HIStory of Prophecy
Rejoice this morning. Amen
So I shared with you before that Jack and I love movies. We love sitting and watching movies. That's one of our past times that we really like to do for us there when you get to the Christmas season, there's the must-sees the must watch for you water your Christmas season must watch movies. I heard elf what else? White Christmas It's a Wonderful Life I've still never seen that I know don't Stone me. I grew up as a Jehovah Witness. All right, calm down.
Jack had never seen white Christmas until this year. I had to watch White Christmas Kelly and loves that he loved his dancing and singing what else any other Miracle on 34th Street the Grinch Stole Christmas Christmas Story Prancer
Thumbs up or thumbs down on that Christmas Chronicles that's on Netflix our elf and Home Alone. I feel like you haven't the Christmas spirit isn't there until you've got home alone and out for us. We we love watching those to crack up through the whole thing. Even though we wash them every year. They never get old write those classic set bring us back that bring that nostalgic feeling. They don't seem to get old no matter how many times you watch it. The only problem is that I not going to say any names, but I'm married to a movie quoter. You know what I'm talking about one of those people that because they know every word in the movie. They quote the entire movie like a half a second before it happens. Pet peeve number 4521 for me.
It doesn't really bother me. But what does has anybody ever ruined a movie for you by telling you the end of the movie before you watched it and my brother did it for me before he wants $0.06? How's it come on at movies not even worth watching if you know the end it ruins the whole movie. Whether they've seen it before or they read it or they saw it on Facebook or something that they know the end of the movie and they ruin it for you. It just shows that we take pride in knowing things and having knowledge knowledge is power. You've heard it before people say that and some of you might not be movie people. You might say like a movies not like any of that but you may know you may not know I came to know Christ in an old Baptist Church. That was KJV only God forbid you use anything but the KJV and it was piano and organ only him only Christian rock with the devil that's in the church I grew up in and so we did a lot of hymns and one of my favorite things to watch not this is me. I've just became a Christian and so much of what you take for granted maybe or just as commonplace was brand new for me and it used to crack me up to look around and watch to see who would close their Hymnal first. Like I know the rest of this him. You know what I'm talking about because you maybe have done it yourself. Like I know the rest of this and who can be the first one or the true Rebel that never turns to the him you say to him number and they put it away. Like I know this whole thing by heart and if you watch them, they don't know it by heart. They know the first and the last person they don't know any of the ones in between but they just Mumble their way through it. We liked it either fake or let everybody know that we know stuff we have information and we like to know information before other people. It's a Human Condition. It's why people constantly Pastor couples that are married that don't have kids. Are you pregnant yet when you guys and have a baby are you pregnant yet Jack and I heard it for three years after we got married everybody. Wanted to know when we were going to have a kid and if we were pregnant as I want to be the first one to know and it's like will tell you when we want you to know calm down. But we always want to know things except when it's advice. That seems to be the only time we don't want to hear things. Maybe you had the pleasure of talking to someone that was looking for advice and you know exactly where their poor decisions are going to take them. It's like you look at in here like, yep. I know exactly where this is going and you try to tell them if you continue this course of action, this is where it's going to lead. And this is how it's going to play out how you tell them the whole thing is if you could see the future and then they go and make the stupid decisions and it plays out exactly like you said it was and then they seemed surprised that that happened that way as a pastor. I've never experienced anything like that.
heavy sarcasm Sometimes it's a passion you feel like a minor Prophet like this is exactly what's going to happen and they come back and tell you I don't know how this happened, but I told you that's exactly what was going to happen. But could you imagine knowing specific things about the future that weren't going to happen some for hundreds of years, but that you could see into the future and no future events long before they happened. Did the Jewish people did they did know exactly what was going to happen hundreds of years before it happened. The problem is they didn't pay attention to it much like the person who's asking for advice. They just want to hear what they want to hear. They're not actually listening to what you're saying to them. The Jewish people did not listen when the prophets told them. This is what's going to happen. This is how the events are going to play out. And then they were surprised and didn't even notice when things did happen exactly how God said they were going to happen.
