So let’s look at Bible prophecy first.
Unlike other religious texts, the Bible offers a multitude of
specific predictions—some thousands of years in advance—that either have been
literally fulfilled or point to a definite future time when they will come true.
They foretell the rise and fall of empires and leaders, as well as national
calamities, and over three hundred prophecies tell of the ancestry, birth,
life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of the promised Savior,
Jesus of Nazareth. This is true of no other book in the world, and it is a sure
sign of its divine origin. Over 25 percent of the Bible contains specific
predictive prophecies that have been fulfilled, so we can trust that all
remaining prophecies will be fulfilled with equal accuracy.
Jesus said of the end times, “As the days of Noah were, so also
will the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matthew 24:37). In other words, certain
activities that were prevalent in Noah’s day would be prevalent in the last
days, just before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
In Noah’s day there was great violence on the earth, much
corruption, and the imaginations of men’s hearts were continually evil. That’s
what we are seeing in today’s society. Are we living in the last days? Here are
ten biblical signs for which we are to look:
● The
Scriptures tell us that there will be money-hungry Bible teachers who will slur
the Christian faith and deceive many:
“. . . there will be false teachers among you . . . And many will
follow their destructive ways,
because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By
covetousness they will exploit you
with deceptive words . . .” (2 Peter 2:1–3).
● There
will be wars, earthquakes, famines, and widespread disease:
“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
And there will be
famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places” (Matthew
24:7).
● The
moon will become blood red:
“The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,
before the coming of the
great and awesome day of the LORD” (Acts 2:20).
● Blasphemy
will become commonplace:
“. . . in the last days perilous times will come: for men will be
lovers of themselves, lovers of
money, boasters, proud, blasphemers . . .” (2 Timothy 3:1,2).
● There
will be an increase in the acceptance of homosexuality as there was in the days
of Sodom:
“Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot . . . but on the day
that Lot went out of Sodom it
rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even
so will it be in the day
when the Son of Man is revealed” (Luke 17:28–30).
● Religious
hypocrisy will be prevalent:
“For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they
deny and reject and are
strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness
of their profession]”
(2 Timothy 3:5, Amplified).
● People
will deny that God created the heavens and that He judged the world through
Noah’s flood:
“There shall come in the last days scoffers . . . for this they
willingly are ignorant of, that by
the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing
out of the water and in the
water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with
water, perished” (2 Peter
3:3,5,6).
● The
future will become frightening:
“. . . men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of
those things which are coming
on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Luke
21:26).
● Scoffers
will mock the Second Coming by claiming these signs have always been around:
“. . . scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to
their own lusts, and saying,
‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell
asleep, all things continue as
they were from the beginning of creation’” (2 Peter 3:3,4).
● People
will ignore the warning of the gospel:
“But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son
of Man be. For as in the
days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and
giving in marriage, until
the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the
flood came and took them all
away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matthew
24:37–39).
Let’s now look at scientific facts in the Bible.
Before we look at these scientific facts, let me preface them with
some very important information. Many years ago, I ran a children’s club. At
the end of the club I told about one hundred kids to line up for some candy.
There was an immediate rush, and the line sorted itself into what I saw as a
line of greed. The bigger bullies had pushed their way to the front of the
line, and the smaller, quiet kids were at the back. So I did something that
gave me great satisfaction. I told the kids to turn about-face, then I took
great delight in going to the other end of the line and giving candy to the
quieter, meek kids first.
In a world where bullies push their way to the front, where the
rich and powerful stomp on the poor and weak, God has gone to the other end of
the line with the message of everlasting life. Here is what we are told: “For
the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing . . . For it
is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the
understanding of the prudent’. .
. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise,
and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to
shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and
the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which
are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in
His presence” (1 Corinthians 1:18,19,27–29).
How has God turned the line around? He has chosen seemingly
foolish things to confound the wise. Let me illustrate:
Do you believe that the following biblical accounts actually
happened?
● Adam
and Eve
● Noah’s
Ark
● Jonah
and the great fish
● Joshua
and the walls of Jericho
● Samson
and his long hair
● Daniel
and the lions’ den
● Moses
and the Red Sea
Of course, you don’t. To say that you believed such fantastic
stories would mean you’d have to surrender your intellectual dignity. Who in
their right mind would ever do that? The answer is simply those who understand that God has chosen
seemingly foolish, weak, base, and despised things of the world to confound those who think they are wise.
