The God of Abraham - Arguments Against Christianity Series - Jason Willis

Today, I'm going to be taking some liberties that I usually would shy away from. For example, I'm going to be telling some stories from the Bible, and in this one story, there's a conversation that takes place between Jesus and Satan.

And during this conversation, everything that Jesus communicates to Satan are things that we can point to in Scripture and say, "You see, Satan was aware of this." Now, whether or not it was Jesus who personally delivered these messages to him or not, these things we can't know, but that's the way I like to imagine it in my mind when I live the story in my head, so that's the way I'm going to tell it today.

Agnosticism, naturalism, atheism, folk religion, Hinduism, Buddhism. In this series, we have looked at how each one of these religions answers the questions of origin, meaning, destiny, and morality. Those worldviews make up 43 to 44 percent of the world population, according to the Pew Research Center.

Today, we're going to be going about this a little bit differently than we have before as we look at the other 56 percent of the world population, looking at how Judaism, Islam, and Christianity answer these same questions. We're also going to look at the Scriptures and the category as we have with the other religions. Let's begin with category.

Both God and the universe exist. Both God and the universe. In Hinduism, only God exists. In Buddhism and naturalism, only the universe exists. But in these three religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, both God and the universe exist, and they exist as separate entities. One actually created the other. Let's dive into some Scriptures, and let's begin with the Quran.

According to Muslims, there are actually sets of sacred texts. We've got the Old Testament and the New Testament and the Quran. More specifically, the terminology that would be used is the Torah and the Gospel and the Quran. When I say Old Testament and New Testament for this sermon, I'm interchangeable.

People don't typically imagine that Muslims believe in the Bible, but they do. They believe that the God of the Bible is the same God of the Quran. To them, it's Allah who's the whole thing. Let's read some of this together. This is how we know, because it's actually in the Quran.

Do not argue with the people of the book. Now, Paul's there. In the Quran, you're going to hear two different phrases that the Quran uses to describe the Christians and the Jews. It's the people of the book and the people of the Scripture.

I know that most of the time, most of the time it refers to the Christians. I'm not sure if it always applies to Jews or not. So do not argue with the people of the book, except in good taste, because we believe in that which was sent down to us, and we believe that which was sent down to you.

Our God and your God is the same one whom we all submit to as Muslims. So you can see here that Muhammad is considering the Christians and the Jews to actually be Muslims. Our God and your God is the same thing who we all submit to as Muslims.

He has revealed this book to you, setting forth the truth and confirming the earlier books. And earlier, he revealed the Torah and the Gospel. So here we have the Quran. In the Quran, the Bible is confirmed as Scripture that is given by Allah. He has revealed this book to you, talking about the Quran, setting forth the truth and confirming the earlier books. And earlier, he revealed the Torah and the Gospel.

Now, if you ask a Muslim today, many will say, "No, no, no, no, no, no. We don't believe in the Bible. That's not us." But here's the thing. It's not because they never did. The position of the Muslim is that though the Bible was once the uncorrupted word of God or of Allah, it has now been corrupted by man. The Quran alone, according to the Muslims, stands as the only uncorrupted Scripture that exists on the planet.

So according to Islam, this book is true. This book is true. This book is actually an extension of this book. It came afterwards. But this book has been corrupted by man. Let's see what else the Quran has to say about the Bible.

When the angel said, "O Mary, indeed Allah gives you good tidings of his word from him, whose name will be Messiah, Jesus, the Son of Mary. Distinguished will he be in this world and the world to come, and will be among those who are brought near to Allah."

Mary said, "My Lord, how will I have a child when no man has touched me?" The angel said, "Such is Allah. He creates what he wills. When he decrees a matter, he only says to it, 'Be,' and it is.

And he will teach him the writing and wisdom and the Torah and the Gospel." So here we have the Quran confirming both the virgin birth as well as the Torah and the Gospel. And these are my favorites. And let the people of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed in the Gospel. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed in the Gospel, then it is those who are definitely disobedient. If only they had upheld the law of the Torah and the Gospel, they would have been, they have been, excuse me. If only they had upheld the law of the Torah and the Gospel and what had been revealed to them from their Lord, they would have received provision from above and from beneath their feet.

Say, "O people of the Scripture, you are standing on nothing until you uphold the law of the Torah and the Gospel and what has been revealed to you from the Lord." So when this was added to the Quran, the argument was not whether or not the Torah and the Gospel were corrupted.

