Life’s most important Questions should never be left to Blind Faith or subjective feelings. Rather, these crucial issues should be based on well-supported facts and evidence. Some people dismiss God, the Bible, or the Christian faith as myths or wishful thinking, without ever asking the most fundamental question of all: “Are they verifiable true?” You be the Judge. The evidence requires a verdict.
I am always amazed that people who are going to buy a new stereo system, or a new car, or even a new refrigerator will spend a great deal of time researching different magazines, looking at the consumer reports and reviews online, maybe even trying them out, and only then finally selecting the very best one for the money. But, when it comes to the much more important issue of salvation and the destiny of their eternal souls, they just shrug and say: “Well, everybody has their own beliefs, you know.”
When I attended a university years ago, people would ask me: “So, you’re a Christian?” “Yes.” “Your parents were Christians?” “Yes.” Ah, that explains it! They would say. “You’re a Christian because your parents are Christians. If they were Hindus or Muslims or Buddhists, that’s what you would be.”
But that’s not really the question, you know. Here’s the real issue: “If I were able to line up all the belief systems in the world and examine them, and turn them on, and try them out…then what faith system would I be?”
One day a famous Bible teacher in America named Harry Ironside was preaching out on the streets in central California. A man passed by and interrupted saying: “Excuse me, sir. How do you expect an ordinary man like me to figure out the right way? There are thousands of beliefs in the world.”
“Sir, thousands of beliefs?” Harry Ironside replied. “I only know of two.” The passerbyer was confused. “Two?” the man said. “Well, there’s Buddhism, Confucianism, and Hinduism, and Islam, and all the versions of Christendom. What do you mean there are only two beliefs?!”
Ironside paused. “There are those who believe they can save themselves.” he noted. “ And those who believe they need a Savior.
Think about it: All of the other religions of the world basically tell you that there is something you need to do to save yourself. But the message of Christianity is actually unique in that it proclaims to people everywhere that there is a Savior, and His name is Jesus.
As we consider these important issues, there are those who will quickly object and say: “Well, I don’t believe in God.”
Let’s face it, there are many reasons that people give for rejecting belief in God. Maybe they experienced the loss of a loved one early in life, or they were disappointed or betrayed by a religious person, or maybe they somehow think that modern science has made the idea of God “primitive” or “unnecessary.” It could also be that their lifestyle choices make the idea of an ultimate authority and judge a bit uncomfortable, and so, in many of these cases it’s just easier to them to say: “God doesn’t exist.”
But that’s like saying: Gravity doesn’t exist!”
A person could say: “I don’t see Gravity, so Gravity does not exist.” But the weight of evidence for Invisible Gravity is conclusive and convincing. Likewise the weight of evidence for God from Science, Logic, and Morality is beyond overwhelming. It is because of this evidence that the vast majority of people acknowledge God’s existence, including and majority of scientists and intellectuals.
Science Points to God. In the early to mid-20th century, scientific discoveries were causing atheists a great deal of discomfort. Undeniable observational and mathematical evidence demonstrated that the Universe is Not eternal, but rather that it began at a moment in time in the past. Though the phrase was meant to poke fun at the discovery, soon people began calling this creation event the “Big Bang.”
Interestingly, it was atheistic scientists who initially rejected the Big Bang because it sounded exactly like the Biblical Creation account in the book of Genesis. In the first few verses of the Bible, we read of a God (Who exists outside of space and time) creating a material Universe out of nothing, which is exactly what the data from a variety of sources confirms.
Over time, the case for a non-eternal Universe overcame nearly all objections,with evidence from starlight redshift (which proved a rapidly expanding Universe), C O B E background radiation measurements, and implications of Einstein’s Relativity as demonstrated by astrophysicist Georges Lemaitre )who traced those moving galaxies back to a single point of origin). The evidence is clear: the Universe was created out of nothing and the Universe is not eternal.
Famous theoretical physicist Alexander Vilenkin noted: “With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of the past-eternal Universe. There is no escape: they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.”
Robert Jastrow, astronomer physicist at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies said: “Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation…That there are…supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.”
Quantum chemist Henry F. Schaefer III (five time nominee for the Nobel Prize in chemistry) offers that: “A Creator must exist. The Big Bang ripples and subsequent scientific findings are clearly pointing to an ex-nihilo creation consistent with the first few verses of the book of Genesis.”
As cosmologists continued to study the Universe, new and startling discoveries further pointed to the existence of a super-intellect which created the cosmos. Rather than finding chaos and blind chance, they discovered that the Universe is governed by precisely selected constants within physics and chemistry. If any of these values varied by even the tiniest fraction of a fraction, there would be no planets, no stars, and definitely no life. Once again science proved that, logically, there must be an intelligent Creator capable of this level of Universal super-engineering.
