Prophecies In The Life Of Christ
Our next lessons will deal with the person and work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This subject is called Christology, that is, the study of
Christ.
This lesson will deal primarily with the prophecies that had to do
with the earthly life of Christ: prophecies concerning Christ's
origin and prophecies concerning His human ministry because long
before the Lord Jesus Christ was born it was certainly prophesied that
He would come. After all, the final and sure test of the
infallibility of the word of God and God's authority is prophecy, for
He who knows the end from the beginning has spoken and has already
committed it to writing.
First of all, we deal with the prophecies in the earthly life of
Christ. Long before Jesus Christ was born it was prophesied that He
would come. As a matter of fact, the first prophecy occurred more
than 3,000 years before His birth. Fulfilled prophecy is the main
proof that the Bible is the written word of God and the Bible makes
more than 800 prophecies, all of which are removed far enough in time
from their fulfillment that there could be no chance of accident. Of
these 800 prophecies, 300 of them have already been fulfilled
literally and there are 500 that remain to be fulfilled in the future.
The mathematical probability of these prophecies coming to pass is
less than one out of ten to the 895th power. So, when we speak about
the Bible being "Holy" scripture, we are speaking with mathematical
certainty of a scientific fact. There are no books on science written
which are that accurate. There is no textbook on science that can
match the word of God.
The Bible, for example, makes forty-eight prophecies about the Lord
Jesus Christ's first coming to Israel as their Messiah. The chances
of forty-eight prophecies coming to pass in the life of one man when
the prophecies are written 400 to 2,000 years before he was born are
about one out of ten to the 157th power; there are not that many
electrons in the universe. You figure out the number of electrons in
the universe by figuring out the number in the atoms and then figure
out the number of atoms per square inch and multiply it by 150 billion
square light years; you will find it does not take up 157 zeros. So,
when we speak of the Holy Bible we are on a level high above any
scientific achievement in America today, and there are no scientists
at Houston Space Center or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
California, who could possibly keep up with the word of God. The
mathematical geniuses who can figure out the square root of a certain
number running into eight or nine digits are "small pickings." After
all, the Bible makes forty-eight prophecies about one man over 400
years before he is born. All of them come true on the button and
there are no mathematical geniuses, dead or alive; there are no
college curriculums, existent or nonexistent; and there are no
textbooks on mathematics that have been written or that are going to
be written that would take such chances; and if they did, they could
not produce "the goods." So, when we talk about the prophecies of
Christ we are on a scientific level far above the most brilliant
mathematician that ever lived, and silly little modern computers are
extremely non-scientific compared with these mathematical facts.
Jesus did not come to earth unannounced. He came in "the fullness of
time," and a study of the scripture fulfillment dealing with minute
details encourages our faith in God, who not only draws up the master
plan but also the intricate details of the blueprint ahead of time.
We see that the details are fulfilled exactly as prophesied and this
reinforces the faith of the believer in the inspiration of scripture
and proves to him that the Bible is not just an assortment of books by
various authors but is one book with one Author, God. It also proves
that the Bible is not a "drop of truth in an ocean of truth" or a
"bucket of truth in an ocean of truth." It is the whole ocean
collapsed into your pocket. There are no so-called "sacred
scriptures" in any religion that dare to undertake what the Holy Bible
undertakes, and the surest proof you have that the other so-called
sacred scriptures are irreverent tomfoolery is the fact that none of
them even tries the phenomena we find recorded in the Bible.
The Bible prophesies forty-eight details of a man's life before he is
born, brings them through on the money, and then hazards 500 more
prophecies which are yet in the future. The Shastas, Vedas, Tripitaka
and Puranas do not dare hazard such guesses. The Koran, of course,
compared with the Bible in this respect looks a lot like a mole hill
would look alongside Mount Everest. I don't mean to be unkind in what
I am saying. What I mean to be is mathematically exact from the
twentieth century scientific point of view. When I say what I say
about the Koran I am speaking from the standpoint of fact; I am not
speaking from the standpoint of some religious "faith." After all, our
religion is not based just on faith; our religion is based on
historical facts. There are no computers made now or that will be
made which would hazard the chances that are hazarded by the King
James Bible.
