According to reports blazing across online news sites and social media, Queen Elizabeth’s death this month was predicted by Nostradamus (real name Michel de Nostredame), a French astrologer and soothsayer who published Les Propheties (The Prophecies) in 1555. It is a collection of 942 quatrains, which are prophecies consisting of four lines of text. Nostradamus’ “prophecies” are so obscure that they can mean anything and everything; therefore, they actually mean nothing. In 2005, Mario Reading published Nostradamus: The Complete Prophecies for the Future in which he interpreted Nostradamus’ writings to say the Queen would die in 2022. That was a good guess on Reading’s part, but Nostradamus certainly didn’t predict this. Consider Nostradamus’ actual prophecy in Quatrain 10/22 – “For not wishing to consent to the divorce, which then afterwards will be recognised as unworthy: The King of the Isles will be driven out by force; in his place put one who will have no mark of a king.” What’s that mean? Who knows! Reading claimed that the number of the quatrain indicates the year that the prophecy will take place. Reading also claimed that a Nostradamus’ prophecy indicates that King Charles III will abdicate the throne because of his unpopularity and be replaced by Prince Harry. The actual prophecy reads like this: “At the end of the war the great powers change; near the bank three beautiful children are born. Ruin to the people when they are of age; in the country the kingdom is seen to grow and change more” (8/97). For another example of the obscurity of Nostradamus’ prophecies, consider the following, which is said by some to predict the rise of Hitler: “Beasts ferocious from hunger will swim across rivers: The greater part of the region will be against the Hister. The great one will cause it to be dragged in an iron cage, when the German child will observe nothing” (2/24). What does this mean? No one knows! And consider the alleged Nostradamus prophecy of London’s Great Fire of 1666: “The blood of the just will commit a fault at London, Burnt through lightning of twenty threes the six: The ancient lady will fall from her high place, Several of the same sect will be killed.” What does it mean? No one knows! By the way, the Great Fire didn’t start by lightning; it started with a fire in a bakery. People are now scrambling to purchase Nostradamus’ prophecies, 8,000 having sold in a few days, but they should be scrambling to purchase the Bible. In contrast to Nostradamus’ dark, mind-bending obscurities, Bible prophecy is clear and detailed and enlightening, and it has never failed. For example, the prophecies about Christ’s first coming in the Old Testament describe the exact time of His coming, the exact place of His birth, the injustice of His “trial,” the piercing of His hands and feet on the cross, the words that He spoke from the cross, the soldiers gambling for His garments, His burial in a rich man’s tomb, His bodily resurrection, His ascension back to heaven, among many other details. Consider just one of these: “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel…” (Micah 5:2). This was written hundreds of years before Christ was born, and it names His birth town. The Bible’s prophecies about Israel are equally precise. It is said that Frederick the Great once demanded proof in one word that the Bible is divinely inspired. The answer provided by his chaplain was “the JEW, your majesty” (Robert Newman, “Israel’s History Written in Advance,” Evidence for Faith, edited by John Montgomery, pp. 193-201). At the dawn of Israel’s experience as a nation, before she entered the Promised Land, Moses prophesied her complete history. God warned that if Israel turned from His Law, He would judge her. See Deuteronomy 28:25-32, 36-37, 63-67; 30:1-6. This prophecy was written in about 1450 B.C., or nearly 3,500 years ago. The prophecy describes Israel’s defeat at the hands of foreign powers, her eviction from the land, her dispersion to the ends of the earth, and her return. (See An Unshakeable Faith: A Christian Apologetics Course, available from www.wayoflife.org.)
(Friday Church News Notes, September 30, 2022, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)