Imagine that you are looking at a luxury liner moving through calm
waters. To your surprise about a dozen
people jump off the ship and cling to a lifeboat. You watch as the
rest of the passengers stand on the ship and laugh at them. You can understand
their reaction.What those few people did was foolish. It made no sense.
Suddenly, the ship hits an unseen iceberg and sinks, taking with it all who
stayed on board. Now you see that those who seemed like fools were wise, but
those who stayed on the ship and seemed to be wise were fools.
We have in the Bible a command to jump off the luxury liner of
this world. Before you laugh at “stupid” Christians, consider whether there is
any proof that its claims are true. Here is scientific evidence that the Bible
is no ordinary book:
● Jeremiah 33:22 (written 2,500 years ago): “As the
host of heaven cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured . . .”
The Bible claims that the stars are uncountable (“host of heaven”
is the biblical term for the stars). When this statement was made, no one knew
how vast the number of stars was, as only about 1,100 were observable. Now we
know that there are an estimated septillion—or
more—stars, and that they cannot be numbered.
● Job
26:7 (written 3,500 years ago):“He hangs the earth on nothing.”
At a time when it was believed that the earth sat on a large
animal, the Bible stated that the earth freely floated in space. Scientists now
know this is the case.
● Leviticus
17:11 (written 3,000 years ago): “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.”
The great biological truth concerning the importance of blood in
our body’s mechanism has been fully comprehended only in recent years. Up until 120 years ago, sick
people were “bled,” and many died because of the practice. We
now know that blood is essential to life. If you lose too much blood, you lose
your life.
● Leviticus
15:13 (written 3,000 years ago): “And when he who has a discharge is cleansed
of his discharge, then he shall count for himself seven days for his cleansing,
wash his clothes, and bathe his body in running water; then he shall be clean.”
The Bible said that when dealing with disease, we should wash
under running water. Because the
presence of microscopic diseases was unknown, up until 170 years
ago doctors washed their hands in a basin of still water, spreading diseases
and resulting in the death of multitudes.We now know that hands should be
washed under running water.
● Job
38:35 (written 3,500 years ago): “Can you send out lightnings, that they may
go, and say to you, ‘Here we are!’?”
This appears to be a scientifically ludicrous statement—that light
can be sent, and then manifest itself in speech. But did you
know that radio waves move at the speed of light? This is why you can have
instantaneous wireless communication with someone on the other side of the
earth. Science didn’t discover this until 1864 when “British scientist James
Clerk Maxwell suggested that electricity and light waves were two forms of the
same thing” (Modern Century Illustrated
Encyclopedia,Vol. 12).
● Isaiah
40:22 (written 2,800 years ago): “It is He who sits above the circle of the
earth.”
The Bible informs us here that the earth is round. This is not a
reference to a flat disk, as some skeptics maintain, but to a sphere. At a time
when science believed that the earth was flat, it was the Scriptures that
inspired Christopher Columbus to sail around the world. He wrote: “It was the
Lord who put it into my mind. I could feel His hand upon me . . . there is no
question the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit because He comforted me with
rays of marvelous illumination from the Holy Scriptures . . .” (from his diary,
in reference to his discovery of “the New World”).
● Job
38:19 (written 3,500 years ago): “Where is the way to the dwelling of light?”
Man has only in recent centuries discovered that light
(electromagnetic radiation) has a “way,” traveling at 186,000 miles per second.
● Genesis
1:1,2 (written 3,500 years ago): “In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth . . . And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
Science expresses the universe in five terms: time, space, matter,
power, and motion. “In the beginning [time] God created [power] the heavens [space] and the earth [matter] . . . And the Spirit of God
was hovering [motion] over the face of the waters.” The first thing God
tells man is that He controls all aspects of the universe.
● Psalm
8:8: “. . . and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas.”
Man discovered the existence of ocean currents in the 1850s, but
the Bible declared the science of oceanography thousands of years ago. Matthew
Maury (1806–1873), considered the father of oceanography, noticed the
expression “paths of the sea” in Psalm 8. “If God said there are paths in the
sea,” Maury said, “I am going to find them.” He took God at His word and went
looking for these paths, and we are indebted to him for discovering the warm
and cold continental currents. His book on oceanography remains a basic text on
the subject and is still used in universities.
● Jonah
2:6 (written 2,800 years ago): “I went down to the moorings of the mountains .
. .”
