Dave’s Monday Blast – December 19, 2016

As an apologetic resource, you cannot beat Christian Ministries International. I have been a Christ-Follower since childhood and can honestly say that I have never experienced a crisis of faith specific to the person of Jesus Christ. I have always believed that He was the long awaited Messiah and the Savior of humankind. In my youth, my belief was specific to the teachings of my parents and the church (kind of one and the same for me as my father was also my pastor). As I got older though I realized that the truth concerning Jesus was based on far more than simple childlike faith…consider the following from Christian Ministries International:

Advent Apologetics – Messianic Prophecies of Christmas:

1. In Genesis 3:15 God prophesied that the Messiah would be of the human race, from the seed of woman. Jesus fulfilled this prophecy in that He was the only person in history not conceived through the seed of man.
2. In Genesis 12 God promised Abraham, roughly 2,000 years before the birth of Jesus, that he would make His descendants into a great nation and that through Him all the peoples of the earth would be blessed. Jesus fulfilled this prophecy as the Jewish Messiah who would provide salvation for all people.
3. In 2 Samuel 7:12-16God told King David, roughly 1,000 years prior to the birth of Jesus, that His throne and kingdom would be established forever. Jesus came from the line of David (Matthew 1) and became the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who will reign forever (Revelation 11:15).
4. In Isaiah 7:14 God prophesied through Isaiah, roughly 700 years before the birth of Jesus, that the Messiah would be born of a virgin and would be called Immanuel, meaning God with us. Jesus was the fulfillment of this prophecy as God came in the flesh, born of a virgin.
5. In Micah 5:2, roughly 700 years prior to the birth of Jesus, God prophesied that the Messiah would be born in the town of Bethlehem. Jesus was born in Bethlehem in fulfillment of this prophecy.

There are 353 Biblical prophecies that find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. What are the odds that the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, born some 2,000 years ago was not the Messiah? A number of years ago, Peter W. Stoner and Robert C. Newman wrote a book entitled Science Speaks...it set out the odds of any one man in all of history fulfilling even only eight (8) of the 353 prophecies. The probability that Jesus of Nazareth could have fulfilled even eight of such prophecies would be only 1 in 10 to the 17th. That’s 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. “My Hope is built on nothing less than JESUS blood and righteousness”. No one else’s blood will do…because only Jesus was the Messiah. He is the object of my faith…but it is truly so much more than faith.