Prophecy Prelude

This short-lived life dictates one’s eternity. Surely what decisions we make in this very brief existence will dictate where we spend eternity. James 4:14 speaks of this life:

...For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

The Psalms record in 90:9-10:

9 For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.

10 The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

If you are a U.S. male—life expectancy is about 74 years—you will traverse this earth for 27,010 days, and then "fly away." There are 27,000 seconds in 450 minutes. At this writing, I personally am nearing 63 years of age. If I live to the age of 74, I will have 4,015 more days on this earth, or the amount of seconds in 67 minutes. Tick, tick, ticks the clock. It is ludicrous, but true: man will spend 65 years preparing for a few years of retirement, but not spend 15 minutes preparing for eternity.

Have you prepared for eternity? Are you born-again—born a second time—this time of the Spirit of God? What are you waiting for? Make the decision now and today will be the best day of your life, and as you seek Jesus Christ, every day hereafter will get better. Has anyone made you a better offer? Click onto the following link, "Further With Jesus," for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God. Do it now. We will wait for you here. NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Psalms 40:6-7:

6 Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.

7 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,

GOD SAID, Hebrews 10:5-7:

5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:

6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.

7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.

MAN SAID: There is not one shred of real proof that Jesus Christ ever existed, and more blasphemous men say that He was a fatherless child and a sorcerer, or equally as bad or worse, that Jesus Christ was just “a great prophet.”

Now THE RECORD. Welcome to GodSaidManSaid. We’re so glad to have your company. May the face of the Lord shine upon you with Light and Truth. This is the GodSaidManSaid feature article #473. These features prove the inerrancy of Holy Scripture and establish that this world has a Creator, and that this Creator is the God of the Bible. These features are archived on this site in text and streaming audio. Every Thursday evening, God willing, they grow by one.

God’s prophecies predicting the future are not just to warn and inform the faithful, but they are also God-given proofs of the supernatural, inerrant nature of Holy Writ. Isaiah 41:21-23:

21 Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob.

22 Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen: let them show the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come.

23 Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together.

When the laws of probability are attached to prophecy, it illustrates the utter supremacy of the God of the Bible. When the calculations of probability are applied, and the results state one chance in five billion that a man could have made the Biblical prophecy being considered and see it come to pass, then there can only be one other conclusion. The other conclusion is that the chances are 4,999,999,999 out of 5,000,000,000 that the prophecy was made by God. But there’s more. One, we have the prophecy. Two, we have its probability. And three, we also have the record of history, and so it is with Jesus Christ, the King of Glory.

The virgin birth, the ministry, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ are thoroughly documented by God’s Old Testament prophets, hundreds and thousands of years in advance. Acts 3:13-18:

13 The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.

14 But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you;

15 And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.

16 And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.

17 And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.

18 But those things, which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.

There are Jesus Christ-deniers that refuse to believe that he ever existed. They promote the foolish concept of the "Christ-myth." On this website, under the category "The Historicity of Jesus Christ," there are multiple features which debunk the absurdity of the Christ-deniers. The following statement was made by F.F. Bruce Rylands, professor of Biblical criticism and exegesis at the University of Manchester:

Some writers may toy with the fancy of a "Christ-myth," but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar. It is not historians who propagate the "Christ-myth" theories.  [End of quote]

The following paragraph is from Lee Strobel’s book, The Case for Christ. Strobel quotes famed barrister Sir Lionel Luckhoo concerning the legitimacy of the history of Jesus Christ, and even something as dramatic and gospel-central as the resurrection. It reads:

That was also the assessment of Sir Lionel Luckhoo, the brilliant and savvy attorney whose astounding 245 consecutive murder acquittals earned him a place in The Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s most successful lawyer. Knighted twice by Queen Elizabeth, this former justice and diplomat subjected the historical facts about the Resurrection to his own rigorous analysis for several years before declaring, "I say unequivocally that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt." [End of quote]

Jesus Christ is the Lord of Glory.

Approximately 700 years before Christ, the prophet Isaiah prophesied of a messenger that would go before Jesus to prepare His way. Isaiah 40:3-5:

3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

Approximately 400 years before Christ, Malachi prophesied in 3:1:

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.

The messenger the prophets speak of is John the Baptist.

Matthew 3:1-3:

1 In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,

2 And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

3 For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

Mark 1:1-4:

1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;

2 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.

3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

4 John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

The angel of God spoke to the future father of John the Baptist in Luke 1:13-17:

13 But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.

14 And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth.

15 For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.

16 And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God.

17 And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

Keep in mind as you read the prophecy and its marvelous, intricate fulfillment that the gainsayers claim the prophecies of the Bible are vague and convoluted, and can be made to fit.

