Predictions

By Rev. Canon David B. Tabo-oy

v6″All this you see—the time will come when not a single stone here will be left in its place;
every one will be thrown down.”
Luke 21
In the last quarter of 1996 I had the opportunity to visit the Holy Land for a short special course at St George’s College in Jerusalem. Part of my course which focused on the Bible and the Holy Land is to visit significant biblical places that included the ruins of the Jerusalem Temple. It is now called the ‘wailing wall’ because of the Jewish practice to worship in the area with their traditional Jewish prayer done in chanting. When heard from a distance such chanted prayers are like wailing. This is my personal interpretation why it was so called. But I believe there are more explanations why the place was so called through the holy temple’s history that even goes beyond two thousand years.
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The Hebrew Bible says that the First Temple was built by King Solomon. According to the Book of Deuteronomy, as the sole place of Israelite sacrifice (Deuteronomy 12:2-27), the Temple replaced the Tabernacle constructed in the Sinai Desert under the auspices of Moses, as well as local sanctuaries, and altars in the hills. This temple was sacked a few decades later by Shoshenq I, Pharaoh of Egypt.
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Although efforts were made at partial reconstruction, it was only in 835 BCE when Jehoash, King of Judah, in the second year of his reign invested considerable sums in reconstruction, only to have it stripped again for Sennacherib, King of Assyria c. 700 BCE. The First Temple was totally destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, when they sacked the city.
According to the Book of Ezra, construction of the Second Temple was authorized by Cyrus the Great and began in 538 BCE, after the fall of the Babylonian Empire the year before. It was completed 23 years later, on the third day of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the Great (12 March 515 BCE),[6] dedicated by the Jewish governor Zerubbabel. However, with a full reading of the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah, there were four edicts to build the Second Temple, which were issued by three kings. Cyrus in 536 BCE, which is recorded in the first chapter of Ezra. Next, Darius I of Persia in 519 BCE, which is recorded in the sixth chapter of Ezra. Third, Artaxerxes I of Persia in 457 BCE, which was the seventh year of his reign, and is recorded in the seventh chapter of Ezra. Finally, by Artaxerxes again in 444 BCE in the second chapter of Nehemiah.[7] Also, despite the fact that the new temple was not as extravagant or imposing as its predecessor, it still dominated the Jerusalem skyline and remained an important structure throughout the time of Persian suzerainty. Moreover, the temple narrowly avoided being destroyed again in 332 BCE when the Jews refused to acknowledge the deification of Alexander the Great of Macedonia. Alexander was allegedly “turned from his anger” at the last minute by astute diplomacy and flattery. Further, after the death of Alexander on 13 June 323 BCE, and the dismembering of his empire, the Ptolemies came to rule over Judea and the Temple. Under the Ptolemies, the Jews were given many civil liberties and lived content under their rule. However, when the Ptolemaic army was defeated at Panium by Antiochus III of the Seleucids in 198 BCE, this policy changed. Antiochus wanted to Hellenize the Jews, attempting to introduce the Greek pantheon into the temple. Moreover, a rebellion ensued and was brutally crushed, but no further action by Antiochus was taken, and when Antiochus died in 187 BCE at Luristan, his son Seleucus IV Philopator succeeded him. However, his policies never took effect in Judea, since he was assassinated the year after his ascension.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes succeeded his older brother to the Seleucid throne and immediately adopted his father’s previous policy of universal Hellenisation. The Jews rebelled again and Antiochus, in a rage, retaliated in force. Considering the previous episodes of discontent, the Jews became incensed when the religious observances of Sabbath and circumcision were officially outlawed. When Antiochus erected a statue of Zeus in their temple and Hellenic priests began sacrificing pigs (the usual sacrifice offered to the Greek gods in the Hellenic religion), their anger began to spiral. When a Greek official ordered a Jewish priest to perform a Hellenic sacrifice, the priest (Mattathias) killed him. In 167 BCE, the Jews rose up en masse behind Mattathias and his five sons to fight and win their freedom from Seleucid authority. Mattathias’ son Judah Maccabee, now called “The Hammer”, re-dedicated the temple in 165 BCE and the Jews celebrate this event to this day as a major part of the festival of Hanukkah.
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The temple was rededicated under Judah Maccabee in 164 BCE.[2] During the Roman era, Pompey entered (and thereby desecrated) the Holy of Holies in 63 BCE, but left the Temple intact.[8][9][10] In 54 BCE, Crassus looted the Temple treasury,[11][12] only for him to die the year after at the Battle of Carrhae against Parthia. According to folklore he was executed by having molten gold poured down his throat. When news of this reached the Jews, they revolted again, only to be put down in 43 BCE.
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Around 20 BCE, the building was renovated and expanded by Herod the Great, and became known as Herod’s Temple. It was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE during the Siege of Jerusalem. During the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Romans in 132–135 CE, Simon bar Kokhba and Rabbi Akiva wanted to rebuild the Temple, but bar Kokhba’s revolt failed and the Jews were banned from Jerusalem (except for Tisha B’Av) by the Roman Empire. The emperor Julian allowed to have the Temple rebuilt but the Galilee earthquake of 363 ended all attempts ever since. (Wikipedia)
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I copy-pasted this account of the Jerusalem Temple from the Wikipedia for us to have a more informed understanding of the temple that Jesus in our text this Sunday predicted of it destruction. The later destruction in 70 CE (or AD) may be attributed to Jesus’ prediction in our Gospel. Predictions? Prophecy? What is the main difference between “Prophecy” and “Prediction”?
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The general purpose of prophecy and prediction is the same: to tell what will happen in the future. However, their source of authority for this information is very different. Prophecy relies on the authority of God-given information. True prophecy is therefore never wrong because it always carries the authority of God’s truth and character. On the other hand, prediction is based on man’s ability to determine what may happen in the future. Prediction is sometimes right but often wrong because it depends on man.
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Unfortunately, some who are not prophets claim the gift of prophecy. The Bible teaches that one test of a true prophet is whether or not his prophecy always comes to pass. Deuteronomy 18:22
states, “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.” People who falsely claim the gift of prophecy are in danger of the judgment of God. It is a serious offense against the Lord.
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As to prediction, all men try to do a little of this. However, even in this, we should be careful. Consider this passage from the book of James:  “Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” (4:13)
We are not to brag or boast of our knowledge of tomorrow. Things may turn out as we expect, but they may not. We should always speak of the future with humility—”If the Lord will” or “Lord willing.” These actions will keep us from the sin of false prophecy and the pride of prediction (Learn the Bible.org).
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In the same thoughts of the gospel lesson, I remember this article which I came across with several years ago in the internet and still in active circulation relative to predictions or foreseeing the future.
Have you ever tried to make a prediction? Here are some predictions from the past. All from people who were trusted individuals:
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, in 1943 said, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
Popular Mechanics magazine in 1949 made this prediction: “Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons.”
There was an inventor by the name of Lee DeForest. He claimed that “While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility.”
The Decca Recording Co. made a big mistake when they made this prediction: “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” That was their prediction in 1962 concerning a few lads from Liverpool. Their band was called the Beatles.