With regard to this “Fine Tuning,” Professor Steven Weinberg (Nobel laureate in High Energy Physics) wrote the following in the Scientific American journal: “…how surprising it is that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe should allow for the existence of beings who could observe it. Life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values.”
With physics and chemistry conclusively pointing to an intelligent Creator, it was only a matter of time before molecular biology would yield its own mountain of evidence for God. In the early 1950’s researchers Watson and Crick announced the formal discovery of the double helix molecule know as D N A.
In the decades following, analysis of this unimaginably complex information storage system has revealed that physical life cannot be the result of random chance mutations and simple chemical attractions (as was once believed). Life requires thousands of highly-complex functional proteins, and the mathematical odds of ever just one of these arriving by chance is effectively zero.
One researcher put it this way: The amount of time it would take to form one average functional protein by change is the amount of time it would take an amoeba, traveling at the breathtaking speed of one foot per year, to transport each atom in the known Universe all the way across the Universe 930 billion light years!) and then travel back to pick up the next atomm, and so on, until it has transported every single atom (roughly 10 to the 80 power atoms). And then it would have to repeat this process for 56 million more Universes! This exhausted amoeba would travel about quintillion doubled, that would be 10 with 114 zeros.
Obviously, this proves that it is statistically impossible to explain functional proteins by natural processes. And even if just one functional protein somehow formed, life requires thousands of these, and each is very different and each is highly-complex.
To put this in an analogy, imagine hearing that Fred Smith from down the street had just won the Powerball lottery. You could confidently say: “Fred was lucky!” And you would be right.
The odds of winning the Powerball is roughly about 1 in 300,000,000. But now imagine hearing the very next week that the very same Fred Smith won the very next Powerball!
Right away you would suspect that something was up. And once again, you would be right. You would instinctively infer that he is probably working with someone on the inside because the odds seem too great against this being the “luck of the draw.” Now what if Fred won Three Weeks in a row? Surely a quick criminal investigation would be opened to find those responsible for “rigging” the system. The only way these kinds of chance-defying odds can be overcome is for an intelligent agent to engineer this kind of result.
But now, just try to imagine that this same Fred Smith wins the next 1,000 Powerballs in a row! “Impossible!” you exclaim. And, again, you would be right, because the mathematical laws of probability reveal that this could never happen by chance. Likewise, the odds of just one functional protein forming by chance is like Fred Smith winning the Powerball over and over and over and over again. It will not and cannot happen by chance and natural chemical properties. It must have been engineered intelligently.
The non-Christian scientist Paul Davies admitted: “We now know that the secret of life lies not with the chemical ingredients…but with the logical structure and organizational arrangement of the molecules… Like a supercomputer, life is an information processing system…It is the software of the living cell that is the real mystery, not the hardware.”
He then posed a question that has never been answered by any scientific discovery: “How did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software?”
Some people think they’ve found a winning move in this origin of life game by avoiding the “God piece” altogether. They will propose: “Well, life was engineered on Earth by Aliens!” But putting this new “alien piece” on the board doesn’t do anything to solve the origins problem.
Why? Because you still need a super-intellect that is capable of creating the complex aliens. The Law of Cause and Effect says that Whoever created the Aliens has to be even more complex and intelligent than the aliens themselves. Claiming “aliens created mankind” only pushes the origins issue back one square, it is not even close to a “checkmate.”
After considering these vastly different yet converging lines on evidence, Cambridge University Astrophysicist and Mathematician Sir Fred Hoylt Summed up the conclusive case for God from science with this important observation…
“A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces with speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
Logic points to God.
The vast majority of people look out at the incredible order and beauty of the Universe and realize the Logically someone had to intentionally create all of this. From giraffes to galaxies, from ecosystems to solar systems, the intricate design in the Universe is impossible to miss. Think about it: no one would look at the four faces carefully carved into the granite of Mount Rushmore and say: “Look! Nobody made that. It is just a coincidence of time, chance, and erosion.”
No one would look at a famous painting, such as the Mona Lisa, and say: “Nobody painted that. It is just a coincidence of time, chance, and chemical staining.”
Neither of those statements would be Logical. Why? Because we understand Cause and Effect. Effects (such as Mount Rushmore or the Mona Lisa) are the results of intelligent causes (people). When it comes to the creation of the Universe, we can look at it logically as well.
A logical approach would be organized like this:
1. Everything which begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.
Therefore, the Universe has a cause.
Logically, there must have been a First Cause. Logic dictates that there had to be something first that then led to everything else. Think of every event that has happened in the entire history of the Universe like a huge line of dominoes going back into the distant past. If you go back far enough, you have to come to the very first action that made the very first “domino” fall. Logic also demands that this First Cause must be Eternal (or else it could not have been there to “tip the first domino”).
