the gas station.

Well, God makes being our Holy Father, is basically doing that through prophecy.

He's saying this city is no longer going to exist, and he keeps his

promise. I think that even that holds more weight when you look at the Messianic

prophecies again, because it's basically just saying, I'm going to come to earth one

day. And then you have all this history unfolding, and then Jesus does

in fact walk on earth, and God walks among us. That behind

there, if I didn't mention it, that's the Cyrus Cylinder Seal. These are basically

all of those records that the— I think they're not called hieroglyphics,

they're called cuneiform. And all of that is just the

history, the records where we have the fall of Babylon. That was pretty cool.

These are some of Daniel's dreams that he had. He had this dream about

this, the goat and the ram. And there

are several of those within Daniel that we can look at. In Daniel chapter 8,

Daniel 8 · chapter mention

we find one of the most amazing and accurate prophecies ever written. Written, as well

as a whole bunch of other ones. Daniel has a lot of different prophecies in

there as well, and they are incredibly detailed. In Daniel 8 we read

about a vision that Daniel had in the 3rd year of King Belshazzar, which would

have been around 550 BC. Daniel's vision showed

him a ram with 2 horns, which was

symbolic representation of the rise of the empire of the Medes and the Persians.

And then again secular history, confirms that as well. I don't really need to

add that last part on there about secular history confirming it,

but I do think that that's pretty cool, that everyone agrees that these things took

place, that these are— these things happened. This is all fact.

I think that that definitely helps the broader message if we're trying

to spread Christianity and talk to people about these things.

I've talked with people before who, who have, have tried

to read things into scripture. One of the

weirdest I can think of, I guess, is Revelation chapter 9. There's this mention of

Revelation 9 · chapter mention

the locusts, and they have long hair and sharp teeth. And there

is a belief amongst a small group of people, if it's 5, it's too many.

But there's a belief that these locusts are helicopters, they're military

helicopters. And so people will try and squeeze some things

into Scripture. And with

prophecies, in some cases, there are sections that are ripped

out of context and people try and turn them into prophecies or try and make

them mean something something that it doesn't.

But instead of maybe arguing about what's a prophecy and

what's not a prophecy, I think that there are a select number

in Scripture that we can look at and say, this is without a doubt.

This is talking about Tyre, it's mentioned by name. This is talking

about the fall of Babylon, it's mentioned by name. Jesus talks about

the destruction of Jerusalem, it's mentioned by name. It's verifiable

right there within the text. You don't have to go anywhere else. And then

the same thing with Cyrus the king that's going to rise.

You don't have to argue about every single prophecy, what's a prophecy,

what isn't. You can just go by what you can verify within Scripture.

And hopefully some of these examples you can take with you,

put in your back pocket if you're having conversations, or if

you're talking with people who fall into the category of maybe saying some

things like, well, I think the Bible has some good teachings

in there, but over time it's been corrupted, that we can't trust

it, that it's just been changed up so much. These are good conversations

with people like that. There's a lot of good application

to prophecies. It's not just interesting. It's not just cool, which it is,

but it does help. It's only one of the pillars that we can

use that support the teachings of Jesus and that the Bible is in fact from

God. I have a couple of other things to go through here if y'all

don't have any comments or questions or anything so

far? All right. Hey,

Mom. They're going to— over to Jerusalem

in October-ish, maybe around there.

