Another Aspect on Why God Shares His Prophecies

Regarding Bible prophecies and their fulfillment, it’s common knowledge to us believers that God’s prophecies are for the benefit of believers. Whether God has prophets prophesy to edify his church (1 Corinthians 14:5) or to help us discern the signs of the times to prepare us for his soon return (Matthew 24:3-44), the Lord wants his church to reap blessings from his prophecies (Revelation 1:3). But there’s another aspect to consider as well, according to what God spoke through Isaiah in Isaiah 48. The Lord wanted his prophecies to also be a tool against unbelievers to show them how foolish they are to reject him. He laid this out in the first eight verses of that chapter:

¹Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness.

² For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; The Lord of hosts is his name.

³ I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass.

⁴ Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass;

⁵ I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I shewed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them.

⁶ Thou hast heard, see all this; and will not ye declare it? I have shewed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them.

⁷ They are created now, and not from the beginning; even before the day when thou heardest them not; lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them.

⁸ Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time that thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb.

God was rightfully upset that he was dealing with a people who claimed to be his followers, but in reality rejected his truth and righteousness. They were very much like many churchgoers today who claim Christianity simply for social status while rejecting the Bible or the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Since Jehovah knew their obstinate hearts were prone to trust in worthless idols and false religious systems, he decided to use his prophecies to demonstrate his superiority over any and all other gods. By predicting events before they happen and then allowing the predictions to unfold into reality, Jehovah showed unbelievers that he is the only true and living God. And that purpose continues to this day. History is chock full of examples where false prophets in false religions gave predictions that utterly failed. The Lord’s prophecies have been and continue to be fulfilled so that false teachers and false gods can’t genuinely take credit for God’s accomplishments.

Obstinate unbelievers with their iron necks and brass brows refuse to be what God requires them to be–his children, servants, friends, and followers. They resist what he charges them to do by rejecting godly justice, righteousness, and true equity for the sake of embracing and promoting impurity, self-indulgence, dishonesty, etc. Therefore, to highlight how foolish, unreliable, and untrustworthy their religious systems are, God systematically and consistently uses his prophecies to expose their lack of knowledge, powerlessness, and lack of credibility to the point where unbelievers would have to be a special kind of stupid to deny what God has made so obvious. In the eternal scheme of things, devotion to the Godhead and his word reap the immutable, everlasting rewards that outshine anything produced by heathen systems.