Text: “And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.”
John 14:29.
“Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am He.”
John 13:19.
Good morning, believing Christian! When you and I read and study God’s Word - as contained in the 66 Canonical Books of the KJV Holy Bible - we believe what God has said through His prophets, psalmists, and Gospel-writing evangelists. Praise God for faithful, Bible-believing, Christians!
“…Jehoshaphat
stood and said (under the inspiration of God the Holy Ghost), Hear me, O Judah,
and ye inhabitants of
We ‘prosper’ in life and in the service of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, when we truly believe and receive His infallible, God-breathed Word, and act on His Divine instruction. That’s a Scriptural fact!
“Trust (truly believe) in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes; fear the Lord, and depart from evil.” (Proverbs 3:57)
Today’s selected Bible reading reveals the Lord Jesus encouraging His disciples to maintain a high level of true belief. Just one chapter earlier, as our secondary text above shows, He made a very similar statement of His intentions; He foretold events that would come in order that, when the events actually took place, the disciples would be well prepared for such events, and gain more faith to believe in Christ’s plan of Atonement Salvation.
Everything Jesus foretold came to pass exactly as He had prophesied!
The
Lord God Almighty ‘…ordained…’ certain chosen men to be his prophets in Old
Testament times. Jeremiah was one such
chosen prophet.
“Then the Word of the Lord came unto me (Jeremiah) saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:4-5)
Dictionary definition: Ordain - (verb) to arrange; to establish; to decree; to destine; to order; to assign, set apart; to appoint; to set apart for an office; to invest with ministerial functions; to admit to Holy orders. (Chambers Dictionary page 1141)
In the above dictionary defined manner, the Lord God ordained, chose, set apart certain men to be His prophets - and their words were at all times His Word, and never the product of their own totally fallible will.
God’s Word declares God’s will, the Scriptures are God-breathed, Spirit-inspired!
“Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in the old time (Old Testament times) by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved (inspired, taught, directed) by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter 1:20-21)
All the Old Testament prophets spoke only as they were directed by God the Spirit - their lives depended upon the prophecy coming to pass!
“If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.” (Deuteronomy 13:1-5)
The Lord Jesus, God the Son Himself, therefore prophesied His Crucifixion; His suffering; death and resurrection - to prove that He is God, and to give certainty to our faith in Him. He is the fulfilment of every other prophecy.
Thought: “Never man spake like this Man” - Jesus, the risen Christ.
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