Published by In his news letter to the congregation of the North Phoenix Baptist Church (04/17/08), Pastor Dan Ury made the following observations: 1) Thomas Watson foresaw a global market “…for maybe five computers”. He was then (in 1943), president of IBM. 2) “Everything that can be invented, has been invented.” These are the words of Charles Duell in the early 1900s, while he was U. S. Commissioner of Patents. Bizarre expressions, are they not? These were not ordinary, uneducated doubters and scoffers of advancement, as rather they were leading men in high places—at the helm of industry, in one way or the other—in what was then to become the greatest, most advanced and tech savvy, most powerful nation of all time. They stood, like guardians of the matrix of all future knowledge and innovation, at the cradle, on the very beachhead of its entry into our current industrial and information age. Unwittingly—in a kind of weird twist of irony—they breathed doom and death to that for which they are largely responsible, and, to all that every American now takes for granted! Bizarre as that is indeed, stranger still the unfailing, never-ending frailty of the philosophy and wisdom of men {MacDonald Douglas was a chief competitor and rival of the Boeing Aircraft Company. Boeing is still here because MacDonald Douglas, in its infant years, saw prophetically no real, significant future for commercial aviation and air travel! War was their focus—for, ‘we will always have war’ was the going thought of the day (complimentary thinking, one might say, to the more recent notion that “war is good for the economy”!). What they could not foresee, however, was that a momentary lull, followed by a slight shift in thinking, regardless of its warrant, was all that would be necessary to shut them down, forever.}. These and similar men and companies, therefore, one might argue, owe us an apology. Is it not marvelous how they could not then, nor can they now, even today, piece together accurately the riddles and puzzles of their own futures, even when that future rests only a few ticks away?
The Bible is home to a collection writings by an assortment of Jewish scholars and prophets. It contains some of the most bizarre statements ever pinned by men, even more so than the ones just cited above. These Semite scholars and prophets (each a mouthpiece or spokesperson for the True and living God) spoke and put forth their messages as truth, when no possibility for any such truth existed, even remotely! While all prophecy might have been and was rightly judged to be problematic prior to the year 1900 (always so far removed from the realm of the rational, as to be virtually palpable!), some if not many were resolved, or, resolvable within the first 50 to 60 years, or so. With the advent of the thermo-baric bomb (Rev. 9); humanoid robotics, space-based lasers or star-wars, and rfid tags (Rev. 13); and recent revelations regarding oceanic hypoxic (Rev. 16), resolution to biblical riddles continue to crop up with slow but fair regularity (as of 09/06/08, according to The Scientific American, IBM, China, Malaysia and certain other Asian and European nations are said to have proposed and/or embarked upon interesting and intriguing developments in the way of rfid based information storage/retrieval systems and “people tracking units”.). In other words, the Bible was utterly scientific, when there was no practical science to support it or with which to crack its riddle-based conclusions.
The most enigmatic book in the whole Bible remains—for Christian and non-Christian alike—the Book of the Revelation. Loaded to the brim with metaphor and riddles, it is wholly prophetic in nature. Is it not funny how, when compared to and pitted against the wisdom of men, not one of the scholars or prophets of this Book has never had to offer one apology, and, even today, no one needs to make excuses for any of its “strange” expressions and predictive riddles?
The Riddle
YourDictionary.com has defined the riddle as that verbal problem or puzzle structured—and put forth in the form of either a question, or, a statement, etc.—so as to require a certain level of ingenuity in order to solve. Alternatively, they suggest, it is a conundrum, or, a question that is intentionally tailored in confusion and steeped in perplexity so as to make it difficult to resolve—often carrying a pun in its answer. Whereas, according to the Columbia Encyclopedia, there is precious little literature specifically geared to riddles, the Literary Dictionary and the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia combine to inform us that the riddle is rooted in antiquity, and, frequently found in folklore from all periods, being common to both oral and written literature in most every culture. As, by thousands of years, they predate our age of big-screen television, DVD’s, and every form of modern sporting events imaginable—among many other forms of popular entertainment and physical or mental engagement—they were a much-appreciated form of intellectual stimulation and pastime.
Not unlike the parable, the riddle was a form that was by no means lost on either the people of the book, or their God. Among those well known in the secular arena, as well as to students of scripture are: 1) the dialogue between the Sphinx,“it goes on four legs in the morning, two by noon, and three in the night. What is it?” to which one named Oedipus correctly answered, “a man crawling in his infancy, walking in his prime, and leaning upon a staff in old age”; 2) “in the eater, there was food; in the strong, there was sweetness”, Samson in the Book of the Judges (14:12-20), before the Philistines, as he gambled for 30 sheets and for 30 changes of clothing. Samson would have won the gamble, had the dumbfounded Philistines not forced his wife to pressure him into revealing the resolution to her, whereupon she—to save her own skin and that of her family—informed them, “there is nothing sweeter than honey and no animal (known to those parts) stronger than a lion”.
The Egyptian Sphinx
Image via Wikipedia
As with the parable, so with the riddle: By normal standards, where ordinary usage might be concerned, God was never hesitant to take what the purist (or, traditional riddler) might term “indecent” liberties with his verbal craft. Just as with the parable, Jesus not infrequently buried or entombed His messages therein, thereby forcing His hearers to stretch and to think outside the box of tradition—as opposed to using them strictly to explain and clarify the lectures He gave, as we were so erroneously taught in the Sunday school of my youth—so likewise, God often buried unfathomable messages in stretched (shall we say), or, extended, simple metaphorical riddles (that were yet hopelessly complex, being based upon use of the familiar to forth tell the incomprehensible, for the day and cultures in which they were written), quite distinct from the usually short sayings propounded for fun and the excitement of intellectual stimulation throughout the ages. The end-times prophecies of Daniel 7, 8, 9, 11, Ezekiel 38 and 39, and Zechariah 14 are Old Testament examples of this sort.