For example, the King James text has 5OO prophecies in it that deal
with the second coming of Christ that have not taken place yet. Do
you know what the chances are of a man "batting 500" out of 500? That
is, do you know what the chances are of a Book "batting 1,000" through
a period of 300 years? Do you know what those chances are? Well,
those are the chances the Bible takes and never apologizes to anybody.
And considering the fact that there are now five and one half miles of
obsolete books on "science" where the "scientific facts" have changed
and are no longer relevent, what would "modern science" be alongside
the Bible but a baby waiting for a handout. To assume that all these
things just accidentally happen is an accident too great even for the
imagination of an evolutionist. You will find evolutionists who don't
believe in the word of God and yet they have more mathematical
scientific proof that the Bible is the word of God than they do in
Darwin's puddle to paradise theory in the Child's Garden of Verses.
Our faith is undergirded by the witness of fulfilled prophecy and it
helps us to stand firm and unmovable because everything that God ever
said would come to pass came to pass, and what He has said that has
not yet come to pass will come to pass as surely as the things He said
before came to pass which He said would come to pass. For example,
here are some prophecies concerning Christ's origin and Christ's life.
The chance of these prophecies coming out and being fulfilled in the
life of one man are one out of ten to the 97th power. One out of ten
with ninety-seven zeros after it! Did you ever write that down on a
sheet of paper and see what it looks like? Do you know what that is
the equivalent of? That is the equivalent of taking one grain of sand
on a beach in Samoa and wrapping it in Scotch tape and putting that
grain of sand back on some other beach and burying it three feet deep
and then telling a man to go out and find that grain of sand. He
would have to look for that grain of sand on every beach in the world
and find it. Do you know what your chances would be of doing that?
One out of ten times itself 97 times. And those are the chances the
Bible takes which no religious book in the world would dare take. And
Jean Dixon and Edgar Cayce and Kahlil Gibran alongside such odds are
simply too much, brother. I mean, who would take such nonsense
seriously who knew the Bible?
Christ would come out of Israel (Num. 24:17-19).
Christ would be descended from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (Gen. 12:3;
17:19, Num. 24:17).
Christ would be born of the family of David (Gen. 49 and Isa. 11).
Christ would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2).
Christ would be born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14).
The time of His coming was specified (Dan. 9:25).
Christ's coming was announced by a forerunner (Isa. 4:3-5).
The Messiah would be God manifest in the flesh (Isa. 9:6).
He would spend His childhood in Egypt (Hosea 11:1).
He would suffer and make an atonement for sin (Isa. 53).
He would enter Jerusalem on a colt, the foal of an ass (Zech. 9:9).
He would be given gall and vinegar in His agony (Ps. 69:21).
Not a bone would be broken (Ps. 34:20).
Men would cast lots for His garments (Ps. 22:18).
He would utter certain words in His dying agony, which were quoted
before He was born (Ps. 22:1).
He would rise from the dead (Ps. 16:10).
Christ would be betrayed by a friend (Ps. 41:9).
He would be sold for thirty pieces of silver (Zech. 11:12).
He would be accused by false witnesses (Ps. 35:11).
He would be spat upon and smitten (Isa. 50:6).
He would be hated without a cause (Ps. 35:19).
He would be scorned and mocked (Ps. 22:7,8).
Now, explain it! I haven't cited one reference that wasn't written
more than 400 years before Jesus Christ was born, and there isn't any
linguist or etymologist in the world who doesn't know everything
listed above was written before Christ was born. Not even the radical
extremist or the Graf-Wellhausen school that followed Kuenen and
Dewette back in the nineteenth century believe that any of the Old
Testament was written later than the time of John the Baptist because
every Orthodox Jew had all the thirty-nine books of your King James
Bible in print and was reading them in the synagogues 200 years before
Jesus showed up.
Now, let's talk mathematically, shall we? Explain what I just gave.
All right, if you can't explain it, would you imitate it, please?
