1st Coming - Understand Prophecy - Yamartino
 <<   <-   >   >>
Chapter 10 of  60

The principles, which I have introduced, can be summed up as follows: (1) Prophecies must first be fulfilled for their meaning to be understood. (2) One must already believe in Christ to understand the prophecies referring to Him, and therefore (3) Prophecies are not given to lead one to the Christ. (4) The purpose of prophecies is to confirm the faith of those who already believe (10:3)

I have numbered these principles here for clarity only, and do not really think of them as having any particular order, or really as being distinct things. The above four statements can just as easily be thought of in this way: Prophecies are given to us by a loving God to strengthen our belief in Him. We cannot understand their full meaning until He, Himself, reveals it to us (10:4)

These principles, the truth of which I proceed to demonstrate in these four chapters, have not come to me through years of research or deep thinking, or actually from any effort whatsoever on my part; they were given to me. I was told these principles by my sister, Jeanne (10:5)

About thirty years ago, I had a conversation with her, in which, as I recall, she said something like this: "You know, prophecies can only be understood after they have been fulfilled, and only by those who already believe. They are given to confirm the faith of the believer." All that I have written so far has merely been an elaboration of what she stated on that day (10:6)

From the instant she expressed her intuition on this subject I have never had any doubt as to its truth; it seemed to fit with everything I knew. And since that time, everything I have read or seen or heard regarding prophecies has confirmed her intuition (10:7)

Since I know that many people will accept these principles in the same manner that I did, simply by having them stated explicitly, and because it is much more interesting to get straight to the point, I did not begin this book with proof. However, because these principles are new to many people and, as mentioned earlier, may seem "backwards", I here offer the proof that they do indeed hold true under the scrutiny of scripture (10:8)

The proof will be presented here in four parts: The remainder of this chapter introduces our investigation of the proofs and briefly introduces some implications for the Second Coming. Chapter five presents a compilation of prophetic references to Christ from the Old Testament. Chapter six looks at the fulfillment of some of these prophetic references, and discusses their significance. Chapter seven concludes the presentation on proof with a look at three situations of special relevance to prophecy that are related in the New Testament (10:9)

Chapters five and six are "working" chapters, of sorts, as they ask you to consider intently a number of prophecies. Since for some of you who would rather move past the proofs on to the implications for the Second Coming, spending too much time regarding the proofs might seem to be a digression, I suggest in the introduction of these two chapters, that you may want to read only the beginning of the chapter to get a feel for its content, and then move on, returning later to the material, if you wish (10:10)

Get Next Page

  1st Coming - Understand Prophecy
  Citation Source List
: see