The Master Riddler
This Book of the Revelation is a collection of riddles, all tied together in a fast-paced, picturesque narrative so as to paint a horrific portrait of, and to spell out God’s plan for the end-times—a comparatively short span that could, at this juncture, bring Armageddon to within easy reach of this generation. One might argue then, that the Holy One of Israel pushed the limits of riddle-making, inspiring an entire book, based squarely upon the use and exploitation of the riddle. He crafted it so as to warehouse and preserve His message of eschatological events (tailor-made for the enlightened but dubious and unbelieving, arrogant minds of this, the erudite, industrialized “terminal” generation). This compilation of riddles forms His study of how things will unfold, drawing life to a close, as we journey now at an accelerated pace toward the end of time as we know it. Such a thing had never, nor has it ever since, been done. Riddles occur frequently in the literature and writings of the ancients, however, there are no known great, secular works devoted exclusively to the riddle. The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ is therefore, being a storage and retrieval tool in the hands of Almighty God, a work most uncanny; utterly unique. Furthermore, like The Book in which it rests, this Book of the Revelation has no parallels, even today.
He who would do justice to an accurate handling, interpretation, discussion and, application of God’s riddle-based prophetic messages, must do so bearing firmly in mind the foregoing, in addition to the fact that any and all biblical prophecy must “come to pass”, or, it is not God-given (Deuteronomy 18:21-22; Jeremiah 28:9; Ezekiel 33:31-33). What this means is, all prophecy that is “God-breathed” must, and, will have firm basis in reality and historical fact—that, regardless of how long it takes to materialize. At some point, the student of prophecy can always expect to find historical parallels and events that confirm the prophet’s message. Unlike Thomas Watson, Charles Duell, MacDonald Douglas and other chief prophets and soothsayers of industry, it is marvelous how the Bible has never had to recant, nor has it ever to apologize for even one of its predictions—no matter how outlandish they appeared, prior to the year 1900, when none was even remotely “doable”. No one could expound them; none could explain them away then, and—given that fulfillment abounds like none could ever have imagined—certainly no Bible skeptic/critic can explain them away now!
We today are living in a time of unprecedented confirmation to biblical prophecy. The past rings its evidences as clear as a bell: there is no such authentication to be had within the bosoms of its chest of secrets. Hence, to properly appreciate and share in the experience of, or, to crack the riddles of biblical prophecy, any good, attentive student must look continuously to the narratives and records of modern history in prayerful hope of finding the requisite correspondence. He must bear in mind as well that the Bible is not a book of religion, as rather it is a History Book written from the point of view of God the Almighty, presenting previews of historical events centuries—millennia, actually—in advance of their actual occurrences (Isa. 41:4; 42:9; 46:10; 48:3-8; see also II Tim. 3:16). These historical previews—frequently framed in masterfully crafted riddles—are often laced with trace elements of information that is discernable only by virtue of the advent of all the various disciplines of the modern sciences. Might we not therefore, define Bible prophecy—as it relates to this Book of the Revelation and all other pertinent ‘concrete’ prophecy—as a historical narrative, woven into a verbal tapestry, well in advance of its actuality, stitched together at the seams of metaphors that form riddles? One might say moreover, that these riddles are (like the parables of Jesus) concise, condensed, miniature, time-bombs in word, planted and scattered throughout the Bible, sheltered within cocoons of silence for as long as 2500 years. They have, no less, been visible, right under the noses of every doubter, naysayer, skeptic and critic wayward humanity has ever been able to produce, all this time. No potential for their comprehension or interpretation, however, has ever existed, prior to these last days. As the historical record clearly shows, but for the prompting of the hand of their Author/Creator, ushering the rebel minds of men into an orbit where those ancient riddles, by these end-times pregnant to a bloat, could explode, releasing their treasure of secrets held tight throughout millennia and bearing mute testament to the intellectual power and foreknowledge of God, man would yet not understand. Now however, man’s own efforts, if not his every waking moment, squares perfectly with all of those secrets of the riddles, giving near palpable testimony to that same ancient intellectual power and foreknowledge! For this reason then, the student of Bible prophecy needs to adjust and focus his thinking so that history from the Bible’s perspective is viewed not merely as a collection of records on past people, places, and politics. Instead, the prophetic word that “comes to pass”, squaring with historical fact must be segmented into a minimum of perhaps three broad, riddle-based but interlaced categories including 1) general world history, as it surrounds Israel, 2) the physical sciences (archaeology and geology) and 3) natural sciences (physics: chemistry, biology, astronomy, etc.).
Thus, then, we may safely conclude that no student will ever satisfactorily evaluate any prophetic expression of God, who—beyond question—is without doubt The Master of Riddle, and, thereafter, assign value to it (no skeptic will ever detract value from it), where he is unable to first, grasp appreciatively the place of the metaphoric riddle in the building/construction of God’s prophetic history, and, thereupon secondly, to square this expression/history against the plumb line of actual history, in all of its varied denominations.
