Among students, few words inspire more fear and panic than the words “pop quiz.” We don’t like to be unprepared or caught off-guard, especially when something important like a grade is at stake. I know many adults still have nightmares about forgetting about a test—or how about those wacky dreams where you find out on the last day of the semester that you were enrolled in a class that you never attended!
Most teachers are kind enough to announce major tests ahead of time so that students will have the opportunity to get ready for them. God acted in much the same way when He gave prophecies about the future in the Bible. God didn’t give us knowledge about future things so that we could impress our friends with charts about the end times! He revealed these details so that we can be prepared for these events and learn the right lessons from them—both before and after they take place.
In Isaiah 44-48, God made some very specific prophecies about His plan for the Jewish people and the nations around them—prophecies that are so specific that critics of the Bible claim they must have been written after the fact. After all, the only other explanation is that the Bible is true and has a supernatural origin! Let’s read about these amazing prophecies and the lessons that God would have us learn from them.
1. God offers specific prophecies about His plan for Israel (44:24-45:13; 46:1-7; 47:1-15)
In this section of the book of Isaiah, God makes two very specific prophecies about His plan for Israel and the nations around them. First, He states that a man named Cyrus would one day act from a position of authority for the good of the Jewish people by allowing them to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple of God. Now remember, in Isaiah’s day, the city of Jerusalem and the Temple were still standing. The city’s downfall had not yet taken place; this prophecy told of events that would happen almost 150 years down the road! [READ 44:24-28]
Second, the Lord declared that Babylon would be suddenly overthrown from a position of security and dominance over other nations. Both of these prophecies were fulfilled by a man named Cyrus the Great, who was the king of the Persian Empire. Cyrus invaded and defeated Babylon and then issued a decree that any Jews living in his empire were free to return to Jerusalem and rebuild it. Turn with me to Ezra 1, and we’ll read a record of this decree [READ Ezra 1:1-4].
I want to spend a bit more time discussing this idea of prophecy because it shows us just how unique the Bible really is. The fact that the Bible has made such detailed prophecies that later came true sets it apart from all other books and individuals who have tried to predict the future. All other so-called prophets have encountered one of two problems with their prophecies—either their prophecies were so vague that they cannot be proven true or false, or their prophecies just flat-out did not come to pass and were thus false prophecies.
Nostradamus is a good example of a so-called prophet whose prophecies were too vague to be proven true or false. Nostradamus was a Frenchman who lived in the 1500’s, and he wrote many four-line poems called “quatrains” that were supposedly predictions of the future. Here is one example:
The young lion will overcome the older one,
In a field of combat in single fight:
He will pierce his eyes in their golden cage;
Two wounds in one, then he dies a cruel death.
Think for a moment about the kind of event to which this prophecy could refer. Fans of Nostradamus claim that this prophecy was fulfilled by two kings fighting in a jousting match. Now, after I gave you that interpretation, you could read these words again and say, “Yeah, okay. That kind of makes sense.” But you could only say that after I told you the supposed interpretation. As it stands, this prophecy is so vague that it could refer to several different events and people. Notice how different this prophecy is from Isaiah’s prophecy—Isaiah mentioned a specific person named Cyrus, a specific country, a specific city, and a specific building. Its not hard to prove whether or not Isaiah’s prophecy came true.
Other so-called prophets have made predictions that were specific but which simply did not come true. The prophecies of Joseph Smith are a good example of prophecies that did not come true. Joseph Smith was the founder of the Mormon church, and he made many prophecies about specific events that simply didn’t happen. For example, in the early 1800’s, he predicted that the city with streets of gold described in Revelation would be built in Independence, MO within a generation. Well, I used to live not far from Independence, MO, and I can tell you that it looks nothing like the city described in Revelation! His prophecy simply did not come true, but if we consider Isaiah’s prophecy, we can look in the history books and see that history played out precisely as Isaiah predicted it would.
The fact that the Bible has specifically and accurately predicted the future reveals just how unique this book truly is. God has given mankind glimpses of His plan before that plan has actually unfolded, and even today we are looking forward to prophecies about the future that still await fulfillment. But why has God revealed prophecies like these that we read in Isaiah? Well, God gives us an explanation for that question as well.
2. God explains why He has given these prophecies (45:4-7; 48:3-5, 11, 17-19)
First, in Isaiah 45:4-7, God states that He has revealed these events to show His unique identity as the one true God [READ 45:4-7]. When these events would come to pass and people would discover that God had prophesied them more than a century in advance, they would have clear proof that the God of Israel is unique—greater than all the other so-called gods whom people might worship.
The prophecies of Scripture can have the same effect today. Easter and Christmas give us a great opportunity to proclaim that Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection not only happened, but they were actually the fulfillment of prophecies that were made centuries in advance. The events of Jesus’ life were not only significant by themselves, they were also significant because they were part of a larger plan that God announced beforehand, so that when they happened, we could see His deity on full display.
Second, the Lord states that He announced these events in advance so that when they happened, the credit for them could not be given to any other so-called gods [READ 48:3-5, 11]. The scenario that the Lord describes here is not hard to imagine. Remember—the people of Israel lived with so-called gods all around them. It was normal at that time for people to worship any number of different gods. So when these events came to pass, the Jews could have been tempted to give credit for them to other so-called gods, and so God prophesied these things in advance so that when they happened, it would be obvious that He was behind them.
Third, the Lord stated that He had announced these events to His people so that He could bless them. God wanted His people to trust Him and obey Him so that He could bless them; thus, He gave them these prophecies so that they could change their ways and be ready for Him to act [READ 48:17-19]. Can you hear the grieving heart of God as He laments the blessings that His people had thrown away? Like a kind teacher who wants her students to succeed rather than fail, God had instructed His people and given them advance warning so that they could ace His test! He warned them about discipline to come so that they would repent, and He told them about blessings to come so that they would have the hope to stay on the narrow way.
The fact that God gives us advance warning about things to come shows us that He desires to save rather than condemn. If God simply wanted to condemn us, He could leave us totally in the dark about the future, and then one day His judgment would fall on us without any warning and that would be the end of the story. But God desires to save and forgive, and so we see Him in this passage extending a call far and wide for people to come to Him and be saved.
3. God invites all people to embrace Him as the one true God (45:20-23)
Please follow along as I read 45:20-23 [READ 45:20-23]. Notice the boundless extent of God’s offer of salvation! He extends His invitation far and wide, inviting all people to embrace Him as the one true God, casting aside all other things that they may worship to be reunited with their Creator and pardoned by Him. Every other object of worship in this world is powerless to save us from the guilt of our sins; thus, it is absolutely crucial that we embrace God as the one and only source of salvation, for to place our hope in anything else is to place our hope in a mirage and a façade—an unreal imposter.
I think the apostle Paul really said it best in Acts 17 when he was calling for a group of philosophers to leave behind their idols and embrace the living God. Please turn there with me [READ Acts 17:22-31]. There has never been any excuse to doubt that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God of the Bible—is the one true God, but now God has given us the ultimate demonstration of this truth through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And as Paul said, God now commands all people everywhere to repent, because God is going to judge the world by the Lord Jesus Christ. Your response to Jesus is the determining factor of your verdict from God. According to John 3:36, God’s criteria for judgment is very simple—“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
My friend, you must realize today that anything you may worship apart from Jesus cannot save you. He is the only one who can save, and you can receive His salvation from sin and from Hell by confessing how wrong you have been to sin against Him and acknowledging that He alone can save you on the basis of His death and resurrection. Confess your rebellion against Him, accept Him as the only God and Savior, and you will have His pardon today!
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