STUDY THE PROPHETIC WORD.
By Elder C. M. Kinny
IN 2 Peter 1:19 the apostle says, “We have a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place.” In these “perilous times” of “distress” and “perplexity,” men’s hearts failing them for fear of the things that are coming on the earth, no subject can be of more practical interest and importance than the subject of prophecy. It is in this field of information that we learn of the primeval cause and results of the sad history of this world,—the past, present, and future. It is in this portion of divine revelation that Omniscience has revealed the future, stated the problem, given the solution, and declared the history and destiny of the human race. Here are traced with an unerring pen the evolutions and revolutions of society, the revival and decay of morals, the progression and retrogression of intelligence, the rise and fall of nations, the universal prevalence of sorrow, affliction, disease, and death, the disorder and giving away of all nature, trembling to its inevitable doom. Why is this extremely unfortunate and calamitous state of things? The answer can be given in one mournful sentence: It is the universal and ever increasing prevalence of iniquity,—the absence of righteousness in the earth. It is to stimulate the reader to a more diligent and appreciative study of this part of the divine word that I call your attention in this article to prophecy itself,—what it is as a part of the manifestation of God, our heavenly Father. Prophecy is the entire history of this world foretold. “Behold,” says Christ, “I have told you before.” Matt. 24:25. “Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he.” John 13:19; 14:29; 16:1–4. The Lord, in showing his people the fallacy and absurdity of false gods in which many of them trusted, appealed to, or challenged, the false gods to prove their divinity in these words: “Produce your cause, saith the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen; let them show the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter; that we may know that ye are gods.” Isa. 41:21–23. To declare a thing shall come to be, long before it is being, says Justin Martyr, and then to bring about the accomplishment of that very thing according to the same declaration, this, or nothing, is the work of God.—M’Ilvaine’s Evidences of Christianity, p. 240. “Prophecy,” says M’Ilvaine, “is a declaration of future events, such as no human wisdom or forecast is sufficient to make—depending on a knowledge of the innumerable contingencies of human affairs, which belongs exclusively to the omniscience of God; so that, from its very nature, prophecy must be divine revelation.” “Predictions, now in progress of fulfillment, are miracles which centuries can render more certain and impressive.” “The moral grandeur of their appeal, which, after having deposited in the hands of nations a prediction of minute transactions which the innumerable contingencies of a long retinue of centuries are to bring out, stakes its whole cause upon a perfect fulfillment, thus resting itself singly upon the omniscience and omnipotence of God.”—Pp. 242, 245. Thus in giving of prophecy every attribute of God is exercised: Beneficence or love is the motive, infinite knowledge is the mainspring, infinite wisdom the designer, almighty and creative power the executive, and immutable, unfailing, unerring truth the girdling band. “Yet,” says Rev. Henry Cowles, “rich in gospel truth and inspiring to faith as this prophetic word truly is, no portion of the Scriptures is so little read, so little studied, and so little understood. Nowhere else in human language does there lie such a mass of half-buried and almost unknown treasures.”—Introduction to Minor Prophets. This extract expresses the truth none too strongly. Within these “treasures” are the unsearchable riches of Christ, even God’s infinite purpose, the redemption and salvation of all who believe, study, understand, and obey his word, which is “a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path,” that we have a knowledge of God’s plans concerning us, and of events affecting us; and, thus being “forearmed and forewarned” against the evils of this sin-cursed life, we may finally be saved.