Salvation

Lesson 05

Welcome back. We have been talking about salvation or knowing you are going to heaven
when you die. Your soul is more important than anything. It is the real you. It is the seat of
your emotions and affections. And the Bible says the soul needs to be converted. Psalm 19:7
says, “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul…” If the Bible says this, then we
need to trust in it. Remember, it is the law of the Lord. We need to trust His word with our
eternity bound soul.

Last time, we learned the Bible is inspired. We know it is perfect, and its interpretation is
limited within its covers. The Bible interprets itself. It is the only thing that can change the
heart. It reaches within the soul of man and converts us. So, we continue with the topic of
the importance of the Bible, and include a question; why should we believe it? We are going
to look today at reasons the Bible is the word of God. We will look at archaeology and
physics, but deal mainly with the area of prophecy. Here, we have a map of Jerusalem at
the time of Christ [map inset?]. There are stones that date back to Herod and even
Nehemiah, who rebuilt the Temple and city walls. You will notice on the eastern edge, the
east gate, and the temple mount. This may be the most precious parcel of land in the world
today. Everyone seems to want it. There is no temple sitting on the mount today but the
Dome of the rock or Mosque of Omar. This overlooks the Mount of Olives and Kidron
Valley.

A businessman once wanted to build a hotel on the Mount of Olives. He dug and took soil
and rock samples. Engineers did experiments like seismographs. They informed the
businessman that the ground was too unstable to build. There was a fault line that ran
through the valley. Twenty‐seven thousand years ago Zechariah prophesied and said, “And
his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the
east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward
the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward
the north, and half of it toward the south.”

Those engineers, with their modern machinery, helped confirm what the Bible foretold. A
day came when the disciples showed Jesus Christ around the temple. This was about 30AD.
Herod had been remodeling the temple as a favor to the Jews. But Jesus pointed out the
stones and said in Matthew 24:2, “See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There
shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” Now, this
prophecy by Christ would be fulfilled when the temple was destroyed in 70AD. The Roman
general Titus destroyed the city, and the temple caught fire. Gold within the temple melted
down into cracks, and Roman soldiers chipped away at each stone to get to the gold. What
Jesus said was true. The news sobered the disciples. They struggled to believe.

They had questions. In Matthew 24:3 they asked, “Tell us, when shall these things be? and
what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” They wanted to know
what it would be like when Jesus came back at the end of the world. And Jesus tells them
things that would occur just before He would come back. Here are a few things. First, in
Luke 21:26, He said there would be, “Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking
after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be
shaken.” The word “fear” means stress or anxiety. Friend, today we live in the age of heart
attacks or heart failure. Here, in America alone, it costs two‐hundred and sixty billion
dollars a year for treatment.

Stress takes a toll and is a leading cause of disease. Our day differs greatly from the days of
our parents, and especially our grandparents. They lived in a simpler time. No television,
no internet. The world we live in is very busy. It takes a toll on our nervous system. Most of
the reasons for hospital visits are due to stress. There is a correlation. We can eat right, we
can exercise, but if we don’t watch our stress, problems will come. Daily responsibilities
become overwhelming alongside the pressures of life.

But Jesus said something else. Second, in Matthew 24:6‐7, he said, “And ye shall hear of
wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to
pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.”
There were only thirty‐five natural disasters reported worldwide the year I was born.
Twenty years later in 1980, when I was twenty, the report went up to 150 disasters. Nearly
five times the number. Then twenty years later in 1990, the report went up to 300 disasters.
Well, we are now way beyond 500 disasters. The news doesn’t even report them all
anymore since we have become used to them. Tsunamis, hurricanes, tornados, and
earthquakes. From 1900 to 1983 major earthquakes have increased. Since 1943, 40 major
earthquakes have hit every year. There has been this multiplication of earthquakes.

But Jesus also spoke of pestilences and famine. After Noah’s flood, the world was
repopulated. We now have 8 billion people. This talk of the world being millions or billions
of years old is not true. According to the Bible, it is thousands of years old. If you take the 8
billion people today, it took 4500 years to get here; it is likely to double in the next 38 years.
Well, we may ask, “where will the food come from?” There are food shortages today.
Famines will increase. As far as pestilences are concerned, we have all kinds of diseases and
viruses. We have AIDS, and now Covid. We have destructive insects, locusts, ants, bees,
and more.

Third, Jesus said in Daniel 12:4, “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book,
even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be
increased.” Notice it is speaking here of a hectic lifestyle. I spoke of that earlier regarding
stress. We live in an age where travel is easy. In Jesus’s time, they walked or used a
carriage. But today, we can fly anywhere. Public transportation is common. In my
generation, I have travelled quite a bit. It’s the time we live in. You can have breakfast on
the west coast of the US and have lunch thousands of miles away, and dinner, another
thousand miles away, all in the same day. Again, Jesus said, “and knowledge shall be
increased.” We call this the ‘information age.’ We have cell phones and the internet at our
fingertips.
As an illustration, if you could measure technology from the time of Adam and Eve to 1800,
it would equal an inch. From 1800 to 1900, the industrial age, it would double another inch.
But if you measure from 1900 to today. It would measure roughly 180 meters. We have
become so advanced. This is a sign of the end of time. Look at our advanced computers,
satellite technology, space travel, and now artificial intelligence. There was a prophecy in
Revelation involving the two witnesses. Revelation 11:8‐9 says, “And their dead bodies shall
lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also
our Lord was crucified. 9 And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations
shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to
be put in graves.”

This says all nations will see their dead bodies. Obviously, we now have cell phones and
satellite technology for this to be possible. There was no technology for centuries when this
was a possibility. 2 Peter 3;10, 12 says, “…the earth also and the works that are therein shall
be burned up.” And in verse 12, “…wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?” Notice these talk about something so
destructive that it would have been impossible before the atomic age. Imagine the
technological advancement that has come since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
These explain nuclear fallout. Finally, Jesus said in Matthew 24:37, “But as the days of Noe
were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” In other words, when Christ comes
back, those days will be like the days before the flood. So, what were those days like?
Genesis 6:12 says, “And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh
had corrupted his way upon the earth.”

The world was morally corrupt. Murders, adultery, fornication, promiscuity, rebellion,
hatred for God, lovers of sin, and much more. It will be an evil and wicked time when Jesus
returns. These times are very different from even the last few decades. These are things that
give us reason that God’s word is inspired, and to learn from and live by God’s word. So, I
look forward to our next lesson.