Signs of the End Times ... Are We There Yet?

Many people, believers in Jesus and unbelievers alike, are concerned about the end of the world: prophecy, the Second Coming of Christ, end times and the anti-Christ.  If you were to ask them, they would tell you things are getting worse and will get worse as that day approaches.

Ask how and you’ll probably hear about wars, conflict, weather, disease, earthquakes & volcanoes.   

Jesus talks about some of these things happening.  But there’s another list that’s often overlooked because it’s less sensational and headline grabbing.  You’ll find it in 2 Timothy 3:1-5

“1 But know this: Difficult times will come in the last days. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, 4 traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people!”

The issues Paul talks about as difficult or terrible times in the last days are not geo-political or disaster related… they are moral and behavioral.  In essence, Paul is saying that these conditions are just as much a disaster for a people, a nation and the world as what we would call “the big ones”.   

That God considers these just as big a deal as the earthquakes and wars.  That these are just as much signs and warnings of the end as when you watch for signs and rumors.

Do you see any of these at work in our culture today?  If so, then today qualifies as terrible and difficult times.

·         When people are Lovers of Themselves – self-love—they live only for themselves and indulge themselves and see themselves as the most important.  They live to be served and pleasured—the essence of hedonism.  Of course, such a life isn’t cheap.

·         When people pursue after money and sacrifice everything else to get it or cross any line to make it.  Greed is a killer and is never really satisfied.  Money buys things and influence which leads many with great wealth to an overestimated sense of their own intelligence and importance.

·         When people are boastful about themselves, their abilities and accomplishments.  It also is related to the word for vagrancy—a wanderer—someone who’s opinion of themselves never lets them be settled, content or happy unless everyone knows just how great they are.

·         Which leads into Pride—the ultimate focus of self.   That element of character that says not only can I do it better than you, I am by nature better than you.  This was a trap Satan himself fell for and what he enticed Adam and Eve with being like God.  Which leads to the next behavior

·         Blasphemers—people who reject God entirely, reject the idea that He is better or superior, reject His authority.  If “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom”, blasphemy is the opposite.  It is the lack of the fear of the LORD and is pure foolishness. 

·         When people are able to reject God, they raise their kids to reject them.  Parents are practice for obeying God.  If you cannot obey the mother and father you can see, then how will you be able to obey the God you cannot see.  If parents reject any authority over them, anything to which they are accountable, they will be unable to instill that truth to their children.  Then we grow up and the previous problems listed just get worse.  You have a nation of adult brats who feel everything is owed to them.

·         Which leads to the next point of people being Ungrateful.  The world owes me… it’s my right… such people are never thankful when someone is generous to them, nor are they thankful for what they have.  What’s more ungratefulness increases coveting what other people have, thinking that they are owed which feeds into the class warfare rhetoric that’s so prevalent today.  They are especially not grateful to God because they have already rejected and blasphemed Him.

·         As a result, they are unholy.  Their lives are the opposite of what God desires for them.  To be holy is to be set apart, distinguishable, not common, but available for a special and valuable purpose: an instrument in the hand of God for something wonderful and which gives Him glory.  To be unholy is to be not fit for use and therefore rejected.  At that point, decay only increases.

·         There’s no room to love anyone else when you love only yourself.  An unloving person is only bitter and angry.  They show no real compassion, no real concern for those around them because worth of the other is determined by whether they please me.

·         Thus  they are also Unforgiving or Irreconcilable.   When wronged, they hold a grudge, they cast off, they break relationship with.  The root of this word is used in connection with making a treaty or contract—such a person breaks the terms with impunity because they recognize no authority over them and reject reconciliation.  The KJV actually uses the word, “trucebreaker”.  This would go well in hand with the rampant divorce culture we have created. 

·         Whenever someone like this ends a relationship, be it a marriage, a business partnership, a church membership, or a friendship is broken… it’s not enough to walk away, the other person must be Slandered and their reputation destroyed in order to justify our own actions.  All the blame is cast on the other because “they” are so terrible—every wrong is listed, every fault is exaggerated.  There is little to no remorse for such false characterization and slander.  Which is just further evidence of a lack of

·         Self-Control—rather than self-love, we need self-control.  But there is, I believe, a relationship between the amount of self-love and the lack of self-control.  The more self-love, the less self-control.  “If it feels good, do it”, “just telling it like it is” and other similar phrases are endorsed and lived out.  They don’t care about what they should or shouldn’t do and they don’t have the wisdom to know when to quit no matter who is hurt in the process.  Such callousness only makes one more and more…

·         Brutal—the pain inflicted on someone else is either written off as unimportant or is actually enjoyed.  If I understand the notes on the root of this word, it talks of something being “lame”, like a horse or animal that can no longer walk.  But it is an injury that is deliberately caused.  To be brutal then is to inflict debilitating injury on someone else.