Dr. Peter Stoner is an astrophysicist from Cornell University Research. He wanted to know what are the odds what is the probability that someone could fulfill the prophecies written about Jesus. What is the likelihood that one person could fulfill the prophecies written about Christ? So what he did was in order to make his point as he began to Crunch the numbers he took out all of the prophecies that had anything that that required a supernatural event. So like the Virgin birth that requires a supernatural event saying that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem doesn't really require a supernatural hand. We know that God's hand was in it, but it's not required Supernatural to be born in Bethlehem. Some people were born in Bethlehem without God's hand specifically the making that happen. But so what he did was he just took The prophecies about where he was born and things like that that didn't require a supernatural Factor. And he came to the conclusion that 48 prophecies to be fulfilled by one person. So how many of you know the likelihood that you're going to win the Powerball or the lottery like one in what? Anybody watch my video this week? Nobody remembers 292 million 1 and 292 million the likelihood that one person could fulfill just ate prophecies about Jesus was and see if it's going to work for me.
In 10 to the 17th power if you now if you're not a math whiz and you don't know what that means. That means it's one followed by 18 zeros. So a number that looks like this. Does anybody know how to say that number?
So you got millions to go from Millions to?
Billions, okay. then trillions and then someone knows it quadrillion. So we're looking at one in 100 quadrillion. Okay, some of us will never see that number on anything except maybe a debt statement.
100 quadrillion, you'll never see that I'm not even in our country. We're not even that good at making debt. So to give you an idea of 100 quadrillion because you're saying like I know exactly what that number is. I can I can wrap my mind around a hundred quadrillion put it this way, Pennsylvania is I see if it's going to work for me 46055 square feet. So if you were to take quarters just regular old quarters. If you were to take a hundred quadrillion quarters, they would cover the state of Pennsylvania entirely. Guess how many inches?
It would cover the state of Pennsylvania. in quarters
How many inches deep?
The answer is 12. feet deep That's a hundred quadrillion. Quarters would cover the state of Pennsylvania 12ft deep wrap your mind around that for a second. So the likelihood that Jesus that the likelihood that anyone could fulfill just eight of the prophecies written about Jesus is the same as if you took all of those quarters and you march 1/4 And then put it in the mix and then covered the entire state of Pennsylvania 12ft deep with quarters and just randomly went through and pick up 1/4 that it would be that Mark quarter. That's the likelihood were talking about for 8 prophecies. So hopefully you're beginning to wrap your mind around that it should blow your mind. If you filled my backyard up in 12 foot of quarters. You never find that Mark Porter. It would be years before you ever found that marked quarter and we're talking the entire state of Pennsylvania 12ft deep with quarters. one person fulfilling 8 prophecies
But there weren't just eight prophecies written about Jesus. There were 29 Messianic prophecies fulfilled just on the day that Jesus dies. So wrap your mind around that so we talked about 8 prophecies.
Take the number up just a little bit and 48 prophecies.
229 Messianic prophecies field just the day that he dies 48 prophecies to fulfill just just that number would be one in ten not to the 17th power but to the 157th power now, I don't know if they have a name for that number. I'm sure some number cruncher somewhere does but it's indiscernible one followed by 158 zeros. That is a likelihood that someone could fulfill just 48 prophecies, but there weren't just 48 prophecies written about Jesus. There were over 300 prophecies written about Jesus his life where he be born how he would die and things events that would happen during his life. Do you understand the concept it's not possible that one person could fulfill 8 prophecies not possible. You're not going to find that quarter buried in 12 ft 2/4 and entire state of TX for not talking about 8, we're talking about over 300 prophecies written about Jesus.
So today we're going to take a look as today is the Advent week of waiting preparation in Prophecy want to take a look at a few of the prophecies that were written about Jesus and how unlikely so now that you understand how unlikely it was that anyone could fulfill a number of these and that Jesus alone fulfills 29 of these prophecies just on the date that he dies when it take a look at it feel what they are. But first before we do that, I don't know if any of you get into like the daily horoscope stuff. I hope not. Hope you don't a lot of people would say that horoscope our sorcery and I don't know that I agree that there's sorcery because if I'm being honest if they were sorcery, I feel like they'd get some stuff, right?
