Beating the odds...


This past week I was in Nevada visiting my son Dylan and his wife Kinzi.  The weather was sunny and we had a great time.  One of the places we visited was an older casino that had a bowling alley.  To get to the bowling alley, however, one had to walk through the endless electronic slot machines.

Have you ever seen people playing these? They never look like they are having much fun.  Maybe one reason why is the feeling of losing money. In truth, slot machines are not great odds and, as they say, the house always wins.

Odds.  That made me think about Biblical prophecy.  I know that seems like a leap, but, stay with me.  I did a quick search for all the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled and, well, here's what one source stated:  

The story of Jesus saturates the meta-narrative of the Bible, and prophecies of His first advent are found throughout the Old Testament. Allusions to Him also come up in micro ways, as many people and events hint at the work He would accomplish. One scholar, J. Barton Payne, has found as many as 574 verses in the Old Testament that somehow point to or describe or reference the coming Messiah. Alfred Edersheim found 456 Old Testament verses referring to the Messiah or His times. Conservatively, Jesus fulfilled at least 300 prophecies in His earthly ministry.

I heard Josh McDowell one time say, quoting a mathematician, that the odds of Jesus fulfilling just 8 prophecies is something like 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. 


Wow.

Jesus beats the odds. Every. Single. Time.


As Paul wrote in the book of Romans:

And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 

Romans 5:5-7 NET

In the name of Jesus, the ultimate game-changer!


Photo by Nik on Unsplash

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