·         In the end times, such people will be those who do not love the good.  When there is something that is good in the world, something that reminds them of God’s ethic, God’s law, something that shows mercy and service, something that shows them there is another way to live—such good things are despised and their brutality is poured out on it.  The KJV translates it “despisers of those that are good” the wording of which implies that “those who are good” are not just abstract concepts or things but actual people who are trying to live according to the ways of God and are thus rejected for it. 

The mere presence or existence of someone “good” is a reminder that their life of evil is wrong.  Such people live out 1 Peter 4:4—“they think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation and they heap abuse on you.”  As a pastor, I cannot tell you how many times my mere presence angers someone, or if they see a Bible, the rage that pours out.  We see this often today when the only thing not tolerated by our news and culture is the biblical perspective.

·         The end times is full of people who act and live Treacherously or as Traitors—handing people over to the enemy, providing evidence, testimony or accusation that will get someone in trouble, particularly those who are “the good” much like the men in Persian history who concocted a law they knew would get Daniel thrown into the lion’s den.  They will violate the bonds of friendships, family, faith & even nation to remove the good from stopping their fun.

·         As a result they are Rash or Reckless—they act impulsively.  When they see an opportunity, they jump at it, looking before they leap, not considering the consequences.  The word picture here is of one trying to step so quickly that they trip on their own feet and fall on their face, or someone who is so busy texting on their phone they don’t realize the wall or hole their about to walk into.

·         Because the world is supposed to be all about them—they are Conceited—it’s all about them, my way or the highway.  The word picture here is to “envelope with smoke”—like a stage entrance where they are the star or like the glory of God that surrounds the Mt. Sinai or fills the Temple (Isaiah 6) should really be surrounding them and their glory.

·         The end is full of people who seek their own pleasure—the word is actually a form or hedonism here and see pleasure as the highest goal—especially higher than pursuing after God and that which pleases Him.

·         Some of these people even have an air of righteousness about them—they may even hold positions of power and influence—many people may look to their opinion and seek to model their life after them—the elites of culture and sophistication, the intellectuals in their ivory towers.  They are pious and devoted to their cause (themselves) but in reality, they deny or are working against the true power of faith, devotion and belief.  Those who live devoted to the power of Jesus at work in their lives are disdained, seen as simpletons, backward, a part of “fly over country”, clinging to their “God, guns and religion”.

·         And yet, the true power is there.  The true power is with those who love God, those who are pursuing Him, who love Him more than themselves, who serve others more than themselves, who love the good.  That is where the true power in this world lies… the meek for they shall inherit the earth, theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

So tell me… based on this list of Paul’s, describing the terrible times in the last days… are we in the end times?

Why it is Reasonable to Apply the Bible to Modern Life - Part 3

Is the biblical text we have reliable or has it been corrupted?

This is Part 3 in a series about the Relevance of the Bible to Modern Life.  Part 1 and Part 2 dealt with the fact that human nature hasn’t really changed since the days of the Bible, despite our new toys & technology.

This discussion sets aside the issues of Inspiration and the possibility of God accurately conveying His intent to human authors.  Many people who reject the idea that God effectively used human authors will conveniently say, “Even if He did, and that’s a big if, what has survived has been corrupted.”

The typical story goes that the Bible has been copied and recopied so many times that what we have today cannot possibly be accurate to what was originally written.

In relation to Jesus, the Gospels were written so long after the fact, stories were embellished and legendary materials and/or mythology entered into the text and so we have things like His miraculous feedings or healings, we have the Virgin birth, we have the resurrection.

Such critics claim none of these stories are actually historical.  If true, these are deal breaking issues. 

But are these charges accurate?  Are there reasons to think that what we have today is well preserved and very close to the original text? 

I would answer, Yes.

150 years ago the age of biblical Higher Criticism began its ascent.  The theories vastly undermined the trustworthiness of the Bible as the Word of God.  One of the things that contributed to the theory was the limited number of ancient manuscripts—especially those in the original languages like Koine Greek or Hebrew. 

Some of the earliest Hebrew manuscripts we had were around 800 AD, some 1200 years after the close of the Old Testament.  We had some Greek texts from the 300’s & 400’s but most Western scholarship was based on translations in Latin.

