Psalm 69:2 (ESV) – I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.
The past few weeks have seen a multitude of natural disasters. First, Hurricane Harvey struck the Texas coastline, causing inestimable wind and flooding damage. Hurricane Irma followed next, wrecking havoc in the Caribbean and the Florida peninsula. Irma was followed by Hurricane Maria, which dealt another blow to the Caribbean, devastating Puerto Rico and still posing a threat to the US East Coast as I pen this blog entry.
On September 19, a powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck Mexico City, collapsing buildings, burying countless victims in rubble, and creating havoc in the city whose metropolitan area is home to some 21 million souls. Since the initial quake, Mexico City has been struck by multiple large aftershocks; there was a moderate-sized earthquake in the Los Angeles area; and another moderate quake occurred near Japan’s Fukushima power plant. Fukushima is the place where a 2011 earthquake damaged three nuclear reactors, resulting in the cores melting down and releasing high levels of radiation into the Pacific Ocean. It remains a tremendous hazard today.
The timing of these events has been a windfall for late night radio talk shows where prophets of doom warn about the end of the world. Their latest doomsday message predicted the world would end on September 23, when a giant, hitherto undetected planet called Nibiru would suddenly appear and pass so close to the Earth that its enormous gravitation and magnetic field would cause a planetary disaster, ending life as we know it. Well, the September 23 apocalypse has passed and we’re still here.
In 1992, radio evangelist Harold Camping predicted Christ would return in September 1994. He had based his prediction off numbers and dates found in the Bible. When this failed to happen, Camping made several adjustments to the predicted date, the last date of which was October 21, 2011. He attributed his errors to mathematical errors in interpreting Biblical numerology. It didn’t happen!
Richard W. Noone, in his book titled 5/5/2000 Ice: The Ultimate Disaster, predicted the world would end on May 5, 2000 when Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn would aligned with the earth for the first time in six thousand years. Wrong!
A predicted apocalypse on December 12, 2012 also passed without incident. That was the date that some believed the ancient Mayan calendar ended, spelling doomsday for mankind. Didn’t happen—again!
The Holy Scriptures are full of warnings about false prophets. Jesus himself warns us of false prophets in Mark 13, which provides many details about the cataclysmic end times that will occur on Earth in the last days. Mark 13 ends with Jesus telling us clearly that not even he knows the day or hour when this cataclysm will occur. Only God the Father knows when our world will end!
In truth, there have been many doomsday predictions for as long as mankind has been around; none have come to pass save the great flood that Jehovah warned Noah to prepare for. A direct warning from God–that’s something you can trust!
Unfortunately for us, false prophecies are rampant today, along with the ubiquitous fake news we hear so much talk about in the media. This leaves Christians little remaining to believe in besides their Bible. So how historically accurate is the Bible?
It is very accurate according to Dr. Ken Boa. Boa is president of Reflections Ministries (www.kenboa.org). His article, titled ‘How accurate is the Bible?’ originally appeared in the Winter 2009 issue of Knowing and Doing, the teaching quarterly published by the C.S. Lewis Institute.
According to Boa, there are three lines of evidence supporting the claim that the biblical documents are reliable: 1) the bibliographic test, 2) the internal test, and 3) the external test. The first test examines the authenticity and accuracy of biblical manuscripts; the second deals with the claims made by the biblical authors, most of whom were eyewitnesses to the events they describe; and the third looks to outside historical confirmation of the biblical content. Boa explains very clearly how biblical evidence meets all three tests. His article can be found at this link: http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/410.
1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 tells us, “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good,” (ESV). The Bible passes the reliability tests as described so succinctly by Dr. Ken Boa. Christians should rely on the lens of the Bible to examine everything we hear and see today. It’s the only certain way to avoid being misled by fake news and false prophets. Which lens are you looking through, a worldview conforming to biblical truth or one conforming to the secular world?
For more on ‘Worldview’, see Bob Burney’s article at this link: http://www.crosswalk.com/church/pastors-or-leadership/worldview-which-lens-are-you-looking-through-11595738.html.
Divine Simplicity 
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