So as soon as I saw her walk in, I was like, all right,

we're going to steer clear of any of my Jerusalem material because she's going to

be like, it's not true. I've walked there. No, actually,

I really want to go. I hope they get to go again. Okay,

this is a portion of an article that I found by Wayne Jackson,

and he basically takes prophecy and kind of breaks it down

into ways that I think are more digestible. But here's just a

section of his article. He says, Prophecy affords a powerful base of evidence

that corroborates the Scripture's

claim of divine origin. Scholars suggest that there are about 1,000 prophecies

altogether in the Bible, some 800 in the Old Testament, and then around

300 of those are Messianic, and about 200 in the

New Testament. Now, he says in his article, consider the following broad categories

of prophetic data. So, you have number one, what he refers to as national

prophecies. These are prophecies that detail centuries in

advance the fortunes and fates of nations. When the Babylonian

Empire was at its zenith with utterly no military political

weakness apparent, Daniel then at that point foretold its demise

along with the subsequent rise of the Medo-Persians, the Greeks,

and the Romans. And we referenced that in Daniel chapter

Daniel 2 · chapter mention

2 and chapter 7. No one could have dreamed that these international

events would occur, and yet they did, as every student of history knows.

The prophecies are so astounding that radical critics have felt

compelled to redate the book of Daniel, placing it in the 2nd century BC,

so as to suggest history instead of prophecy,

which is actually really, really crazy to look at how they try and

fit that in. They have to stretch pretty hard.

I was going to put some examples of those up, but you can find it

very easy. The second category that he has in his article is personal

prophecies. So, some Old Testament prophecies deal specifically

with individual persons. The role of Josiah, 1 Kings

13, 13, 2 Kings 23, was prophesied

3 centuries before the king's birth. The mission

of Cyrus, King of Persia, that we mentioned where his name is actually there in

Scripture to deliver Judah from Babylonian captivity, also is

described 150 years before the illustrious ruler came to

the throne. And if you want that reference where you can actually see his name

in your Bible, it's Isaiah 44:28,

Isaiah 44:28

and then again Isaiah 45:1-7,

Isaiah 45:1–7

where you can actually read the name of someone who was not born and

did not exist yet. Pretty, pretty amazing. Okay, and then my

favorite, Messianic prophecies. The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophecies

that focus upon the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.

He was to be of the woman's seed, Genesis 3:15, from the

Genesis 3:15

lineage of Abraham, Genesis 22:17-18,

Genesis 22:17–18

and Bethlehem, Micah 5:2, to a

Micah 5:2

virgin, Isaiah 7:14.

Isaiah 7:14

And then mathematician Peter Stoner estimated that the odds

of one person accidentally fulfilling just 8 of the many Old Testament

prophecies regarding the Messiah is on

the order of 1 in 1,017, a figure

far beyond circumstantial possibility. Possibility. I'm going to read that again just because I'm

not good at math and I need to hear that again. But math magician Peter

Stoner estimated that the odds of one person accidentally fulfilling just 8

of the many Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah, and again this is just one

category of all the prophecies that we have, is on

the order of 1 in 1,017, a figure

far beyond circumstantial possibility. I think that that is absolutely incredible,

especially when you break it down like that. So, you've got national

prophecies. You've got personal prophecies. And then you have the third category

that he has, Messianic prophecies. You've got all of those, and if you just took

one of those categories, like the Messianic prophecies,

just to randomly get 8 of those right, or if you happen to get 8

of those right, that's still very, very unlikely. Now, there was a

really big number and a lot of math that if you want I could send

it to you. It was just, it was going to be way— I tried to

practice just reading it and I was like, I'm not going to say that,

it's just too much of a mouthful. About if you took all the prophecies,

so what about all of them? What's the likelihood of one person coming

up with all of those different prophecies? And it was just, it was

so impossible, that's where the blue-ringed octopus in the cup thing came from.

I love this stuff and I can send you all of these and give you

a copy of these notes since we don't have time to go through all of

them. But any, any comments? Did I miss your

favorite prophecy?

Oh yeah, go ahead.

And what does that mean?

And that's just for the Messianic prophets?

Wow. No,

thank you so much. I really, I appreciate

it. Say it one more time. What was the— man,

wow, that is incredible. No, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

That's awesome.

That's so cool. So cool.

All right, anything else? Thank you.

All right, well, y'all are free to, oh, I guess stay here until the kids

come out, unless you don't have kids, and then, yeah, you can, you are allowed

to go home. Thank y'all.