I hold in my hand today a very old book. I know it doesn’t look old. In fact, according to the front page, it was first published in 1988 based on a copy write from 1976. But actually this is not a book at all. It is a collection of historical documents and letters that spanned 3,500 years.
The oldest documents were written 3500 years ago by Moses. They covered the story of creation, the birth of the Jewish nation, the deliverance of the Jews from slavery, and the laws given by God to his people. Next we have Joshua covering the conquest of the Promised Land. We have the historical records of the time when judges ruled Israel, written 3000 years ago. We also have the record of the reign of King Saul, King David and King Solomon. We have the records of the kingdom divided into Israel and Judah and their various Kings that ruled. We have the recorded messages of Isaiah the prophet. From 2500 years ago we have the written prophecies of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. We then have accounts and letters from those who experienced Jesus either in the flesh or at a supernatural level. The last such letter written over 1900 years ago. So what I am holding in my hand is one of the oldest manuscripts preserved through history. As far as truth, it is written by man inspired by the Holy Spirit. As far as prophetic accuracy, it is 100% accurate.
In 1946 three shepherds discovered a cave with urns hidden in crevices. Inside these urns were scrolls, written by hand somewhere between 21 and 22 hundred years earlier. Included was a well preserved of the entire prophecy of Isaiah—the oldest copy of an Old Testament book ever to be discovered along with hundreds of partial manuscripts. What made this find so remarkable was the fact that these manuscripts were 98% accurate to the very books of the Old Testament that we read today. Hand written manuscripts passed from generation to generation for almost 4000 years with almost perfect accuracy. No other collection of books can make this claim.
Hidden inside this assortment of letters and documents are close to 400 prophesies about the Messiah, "the anointed" one who would come to save and liberate his people. Jesus fulfilled every one of them. If He had been a madman as some claimed and lived his life with the intention of fulfilling scriptures to point to himself as the Messiah, He could not have done so.
A science professor at Westmont College wrote a book explaining how only one person could possibly have fulfilled the prophecies. He worked with 600 students to calculate the mathematical probability of just eight of the Old Testament prophecies being fulfilled in any one person up to the present time. The probability is one chance in 10 to the 17th power. That’s a one with 17 zeroes after it.
Hard to comprehend? Imagine the entire world being covered with white tiles. Every bit of dry land was covered with little white tiles, one-and-a-half inches square. The bottom of just one tile would be painted red. A person would be allowed to spend their entire life walking around all seven continents until he found the tile he wanted to choose.
He would be allowed to bend down and pick up only one tile. The odds of him picking up the red-bottomed tile are the same as one person fulfilling just eight of the Messianic prophecies. Here are eight that Jesus fulfilled that He could not control.
1) Genesis 49:10 “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants, until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one whom all nations will honor.” Jesus was born in the family of the Tribe of Judah.
2) Numbers 24:17 “I see him, but not here and now. I perceive him, but far in the distant future. A star will rise from Jacob; a scepter will emerge from Israel. It will crush the heads of Moab’s people, cracking the skulls of the people of Sheth.” Jesus was in the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
3) Jeremiah 23:5 “For the time is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will raise up a righteous descendant from King David’s line. He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right throughout the land.” Jesus was a descendant of King David.
4) Isaiah 7:13-14 “Then Isaiah said, “Listen well, you royal family of David! Isn’t it enough to exhaust human patience? Must you exhaust the patience of my God as well? All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).” Jesus was born of a virgin.
5) Micah 5:2 “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in the distant past, will come from you on my behalf.” Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
6) Malachi 3:1 “‘Look! I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger of the covenant, whom you look for so eagerly, is surely coming,’ says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.” Jesus went to the temple for the first time as a baby with his parents.
7) Jeremiah 31:15 “This is what the Lord says: ‘A cry is heard in Ramah—deep anguish and bitter weeping. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted—for her children are gone.’” Ramah is a reference to an area. Rachel is a reference to the descendants of Israel. This was a prophecy of the slaughtering of children ordered by King Herod to kill Jesus.
8) Hosea 11:1 “When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and I called my son out of Egypt.” Jesus was in Egypt with his parents until King Herod died.
Eight prophecies that Jesus fulfilled without being able to do so on his own. One red square covering the earth. But it gets better.
