This class of prophecy, then, is mainly concerned with predictions of the course of world history during the progress of this 'present evil world' up to its close and the establishment of the Kingdom. Prophecies concerning the 'Kingdom or Millennial Age' are usually of a different nature, based upon visions. The scenes of the coming Age rise before the prophet's eyes so that he can describe what he actually sees. The type of prophecy now being considered does not come by means of such visions, but from the illumination of an already instructed mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. The prophet lays himself out to be the recipient of Divine instruction concerning the future, by studiously observing current events and diligently learning the lessons of past history. The knowledge of human action and reaction thus obtained enables him intelligently to receive the information regarding the future that the Holy Spirit is waiting to impart.

Such a man must therefore and first of all acquire a knowledge of those Divine principles which ought to govern the conduct of earthly affairs. He must become a student of Divine Law and this involves diligent study of the Scriptures. He must also be an observer of the habits and lives of his fellow men, and of world conditions and events. Thus he applies Divine principles to them, perceives how every infraction of those principles is reflected in the further degeneration of the human race. From this he learns how to deduce the probable outcome of the state of affairs in the world as it exists in his own time, and to warn his fellows of the dangers of the course of conduct they are following.

This is so often the burden of those Hebrew prophets who lived in the days of the monarchy, from David to Zedekiah and onward to the end of Old Testament history. Nearly all the books from Isaiah to Malachi have predominantly the same note. "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, that he will not hear" (Isa. 59. 2). "And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If you will not hear I will even send a curse upon you says the Lord of Hosts" (Malachi 2. 1-4). Therefore "woe to them that go down to Egypt for help" cries Isaiah (31. 3) referring to Judah's leaning toward political alliance with Egypt at that time "but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel". He goes on to predict that the power of Egypt shall fail, and with that failure Judah will fall also, "When the Lord shall stretch out his hand, both he that helps shall fall, and he that is helped shall fall down, and they all shall fail together." The rulers and the people of Israel took no notice of His words then, but they must have remembered them a few years later when Sennacherib's general stood with his army outside the walls of Jerusalem. He declaimed in tones of the bitterest sarcasm "Lo, you trust in the staff of that broken reed, on Egypt on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it, so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him" (Isa. 36. 6). And it was then that Isaiah's prophetic foresight was doubly vindicated, for in the same breath that he had declared woe to Judah for going to Egypt for help he also predicted a great Divine deliverance. "As birds flying, so will the Lord of Hosts defend Jerusalem passing over he will preserve it... then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword" (31.5 & 8). That prediction was fulfilled in the celebrated destruction of Sennacherib's host in one night outside the walls and in his own violent death at the hands of an assassin (37.36-38). The entire section, chapters 20 to 37 of Isaiah, covering a period of some thirty years from Sargon's campaign against Ashdod (20.1) to Sennacherib's death, is a splendid example of this particular type of prophecy. Isaiah's shrewd summing up of the situation added to the influence of the Holy Spirit working on his mind, enabled him correctly to estimate the immediate political consequences of his countrymen's attitude and also to foresee ultimate Divine intervention.

In a very real sense, therefore, these prophets were in the world, mixing freely with their own fellows, maintaining a lively interest in events and trends of the day, whilst most definitely not being of the world. In this, their lives are an example to us, for we too, if we would be "as men that wait for their lord" must have that same lively interest in the changing panorama of world events and the same aptitude for correctly interpreting that panorama in the light of Divine prophecy, as did they. We therefore cannot assent to the principle of the monastic life, one that demands withdrawal into a pious seclusion, experiencing nothing of what goes on in the world outside. Our Christianity must be vigorous and practical, based upon a recognition that we are God's warriors in this world and His witnesses testifying to the utter inadequacy of any system other than His coming Kingdom for the bringing of life and happiness to men. Nevertheless we must realise that not all believers are called to observe the changing of prophecy into history with that clarity of vision that is so characteristic of the Hebrew prophets. All do not possess the powers of intellect so to understand world events. It must always be true that many will obtain their understanding of these things from the relative few whose natural talents, consecrated to God and so amenable to the power of the Holy Spirit, can be so used for the assistance of their fellows. So it must have been in the days of natural Israel. There were many pious, God-fearing Israelites, students of the Scriptures, waiting and looking for the coming Kingdom. but they were not all like Isaiah or Jeremiah. One or two prophets in a generation were all that God needed then; and so now, "God hath set the members in the body as it has pleased him" and all members have not the same office.

