Josephus (born a few years after Jesus' death) refers to both James and Jesus in one of his writings, The Antiquities. In it, he talks about how the high priest had James killed and how Jesus was known as "the Christ."
Time Gap – The writings of other religions have a much greater gap of time between when the founder of the religion lived and when his teachings were written down, oftentimes hundreds of years. Such as, Buddha lived in the 500s B.C., but his life and teachings weren’t written down until after Jesus’s time. And Muhammad’s teachings of the Qur’an (Koran) were not written down until a century after his death. And yet these writings are still considered reliable and authentic, even though they were written down long after the founders died. But the Bible has the shortest amount of time between Jesus’s life and when the Scriptures were written down, ensuring accuracy and reliability. The books of the New Testament were written between 40-100 A.D., within a hundred years of Jesus’s death, and many were written by the very people who knew Jesus personally. But even Paul, who never met Jesus when He was alive on earth before His crucifixion, wrote his books within a few decades (in general) of Jesus’s death, when he could still talk to those who did know Him personally.
Accurate Facts - Time and time again, the events, people, and places of the Bible have been proven to be accurate by archeological research, further confirming the Bible’s credibility. For example, and briefly:
- Various archeologists confirm that archeological research doesn’t contradict, but confirms, the Bible, calling it one of the most historically accurate records we have.
- Evidence has been found to confirm the census that was taken in the Bible’s account of Mary and Joseph travelling back to Bethlehem to be counted.
- Nazareth, where Jesus spent his childhood, was thought to not exist in Jesus’s day because there was no reference to it in historical records (except the Bible) until the 4th century. If it was only in the 4th century, how could the Bible say Jesus lived there in the 1st century? But an expert in this area said that after the destruction of Jerusalem’s temple in A.D. 70, the temple priests would have been relocated. To support this, archeologists eventually found a list of priests who were relocated, and one of them was sent to Nazareth. (Also, Nazarene tombs with objects from the 1st, 3rd, or 4th centuries have been found.)
- Evidence continues to be found that confirms the Bible’s account of who the political leaders were back then, of people who existed, and of cities and their locations, even when it was previously thought by scientists that the Bible was wrong.
- The court where Jesus was tried, before his crucifixion, has been found.
- Archeologists believe they have unearthed and can now identify the “pool of Bethesda,” which is only mentioned in the New Testament and which scientists did not think really existed. Until now.
-There are historical references to the “eclipse” and earthquake that happened when Jesus died (Matthew 27:45,51: “From the sixth hour to the ninth hour darkness came over the land… At that moment [when Jesus died] … the earth shook and the rocks split.”) According to science, there should have been no reason for an eclipse to happen at that time because of the location of the sun. Yet early historian Phlegon records that, in A.D. 33, there was a great earthquake and a great eclipse which made the noontime look like night. And 2nd century historian Africanus refers to what an earlier historian, Thallus, wrote in A.D. 52 about an “eclipse” that happened at the time of Jesus’s death, calling it a fearful darkness, and about an earthquake that destroyed many places in Judea and other districts. Also, geologists have found evidence in sedimentary layers around the Dead Sea of an earthquake that happened sometime between A.D. 26-36; Jesus would have been crucified around A.D. 33.
- And even very recently (2021), scientists unearthed a city in the Jordan Valley which had been melted, destroyed by a fire so strong that it couldn’t come from any natural heat source known to man. And so they speculate that it must’ve been an asteroid that exploded over the town, melting everything. And they speculate that the reason no one lived there afterward was that the asteroid impact might have brought over so much salt from the nearby Dead Sea that nothing could grow. This, they say, must be what inspired people to make up the story of Sodom in the Bible. But I say, here's your "asteroid": "The Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah - from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities - and also the vegetation in the land." (Gen. 19:24-25) And here's your salt: "The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur - nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger." (Deut. 29:23) The Bible literally gives the answer the scientists can't figure out, but instead of accepting it, they make up their own explanation and then say that the Bible story was inspired by that. Though they have eyes, they will not see. Though they have ears, they will not hear. (Also, ancient tablets were recently unearthed in Tell Mardikh which refer to and confirm the existence of Sodom and Gomorrah, which scientists previously considered mythological.)
