Please use the message here as the Lord leads, but nothing on the message must be used for profit!]
Today’s Scripture Reading [August 1, 2010]
For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else. [Isaiah 45:18. KJV]
Jesus has made seven exceptional and unique claims of Himself that we can read them in Book of John of the New Testament. These claims are:
1. "I am the bread of life." (John 6:35, 41, 48-51)
2. "I am the light of the world." (John 8:12, 9:5)
3. "I am the door of the sheep." (John 10:7-9)
4. "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." (John 10:11,14)
5. "I am the resurrection, and the life." (John 11:25)
6. "I am the way, the truth, and the life." (John 14:6)
7. "I am the true vine." (John 15:1,5)
A serious study of the Gospels and the seven unique claims made by Jesus will categorically lead a person to one of four conclusions: Is Jesus (1) An evil lying villain, (2) A preposterously deluded madman, (3) A good moral teacher, or (4) The Messiah, the Son of God.
If you think that believing in Jesus is a multiple choice, you are absolutely right! But the answer that you chose is not just an academic one. Depending on the answer you have chosen, it will have great implication and influence to your life, not just here on earth, but what is to come. How you answer it will determine how you are going to live in eternality, that is, with God, the Creator of heaven and earth, or without God. This is the examination we all must take before we leave this world, and make no mistakes about it, there is only one correct answer to it because they are mutually exclusive. If you chose that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God than you must reject the other three answers. Sadly, those who chose Jesus as Messiah are the minority and this is should not be a surprise us because this is exactly what the Bible told us: The world knew Him not (John 1:10).
Jesus has made those seven claims that no person would dare to make because His claims were considered blasphemous, and that was the very reason He paid for with His life. First, He claimed to be God. His statements of equality with God meant He possesses the authority, attributes, and adoration belonging to God. He then proclaims authority over creation, forgiveness of sins, and life and death. He declares He possesses the attributes of God and emphatically states that He is the source of truth and the only way to eternal life.
It is interesting to note that even scholars who disputed that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and questioned the deity of Jesus agreed that He was not an evil lying villain nor a deluded madman. There are quite a number of scholars who are strong opponent to Jesus’ deity but still consider Him as a good religious moral teacher. But this is a theology of compromise, of water-down doctrine which we must stay away from it. Nothing could depart for the true that Jesus is God, the Second Person in the Trinity: God, the Father, the Son, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
Talk is cheap and anyone can make claims. You can make claim too that you are god as some have claimed to be a god of some of animals because they have the animal’s spirit and they back up their claims by their ’unhumanistic’ behavour and tricks that seem only animals can perform. When it comes to Jesus of Nazareth, His credentials for making the claims are uniquely unique and He is the Only Person who has ever lived has had the necessary credentials for Him to make such claims. These credentials are not legendary stories nor are they mythological but are real historical life-events of Jesus. They were all about Jesus’ fulfillment of the prophecies as foretold in the Old Testament. As estimated by some demography experts who estimated there were over 60 billion of people have had ever lived in this world, past and present. We must take full knowledge that of these 60 billion people, none have had ever lived could match up to His credentials of fulfilling these prophecies! And it will never be!
The Old Testament contains many messianic prophecies made centuries before Christ appeared on the earth. The fact that He fulfilled so many of these prophecies is one powerful testimony that He was no ordinary man but God Himself. Take a look at just these eight prophecies in the Old Testament that were fulfilled by Jesus as recorded in the Bible:
1. Genesis 12:1-3 states the Messiah would come from the seed of Abraham.
2. Genesis 49:10 states that He would be of the tribe of Judah.
3. 2 Samuel 7:12 states that Messiah would be of the line of King David.
4. Micah 5:2 states that He would be born in the city of Bethlehem.
5. Daniel 9:24 states He would die or be "cut off" exactly 483 years after the declaration to reconstruct the temple in 444 B.C.
6. Isaiah 53 states that the Messiah would die with thieves, then be buried in a richman's tomb.
7. Psalm 22:16 states upon His death His hands and His feet would be pierced. This is very significant because crucifixion had not been invented by the Roman at the time this prophecy was written by the Psalmist.