As the disciples walked out of the Temple in Jerusalem Jesus paused with his disciples, looked back at the Temple and predicted, “Do you see all these great buildings. Not one stone will be left on another.” To the disciples this was bedrock. Nothing could bring down these walls. “Look, teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” they said to Jesus…
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And here’s one that I like connected to predictions and/or prophecy by Gary L Carver, “Here, in my judgment, is one of the subtlest temptations that faces any Christian in any era: If we are not careful, we can get diverted here from what Christ has called us to do in this present age. This happened in Thessalonica not twenty years after Jesus died, and Saint Paul met the issue head on. Some of the folk there got so caught up in expecting and predicting the imminent return of the Lord that they had ceased to do any work and degenerated into idle busybodies who prattled only about the future (2 Thessalonians 3:11). Paul rebuked this tendency to let an over-interest in “the last things” divert us from faithfulness to “the first things.”
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There is an old story about a warrior who was struck one day by a poisonous arrow. This man happened to be a speculative sort of person, so as he lay on the ground he mused to himself: “I wonder what kind of wood this arrow is made of? What sort of birds, do you suppose, the feathers come from? I wonder what type of man shot this arrow – tall or short, dark or light.” His comrades, who saw his plight, could bear it no longer, but cried out in frustration: “For God’s sake, man! Stop speculating and pull out the arrow!”
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Jesus predicted about the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. It happened as history would prove. And he told us that “He will come again to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end..” That is not a prediction – that is not a prophecy but rather a statement of what it will be in God’s time. And yet we are so obsessed of predictions – even believing to those already known as charlatans and we still are distracted by that end of time reality.
Let us pray.
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (ECP-BCP p138)