Because you see Sorcerers in the Old Testament and they can actually do stuff that you know, there's actually power their demonic power. The horoscopes don't have any power. They're not getting anything. Correct that what they do is they just write incredibly General statements about your life. General statement that would fit anybody's day and what we do a lot of times as we read these horoscopes and then we self fulfill the horoscope because we read it. So your horoscope might say something stupid like you'll try something new today and you'll be surprised at how much you enjoy it. And so you read this in the morning and then you go to lunch to the same place you go to lunch all the time and you think you know what I've never tried that one thing. I've always wanted to try that and so you try it and you like it and you think oh my goodness the horoscope was right? No, it wasn't you fulfilled it yourself because you read the horoscope and it was so General that if it's anybody's day. Well, that's not what we're talkin about. When we talk about the Prophecies of Christ. We're not talking about General things that could fit just about anybody's life. Again. The science is right there one in 10 to the 17th power just for eight of these prophecies to be fulfilled in one person's life because some of these prophecies were written hundreds of years before Jesus walk the earth. So the fact that they could all come together in one person's life is an impossibility. To look at it just a few of the prophecies that were written about Jesus. We're going to go first to Micah chapter 5 verse 2. If you don't know who Mike is, I'll explain it to you in just a moment by Micah chapter 5 verse 2. It says
see the progress that for me back there. This remotes not working very well. Micah chapter 5 verse 2 says but you o Bethlehem ephrathah who are too little to be among the clans of Judah from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel. Who's coming forth is from of old from ancient days. So what is this song us that Jesus is going to be born in Bethlehem. Now Micah was an 8th Century BC Prophet. So that means that Micah lived seven to eight hundred years before Christ was born and he is giving these prophecies to the people that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, cuz that's who he's talking about here. The Book of Micah talks about the judgment and restoration of God against Samaria and Jerusalem, so the understand a little bit about the Book of Micah now what some people might argue is, well Joseph and Mary must have read this passage and so they move to Bethlehem just so that Jesus could be born there to kind of self to fill the prophecy but that can't be the case when we look at Luke Chapter 2 verses 1 to 7. It says in those days of decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Curtis was governor of Syria and all went to be registered each to his own town and Joseph also went up From Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house house and lineage of David to be registered with Mary his betrothed who was with child and while they were there the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a Manger because there was no place for them in the end. So what we see here is Joseph and Mary being forced to go to Bethlehem. If they were trying to self fulfill this prophecy. They would have already been there because from what we can see from the scriptures Mary gives birth very shortly after arriving in Bethlehem. They don't even have time to find a place for them to stay and so she's forced to give birth in a manger and basically an in a barn type area so they would not have waited until the last second to travel to Bethlehem to self fulfill this prophecy. Any of you women that have been pregnant can probably wrap your mind around what it would be like to travel even five miles on a camel or donkey when your 9 months pregnant so you can be assured that if there was no way Joseph was going to get her there except by threat of death by Caesar mad at you either go there or you going to die. That's the only reason A 9-month pregnant woman would travel the distance that she does. So obviously they're not trying to self fulfill here. Do you know of Isaiah Isaiah was a prophet who lived in Jerusalem in the 8th Century as well? So again, he also lived about seven to eight hundred years before Jesus was born the book of Isaiah is one of the four major prophetic books. So if you're reading the Old Testament, you're looking up prophetic books. That's Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel and Daniel are the four major prophetic books and Isaiah writes a lot of Prophecy in his book, but we're going to look in Isaiah chapter 7 verse 14
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign behold the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall and shall call his name Emmanuel.
