FORETOLD LONG AGO

“Bethlehem Ephrathah,… out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be ruler in Israel.”  (Micah 5:2)

Many details of Jesus’ birth, life, and death were prophesied hundreds of years before they were fulfilled. That this could be accounted for by coincidence is all but impossible. In his book Science Speaks, Peter Stoner applies the modern science of probability to just eight prophesies (one of which is today’s text). He says, “…the chance that any man might have… fulfilled all eight prophesies is one in 10 to the 17^th. That would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000.” (That’s one hundred quadrillion.) Stoner suggests that “we take 10 to the 17^th silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state 2 feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly… Blindfold a man and tell him he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up that one marked silver dollar. What chance would he have of getting the right one?” Stoner concludes, “Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing those eight prophesies and having them all come true in one man,… providing they wrote them in their own wisdom."

Christ’s coming was the exact fulfilment of many prophesies… So this Christmas, let’s thank God for sending His Son into the world to die and rise again… The Savior came into this world just as the prophets foretold long ago.

-- D.J.D. in the Upper Room Daily Devotional

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