The answer in Genesis is that there were no stars when the earth was created. God didn’t make the stars until three days after he made the earth.
But in the book of Job, God has a different answer. Now he says he laid the earth’s foundation while the morning stars sang. So there were stars, then.
Continue reading Were there stars when the earth was created?The gospel of John repeatedly refers to Jesus as the light of the world. It says John the Baptist was sent to testify about “the light of all mankind” that was coming into the world. One of the ways it describes God sending his son into the world is by saying that light has come into the world. And most importantly, it has Jesus call himself the light of the world.
Continue reading Who is the light of the world?The Bible states that God has established the earth and the heavens forever. The earth’s foundations are everlasting, and it will remain forever. The Bible equates “forever” with “as long as the heavens endure“.
People who die can expect to stay trapped beneath the earth forever, which is only possible if the earth exists forever. Also, Christians who die can expect to go to live in an eternal house in heaven, where they will enjoy the everlasting inheritance that’s being kept for them there.
Continue reading Will the heavens and earth last forever?This is a summary of what the Bible says will happen when the world ends. The predictions are scattered throughout various parts of the Bible, which makes it hard to tell how they’re all supposed to fit together. Some things just don’t fit together at all. But I’ve attempted to put everything in order and make a fairly coherent narrative out of it, using whatever chronology clues I could find in the Bible.
In the end times, God will send many false Messiahs and false prophets. They will perform miracles, which can only be done with God’s help.1
Satan and his angels will lose a war in heaven. Then he will be thrown down to earth, where he will go to war against the Christians. A beast like a leopard with bear’s feet, a lion’s mouth, seven heads, and ten horns will come out of the sea. Satan will give the beast power over everyone for 3.5 years. All the people God arbitrarily decided not to save will worship the beast and Satan. The beast will speak against God and conquer his people.
Then a second beast with a lamb’s horns and a dragon’s voice will come out of the earth. It will perform great signs, confirming that its word is true. It will make a talking image of the first beast, and kill anyone who doesn’t worship the image. It will force all people to receive the mark of the number of the beast on their hands or foreheads.
An angel will preach the gospel to the world.2 Then Jesus will come on a cloud and harvest the earth. An angel will throw trillions of people into a winepress so Jesus can trample them to death, and a five-foot flood of blood will flow out of it. Seven more angels will bring seven plagues on the world. Festering sores will break out on the people who have the mark of the beast.3 The water will turn into blood and the Euphrates will dry up. The sun will scorch people, but the kingdom of the beast will be in darkness.
Then three frog-demons will perform signs, proving that God is on their side. They will gather the kings of the world for battle at Armageddon. God will send storms, giant hailstones, and an unprecedented, city-destroying earthquake that will split Babylon into three parts. All the islands and mountains will be removed.
The beast4 will be put in the Abyss and come back out. Then God will give power to the beast, which together with ten very briefly-reigning kings will burn down Babylon. With a sword from his mouth, Jesus will destroy the nations, the kings of the earth and their armies, and the beast and the false prophet5 will be thrown alive into hell.
Satan will be locked in the Abyss for a thousand years, and God will resurrect Christian martyrs from every nation who have not worshiped the beast or received its mark,6 and bring them to Israel to reign alongside Jesus as priests. After the thousand years are over, God will bring unprecedented distress on everyone.
Continue reading The end of the worldAfter Pilate asked Jesus if he was the king of the Jews, Jesus stated that his kingdom was not of this world at all; it was “from another place”.
But Jesus contradicts this in one of his parables, in which a man tells his harvesters to pull the weeds out of his field before harvesting the wheat. This represents Jesus sending angels to weed all the evil people out of his kingdom at “the end of the age”.
If pulling the weeds out of the field represents taking the evil people out of Jesus’s kingdom, that kingdom must be represented by the field (or part of it). And what did Jesus say the field represents? The world.7 So Jesus’s kingdom must be in this world.
Continue reading Is Jesus’s kingdom of this world?