If there is one thing that will build your faith, I'ts prophecy. All throughout the Old Testament we see foreshadows of how Jesus would fulfill events in His life, well today you are about to see how events in history have unfolded exactly how the Book of Jonah in the Old Testament said they would and if you lend your attention you will see absolute evidence that Jesus is the Messiah.

 

Not only do the events of the Old Testament contain prophecy but things get really heavy when you start to look at the numbers within the Old Testament. One story that contains prophecy and numbers that parallel the events of Jesus and history, is the story of Jonah and when you see what I am about to show right here, you will see that history has unfolded exactly as the Bible said it would and it will be so obvious that Jesus is in fact the Messiah, sent to save the world. Now before we can get deep into the Jonah prophecy that provides undeniable evidence that Jesus is the Messiah, we have to first cover the story of Jonah..

 

So let's begin around 760 BC, Jonah became a prophet of God, a prophet is a messenger that God appoints to share a message about his will in the future and so the story begins with God calling Jonah to deliver a message to the sinful city of Nineveh but Jonah he doesn't want to preach to Nineveh so he decides to run away from this calling and he decides to go in the opposite direction of where God wants him to go and so he gets on a random boat with people he doesn't even know and he sails away. Well you can't run away from God so God sends a huge storm and the boat is about to sink the passengers who happen to be very superstitious. They realized that Jonah is the reason that this storm came and so they asked Jonah: how can we be saved, and Jonah says that if he sacrifices himself and is thrown overboard that they will be saved. So Jonah lets them throw him overboard and then Jonah begins to embrace death, but again you cannot run away from God's will! So out of nowhere a big fish swallows Jonah and Jonah is in the belly for three days. After that God makes the whale spit out Jonah  and he ends up on land and at this point Jonah agrees to deliver God's message to the city of Nineveh. So Jonah approaches the city and he gives this message to them “repent or your city will be destroyed in 40 days”. Now follow me, this full of symbolism. Everything that is written here is with purpose and especially the numbers. So that's all he says, he goes to the city and he says to them repent. Basically he says: listen to me or your city will be destroyed in 40 days.

 

Now the amazing thing is, as soon as he says that, all of the people in the city even the king they immediately believe him. They really don't even ask any questions, they just stop doing evil and they even go on a fast for Jonah's God. As soon as you said that they decided “okay” well, listen to what you have to say and because they repented and listened to Jonah's message (God's prophet), their city was not destroyed in 40 days.

 

Now let's see how this all ties to Jesus and provides evidence of who he is. okay all throughout the Old Testament the story is prophetically pointed to the coming Messiah and Jesus wanted those that he spoke, to to understand that. We saw how Jesus told the people that everything written about him through Moses must be fulfilled well here Jesus is about to let his audience know that not only is he within the story of Moses, but he is also within the story of Jonah.

 

Now when Jesus was teaching the crowds many people believed in him, but many of them especially the Jewish religious leaders, the Pharisees, did not believe in him. In fact, many of them criticized him and demanded that he performed miracles to prove who He was. And so, in Matthew chapter 12 Jesus is going to give them an example of how Jonah prophetically foreshadows who he is. So here the crowds and the Jewish leaders were coming to him and they were demanding that he performed signs to prove who he is, and Jesus says this to them in Matthew chapter 12 verse 39 he answered:

 

“a wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

 

So basically he says to them that just like how Jonah sacrificed himself and then went inside of a whale for three days, I will sacrifice myself for the world and will be inside of Hades to harvest the earth for three days and on the third day just like how God raised Jonah out of the fish God will raise me out of the grave. Wow… He tells them that will be the greatest sign that they will ever see when he on the third day comes out as Jonah did.

 

Oh, okay starting to go somewhere, now this gets deep because here Jesus gives two huge clues right here about Jonah. Number one: this reveals that Jonah is a prophetic parallel of Jesus as he said just as Jonah was in the big fish for three days and three nights so will the Son of Man Jesus be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. So we see right here that Jonah is a type or a parallel of Jesus that's clear now. The second clue that Jesus gives to the people right here is that the story of Jonah is a prophetic warning to the people and that warning involves numbers and  this is where it gets good. You see this small quote right here from Jesus let's us know that when we look at the story of Jonah we should see number one that Jonah is a parallel of Jesus and number two that it involves a prophetic warning, that involves numbers. And we've seen that clearly with the three days parallel so let's get into it.