Over 500 years before Christ came to the earth, the prophecy went forth in Zechariah 9:9:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

Christ fulfilled Zechariah’s prophecy. Luke 19:35-37:

35 And they brought him to Jesus: and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon.

36 And as he went, they spread their clothes in the way.

37 And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen;

Approximately 500 years before Christ, the prophet of God, Daniel of the lions’ den, prophesied the exact year of the Messiah in chapter 9:24-26:

24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.

26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

Again, the following quote is from The Case for Christ:

"When you interpret Daniel 9:24-26, it foretells that the Messiah would appear a certain length of time after King Artaxerxes I issued a decree for the Jewish people to go from Persia to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem," [Pastor Louis] Lapides replied.

He leaned forward to deliver the clincher: "That puts the anticipated appearance of the Messiah at the exact moment in history when Jesus showed up," he said. "Certainly that’s nothing he could have prearranged." [End of quote]

Nearly 1,000 years before Christ, King David penned the prophecy of God that foretold of the crucifixion. Psalms 22:14:

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

All of the statements in verse 14 were certainly fulfilled on the Cross. The following statement by Alexander Metherell, MD, PhD, is reported in The Case for Christ:

Metherel answered, "First of all, his arms would have been immediately stretched, probably about six inches in length, and both shoulders would have become dislocated—you can determine this with simple mathematical equations.

"This fulfilled the Old Testament prophecy in Psalm 22, which foretold the Crucifixion hundreds of years before it took place and says, ’My bones are out of joint.’" [End of quote]

Nearly 1,000 years before Christ, Psalms 34:20 prophesied the following:

He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken.

The fulfillment of this prophecy was on Golgotha’s hill. John 19:33-37:

33 But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs:

34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.

35 And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.

36 For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.

37 And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.

Approximately 500 years before Christ, the prophet Amos writes in chapter 8, verses 9 and 10:

9 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:

10 And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.

The fulfillment is recorded in Matthew 27:45:

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

The following excerpt is from Grant Jeffrey’s book, Jesus: The Great Debate:

Thallus and Phlegon, two pagan historians who lived in the first century, both reported an unusual darkness that blotted out the sun for three hours during the Passover in the year A.D. 32, the year of Jesus’ crucifixion. These reports confirm that the prophecy of Amos and Matthew’s historical records are accurate.  [End of quote]

More from Jesus: The Great Debate:

Another remarkable historical reference to this supernatural darkness is found in the manuscript of another pagan historical writer from Lydia named Phlegon, a man who was granted freedom by the Emperor Adrian. In approximately A.D. 138, Phlegon noted the astonishing fact that this "great and extraordinary eclipse of the sun distinguished among all that had happened" occurred "in the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad," which was the nineteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar as emperor of Rome. In his Chronicle (A.D. 300), the Christian historian Eusebius quoted from Phlegon’s sixteen-volume Collection of Olympiads and Chronicles as follows:

All which things agree with what happened at the time of our Saviour’s passion. And so writes Phlegon, an excellent compiler of the Olympiads in his thirteenth book, saying: ’In the fourth year of the two hundred and second olympiad there was a great and extraordinary eclipse of the sun, distinguished among all that had happened before. At the sixth hour the day was turned into dark night, so that the stars in the heavens were seen, and there was an earthquake in Bithynia which overthrew many houses in the city of Nice.’ So writes the above named author.

Furthermore, Phlegon indicated that the darkness that covered the earth began at the sixth hour—precisely the same hour recorded in Matthew 27:45. [End of quote]

Statistician Dr. Peter Stoner calculated the odds of a man making just 48 of the Biblical prophecies of the coming of Jesus Christ and having them coming to pass. The odds of a man making these predictions and having them come to pass are one in one followed by 144 zeroes—a number so huge that language can’t label it. The chance of any man making just eight of the prophecies and having them come to pass is one in a hundred million billion. If a mortal has one chance in a hundred million billion of successfully making these predictions, then the other side of this equation would simply say that all the numbers in a hundred million billion with the exception of one, are the chances these prophecies were made by a supernatural God.

Surely Jesus Christ came "in the volume of the book."

GOD SAID, Psalms 40:6-7:

6 Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.

7 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,

GOD SAID, Hebrews 10:5-7:

5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:

6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.

7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.

MAN SAID: There is not one shred of real proof that Jesus Christ ever existed, and more blasphemous men say that he was a fatherless child and a sorcerer, or equally as bad or worse, that Jesus Christ was just a “great prophet.”

Now you have THE RECORD.




References:

Authorized King James Version

Jeffrey, G.R.., Jesus: The Great Debate, Frontier Research Publications, 1999, pp167- 168,239

Strobel, L., The Case for Christ, Zondervan, 1998, pp184-185,198,255

• Go Further With Christ
• Email To a Friend
• Comments or Questions?