Though not obvious at first, the first Cause (or Creator) must also be personal. Why? For two important reasons. First, the Universe was created at a specific point in time, it is not eternally old. If the First Cause of the Universe was merely a set of conditions that were “always” right for causing the Big Bang, then the Universe would have been caused and eternity ago. But observational science affirmatively say: “No, the Universe is not eternally old.”
Since the Universe did not come into being an eternity ago, then that implies there was a intentional decision to create it at a certain point in time. And only personal being s can make actual decisions.
Secondly, the First Cause must be personal because the Universe contains personal beings (you and me). An impersonal Universe cannot give rise to intelligent and personal beings, because that would violate the basic tenets of the Law of Cause and Effect.
So, putting it all together from science and logic, whatever led to the creation of the Universe has to be: Eternal, Powerful, Intelligent, and Personal. If you were to ask the average person: “What am I describing….it is something Eternal, Powerful, Intelligent, and Personal?” they would instantly respond: “GOD!”
Morality points to God.
Guilt is a multi-billion-dollar business. The offices of psychiatrists and counselors worldwide are filled with people struggling to deal with the consequences of their own bad decisions. Likewise, jails and prisons are packed with criminals. Why?
It is about the existence of Right and Wrong. Since the dawn of human history, we have been aware of a set of Moral Obligations, a set of actions that either should be done or should not be done. With very few exceptions this Moral Law is universally understood.
But how could this non-material set of rules be explained by mere chemistry or biology? Nitrogen and oxygen and amino acids do not care about stealing or lying or rape. It is obvious that Objective Morality cannot be explained by the changing winds of societal pressure since basic moral rules have remained fairly consistent for thousands of years across all cultures. It also cannot be a product of Evolution, because Morality often encourages “good” behavior that has nothing to do with making us (or the species) more biologically “fit” for survival or “successful” in the long run.
If evolution could somehow magically grant us “Morality” then it is possible that (at some point in the future) torturing babies for fun or murder or rape could become “Morally Good.” But we know intrinsically that this is ridiculous! That will never happen. Why? Because Morality is Objective, it is a Law outside of us, and it doesn’t change simply because society or biochemistry changes.
Some people believe that Morality is purely Subjective, meaning that there is no actual Right and Wrong in the Universe, but that each person or group decides what is Right and Wrong. The Story is told of a philosophy professor who announce that the next exam would be an essay. The students were to write a paper defending their position as either believing in Subjective Morality or Objective Morality. A few days later he made the following announcement: “Every paper that was written by someone claiming to believe in Subjective Morality gets an ‘F’ and everyone else gets an ‘A’
Several of the students (who had written in favor of Subjective Morality) were stunned and objected to his method of grading. “That’s not fair!” they complained. The wise professor smiled and said: “Oh, so you don’t actually believe in Subjective Morality?”
He was right.
They were caught in their own delusion. They objected on the grounds that his methods were not fair, which of course is an Objective standard. People love to claim that Morality is Subjective, that is, until they are the victims of some moral infraction or crime, and then suddenly they switch to Objective Morality in their accusation. It’s like claiming that Physical Laws (like Gravity) are merely subjective and open to personal interpretation. Good luck holding that philosophy that as you step off the roof of a tall building asserting that you will float.
Regardless of what you feel or think, you will fall, because Physical Laws are Objective, and the same is true of Moral Laws. How we feel does not, and any way, influence Physical or Moral Laws.
We all have an inner moral referee called a Conscience. This important guide warns us when we are dangerously close to a moral boundary, or it bothers us when we may have crossed one. Now, we aren’t forced to obey it, but God still programmed it within us as an internal witness to His standards.
And to be sure, there are certain societal standards which might adjust slightly over time (like vulgar language or modesty), but no rational person expects rape and murder to become “good deeds” at any time in the future.
Paul Copan, PhD professor of Analytic Philosophy, noted: It’s exceedingly difficult to see how we move from the big bang (to)…morally responsible… human beings. If we’re just material beings produced by a material Universe, then objective value or goodness… can’t be accounted for.”
It is a basic concept: if there is an Objective Moral Law, then logic insists that there must be a Moral Law-Giver. Logically, the only cause capable of explaining the Effect of Morality must by God.
Science points to God’s existence.
Logic demands God’s existence.
Morality requires God’s existence.
A Nagging Question.
The cumulative case for God is conclusive, but there is one issue that needs to be addressed, known as the “Problem of Evil.” This challenge dates back to the ancient Greeks and it goes something like this: “If God is good and God created everything, then why is there evil in the world?”
The answer is so simple that we often miss it.
God is good, but God did not create every “Thing.” God did create all of the physical reality (the Universe and its Laws) but He did not make evil because evil is not a “thing.” God created people with Free Will (we are not robots), and people have a Free Will to choose to do evil or good, and those actions can and do affect other people.