 

So, when we look at the story of Jonah, I mean really Jesus is really just all over the story of Jonah, remember how Jonah sacrificed his life

to save the people on the boat from the storm, well that's an obvious foreshadow of what Jesus would do for the world. He would sacrifice himself and then after that he would be in the grave for three days, just like Jonah was in the whale for three days. I mean that's just that's clear but check this out. Notice what it says in Jonah chapter 1 verse 14. The people who were about to kill Jonah and throw him over the ship notice what they said when they prayed to God. They said: please Lord do not let us die for taking this man's life, do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man for you Lord have done as you pleased. That sounds kind of familiar, probably because just like how they asked for forgiveness before killing an innocent, man Jesus asked God to forgive his killers before killing him, an innocent man, as he said: forgive them, for they do not know not what they do.

 

Let's get even deeper when Jonah was in the whale he prayed to God and notice what he said in his prayer. I called out" to the Lord out of my distress and he answered me out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. Now this right here is amazing, because we know that Jonah was in a big fish for three days, but here in this prayer he says that he is in Sheol which is the realm of the Dead. So here we have a direct reference from Jonah himself that his three days in the whale is a parallel of someone being in the realm of the dead for three days and this is why Jesus said that for three days I will be in the heart of the earth, the realm of the dead.

 

All right okay, now I just want to show how there is a lot in Jonah that parallels Jesus, okay but instead of spending hours going over that, we're going fast forward here to the numerical sign in Jonah that provides solid historical evidence of who Jesus is, the Messiah. Now everything that I've shown so far was to lay a context and a foundation before we jump into this, okay. So, I think we're ready. So, you've seen here how Jonah provides a numerical sequence of how long Jesus would be in the grave three days; we see that there is another great numerical prophecy in Jonah that is not specifically mentioned anywhere in the New Testament, but now that we are reading The Book of Jonah and understanding that it's all about Christ in the future, we are about to see something amazing. Remember when Jonah finally agreed to go to Nineveh, well what was the message that he gave them? Repent or in 40 days your city will be destroyed. Forty days until your city will be destroyed.

 

Well this here is a parallel of what happened with Jesus through a historical event when Jesus was in a heated discussion with the Jewish leaders who were criticizing him; notice what he said to them in Luke chapter 11 verse 34

 

“as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh so will the Son of Man be to this generation.”

 

Wow so here he compares how Jonah went to the Nineveh - how he is coming to them and look what he says in verse 32.

 

“The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and will condemn it for they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold something greater than Jonah is here.”

 

So Jesus was telling them that just like how Jonah went to preach to the city of Nineveh. He himself Jesus was sent to preach to a city as well. Now if you remember the people who Jonah preached to, they listened to him and because they listened and repented their city was saved but the people who Jesus preached to, rejected him and killed him which means if Jesus is a parallel of Jonah that means that we should see in history something that happened to the city of those who rejected Jesus.

 

So first of all we need to discover the city that Jesus was sent to preach - well we see that in Matthew chapter 24 verse 1 as it reads Jesus left the temple and was walking away but his disciples came up to him and called his attention to its abilities and then Jesus says this to them:

 

“do you see all these buildings he asked, I tell you the truth. Not one stone here will be left on another. Everyone will be thrown down. See, Jesus knew that the people who he preached to, in a call to repent, would reject him and since he knows that he is a prophet a parallel of Jonah he knew that if they rejected him their city would be destroyed.

And what was that city that Jesus was called to preach to Jerusalem, Jesus said to them listen to me repent or the same thing that would have happened to Nineveh will happen to you, but they didn't listen they had him crucified

 

Now when Jonah was preaching to the Ninevites he said that if they did not listen to him their city would be destroyed in 40 days. 40 days, this right here is not coincidence you see 40 in the book of Jonah represents the time until destruction would come upon the city and what we are about to see is that this is an instance of what the Bible sometimes describes as

day to year prophecy. day to year prophecy is a parallel where the number of days that something happened in the past relates to the number of years something will happen in the future.

