IMAGINE THE FUTURE YOU excerpts: Events that affect you foretold

IMAGINE EVENTS THAT AFFECT YOUR LIFE FORETOLD
By Ada Brownell
Excerpt from Imagine the Future You

But how do we know Jesus was no ordinary baby?

If you have studied religion at all, you know many religions recognize Jesus as a prophet, but deny He is God. Only Christians recognize Him as God’s son and our Lord. Almost anyone will tell you He was a good man.

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis proclaimed, "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg--or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.”

 Some religions try to give you another Christ, which the Bible calls an antichrist, a false prophet, and false god. But the Bible says, “There is no other name given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

One way we know Jesus was no ordinary baby is God the Son fulfilled prophecy written hundreds of years before He came.

IMAGINE EVIDENCE THAT IMPACTS YOU

Josh McDowell, in his book Evidence That Demands a Verdict,[1] states that the Old Testament contains over three hundred references to the Messiah that were fulfilled in Jesus, and all of these prophecies were written at least 250 years before Christ was born.

Among these prophecies are his virgin birth, his ancestry, his birth­place, his presentation of gifts from the East, the massacre of infants by Herod, his name, the flight into Egypt, a messenger would precede his ministry, his ministry would begin in Galilee, he would teach in the temple, he would teach in parables, he would enter Jerusalem on a donkey, he would be a stone of stumbling to the Jews and light to the Gentiles, he would have a Resurrec­tion, and he would ascend into heaven.

The events of his trial and events preceding his death were foretold. He would be sold for thirty pieces of silver and betrayed by a friend. The money would be thrown in the house of the Lord. The silver would purchase a potter’s field for burial. False witnesses would accuse him, and he would not answer them. He would be mocked, wounded, bruised, smitten, and spit upon. The weight of the cross would be too much for his beaten body.

His manner of death was foretold, as well as the piercing of his hands, feet, and side, but no bones would be broken.

Here is the scripture from the Old Testament about the piercing: “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son” (Zechariah 12:10).

When John related the story of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, he wrote, “But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the Roman soldiers pierced his side with a spear and immediately blood and water came out.…For these things were done that the scripture should be fulfilled, ‘Not one of his bones shall be broken.’ And again another scripture says, ‘They shall look on him whom they pierced’” (John 33:37NKJ).

When the soldier decided not to bother to break his legs, he had no idea he fulfilled prophecy.

The darkness that fell over the land at noon when Jesus died also was foretold by prophets hundreds of years earlier. The burial in the rich man’s tomb was predicted.

But was Jesus actually the Son of God and God the Son?

IMAGINE JESUS BLESSING PEOPLE TODAY

 Emilie Griffin, in her book Turning,[2] tells how she came from atheism to accepting Jesus Christ as Lord of her life. After realizing there had to be a Designer, she wondered whether a genuine relationship was possible between God and man.

“I wanted to know who Jesus was, what he actually said, and how that made people willing to die for his sake,” she explains. Her own starting point was whether one might believe God acted in history and Jesus was in any real sense His Son.

She read the New Testament and saw the Gospels had a firmer historical validity than she had been led to believe. The Book of Acts and the Epistles opened her eyes.

“Paul lived at the same time as others who knew Jesus,” she writes. “Paul was acquainted with men and women who witnessed the events of the Crucifixion and who insisted upon the fact of the Resurrection. I began to feel these letters were either a true account—or the most extraordinary fabrication ever concocted.

“By this time I was reading straight through the New Testament, and it was affecting me deeply. I could not get over the conviction that Jesus was real.”

Those who study the New Testament soon see Jesus claimed to be God, his claims were confirmed by others, and other indirect claims say He is God the Son.

---

[1] San Bernardino, CA: Here's Life Publishers Inc.

[2] Emilie Griffin, Doubleday, 1980.

Amazon Ada Brownell author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KJ2C06