Surely, you are as smart as Isaiah and David and Hosea and Zachariah,
surely! I mean, with the benefit of modern, inductive scientific
methods and the vast researches into empirical methods and means
whereby the existential, positivistic baloney can come out, surely you
can duplicate what I have just said!
I have just listed twenty-two details of a man's life that were given
before he was born that come through on the money. Now it is your
turn!
Requirement Number One: You have to get the statements of seven
different writers a thousand years apart.
Requirement Number Two: They have to write the events without any
known record to get their material from.
Requirement Number Three: They have to be unaware of each other's
writings when they write.
Requirement Number Four: The details have to be fulfilled far enough
in the future so that there is no chance that the author could have
used hindsight instead of foresight.
When you do that, let us know, won't you? A fellow said to me, "You
just believe the Bible because you don't know any better." I gave him
the classic answer. I said, "That's right, son, I don't know any
better. When you show me something better, I'll believe it." After
all, the phenomena I have just listed can't be found in the Harvard
five foot shelf of classics. They can't be found in the Encyclopedia
Britannica or in the Encyclopedia Americana. It doesn't show up in
there anywhere. Now tell me something, you stupid doctors and lawyers
(and I use the words with "charity" the same way you use the word of
God!). How do you account for this Book that we go by having
mathematical, scientific phenomena in it that you can't produce with
twenty centuries of science behind you? Rather interesting, isn't it?
Numbers 24:17 says, "...There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a
Sceptre shall rise out of Israel..."--fulfilled Matthew 1:1-17.
Genesis 49:10 says, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah..."--
fulfilled Luke 1:31-33.
Micah 5:2 says, "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah...out of thee shall he
come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel"--fulfilled Luke
2:47.
Isaiah 7:14 says, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
and shall call his name Immanuel"--fulfilled Matthew 1:18.
Daniel 9:24,26 says, "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and
upon thy holy city....And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah
be cut off." He was crucified exactly at that time, and if you put the
Gregorian system and the Capernican system and the Julian system and
the Roman calendar together and work out your lunar years and your
solar years until you are red, white and blue in the face you will
find out that His triumphal entry into Jerusalem was dated within
eight hours, more than 400 years before His birth.
In Isaiah 9:6 Jesus is called "The mighty God." He is said to be deity
in John 1:14.
Hosea 11:1 says that He would spend part of His childhood in Egypt.
This was fulfilled in Matthew 2.
It said in the Old Testament (Isa. 53) that He would suffer as an
atonement. It is fulfilled in Matthew 26 and 27.
We read in Zechariah 9:9 that he will come into Jerusalem on "the foal
of an ass." It is fulfilled in detail in Matthew 21:2-5.
We are told in the Old Testament in Psalm 69:21 that at His death He
would be given gall and vinegar on the cross. This is fulfilled in
Matthew 27:34.
We are told in the Old Testament (Exod. 12:46, Ps. 34:20) that at
His death not a bone of Him would be broken. This is fulfilled in
John 19:33. This is very unusual because the legs of the crucified
prisoners were broken. How did they miss Christ's legs? And since
the Jews' method of capital punishment was stoning, why would an Old
Testament man say, "He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is
broken" (Ps. 34:20)? What are the chances of a man not having his
bones broken in capital punishment under a Jewish nation if he was a
Jew when it would be Jews who would carry out punishment on him? And
capital punishment for a Jew was stoning. Do you know what those
chances are? Why don't you figure them out? Figure the number of
people who had capital punishment in Israel in a year and multiply it
by the thousand years that their nation was active as a nation under
their own government and how many they stoned and what the chances are
of one man not being stoned who is accused of committing blasphemy
when the law says that the blasphemer is to be stoned to death. You
say, "The Roman government." Nice coincidence, isn't it? You say,
"Well, the Roman method of killing was crucifixion, not stoning." Real
handy, don't you think? I wonder why Greece wasn't in power when the
Lord came? That would have blown the scripture. I wonder why Persia
or Syria wasn't in power. That would have blown the scripture. Kind
of a "coinky-dinky," don't you think?
