We started seeing water damage in our downstairs ceiling. The drywall was discolored, then started to sag and I knew we were in trouble, because it was directly below our master bathroom. Being a sub-par handyman, all I could do was cut a hole in the sheet rock, and install an access panel with a bucket hanging between the rafters to catch the dripping water. Even shining a flashlight up into the hole, I could not figure out where the leak was coming from except in the general direction of "up". My makeshift solution didn't work and the water stains on the ceiling grew in size around the access panel.
Terrified of a huge remodeling bill, we finally called the insurance adjuster to come out and help me locate the source of the water leak. He turned the lights on in the bathroom (something that hadn't occurred to me) and had me look up through the dark hole in the ceiling. I saw a crack of light! Not more than the width of 2-3 sheets of paper, a gap had formed between the tile masonry and the shower basin. Each time the shower door was opened, it 'donated' a few ounces of water on to the floor, which seeped into a tiny gap between the tile and the basin. What was completely invisible to my untrained eye in one room was causing major damage to another room in the house.
That is what doubt does to our spiritual house. Satan slyly whispers to us "Does God really say that?....Does this really apply to me?....Even though the Bible states that is a sin, is that what it really means?" We leave a tiny sliver of light between the joints in our spiritual armor (Eph 6) to allow doubt to seep into our lives and damage our faith.
The sad reality is depressing numbers of our children leave our care to go into the world and then fall away from the faith. Marriages crumble; we become ensnared in sins and distractions, we falter under pressure and break the faith in predictable fashion because we have allowed the structural integrity of our faith to crumble, bit by bit, through cracks caused by doubt. I feel the only antidote to this isn't experiential - to feel the Lord's presence - so much as it is to trust His Word. Our responsibility to God is to understand His Word well enough to resolve areas of doubt, and to settle the issue in our minds that what God says, He means - not "generally" or "in principle"; but precisely, exactly, unambiguously.
There are many places in Scripture where a serious student can find very precise proof texts that can bolster your belief in the infallibility of God's Word. Prophecy is often considered a "fringe" study area, but in fact is the very evidence of Divine revelation - facts known beforehand, precisely laid out and described, beyond the shadow of any coincidence or rationalization - outside our time domain, and therefore from God. What follows are four well known prophecies that show God's precision and therefore the faithfulness of His Word - the reliance on which we need to stand against the corrosion of doubt.
In Daniel 9:21-27, the entire history of the world is described, with one pivotal event highlighted, the coming of the Messiah. The Septuagint, (a Greek copy of the Tanakh -- which are the books of the Old Testament including the book of Daniel) was translated from 285 - 246 B.C. This has been well documented, as it was commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphias of Alexandria, Egypt. So at a minimum, the book of Daniel was available 300 years prior to Jesus' ministry - which validates this is truly a prophecy.
Daniel is in Babylon, taken as a teenager from Jerusalem into captivity. They were taken to Babylon because they did not heed the warning of the sabbath. Lev 26:32-35:
"And I will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it will be astonished.
"And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you;
"and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
"Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are
in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its sabbaths."
"As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest which it had not in your
sabbaths when you dwelt upon it."
This prophecy was fulfilled as a matter of history - 606 B.C. Now as an old man (about 535 B.C.), prays for the return of the Jews to their homeland and this is recorded in Daniel chapter 9:
v24 Gabriel declares "“Seventy ‘sevens' are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place
"Sevens" are weeks of years. (see Lev 25:8)
v25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.
This is 69 weeks of years - or 483 "years". Hebrew calendars were 360 days. This is then calculated as 69 x 7 x 360 = 173,880 days from the "going forth of the commandment to restore and build "Jerusalem". This decree came from Artaxerxes Longimanus on March 14, 445 B.C, as a decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus, after three decrees were given to rebuild the Jewish temple, and was focused on rebuilding the walls a streets of Jerusalem.
In 173,880 days from that proclamation, the Messiah the King would appear. Correcting for 116 leap years, and no removing a "year zero" from the calculation, the calendar date revealed is Saturday, April 6, 32 A.D. See Luke 19:28-40 where the Triumphal Entry is described. Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem was even specified to be on a donkey in Zechariah 9:9, another fulfilled prophecy.
v26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.
This occurred in the year 32 A.D. and is validated by Luke 3:1.
The 6th of April translated to the 10th of Nisan in the Jewish calendar, which was the Passover, and is when Jesus was crucified as the Lamb of God for mankind.
The accuracy of this prophecy - to the day, 173,880 days later, in the city defined, in the manner prescribed, without error, is statistically impossible to explain away.
Minute aspects of Jesus' life and earthly ministry are cataloged - many are details Jesus could not have controlled unless He was divine. Each of these Old Testament passages were part of the Septuagint, completed before 245 B.C. Extant copies or portions of these documents have been found as far back as 100 B.C. from the Essenes, who left the Dead Sea scrolls.
* Place of birth: Micah 5:2:
"But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will come for Me to be ruler of Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of Eternity."
* He would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (silver always represents "blood") in Zech 11:12:
"...So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages. Then the Lord said to me, 'Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.' So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the House of the Lord."
And this was fulfilled: Matt 26:15:
"And they weighed out to him thirty pieces of silver. And from then on, he began looking for a good opportunity to betray Him." Then in Matt 27:3-9.
* His lineage would be from David's line (both Mary and Joseph)
Isaiah 9:6,7, fulfilled in Luke 1:69,70, Matthew 22:44
* He would live in Egypt (Hosea 11:1) and fulfilled in Matthew 2:15.
and in Galilee Isaiah 9:1,2, fulfilled in Matthew 4:15.