So to put it simply, Evil is the result of people using their free will to choose to do selfish and sinful acts. So then this brings up another important question: “If Free Will is a cause of Evil, then why does God allow it?”
The short answer: LOVE.
“Love?” you ask, Yes, love. The only way that we could have a real relationship with our Creator based on LOVE, is for us to have a Choice. We must have the ability to freely love or freely not to love. We must have a free will that can say “Yes” to God, or to say “No” to God. If God had created us as robots that endlessly repeated: “I love God, I love God,” then it is not a true loving relationship.
It would be forced. Fake.
But thankfully, we are not robots. God is willing to temporarily allow evil in this world, since it allows for a much greater good for all of time and eternity: True Love.
But someone will then ask: “How about other types of evil, like diseases and hurricanes or earthquakes? You can’t blame people for those!” Actually, the Bible tackles that important question, too. It reveals that the original creation of the world was without sickness and natural disasters. It was only After mankind rebelled against God that He caused (or allowed) natural suffering in the world.
But Why? The Bible explains that God allows suffering and discomfort to lead people to the realization of their need of Him, and ultimately their need of salvation. Sickness and pain remind us that Something is Wrong, and what is wrong is: You and Me.
We have rebelled and sinned against our own Creator, and He sends reminders of our dire condition by these uncomfortable messengers. Just imagine a bizarre world in which fatal cancers never had any symptoms. A person could be afflicted with an unknown terminal tumor and just drop dead on day with absolutely no warning signs. But it is when we experience symptoms, that we seek out medical care to diagnose and deal with our health problems.
Let’s be honest: we have a far more dangerous condition than terminal cancer. We have a sinful condition that will ultimately separate us from our God for all of eternity if not “treated”. But God, in His goodness, sends us “symptoms” or reminders of our terminal condition, in order for us to seek His cure. We must face it… death is certain to all, and suffering along to the way is a “severe mercy” to cause us to reach out to God, to repent (which means to turn back to Him).
So suffering in this life is absolutely justified because it can lead to a much greater good: our repentance and restoration to the right relationship with our God.
C. S. Lewis, the author of the popular Chronicles of Narnia, was once a dedicated atheist. But after examining the evidence, he became a devoted follower of Jesus. Regarding the subject of human suffering, he wrote the following: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
I’ll admit it…it is easy to just live life, to take things for granted and simply ignore God. But God (in His goodness) “shouts in our pains.” He is constantly trying to wake us up to our most urgent need of salvation, so that we can be saved from the eternal penalty of our sin and rebellion. Sin is the disease, suffering is the symptom, and salvation through Jesus is the cure.
A Unique Book.
Speaking of the Bible and it’s answers for these difficult questions, there are many people who will say: “Well, the Bible is just another Holy book. There are many other books like it, you know.” Now, the people who make this type of claim haven’t done their homework. When it comes to religious books, the Bible is absolutely Unique. Believe it or not, the Bible is the only sacred text in the world that contains hundreds of detailed, accurate, and verifiable fulfilled prophecies. In fact, out of about 32,000 verses in the Bible, approximately 8,000 of these verses refer to events still yet future when those particular verses were being written.
Just let that sink in. No less than 25% of the Bible is prophetic. This incredible fact alone renders it unique among religious texts. We can all make predictions, and we usually do it based on trends.
For instance, we could look at the performance of a certain soccer team and then predict that they may win the next World Cup. But that’s a prediction based on trends and known facts.
But Prophecy is far different.
For example, to use that same sports analogy, prophecy would be like someone over a thousand years ago writing about a yet future game called “soccer” (long before the modern game is even invented). And that in the year 2026 the Brazilian men’s team will win by two goals over the team from France.
Then, in 2026, it actually happens.
That is what Bible Prophecy is like.
The Biblical prophets speak of things so remote and distant into the far future that no amount of tread analysis or good-luck-guessing could ever explain their perfect track record. Only God knows the future perfectly, and fulfilled prophecy is an undeniable way to verify that the contents of the Bible must be divine in their origin.
People can predict.
But only God can prophesy.
No other holy book in the world (except for the Bible) contains hundreds of detailed, accurate, and verifiable fulfilled prophecies. None. Not the Hindu Vedas, not the Bhagavad Gita, not the Qur’an, not the Hadith, not the Book of Mormon, nor the Mayan Calendar. Even the famous predictions of Nostradamus fail because they are only vague, short poems that rarely speak of any person or event with any specific details. In addition, many of the “clearer” predictions the French mystic made turned out to be completely false! Only the Bible Contains fulfilled prophecy.
Just as science, logic, and morality point conclusively to God’s Existence, fulfilled prophecy in the Bible points conclusively to God’s Authorship.
Only the Bible is one unified message to Gods love and plan of salvation for us, even though it is comprised of 66 different books, written by at least 40 human authors, over a 1600-year period, in two primary languages, and across three continents!