These passages are literally calling out the Christians for failing to uphold their own Gospel. That makes absolutely no sense if they believed at that time that the Torah and the Gospel were corrupted. So clearly, at the time of the writing, somewhere in the early 600s, according to the Muslims, the Torah and the Gospel were the uncorrupted word of God.

All of this goes to show that in the beginning of Muhammad's life, he viewed himself and his religion as somewhat of an extension of Christianity. In the start of Islam, there was a very blurry line between Christianity and Islam.

According to Muhammad, we are all serving the same Allah. The Bible is authentic and authoritative. The Christians and Jews need to obey them. It just so happened that in his day, he was a modern-day prophet receiving new revelation from God.

But as time unfolded, Muhammad's relationship with the Jews began to turn sour. And this shift we actually also see taking place in the Quran. These next passages are examples of verses in the Quran that clearly show that according to Muslims, before the Quran was completed, that the Bible had become corrupted. And the way this works is 100% of the Christian Scriptures that we have today, all of them, they all say that Jesus was crucified. But according to the Quran, this is a corruption of the Gospel. According to the Quran in Surah 4:157, Jesus was not crucified. And they're saying, and they're speaking to the Jews, and the Jews are saying, "We killed Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary, the messenger of Allah, but they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him.

But so it was made to appear to them, for of a surety they killed him not." According to Islamic traditions, it looked like Jesus was on the cross. But the reality was that it made it appear to them. It was that in reality, it was Judas Iscariot.

Let's talk over to the Bible, 1 John 2:22, which states, "Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son." So do you see the conflict beginning to arise between the Christian Scriptures and the Quran?

They have certainly disbelieved who say Allah is the Messiah, the Son of Mary. So to say that Jesus was the Messiah or to say that Jesus was the Son of God in the flesh, this makes you an unbeliever, according to Islam. Punishable by hell, as we see here. Indeed, those who associate others with Allah, so to call Christ the Son of Allah is to associate others with Allah.

Indeed, he who associates others with Allah has been forbidden from paradise by Allah, and his refuge is the fire. So to believe what Christians believe today about Jesus being the Son is a one-way ticket to hell in Islam.

Indeed, Allah is but one God. Exalted is he above having a son.

When you read the Bible, when you pick up the Bible and read it, it says that Jesus was way more than a prophet. He was God in flesh. He was the Son of God. The Bible says that if you deny Christ, then you are a, if you deny that Jesus as the Christ, you are a liar. This makes you the Antichrist. And you have denied both the Father and the Son. Then the Quran goes on to say, "That is blasphemous. This belief will send you to hellfire."

And this is why the current-day narrative of the Muslim is that the Torah and the Gospel have been corrupted. They were the ones of God. They were once the word of God, but they have been corrupted. The Muslims have to say that the Bible has been corrupted because the Bible of today says that the Muslims are the Antichrist.

Now let's move on to the Christian and Jewish Scriptures.

The Bible is split up into two major sections. We've got the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the Old Testament, the Jews believed it. The Christians believe it. And the Muslims believed it up until it was corrupted.

The New Testament, on the other hand, the Jews reject it. The Christians believe it. And the Muslims believed it up until it was corrupted. The Quran, the Jews reject it. The Christians reject it. And the Muslims believe it.

So everyone believes this part. Then the Jews, they stop believing right here. They don't believe past this. The Christians, they believe this. The Muslims once did as well. The Christians don't believe anything past this. Listen, this is what I want you to take away from this.

The big takeaway is that this means that 56% of the people in this world share this right here as its original document, the origin of their religion. All three of these religions share that.

Let's look at time a little bit.

2024 years ago, the Old Testament, or the Old Testament existed, but the New Testament didn't exist, nor did the Quran. This means that 2024 years ago, there was no such thing as Christians or Muslims. But something massive, something big was about to unfold right here. Something that was going to shape reality. Something happens in the story right here.

Something happens so big. It's so incredible that for the rest of time, or at least for the next 2024 years, for the majority of the entire world, whatever happened right here in this story has been so significant that it has become the reference point of time as we know it.

Think about it. Think about the calendar with me. For all of history, people have always referenced time as something in reference to another point in time. For example,

on January 1st, 2024, that is exactly one year away from January 1st, 2023. There's a one-year relationship between 2023 and 2024. You go back to 1999, now you have a 25-year relationship between 1999 and 2024. Now notice what happens as you go back in time. The numbers get smaller and smaller. You go 1900, 1800, 1700, 1600. Millennium before that, 500, 400, 300. Notice it gets smaller and smaller.