For to us a child is born to us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name Shall be Called wonderful counselor, Mighty God Everlasting father Prince of Peace of the increase of his government of Peace. There will be no end on the throne of David in over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with Justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The Zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
This must have seemed ludicrous for someone at this time. Again, you're talkin seven eight hundred years into the future. They gave his pops. He's I don't know when he's going to be fulfilled. It doesn't say on this date at this time is when Jesus will be born but hearing these prophecies how specific they are about Jesus life and things that would happen in his life his name. He'll be named Emmanuel. Call him Emmanuel God is with us yet. We see in Matthew chapter 1 verses 19 to 23. Her husband Joseph being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame resolved to divorce her quietly. But is he considered these things behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream sang Joseph son of David do not fear to take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins and all this took place. If so what the Lord has spoken by the prophet Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel. Which means god with us. So Isaiah Wright seven to eight hundred years before Christ is born that there will be a child born of a virgin and will be called Emmanuel and we know the story to be exactly true that it plays out exactly like that in the life of Jesus. We see another prophecy in Zachariah and this one predicts the events that happened on Palm Sunday many of you aware of Palm Sunday. Is that Sunday? Right before Easter? We sing the song Hosanna almost every year for Palm Sunday, but we seeing Zachariah 9 chapter 9 verse 9. It says Rejoice greatly o Daughter of Zion shout aloud o daughter of Jerusalem behold. Your king is coming to you righteousness and having salvation. Is he humble and mounted on a donkey on a Colt the foal of a donkey. Now those of you that know the story this sounds very familiar. But remember we're talkin Zakaria. This is someone who didn't live during Jesus time. This is someone who lived a long before Jesus walk the earth giving this prophecy about what would happen if we looking John chapter 12 verses 12 to 15 and it says the next day The large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him crying out Hosanna blessed. Is he who comes in the name of the Lord even the king of Israel and Jesus found a donkey and sat on it just it is as it is written. So you're not Daughter of Zion behold. Your king is coming sitting on a donkey's Colt So prophesied and fulfilled exactly as it was prophesied about Jesus. We look in the Book of Psalms and you'll see prophecies written about Jesus death. Remember I told you just on the day that Jesus dies he fulfills 29 Messianic prophecies. What this is one of that those 29 and Psalm chapter 22 verse 18. It says they divided my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots and we see that fulfilled in Matthew chapter 27 verse 35. It says it when they had crucified him. They divided his garments among them by casting lots. It shouldn't surprise you to read that. The Fulfillment is the exact as the prophecy that these things were predicted. I mean again, imagine being hundreds of years before Christ is born in someone telling you well sometime in the future. This guy's going to die. It's going to happen this way. These are the things that they're going to do on the day of his death and they're going to cast lots at for his clothing and you're being that specific we're not talking horoscope. Level predictions were talking God level prophecies here that are happening in the life of Jesus just a few examples. We only went through a few right there and there are over three hundred that are written that you can study on your own if this is like right up your alley. This is the kind of stuff. I love to talk about. I love researching these kind of things and seeing the numbers and wrapping my mind around the improbability that any one person could fulfill these there's a lot out there to discover and explore I encourage you to do that.
These prophecies that were talking about today are not generalities about Jesus life, but they're very specific details about the way that his life would be live events that would occur during his life and they are too specific and they are too many to deny. I don't know how anybody looks at this information and denies that he is God because it's impossible to do what we're talking about at the second number. I gave you the 48 prophecies that one intended 257 power. That number is so large. I don't know if they could quantify how many quarters it would easily cover the United States the entirety of the United States and well over twelve feet high. That's the number were talking about and 1/4 finding that 1/4 in the midst of all of that. That's that's 48 and there's over 300. We must do something with this information with the certainty that God is who he says he is. He has proven it Beyond Comprehension. We have a pretty Advanced society and we can't even comprehend the number that would be there to fulfill 300 prophecies so we can choose to believe which I'm not even sure how much faith is required when you look at the facts of Jesus life and the things like this. It's not a huge leap of faith to say, okay, you're not. Okay. I get it. The number is not comprehendible. You must have been God in order to make that happen. We have to reject the truth. We have to look at the facts and reject the obvious truth about Jesus doesn't the only two options we have there isn't well, I'm not really sure still you have to be sure after you look at some of the facts about Jesus life. I would encourage you today. If you've never made a decision in that direction that you would strongly consider the truth. So what we're talking about today that no man could have done with Jesus did and yet he did and he accomplished it all he didn't miss a single thing. He hit every single prophecy. That would be about him obviously God is involved.
amen
Show me live an interesting time we have access. Get access to more information than any previous generation has ever had by far and yet it seems like the generations growing up today and no less and less than a generation because we're not forced to use our memory for one. But because we have access to the information. We don't store it in our brains because we can just Google anything we want. There was a time in history where owning a book meant you were somebody not just anybody could afford a book and if you could read that book when you were a dignified somebody cuz some people would just own a book and wait for people to come by that could read it to them how they couldn't even read it, but just owning it meant that they had status.