In the Old Testament (Ps. 22:18) it says, "They part my garments
among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." This is fulfilled in
Matthew 27:35.
We are told in Psalm 22:1 that Christ would cry, "My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?" This prophecy was fulfilled in Mark 15:34.
We are told in Psalm 16:10, "For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell;
neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." And Peter
affirms that this is literally true (Acts 1:3) and is confirmed by 500
eyewitnesses. You say, "Well, they just made that up." They did?
Five hundred of them did, did they? Five hundred firsthand
eyewitnesses? You want to try it in court? Do you know what the laws
of jurisprudence state in America? They state that if eyewitnesses
testify to something they have seen and commit what they have seen to
writing and it isn't proved conclusively at the time of this committal
that they are wrong, then that which they have committed to writing,
once it has been testified to, cannot be annulled or overthrown or
rejected unless conclusive evidence to prove they were liars is
produced. And that is why every "scientist" in the world is sweating
blood trying to find one bone of Jesus Christ. Because the only
conclusive evidence that He didn't rise from the dead would be to find
the corpus delicti. So, they have been working on it for twenty
centuries. Just like they have been trying to get to the moon to try
to find signs of life to prove Darwin's puddle to paradise theory.
Twenty-five billion dollars to disprove Genesis 1 because they are
worried about the new birth that was necessary if Genesis 1, 2 and 3
are right. Some people never consider the motive for a college
education, do they? They just take it for granted.
Now, what have we said here? I have actually gone through a very
short thing. There are dozens of prophecies throughout the Old
Testament that speak about His ministry. There are also prophecies in
the Old Testament which speak about the men He will witness to--types
of the Antichrist. There are prophecies in the Old Testament that
speak not only about the soldiers casting lots for His garments but
also about His cry from the cross, "I thirst." There are not only
prophecies on these things but we read: "...They pierced my hands and
my feet," Psalm 22:16.
When He comes again they shall "look upon me whom they have pierced,"
Zechariah 12:10.
We read about the virgin birth, "A woman shall compass a man,"
Jeremiah 31:22. Whereas a woman has no seed, yet Christ is said to be
the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15).
We are told in the Old Testament that as a sacrifice He will be called
a Lamb, and in Exodus 12 we are told that the house of Israel is to
get a lamb which is first called "the Lamb" (vs. 4) and is then
called "your Lamb" (vs. 5), showing the required sacrifice is a Lamb.
But only one Lamb will do because it is called "the Lamb," and unless
you appropriate it for yourself ("your Lamb") His atonement is
ineffectual. How do you explain that "a" (vs. 3), "the" (vs. 4),
and "your" (vs. 5)?
How do you explain the prophecies in Genesis 22 about an only son (vs.
2), the son of His father's old age, going up a hill with wood on his
back (vs. 6)--indicating the mode of Christ's capital punishment?
How do you explain in Exodus 12:7 the Jew being told to put blood on
each side of the door for the dying thief that was lost and the blood
over the door for Jesus Christ in the middle?
You explain to me how forty-eight prophecies could come to pass on one
man written 400 to 2,000 years before that man was born. You explain
that to me logically, scientifically and mathematically and give me a
demonstration like those empirical, logical positivists at Vienna
wanted and like Einstein wanted--when he changed the definition of
"meaning"--and I'll throw my Bible in the trash can. But, until you
can offer me twentieth century empirical, scientific proof, I'm going
by scientific fact and you are going by deluded pagan imagination. We
born again believers are not going by anyone's imagination or by
anyone's "religious experience." We were going by computerized
empiricism before scientists knew what a computer was.
There are forty-eight prophecies that come to pass in the life of one
man, Jesus Christ. And if that weren't enough, here is Joseph back in
the Old Testament between Genesis 37 and Genesis 50 whose life matches
Jesus Christ's earthly life in 152 different particulars. A shepherd,
hated of his brethren, envied by his brethren, betrayed by his
brethren, sold by his brethren, sold to Gentiles by his brethren, sold
for silver by his brethren, in prison, connected with new wine and
bread while in prison, and with one prisoner hung and one prisoner
released. Explain it! If you had all the prophecies of Nostradamus
and Mother Shipton and Jean Dixon and Edgar Cayce and laid them
alongside eight chapters in Genesis, they couldn't win, place or show.