Now what happens when it hits zero? Was that the beginning of time? Of course it wasn't. All of humanity undoubtedly knows that time went on way before that, at minimum thousands of years before that. But if this is the case, what happens when it gets to zero?

What happens is the numbers begin to count back up. They don't go negative. The zero marks the transition into a new era. The further you move away from zero in this direction in time, the higher the years get into the past. And the further you move away from zero in this direction in time, the further the years get into the future. Literally, the past and the future are marked by whatever in the world took place right here.

Maybe. Just maybe. Someday, somehow, something even bigger will happen on this planet that will become the new reference point of time. Like, I don't know. Like, what could it be? Maybe a world war. Oh, no, no. That's already happened.

Twice, yeah. Well, maybe we'll land on the moon. No, no, no. That happened too. That didn't reset the calendar at all. So far, for more than 2,000 years, 20 centuries, nothing has taken place that was more significant than what happened right here.

Now, I don't want to jump to any false or irrational conclusions here. The fact that something in this book splits time does not necessarily mean that anything has been proven. It is only evidence. It is evidence that whatever in the world happened here just might, just might be somehow interwoven into the reality, into our reality in a real sense.

It's just evidence. It's really good stuff to look into if you're interested in the meaning of life and the purpose of existence and things of that nature. And I can tell you, emphatically, there is no other claim on the planet like this. You can't find it. You can look.

I shouldn't say that. Maybe there is, but I just haven't heard. I feel like it would be something you'd hear.

Follow me here.

You see these binder clips? Here's an aerial view of it. So something happens right here. This section is the part that splits time. And then for about this many pages right here, this section is what tells the story after time was split right here.

This tells the story of the 70-year period after this new era entered into humanity. And then this gets really interesting. This section here, this section actually claims to prophesy the end of the world.

It says this Armageddon will be ushered into the reality, and it will be, it spells it out in detail. It says this is how it's going to go down. This is what it's going to look like. This is what people are going to experience. This is what people are going to do. This is what God's going to do. This is what the future holds for humanity in an eternal sense.

I'm not saying it's true. I'm just telling you what the book says. It's bizarre. It's bold. It's in your face. Let's look at the end here, and let's work our way backwards. So here's the end. This is what it says. This is what's going to happen. Right here, something splits time. Or you and me, actually, we're right here in this section. And then right over here, this is where time was split. But what happened before then? What happened? What is all of this here?

Well, in the same way that this claims to be the story of the series of events that happened the 70 years after this new age began, this, the Old Testament, claims to be the story of the events leading up to that time.

So this part of the book says this is the future. This is how it's all going to go down. This part of the book splits time into. This part of the book claims to be the record of everything that took place leading up to that new era entering into humanity.

The question is this: how far back does this Old Testament claim to go? Well, if you go all the way back to the very first page, we see in the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. And this, my dear friend, brings us to origin.

This discussion of these scriptures that show how the Jewish and Christian and Islamic scriptures are connected has taken us all the way back to the beginning of time. Remember, this page right here, this page, this is the first page of the Torah. This means that the Christians believe this is the beginning of time. The Jewish people believe this is the beginning of time. The Muslims, whatever was on this page before it was corrupted, they believe that was the beginning of time.

So category, both God and the universe exist. Origin and the beginning, God. In this, in every message of the series, I have reemphasized how critical the question is. What in the world happened leading up to or preceding the beginning of time? Over and over, we have talked about how if there was no mind behind creation, there can be no ultimate purpose. There can be no transcendent meaning if there was no mind behind creation. And ultimate purpose or meaning is dependent on a mind to establish it. And we talked about it's a similar way with moral law. Without a mind, no law can come into existence.

And for 56% of the world population, the origin story right here says emphatically, yes, in the beginning, God created all things, visible and invisible, heavens and earth. Atheism, Buddhism, Hinduism, in the beginning, the Big Bang. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, in the beginning, God.

So we just happen to be born into that one world where there is a book that claims to begin in the beginning of time and end in the end of time. And the central event of the story becomes the center point of time, and it claims to predict the future. So here's the question.

Are there any credible reasons to believe that these prophecies here of the future are actually describing reality, or is it all just some fairy tale?

Is there any reason to believe that this is actually how it's all going to go down? Now, doesn't that just seem a little bit silly? Like something maybe a child would believe? You tell a five-year-old, "Guess what? This book tells the future." No way. That tells the future. It's amazing.

A child could believe that, but not grown-ups, right? Grown-ups don't believe that books can tell the predict the future. That kind of stuff only happens in dreams and movies, doesn't it? Can there be any credible reason to believe this?