Only the Bible reveals the origin of mankind, free will, sin and evil, and the reasons for why God allows human suffering.
Only the Bible reveals God’s provision to solve our sin problem by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. He provided a Savior Who died in our place to pay the penalty that each of us deserved because of our rebellion.
Fulfilled Prophecy about the Savior.
The overall message of the Bible centers around God’s Love for rebellious mankind. It focuses on His plan to provide a free gift of salvation through the sacrificial death of the Messiah. Obviously, the identity of this promised Savior is crucial.
What God did for us, so that we could authenticate the message and identity of Jesus as the promised Savior, was that hundreds of years before Jesus ever came into this world, God painted a portrait in word (through the Biblical prophets) that would describe the birth, life, death and resurrection of the Messiah when He did come.
For instance: How would the Messiah, Savior die?
The sacrificial death of Jesus was prophesied by many of the prophetic writers in the pages of the Old Testament long before He was even born. We would expect that He would die by stoning, since that was the traditional form of execution by the Jewish leadership for well over a thousand years, and Jesus was a Jew living in Israel.
“But no,” says a Biblical prophet. His death will be very different. “They will pierce His hands and His feet.”
Hands and feet being pierced? We know very well what that means. That is crucifixion…a cruel method of execution adopted by the Romans, but clearly not a method used by the Jews.
But this amazing prophecy gets even better. The description of the crucifixion of Jesus in Psalm 22 was written about 1,000 years before Jesus was nailed (hands and feet) to a cross.
Even more astounding, this verifiable prophecy describes the Messiah’s crucifixion more than 700 years before crucifixion was even invented! Imagine someone writing (in great detail) about Electric Chair executions, not just 10 years ago, or 50 years ago, but around 700 years before electricity was even “discovered”!
Where would the Messiah be born?
The Prophet Micah penned that the Savior would be born in Bethlehem Judah, one of the most insignificant villages in all of Israel. He penned this incredible prophecy about 750 years before Jesus was born in a humble stable in the town of Bethlehem Judah!
Small (and even large) towns come and go all of the time, many disappearing into the dustbin of forgotten history, but this prophet said that the Savior of the world would be born into one of the smallest towns in the entire country.
And then it happened 750 years later! It is nearly a miracle that the town still existed, and it is a definite miracle that the Savior was indeed born there. If it were merely a prediction, the “prophet” surely would have picked a large and enduring city, such as Jerusalem. But, in effect, God said: “No, not majestic Jerusalem, but insignificant Bethlehem.”
What would be the circumstances of the Messiah’s betrayal?
The Old Testament prophets make it clear that the Messiah would be rejected by the Jewish leadership. They go on to tell us that He would ultimately be betrayed by a member of His own inner circle for specified sum of silver. Even non-Christians today are aware that Judas Iscariot (one of the first disciples of Jesus) was paid in silver to betray the Savior with a famous peck on the cheek on the very night before the crucifixion. Two thousand years later, we still refer to deceptive acts of betrayal as a “Judas kiss.”
Since Judas bargained with the Jewish leadership to betray Jesus, one would assume that the agreed upon price would be fifty pieces of silver (which was the required amount according to Jewish Law). “No,” said the Biblical prophet hundreds of years before the Messiah “will be sold for thirty pieces of silver.”
Now isn’t that an astounding fact? The very same people who were trying to disprove the “Messiahship” of Jesus knew about that exact prophecy. And all the Jewish leadership had to do to disqualify Jesus from being the promised Messiah was to pay twenty-nine pieces of Silver, or thirty-one pieces of silver and then He couldn’t have been the Messiah. And yet the rulers paid the thirty pieces of silver (just as the prophet had foretold) and then sealed the exact amount of money they paid into the public record.
There are some things you just can’t arrange.
One of the most important topics in the Old Testament is the exact lineage (genealogy) of the coming Messiah. Many of the Biblical prophets declared that the Messiah would be from the tribe of Judah in Israel, and that specifically he would be a direct descendant of King David. The Prophet Isaiah announced that the Savior would be miraculously born to a virgin. The prophet Daniel spoke of the exact timing of the Messiah’s coming (over 500 years before it happened) and that the Messiah would be executed.
Just think about all that for a moment.
You try to arrange the small town you are born in.
You try to arrange the family line you will belong to.
You try to arrange the identity and status of your own mother.
You try to arrange the exact time of your arrival.
You try to arrange the method of your own execution.
You try to arrange your own resurrection from the dead.
I suggest that all of this would be a bit difficult to do. Actually, it would be impossible. But believe it or not, some fringe skeptics try to claim that Jesus was a regular guy who set out to “fulfill” these prophecies to gain a first century following!
Are they just ignoring the indisputable fact that the dozens of these prophetic announcements would be impossible for anyone to “fulfill” by their own actions? And who would want to fulfill the prophecy of being Crucified?! You would experience one of the most horrifically painful deaths known to mankind and then your Messiah-act would be over!
