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God Hath Spoken
The Prophecy Concerning Josiah
Consider one more example. Turn to I Kings chapter 13 and note verses 1 and 2. "And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the LORD unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee."
Note now II Kings chapter 23, beginning at verse 15. "Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove. And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.
"Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel. And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria" (II Kings 23:15-18). Here the prophet actually recorded the name of the king who was as yet unborn who would desecrate the altar of Baal. How, apart from divine revelation, could the writer of this Scripture have written such a prophecy?
The Bible is self authenticating, except for people who have eyes that will not see and ears that will not hear. The credibility of the Bible is questioned only by these people. The medical knowledge that is recorded in the Bible, as well as the knowledge of astronomy, together with prophecy that has been fulfilled, raise three voices to witness the fact that the Bible is of divine origin; and "in the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established."
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"Ignorance is the mother of heresy." —Cotton Mather, 1663-1728
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