prophecy

There is so much interesting material to discuss as relates to prophecy and evangelism that I am now certain that even two prophecy-related evangelism tools will not be enough—but I will try and keep a little focus. My last post, Prophesy! Who Will Save You?, gave a big picture look at the biblical prophecies fulfilled through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Now it has been previously studied and published by Peter Stoner in Science Speaks using sound mathematic probability technique that even a small subset of fulfilled biblical prophecy is highly unlikely to have occurred in any one person by chance. So let me list this subset:

There was only 1 chance in 100,000,000,000,000,000 (1 in 10¹⁷) that fulfillment of these biblical prophecies happened by random chance. So the odds are highly in favor of these fulfilled prophecies not being by chance and thus leaving little other explanation than being the orchestrated and deliberate plan of an omnipotent being to save sinners. Just how important is the fact of fulfilled prophecies to the Christian faith? Consider that Jesus and the disciples spoke of fulfilled prophecies. Fulfilled prophecy was one of the main ways the disciples appealed to Christ as Messiah. The continued proclamation of prophetic fulfillment by the apostles and New Testament writers is made all the more credible through the examples of martyrdom, the gospel spread from one man to all nations, and the witness of transformed lives. There are several hundred references to the coming Messiah in the Old Testament which was completed in 450 B.C. As if appealing to the sheer unlikelihood of a person of history fulfilling so much prophecy, Isaiah prophesies well in advance of the vicarious work of the Suffering Servant, “Who hath believed our report?” which could also be stated “Who could believe what I am about to tell you?” Here is an excerpt from Christianity is Jewish by Edith Schaeffer that illustrates how I believe all mankind should respond when their minds have been opened to the truths of the gospel as spoken through prophecy. As Edith Schaeffer dialogs with a Jewish family in New York in 1947 she states

“I had been invited for a second evening of conversation with the Austrian Jewish dentist and his daughter, this time with my Bible, to answer some questions. With a Bible open on my lap, engrossed in answering questions, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a stream of university-age fellows passing the arched doorway. ‘My son’s fraternity meeting is here tonight,’ explained the man’s daughter. Soon the son came to the arched opening into the hall, and leaned against a post. He was trying to ask some catch questions concerning the Bible, which I carefully answered, and two other fellows were there to see the results. After a time I said, ‘Now I’ve been answering questions, I’d like to ask you one, if you don’t mind.’”

“‘Sure, go ahead.’”

“’’I’m going to read you a passage from one of your Jewish prophets, Isaiah, who lived seven hundred years before Jesus was born. Remember now, this was written seven hundred years before the birth of Christ.’”

“’Then I read:’ ‘He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was there any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief:…He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:3-12)

“’Who was Isaiah referring to?’ The student gave a little snort, an impatient scornful kind of laugh, “Huh, that’s easy; that is a description of Jesus Christ.”

“In the moment of electric silence which followed this outburst I said with amazement, ‘Do you realize what you have just said? Don’t forget I was fair to you in prefacing what I read with telling you it was written seven hundred years before Christ was born.’”

“All three boys sat down as if someone had hit them with a violent blow, this son of the household with his head buried in his hands. Suddenly he looked up at me and said accusingly, ’Tell me then why the Jews don’t accept this Jesus Christ as the Messiah?’”

“My reply came as gently as I could make it. ‘You see, the early Christians all were Jews, because that is exactly what did happen: some Jews who read their Torah carefully and believed and waited for the Messiah, did recognize and accept him as the one who fulfilled the prophecies. You see Christianity is Jewish.’”

If you invest time, effort, and prayer to God in making a decision about the reliability and authenticity of the Old Testament translations and the historical reality of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection, then you also should suffer a ‘violent blow’ as you realize that all which was prophesied concerning this Suffering Servant Christ in the Old Testament has indeed been fulfilled in this same Jesus. Oswald Chambers states that “The reason some of us are such poor examples of Christianity is that we have failed to recognize that Christ is almighty. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment or surrender to Jesus Christ.” May the “violent blow” of fulfilled prophecy be used by the Holy Spirit to help us fully surrender to Christ as Almighty Lord and Savior and abandon our lives to the gospel. In addition to the “improbable” prophecies tool, I have also included a listing of instances where Jesus and the disciples make specific reference to Old Testament writings and prophecies noted as fulfilled in Christ.