Permanently.
These are just a few examples of fulfilled prophecies about Jesus, the Savior of the world. There are Hundreds of them in the Bible. Hundreds. There have been some skeptics who have tried to claim that the Old Testament prophecies were written After the events! They’ve said: “ “That is why the prophecies are so accurate, it’s because they were written after the events happened!” But, a chance discovery in Israel in 1947 silenced those stubborn claims.
In a series of remote caves near the Dead Sea, Arab shepherds found dozers of ancient Hebrew scrolls and thousand of scroll fragments. Scientific investigation of these documents reveals that they were copies of every single Old Testament book (Except for Esther), and careful analysis revealed that many of them dated well into the third century before Jesus was even born. These documents were nearly 1,000 years older than our best Hebrew scriptures at the time. But when these far more ancient texts were compared with our modern Hebrew copies they were nearly identical! The differences were minor and inconsiquential.
Skeptics of the Bible were stunned and dismayed. These Biblical critics had been claiming (since about the middle of the 19th century) that we couldn’t trust the Bible because “the text has been edited and altered over the past two thousand years. “
But these critics were proven wrong.
The discovery of the “Dead Sea Scrolls” proved that, not only had the scriptures not changed over the last two thousand years, but also that the Old Testament prophecies were written long before the events and people that they spoke of. The scriptures contained prophecies of the future, not news reports of the past.
An aerospace engineer once examined just 69 of the specific prophecies about the coming Messiah given in the Old testament. He calculated that the odds of Jesus fulfilling these 69 prophecies was 1 chance in 5.32 times 10 to the 72nd power.
To put that into perspective, imagine converting the entire mass of the known Universe into grains of sand. Now, let’s say that you painted just one of these grains of sand with green paint and then hid that one green grain somewhere in the Universe.
What would be the odds that a blindfolded person (traveling anywhere in the Universe) could step out of their spaceship and (by chance) pick up your one painted grain of sand on their very first try? Let’s be very honest: it would never happen.
Believe it or not, the blindfolded person would be 150 million times more likely to find that one green grain of sand by chance than for Jesus Christ to fulfill just 69 of the prophecies!
Now friend, you’ve got to do something with that.
You have a free will, and you can choose to ignore the evidence. But if you examine the Bible (which claims to be the Word of God nearly 4,000 times) you will discover that, unlike any other religion in the world, God has taken your brain seriously. He has given you hard evidence to believe.
God never asks us for Blind Faith, but He does encourage us to have informed trust. God has given us multiple lines of converging evidence that Just has proven Himself to be the long-awaited and promised Messiah. The facts are there. Mathematical probabilities don’t lie. Christianity is the only belief system in the world that gives you evidence in history and science and logic and morality to authenticate its truthfulness.
What about the Resurrection?
Fulfilled prophecy is powerful and conclusive evidence that the Bible is the Word of God and that Jesus really is the Savior of the world. But God has also provided another irrefutable proof of the identity of the Messiah: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
Over and over again in the first few books of the New Testament, Jesus announces to His disciples that He will be crucified and that then He will be miraculously resurrected on the third day.
Of course anybody can claim that they will rise from the dead, but it is quite another thing to actually do it. And it can be verified with great certainty that Jesus actually did it!
We have numerous eye-witness testimonies of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have the testimony of the empty tomb. We have written record of the Jewish leadership at the time claiming that disciples of Jesus merely stole His body from the tomb (but how did they overpower the trained Roman guards at the tomb?). People can try to deny the resurrection of Jesus, but it is impossible to deny the fact that almost every single one of the apostles of Jesus died a martyr’s death while still claiming that Jesus really did rise from the dead,
Just think about that.
If Christianity is a lie, it was the apostles who created the lie.
The apostles (and their associates) were the ones who wrote all the New Testament. The apostles were the ones who went out and claimed that Jesus rose from the dead. The apostles were rejected by their own people, often arrested beaten and ultimately killed because of their faith in a resurrected Christ.
Why would anyone die for a lie that they created?
Many religious people of various faiths (such as the 9 11 Muslim Hijackers) have died for what they believed to be true. But if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then the apostles were fools, because they died for what they knew to be false. That is ludicrous. In the face of horrible rejection and the threat of death, surely at least one of them would have “broken down.”
Surely at least one of them would have said: “Okay, okay, we made it all up. It isn’t true.” But none of them did that.
Not even one.
The 9 11 Muslim hijackers died for a particular Islamic belief. But those nineteen hijackers did not invent Islam…they did not know if Islam was actually true or false. They could not know whether Mohammad was really a true prophet of God, because he lived about 1,500 years ago (they never met him or anyone who actually knew him). Those hijackers merely believed what they had been told and read.