* That he would be buried in a rich man's tomb Isaiah 53:9, fulfilled Matthew 27:57-60
Knowing the precision and accuracy of the Bible is the "spackle and caulk" we need to fill in those cracks of doubt.
Terrified of a huge remodeling bill, we finally called the insurance adjuster to come out and help me locate the source of the water leak. He turned the lights on in the bathroom (something that hadn't occurred to me) and had me look up through the dark hole in the ceiling. I saw a crack of light! Not more than the width of 2-3 sheets of paper, a gap had formed between the tile masonry and the shower basin. Each time the shower door was opened, it 'donated' a few ounces of water on to the floor, which seeped into a tiny gap between the tile and the basin. What was completely invisible to my untrained eye in one room was causing major damage to another room in the house.
That is what doubt does to our spiritual house. Satan slyly whispers to us "Does God really say that?....Does this really apply to me?....Even though the Bible states that is a sin, is that what it really means?" We leave a tiny sliver of light between the joints in our spiritual armor (Eph 6) to allow doubt to seep into our lives and damage our faith.
The sad reality is depressing numbers of our children leave our care to go into the world and then fall away from the faith. Marriages crumble; we become ensnared in sins and distractions, we falter under pressure and break the faith in predictable fashion because we have allowed the structural integrity of our faith to crumble, bit by bit, through cracks caused by doubt. I feel the only antidote to this isn't experiential - to feel the Lord's presence - so much as it is to trust His Word. Our responsibility to God is to understand His Word well enough to resolve areas of doubt, and to settle the issue in our minds that what God says, He means - not "generally" or "in principle"; but precisely, exactly, unambiguously.
There are many places in Scripture where a serious student can find very precise proof texts that can bolster your belief in the infallibility of God's Word. Prophecy is often considered a "fringe" study area, but in fact is the very evidence of Divine revelation - facts known beforehand, precisely laid out and described, beyond the shadow of any coincidence or rationalization - outside our time domain, and therefore from God. What follows are four well known prophecies that show God's precision and therefore the faithfulness of His Word - the reliance on which we need to stand against the corrosion of doubt.
In Daniel 9:21-27, the entire history of the world is described, with one pivotal event highlighted, the coming of the Messiah. The Septuagint, (a Greek copy of the Tanakh -- which are the books of the Old Testament including the book of Daniel) was translated from 285 - 246 B.C. This has been well documented, as it was commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphias of Alexandria, Egypt. So at a minimum, the book of Daniel was available 300 years prior to Jesus' ministry - which validates this is truly a prophecy.
Daniel is in Babylon, taken as a teenager from Jerusalem into captivity. They were taken to Babylon because they did not heed the warning of the sabbath. Lev 26:32-35:
"And I will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it will be astonished.
"And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you;
"and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
"Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are
in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its sabbaths."
"As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest which it had not in your
sabbaths when you dwelt upon it."
This prophecy was fulfilled as a matter of history - 606 B.C. Now as an old man (about 535 B.C.), prays for the return of the Jews to their homeland and this is recorded in Daniel chapter 9:
v24 Gabriel declares "“Seventy ‘sevens' are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place
"Sevens" are weeks of years. (see Lev 25:8)
v25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.
This is 69 weeks of years - or 483 "years". Hebrew calendars were 360 days. This is then calculated as 69 x 7 x 360 = 173,880 days from the "going forth of the commandment to restore and build "Jerusalem". This decree came from Artaxerxes Longimanus on March 14, 445 B.C, as a decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus, after three decrees were given to rebuild the Jewish temple, and was focused on rebuilding the walls a streets of Jerusalem.
In 173,880 days from that proclamation, the Messiah the King would appear. Correcting for 116 leap years, and no removing a "year zero" from the calculation, the calendar date revealed is Saturday, April 6, 32 A.D. See Luke 19:28-40 where the Triumphal Entry is described. Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem was even specified to be on a donkey in Zechariah 9:9, another fulfilled prophecy.
v26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.
This occurred in the year 32 A.D. and is validated by Luke 3:1.
The 6th of April translated to the 10th of Nisan in the Jewish calendar, which was the Passover, and is when Jesus was crucified as the Lamb of God for mankind.
The accuracy of this prophecy - to the day, 173,880 days later, in the city defined, in the manner prescribed, without error, is statistically impossible to explain away.
Minute aspects of Jesus' life and earthly ministry are cataloged - many are details Jesus could not have controlled unless He was divine. Each of these Old Testament passages were part of the Septuagint, completed before 245 B.C. Extant copies or portions of these documents have been found as far back as 100 B.C. from the Essenes, who left the Dead Sea scrolls.
* Place of birth: Micah 5:2:
"But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will come for Me to be ruler of Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of Eternity."
* He would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (silver always represents "blood") in Zech 11:12:
"...So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages. Then the Lord said to me, 'Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.' So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the House of the Lord."
And this was fulfilled: Matt 26:15:
"And they weighed out to him thirty pieces of silver. And from then on, he began looking for a good opportunity to betray Him." Then in Matt 27:3-9.
* His lineage would be from David's line (both Mary and Joseph)
Isaiah 9:6,7, fulfilled in Luke 1:69,70, Matthew 22:44
* He would live in Egypt (Hosea 11:1) and fulfilled in Matthew 2:15.
and in Galilee Isaiah 9:1,2, fulfilled in Matthew 4:15.
* That he would be buried in a rich man's tomb Isaiah 53:9, fulfilled Matthew 27:57-60
Knowing the precision and accuracy of the Bible is the "spackle and caulk" we need to fill in those cracks of doubt.
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