Be Prepared...to Give an AnswerParaugs

 BE PREPARED... TO GIVE AN ANSWER

DAY FIVE 

To me, the most compelling proof of the Bible’s veracity is in all of its prophecies, foretold hundreds, sometimes even thousands of years before many of them came to fruition exactly as they had been prophesied by those whom God used for this very purpose. (Note:  Some prophecies, like the return of our Lord, are still yet to be fulfilled.)       

There are some seventy-five Messianic prophesies (prophesies of the coming Messiah) in the Old Testament on which most theologians agree.  

In his book Science Speaks, Peter Stoner took just eight of these prophesies and calculated the odds of all of them being fulfilled.  The eight he used were:  

1.  The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.  

2.  The Messiah will be preceded by a messenger.  

3.  The Messiah will come to Jerusalem riding a colt.  

4.  The Messiah will be betrayed by a friend.  

5.  The Messiah will be betrayed for thirty silver pieces.  

6.  The Messiah’s betrayer will try to return the thirty pieces of silver, but they will be refused.  The betrayer will then throw them on the floor of the temple.  

7.  The Messiah will not speak in his own defense.  

8.  The Messiah’s hands and feet would be pierced.

Remember, all of these biblical prophecies were written no later than 400 BC, and yet all of them, according to the New Testament, were fulfilled.       

According to Stoner and his students, the odds that all eight would be fulfilled by any man who has lived between the writing of the prophecies (no later than 400 BC) and today was calculated to be:

1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000.     

Stoner depicted an incredible visual of those odds:  “Suppose that we take 100,000,000,000,000,000 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas.  They will cover all of the state two feet deep.  Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state.  Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one.  What chance would he have of getting the right one?  Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote using their own wisdom.”     

Remember, this is considering only eight of the prophecies.  Stoner even took the study a step further, running another calculation of the odds of fulfilling forty additional prophecies, which by the way have also come to fruition.       

The result of his calculation is beyond mind-boggling.  The odds of all forty-eight prophecies being fulfilled are: 

1 in... 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.      

I don’t even know how to say this number.  But in essence, the odds are basically a ZERO PERCENT chance that all forty-eight prophecies would be fulfilled.  And yet, they have been!      

What are the odds that these odds will light a fire in you?  What are the odds you will learn about them and share them with others?