8. Isaiah 49:7 states that Messiah would be known and hated by the entire nation. Not many men become known by their entire nation, and even less are so despised by the entire nation as was Jesus.
Based on the calculation by some statisticians, the possibility of someone fulfilling just eight of these predictions by pure coincidence is 0.000000000000000001. And how about fulfilling sixteen? Statistically, the chance for fulfilling sixteen prophecies by the same person during his lifetime is about 1/10 to the 45th power – that is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001. Can you count the number of zeros after the decimal point? There are 44 of them! Different statisticians may give you different results and they can minus five, 10 or even 20 zeros out, it still doesn’t change the result that tells us it is simply statistically impossible to fulfill even just sixteen prophecies by random chance. Do you know how many He has fulfilled? There were over 300 and many of the prophecies were totally beyond human control: the birth place, time, manner of death, people's reactions, piercing of side, burial, resurrection, etc. By using the same science of probability to calculate, the chance that any man might have lived to fulfill these 300 prophecies is staggering. It is one in several hundred of trillion, that is, instead of the 45 zeros, you need to replace with several trillion of zeros! This number is simply means that there is absolutely zero chance for it to occur. Just imagine you throw 3 dices and for every throw, all the 3 dices shown up as ‘6s’. You repeated this for 100,000 times and you continue to get the same results 100,000 times over. What can you conclude? It simply means that the dices are specially designed to show up only ‘6s’ regardless how you throw it because it’s totally impossible to have unbiased dices shown up only ‘6s’ 100,000 times over. We can therefore come to the conclusion that the fact that Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies as predicted in the Old Testament so accurately in His lifetime cannot be due to chance. These prophecies were carefully and meticulously planned and designed ahead of the actual events! The big question is: By Pure chance or by God Himself? Just like the first multiple-choice question, your answer to this second multiple-choice question will be going to determine how you are to live your life – right now here on earth and what is to come! You too can only choose one because they are both mutually exclusive!
The unique credentials and the Life of Jesus can be summarized and they are all recorded in the Four Gospels of Jesus Christ in the New Testament:
1. His birth is unique. He was born of a virgin.
2. His life is unique. He is sinless and He has never asked forgiveness.
3. He performs miracles witnessed by many people.
4. His teaching is unique. He teaches people to “love their enemies”.
5. His death is unique. He was killed for no reason.
6. His resurrection is unique. He appeared to many people to prove that He has victory over death.
7. He is alive today and He is now our High Priest and Advocate sitting at the Right Hand of God, the Father interceding for us.
As Christians, God also wants us to be unique, to be set apart from this world, to be holy because God is holy (1 Peter 1:16) and to be His peculiar people (1 Peter 2:9). Only by choosing the right answers to those two multiple-choice questions we can then be uniquely made to be His peculiar people whom He has chosen us for His glory!
Skeptics have objected to the testimony of prophecy because they knew it was statistically impossible for one man to fulfill over 300 prophecies in such minute accuracy. They arrogantly said that they were written after the times of Jesus and therefore fulfill themselves. The discovery of Red Sea Scrolls in 1947 has proved them wrong because the manuscripts which contained these messianic prophecies were written over 1,000 years before the birth of Christ! They now started to change their opinion and launch new attack and rebuke. One of the rebukes of these skeptics is that, while they accept the Old Testament as ‘some kind of religious or holy manuscripts’, their opinion is that it was written by a Jewish God and for the Jews. God is God and there is only one God and there is none else (Isaiah 45:18b). Hence, there is no such thing as a Jewish God, a Hokkien God, a Teochew God, a Cantonese God, a Roman God, an American God, or an Italian God.
When it comes to religious faith, everything boils down to choice and decision. Let me appeal to all my beloved brothers and sisters to decide now but make no mistakes about it. Nothing is more important than to pick THE CORRECT ANSWERS to the questions that we must all answer before we leave this world. No one can force which answers you should choose but your answers will make all the difference to your life right now on earth and to your life that which is to come when you leave this world! It is high time now to awake out of sleep to decide for our salvation (Romans 13:11), to live honourably, to put on the whole Armour of God and to let the Prince of Light govern us and not the Angel of Darkness (Romans 13:12).
Last edited:
