God speaking through Amos the prophet states,

"For Adonai Yehovah [Lord Yehovah] will do nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets." (Amos 3:7)

God tells us through Amos that He does nothing among men unless He has revealed it beforehand. God further reveals in His Word:

"For I am El [God], and there are no other Els, there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure’." (Isaiah 46:9-10)

"I declared the former things long ago and they went forth from My mouth, and I proclaimed them. Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass. Therefore I declared them to you long ago, before they took place I proclaimed them to you, lest you should say, ‘My idol has done them, and my graven image and my molten image have commanded them.’" (Is 48:3, 5)

God tells us that He reveals His future intentions among men through his true prophets for the following reasons:

1. So that we will know who His true prophets are.

2. So we will know who God really is: Yehovah Elohim.

3. So that we will know that it is He who has performed them and not some demon or false idol.

4. So that we will know that it is He who is truly the author of the events that take place.

During Jesus’ ministry, over and over again Jesus said not only was He Yehovah Elohim in the flesh,²⁰⁴ but that he did not come to destroy the Law of the Old Testament (O.T.), but to fulfill all prophecies that were made about Him:

"Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill." (Matt 5:17).

"And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in the Scriptures." (Luke 24:27).

"Now He said to them, ‘These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’" (Luke 24:44, 4:20-21, 22:37; John 5:39-40, 46-47, 15:25; Matt 21:42, 26:56).

While on earth Jesus tells His disciples what is going to take place in the near future concerning Himself that will fulfill O.T. prophecy, so that when it does come to pass they will know that He is the great I AM of the O.T. in the flesh meaning Yehovah God, the name He claimed for Himself to Moses on Mount Sinai in Exodus 3:14, the Messiah and Savior come down from God. Jesus said,

"From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I AM." (John 13:19).

There are many religious books in the world, but outside of the Judeo-Christian Bible there is not one containing detailed prophecies about the future. Why? Because there is only one God and as we already shared earlier, His signature to what is His Words and His Book: the Judeo-Christian Bible is His prophecies to us about the future and there fulfillment.

"Thus says Yehovah, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, Yehovah of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last, and there are no Els besides Me. And who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; yes, let him recount it to Me in order, from the time that I established the ancient nation, and let them declare to them the things that are coming and the events that are going to take place." (Isaiah 44:6-7)

There are over two-thousand prophecies in the Old Testament, three-hundred and thirty-two of these concern Jesus Christ alone. Many more deal with events that have been fulfilled not only in past century but within the past few decades. There have been many scholars who have tried to discredit these prophecies saying that they were later written into the text after the events took place. There are many reasons why this statement is absolutely false: the Dead Sea Scrolls are conservatively dated 150 B.C. There is also the Greek Septuagint translated from the Hebrew text of the Old Testament in 250 B.C. The prophecies of the Old Testament are genuine and were written hundreds of years before Jesus was born.

What is the significance of Bible prophecy. Josh McDowell in his book, Evidence That Demands A Verdict, wrote that first it concludes that there is a divine intellect behind the Old and New Testament; second, it establishes the fact of God; third, it authenticates the Deity of Jesus; and fourth, it demonstrates God’s control and inspiration of the Bible.^34/144

There are 1,817 individual predictions in the Bible concerning 737 separate subjects found in 8,352 verses. These predictions take up 27% of the 31,124 verses that are in the Bible. The intent of this Chapter is not to cover all 1,817 prophecies in the Bible, but to cover a few of the very significant prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ and to then cover some most amazing prophecies that have been fulfilled in our life-time today.

The first significant prophecy given about Jesus is in Genesis 3:15. God says to Eve,

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." (Genesis 3:15).

What is the significance of this prophecy about the coming Messiah and Savior Jesus? The seed always comes from the man, not the woman. Right here in the third Chapter of Genesis we have the first prophecy of the Virgin Birth of Jesus. Eve further understood and realized that this birth of the Messiah would be Yehovah God Himself in the flesh. She states in Genesis 4:2,

"And the man knew Eve his wife, And she conceived and bore Cain, and said, ‘I have gotten a man: Yehovah.’"

She honestly thought her son Cain was the fulfillment of the prophecy, except that this child was through Adam’s seed, not through her seed as prophesied. This prophecy was again made in Isaiah 7:14, "Therefore Yehovah Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel." Matthew tells us in the Gospel of Matthew 1:23 that these prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The Term Immanuel is two words in the Hebrew (la WnM[)³⁴³ meaning God with us. Matthew further tells us that the Angel told Joseph that the baby was to be named Jesus because He would save us from our sins. The name Jesus in Hebrew is Yeshua ([Wv/hy)²⁸⁶. Yeshua is a compound word meaning Yehovah is Savior. God speaking through Isaiah in Isaiah 43:10-11 states,

"‘You are My witnesses,’ declares Yehovah, ‘And My servant whom I have chosen, in order that you may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no El formed, and there will be none after Me. I, even I, am Yehovah; and there is no Savior besides Me.’"

Yehovah God tells us that there is no Savior besides Him and that He and He alone is God. Jesus came to save us from our sins. Jesus is Yehovah God in the flesh who was conceived of by the Holy Spirit through the virgin Mary. Isaiah prophecies,

"For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty-El³⁴⁴, Father-of-Eternity, Prince-of-Peace." (Isaiah 9:6)

Concerning this passage Delitzsch wrote,

"There is no reason why we should take El in this name of the Messiah in any other sense than in Immanu-El; not to mention the fact that El in Isaiah is always a name of God, and that the prophet was ever strongly conscious of the antithesis between El and Adam, as ch. 31:3 (cf. Hosea 11:9) clearly shows."^205/252

God next prophecies to us about the coming Messiah through Abraham. God says to Abraham:

"And in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice." (Gen 22:18, 12:2-3).

The fulfillment of this prophecy is confirmed in the following New Testament Passages:

"The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." (Matthew 1:1).

"Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as referring to many, but rather to one, ‘And to your seed,’ that is, Christ." (Gal 3:16).

This passage made clear that Jesus would come from the Hebrew race and that through Him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. History and our present show that wherever Christianity is a nation’s main religion, those countries have prospered greatly.

The next prophecy about Jesus I want to cite is written in Micah 5:2,

"But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity." (Micah 5:2).

Matthew wrote in Matthew 2:1, "Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea."²⁷⁰ In Matthew 2:6 the scribes who knew these Old Testament prophecies tell Herod with full assurance that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. This was a well known fact among the Jews in General (John 7:42). Through this prophecy of the coming Messiah, God eliminates all the cities of the world except one.

After Jesus was born, when the Magi came to see Jesus, Herod made them promise to come back and tell them where he was so he too could come worship the new born king. Being warned in a dream by God not to return to Herod, they returned to their country by another way. Concerning this Matthew wrote,

"Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its environs, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the magi." (Matt 2:16)

Jeremiah had prophesied about this event hundreds of years before. He wrote:

"Thus says Yehovah, ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.’" (Jer 31:15).