Rejoice greatly, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey—even on a donkey’s colt. – Zechariah 9:9

 

With amazing accuracy, Zechariah looked down the corridor of time and described Jesus Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Without the Holy Spirit, how could Zechariah have possibly known that one day Christ would indeed be riding on a little donkey, with thousands of adoring worshipers shouting and laying palm branches in the road? Matthew was an eyewitness of this exact scene and quoted Zechariah, the prophet who had predicted it (Matthew 21:5).

There are sixty-one direct prophecies such as this one, which had to be fulfilled in perfect sequence for Jesus to fulfill all the Old Testament predictions of the Messiah. According to renowned mathematician and scientist Peter Stoner, if the prophets had concocted in their own wisdom only eight prophecies, the odds of having all eight come true in any one person would be the same as the odds of someone who is blindfolded finding—on his first try—a marked silver dollar in the state of Texas, with the entire state buried two feet deep in silver dollars!

Let’s bow today, not before the babe in the manger, but before the mighty King who “will bring peace to the nations” (Zechariah 9:10)!