Like, what's going on here? What am I missing? How and why have 56% of the population of grown-ups somehow come to believe that magic books predict the future? How about this question? If this claims to be a prophecy of the end of the world, this here claims to be a record clear all the way back to the beginning of time, question, are there any prophecies here in this part of the book, or were there only just a few scattered right at the end?

If there were any prophecies here, were there just a few, or were there many? More importantly, if there were any prophecies here, had any of them come true that could possibly give some credibility to the ones that are to come?

Let me present to you two worlds, or let me present to you a world of possibilities. There are an infinite number of ways the world could have been. We could have been born into a world where we had feet for hands and hands for feet.

Someone would say, "You're not going to believe this. I'm at the president today." And you would say, "No way. Did you shake his foot?"

The question is, is there any other prophecies in this book? And have those prophecies come to pass that can maybe give us confidence in the authority of the prophecies that have yet to come? You could have been born into this world where there were no religions. You could have been born into this world where Hinduism was the only religion ever presented to the world. You could have been born into this world where the Bible exists, but the only prophecies in it that exist are the last few in the book.

You could have been born into this world that says, "Are you kidding me? Nobody believes that stuff." The whole book is riddled with prophecies, but none of them came true. Only a crazy person would believe the last few are somehow going to come true. The world could have been like this or any other combination, but you just happen to be born into this world.

You see, in this world, we all just woke up one day. What is this? I didn't ask to be here. And this life is so much suffering. Like, what is the meaning of this? And it just so happened that you were born into this one particular world. And in this world, there just happens to be this one particular nation of people who have this unbelievable claim that are at the root of the biggest questions haunting humanity. And they just state it as a simple fact, like it's just truth.

They say, "Well, good and evil are objective. There is a transcendent moral law, and there's a transcendent moral law giver. In fact, we personally know him. We have a relationship with him. We have a relationship with the God behind all of creation." Oh, and it's been going on for thousands of years. This isn't anything new. For a millennium, the mind behind creation has spoken to our nation, and our kings and our priests and our prophets have documented the words that he has given us. We, in our holy scriptures, we possess the word of God. I can show it to you. And in this word, it contains the keys to the meaning of life and the purpose of existence.

The word, it contains both the story of humanity, the condition of the world, the answers to suffering, as well as everything you need to know to have a life full and to the brim of purpose and meaning. It also tells us how to achieve eternal life. It begins in the beginning of times. It ends in the end of time. And the one time in history when God himself came to this earth as a human, he became anchored to reality as the center point of time. His word, it tells us how the world is going to end. And the reason that we believe these prophecies of the future is because hundreds of prophecies from the past have already come true.

And these claims have been verified, confirmed, and substantiated over and over for thousands of years because this is the book of prophecy that has actually already come to pass. For example, they said, "You know how this happened? And it was so significant that it split time in two." Well, our Jewish ancestors knew that was going to happen way before it happened.

Hundreds and thousands of years. It was prophesied hundreds of times. We could have been born into any other world, but you were born into this one where there is actually a nation of people who have this claim. And in this world, the evidence is so overwhelming that masses of grown men and women believe things that at face value, only children should believe. That's how much evidence there is.

One scholar, J. Burton Payne, found as many as 574 verses in the Old Testament that somehow point to or describe or reference the coming of the Messiah. Alfred Edersheim found 456 Old Testament verses referring to the Messiah or his time. Conservatively, according to Payne, Jesus fulfilled at least 300 prophecies during his earthly ministry.

But what is this coming Messiah? Let's approach this with the story. The story of the beginning of time, according to the Jews and the Christians and the Muslims, before it was corrupted.

In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth. He made one physical realm and one spiritual realm. And he made all sorts of creatures, but very two, very special creatures. They were special because, number one, they were moral agents. And number two, they had free will.

These two special creatures were called angels and humans.

The story goes on to say that God took one of these creatures and he gave him two other very special traits. Number one, he made this creature in his own image. And number two, God gave this man rulership or authority or dominion over this physical world, half of creation. So he creates heaven and earth and then angels and humans, and then he gives this man his own image, and then he proceeds to give him dominion and authority over half of creation, the earth. He gives it to man. And all of this happens within the first few books of the first few chapters of the book. But the story continues.

One of these angels, in particular, who later becomes known as Satan, decides that for whatever reason, he wants for himself what God has given man. He couldn't change his own nature. He couldn't become a man. But he does conceive a plan that if he could pull this off, it could possibly allow him to seize control of the earth that has been given to man. This authority, this dominion that man had over creation, this could be his if only he could convince man to hand it over to him.