Number of Copies – The Bible has more extant manuscript copies (ancient copies of the original writings) in existence than any other historical writing, further supporting its authenticity and accuracy. According to Josh McDowell, there are over 24,000 manuscript copies of parts of the New Testament in existence. I’m not saying that they’ve made 24,000 copies of the New Testament on modern printers, but that they have found over 24,000 copies of sections of the New Testament which were written way back when. And they all affirm the message and accuracy of the Bible. The ancient writing with the second highest amount of copies is the Iliad, which has only 643 copies. The Bible far surpasses any other historical writing when it comes to the amount of ancient copies in existence. We can also compare the Iliad and the New Testament by the “time gap.” The Iliad was created in 900 B.C., but the earliest copy is dated 400 B.C. That’s a five-hundred-year gap of time between when Homer composed it and when the earliest surviving copy was written down. And yet people accept that the earliest copy accurately reflects the original story. However, the New Testament, as I said, was composed between 40-100 A.D. and the earliest surviving copy is dated 125 A.D., which is about an average of 55 years.
[But what about "errors/differences" in the Bible? Wouldn't that prove it's not reliable? According to William Lane Craig in his article "Establishing the Gospels' Reliability" (Reasonable Faith),the Greek text of the New Testament has been so faithfully and accurately translated and passed down to us that only 1,400 words - out of its almost 138,000 - remain in doubt, whereas 99% of it is proven to be accurate and reliable. And none of these possible "errors" affect any Christian claim or doctrine (according to Erhman and Wallace in The Reliability of the New Testament). From other sources I've read, the "errors/differences" are almost entirely made up of spelling errors or differences like saying "he picked up the mat" instead of "he picked up his mat" (imaginary example because I can't remember the exact one). None of these kinds of differences or errors would affect the message of the Bible.]
This is all evidence from outside the Bible that support its validity and reliability and the existence of Jesus. Christianity is not a “blind faith.” There is a lot of intelligent, scientific support for it. And you could also go further and bring up rational arguments like these for the Bible, Jesus, and the Creation story:
1. To discredit the resurrection, some say the disciples stole Jesus’s body from the tomb and hid it, to make it look like He rose again. And some say He never really died on the cross but only appeared to be dead, that after the cool tomb revived Him, He rolled away the giant rock that sealed the tomb and made it past the Roman guard (after He had just been whipped to shreds, nailed to a cross, stabbed in the side, and nearly died).
But if anyone knew that Jesus was a fake, that His body was hidden, or that He was still in a beaten-up body, it’d be the disciples. Yet, history says that most of the disciples were martyred: Simon Peter, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the zealot were crucified (another source says Simon may have been sawn in half), James son of Zebedee and Matthew were killed by the sword, Thomas by a spear, and Thaddaeus by arrows. It’s reported that John was first immersed in boiling oil and, when that didn’t work, banished to an island to die (this is when he wrote Revelation). (And the apostle Paul - who met Jesus after, not before, His resurrection - was beaten, stoned, and whipped for his belief in Jesus, and was most likely beheaded.)
These disciples, who were previously timid, who fled in fear when Jesus was arrested, who lost hope when He died, were all martyred for their faith. If they stole His body or knew He didn’t rise again, you’d think at least one of them would recant and say, “No, it’s just a joke. We stole His body. Don’t kill me.” But none did. They all chose to cling to Jesus till the end, to go boldly to their deaths for their faith in Him. Why?
