Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

After Jesus died on the cross and before He rose again, what might it have felt like to the women such as Mary his mother, and his disciples? This year at Easter I pondered this question.  The women went to the tomb early in the morning with the intent of preparing the body for burial. As they went, was there any doubt creeping into their heads about Jesus? If I was one of them, I would have surely been tempted to wonder if He was really the son of God. If He was killed, what was the point of this?  Of course, his mother Mary had the advantage of knowing the entire time that Jesus truly was the son of God - an angel had come to her to tell her when she was pregnant. An angel had visited her husband Joseph too, to give him the same information. But even knowing that Jesus was the son of God, did Mary wonder at any point whether God's plan had gone awry somewhere at the end? Or was she confident about the way things happened? And how about the disciples? The disciples had seen m...

In the book of Revelation, the Bible says that at the End of Days there will be a powerful beast which will rule the world: I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads. There were ten crowns on his horns. On each head was an evil name that was displeasing to God. The beast I saw looked like a leopard. But he had feet like a bear and a mouth like a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power, his throne, and great authority. One of the beast's heads seemed to have had a deadly wound. But the wound had been healed. The whole world was amazed and followed the beast. People worshiped the dragon, because he had given authority to the beast. They also worshiped the beast. They asked, "Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?"  Revelation 13:1-4 He opened his mouth to speak evil things against God. He told lies about God's character and about the place where God lives and about those who live in heaven with him. He was allowed to make war ...

What are the end time prophesies in the Bible which I most want people to know about? There are 2 very specific prophesies in the Bible whose events can't easily get mistaken for anything else. The first prophecy is that Greece and Iran will go to war, and Greece will win. The second prophecy is that people will need to get a mark on their forehead or right hand in order to buy or sell anything. It's extremely important not to get that mark, since the prophecy in the Bible tells us that it's the mark of the enemy. The mark could be an implantable chip, a bar code tattoo, or some as yet unknown technology. You can read in more detail about the first prophecy, the one from the book of Daniel about Greece and Iran going to war . You can also learn in more detail about the second prophecy, the one from the book of Revelation about the Mark of the Beast . These prophecies are both quite specific and are unlikely to get confused for anything else.  For example, war in general cou...

Doomsday bunkers will not protect anyone at the End of Days. Between now and the End of Days, there will be natural disasters, war, and other horrible things. Although doomsday bunkers will exist, they certainly won't protect anyone from the End of Days. Two prophets in the Bible have clearly prophesied about people hiding underground at the End of Days. Let's take a look at these two different readings from the Bible. One is from the prophet Isaiah, before the birth of Jesus, and the other is from the prophet John of Patmos, in the book of Revelation, the final chapter of the Bible. These different prophets from distinctly different time periods both have the same message for us: Enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground, from the terror of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth. On that day people will throw away to the moles and to the bats their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for th...

God gave us life in abundance. He knows and we also know that there will be problems facing us at times. Even though God is good, sadly we do have problems, due to the fallen nature of this world: specifically arising from a) Satan's actions to oppress us and b) other people's actions who may be acting to our detriment. Another possibility too is c) problems we have created through our own actions. The aim here isn't to assign blame  - the aim is to point out that no matter what, we will have some problems facing us at many points in our life, maybe even throughout our lives on Earth. Now, that may seem depressing, but the good news is that we can be happy, even when facing upcoming problems! Here we'll find out how. Note: by all means ask God for discernment and guidance when facing such problems. He may show you a path, a way to fix this problem. If it's the sort of problem you literally have no control over, then worrying isn't going to help - by all ...

No. According to the Bible, there is nothing there about an alien invasion. You can read more about End of Times in other posts , and there is nothing to indicate an alien invasion. So, if you've watched Stranger Things or other shows like that, then no, our world will not end with an invasion of the type hinted at there. However, there is one particular area which could suggest the presence of a single alien entity (as opposed to an invasion). This is the emergence of a new ruler at the End of Days as written in Revelation; one which tries to make it compulsory to have the Mark of the Beast on all humans. Read here for why you must never, ever, agree to receive the mark of the beast , no matter how tempted you may be. Where does the possibility of an alien come in? It's because this leader is succeeded by second leader, whose identity not made completely clear in the Bible. Let's see what Revelation has to say about this: Then I saw another beast that rose out of the...