But this seems almost hopeless. Who in their right mind would do such a thing? Yeah, Satan, look at this amazing earth. Look at those vineyards. Look at those mountains. It's all mine. Oh, you want it? Oh, okay. Oh, that would never happen. If Satan was going to seize control, it was going to be done through deception.

But how would this even be possible? It turns out that Satan knew something about the nature of reality that just might make this possible. And we, you and me, we learn about this in Romans 6:16. Do you not know that to whom you present yourself as slaves to obey, you are that one slave whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? We learn that though man has a free will and though man has been made in the image of God, man was not created to be a free agent. He is a moral agent, but not a free agent. All men were created to have masters. All men were created to be slaves to some degree.

A very unpopular opinion in the world. I'm just telling you what the book says, though. According to the scripture, God made man in such a way that he must have a master. Man cannot be his own master. But because God gave man free will, this gives man the power to choose who his master is going to be. Now, whether or not Adam and Eve knew this, we really can't know.

But it seems pretty clear to me that Satan was aware of this reality. Satan knew this reality found in Romans 6, which means which says that man becomes a slave to the one that he chooses to obey. Seeing this, that man chooses his master through obedience, Satan sees his opening.

Now, at this point in the story, no falsehood existed on the earth. There was no lie. There was no deception. The earth was pure of these things. But Satan realized that if he could convince man to obey him while at the same time disobey God, then that man in that process would choose a new master through that obedience.

If only he could convince man to obey him instead of God. For in that moment, man would make Satan his own master, and just maybe he would be able to seize control of this world. But this was going to be tricky for Satan.

Why? Because at this time in the story, God had given very few commands. I only count five of them. Be fruitful and multiply. Rule over other creatures. Work and take care of the garden of Eden. Eat plants for food. Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Notice something. Do this, do this, do this, do this. Don't do this. Genesis 2:16-17. You are free to eat any tree of the garden except that one. You see that one? Don't eat from that tree. Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you do, you will surely die.

Satan sees his opening. And so he sits. He waits for Adam and Eve to be near the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And it happens. So he takes the form of a certain serpent, and he introduces for the first time deception into the earth. This is the moment when Satan became the father of lies. For before this moment, no falsehood had existed in the earth.

Satan says to Eve, "Did God really say, 'Do not eat from the tree'?" He presents the question against God. God said, "Do not eat," but he's lying to you because he knows that when you eat it, it will actually make you like him.

So I say, "Eat." Eve was tempted, and she ate. And Adam was with her, according to the scriptures. She hands it to him, and he looks at her, and she doesn't seem to be dying. Maybe the serpent's right. "Eat it," he says. So Adam is tempted, and he eats.

And in this act of disobedience to God and obedience to the serpent, man bowed to Satan, becoming the slave to him through obedience. And Satan, in that moment, took by deception the dominion of earth from man. Within the first few chapters, God makes heavens and earth and humans and angels, and he gives the humans the dominion of the earth. And Satan wages war against God by deceiving man, his own made in God's image, deceiving man into forfeiting dominion and becoming slaves to the one he obeys. In this case, slaves to Satan. And from there, moving forward, the world became under a curse. Man was cursed. The earth was cursed. Satan was cursed. And additional acts of war against the creator.

And to maintain his control over this world, Satan spends the remainders of his days training men in the ways of evil, enticing men and tempting men to do all sorts of evil. The generations that followed, born into this curse, have been men who loved evil and who have sought after evil and who have looked for ways to invent evil.

By chapter two of the story, by chapter two of the story, all this has taken place. And then comes chapter three where the prophecies begin. God says to Satan, "You deceived him, you wicked serpent. Cursed are you for what you have done.

For now, the world is yours. It's under your control. But someday, the Messiah will come to this earth. And when he comes, you, speaking to Satan, you are going to bruise his heel. There will be a battle, and you will get in a few blows. You are going to bruise his heel, but he is going to crush your head." By chapter three, the announcement is made that the Messiah is going to be born, and he is going to set things straight.

This book goes on to tell further and explain how Satan has this power over this realm called Hades. You see, when sin entered, death entered through it. And now man dies because he is in bondage to sin. And Satan just loves this. It delights him. In his disdain towards God, he delights in showing up as an angel of light to children as young as he can possibly get his hands on. And he grabs them by the hand, and he leads them, and he walks them into sin. There you go, my child. Knowing that it will lead them into death, and their souls will descend into Hades as prisoners of Satan forever his, where Satan himself held the keys to Hades.