Because it wasn’t a lie. Because they knew better than anyone that He died and rose again, proving Himself to be God, the Messiah, their Savior. They knew the miracles He did, the compassionate heart He had, the eternal life He offered. They knew He died and rose again, because He appeared to them after He died. And so they knew that to deny Him would be to deny the Truth, to deny God, to lose their eternal souls in hell. And so they chose death instead of denying Jesus.
1 Corinthians 15: “For what I [Paul] received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living… Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also…” Paul’s writing this when many eyewitnesses were still alive. If he was lying about this story, hundreds of people could’ve refuted him. But there is no evidence that anyone did. Why? Because they knew Paul was telling the truth. They saw Jesus too. How many people today would be willing to die for a lie? Would you? The fact that all these disciples were willing to die for Him greatly affirms the truth that Jesus was worth dying for, that He is who He said He is.
John 20:29-31: “Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’ [That would be us, those who don’t get to see Jesus in person after He rose again but who still believe in Him anyway.] Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
2. But maybe they didn’t know it was a lie, someone might ask. Maybe they really thought Jesus rose again because the tomb was empty somehow.
Well, then, what happened to Jesus’s body? There’s no record that Jesus was revived in the tomb, escaped past the Roman guard, and then appeared to people in a beaten-up body. If He did appear to anyone in a beaten-up body, it would’ve been the disciples, but none of them wrote about it. Instead, they all died as martyrs saying He rose again. The Roman soldier at the tomb, guarding it so that the disciples didn’t steal the body, wouldn’t do anything to the body because his life could be forfeited if he failed at his job. The Jewish people, Jewish leaders, and Roman leaders had nothing to gain, only everything to lose, if Jesus went missing from the tomb, because then it would look like they were wrong and the disciples were right, that Jesus really rose from the grave like He said He would, that He really was God and that they had killed Him.
So what happened to the body? Whatever it was, it was enough to cause the disciples to die for their faith. They chose to die for Jesus because they believed Jesus died for them, to save their souls. John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” They believed He really is God and that He rose from the grave to prove it.
But the Jewish religious leaders refused to believe. Here’s how they handled the news that Jesus was missing from the tomb (Matthew 28:12-15): “When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, ‘You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this day.”
And remember, the disciples didn’t die for their faith just because the tomb was empty. In fact, they were confused and distressed when they learned the tomb was empty, unsure of what happened or what to think. But then they saw Jesus. They saw His nail scars and where the sword pierced His side. They talked with Him and ate with Him for 40 days. And then they saw Him leave earth for heaven. And that’s what convinced them.
3. How about the fact that the world and universe show incredible balance, complexity, and intricate design and precision? Consider the intricate complexity of the eye, the brain, and reproductive systems. Can something this complex really be accidental?
If evolution was true, then as animals changed from one kind to another, they would’ve been picked off by predators. If an animal was both fish and bird, then they are neither a strong fish nor a strong bird. They are freaks with deformities, making them the weakest of both species and the easiest to be hunted. Deformed creatures don’t often live long enough to reproduce. Females don’t choose deformed males to mate with. And it’s unlikely they would pass their deformities on anyway. Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” actually contradicts the idea of evolution, of one species changing to another. Plus, for evolution to be true, you need to have not only one freak that survives, but at least two that have mutated at the same rate and in the same way to make mating and reproduction possible. A scientific improbability.
And then there’s the fact that the earth is the perfect distance from the sun, with the perfect tilt and perfect rotation patterns/speed, for life to be possible. If anything was different, if it was slightly closer to or farther from the sun or angled differently or rotated differently, then life wouldn’t be possible. And the earth and moon are the perfect distance apart, with the perfect rotational pattern, to make the gravitational pull exactly what we need it to be. There is the perfect blend of gases at the perfect amounts to support life. Earth has the perfect atmosphere to protect us from the sun’s dangerous rays and excessive heat. There is the right humidity level - just wet enough, just dry enough - to support human life, to prevent us from drying out or from molds, funguses, and slimes taking over. In fact, scientists who believe in evolution even say that life is so precise, complex, and balanced that if even one tiny thing had been different way back during the evolutionary process, then life as we know it wouldn’t exist.