When Jonah was in the depths of the ocean, he spoke of going down
to the bottoms of the mountains. Only in recent years has man discovered that
there are mountains on the ocean floor. The greatest ocean depth has been
measured in the Mariana Trench, at around 36,000 feet below sea level. By contrast,
Mount Everest is about 29,000 feet high.
● Amos
9:6 (written 2,800 years ago):“He . . . calls for the waters of the sea, and
pours them out on the face of the earth—the Lord is His name.”
The Mississippi River dumps over six million gallons of water per second into the Gulf of Mexico. Where does all that water go? And that’s
just one of thousands of rivers. The answer lies in the hydrologic cycle, so
well brought out in the Bible. The Scriptures inform us, “All the rivers run
into the sea, yet the sea is not full; to the place from which the rivers come,
there they return again” (Ecclesiastes 1:7). Psalm 135:7 tells us that God
“causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth.” Ecclesiastes 11:3 states
that “if the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth.”
The idea of a complete water cycle was not fully understood until the
seventeenth century, but 2,400 years earlier the Scriptures clearly spoke of a
water cycle.
● Ecclesiastes
1:6: “The wind goes toward the south, and turns around to the north; the wind
whirls about continually, and comes again on its circuit.”
The wind does indeed have a “circuit.” The Bible described this
cycle of air currents almost three thousand years before scientists discovered
them.
● Job
38:12,14 (written 3,500 years ago):“Have you commanded the morning since your
days began, and caused the dawn to know its place . . .? It [the earth] takes
on form like clay under a seal, and stands out like a garment.”
Modern science has come to understand that the earth’s rotation on
its axis is responsible for the sun’s rising and setting. The picture here is
of a clay vessel being turned or rotated on the potter’s wheel—an accurate
analogy of the earth’s rotation.
● Psalm
19:4–6: “In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun, is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber.
. . Its rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end; and
there is nothing hidden from its heat.”
Bible critics have scoffed at these verses, claiming they teach
that the sun revolves around the earth. Scientists once thought the sun was
stationary. Then it was discovered in recent years that the sun is in fact
moving through space at approximately 600,000 miles per hour. It is traveling
through the heavens and has a “circuit” just as the Bible says. Its circuit is
so large that it would take an estimated 200 million years to complete one
orbit.
● Genesis
2:1 (after creation): “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of
them, were finished.”
The original Hebrew uses the past definite tense for the verb
“finished,” indicating an action completed in the past, never again to occur.
The creation was “finished”—once and for all. That is what the First Law of
Thermodynamics states: that neither matter nor energy can be either created or
destroyed. There is no “creation” ongoing today. It is “finished” exactly as
the Bible declares.
● Hebrews
1:10,11 (written 2,000 years ago): “You, Lord, in the beginning laid the
foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will
perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like a garment.”
Three times the Bible says that the earth is wearing out. This is
what the Second Law of Thermodynamics (the law of increasing entropy) states:
that in all physical processes, every ordered system over time tends to become
more disordered. Everything is running down and wearing out as energy is
becoming less and less available for use. That means the universe will
eventually “wear out” to the extent that (theoretically speaking) there will be
a “heat death” and therefore no more energy available for use. This wasn’t
discovered by man until fairly recently, but the Bible states it in clear,
succinct terms.
● Genesis
17:12:“He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male
child in your generations . . .”
The Bible consistently says that male infants must be circumcised
on the eighth day, because this is the day that the coagulating factor in the
blood, called prothrombin, is the highest. Medical science has discovered
that this is when the human body’s immune system is at its peak.
● Genesis
3:15: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed
and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
This verse reveals that a
female possesses the “seed of life.” This was not the common knowledge until a few
centuries ago. It was widely believed that only the male possessed the “seed of
life” and that the woman was nothing more than a glorified incubator.
● Isaiah
40:22 (written 2,800 years ago): “It is He who. . . stretches out the heavens
like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.”
Scientists now know that the universe is expanding, or stretching
out. At least seven times in Scripture we are clearly told that God stretches out the heavens like a curtain.
These scientific and prophetic facts prove that the Bible is no
ordinary book; it is supernatural in origin, as it so often claims. It is the
Word of God, stating “Thus says the Lord” 3,800 times. There is no other book
in any of the world’s religions (Bhagavad Gita,Vedas, Quran, Book of Mormon,
etc.) that contain perfectly accurate prophetic and scientific truth. In fact,
they contain statements that are clearly erroneous and unscientific.
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