Stoner analyzed the probability of 48 prophecies being manifested in one person. He concluded that the probability is one chance in 10 to the 157th power. That’s a 1 with 157 zeroes behind it.
If scientists were to estimate the number of atoms in the universe they would end up with a very large number but not large enough. An atom is so small it takes about a million of them to equal the width of a human hair. It turns out that the odds of 48 Old Testament prophecies coming true in any one individual are the same as someone randomly finding a predetermined, specific atom out of all the atoms in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, billion universes the same size as our own. Jesus fulfilled all of the close to 400 prophecies written about him.
Lee Strobel was a Yale Law School graduate and a journalist for the Chicago Tribune. When he was a skeptic and an atheist, he undertook an investigation into the claims of so called "prophets." He set out to debunk the prophecies of Jeane Dixon, Nostradamus, and the Old Testament writers. Jeane Dixon was the easiest target. He found she was right about 6% of the time. She predicted World War III would start in 1954 and that Castro would be thrown out of Cuba in 1970. And Jeane Dixon predicted Jacqueline Kennedy would never remarry and the NEXT DAY she announced her engagement to Aristotle Onassis. When Lee studied Nostradamus, he discovered his writings from 1555 were mysterious and often mistranslated. He was intentionally vague and has been misquoted to make his writings fit modern events. It was easy for him to debunk the prophecies of Jeane Dixon and Nostradamus. But when he studied the predictions of the Old Testament, he was unable to refute the evidence. They aren’t vague or enigmatic: They are specific and clear. When Strobel studied them and compared them to the life of Jesus, he became convinced Jesus was who He claimed to be—the Son of God. He became a Christian.
I share these facts with you to empower you with knowledge as we go into the Christmas season. There is no greater time than this time of year to educate others on the reality of Jesus, who He is, and why he came. We should be bold with our witness because for the next few weeks we have common ground with the world.
Isaiah 53:1-6 is a remarkable prophecy. Listen to what the prophet wrote. “Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.”
Is there any doubt that this prophecy written almost 1000 years before his birth is a direct reference to Jesus? The part of this prophecy that I want to dwell on today is Isaiah 53:2. “My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him.”
From this prophecy we learn that Jesus grew up in the Lord’s presence. When Jesus was 12 He went with Mary and Joseph to Jerusalem, where they managed to lose him. When they found him after a frantic search, his reply to their search was “But why did you need to search?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49) Then we are told that He returned home with them and “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” (Luke 2:52)
We also learn that the world was very dry spiritually. In the Gospel of Mark we read of an incident which reflects that dryness. Mark 3:1-5 “Jesus went into the synagogue again and noticed a man with a deformed hand. Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus’ enemies watched him closely. If he healed the man’s hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath.
Jesus said to the man with the deformed hand, “Come and stand in front of everyone.” Then he turned to his critics and asked, “Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?” But they wouldn’t answer him.
He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts.”
Have you ever tried to plant a garden in hard soil? You have to really struggle to get a shovel or a hoe to break the ground. Sometimes even a tiller will just bounce along on top of the ground. This was the condition of man’s heart toward God. God could not break through that toughness. It was in these conditions of hardness and rejection that Jesus existed. These conditions in which he thrived.
I have a stump in my back yard. Not a big one. I cut a small tree down with a pair of snips. But a green sprig keeps growing back no matter how many times I cut it. Jesus is like that green sprig of hope, growing on a dead stump, in hard ground, refusing to go away.
Let’s read Philippians 2:6-8. “Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Imagine for a moment you are the son of a mighty king. You live in the palace with servants at your feet. All your needs are met. You are warm and comfortable. Your word carries the same weight as your father’s word. No one would dare refuse you anything.
But within that kingdom are people living outside the palace. They are destitute with no hope. They are hungry, cold, and frightened. You desire to lead them into a better life but you realize they would only fear the son of the king. You know the first thing necessary is for them to come to know you and then trust you. So you leave the palace dressed as a pauper and take residence among them so you would be accepted.
There would be nothing beautiful or majestic about you any longer. Nothing attractive. You would look like all the other paupers.
This is the message of Christmas. Jesus willingly stepping down from heaven to become a man. Willingly placing himself at the mercies of earthly parents to feed and clothe him. Willingly setting aside his Godly attributes to become flesh with needs and desires so He could show us a better way. We have the opportunity this time of year to share this Good News. Let’s not let it slip away.