Do you really think something this carefully ordered doesn’t have a Designer, a Creator, that it’s merely the result of random, accidental interactions and processes over billions of years? Have we ever seen even one life form develop into another or grow more complex and ordered, without the help of scientists? [Consider that Newton’s second law of thermodynamics, the Law of Increased Entropy, says that nature will inevitably tend towards disorder and deterioration over time, not towards greater order and complexity. Therefore, if things really did evolve over billions of years, they would evolve to worse conditions that make life less complex, less possible, not better conditions that make it more complex, more possible.]
People accuse Christians of being unreasonable because we believe in a God we can’t see. But how much more unreasonable is it to think that all the things that make up the complex, intricate balance of life happened randomly by accidental, unthinking forces over billions of years? It takes more “blind faith” to be an atheist or evolutionist than it takes to be a Christian. The Bible neatly, clearly explains what the scientists can’t explain, and yet they refuse to believe: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Ps. 19:1-2: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.”
4. What about all the supernatural things that we hear about, that defy logic and science, the things that make you go “hmm”? We’ve all had or heard of those unexplained moments, those confounding experiences that defy natural explanation. There is enough supernatural activity to know that there is something else out there, that there is more than just what can be seen.
Keep in mind, though, that not all supernatural activity is “good” supernatural activity. There are demons out there trying to cause trouble, to trap people. And many supernatural things like tarot cards, fortune telling, Ouija boards, seances, etc. – especially if it “works” – are meant to ensnare you into deeper demonic things.
The good angels don’t play those kinds of games. Heavenly angels are helpers, messengers, and ministering spirits doing God’s work. Ps. 91:11: “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” Heb. 1:14: “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”
It’s the fallen angels – demons - who play those games, to entice or trap people. Don’t give them any access into your life through occultic things like these (and if you already have, repent). Demons will come in on any “welcome mat” you roll out for them, through any door you open for them. Eph. 4:27: “… do not give the devil a foothold.” 1 Cor. 10:21: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too…” Eph. 6:10-12: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” James 4:7: "Submit yourself, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." 1 Peter 5:8-9: “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith …” Lev. 19:31: “Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.” Deut. 18:10-12: “Let no one be found among you who … practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord…”
And do you know what I find interesting? That many people will believe in aliens but not in angels or demons or God or Satan. To them, aliens are possible, but not God. Why? My guess is because they don’t have to bend a knee to aliens if aliens are real.
Side note: Recently, the US government released their report on UFOs, and they concluded that UFOs are real but they haven’t yet proven the existence of aliens. Be warned: I believe that UFOs and “aliens” will be a major End Times delusion. I believe that after the rapture of the Church, demons may appear as “aliens,” convincing many people that it wasn’t the rapture that happened, that the Bible isn’t right, but that aliens are real and that they are the reason why many people disappeared. This could be the delusion spoken of in 2 Thess. 2:9-12: “The coming of the lawless one [anti-Christ] will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie, and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” (Another possibility is that the delusion is the lie that the anti-Christ is really God, not Jesus. Whatever it is, God allows a lie to be spread to force people to make their decision: Will they believe the Bible or not? Will they put their faith in God or in the anti-Christ? And if they have chosen to reject Truth, God allows them to believe the lie, to seal their decision, their punishment.)
Aliens and ghosts are demons in disguise. Not all signs and “miracles” are godly. You don’t have to agree with me, but keep it in mind as the End Times get closer.
5. The Bible was written by over 40 different authors, over a span of 1,500 years, and yet it has continuity in its message and has accuracy in its details, making it seem as though it was really written by one Author. The Bible is not “one” book, but 66 books. And these books all support and agree with each other, making it “one” book. What are the odds that 66 books written by over 40 different authors over the course of 1,500 years (before copies were abundant and could be easily obtained) all agree and are consistent in sharing the same basic truths? How is that possible if it wasn’t God-inspired?
