Chapter 2
Signs of the Times
SCOPE One of the questions that religious seekers have is about the validity of the Bible. They ask: “Can we trust the Bible? Isn't it full of myths and errors?” While a number of theologians believe this, that is only their opinion. It is true that there are some hard to understand passages in the Bible, but they are few compared to the ones that are pretty plain. Archeology is a scientific field that more and more as time goes on shows that the Bible is correct. Events and cities mentioned in the Bible that could not be confirmed and were thought to be myths for years or even centuries are repeatedly being found to be correct through archaeological discoveries.
. Before Jesus came to earth as a baby, there were over 100 prophecies in the Old Testament that foretold His coming and details about specific events that would take place before Jesus came. All of these events took place literally as foretold in the Scriptures.
Now if the 100+ Scriptures that foretold His first coming came true literally then would not the 100+ Scriptures foretelling His Second Coming also be expected to come true literally?
Due to these facts, we can come to no other logical conclusion except that the Bible is to be taken literally unless it is obviously symbolic. Even when symbolism is used it normally is used to describe a literal event that will take place. As an example, please examine a sample of a few of the 100+ Scriptures that foretold His coming the first time. They are listed in Appendix 1 to give you a good example of how literal the prophecies are.
As much as 20 percent of the Bible is prophecy and a lot of it is about the End Times, the time just ahead of us. God had the 100+ prophecies about the life of Jesus come true literally to cause us to pay attention to the rest of the prophecies about the End Times which will also come true literally.
It is amazing to see how the vast majority of the Church (at least here in the United States) has not a clue that current world events are fulfilling prophecy. The events of Revelation are being set up and the Church is in denial. That is one reason I am writing this book. Things are coming together quickly prophetically and the Christian populace in America is totally uninformed or misinformed.
Since we are interpreting the Bible literally, we must also be careful not to confuse Israel and the Church. This is covered in the next chapter.
We now need to bring up the doctrine of Imminency. This doctrine (or theory) states that Jesus can come back at anytime and that nothing else has to happen before it takes place. The problem with the theory of Imminency is the fact that it pays very little attention to the details of these 100+ Scriptures talking about His return in the sky and to the earth.
I maintain that all the Scriptures that are to take place before His return WILL take place before His return. That means that He cannot come back before they take place or events are set up for them to take place. We still have to “watch” and we still have the “Blessed Hope” that we will discuss later in the book.
Now there are also many Scriptures that will take place AFTER He comes back, but that is not the subject for this book. In this chapter we are going to mostly concentrate on the ones that will take place BEFORE He is to return in the sky and only somewhat concerning His return to the earth. We will examine 22 Scriptures that have to take place or be possible to take place before Jesus comes back in the sky. We will see once again that the events take place literally even when some of the descriptions are obviously symbolic.
BACKGROUND
Regardless of what we may see or hear on the TV, radio, or in print, the Bible is an amazing book. It tells us things that are going to take place thousands of years in advance in specific detail. No other book has ever done that.
The Bible told us in specific detail hundreds of years ahead of time some things that were going to take place when Jesus came to earth as a baby. This was done to let us know that the Scriptures are reliable to lead our lives.
1. 700 years before Jesus was born, Micah said that he would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2 – 700 B.C.; fulfilled in Matthew 2:1).
2. The prophet Isaiah said that he would be born of a Virgin (Isaiah 7:14 – 700 B.C.; fulfilled in Matthew 1:22-23). 3. Hosea said that he would be called out of Egypt (Hosea 11:1 – 750 B.C.; fulfilled in Matthew 2:14).
4. Isaiah said that he would be rejected by his own people (Isaiah 53:3 – 700 B.C.; fulfilled in Luke 23:13-25).
5. Zechariah said that Jesus would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12-13 – 700 B.C.; fulfilled in Matthew 27:9).
6. David said that he would be put to death by crucifixion, His hands and feet would be pierced, and that they would cast lots for His garment (Psalm 22 - ~ 1000 B.C.; fulfilled in Mark 15:24).
7. David also prophesied of the resurrection of Jesus Christ (Psalm 16:9-10) and His ascension into heaven (Psalm 68:18 - ~1000 B.C.; fulfilled in Luke 24).
No other book has been able to do anything like this. Only God could have inspired the prophets to write things they did not understand hundreds or thousands of years before they took place and yet they came true literally to the letter.
This is a hint from God that the Bible is different from any other book of any kind and can be trusted about other things as well.
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