 

For example, when you read The Book of Daniel we see an example of day to year

prophecy. In chapter 9 and he's going through the 70 weeks. Also, in Ezekiel 4 verse 6 we see an example of the day to - year prophecy as it grieves. I have assigned to you 40 days a day for each year and also in Numbers 14 verse 34 it says for 40 years one year for each of the 40 days you explore the land you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you so. Throughout Scripture we see that especially with the number forty days can point to the number of years something will happen in the future.

 

So here it is. Jesus went to preach to those in Jerusalem and unlike the people in the story of Jonah they rejected and killed him and now that we have just dug deep in Bible prophecy we should see in history something that happened to the city of Jerusalem 40 years after they killed God's messenger, Jesus. Well with numerous historical sources references and archaeological evidences most historians agree that Jesus was killed in 30 ad. now obviously not all historians believe that he rose from the dead, but they largely agree that Jesus existed and that he was killed in 30 ad.

 

Okay, well when you look at history you will see that the single largest event that happened to the Jewish people was the fall of Jerusalem when the Romans came and threw down its walls and annihilated its temple and it is an absolute historical fact that the date that Jerusalem was destroyed and its city overturned was in 70 AD. my friend this is huge this is huge because this here is historical evidence that exactly 40 years after Jesus was killed in 30 ad, Jerusalem their city was destroyed in 70 AD.

 

I'm giving this knowledge and I have chills right now I mean it's right there. What you have just seen is something that that everybody has to hear especially those who don't believe because this right her it it's completely eye-opening and it absolutely proves that Jesus is who he said he was, the Messiah. The Book of Jonah foretold that first of all God's messenger would be in the grave for three days we saw that and then it foretold that if people rejected God's messenger their city would be destroyed after a period of 40 years. And history shows us that in fact Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD exactly forty years after they killed Jesus in 30 ad. This is so great this is a big one let me tell you what, okay first of all fragments of the Book of Jonah were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls so that proves that Jonah and all of this numerology was written hundreds of years before Jesus even came into the world and then the Book of Jonah got very specific about the timing of the city's destruction so the fact that the Book of Jonah predicted that a Messenger of God would be healed 40 years before the destruction of Jerusalem shows that either Jesus is the Messiah or this is all one heck of a coincidence. Another reason why this is so huge and mind-blowing is because the New Testament never really even mentioned it, you see the New Testament only hinted at Jonah being a parallel of Jesus it never specifically said that Jerusalem will be destroyed in 40 years so the only way that someone could ever discover this is by digging really deep in the Old Testament prophecy and then comparing history and then seeing how the whole thing was predicted which proves that Jesus is in fact God's messenger. You know this whole thing it's it's like a hidden biblical easter egg and boys this is a big one.

 

Let me just show you this you know I love this site Bible hub, because it shows here the dates for basically every event that happened in the Bible. and as you can see here in the 30 ad it talks about how you know this is when Jesus was crucified and resurrected in 30 ad well when you scroll down and you look at the 70 AD you don't even see anything about it you don't even say anything about fall of Jerusalem and you know the reason why is because a lot of people even scholars have not made this connection and the New Testament writers never specifically even wrote about it so it's not even here but God's revelation is bringing things like this to the forefront in these last days Jonah was sent to Nineveh to tell the people to repent and listen to or their city would be destroyed after a period of 40 years.

 

the people of Nineveh they listened to Jonah they repented and so their city was spared. Well in the same way Jesus was sent to Jerusalem to call the people to repent and listen to him but they didn't listen they killed him God's messenger and just as the prophecy foretold after a period of forty history shows us that their city Jerusalem was destroyed when the fall of Jerusalem happened in 70 AD it set off a chain of events that were also prophetically foretold in Scripture.

 

 

 

 

 

usable source:

https://biblehub.com/timeline/

https://www.blueletterbible.org/