Page 3 of 9: First: The Prophetic Proof

FIRST: THE PROPHETIC PROOF

There are many prophecies in the Bible which were fulfilled to the letter. Prophecies concerning the rise and fall of the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire and the Roman Empire are all mentioned in the Book of Daniel, Chapter 2.

Another prophecy is the one concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, which was uttered by the Lord Jesus Christ. Concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, we read:

Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation (Luke 19:41-44 - NKJ)

Concerning the destruction of the temple, we read:

Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down"
(Matthew 24:1,2 - NKJ)

These prophecies were fulfilled to the letter when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in the year 70 AD.

The return of the Jewish people to their homeland after 2500 years of dispersion was foretold by the prophet Jeremiah:

Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep Him as a shepherd does His flock" (Jeremiah 31:10).

And again by the prophet Isaiah, in Chapter 11:11:

And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people which shall be left from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea, and He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcast of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

God permitted two world wars to gather back the people of Israel to their homeland. In the first World War, George Belford gave England’s promise to the Jewish people to make Palestine their homeland. The land was prepared for the people, but the people were not prepared to go. In the second World War, Hitler’s genocide of the Jewish people persuaded them to return to their land. This return is the second return mentioned in Isaiah 11:11.

We should remember that a remnant of the Jewish people came back to Israel in the days of Nehemiah and Ezra, during the reign of King Cyrus of Persia. That first return was designed so that Jesus Christ would be born in Bethlehem of Judea according to Micah 5:2. The second return mentioned in Isaiah 11:11 and in other prophetic utterances serves to pave the way for the second coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ: "And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives which faces Jerusalem on the east" (Zechariah 14:4).

This is a solid proof of the divine origin of the Bible, for only God who inspired the Bible by His Spirit knows the end from the beginning.

The prophet Isaiah recorded the words,

I am the LORD: That is my name: and my Glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. Behold the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them (Isaiah 42:8,9).

All the prophecies mentioned in the Bible concerning nations were fulfilled to the letter, and the unfulfilled prophecies will certainly come to pass. No similar prophecies appear in the Quran.