ALONE AT THE TOP
Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “There are many paths that lead to God”, or that, “God is at the center of a big wheel and all of the spokes of the wheel represent the pantheon of religious belief systems that will all eventually lead you to Him, as long as you are sincere.” This philosophy attempts to establish a justification for mankind to worship any deity, in any manner they wish, regardless of how strange or completely nonsensical the religious belief might be, and still wind up in heaven someday. But while this might be temporarily comforting to the troubled consciences of those who have created a false god in their own image, which allows them to live out their desires in this life, it comes with an awful surprise at the end. Because ironically, this philosophy is actually true; all paths do lead to God, you just might not like what He has to say once you arrive! Regardless of what errant path you choose, you will eventually end up on the doorstep of the one true and living God who wrote in His word, “I Am God, and there is no other; I Am God, and there is none like Me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.” (NKJV Isaiah 46:9) So, as it turns out, the true God has a calling card. One sure way that we can know His truth and His path, as distinguished from the false paths of deception; Yahweh’s word accurately predicts the future! Behold, the unique nature of God’s prophetic word and how it stands apart from all other works of prophetic literature.
Cultures and religions from all around the world claim to have had prophets who speak on behalf of God and there is, “Evidence of the existence of a prophetic institution… throughout the ancient Near East.” (Hill & Walton 503) While most of the early prophets in Israel, (known as the pre-classical era), functioned similarly to their contemporaries in this region, there were distinct differences as well. During this era, the most prevalent role played by the prophet was one of being an advisor to the king, “…messages were specifically tailored to the circumstances of the royal court. As a result, the prophecies usually consisted of a word of encouragement or a warning…” (Hill & Walton 505) However, in classical prophesy, which was, “The most familiar phase of Israelite prophecy… it announced God’s agenda for the people… they became social-spiritual commentators to a degree the pre-classical prophets never did.” (Hill & Walton 505) Whatever similarities that may have existed with prophets in the past, were completely swept away by this new breed of prophet, for whom there was no counterpart in the ancient world. Unlike the pagan prophets, the classical prophets stanchly opposed the, “…popular notion of appeasing God’s wrath through ritual…” and there was “…nothing in the ancient Near East to parallel the far-reaching messages of exile and destruction that typified the pre-exilic…” (Hill & Walton 506) prophets who truly stood alone in their unique ministries.
But the question must be asked, “Why were they so unique?” And of course the answer is that, they spoke on behalf of a unique individual – the creator of the heavens and the earth! If their message was true and the rest were not, you would expect them to have unique characteristics that set them apart, and surely, they did. The prophetic voice of Ezekiel, who spoke as the very mouthpiece of God, cried out repeatedly, “…and you will know that I am Lord.” This, “…stands as a not-so-subtle reminder of the certainty of God’s judgment and the efficacy of the Sovereign Yahweh in doing what He had spoken.” (Hill & Walton 561) Their distinctiveness was bound up in the foundational truth of the fact that God Almighty had chosen them, made a covenant with them, and desired to reveal His plan for man’s redemption through them.
No other people groups had a connection like this and that is why, “…prophecy took a different shape in Israel than anywhere else… it was only the Israelite concept of a totally sovereign God that allowed for the development of eschatology… the final stage of the plan of God in history.” (Hill & Walton 507) Other ancient cultures were not even concerned with these existential concepts, they were merely trying to survive and appease the false gods when they perceived them to be angry. The notion that there was some god-ordained, long-range plan to be proclaimed is not found “…in the ancient Near East because no other deity had such a plan to execute… there was no sovereign god and therefore no plan to be executed. By definition, then, there could be no eschatology. In fact, there was no concept of eschatology… The possibility of a final stage of history was nowhere considered in Mesopotamian theology.” (Hill & Walton 507) Makes sense right? Real God – real plans, no god – no plans.
The fact that a real God exists and that He has effectively communicated with us, through the eons of time, via the prophetic voices of Scripture, drives the liberal rationalistic mind to the brink of insanity. This can be attested to by viewing the lengths to which they will go to discredit the possibility of such a phenomenon existing. For instance, the prophet Isaiah accurately predicted that a man named Cyrus would conquer Babylon but, “The fact that the prophet lived in the eighth century BC makes it very difficult for some scholars to accept that he could have identified Cyrus the Persian by name (44:28; 45:1), since Cyrus did not arrive on the scene of history until nearly two hundred years later.” (Hill & Walton 520) And so they feel the need to postulate later dating scenarios and pseudonymous writers to explain it all away. Similarly, “The events of the book of Daniel are clearly set against the background of the sixth century BC. Nevertheless, many present-day scholars attribute the writing of the book to an author from the second century BC… The reason for targeting this date…” is because the details that Daniel presented, “…coincide quite closely with the history of the Middle East from the time of Alexander the Great in the fourth century… through… the second century BC.” (Hill & Walton 568) Daniel nailed it and they know it, but this doesn’t fit the narrative of liberal theology. Therefore, in both of these instances, Scripture is maligned, manipulated, twisted, and downgraded in order to accommodate their rationalistic view of history, rather than reconsidering the possibility of God being able to reach through the veil of space and time in order to communicate His plan of redemption to us.
Considering these things to be true, the Apostle Peter would say, “…what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God…” (2 Pet 3:11-12) Considering the uniquely accurate prophecies of the Old and New Testaments, I should be living my life in holiness and expectation of standing in His presence someday. Whether by rapture of the church, or my own personal rapture at the end of my life, it doesn’t matter; I will stand before Him to give an account of how I’ve lived my life, and this thought should purify me. I know that I can depend upon God’s word because He has shown it to be reliable in the past, which means that it will be reliable in the future as well; this should affect me daily, even hourly. In the pantheon of man’s belief systems, there is only one faith that truly stands alone, and God has been faithfully declaring this end from the very beginning.
Hill, Andrew and John Walton. A Survey of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 2010
New King James Version. Holy Bible. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson. 2000. Print.