The generations today have access to an endless supply of information. There is no limit to the amount of information that you have access to those of you that have your phone with you on this trip. You could Google any question. I asked you to come up with an answer in a second and to me that's that's incredible. We live in an interesting time. I can Google just yesterday. I was asking Alexa things that I didn't know anything about and boom. She answers me right there and tells me exactly what I want to know and then formations very easy to get a hold of I don't want to go to the library to do any of that. I can just get the information on the internet the problem with that is identifying reputable sources, if you ever Googled anything or searched for an answer, you know the trouble of finding correct information. As you can see here. You can't believe most of the quote you read on the internet says Thomas Jefferson.
Hopefully you see there's a problem with this. Not not only is that not Thomas Jefferson, but neither he nor Abraham Lincoln were talking about the internet so you can't believe everything you read on the internet. Hopefully, you know that So we have this weird dichotomy in our society today where people believe without question things that have no right to be believed. We read it in an article where you read it on someone's blog where they give you some fact and we just run with it and we think that will they said it so I can just continue to quote this Fact one of the ones for me. I just found this out last year. I don't know how many of you have heard that there's like a that there were two days missing when they do the they can figure out time and and in the Bible and you know, there's two days where God stops the Sun for 2 days and mathematically they can go back and can't do that. That's a complete farce. I didn't know that but someone kept repeating it and repeat it in we in the church talked about it and it became like this this common knowledge thing for some people and it's totally false, but we just keep repeating things cuz we heard them and we want to believe them. Whereas we reject the truth of things that deserve to be respected and have authority in our lives and we questioned those while accepting others without question. The Bible is one such thing that used to hold High reverence in high Authority in people's lives even people that didn't believe in in Christ still respected the word of God. They still respected some of the things that were in that some of the facts and some of the the the Proverbs and things like that there was still respect for it. But if you were to go around today and asked if I would ask all of you if you believe the Bible to be inerrant without error We probably wouldn't come to an agreement with everybody that the Bible is 100% true that it is completely inerrant and without error. The problem with the Prophecies of Jesus for some people is they don't believe the source we can talk about scripture and we can talk about prophecies all day long, but they don't trust the source that they're coming from and so they can't believe them because they don't believe the Bible. They don't see the irrefutable evidence of the prophecies because you're basing your argument on a presupposed idea that does not exist that they trust the word of God to be an authoritative book or an authoritative word in their life that what the Bible says is true. It used to be that the word of God was an authority in your life whether you were a Christian or not, but that's not true today. So sometimes when we're attempting to witness or to talk about Jesus, we're coming from a place from two completely different places were coming from a place where the Bible is authoritative that if it says it then it's true and we have to respect it and follow it where as others are saying, hold on. I know you're quoting scriptures at me, but I don't believe that the Bible is true. So I don't believe any of the information that you're giving me. We need to deal with the reality that the word of God is not respected in our circles today, even in some of our own lives some of us question the Bible and its reliability. We're also going to talk to us for just a few minutes about what we know about the Bible. We're not going to cover everything. We don't have time to cover even a portion of what we know about the Bible and why we can trust the word of God and the truth that is in it, but if you want to be effective in evangelism in today's society, you must know some of this you must be able to answer people when they make statements like the Bible is full of contradictions. I don't know if you ever heard that I've heard that multiple times people say that they can't tell you where they are or what they are, but they'll tell you the Bible is full of contradictions. Another one. The Bible has been proven wrong multiple times by archaeology and by history. It's been proven wrong multiple times another one. I've heard multiple times. Third one what reading today is different from what was originally written? It's nothing like what was originally written the people that originally wrote the books in the Bible that what we have today is not even close to it. Now while all these statements are false. Do you know how to answer them? Do you know how to engage in a conversation with someone when they tell you the Bible is full of contradictions and they say what he was a contradiction. Do you know how to answer those people, you know how to find the answers when you're faced with that conversation because if you are sharing Christ with people you will come across those statements it will happen if you're trying to be the love of Jesus to people
What we do know about the Bible one of the things that will cover today in just a few minutes is the quality of the manuscripts that we have from the Bible. So again, this might be right up your alley and this might be time for you to take a little nap. But we're going to cover some information here. There's there's some truth. So hopefully let these sink in going to try not to talk too fast as we go through this but we know the quality of the manuscripts. There's a number of Old Testament manuscripts, but the quantity of New Testament manuscripts is unparalleled in ancient literature when you compare the Bible to anything else that was ever written on it blows everything else out of the water. So to put it in perspective many of you of red Homer You know of Homer's writings. There are less than two thousand manuscripts of homers that are out there that we have access to that. We found Play-Doh there are seven yet. If you quote Play-Doh people think that you're quoting absolute truth Aristotle 49 manuscript that we have access to Caesar wrote some stuff. 10 manuscripts that we have access to now the New Testament that we have access to manuscript wise I don't think it's responding to me anymore.
