Who God is

112. The Integrity of the Word

The promises of God may seem like something in the future, but to God it is something that has already happened! It is a done deal.

Can anything be trusted today? Everything seems to change. People who you thought were your friends hurt you. Friends leave, teachers change, jobs change. Is there anything that can be counted on NO MATTER WHAT?

How do you know where you are going after you die?

How do you know Jesus was raised from the dead?

Can you really trust the Bible as the Word of God?

The way Satan got Eve to sin was to ask the question, “Did God really say…?” (Genesis 3:1).

For sure, human beings on this planet called Earth, are the objects of spiritual warfare. Satan has no new weapons to use, just old ones with new wrappers. He still causes us to ask the question, “Did God really say…?”

We need to be able to trust the Word of God no matter what comes our way!

If there is one thing the Word of God dares to do that no other book in the world does, it is to accurately predict the future. This proves beyond argument that only God could have authored the Bible.

There are 8,352 verses directly or indirectly concerned with prophecy in Scripture. About one verse out of six tells of future events. God’s challenge to the world is that we might prove Him. “I am the LORD: I will speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass” (Ezekiel 12:25a, KJV).

Buddhists, Confucianists and the followers of Mohammed have their sacred writings, but in them the element of prophecy is conspicuous by its absence. The destruction of Tyre, the invasion of Jerusalem, the fall of Babylon and Rome – each of these events was accurately predicted in the Bible and fulfilled to the smallest of details. The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem was foretold hundreds of years earlier by the prophet Daniel - TO THE VERY DAY. The forming of Israel as a new state in 1948 was foretold to the day and month in the Old Testament.

Prophecies about Jesus

There are over 300 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled in His birth, life, death, and resurrection. Let’s consider only 17 most prominent ones.

The combined probability against these 17 predictions occurring is equal to:

1 chance in 480,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

or 480 Billion x 1 Billion x 1 Trillion

Concerning the over 300 fulfilled prophecies about Jesus, it is ridiculous to imagine that these prophecies would all be fulfilled by accident by one person. Only one chance in a number followed by 181 zeros! To give you some idea of the size of this immense figure, think of a ball that is packed solidly with electrons (two and a half million billion make a line about one inch long). Now in your mind imagine this ball expanded to the size of the universe, some four billion light-years in diameter (a light-year being the distance that light travels in a year at the speed of over 186,000 miles per second). Multiply this by 500 quadrillion. Out of this vast container of electrons, remove just one electron, “color” it red and return it to the container. Stir it with the other electrons for a hundred years. Then blindfold a man and send him in to pick it out the first time. Impossible? With the same chance, Jesus the Christ lived, died, was resurrected and is now alive according to the Scriptures by “accident”!

There are many other Old Testament prophecies too numerous to list. They include the destruction of certain cities like Tyre and others, and they all took place as foretold in the Bible. There are 1,817 individual prophecies concerning 737 separate subjects found in 8,352 verses. These comprise 27% of the whole of Scriptures.

Isaiah 42:9 says, “Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

Some prophecies in the Old Testament

Genesis 3:15 says, “And I will put enmity (strife) between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”

This is a clear prophecy that Satan will cause Jesus to be crucified, yet Jesus will ultimately crush Satan.

In Genesis 15 God told Abraham (the first Jew), thousands of years before Jesus, that he would be the father of a great group of people who would bless all the other peoples of the earth. God also said that they would be slaves for 400 years before they came back to their own land. This happened, Abraham became the first Jew, and the Jews went into Egyptian slavery for 400 years.

In Isaiah 53 God prophesied that the Messiah would come as a suffering savior who would die for our sins. The Jews were looking for a conquering King, and when Jesus came, they did not recognize Him. This was about 500 years before it happened. Isaiah also told that the Messiah would be born of a virgin.

Daniel told of the coming of the Messiah, His crucifixion and entry into Jerusalem, to the very date, over 400 years before it happened.

Daniel saw the prophecies regarding the kingdoms of the earth in history before they happened. Those kingdoms were to be Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and finally, the anti-Christ’s rule. Daniel also saw the Kingdom of God finally becoming the world victor.