Let me hear you explain it! Here is a book, Genesis, written by a man
who lived 1500 years before Christ was born, but he gives 152 details
of Christ's life before He shows up. Who would like to step up and
try that? Any of you educated folks with twenty years of college
think you're smart? Know a little Greek and Hebrew, do you? You know
what supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism is, do you sonny? You've
been working the Piel, the Pual, the Hiphil and the Hithpael, have
you? You have, huh? You trying to impress somebody, talking about
the Apocrypha and the pseudepigrapha and the antilegomena and the
circumflex accent on the ultima; is that it? You think because you
know about lepidoptera and brontosaurus and cenozoic and stegosaurus
and triceratops and listen to The World Tomorrow you've got some
brains, do you? All right, there is one that will try out your medula
oblongata, sonny. That will test your metal, brother! Try that one!
Explain how any Book could give 152 details of a man's life before he
shows up, and then when he shows up they are all fulfilled to the
letter with 500 more to go.
Now, if I have spoken rather harshly to you in this lesson, I have
done so with a purpose in mind because every Bible believer is
harassed and dogged day and night by educated dingbats who think
twenty years of education makes them intelligent. These people, of
course, are the curse of Christendom, especially the educated
Christians. We have many so-called "Christians" in America who think
they are much smarter than God or smarter than the Holy Spirit and who
think they are smart enough to correct Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
I only mention these things to show you that the King James Bible has
500 prophecies laid on the line that you can put your money on and no
scientist or physicist can attempt one tenth that number.
Now, before you tell us all about your degree, sonny, produce the
Koran and show us this phenomenon in the Koran before you ask for an
ecumenical movement toward Hinduism and Mohammadanism. Pick up the
Sutras and the Vedas and show us this phenomenon. Will you show us
that? Do you think truth can be separated from fact? We are dealing
with facts! Don't give me this ethereal guru stuff about
transcendental meditation that evaporates you into a cloud of whatever
you think you should be. Deal with the facts, kiddies. Those are the
facts. They are documented. They are attested to by witnesses and
have survived 3,000 years of Satanic, irrational criticism. Before
you ask to take our Bible and lay it alongside what some of you have
read, would you show us the same phenomenon in the junk you call your
"sacred scriptures of the East"? Is there any man reading this who
will mail me a copy of the Analects of Confucius and mark for me 800
prophecies that will come to pass on the money, with 300 of them
already fulfilled? Send me a copy. I would like to look it over.
Would you send me anything that Joseph Smith wrote (or "Moroni") when
he diddled with the golden plates--would you send me something that he
wrote that wasn't taken from the Bible that has this phenomenon in it?
I mean, never mind the places Smith copied out of the King James
Bible--we've got them all marked anyway. We keep track of it, you
know, to see how things go.
The Bible is the word of God. The Bible constitutes the Holy
Scriptures which can be proved scientifically by mathematical
phenomena. The Lord said to the unbeliever in Isaiah that if you want
to know who I am ask me concerning things to come. I am the first, I
am the last, declaring the end from the beginning. I am God and there
is none else. I know no other God. Beside me there is no God and
Saviour, I am the first and the last and before me there was no God,
neither shall there be after me. God has committed Himself to man in
print so that no mathematician could even dispute His word and retain
a sound mind. You have to be intellectually dishonest to classify the
Bible with other so-called "scripture" because the mathematical
phenomena in it is not found in any other book in the world, including
the textbooks on mathematics.
I repeat: The chances of forty-eight prophecies coming to pass,
fulfilled on one man and written 400 to 1,000 years before he was
born, are one out of ten to the 157th power; and my dear
mathematician, there are not that many electrons in the universe if
you count the universe to be 50 billion square light-years in all four
directions. Something to think about, isn't it, if you're an unsaved
man! And something to thank God for if you are a saved man! This
completes our first study on Christology--the Biblical passages that
deal with the prophecies on the life of Jesus Christ.