The Bible is filled with prophecies. For a prophecy to be fulfilled is a mathematically correct truth. Since the God of this universe is absolute truth, He chose the fulfillment of prophecies to prove to man his existence. Following are fulfilled prophecies that prove conclusively the existence of that eternal, all powerful God.
Ron
One of the ways God reveals Himself is by prophecies being made and fulfilled.
One third of the Bible is made up of prophecies.
In the Old Testament, there are over 350 prophecies which Jesus fulfilled through his birth, life, death and resurrection.
These include:
· He would be born in Bethlehem, Micah 5:2;
· He would be born of a virgin, Isaiah 7:14;
· He would be a descendant of David, Isaiah 9:7;
· He would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, Zechariah 11:12;
· He would be mocked, Psalm 22:7,8;
· He would be crucified, John 3:14;
· He would be pierced, Psalms 22:16;
· He would die with the wicked, yet be buried with the rich, Isaiah 53:9.
For one person, by random chance, to fulfill just 8 prophecies is considered a statistical impossibility.
Josh and Sean McDowell, in their book Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 2017, quote Professor Peter W. Stoner, Chairman of the Departments of Mathematics and Astronomy at Pasadena City College, who stated:
“We find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is one chance in ten to the seventeenth power – 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000.”
The brilliance of prophecies is two-fold:
– prophecies had to be not clear enough so Satan could not figure them out and try stop them, as Herod tried when he killed the babies in Bethlehem;
– yet prophecies had to be clear enough, so that after Jesus rose from the dead, they would confirm that He was, indeed, the Promised Messiah.
After His resurrection, Jesus cited to prophecies as he walked with two disciples on the road to Emmaus:
“And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” Luke 24:27.
Like a wheat field, looking at it from one angle its seems completely random, but turn the corner and look at it from another angle and you see the rows line up.
Jesus said in Matthew 11:25:
“I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes.”
Believing in prophecies requires an element of faith, as “without faith it is impossible to please God.” Hebrews 11:6.
Some people say, if God exists, why does He use prophecies? Why doesn’t He just reveal Himself beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Well, if He did, it would not only remove your doubts, it would remove your free will! His omnipotence would be overwhelming and your response would be involuntarily!
If He revealed His Presence, in all of His irresistible love, terrifying judgement, unfathomable intelligence, eternal glory, omnipotent power, brighter than a trillion trillion suns – your response, if you didn’t melt, would be like the Apostle John in the Book of Revelation “I fell at His feet as dead.”
It would be an involuntary response!
But God created us not for involuntary responses, but voluntary ones, because for love to be love it must be voluntary!
God loves everything He created, but we humans are unique in that He has given us a free will with which we can voluntarily choose to love Him back.
But there is one more thing – God is just. And He cannot help it. He is just, which means He has to judge every sin, because if He does not judge a sin, by default, His silence would be giving consent to the sin. It is called the Rule of Tacit Admission.
In a wedding ceremony, the pastor tells the congregation, if you are silent when you hear these wedding vows, you are giving your consent. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”
If there are sins and God is silent and not judging the sins, His silence would be giving consent to the sins. And if God gives consent to one sin one time He denies His just nature, He denies Himself. And 2 Timothy 2:13 declares “He cannot deny Himself.”
In mathematical equations, there are constants and variables. In the equation of redemption, the constant is God is just – was, is, and forever will be just. The variable is who takes the judgement, you or a substitute.
Jesus is our substitute. He took the judgement we deserve upon Himself.
So, the Gospel is this, God is just, in that He judges every sin; but God is love, in that He provided the Lamb to take the judgement for the sin.
The Lamb is God’s way to love you without having to judge you! It is His plan. He came up with it. “The Lamb slain from foundations of the world!” Revelation 13:8.
He can love you for all eternity and you can love Him back without having to worry about being judged by Him because all the judgment you deserve went on Christ, and you are approaching Him through Christ.
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way the truth and the life … No one comes to the Father except through Me.'” John 14:5-6.
Thus, God used prophesies as a way to reveal Himself.
True Texan Tales 