Ezekiel saw the re-gathering of Israel in May of 1948. He saw this over 2,000 years before it happened and prophesied it to the date.

How does God do that?

It may seem like a promise to us, but to God it is something that has already happened! It’s a done deal.

He calls those things that are not yet as though they were, just so they will be. He wants us to be the same way; just like Abraham in Romans 4.

A prophecy from God is not really predicting something that will happen, it is God looking forward in time, actually seeing it happen, then looking back in time and telling us about it!!!

One reason you can trust God: He knows the End from the Beginning! God does not live in time.

One of the best bridges of thinking I have been able to construct on this subject is the simple thought of light. Light travels at 186,282 miles per second. Einstein came up with the idea that as an object approaches the speed of light, it approaches timelessness. That goes right along with the Bible. What if one could travel in space at 75% of the speed of light for one year? Not being a scientist I could only guess, but someone gave me the formula. If you could travel at 75% of the speed of light in a space ship for one year, when you came back I would be 1.5 years older, and you would only be one year older. If you traveled at 99.999999999% of the speed of light, you would be one year older and I would have aged 70,710 years. At 99.9999999999999% the ratio would be 1 year to 22,369,621 years. If you could travel at 100% of lightspeed, the ratio would be infinite, and time would stop for you. I think you would have entered timelessness. You would be in the realm of the I AM.

Here are some Scriptures supporting the integrity of God’s word.

“The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7).

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away” (Matthew 24:35).

“Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89).

“I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name” (Psalm 138:2, KJV).

“…who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3a).

“I have declared the former things from the beginning; they went forth from My mouth, and I caused them to hear it. Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass” (Isaiah 48:3).

“Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure’” (Isaiah 46:10).

“Let them bring forth and show us what will happen; let them show the former things, what they were, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare to us things to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; yes, do good or do evil, that we may be dismayed and see it together. Indeed you [idols] are nothing, and your work is nothing; he who chooses you is an abomination” (Isaiah 41:22-24).

There are over 400 prophecies telling of the coming of Jesus. The possibility of all of these being fulfilled in one person perfectly is about the same as picking out one marked quarter out of a sea of quarters filling up the State of Texas 6 feet deep.

One of the most amazing prophecies in the Word of God is Daniel’s prophecy in Daniel chapter 9 telling the exact day when Jesus would enter Jerusalem to be crucified, 500 years before it happened.

God wants us to know that He is coming back to earth some day. But He wants us to concentrate more on the fact that He will come back NOW for our individual situations in much the same way and with the same process. We are warned that not every believer will inherit the promises of God, that some will be deceived and fall away. We are not necessarily talking about going to heaven but about making it here on earth.

In the struggles of life there is a time called THE DAY OF VISITATION (Luke 19:44, 1 Peter 2:12, Daniel 9:24) where we see God coming through for us, but not all of us will experience that. Daniel and Jesus tell about a great deception that will be used against God’s people. We need to know that the Word is true no matter what things look like; then we will inherit the promises.

If somebody gave you his word that something would take place in the future, and over a very long period of time everything happened as he said it, without exception, without any error, would you tend to believe his word?

Daniel is the Old Testament prophet that gave the most important prophecies of the Bible. God showed him which powers would rule the world and how they would fall. He told about Babylon, then Medo-Persian Empire, then Alexander the Great and Macedonia, and then – Rome.

Most Bible scholars would agree that Daniel 9 is the most important prophecy in the Bible. Jesus studied and quoted Daniel perhaps more than any other prophet. It is a supernatural act showing the accuracy of God’s Word.

Daniel had been shown many vision prophecies. He saw that in the last days many of his people (which is now us) would fall away and be deceived by the anti-Christ spirit. He actually got sick and began to pray, confessing his sin and the sin of his people and praying for them and us. All of the sudden, the angel Gabriel came to him and spoke the most amazing, comforting prophecy. He told him that God’s people would have a period of 70 weeks cut out of history for them, and during that time several things would take place: (1) to finish the transgression (or revolt against authority, the Adamic problem), (2) to make an end of sins (through the Cross), (3) to bring in everlasting righteousness (through Jesus and the new birth), (4) to seal up the prophecy, and (5) to anoint the most Holy place (which for us is the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts).

