by Jim Fletcher
For those who believe Bible prophecy is valid—and for those who wonder—a huge sign of the end is apostasy in the Church. That is, the majority of the visible Church will move away from the faith.
That has been going on for some time.
There are plenty of Christian leaders today who are moving in that direction, but this is not a new thing.
I have just finished reading a 1958 book by the scholar Edward J. Young. The title, Who Wrote Isaiah? is astonishing. It’s like asking, who wrote War and Peace?
It’s obvious.
Except that it’s not obvious to many, particularly those influenced by scholars of several generations ago, who proposed the strange theory that the Bible’ book of Isaiah was written not by one man in the eighth century B.C., but by a whole group of anonymous editors over a long period of time.
The question is, why propose such a theory?
It is because of the amazing prophecies contained in the book. Other reasons are given for hatching the theory, of course, but it’s really about the prophecy. Which itself is fulfillment of prophecy.
2 Timothy 4:3 reads:
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears…”
Part of the apostasy of the last days is the turning away from belief in the authority of Scripture.
In his book, Young wrote:
“That the Scriptures maintain the Isaianic authorship of the entire prophecy cannot be gainsaid. The question which each must face is, ‘Do I believe what the Bible says?’”
Legions do not want to, so the shallow theories of the scholars/critics, incredibly, prevail!
One is reminded of the extraordinary prophecy from Isaiah 44-45, in which God Himself names Cyrus the Persian as the one who would allow the captive Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. This prophecy was given 150 years before Cyrus was born, and God even called him by name so there could be no mistake.
The great scholar Robert Dick Wilson once said:
“Attacks upon Daniel, Isaiah, and other books, because they abound in wonderful predictions, will have weight only with those who deny the fundamentals of Christianity.”
Do you see? Liberal critics of the Bible do not want to believe there exists a Being who can predict the future with exact precision. That would signal that God knows all, controls all, and is infinitely smarter than man.
No, the real reason critics dismiss Isaiah, by claiming that many authors wrote it over a long period of time, is that the prophet penned prophecies that came to pass hundreds of years later.
That is a reality too many willfully reject.
by Jim Fletcher