Do you know how many manuscripts we have of the New Testament? It's not less than 2000. Tell you that it's not 7 we have access and availability of 6,000 plus manuscripts. That's just in Greek. We have over 24,000 in other languages of manuscripts of the New Testament. Now that blows everything else out of the water when people will you learn about Plato and Aristotle and Homer in school, they treat what they're reading as fact while we have accessed over two thousand manuscripts. So we know what we're reading is true and yet the Bible over 6,000 in just Greek 24,000 in other languages, but quantity isn't everything. We also have to consider quality as far as the manuscripts are concerned because of the great reverence that the Jewish scribes held toward the scriptures. They exercised extreme care in making new copies of the Hebrew Bible. Is unheard of in today's society or culture the entire Scrabble process with specified in such meticulous detail to minimize the possibility of even the slightest error. Did you know when they would transcribe the Old Testament if you were a priest or Monk and you were copying one manuscript to another cuz they faded they wore out when you got to the name Yahweh or what we would call Jehovah today. It's really just four letters yhvh called the tetragrammaton when they got to those four letters, they would stop they would put their pain down. They would go and ceremonially wash themselves. That's like a a full bath. They would come back in fresh clothes. They would grab a new and they would write the word Yahweh. That's how much respect they had for his name. And then if you read the Old Testament, you'll read some verses it says his name like five times in one verse every time stop. Wash yourself comeback get a new pen write the word Yahweh. That's the level of care that they had when copying the Old Testament. Also, the number of letters words and lines were counted counted and the middle letters of the pentateuch in the Old Testament were determined so they counted the number of letters in the Old Testament and they knew exactly what the middle letter of the New Testament or the Old Testament was and exactly what word was to be in the middle and as they counted if I single mistake was found they didn't try to fix it. They didn't try to repair they completely destroyed that entire manuscript and they started fresh. Imagine being the priest that sermon we wash themselves for thousand times and then your manager if I won are in it and they threw it all away. That's the level of care that they put into copying the Bible and the word of God. As a result of the extreme care that they gave the quality of the Hebrew manuscript of the Hebrew Bible surpasses all that of any other manuscript of any other book ever written and then some of you know in 1947, they discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls and they provided a significant check on the reliability of the manuscripts that we had cuz we had access to a lot of manuscripts and then they found the Dead Sea Scrolls and they predate if you know, we're just going to skip over this if you don't know some of this cuz it's too much to go into if you know of that masoretic Old Testament. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found to be at least a thousand years older than the masoretic Old Testament, but in spite of that time span of a thousand years Very very few variants were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls in the masoretic Old Testament. And most of those can actually be are actually because of spelling and style or not because there's an actual error but because of different spelling and styles. This is just a little bit of information that you can find in 000003 seconds in Google by Googling something. It doesn't take long to find information like this. You can find it very easily for your own personal study and read up on this stuff. If I were to ask you today how to get to Dubois Alliance Church. Does it matter if I'm starting in Brockway or luthersburg? Yeah, it should if not, I'm not taking direction from you. Why because you're starting in two different places. So I just sharing the gospel with people make sure that you're not starting from two different places. When you begin to share Christ with him one Pastor. I knew he was adamant. He was an older guy and he was you just tell him the Bible just you just tell him scripture and I'm trying to explain them. You can't do that. That doesn't work. You're quoting something. They don't trust and that they think is full of errors and that has no Authority in their lives. And so is you quote scriptures to them you might as well be reading something from the newspaper to them cuz they don't trust it. It's not reliable to them. You must deal first with the problem of starting in