So after copying and recopying coupled with translating and retranslating, the academic world was convinced that the text we have could not possibly be anything close to the original text.  They proposed that even those “originals” were really compilations of various authors—edited and compiled together with no real connection to the names listed as the authors.

They were able to make this argument largely because of a lack of evidence.  That was then… this is now.

We actually have an abundance of manuscript evidence.  We now have more selections of the New Testament—over 5000 selections and fragments in Greek alone—than any other ancient document.   Here’s a comparison with a few important documents.

Author	Date Written	Earliest Copy	Approx. Time btw. Original & first Copy	# of Copies
Pliny	61-113 AD	850 AD	750 yrs	2
Plato	427-347 BC	900 AD	1200 yrs	7
Herodotus	480-425 BC	900 AD	1300 yrs	8
Caesar	100-44 BC	900 AD	1000 yrs	10
Tacitus	Circa 100 AD	1100 AD	1000 yrs	193
Aristotle	384-322 BC	100 AD	1400 yrs	49
Homer (Iliad)	900 BC	400 BC	500 yrs	643
New Testament	45-100 AD	Circa 120 AD	Less than 100 yrs.	5600 in Greek + other languages & quotations

The NT has more manuscripts from dates closer to the original writing than any other ancient documents—from Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Homer’s Illiad and others that scholarship does not question. 

That is not accounting for the thousands of manuscripts in other languages like Syriac or Coptic.  Neither is that accounting for the quoting of the New Testament by the early church fathers—with which scholars estimate we could reconstruct the entire NT except for 11 verses. 

In other words, if scholars are going to dismiss the accuracy of the New Testament, they will have to throw out every other ancient document which cannot match the close proximity of copies and the sheer number.

We have almost too many documents—too much evidence about the New Testament because there are so many documents.  This high number of copies let us see the mistakes, blunders, edits and insertions.   Some site these variations as indicative of the unreliability problem.  But in most cases, the divergent texts are limited to certain geographical areas in the Mediterranean and can be compared to others where the same changes have not been made. 

In other words, they can be cross-checked for accuracy and increase our sense of reliability. 

Ron Rhodes gives an example of the kind of variations we typically see and their significance.

By practicing the science of textual criticism – comparing all the available manuscripts with each other – we can come to an assurance regarding what the original document must have said.

Let us suppose we have five manuscript copies of an original document that no longer exists. Each of the manuscript copies are different. Our goal is to compare the manuscript copies and ascertain what the original must have said. Here are the five copies:

Manuscript #1: Jesus Christ is the Savior of the whole worl.

Manuscript #2: Christ Jesus is the Savior of the whole world.

Manuscript #3: Jesus Christ s the Savior of the whole world.

Manuscript #4: Jesus Christ is th Savior of the whle world.

Manuscript #5: Jesus Christ is the Savor of the whole wrld.

Could you, by comparing the manuscript copies, ascertain what the original document said with a high degree of certainty that you are correct? Of course you could.

This illustration may be extremely simplistic, but a great majority of the 150,000 variants are solved by the above methodology.

By comparing the various manuscripts, all of which contain very minor differences like the above, it becomes fairly clear what the original must have said.

Most of the manuscript variations concern matters of spelling, word order, tenses, and the like; no single doctrine is affected by them in any way.

The earliest fragment we have of the New Testament is called the John Ryland fragment from the Gospel of John, dated to the second century--about 120 AD  (though there has been a recent announcement regarding a selection from the Gospel of Mark that may prove to be from the first century—we’ll see more of that announcement and intense scrutiny within the year). 

Given that John is considered to be the last gospel written, the most theologically oriented and thus considered the “most corrupted”—the fact that this fragment exists in Egypt a mere 20-30 years after the latest it could have been written—about 90 AD in modern day Turkey (allowing for transportation around the Med.) and you’re establishing the gospels written within the lifetime of the first apostles. 

Atheist Antony Flew stated: “There’s a much greater richness of manuscripts for all the major early Christian documents than there is for, say, the plays of Aeschylus or Sophocles or the works of Aristotle. But of course, that’s not evidence about Jesus, but very good authority for the accuracy of the text that is printed in translation in the New Testament”

Here’s some more evidence about the copying process.  They did take it seriously.

