A Little Study of the 7 Thunders

I'd like to first discuss a little about prophecy, to start: with the word prophecy itself. It carries multiple meanings.

• It can mean to hear from God via the Lord Jesus and/or via the Holy Spirit.
• It can mean to share what you hear from God.
• It can mean to declare some truth, as shown by God, about something, someone or some event.
• But we typically think of prophecy as a message from God about the future.

And we, of course, expect to understand those prophecies about the future so that we can be prepared as those future events unfold.

However, the Bible clearly points out that some of those prophecies about the future were not intended to be understood until after the future event has come true!

This kind of begs the question: Why? Why have prophecies that are written down but no one can understand, at least not until after they are fulfilled?

Because they are proof. Proof that there's a God. Proof that there's a Spirit world. Proof that there's a plan for mankind.

And those proofs are for us!

The book of Daniel has many prophecies, some of the most concise and clear prophecies about world kingdoms and conquest. Including the conquest of Alexander the Great. And that prophecy, that proof, even protected Jerusalem from being attacked by Alexander's armies.

Historian Charles Rollin says in his Ancient History,

“the high-priest, afterwards, showed him those passages in the prophecy of Daniel, which are spoken of that monarch. ... We may easily figure to ourselves the great joy and admiration with which Alexander was filled, upon hearing such clear, such circumstantial, and advantageous promises. Before he left Jerusalem, he assembled the Jews, and bid them ask any favor whatever.”

Bible scholars count about 300 prophecies that were directly fulfilled by our Lord Jesus Christ. I would recommend doing your own research of these prophecies. They are extremely important proof. Ray Konig, has a book called "301 Prophecies Fulfilled by Jesus" - might be helpful in your studies.

I did want to mention here some notes, some ideas to consider about all those Messianic prophecies.

When Jesus came to Earth, born a little child, growing up to become an itinerate rabbi, how do we know that He is, indeed, the Christ, the Messiah? Think about it. I'm sure you believe, as I do, that He is the Christ, and the early church definitely believed, a lot of them giving their lives for this knowledge. And I'm sure many of you have had the Lord work in your life in ways that you could not possibly doubt Him.

But before anyone can come to know Him how do they know for sure?

Sure He did a lot of miracles. A lot of incredible miracles. Proving He is a man of God, proving He was anointed by God's spirit. But so were many prophets throughout Bible history.

So what proof do we have that He is the Messiah, the Son of God? Well, the word "proof" should be a clear hint. Yes! That's right! Prophecies!! All those prophecies being fulfilled in such detail and in such a mathematically impossible way in one man at one time in all of history. There is no way those prophecies could ever have been fulfilled in any way by anyone else but Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah!

It's the perfect example of Prophecy as Proof.

Let's take this a little further. How do we know those prophecies are real, in other words, from God above? Interestingly enough, we know those prophecies are from God because of so many other prophecies in the Bible about world events, proven historical events. Prophecies written hundreds, sometimes thousands of years before they were clearly fulfilled in historically documented events.

The ancient prophecies whose historical fulfillment have been proven are proof that the messianic prophecies are also real and that they were from God. There's no other explanation.