No Coincidence

Prophets Bards Foretold: No Coincidence

Introduction:

Irony…. What is irony? Maybe it’s what was recorded in a conversation between two teenage boys who happened to steal a bait car and joked about what if the car was a bait car? One of the boys was recorded as saying, “Wouldn’t it be crazy if they [recorded us] and threw it up on baitcar.com?”

Is that irony, or is it a coincidence?

A coincidence is when two or more things happen at the same time in a similar way so that it seems like they were planned: like when you think about someone and then they call. We call that a coincidence. But coincidence is a random thing. But what would you call it if every time you though of a person, they called? That would certainly be no coincidence!

So what do you call it when over a period of at least 1500 years, more then 456 prophesies are recorded all about one man and all fulfilled within 30 years in the 1st century and then never again repeated? Can you think of anyone, great or small whose coming had such an introduction? I mean, if there were one single prophesy about you, from a year before I was born, people would take notice. And what if there were five prophecies about you before you were born? How much more, 456 prophesies, written by many authors in at least two languages, over a period one and a half millennia?

Skeptics might call it a coincidence; but how many times have they observed that the earth rotates around the sun and they call that a fact! I call it ironic that anyone could reject a saviour whose origin is as indisputably divine as Jesus. Only a God with foreknowledge and the sovereignty to accomplish His will could ever deliver 456 prophesies about the messiah and accomplish them to the letter- especially when you consider that all of satanically inspired human history has fought against the accomplishment of God’s will.

For example, if the prophesy was that the messiah was to be a man, Satan and humanity colluded to wipe out the human race (in the garden; when Cain murdered Abel; in the days of Noah, etc.); if the messiah was to be the seed of Abraham, Satan and humanity attempted to wipe out his seed (by selling him into bondage in Egypt, by rebelling in the exodus, by turning to the idols of Canaan in the Promised Land); if he was to be of the line of Judah, a descendant of David, the son of Joseph and Mary… Satan and man tried to wipe them out- right up to the day Christ was born, when Herod ordered the execution of every child under the age of three.

So let’s look at some of what the prophet’s bards foretold and see how impossible it would have been……

1. The Seed of Woman: Gen 3:15; (born of a virgin) Is 7:14
And I will put enmity
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 called the proto-gospel; John Macarthur writes that Genesis 3:15,
…is prophetic of the struggle and its outcome between [Satan and Christ] which began in the garden. In the midst of the curse passage, a message of hope shone forth—the woman’s offspring called “He” is Christ, who will one day defeat the Serpent. Satan could only “bruise” Christ’s heel (cause Him to suffer), while Christ will bruise Satan’s head (destroy him with a fatal blow).[1]

Well, a human messiah is hardly a novel idea; that applies to about 5 billion people and then the countless billions who have lived before us. But Isaiah’s prophesy really limits it doesn’t it? In Isaiah 7:14, he says, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son…” This really narrows it down.

The Heidelberg Catechism asks,
Q.35. WHAT DOES IT MEAN THAT HE "WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT AND BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY"?

A. That the eternal Son of God, who is and remains true and eternal God, took to himself, through the working of the Holy Spirit, the flesh and blood of the virgin Mary, a truly human nature so that he might become David's true descendent, like his brothers in every way except for sin.

And,

Q.36. HOW DOES THE HOLY CONCEPTION AND BIRTH OF CHRIST BENEFIT YOU?

A. He is our mediator, and with his innocence and perfect holiness here moves from God's sight my sin - mine since I was conceived.

2. He Came at a Set Time: Dan 9:24-25
24“Seventy weeks are determined
For your people and for your holy city,
To finish the transgression,
To make an end of sins,
To make reconciliation for iniquity,
To bring in everlasting righteousness,
To seal up vision and prophecy,
And to anoint the Most Holy.


25 “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.

The seventy weeks are sabbatical years; 69 weeks of Sabbaths are predicted until the Messiah will be cut off- that equals 483 years. That means Daniel predicted that the messiah would be cut off (a reference to his crucifixion) in around the year AD 38; which means if Jesus was thirty three when he was crucified in the year AD 38, he would have had to have been born around AD 5. Can you imagine predicting the birth of anyone with that accuracy? Daniel predicted the death of the one who would be born of a virgin, 500 years before. I can’t even predict the weather tomorrow!

3. He Came at a set Place: Micah 5:2
We saw this last week,
But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, 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.

This is the (mistaken) reason that the Pharisees rejected Jesus….
4. He Came as the Son of God: Ps 2:7
So far, we have a man born miraculously and whose birthday was predicted 500 years before it occurred. But that is not enough for him to be anything more then a very special man. But Jesus is not merely a special man- he is the son of God,
· …the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee (Ps 2:7);
· He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son; (2 Sam 7:13,14);
· I and my Father are One (Jn 10:30);
· In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col 2:9);

His divinity means that 1) we can have a real knowledge of God; 2) the Cross has truly secured our salvation; 3) means that God an man are reunited; and finally, 4) it is appropriate, right and necessary for all mankind to worship Jesus Christ as LORD!

Conclusion:

When the wise men came to Jerusalem saying “where is he who is born, the King of the Jews” the Priests consulted the prophecies and directed those Maggi from the East to go to Bethlehem. What they found in Bethleham was neither ironic, nor coincidence- it was the foreknowledge, the sovereignty, the will, the decree, the pleasure and the plan of an all knowing, all powerful, all consuming God the Father. It was also the willingness, the Obedience, the suffering, the emptying, the humiliation of the Word of God His Son. It was the execution of plan conceived before the foundations of the world!
Come and Worship….
[1]MacArthur, J. J. (1997, c1997). The MacArthur Study Bible , Nashville: Word Pub.