If you’ve heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls you should know that they were an amazing discovery back in 1947.  The manuscripts were in Hebrew and pushed back our earliest copy of Old Testament Hebrew manuscripts by 1000+ years in some cases.  Most famously is the complete scroll of Isaiah that is about 24 feet long.  It has its own museum called, the Shrine of the Book.  Scholars are able to compare documents with 1700 years worth of copying and recopying between them and assess the differences.

What they have found is a remarkable consistency—roughly 95% of the text is the same over 1000 years of copying.  I don’t think Xerox could do that well.  The other 5% are mostly misspellings or word-order switches.  No significant doctrine is altered or contradicted by any of these changes.

That is astounding and should put to rest the notion that the copying process automatically ruins the reliability.

What about the idea that the New Testament was written so long after the events? 

Scholarship reflects a spectrum much like politics with a Liberal and Conservative wing.  Most scholars agree that Paul began his writing in the late 40’s and early 50’s (keeping in mind Jesus’ crucifixion occurred around 33 AD).  Most scholars tend to follow the idea called Markan Priority—which believes that since Mark is the shortest Gospel, it must have been written first (I don’t find this compelling, by the way).  Liberals and Conservatives differ on the dates with conservatives arguing mid 50’s for Mark and liberals mid/late 60’s.  Extreme liberal scholars deny any Gospel was written in the first century but that has proven a harder position to defend given that early church fathers in the late first century (90’s AD) were quoting extensively from them.  It’s hard to quote a document that doesn’t exist.

So Mark was written somewhere between 20-30 years after the events it describes.  That may seem like a long time, but for its day, that was quick—far too quick for legendary material to enter the story.  This is also within the lifetime of eyewitnesses who could confirm or deny what they saw.  After all in the year 2021, I’ll still be able to refute someone who says space aliens destroyed the World Trade Center.

That is one point that Paul makes in his statement from 1 Corinthians 15:3-8—“For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to •Cephas, then to the Twelve. 6 Then He appeared to over 500 brothers at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen •asleep. 7 Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one abnormally born, He also appeared to me.”

This statement was taught to Paul during the time shortly after his conversion and can be reasonably dated to within 5 years of the Crucifixion and Resurrection.  Notice what is already part of the “story”:

• Jesus died – they weren’t stupid and Romans were very good at it
• The theological reason – for our sins
•  Jesus was raised on the third day
•  All “according to the Scriptures” – thus believed the events to be fulfilling Old Testament Prophecy
• Numerous eyewitness accounts of Jesus appearing to them

One new argument to show the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses makes use of Name Frequency.  I highly recommend watching the video on the link. 

Lastly, I will post the words from a minister named, Voddie Baucham and I would recommend you watching the sermon.  He bases this statement on the text of 2 Peter 1:16-21

“I choose to believe the Bible because it is a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report [of] supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claimed that their writing are divine rather than human in origin.”

Voddie Baucham – Why I Believe the Bible - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZNXMJGYNG8

Since I believe that the Bible is accurate and reliable and because I believe it speaks accurately to the human condition, and most importantly because I believe the Bible has a divine rather than merely human origin; I believe it is very reasonable to apply what it says to modern life despite the fact that it is “so old” or in spite of the fact that we have advanced so much since those days.

I believe the Bible describes our sinful condition and also describes the cure.  I believe the Bible is God’s love letter to us—recording Him trying to reach out to us and save us from our biggest problems, sin and death.   For example:

It speaks to modern families; it defines marriage and calls upon parents to champion the education of their children.  It speaks to how we should relate to governments and calls us to work to change society for the better through the power of the Gospel.  It shows us how to handle our money, our jobs and our time; encourages us to avoid laziness and work hard even when the boss is not watching.  It teaches us to break the cycles of retaliation and violence.  It calls us to personally care for the poor and those in need rather than pass the buck to another agency.  It challenges us to avoid harmful behavior—that harms anyone, including ourselves by taking care of our body.  It calls us to be responsible with our resources and not go into debt.  

The Bible gives us our purpose, identifies the fundamental value of all human beings, invites us to a great adventure and calls us to a glorious future with our Creator.

You may not want to apply the Bible to your life, you may have many reasons.  But do not be foolish enough to think that it is unreasonable to include the Bible in modern discussions.

For Further Reading:

http://theresurgence.com/2012/05/28/what-to-say-when-someone-says-the-bible-has-errors

http://www.wtsbooks.com/pdf_files/9781567691825.pdf

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2012/07/08/an-interview-with-craig-blomberg-on-jesus-and-the-reliability-of-the-gospels/

Chicago Statement on Inerrancy - http://www.etsjets.org/files/documents/Chicago_Statement.pdf