PROOF OF GOD Proof of God is found in God’s Word and stated by God Himself! God says He will prove the Bible is a message from Him by the fact that He can tell us history before it happens (Isaiah 46:9-11). The Bible contains information that the writers could not have possibly known in the times in which they lived. Imagine a guy sitting in a stone house in the Middle East 3,000 years ago. His world would have consisted largely of sheep, stone tools and water wells. How could someone from that time and that frame of reference have possibly seen into our world? ...we cannot possibly explain how such a thing could be possible. And, nowhere else in the world does any book contain detailed prophecies like those of the Bible. So it is a remarkable Book for sure, but is it a message from God? Well, if it is, you would surely think the He would have included a way that we could authenticate His message. In other words, you would think that the One who created us with keen, curious and inquisitive minds would have expected us to verify that this was indeed a message from Him. According to His Word, that proof is to be found in the many prophetic passages within it’s pages. In fact about one quarter of the Bible is made up of prophecy - events predicted before they happen! No other religious book in the world even attempts to foretell the future. Yet, the Bible does provide clear, detailed and amazing prophecies about the future and the end of the world as we know it. If those prophecies are indeed accurate, then there is proof of God and proof positive that this Book deals in a realm well beyond our understanding. The Bible is the only Book that contains such a vast collection of prophecies relating to the nation of Israel, other nations in the world, specific cities and the entire race. And it is the only Book that contains prophecies about a Savior for the human race - the Messiah. (take for instance) concerning the fulfillment of the prophecies of Jesus. They say that Jesus knew them before hand and tried to make it look like He was fulfilling them all to trick everyone. But how could He control being born in Bethlehem? 2) How could He control being born of the lineage of David? 3) How could He control being born before the scepter passed from Judah, but during the time of Roman rule so that He would die by crucifixion and before the temple was destroyed along with His genealogical record? 4) How could He control when He would be crucified? 5) How could He control how much money Judas would betray Him for? 6) How could He be sure that the chief priests would use this money to buy a potter’s field? 7) How could He be sure that after He died, the Roman centurion would not break his legs? 8) How could He be sure that after He died, the Roman centurion would pierce His side with a spear? Josh McDowell, in his book, “Evidence That Demands a Verdict,” gave an example of the likelihood of even eight such prophecies coming true by chance. "The following probabilities are taken from Peter Stoner in Science Speaks to show that by using modern science of probability in reference to eight prophecies… …We find that the chance that any man that lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 10 to the 17th power." That would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. Stoner illustrates it by supposing that we take 10 to the 17th power of silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all 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 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 of 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 them in their own wisdom. If there is an intelligent designer of this universe, as all the evidence suggests, then the implications are staggering. It means that there is Someone or Something, bigger than us out there! Prophecy IS the proof of God and the proof of His existence as stated by God Himself in His Book, the Bible.
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