A lot of atheists and skeptics won’t believe in the Bible because of “discrepancies” or things they don’t like, such as God wiping out entire nations, innocent people. Yet I wonder how many of them have actually read the whole Bible for themselves before forming their conclusions. How many realize that those so-called discrepancies have really easy, reasonable explanations, proving that they aren’t really “discrepancies” at all? How many have researched the history of these nations God wiped out, to see that these “innocent” people weren’t so innocent at all, that they were very wicked people who sacrificed children in fires to false gods, who engaged in all sorts of sexually-depraved practices in their idol worship, and who tried to spread their perversion to those around them? How many realize that God gave them many chances repent so that He wouldn’t have to punish them? How many realize that God doesn’t want to exercise His wrath and judgment, that He is loving, gracious, and merciful enough that He would spare entire wicked nations if just a few righteous people could be found in them? He would have spared the whole wicked city of Sodom if only 10 righteous people could be found in it. He’d have spared Israel from punishment if He could have found only one person who did what He wanted, one person who “stood in the gap” for the rebellious nation: Ez. 22:30-31: “‘I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them in my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done,’ declares the Sovereign Lord.” God wanted one righteous man to plead for His mercy, but He found no one who could or would do this. So He dealt with Israel out of His wrath instead. (Who has God asked you to “stand in the gap” for?)
Do any of these atheists or skeptics want to know this? Do they want to know the truth? Or do they just want “reasonable-sounding” excuses for not believing? Will those excuses hold up when they stand before God in the end?
Romans 1:18-21: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
6. Scientists believe that millions of years is needed to explain the many layers of sediment seen in the earth’s crust. However, when the Mount St. Helen’s volcano blew in 1980, 25 feet of stratified deposit was laid down in just 3 hours. And since then, in just a few decades, deposits of up to 600 feet thick have been laid down in various spots. Also, as a result of a mud flow after a 1982 eruption of St. Helens, a “Little Grand Canyon,” about 100 feet deep and a bit wider, opened up rapidly. As a result of this one volcano, geological events occurred that scientists would say normally take many, many years to form. And speaking of canyons, several years ago a record amount of rain fell on a New Zealand town in one weekend, opening up a huge, deep cavity in the earth which looked amazingly like a mini-Grand Canyon (which scientists say was formed by a little water and millions of years).
But if all this could happen after one weekend of rain in New Zealand and after eruptions from one volcano in the 1980’s, I wonder what might happen after this: "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life ... all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of heaven were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights." (Gen. 7:11-12) If a giant, canyon-like sinkhole could open up overnight after a weekend of rain, if a canyon could open up in one day of mud-flow from a volcano, if 25 feet of deposit could be laid down in 3 hours after one explosion, then it’s totally possible that the catastrophic events of the worldwide flood explain the existence of so many things that supposedly took “millions of years” to form [and things such as marine fossils being found on mountaintops, and fossils of whole trees being found standing up vertically through many layers of sediment (if those layers took centuries to form, the tree would have decayed before it could be preserved), and the fossils of fish eating other fish (a fish who’s about to die wouldn’t be eating, so for fossils like this to be found, something dramatic and “unnatural” must have happened quickly to interrupt their eating and to preserve them in mud before they died).] Maybe "a little water and millions of years” is really just "massive springs bursting through the earth's surface and 40 days of rain and flooding”.
There’s even an article in Newsweek (“The Universe Should Not Actually Exist, CERN Scientists Discover,” 10/25/17) where scientists working at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research) said that the universe should not exist according to natural laws, that there’s a symmetry in nature that shouldn’t be possible. Well, if it’s not possible for it to exist by natural laws, then maybe it exists because of supernatural laws! Because God created it. Because He is real and the Bible is true. I think it takes more faith to believe all this happened accidentally than to believe in God.
