Luke 4: 16 – 21: And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
When Jesus went into the synagogue, He was handed the scroll of Isaiah and read from Isaiah 61: 1 – 2: The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; …But in reading this passage of scripture, Jesus suspended the reading at the comma of the second verse, not reading about the day of vengeance. This is because Jesus’ first coming was the acceptable year of the LORD, but the day of vengeance would be at His second coming 2000 years in the future.
Fast-forwarding into the future, on January 24, 1965, the prophet of God was preaching a message called “Birth pains” and wanted to read John 16: 20 – 21: Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. When the prophet turned to what he thought was the scripture, it did not read correctly. Whilst confused, a Chaldean Catholic priest, Bishop John S. Stanley, Archbishop of the Metropolitan United States of America for the Chaldean Catholic Church, gave the prophet a Bible for him to read the correct text from and uttered reassuring words that happened to be of a prophetic nature, saying, “Just draw a breath. There’s a reason why it was done, and you know it. God will show you something to bring out of this, that’s wonderful.”
What had happened behind the pulpit on that day was scripture being fulfilled. The prophet had been given a new Scofield Bible from his wife at Christmas, but two of the pages had stuck together, so that when the prophet turned the page to read the selected verses of John 16, he was in fact reading the verse numbers of John 17. The prophet later explained this incident and the significance of it in the message “This day this scripture is fulfilled,” preached on February 19, 1965. As Jesus was handed the scroll of Isaiah to read about the acceptable year of the LORD, so the prophet was handed a Bible to read about the day of vengeance as the earth goes through its contractual birth pains at the end of the age to bring forth a new Eden.