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PROVING GOD, THE BIBLE, SCRIPTURE, AND THE COMING MESSIAH

WHO I AM

Who I am is not important, but how I learned the truth about my Creator is. I hope that you find my experience interesting, logical, and important to you. When I turned 40, about 30 years ago, my twenty-three year career as a naval aviator was winding up. The F4U Corsair, above left, and the F8U Crusader, above right, were the first and the last of many fighter aircraft that I flew. The end of my flying career around my 40th birthday was very depressing to me and I felt that the best half of my life was over. I found no joy in looking forward to aging, infirmity and death. Life after death was not something I could meaningfully believe in. I soon discovered that happiness consists of a pleasant expectation of the future, not looking back at a very pleasant past. I felt that the future looked grim and was haunted by the thought that ultimately death would end everything that I held dear in this life.

Prior to my joining the Navy at age 17, I had been raised in a Christian family and was active in church. Nevertheless, after joining up, I stopped going to church and discovered that it meant very little to me. For the next 20 years, I was an agnostic with no convictions about God except that there were many forms of belief about Him. I was interested in forming a factual, rational understanding about God but I never found a cogent reason for believing one of the many, contradictory concepts of Him. I believed He was unknowable and that I would inherit eternal life, if it existed, providing I was a "good person." (HOW WRONG I WAS!) As an honor graduate from a leading engineering school, I wanted a logical reason to believe and felt that blind faith was the reason that there were so many forms of belief and opinions about God. It seemed that many believed what their family, country, or their region believed in, or their belief was a result of an admired person's persuasion. I also felt that only God could tell me about Himself and His plan for this universe, but I knew that there were conflicting "divine books" claiming to be revelations from Him such as the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, the Book of Mormon, Science and Health, the Koran, and others. Down deep, I felt that it was important to learn about my Creator, but what should I believe and why should I believe it?

Some time later, while employed by Hewlett-Packard, I sold a computer system to a nuclear physicist at the Oak Ridge National Lab complete with a real time Basic Interpreter that he could program to control his experiment. This was a small, ferrite core memory computer using Basic "call" program statements to control switches, A/D's, D/A's, and to print out data and a report for each iteration of his experiment. He wanted to use this easily programmed setup to write his program and bypass the lengthy and bureaucratic process of having the main programming dept. write his program. Perhaps some of you computer buffs remember the first HP computers-Models 2114, 2115, & 2116-using switch registers and paper tape Fortran Compilers and Basic Interpreters. While selling and helping him to get his system running, I spent quite a few hours with this high power Ph.D., including a few meals at the Holiday Inn at Oak Ridge. He openly professed his religious beliefs, which I thought to be inconsistent with his scientific and logical approach to his work, little of which I understood. I asked how he could blindly accept these beliefs in view of his background, and I will never forget his answer!

He stated that he had also been an agnostic and needed evidence to believe anything about God. His search started while he was reading an anecdote about Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia from 1740 to 1786. It seems that the king challenged his court preacher and asked him for an incontestable proof for the inspiration of the Bible. The preacher quickly answered-"The Jew, your Majesty." This anecdote aroused my friend's interest and he soon found that the Bible, and only the Bible, shows how to test or prove a prophet or anyone who claims that he is speaking, writing, or quoting anything directly from God, including the Bible itself! In my journey, I have found that only the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures (Old and New Testaments) show how to verify God's Words to His creation. I have completely or partially read the English versions of the other available books claiming divine authority and have never found anything in them to prove that they are from God.

My friend outlined the Bible's method of proving God's revelations. The Bible claims to be from the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and that only He can reveal His will and eternal plan.

 Here is the method and the premises that the Bible gives to anyone wanting to verify its claims that God used humans to inerrantly communicate His thoughts to His creation in a language that they would understand. Some of the Biblical passages involved will be shown. YOU are fortunate to have been born into the last generation of this age while the most amazing prophecies are being fulfilled in the Mideast:

I.<> Only God can make predictions about random events in the future and make them come true with perfect accuracy (100.000%). These events must not only be random, but at the time He predicts them, the fulfillment must seem to be impossible or unlikely. These must not be self-fulfilling predictions:

8 But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. 9 Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away. 10 ¶ Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. (Isaiah 41:8-10 AV)

9 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: (Isaiah 46:9-10 AV)

3 I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass. 4 Because I knew that thou (Israel) art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass; 5 I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I shewed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them. 6 Thou hast heard, see all this; and will not ye declare it? I have shewed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them. 7 They are created now, and not from the beginning; even before the day when thou heardest them not; lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them. (Isaiah 48:3-7 AV)

Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. (Habakkuk 1:5 AV)

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? (Isaiah 53:1 AV)

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:21 AV)

II.<> When a prophet (someone claiming to speak for God) makes this kind of prediction, and the fulfillment is 100.000% accurate, then the hearers are held responsible by God to believe and comply with His revelation. If a prediction is not fulfilled with 100.000% accuracy, it did not come from our Creator, and the person making it is a false prophet:

The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the LORD hath truly sent him. (Jeremiah 28:9 AV)

15 ¶ The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee (Israel) a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; 16 According to all that thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. 17 And the LORD said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. 18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. 19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. 20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. 21 And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? 22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him. (Deuteronomy 18:15-22 AV)

17 ¶ Think not that I (Christ) am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-20 AV)

24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine (Christ), and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: 25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. 26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: 27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7:24-27 AV)

III.<> God has declared that he will use two servants, Israel and the Messiah, to prove that He is God, and to prove who His true prophets are. He will do this by predicting the important events of this age involving these two servants. Israel is His servant nation comprised of the blood descendants of Jacob, the 12 tribes formed by his 12 sons, and the land that He gave to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants forever. The Messiah is God Himself who will come to earth to establish God's kingdom on earth. God also makes predictions about other peoples and nations insofar as they interact with Israel (the Jewish people or the land, especially Jerusalem) or His Messiah: God's plan for this age is revealed through His prophets and involves declaring the course of this age, including its end, through His servant nation and His righteous servant the Messiah. The amazing secular history of Israel for over 3000 years is the 100.000% accurate fulfillment of the predictions of God's prophets, thus proving His revelations. And an amazing history it is, as we shall see! The fulfillment of the many amazing prophecies about the birth, life, and death of the Messiah prove that He is truly God's Messiah:

7 And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me, since I appointed the ancient people?(Israel) and the things that are coming, and shall come, let them shew unto them. 8 Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any. (Isaiah 44:7-8 AV)

8 ¶ Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears. 9 Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them can declare this, and shew us former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified: or let them hear, and say, It is truth. 10 Ye (Israel)are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. 11 I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour. 12 I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you Israel) therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I am God. 13 Yea, before the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let it? (Isaiah 43:8-13 AV)

8 But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. 9 Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away. 10 ¶ Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. (Isaiah 41:8-10 AV)

IV.<> The most important duty of man is to know God and His plan so that he can fulfill his role in the great plan of God, for all eternity. Only God's revelation can guide man through his dangerous journey on this earth and enable him to attain eternal life under the providence of his Creator:

Obviously, you must know about the great events in the secular history of the Jewish people, their nation Israel, and God's city of Jerusalem. A good encyclopedia makes this step fairly easy. Pay particular attention to the destruction of Jerusalem and the worldwide dispersion of the Jewish people by the Roman Empire shortly after AD 70, the things that happened to them during this dispersion, and their AMAZING regathering since 1948 back into the same land that was promised to them forever. They had lost title to this land for almost 2000 years. It is easy to prove that the Hebrew Scripture (Old Testament) has existed in its present form well before AD 70. The Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls verify this.

Christ used the Septuagint. The prophecies about Him and the Jewish people are in the Hebrew Scripture (Old Testament.) The Christian Scripture shows that Christ fulfilled what was written about Him in the Hebrew Scripture. If the language of Scripture seems strange, remember it was written in languages other than English thousands of years ago for the people then and now. In my Scripture references, I choose to use the Authorized Version of 1769 published 300 years before the amazing modern day events in the Mideast, including the regathering of the Jewish people from the four corners of the earth and the rebirth of Israel during this century. However, for this purpose, different versions of Scripture are extremely similar, including the Jewish versions. I hope that you have been able to study these things in an encyclopedia or appropriate history book. The impact of the prophecies will be lost without knowing the secular history of these events. Fortunately, the rebirth of Israel is very recent and predicted very extensively in Scripture. It is impossible that this event and the sufferings of the Jewish people could be predicted by human means, or is self-fulfilling. Any version of Scripture, Jewish or Christian can be used to verify all passages of Scripture.

Perhaps the most amazing prophecy in the Hebrew Scripture is Moses' prediction of Israel's future from the time before the Israelites crossed over the Jordan river to take over the promised land until the very end of this age, including the present day events in the Mideast. I will make historical comments to supplement your study of the events in Israel's history mentioned above. Although not necessary, you can better understand the context of the prophecy by studying all of chapters 28, 29, and 30 in the Book of Deuteronomy. Moses wrote this book around 1400 BC. Remember, you must be somewhat familiar with the major events of the history of Israel. Here we go!

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