7. And then there are the biblical prophecies that have been fulfilled, such as these ones fulfilled by Jesus: The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), to a virgin (Is. 7:14). He’d be a descendant of Isaac (Gen. 21:12), Jacob (Num. 24:17), from the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10), and from the family of Jesse (Is 11:1), through his youngest son, David (Ps. 89:3-4, Jer. 23:5). He’d be betrayed by a friend He shared bread with (Ps. 41:9, many of David’s words about himself in the Psalms foreshadow Jesus) for 30 pieces of silver that would be used to buy a potter’s field (Zec. 11:12-13). His disciples would scatter (Zec. 13:7, which happened at Jesus’s trial). He’d be silent before His accusers (Is. 53:7). He’d be pierced (Ps. 22:16, Is. 53:5, Zec. 12:10), be given vinegar when thirsty (Ps. 69:21) and be killed among wicked men but buried in a rich man’s tomb (Is. 53:9). His bones would not be broken (Ps. 34:20, it was common to break the legs of crucified men so that they couldn’t hold themselves up anymore and they died quicker, but when the soldiers saw Jesus was already dead, they didn’t bother to break His legs). And the soldiers would divide up His clothes between them by gambling for them (Ps. 22:18). And this is just a sample.
(From Josh McDowell…) According to a professor whose stats were confirmed by the American Scientific Affiliation, the odds of one man fulfilling just 8 prophecies is 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. It would be the same odds as this: Imagine covering Texas in silver dollars, 2 feet deep, with one coin marked with an X, blended in randomly. Then as you randomly walk across Texas blindfolded, you randomly stop once and reach down without looking and grab a coin. The chances that you grabbed the coin with the X are the same as one man fulfilling just 8 prophecies. Basically impossible … unless the Bible is true.
And if the Bible is correct about the prophecies that have been fulfilled, we can trust that it’s correct about the ones that will be fulfilled, such as about the rapture, the tribulation, the judgment seat of God, heaven and hell, etc.:
1 Cor. 15:51-52: “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”
1 Thess. 4:15-17: “… we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”
1 Thess. 5:2-3: “… the day of the Lord [which I think starts with the rapture] will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”
Rev. 3:10 (I think it’s about true believers who’ll be raptured): “Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial [the tribulation] that is going to come upon the whole earth the test those who live on the earth.”
In the end, believers will spend eternity with the Lord: Acts 16:31: “… Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved …” And they won’t be judged for their sins because they accepted Jesus’s payment for their sins, but they will be judged by and rewarded according to what they did for the Lord: 1 Cor. 3:13-15 “[the believer’s work] will be shown for what it is, because the Day of judgement will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping the flames.”
But unbelievers who rejected Jesus’s sacrifice for them and the eternal life He offers will be judged according to their choices and sins. “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead [unbelievers] were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books… If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” (Rev. 20:11-15) And after facing judgment, they will hear God tell them “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).
These days, everyone can see the prophetic pieces of the End Time puzzle rapidly falling into place (all because of one virus): the beginnings of a world-wide government, a cash-less society, a Jewish peace treaty, the Mark of the Beast (“And he causeth all … to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name (666),” Rev. 13:16-17, KJV), wars and rumors of wars, potential famine (from worker shortages, supply problems, locust plagues), etc. And the Jews have been ramping up preparations for a new temple and the religious rituals that go with it. And I even think the increasing evidence of UFO’s is because Satan can see that time is short, and he’s getting his deceptions in place. The pieces are falling into place everywhere, and quickly. No one will be able to say “I had no warning.”
If you don’t see the warning signs, it’s because you don’t want to.
All of this is just a bit to help you see that there is enough evidence to support the Bible and Jesus’s life and resurrection, enough to change the minds of an investigative journalist (Lee Strobel) and a pre-law student (Josh McDowell), enough to prove it makes sense, it’s reasonable, it’s true.
