Prophecy: True or False?

Mayan calendar

People are fascinated by prophecies. For example, the Mayan calendar came to an end on Friday, December 21, 2012. Some prophesied that the end of the world would happen on that day. Most people scoffed at this, since false prophesies like this have come and gone, and are too many to count. But the Mayan-inspired prophesies did make for many entertaining shows on cable TV, and sold a lot of advertising.

Isn’t the Bible just another collection of such false prophecies? According to Christians the answer is No - because God Himself has inspired the words of Holy Scripture! This concept of inspiration is called Biblical Inerrancy.

At times we all sense the presence of God through the beautiful world of nature. Only an atheist would dispute this. But God has also revealed Himself in very special ways, as recorded in the Bible, such as:

• Visible manifestation, in fire and clouds of smoke, stormy winds, a still small voice, and through appearances of angels.
• Miracles, like the parting of the Red Sea, the virgin birth of Christ, and Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.
• Direct communications to selected people. These are the prophets of the Bible.



God spoke to Moses
in the burning bush.

God revealed Himself to the prophets through dreams and visions. Sometimes God suggested His messages by an internal operation of the Holy Spirit on their hearts and minds. At other times, He spoke in an audible voice.

The Bible tells us how to distinguish between true and false prophecy. "When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken" (Deuteronomy 18:22).

Noah was one of the people that God communicated to in this way. In his case God spoke audibly on more than one occasion, as recorded in Genesis 6:13 and other passages in Biblical book of Genesis. Noah was a true prophet, not a false one, because the words that He relayed from God came true. The account of the Bilblical Flood bears this out. It is very sad that only eight people accepted God's refuge, and survived the ark to see the prophecy come true...

The beauty of God’s nature around us is not enough for us to understand God, because of spiritual blindness that stains every single person. But the prophecies, miracles, and the entire message of Scripture speak to our spiritual need. They reveal to us what we need to know about God. Ultimately they show us how He saves us from our sin by leading us to believe in the one He has sent, His Son Jesus Christ.

Christians understand that in a greater sense, the entire Bible is God’s Word to us. It is God’s special revelation, using the language of words, given to us as a special gift from our Creator.

Noah prophesied a global flood, not the end of the world. But Jesus told us that the world will indeed come to an end, at a day and hour that only God the Father knows. It is truly a gift from God to know that we can be saved from this calamity, just as God saved all those who took refuge in the ark.

(For historical fiction that touches on this topic, see Chapter 15: Revelations of The Coming Wrath)

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written by Marko Malyj

Reference

Louis Berkhof, Summary of Christian Doctrine, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1938, 13-16.