Do You Believe in Prophecy?

About the year 585 B.C. there was a strange prophecy made by a man who is recorded to have been using a measuring rod in the act of measuring the walls of Jerusalem and the Temple precincts. The account of the incident is given by the Prophet Ezekiel who at that time was a captive by the River Chebar in Babylonia. It was while there, that he had a vision in which he appeared to have been taken to his old home town of Jerusalem and introduced into the presence of this engineer, as we would call him.

Together they had passed around the walls of the City from the south to the west, then north, thence eastward past the hill Golgotha to the east wall, and as they approach the Golden Gate, the following conversation takes place. The Heavenly engineer is speaking: “This Gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened; and no man shall enter in by it; because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut.” Ezekiel 44:2.

It is altogether probable that at the time of the vision, there was no wall standing. It had been destroyed by the army of Babylon, yet in the vision the wall appears with the old time gate called “Golden” in place. It was of this the Celestial engineer spoke.

Remember that the time of the vision was close to six hundred years before the birth of our Lord; notwithstanding the Lord is spoken of as having already passed through the Gate with the result predicted.

The setting of the prophecy is thus thrown into future from the time of the vision by at least six centuries.

Time passed and our Lord came to earth and the time of His Ministry was drawing to its close when the Bible records an incident that exactly fits into the vision above related.

Jesus with His Disciples was returning one morning just immediately prior to His crucifixion, from Bethany where they had spent the night. They were met as they approached the Kedron Valley on the east of Jerusalem by a throng of people who were waving palm branches in the air and shouting joyously.

“Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, etc.” Matthew 21:9.

You will likely remember reading of this incident.

The welcoming assembly turned with Jesus and they returned to Jerusalem. There is no doubt but that they entered the City by the Golden Gate. It was the one and most natural way of reaching the Temple to which they were directing their way.

Remember what the prophecy declared: “This Gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened; and no man shall enter in by it; because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut.” Ezekiel 44:2.

But the Gate remained open, and the “army of Rome came in A.D. 70 and destroyed the city, walls and all.

What about the prophecy? Well, the walls were rebuilt and strengthened by Suliman the Magnificent in the 13th Century A.D. Strange to say that when this was going on and the gate posts were already in place Suliman ordered the closing up of the wall with stone work. It is still closed, in solid masonry.

It took eighteen hundred years through seemingly impossible conditions to bring that prophecy into history, but it came to pass!

Suliman was a Mahommedan and cared nothing about prophecy as pertaining to Jesus of Nazareth. Yet he was the instrument that God used to fulfil the final act of the prophetic vision.

Say, Friend of mine on life’s pathway into the Unknown, what do you think of prophecy? What is the Bible to you? What chart are you using to direct your course? Who is your Pilot?

There are hundreds of prophecies made in the Bible. Insofar as time has made possible, they have every one come true. That proves more than any words of mine can possibly do, that THE BIBLE IS TRUE.