69 of the 70 weeks have been fulfilled in actual history. There is a pause of thousands of years, and then the last week will be fulfilled. This is a common thing in Bible prophecy. In a spiritual way we are in the last week, now in our lives today.

The word week is “shabua,” which in Hebrew means seven; it is like saying a dozen. The entire Old Testament proves this out; when a week is spoken of, it means seven, and it usually associated with years (Leviticus 25). Daniel was thinking in terms of periods of seven years for each “week.”

We are going to focus on the 69 weeks which now is history and prophecy fulfilled in a supernatural way.

The year in Old Testament terms was not 365 days but 360 days; proven in Genesis 7:11- 8:3. It verifies that the flood lasted 150 days and then it gave us the five-month period by dates.

The starting point for this prophetic event was to be the issuance of a command to rebuild Jerusalem, including the streets, the walls, and the moat as a protection against the enemies.

“Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times” (Daniel 9:25).

There were four commands given by various Gentile kings to rebuild something in Jerusalem which might have qualified as the starting point of this prophetic event.

1. Ezra 1:1-4 talks about building the house of God. This is 80 years off from the prophecy dates and could not be the starting point of the prophetic event.

2. Ezra 6:6-12, included only the Temple, and could not be the starting point of the prophetic event.

3. Ezra 7:11-26 talks about building Temple. This was 7 years off, could not be the starting point of the prophetic event.

4. The real starting point was the command to rebuild the City, and that was given in Nehemiah 2:1. It was the month of Nisan in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes. He began his reign in 465 BC + 20 years = 445 BC, so the decree took place in 445 BC the month of Nisan. 445 BC Nisan = March 14.

69 weeks x 7 x 360 days = 173,880 days.

Now for the rest of the math:

Add to March 14, 445 BC 173,880 days = April 6, 32 AD, which is the very day Jesus rode into Jerusalem in his triumphal entry. What an amazing prophecy and fulfillment!

Just as a test, we can convert it to our calendar of 365 days: 445 BC - 32 AD = 476 years, less one year due to BC 1 and AD 1 being the same year. 476 x 365 = 173,740, add leap years of 116 days and add 24 days from March 14 to April 6 = 173,880 days.

Daniel said that the Messiah is the Prince and that the official presentation of the Messiah would take place, and it did as He rode into Jerusalem (on a donkey as foretold by Zechariah 9:9). Who ever heard of a king riding a donkey? They thought it should have been a white horse. He had refused to allow His disciples to proclaim His Messiahship prior to this. Now He said that if they did not, the rocks would.

Jesus wept over the unbelief of Jerusalem; He said that if you would have just known this prophecy and counted the days, and recognized that it is I, that you would not have missed the day of visitation, or the day of God’s reward.

For some, the day of visitation is a reward, for others it carries the punishment and disaster of following idols, being disobedient and other such sins.

If the first 69 weeks of years were fulfilled perfectly in history, why would we not trust the future prophecy of the last week that is in our time, right now? While we won’t go into its meaning in future historic events, we can trust that Jesus told us some things about the end time, or the last week. We can apply that last week to our life today. It has a real life application for each one of us.

Basically, it says that many believers will be deceived by the anti-Christ spirit and will believe a lie, they will go after popularity, money, fame, intellect, political power, power in the world of some kind, and in doing so they will (like in Hebrews 6) be crucifying the Lord afresh. Hebrews 6 says that if we know that God cannot lie, and we get into His Word and His presence then we can hang on to the promises and use them as an anchor until the DAY OF OUR OWN PERSONAL VISITATION.

This is more proof that God is the Author of the Bible. Such prophecies being fulfilled in this way are beyond human manipulation. When I am in doubt due to contrary circumstances, I fall back on the perfection and the absolute integrity of the Word of God. There is no way that God did not write it. There is no way that it is not perfect!

When Jesus speaks, prophecy comes out of His mouth. Revelation 19:10 says, “And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, ‘See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

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