p. 4 | The Testimony of Jesus by George W. Reaser

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 9, 1912

The Testimony of Jesus

By George W. Reaser

II — "The Burning Bush of Prophecy"

[Note.—The extracts in this chapter are all taken, by permission, from Dr. Arthur T. Pierson's excellent work entitled "Many Infallible Proofs," pages 31-78. Fleming H. Revell Co., Chicago and New York.]

NOTHING can be of more importance to a Bible student than a mastery of the prophetic Scriptures." "Why does so much weight attach to the argument from prophecy? We reply, there are indeed a score of paths by which the advocates of the inspiration of Scriptures approach the heart of the theme; but the Scripture itself makes this the grand highway of proof. Hear the apostle Peter: 'We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed.'" "There are some sources of proof, whose force can be felt only by a converted man. But here is an evidence which needs for its examination only the reason of the natural man."

The Royal Signature and Seal

"If the Scriptures issue from the hand or mind of God, the seeker after truth asks for His royal signature and seal. And prophecy claims to be exactly this: the solemn seal of God's own hand upon the sacred scroll."

"Men have an instinctive conviction that when a future event is clearly and closely foretold, so that no guess, however shrewd, can account for it, and the event corresponds in every respect to the prophetic outline, it is the proof of the working of some power above nature."

"But first let us clearly understand that it is not commonly the object of prophetic prediction to inform us as to the details of the future; but rather, after an event is fulfilled, to show that it all lay in the mind of God, and was part of His eternal plan."

History Must Supply the Key

"This may explain the necessary obscurity of prophecy. It presents a lock, for which only subsequent history can supply the key. If prophetic details were clearly announced, wicked men would be prompted, like Julian, to conspire to defeat the prediction; or disciples might be supposed to combine to bring about a seeming fulfilment, in order to authenticate the prophecy. When prophecy is fulfilled, it must be by no design of men — better still if against their design, that it may be more apparent that the fulfilment is wholly of God."

Prophecy fulfilled, or "unlocked by events, opens a door that no man can shut, introducing us by a miracle of utterance to the presence of Him to whom all the future is as the present, and compelling us to bow reverently to hear what He will speak."

"The Christian faith supports its claim by a vast number of prophecies pertaining to different periods and persons. The argument from these prophecies began to be

of use when the first prediction was fulfilled; and every successive event, which added a new feature to the profile, added strength and weight to the argument. Prophecy is thus at first a rill, receiving constantly tributary streams, till it grows to a river whose grand flood of evidence sweeps everything before it."

Prophecy the Greatest of Miracles

"No miracle which He [Christ] wrought, so unmistakably set on Him the seal of God, as the convergence of the 'myriad' lines of prophecy in Him, as in one burning focal point of dazzling glory."

"Every sacrifice lit, from Abel's altar until the last Passover of the passion week, pointed as with flaming fingers to Calvary's cross. Nay, all the centuries moved as in solemn procession to lay their tributes upon Golgotha."

"The death of our Lord Jesus Christ was so distinctly foretold in the 53d chapter of Isaiah, that Bolingbroke, in order to break the force of the argument from this prophecy, was forced to assert that Jesus brought on His own crucifixion by a series of pre-concerted measures, merely to give the disciples who came after Him the triumph of an appeal to the old prophecies! You can see how grand must be the power of an argument, which compels infidels to invent such impossible theories to evade the force of its mighty appeal."

"Prophetic evidence goes on accumulating; the fulfilment of words long since spoken confronts us to-day. The histories of the Assyrian (Babylonian) lion, Medo-Persian bear, Greek leopard, and Roman complex 'beast;' the existing facts of Tyre, Babylon (city), Egypt, Nineveh; the remarkable dispersion of the Jews, the most clannish of peoples, most attached to their own land, rich enough to buy every acre of Palestine with pearls, yet providentially kept out of it . . . all these, and a hundred-fold more, furnish a colossal argument for the divine origin of the prophetic Scriptures; and yet the power and weight of this argument are growing still."

A New and Unfolding Miracle

"However conclusive the argument from miracles, it can not impress us as it did those who witnessed the works. But the prophecies, fulfilled and fulfilling before our eyes, become a new miracle, more conclusive and impressive every year." "Some unbelievers say, 'Could we see a miracle, we would believe;' but he who can see prophecy fulfilled, and not believe, is not to be persuaded by any other miracle. 'If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, tho one rose from the dead."

"The Christian religion is the only religion that has ever dared to rest its claim upon prophecy." "It challenges history, archeology, science, all the forms of human knowledge, to show one instance in which prediction has failed."

"Marvelous in their variety, extent, and number, yet no prediction has ever failed; and if those whose set time has come have not failed, with what assurance may we look forward to the sure accomplishment of those prophetic words whose full time is not yet!"

"So, while scoffers sneer and doubters question, while empires vanish and nations perish, prophecy moves steadily onward, and nears its grand fulfilment."

"We have pointed to the burning bush of prophecy with its many branches, wonderfully budding and blossoming into historic events. Well may we remove the shoes from our feet; the place where we stand is holy ground; that glory is the glory of God."