There have been many so-called prophets that have come and gone. How can you tell a false prophet from a true prophet?

 A true prophet, according to the Bible, must be 100 percent accurate (Deut. 18:22). If a prophet claims to have a predictive prophecy from God and it doesn’t come to pass that person is a false prophet. Let’s say that a so-called prophet speaks and he/she is 90% accurate. According to the Bible it’s certain that that prophet was not sent by God. This is still true today. I heard a self-proclaimed prophet say a few years ago (after his prophecy didn’t occur) that he didn’t need to be totally correct in his prediction because, after all, “we see through a mirror dimly.” Call me old fashioned, but I don’t think God has changed his standard. The Bible is clear; a prophet must be 100 percent accurate or he/she is not speaking with God’s authority.

Your question, however, points to the Bible’s uniqueness. There are hundreds of spiritual texts from the religions of the world, but not one of these texts contains detail predictions that have actually come to pass—not any except the Bible. Through the prophet Isaiah, God challenges any competing gods (that clearly don’t exist) to do what he has done—to tell the future accurately before it comes to pass (Isaiah 44:6-7). In fact God cites His ability to predict the future as proof to the world that He is the true God. The reason that no other religious texts contain detailed prediction of the future is obvious—they can’t. 

The Bible contains a little over 1800 individual predictions on various subjects. One biblical scholar has calculated that these predictions comprise about 27 percent of all scripture. These prophecies (unlike Nostradamus and others) are very specific and have proven to be extremely accurate. Let me give you some examples. There are almost 500 specific Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah. According to the Bible the Messiah (Christ) would be a descendant of Abraham and he would be from the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10). He would also be from the house of David and be born in the city of David, which is Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). It was predicted that the Messiah would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14) and his hands and feet would be pierced through (Isaiah 53; Psalm 22:16). There’re many more examples, but clearly these messianic prophecies match only one person in history—Jesus. These predictions concerning Jesus were made hundreds of years before his birth with 100 percent accuracy.

A statistical analysis was done on the probability that only seventeen of these prophecies concerning the life, death and resurrection of Jesus happened by chance rather than divine intervention. The result was 1 chance in 480 billion x 1 billion x 1 trillion. When we consider that there are far more than seventeen predictions, the equation moves beyond our comprehension. If I were searching for the true God, I would without hesitation trust in the One who had checkmate even before the game began. The lamb [Jesus] was slain [crucified] from the creation of the world (Revelation 13:8).