What Are The Odds?

Throughout history many people have believed things to be impossible. Most people thought the world was flat and would not hear of the idea that it was round. Explorers were thought to be delusional to believe there was land beyond the vast seas. There was no way that it was possible to put a man in a rocket and send him to the moon. Even just thirty years ago, who in their right mind would have believed that we would carry computers in our pockets capable of storing dozens of movies, thousands of songs, allow us to perform office work and pay bills, plus would give us access to almost limitless information.

There is another truth that most people go to their graves not believing. A truth that has record of multiple eyewitnesses. This is a truth that has documentation covering thousands of years. It is substantiated by archeologists and scientists. This truth was predicted and foretold hundreds of times before it occurred.

The principles of probability which works like this: If the chance of one thing happening is one in M and the chance of another, and independent thing happening is one in N, then the chance that they both shall happen is one in M times N. …Suppose one man in every ten is bald, and one man in 100 has lost a finger, then one man in every 1,000 ( the product of 10 and 100) is both bald and has lost a finger.

Applying this principle to the odds of the three-hundred plus prophecies from the Old Testament writers of the Bible coming true in one man is astronomical. Impossible some say.

What if only eight of the three-hundred plus prophecies are considered? What are the odds then? Let’s consider the following eight prophecies:
1. This person would be born in Bethlehem.
2. The arrival of this man was proclaimed by a messenger prior to the man showing up.
3. At one point this man entered Jerusalem riding a donkey.
4. This man would be betrayed by a friend.
5. He was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver.
6. The betrayal fee could not be returned and was prophesied to go to a potter.
7. When on trial the man made no self defense.
8. This man would die having both his hands and his feet pierced through.

The odds on one man in all of history up to the point in time 2,000 years ago, fulfilling these eight predictions is 1 X 10 to the twenty-eighth power. Written out we have 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. What a huge number. What does this number represent? If we cover the entire state of Texas with two feet of silver dollars with only one of those silver dollars being specially marked and then gave one blindfolded person one try to pick out the specially marked silver dollar – that is the same odds!

These are the odds of one man fulfilling only eight of three-hundred prophecies. There is a man who did fulfill all three-hundred prophecies. It was no random chance. It was not because someone knew the prophecies and worked it out in a way to fulfill them. One man fulfilled all of them because He is God Himself – Jesus – and He entered the world to bring salvation to mankind. He came to pay the penalty you and I cannot pay. Find out about Jesus. Learn about Him. Study Him. Come to know Him as your Savior and Lord.

Statistics from SCIENCE SPEAKS, An Evaluation of Certain Christian Evidences. Written by Professor Peter W. Stoner.