There are many striking examples of this kind of prophecy in the Scriptures. The story of Jeremiah and Hananiah is one such (see Jer. 28). Hananiah had promised that within two full years the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, would be broken and Judah would be free. Jeremiah replied that the prediction was false, that the yoke would not be broken: moreover, since Hananiah had prophesied falsely, he would die within that same year. Two months later Hananiah died ‑ and the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar did remain on Judah for seventy years. Jeremiah gauged the power of Babylon more correctly than did Hananiah: and he knew that in consequence of Judah's transgression the "seventy years' of captivity was to come upon them. So far his prophetic foresight aided him in coming to a true conclusion. But his knowledge that Hananiah was to die within a few months reveals the illumination of the Holy Spirit, guiding his mind so that the prediction he uttered was not entirely of himself, but was inspired and directed of God.

History sometimes repeats itself. A sequel to a set of conditions existing in the world at one time is often matched by the sequel to the same set of conditions existing at another time. It may be that the prophecy of an Old Testament seer, intended to refer to his own people and generation, becomes equally applicable to another people and generation where the same conditions obtain. It would seem that God has caused to be recorded such prophecies to the deliberate end that they be so used for the instruction of later generations of God's people. Thus when Jesus gave his famous prophecy of the End Time on the Mount of Olives, He cast His words in a mould that also fitted the events about to befall the people of Judea in His own day. The ending of the Jewish Age was an anticipation in miniature of the ending of the Gospel Age. Hence much of the prophecy in Matt. 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 has a double application, one in miniature to the events of AD 70, and another, on a greater scale, to the events of the present time. Another case that comes readily to mind is the promise of Malachi that God would send Elijah before the coming of the day of the Lord. Jesus said that this prophecy was fulfilled in His own day (Matt. 11. 14) and yet it is clear that a further fulfilment must be expected at the end of this Age. It does not follow that every prophecy must of necessity be applied in this fashion.

The Book of Nahum is a case in point. Nahum lived with his brethren of the Captivity in the mountainous country north-east of Nineveh, a generation or so after the Ten Tribes had been transported from their own land. He broke into a passionate denunciation of Nineveh and foretold its coming destruction. From his own observation he knew that its iniquity had come to the full. The great repentance of the time of Jonah was at least a hundred and fifty years in the past and the city had long since gone back to its bad ways. Nahum sensed that the time of judgment had come, and in three short chapters he foretold, in superb language, the coming destruction. The whole of his predictions were fulfilled within the next half century, and with that fulfilment, the prophecy served its purpose. There is nothing in it to justify its application to events at this end of the Age, and nothing in later Scriptures to authorise its use as such a prophecy.

Isaiah's and Jeremiah's prophecies of the fall of Babylon constitute an instance of the opposite principle. Their vivid descriptions of Divine judgment upon that city are used in the Book of Revelation in a setting that points unmistakably to the end of the Age. We can, therefore, if we wish, take these prophecies to have a double application, in the first place to the literal overthrow of the literal city ‑ and although Jeremiah spoke more than fifty years before the event, his words were wonderfully and accurately fulfilled. In the second place to the downfall of the great world system of evil which Babylon so fitly pictured. We need therefore to view these "political" prophecies against the background of the times and the circumstances in which they were written. We then must note what use is made of them by later Biblical writers of the New Testament, and decide whether or not a particular prophecy is intended to convey a meaning beyond its purely local one. We may have to give up some cherished interpretations in the process, but the prophecies that we do accept as having definite bearing upon our own day and time will become fraught with deeper meaning and rest upon a more secure and logical basis than before. Some knowledge of the history of the prophet's own period is therefore essential when it comes to interpreting such prophecies. The knowledge of such history is constantly being amplified by research and discovery. It follows that our understanding of these things will be subject to clarification as time goes on. The interpretations of the nineteenth century commentators are often quite out of date in the twenty-first.

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The next article in this series is entitled "Visions and Dreams" and will examine the difference between "prophets" and "seers' and the conditions under which holy men of old have received revelations regarding things to come.

(to be continued) AOH