I've talked before about what the Bible says about the Mark of the Beast and you can recap that here . Up until now, there wasn't an implanted technology in everyday use that was actually being utilized to make payments as described in Revelation 13. This has recently changed. NPR reported that a U.S. company has offered to implant chips in the hands of their employees (see reference 1). These chips allow them to make cafeteria-style payments. In other words, a chip inside their hand will be used to identify the employee and to deduct funds from their cafeteria account when making purchases. It is an opt-in program, so the employees are not being compelled to do it. Let's take a look at what the Bible says about the Mark of the Beast: Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number o...

We live in a post-Fall existence.  We therefore cannot truly imagine what the Garden of Eden must have looked like before the Fall.  However, it must have been a beautiful, comfortable, and low-maintenance place to live.  There were no weeds or thistles, no poisonous plants.  Tending to the plants and obtaining nutrition from these plants was a straightforward business. Adam and Eve had never seen a weed or an unwanted, undesirable plant in their lives. All the plants there were beautiful and/or useful: The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground - trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2: 9 Unlike Adam and Eve at that point, we on the other hand, are all too familiar with  weeds.  They spring up much faster than the plants we are trying to cultivate, and will choke their growth and spread their seed quickly. ...

A period of worldwide suffering will occur at the End of Days just prior to the return of Jesus.  This suffering is due at least in part to oppressive governance that will occur here on earth and a dire economic situation  at that time.  Yet, there will be plenty of physical suffering that is additional to this.  Just a few of the many Bible verses describing the end of days say: Another horse came out, a red one.  Its rider was given the power to bring war on the earth, so that people would kill each other.  He was given a large sword. Revelation 6:4 I looked, and there was a pale-colored horse.  Its rider was named Death, and Hades followed close behind.  They were given authority over a quarter of the earth, to kill by means of war, famine, disease and wild animals. Revelation 6:8 Then those who are in Judea must run away to the hills.  Someone who is on the roof of a house must not take the time to go down and get any belongings ...

Jesus' suffering on the cross was surely in part physical.  The tortures to which his body was subjected must have felt indescribably painful, to say the least.  The son of God being tortured by us humans, all of us sinners who were 'not good enough even to carry his sandals' [from  Matthew 3:11] and 'a people of unclean lips' [from Isaiah 6:5] must also have been a horrifying concept mentally. However, this is not the sum total of the incalculable sacrifice that was made when Jesus died for us. Instead, by far biggest suffering must have been the spiritual pain experienced when his Father had seemed to desert him in his final moments on the cross:   At three o'clock Jesus cried out with a loud shout, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why did you abandon me?" Mark 15:34 Jesus had clearly had more than an inkling of how horrible this would be, because he had previously prayed in the Garden of Gesthemane to have ...

I have noticed that many people feel they are unable to believe in God when they live in a world where bad things happen.  (Here is a link to my other post: If God is Good, Why Do Bad Things Happen? ).  I've already covered the issue of a lot of the bad things there (comes down to us having Free Will and using it badly, e.g. murders, violence, etc).  The bigger issue here is that people are blaming God for the sins of man!   I'm not denying that there are horrific things happening in the world.  Some people have seen and experienced things that no human being ever ought to.  By all means, blame man for the sins of man.... but don't blame God for the sins of man.  The blame doesn't lie there, no matter how much anyone might 'want' it to.  An even bigger issue that I realized after reading the Bible, is that of arrogance and pride if we start blaming God for the sins of man.  Not only does this thought imply we want him to 'take...

This is the long-promised post on this topic.  One of the things I noticed is that after reading the Bible without pre-conceived ideas, it became much clearer to me why bad things still happen when God exists and is good.  It all comes down to free will.  God created everything, all the angels, including Satan.  God also created us.  He wanted his creations to have free will and not be automatons.  This means he wants us to follow him, but he will not force us to do so.  Therefore, if everyone has free will then they can take actions which might be harmful to others.  So for instance, someone could steal from someone else.  Obviously, this is not what God wants us to do.  He could stop it from happening every time, but if he did, he would be taking away our free will.  So God gave us free willl, but some people will use it to do bad things.  So this is why bad things happen. As a little girl, I sometimes wished that Go...