Damascus - the city of the future

See, Damascus will no longer be a city, but will become a heap of ruins. -- Isaiah 17:1

Skeptics point this out as exhibit A when attempting to disprove Biblical prophecy. This has never happened. There is no event in world history that even comes close to woe Isaiah pronounced upon Damascus around 700 BC. And that's a problem.

You see, the total number of Old Testament prophecies comes to around 2,000. Virtually every one has been fulfilled. But it only takes one. The Bible holds itself to the standard of perfection. Scribes may have goofed in a few typos and an ancient word or two may make translate tricky, but if a prophecy is just flat wrong than the whole edifice of Biblical teaching comes crashing down. Seriously. And this prophecy was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong....

Well, it would wrong be if you accepted one little precondition as being true. You have to say that the prophecy must come true in "ancient times" for it to be wrong. Why shouldn't you say that since pretty much all the other prophecies were fulfilled way back when? Let's look at another prophecy that illustrates the point.

In Jeremiah 50 we are told that the mighty walls of Babylon (three hundred feet tall, two hundred feet thick, the largest wall ever constructed around a city) were going to be completely destroyed. He wrote that around 500 BC. It didn't come to pass until 850 years later, when the Roman Emperor Julian had his men disassemble the wall so rebels could no longer use it as a stronghold.

Now, we still consider the 4th century AD as "ancient times" so skeptics leave this one alone. And they sort of have to since it really is quite a coincidence. But I personally can't think of any reason why Isaiah would have considered himself to be living in "ancient time" or why somebody like Jeremiah would have considered 850 years in the future to be any different than 2850 years in the future. We are the ones who slapped on the label "ancient times". Not them.

No, the destruction of Damascus did not take place in "ancient time". It's still to come. It's going to happen soon. And you seriously do not want to be in the area when this one takes place.

A few observations:

1) verse 1 -- "heap of ruins" is pretty self-explanatory.

2) verse 6 -- "yet some gleanings will remain", gleanings were the crops that were overlooked by the crop pickers. This says that their will be a few survivors living in the ruins.

3) verse 7 -- "in that day men will look to their maker", their are no atheists in foxholes. Not many pagans either. Remember that the key difference between paganism and Christianity is that paganism is an attempt to control, or harness the power of the metaphysical world whereas Christianity is a release of control to the metaphysical Creator. Why no pagans? Because you release control when you're desperate.

4) verse 11 -- "yet the harvest will be as nothing in the day of disease and incurable pain." This is a bizarre construction to find in an ancient manuscript. There was nothing in Isaiah's day that ruined crops as well as cities, that caused "disease and incurable pain". That's a product of our modern age. And there is only one thing that will do it -- a nuclear warhead.

Now fast forward to the modern day. Damascus is the capital and chief city of modern day Syria. Syria is currently working on developing nuclear weapons so that it can be the military equal of its mortal enemy, Israel. And at some point -- probably not too far in the future -- Damascus is going to be reduced to rubble; a city populated by a few heavily radiated survivors. The world will end by fire, but this prophecy tells us that selected areas will have fire dropped on them even before the final barrage. There will be partial destruction before there is complete destruction.

Next post, I hit a few miscellaneous topics before looking at Matthew 24. The first topic: finances, where should I invest my money in a world where time is running out?