“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”

— Micah 5:2

One January my wife and I listed fifty-five separate prophecies made by today’s leading seers and psychics. As that year unfolded, we watched to see which of those prophecies would come true. Not a single one came to pass! Worldly prophets rarely predict events accurately. The worldly prophet Nostradamus became famous because he made one single and obscure prophecy which some believed Hitler fulfilled, but that prophecy could have applied just as easily to a number of other people at various times in Europe’s history. Worldly prophecy leaves room for many interpretations.

While worldly prophecy is weak, we can bank our lives on Biblical prophecy. The prophecy about the Messiah in Micah 5:2 states two things about Him: (1) He would be born in Bethlehem, and (2) He would be eternal. Some may say that this prophecy is weak and unsatisfactory. And it is, just as one single thread is weak and easily snapped. But if you take 333 such threads (some of which we discussed in yesterday’s devotion) and wind them together, no one could break the cord produced. In the same way, no one can break the prophecies made about Jesus Christ. The Old Testament contains an incredible 333 prophecies that describe in detail virtually every aspect of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Nothing remotely like this exists anywhere else in all of the annals of history or all the other religious books of the world.

These Biblical prophecies show us not only that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, but that the Word of God is divinely inspired and that we can trust in what it says. The fulfillment of these prophecies demonstrates God’s existence—in no way could all these prophets have made these prophecies if God had not inspired them to know these things long before they took place. We have seen the utter failure of secular prophets. Only in the Bible and by God’s inspiration do we find prophecies fulfilled.

“God the Holy Spirit moved the prophets to write, and
put into their minds the very thoughts which they
expressed and the very words which they wrote.”
Martin Luther