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Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

Dead Men Leave Tales

Although dead men cannot speak or communicate with the living, the fact remains that the dead of the ancient past have left tales worth telling.

I'll be back in a moment with the amazing facts.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz and the Amazing Facts broadcast, facts which affect you.

You know the habitations of men and nations, now long since dead, have been revealing strange and wonderful tales of late.

Now while the Bible makes it perfectly clear that the dead themselves know nothing and cannot talk, Yet the record of their lives and history has recently been opened to the world through the avenue of the archaeologist's spade.

So the dusty tombs of yesteryear have spoken clearly, and in reality dead men do leave tales for us to hear and understand.

Down through the centuries of time, the Bible has been severely tested, as you know.

Believers of the Bible have lost their lives in martyrdom.

Attempts have been made to disprove or belittle portions or all of the Holy Bible.

But through it all, the old book stands unblemished, powerful and true as ever.

Thus we want to let the tales of nations and men long ago reveal certain tests to us, tests whereby we can examine anew the truth and authenticity of the Bible.

Now our Bible, you know, contains much prophecy.

In fact, if we were to take out all the prophecies of the Bible, we would have very little of it left.

However, there are many in the world today who doubt the value or truth of prophecy.

Some feel that it is not important at all.

Others feel it can't be understood, and still others think that it is not really reliable.

We are going to call the Bible and modern discoveries to the stand today and examine them together.

We will let the skeptic of the Bible examine the proof and make the decision as to whether the Bible is true or whether it is false.

The Apostle Peter said in 2 Peter 1, 19-21, that the prophecies of the Bible are like a great light shining in the darkness of this world.

He further stated that the prophecies are not given by the fancy or will of men, but they came as God caused men to write them, through the agency of the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 46, 9 and 10 reminds us that God is able to declare the end from the beginning, and that once stated, the Council shall stand just as God has prophesied that it would.

Now prophecy, as you know, is the foretelling of an event to come before it takes place.

God has done that in many, many places in the Bible.

Remember, friend, Bible prophecy does not guess, it knows.

Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5, 20 and 21, that we are not to despise prophesying and that we should prove all things and hold on to the things that are good.

Our subject today takes us back many long centuries before the time of Christ's earthly life.

It has to do with a prophecy that was made concerning 1 of the most powerful and influential cities of that time.

I want you to especially notice verses 3 to 6 and then 12 to 14.

"'Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up.

And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers.

I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock.

It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea, for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.

And it shall become a spoil to the nations.

And her daughters which are in the field shall be slain by the sword, and they shall know that I am the Lord.' Now the city mentioned in these verses is Tyre, or as the Old Testament spelling gives it, Taurus.

This city of antiquity was located on the south coast of what is now Lebanon, at the east end of the Mediterranean Sea.

It was 1 of the oldest cities of its day and was probably over 2, 000 years old at the time of this prophecy by Ezekiel.

Tyre was a seaport city and quite prosperous and important to the entire region round about.

Great lookout towers rising above the wall that surrounded the city made it practically impregnable to all enemies.

The city was in the days of its greatest height and strength when the Prophet Ezekiel predicted that due to its wickedness God would eventually destroy that city completely.

Now I want you to notice some of the particulars which God revealed that would mark the defeat and destruction of this great city.

Number 1, many nations would come up against the city.

Number 2, The walls and the towers would be completely destroyed.

The rubble from the walls, the towers, the houses and buildings of the city would be cast into the sea.

Even the soil would be moved from the site of old Tyre until nothing would be left but rock.

Number 5, fishermen would dry their nets on the table rock where the city once stood.

And 6, the city would never be built again in that place.

Now let's go to history and see if and how this prophecy was fulfilled in every detail.

The city was constantly, of course, being besieged by various nations.

At 1 time they were under the Egyptian empire.

Later on the Assyrian, the Neo-Babylonian, and Persian empires also controlled the city.

But during all of these and other sieges the wall still stood, the towers held their lofty heads high in the sky, and the prophecy of Ezekiel was not fulfilled.

It was not until 332 B.C., over 250 years after Ezekiel had written his prophecy, that Alexander, that mighty leader of the Grecian Empire, laid siege to the city.

First he took control of a small island out in the Mediterranean Sea, and as he began to gain control of the city, he broke down the walls, the towers, and the buildings and dumped the debris into the sea, making a causeway from the island to the mainland.

Before he was through, even the soil had been removed and a causeway was completed, linking the island completely to the mainland.

Now I have seen with my own eyes the exactness of the fulfillment of the prophecy of Ezekiel.

However, an arm of land about a quarter of a mile wide reaches from the mainland out to the island where the new Tyre was built long after the defeat by Alexander.

On the main land not a building of the ruins is left.

As far as the eye can see, the land is virtually without vegetation.

God predicted that it would become like a table rock where fishermen would spread their nets to dry after fishing in the Mediterranean Sea.

And friends, that's exactly what you find today.

I visited the spot and saw how perfect the Word of God had been vindicated.

To the skeptic, the doubters, and the agnostics, I say, let them build Tyre again on the site of the old city.

God said it would never be built again, and it never will.

Now if that story of Tyre sounds like an isolated case from the Bible, Let me assure you that it's not.

There are many, many other prophecies given long before they took place that have been fulfilling with just the same unerring accuracy as this 1.

Permit me to call your attention to 1 that may even be stranger than the prophecy concerning Tyre.

At the same time that Tyre was standing as a great seaport city before its defeat and destruction, there was another city about 25 miles north of Tyre by the name of Sidon.

In Ezekiel 28, 21-23, we read this, Son of man, set thy face against Sidon, and prophesy against it, and say, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against thee, O Sidon, and I will be glorified in the midst of thee, and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.

For I will send into her pestilence and blood into her streets, and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side, and they shall know that I am the Lord." Now when Ezekiel wrote about Sidon, he predicted that bloodshed would be seen in her streets.

It's interesting and significant for us to note that when Ezekiel wrote the 2 prophecies concerning these cities, Tyre was really the strong city, whereas Sidon was already in decay.

It was not located at the sea coast, and from the human standpoint it would have been natural for Ezekiel, had he been writing his own ideas, to suggest that Sidon would be completely destroyed and forever annihilated, and that Tyre would continue to stand.

But the truth of the matter is just the reverse.

Tyre was defeated, the ruins were scraped into the sea, and it shall never be built again.

On the other hand, Sidon still stands and today has a population of over 25, 000.

Now let the skeptics answer this question.

Why did Ezekiel predict the outcome of these 2 cities with such unerring accuracy?

Once again, the inspired word of God has stood the test of time.

In Ezekiel 30, we read another very amazing prophecy.

This 1 has to do with the country of Egypt.

Here God predicted that Egypt, 1 of the oldest civilizations known to man, would continue to exist right down to the end of time.

Many nations that were more powerful than Egypt have ceased to exist, but Egypt is still with us today.

God further predicted in this chapter that although Egypt would continue down to our day, she would be laid low and would become 1 of the bases of nations.

Today Egypt is 1 of the smaller and weaker nations in the world.

In verse 13, God predicted that the idols of which Egypt had been famous would all be destroyed and the city of Naf, a modern name of the city, is now Memphis.

But today excavators report that whereas they find ancient idols in all other parts of Egypt, yet they have yet to find any in Memphis.

This same verse tells us that a true son of Egypt will not be the ruler any more, and for 2, 500 years the rulers of Egypt have all had mixed blood and not 1 of them to date has been a full-blooded prince or Egyptian.

Again, the story of ancient empires rises up today to leave us the true tale that God's word is accurate in every detail.

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Dead Men Leave Tales

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