But the apostles of Jesus were there at the beginning. They witnessed the life, miracles, death, and the resurrection of Jesus. If Christianity were all a lie, then those men went to horrific deaths for a false religion that they had fabricated. But it isn’t a lie. The apostles were willing to die because Jesus had really risen from the dead.
What about Heaven and Hell?
It is hard to escape the fact that, if God exists (and the overwhelming evidence says: “Yes, he does”) and if the Bible is His word (and the overwhelming evidence says: “Yes it is) then there is an afterlife. You and I will not “cease to exist” when we die physically. No, no, no. We are made in the image of God, and our soul, our true self, the actual “Me and You” will continue to live on forever. This means the places called Heaven and Hell are real places where real people will really live forever.
But, who goes to Heaven, and who goes to Hell?
Some people think that “good” people go to heaven, and “bad” people go to Hell…but that is not at all what God says.
Some people think that, if they do good deeds in certain situations, that they will get a credit with God to somehow overcome the bad things they have done. They think that a good deed can erase a bad deed.
But a simple illustration will reveal why that is impossible. Imagine that our friend, Fred Smith, has been arrested for murder. There are multiple eye-witnesses and he even confessed to committing the horrific crime.
Fred stands before the bench. The Judge peers down at him and asks: “How do you plead?” Fred looks up and replies: “I am completely guilty, your Honor. I killed my neighbor. But I have decided to change. I am going to donate money to charity. I am going to help on elderly neighbor by mowing their grass. I am going to start going to church and helping other people.”
The criminal smiles and starts moving for the courtroom exit. He glances back at the judge. “I am free to go, right?” he asks.
Is he free to go? No! Absolutely not. He is a guilty criminal.
No amount of good deeds that he will do in the future can erase the fact that he has murdered someone in the past. Just because you tell the truth tomorrow doesn’t erase the fact that you told a lie yesterday, or last week or last year. We may forget our own evil and sin, but God has a perfect memory. That candy bar that I stole in the 7th grade might have slipped off my radar for years, but to God, that evil act is as fresh as my last breath.
Some people might object and say: Give me a break, I think I’m a pretty good person.” Listen, my friend, yo don’t even come up to your own standards, let alone God’s. Here is what God says about our attempts to cover up our sin by attempting to be “good people”:
“Therefore, by the Deeds of the Law…”
(in other words, by seeking to live a good life and by keeping the Ten Commandments, or to attempt to live by the “Golden Rule”)
“…there shall no flesh be justified in His sight” (Romans 3:20)
That ends all argument. God Himself, the perfect Judge of the entire Universe, says that Good deeds will not somehow make you “justified” or “righteous” in His sight. To be in Heaven, we must have perfect righteousness, but we have sinned. All of us. Sin isn’t only terrible things like murder and rape, it is any breaking of God’s Laws. Everybody falls short of God’s standards. And even if we never sinned again from now until we die, we still have done evil things in our past, like lust, hatred, and pride.
But there’s good news! No matter how wicked a sinner you are, no matter how good we think we are; God has made an offer to the entire human race. To those who find the way to Heaven blocked, because their own sin and failure has kept them from meeting God’s perfect standard, ther is an alternative:
“The Righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all those who believe…” Romans 3:22 and 23.
It is not my righteousness, or your righteousness that can save us, it is God’s righteousness, and we can receive it as a gift through trusting in Jesus Christ as our Savior!
Only God is perfect, and He is willing to give sinners His perfect Righteousness freely.
Think about it: Christianity is the only belief system in the world that lets you be truly honest with God about your sin and failure. He isn’t expecting you to hide your flaws or ignore them or cover them up with rituals and religion. But that is exactly what most people are doing, using religion to try to make themselves somehow worthy of Heaven (which is impossible). But when we try to cover up our sin by “good deeds” it’s like putting a bandage over a bullet wound. We may not see the injury, but it’s still there.
Imagine texting someone who’s desperately trying to get to Heaven by their own good works, rituals, and religion. The conversation will probably be quite a bit like this picture.
God never asks you to pretend that you’re okay. He wants you to be honest with Him about your sin.
God isn’t waiting for you to “clean up” your life before you feel worthy to come to Him. He says: “Come to Me now, and then I will take care of the rest, My child.”
This is important, and you may not believe me at first, but it’s true.
Christianity is the only belief system in the world that offers you a Savior.
Hinduism or Islam doesn’t offer a Savior. Thy say: “Save yourself. You do it yourself.” They are do-it-yourself religions. And all of the other religions of the world fall under that same do-it-yourself category. You do ‘it”, and if you do “it” well enough, well, then, you might get to Heaven. And as long as you think that you can save yourself, then I guess “any religion will do”. But you realize that you’re a sinner and that you can’t save yourself, and that you need a Savior, the list is very short.
There’s only one Savior. And His name is Jesus.
