Unique Prophecy
In the experience of all mankind there is little certain knowledge of the future. We literally do not know what will happen tomorrow, to say nothing of next year, or in a hundred years. The writings of the Bible, however, are unique, for they make bold predictions of international events covering long periods of time.

The nation of Israel provides an excellent illustration. We have seen how first the Northern and then the Southern kingdom were taken into captivity by Assyrians and Babylonians. Though many returned later, it was not long before the Jews were once again under threat, and driven from their land, this time by the Romans in the 1st Century AD. Jesus was the last in the line of the prophets, and he said: "They shall fall by the edge of the sword and shall be led away captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles . . ." (Luke 21:24).

So it came to pass in AD 70, and that ought to have been the end of the story. Humanly speaking, such a scattered, persecuted and reviled nation should have disappeared from the earth and been long ago forgotten. But the prophets said that they would not disappear and would eventually be restored again to their own land:

"For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah . . . and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it . . . Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth . . . Hear the word of the LORD, all ye nations . . . He that scattered Israel will gather him (Jeremiah 30:3; 31:8,10)

And so it has come to pass. In our 20th Century the Jews have returned to Palestine and have set up once more an Israeli state with its capital at Jerusalem.

Now who could have foreseen this? Who could have known that Israel would be scattered all over the earth, and yet after nearly 2,000 years some of them would return and re-establish the ancient kingdom? No man or group of men could possibly have known that this would happen. But somebody must have known. It can only be God. It is He who inspired the writings of the prophets to foretell a destiny totally unexpected by the nations of the world.

The Course of History
Daniel was a prominent figure in the court of the King of Babylon about 600 BC. Yet the prophecies in his book show a knowledge of the rise and fall of empires centuries after his time.

The foundation prophecy is Daniel's interpretation of a dream which the King had, in which he saw a great image composed of various metals, and then saw it destroyed by a large stone which brought it crashing to the ground. This image, said Daniel (who ascribed his understanding to God), represented four great empires and their aftermath. He identities the first as Babylon itself; the next two are explicitly named in other parts of his prophetic book as Persia and Greece. The fourth, strong and terrifying, can only be the Roman Empire, which eventually broke up into separate kingdoms.

And so it came to pass. The Bible is primarily concerned with the Middle East and the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. In Daniel's day, 600 BC, the greatest empire was that of Babylon. It was succeeded by the empire of the Medes and Persians about 530 BC, and that in turn was overthrown by Alexander the Great of Greece about 330 BC. The fourth and greatest dominion of them all was the Roman, which from the 2nd Century BC to the 5th Century AD, a period of six to seven hundred years, grew so as to dominate all the territories of the Middle East (including Israel), the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, as well as much of Europe. But this mighty Roman Empire was not to be followed by a fifth, but was to be broken up into separate nations with no cohesion. The nations of Europe today are the heirs of this disintegration.

Now it is undeniable that the history of the territories of the Middle East, of the Mediterranean area and of Europe has followed, over 2,500 years, from Daniel's day in 600 BC to the present day, precisely the course foretold by Daniel. How could he possibly have known the course of history for centuries into the future? Yet somebody must have known. Daniel said the God of heaven had revealed it to him. It is the only explanation which makes sense.

But in that case we had better take note of the conclusion of the interpretation of the King's dream. It foresaw the destruction of the image, and the setting up finally of a new empire:

"In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; it shall break in pieces all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever" (Daniel 2:44)

In view of the truth of Daniel’s forecast of the previous empires of the world, we had better take this last development seriously, for the next great empire will be the Kingdom of God. But more of that shortly.

The Course of Civilisation
For the last 300 years the philosophers have confidently expected the quality of human life in the world to improve. The theory of biological evolution was accompanied by theories of social and religious evolution as well. "The March of Progress" was the great expectation. The 19th Century was an age of great optimism. Technical advances in industry, resulting from the growth of scientific knowledge, led to vastly increased production of goods and greater wealth for some sections of society. Acts of Parliament controlling health and housing aimed to improve social standards. Education was extended gradually to all and was confidently expected to result in an improved moral tone in society. As men became better off, crime would diminish. As they became better educated, they would appreciate literature, music and art. Progress was the watchword. The human race was on the march towards a new age.

What a disconcerting shock the 20th Century has proved! Two world wars have produced millions of people destroyed or injured, incalculable human suffering and damage to property. Efforts to prevent such catastrophes occurring again have failed. The League of Nations collapsed with the rise of Mussolini in the 1920s, and Hitler in the 1930s, and the United Nations manifests its powerlessness to stop grave conflicts in the world. The growth of nuclear weapons poses an ominous threat to the existence of the whole human race, and to cap it all the economies of the nations are plunged into crisis, with numerous unemployed in all the major nations.

But the moral collapse is even more significant. The sophisticated nations have turned their backs on religion, but have found nothing effective to put in its place. The divorce rate rises and so does the crime rate. New diseases appear, especially AIDS, which has already made serious inroads in Africa and threatens to spread in the West. Famines threatening millions of lives, though partly caused by drought or mismanagement of land, are also the result of civil wars. Small nationalities are asserting their rights, and are ready to take up arms to defend them. In short, the nations are shaken to their moral, political and economic foundations to an extent undreamed of in past ages.

All this is occurring in our supposedly advanced 20th Century, and it is world-wide. The dream of progress has evaporated, and nothing has been found to take its place.

The Bible's View of Mankind
Now the remarkable fact is that the Bible never shared this optimistic view of human progress. It has been well said that the Bible's view of the development of human civilisation is not evolutionary, but catastrophic; that is, mankind's career will end in a great crisis and a dramatic change (H. J. Cadbury, in The Peril of Modernising Jesus, 1934).

The evidence for this is quite clear throughout the Old and New Testaments. Daniel, speaking of "the time of the end", foresaw "a time of trouble such as never was" when "many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake", some to everlasting life (12:1,2). The apostle Paul foresaw that "in the last days perilous times shall come". He proceeds to describe the rise of a violent and self-indulgent generation, "lovers of money, boastful . . . disobedient to parents . . . without natural affection . . . without self-control . . . lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, holding a form of religion (RSV), but having denied the power thereof" (2 Timothy 3:1-5, RV). The resemblance to the materialistic, atheistical and undisciplined spirit of our age is striking. Jesus himself was equally explicit. At a time when Jerusalem would be no longer under the domination of the nations, there would be "upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity . . . men fainting for fear and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world" (Luke 21:25,26).

But the writings in which these forecasts are found are 2,000 years old and more. How did the writers know that the climax of mankind's career would not be a state of peace and prosperity, as the wise men of only 100 years ago were predicting? Again, of themselves as men, they could not have known. But it is clear that somebody must have known. There must have been a Mind far greater than the human to inspire what they wrote. It was surely that of God Himself. No other explanation meets the facts.