two different places get them to the place where they understand. Oh, wow. Okay, so the bible really is a trustworthy source of information. This really is a reliable place to get information. Okay. Now let's talk about the Prophecies of Jesus and look at how impossible this was that Jesus did this. The history of the prophecies about Jesus point to the certainty that God is both reliable and worthy of our trust again, the probability of Jesus fulfilling 8 prophecies is 1 and 10 to the 17th power 100 quadrillion. The probability of Jesus fulfilling 48 prophecies is 10 to the hundred fifty-seven power and there were over 300 prophecies written about Jesus. Now some people's argument. This was the argument that everybody had a because if you're a scientist if you're anybody with half a brain, you can look at a number like a hundred quadrillion and realize okay. This is impossible. This is not improbable. This is impossible that this would ever happen and so the only way they could explain it is to say well Obviously Somebody went in and wrote books of Isaiah and Daniel and Ezekiel and Micah after Jesus was born after he live. They just went back and filled in all the facts about Jesus life and made it look like they were prophetic writings about his life because there's no way absolutely zero way to explain how this could have happened aside from God stepping in and so that was the widely-held argument by many of the Skeptics that is until 1947 when they Unearthed the Dead Sea Scrolls which using their own science. They were able to predate the Dead Sea Scrolls back to the earliest. They could have been written was 70 years before Jesus was born So there's no way that they were filled in later and that completely ended all arguments that these prophecies were written after Jesus lived. So what do we do with this information?
Again, I don't know how much faith is even involved to believe that God is trustworthy and true and reliable but it seems to be just a logical reasoning to understand that he really is God but there's some stuff that logic not going to explain with God and that's where we need. Our faith is Faith is the hope of things not seen yet. The numbers are inconceivable. The numbers are impossible as we look at these that anyone first person could fulfill even a portion of them yet. Jesus fulfills them all. I know this is a lot of information today, but hopefully for some of you may be hopefully all of you this increases your worship as you realize man, there's some days word out hits me with the Enemy can speak lies and out into my mind when I'm reading the word of God and I begin to question. This is really reliable. Is this really a trustworthy thing that I'm reading. Hopefully this increases your worship helps you realize how awesome God is and that you can draw Stem with your day today, you can trust him with your finances with your marriage with your family with your children. Hopefully you can trust God in every area of your life. Hopefully you can trust the God who knew that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem before they're even was a bath. I am not only didn't know he'd be born there. But he knew would be named Bethlehem. And he knew what that last in the ninth inning that Caesar would call for a his decree did and everybody had to go back and though I can't imagine I don't know why it's the Angels knew everything. I don't know how much their knowledge was at this point. But can you imagine being with angels and being like Oh my gosh. He's not in Bethlehem. What's what's going to happen? And then he makes the decree in everybody's forced to go where their lineage comes from. Hopefully you can trust that God the god that sees tomorrow clearer than we see yesterday cuz he is God trust him today and worship him today. Amen. Sprite father got it. Thank you for the truth of your word God. I thank you that. You are Beyond logical reasoning beyond faith. You are the greatest guy. You are the God nothing else compares to you. All the false gods of this Earth couldn't hold a candle to you. Loaded the prophecies are just one of the many ways that we look at and are assured in our hearts. And in our mind that we serve the one true God and that we can rely on the word that you have given us to live our lives by it to stored in our hearts. Can I pray that you would go with us today that the history of the prophecies would increase our worship as we go into the season that as we read the truths of Jesus life as we read about his birth in this Christmas season that we would be reminded that hundreds and hundreds of years before it happened. You said it would happen exactly like that. Thank you Lord for the Assurance of our faith that we know that one day. We will be with you and spend eternity with you in heaven in Jesus name we pray. Amen.