p. 202 | Prophetic Promises

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 27, 1866

Prophetic Promises.

No intelligent person can carefully examine the Bible without being convinced that it bears the impress of the Mind that controls the destiny of mankind.

The history of the world is but a repetition of scenes that passed before the prophet’s vision.

Babylon with her strong walls, her majestic columns, her hanging gardens, her unparalleled wealth, extent, and grandeur, has fulfilled the dreariest predictions of Isaiah. Nineveh, with her frowning towers and colossal structures, has her history in the sad pictures of Nahum. The story of the Arabian nation is briefly told in the wonderful prophecy concerning Ishmael. The succession of the Persian, Grecian, and Roman monarchies, the establishment of the Papal kingdom, the dispersion of the Jews and their unhappy destiny, exhibit the wonderful scope and accuracy of the prophet’s vision. The ships of Tarshish have howled for Tyre, and the ocean sings above her a perpetual dirge. Capernaum, once exalted to heaven, is brought down to hell. The foxes have walked upon Zion. The prophecies of Jesus the world is fulfilling.

Humanity itself is a prophecy. To the inconsiderate no doctrine seems so improbable as that of the resurrection of the dead. Says the geologist, the time was when the whole earth was a creation of inert, dead matter. Whence then the living tides that people and re-people its vast area? A resurrection! “From dust thou art.” Our very existence is prophetic of the day when those that sleep in the dust shall hear the voice of God. The discoveries of modern science are prophetic. “The earth,” says Peter, “and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” Only a one-hundredth part of the earth’s diameter, says the geologist, is in a solid state; the rest is fire. “The disappearance of some stars,” says Prof. Vince, “may be the destruction of that system at the time appointed by the Deity for the probation of its inhabitants,”.

The tempest, the volcano, and the earthquake are prophecies: each speaks of a coming day.

Dies iræ, dies illa, Solvet sæclum in favilla.

It was morning in Lisbon, and the sun dissipating the fog, shone brightly out on the broad expanse of picturesque dwellings, spires, and towers. The air was calm and warm. The streets filled, the marts of trade bustled, the people thought only of their pursuits and pleasures. Suddenly a subterranean thundering began. Six minutes passed, and the city was a ruin, and sixty thousand human beings were buried beneath it in a common grave. Such scenes are prophetic foreshadowings. “What manner of persons ought ye to be?”—N. Y. Independent.