You Can’t “save yourself”.
Now “Save yourself” is an absolutely ludicrous statement. If you’re in a burning building and you’re screaming out the window: “Help! Save me! Save me!” and I’m walking by and I say: “Oh, save yourself.” Listen, if you could save yourself, then you don’t need to be saved.
But you can’t save yourself.
When Jesus died on the cross, He paid the debt that you and I owed to God because of our evil and rebellion. And in exchange for you sin, He has offered you His rightness – His righteousness – as a gift.
He offers us a Free exchange.
You see Jesus lived a perfect life, and so therefore He had no sin-debt of His own. When He freely gave up His life for each of us, He had “perfect credit” with God. A perfect man died so that imperfect people like us could be saved. When Jesus died for you, it was just as if you died. Jesus was our perfect substitute.
Most of us have had a substitute teacher. Maybe our regular teacher was sick and so a new teacher, a temporary replacement, a substitute teacher filled in. They were in the place of the normal teacher. That is what Jesus did for us, He was our substitute, He stood in our place, and died as our sacrifice.
And now, because of Jesus sacrifice in our place, God can freely offer His forgiveness and His righteousness as a free gift to those willing to admit their sin and their need of a Savior. God says that you can stop trying to cover up your sins with “good deeds” and that you don’t have to engage in religious rituals to make Him love you. He already loves you.
The most famous verse in the whole Bible is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever trusts in Him will not perish, but have Eternal Life.”
God loves you, Unconditionally. But that does not mean that, automatically, everyone will be in Heaven. Salvation is a gift that must be received, and God knows that true love is based upon our ability to say Yes or No to his offer of relationship. We cannot earn it or buy it or be worthy of it. It is something that He offers for Free. Salvation is not something you earn…salvation is a gift.
Every other religion ultimately says that when you stand before God, you’re desperately hoping that He’s going to bend the rules just a bit to let you into Heaven. I guarantee that there is no follower of any religion that says: “When I stand before God someday, I’m going to say to Him, Okay God here’s your challenge: Put my life up on this side, then put your perfect Law up on the other side, and I challenge you to find even one thing wrong with my life!”
Is that what people are going to say? Not at all. They’re hoping against hope that somehow, they’re going to just “slip in,” maybe in the top half-percent or so. They’re hoping that just maybe they’re going to get in, that is if God won’t be too careful at examining their life, or if maybe He will ignore His own standards from time to time.
Is there any hope, then?
“If only perfect people make it, then how can I hope to ever make it into Heaven? You ask.
“Oh,” says God, “here is what we’ll do. I’ll transfer your sin-debt to my Son, Jesus. And then He will pay it in full for you.”
God’s perfect standard is the Law, but we have all broken it. So God hands over the bill, but then He pays it Himself through Christ our substitute! As condemned sinners against God we could do nothing to make it right, so God Himself provided a Savior! Imperfect people (like you and me) can be made perfect through the perfect Savior.
It’s Time to make a decision.
Examine the evidence.
Not only the evidence in science, logic, and morality…not only the evidence in the Bible and fulfilled prophecies, but the evidence in your own heart. The evidence deep down that reminds us that we are sinners and that we all need a Savior. Examine the evidence that says: “You can’t save yourself.” The evidence which insists: “Good deeds don’t erase bad deeds.”
Then, consider what the Bible has to say about the Lord Jesus, the Savior of sinners. He came to die upon the cross to save you. The Bible simply declares: “But God proves His own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8).
And then, be honest with God about your sin.
That’s what the Bible calls repentance, when we freely admit that we are guilty and that we are willing to turn away from our sin and to receive the Lord Jesus as the Savior of sinners.
In His word, God says: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23). We know what wages are. Wages are something we earn, like a paycheck at our jobs.
If we work a certain number of hours, then we will earn a certain amount of money. Likewise, God says that when we sin, we are “earning” judgment (eternal Hell). But thankfully He also says that He would rather give us a free gift that we did not earn.
The Bible says that right now is the time to be saved. God calls out: “Behold, Now is the acceptable time, Now is the day of salvation.” (2nd Corinthians 6:2.) We are not promised even one more minute of life in this world. A car accident, and aneurysm or random violence could end each of our lives without warning. About 180,000 people die every day, that’s two people each second.
By the time you finish reading this booklet, perhaps over 5,000 people will have died since you first cracked open the cover. We may miss an appointment with a doctor, but our appointment with death will be kept right on schedule…except that none of us knows the exact day or hour.
God is waiting to save you. Now is the time.
Right now, in your heart, cry out to Him:
“Oh God, I don’t know why you would want me. I’m a sinner, I’m damaged goods. But, in Your love, You said that whoever came to You, You would never cast out. Take me now. Save me now. I give up, I will accept the free gift of God, which is eternal life through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.”
Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded 
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