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Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

Prophecies of Church

1 of the most amazing facts in human history concerns the man who wrote his own life story before he was born.

The experience has been carefully investigated, it's documented and actually did occur.

I'll be back in a moment with the amazing facts about this autobiography and how it was written.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz and the amazing facts broadcast.

You know the most stupendous claim that's ever been advanced by any person was that put forth by a young carpenter in an obscure village in the hills of Galilee some 1900 years ago.

His foster father was the village carpenter.

This young man worked unnoticed in the carpenter shop of his foster father in the little town of Nazareth until he was 30 years of age.

When he reached his 30th birthday, he stepped out from the family circle, out from the carpenter shop and from the quiet hills of Nazareth, and boldly proclaimed to the world that he was the Savior of mankind, the long-expected Messiah, the Son of God.

However today, millions of people the world over are trusting in that carpenter as their only Savior.

As Christians, we risk everything on Jesus.

We are depending upon Him to forgive us our sins and to give us an eternal home in heaven.

Now friends, can Jesus really do all this for us?

How is it that people like us who have never seen Jesus in the flesh come to the place that we absolutely are sure that He is the true and only Savior?

The answer to this question will be found in the 18th chapter of the book of Acts on the 28th verse.

Here Paul is speaking of that eloquent man by the name of Apollos who was mighty in the Scriptures.

It says, for he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ.

Now notice something interesting here, that he used the Bible to prove who Jesus was, and that he was the Son of God.

I might add that the Scriptures here referred to are the Old Testament Scriptures because at that time, of course, the New Testament had not even been written.

Well let me tell you that the words of Jesus, the miracles of Christ, and the life of our Lord all testify to His divinity.

Did you know, in fact, friends, that Jesus wrote His own autobiography hundreds of years before He was born?

I want us to consider that the Old Testament actually predicted this.

You may never have heard of it before, of a man's life story being written centuries before the man himself was born, but when this man actually did appear, every item was fulfilled of the very letter as predicted centuries before.

This is what we are going to set forth in the message today.

I want to show you how Jesus actually directed the writing of the story of his own life long before he was born.

Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you, searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." Now did you notice that the very Spirit of Jesus inspired the holy prophets of old so that they wrote things about the sufferings of Christ that would take place after he would be born into the world?

Actually then, the Spirit of Jesus was there to write His own life story, in a sense, through the inspiration of the prophets before Jesus came into this world as a baby.

This means then that Jesus was in existence long before He became incarnate in the flesh as the babe in Bethlehem.

Now let's consider that the Old Testament actually predicted the coming of Jesus 500 years before he was born.

In the writings of the major and minor prophets, we'll find over 300 predictions concerning the life, work, and death of the Messiah.

1 writer has estimated that according to the Law of Compound Probability, there wasn't even 1 chance in 84 with 100 ciphers after it.

Now I can't tell you how much that is, I can't even read it, but it's 84 with 100 zeros after it.

There was not 1 chance in that many that all of these prophecies could ever be fulfilled in the life of 1 man.

And yet, they were all met and completely fulfilled in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

Oh, I wish we had time to study all of the prophecies today, but we'll just have to confine ourselves to a few.

Think for a moment about the birthplace of Jesus.

Now there's a reason why he was born in Bethlehem of Judea.

Over 700 years earlier, Micah had taken his quill in hand and had written These words found in Micah 5, 2, But thou Bethlehem Ephrathah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

Now tell me, how could the Prophet know that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem?

There were thousands of other places on the earth where he might have appeared among men.

This old world is 25, 000 miles in circumference, and yet Micah pinpointed that little Hamlet, Bethlehem, as the birthplace of Christ.

You could ask 6 out of 8 children and they'll tell you that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

But now let's look at the facts for just a moment.

Mary lived in Nazareth, which was 92 miles north of Bethlehem.

Now 92 miles in those days was a 4 or 5 days' journey on mule bike.

Today it would be about a two-hour journey by car, but 3 weeks before Jesus was born you would have expected him to be born in Nazareth, that's where they were living.

Oh, friends, God moves in mysterious ways.

Just at the right time over in Rome, the Emperor Augustus made a decree that everyone was to be taxed.

They were to go out to their home place to register for that tax.

So Joseph and Mary journeyed up to Bethlehem just at the right time for Christ to be born there as it had been prophesied 700 years before.

Doesn't it show that God's book never fails?

The prophecy is exact and it doesn't vary at all.

The virgin birth of Jesus was predicted in Isaiah 7, 14, and the fulfillment of it, of course, is seen in Matthew 1, 8.

The very year of his birth was revealed to the prophet Daniel in the longest prophecy in the Bible.

But perhaps the largest number of specific predictions cluster around his last days on earth.

The details of his betrayal and death are recorded with such accuracy that it is almost uncanny.

For example, in Zechariah 11, 12, and 13 we read about the price of his betrayal.

And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price, and if not, forbear.

So they weighed for my price 30 pieces of silver, and the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter, a goodly price that I was prized out of them.

And I took the 30 pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord." Now Just suppose, friends, for a moment that Judas had bargained for 29 coins instead of 30, or even 31 coins.

Then the Word of God would have failed, the prophecy would have been broken.

Or suppose they would have been copper coins or brass coins instead of silver.

And what if the money had been cast down somewhere besides the house of the Lord?

Read Matthew 27.5, and he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple.

Now that's the way the prophet had explained it long years before, that it would be thrown down in the house of the Lord.

Or suppose a priest had counseled together and decided to use the money for a poor fund or building fund or any other purpose except to purchase a potter's field, as it had been prophesied 700 years before.

But we read in Matthew 27.7 that they did take it and applied it to a potter's field, and not 1 iota of the Word of God is failed.

Now consider another amazing prophecy recorded in Psalm 22.18.

They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

Why, friends, the manner in which they dispose of Christ's garments is described here in detail.

According to these words, the garments were to be parted and then lots were cast for them.

It almost seems like a contradiction, doesn't it, until we read the story in John 19, 23, and 24.

It says there, Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made 4 parts, to every soldier a part, and also his coat.

Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout.

They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be.

Now here we learn that 4 soldiers took 1 garment each except the seamless robe, and for that robe they decided to cast lots.

Consider for a moment how the scriptures would have been broken if the soldiers had taken a sword and divided that robe into 4 parts instead of casting lots or gambling for it as they actually did.

Now in Psalms 22 16 the manner of Christ's death is described in these words, "'They pierced my hands and my feet.'" Now friends, this is incredible because crucifixion was an unknown thing at that time.

David wrote those words in Psalms, and no man of himself could have foreseen the introduction of the inhumanly cruel instrument of the cross as a method of punishment.

It came hundreds of years afterward through the Romans, but David could describe it through inspiration before men ever thought of the idea.

Talk about television, electronic communication, this is really it, France.

Then too, the priest expected to bury Jesus.

We want to read here about the way he was buried because it was a prophecy made hundreds of years before.

If he had been buried with the criminals with whom he died, the Word of God would not be true.

Isaiah had said that Christ would be numbered with the transgressors in His crucifixion, but with the rich in His death.

Notice the words of it, and he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

So when they placed him there between the 2 thieves on the cross, it was fulfilling prophecy, and when they put his body into the tomb of a rich man, it was also fulfilling prophecy.

We read on in Isaiah 53, Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great.

He was numbered with the transgressors, and made intercession for the transgressors.

So again we read about the fulfillment of that.

Joseph of Arimathea begged the body of Jesus from the priest.

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