Then, over the course of the next 4,000 years, the Jewish compiled the scriptures through the prophets. God continues and continues to speak through the prophets, adding prophecy after prophecy after prophecy of this coming Messiah. According to Burton Payne, over 300 prophecies were fulfilled in this Messiah. Let's look at just a few of them. The Messiah would be born of a virgin woman, born in the line of Abraham, a descendant of Isaac and Jacob, come from the tribe of Judah. He would be an heir to the King David's throne. He would be called Immanuel. He would spend a season of his life in Egypt. He would be rejected by his own people. He would be declared the Son of God.

He would be called a Nazarene. He would speak in parables. He would heal the brokenhearted. He would be called king. He would be betrayed by a friend. We are told how much money his friend is going to receive for betraying him. He would be falsely accused and sent to a trial. He would be silent at his trial. He would die for the sins of his people. He would be spit on and beaten. He would be hated without a cause. He would be crucified with criminals. He would be given vinegar to drink. That's an odd and specific prophecy. His hands and feet would be pierced. He would be mocked and ridiculed. Soldiers would gamble for his clothes.

His bones would not be broken. He would be forsaken by God. He would pray for his enemies. He would be pierced. And this is just a sample.

All of these prophecies are documented in the Jewish scriptures over the course of hundreds and thousands of years before it all happened. And coincidentally enough, it just so happened to all converge into one single person.

Looking at this from a mathematics perspective simply doesn't make sense. It's almost as insane as comprehending that I am made out of molecules. Peter Stone was a professor of mathematics and astronomy, and he wrote a book called Science Speaks. In this book, he tells the story of him working with his college students to calculate the odds of the prophecies of Jesus being fulfilled in one man. In this study, he looked at eight prophecies.

And that study concluded that the odds of one person fulfilling just eight of those prophecies were one and 10 to the 17th power. Now, that's a weird way to think about numbers. In the book, he illustrates what this means. He says that 10 to the 17th power is like taking the state of Texas. It takes more than 12 hours to drive at 60 miles an hour from one end to the other. Imagine driving for 12 hours. How big that is. Take the whole state filled up two feet deep in silver dollars. Pick one silver dollar, mark it, hide it, blindfold a man, send him out in the middle of Texas. He's got one shot to find it blindfolded.

This is what the number looks like. The illustration seems bigger than that number. That number doesn't actually look that big when you look at it like that. So to put that number into perspective, the odds of winning the Powerball lottery are 1 in 292 million.

This means that the odds of just eight prophecies all converging into one man will be the same odds as you winning the Powerball lottery 342,465,753 times. The Powerball plays three times a week. To put that number into perspective, this would be like you winning the Powerball lottery every single time three times per week for 2,195,000 years.

And that's just eight prophecies. I rattled off more than 20. Some scholars say 300. I'll admit you read some of those and you're like, "I don't know. I'd probably call that a prophecy, but okay."

I'm telling you, these Christians' claims, they are bold. They never seem to stop. Either there is some serious trickery and deception going on, and evil men have reverse-engineered this whole story and somehow convinced the world that it's worth recalibrating the calendar, or Jesus, who it was who we claim to be.

And I know that's a little bit of a false dichotomy, but that literally is the claim against Christianity and all religions, really. That religion is nothing more than what man has created to keep all the dumb people under control. That's the argument.

It is just bizarre that we live in this world where there are actually prophetic claims like this attached to mathematics like this.

And these Christians in this world, believe it or not, get even crazier. They say when this Messiah shows up, he says, "I am God. I am the truth. I created all things." And you know how when you look at this world and you see good and evil, that evil is real. And that evil is real because of me.

I am the transcendent moral lawgiver.

So we are told we have thousands of religions to choose from. Upon investigation, 99% of these all believe in one of these few religions here. The vast majority of the vast majority of the folk religions we can't even know about because they're just oral traditions that may not even exist anymore. This is very important, this next slide.

In what can be known within this 99% of the population on the most important questions haunting humanity, only one single God is presented as the transcendent moral lawgiver. Within the 99% of the population on the most important questions haunting humanity, only one God is presented as a transcendent moral lawgiver, and that is the God of Abraham.

Of all these other religions, there is either no God, or you are God, or the God of Abraham. That's it. Not that complicated. Do not give in to the lie that it's just too much to look into. Category: both God and the universe exist. Origin and the beginning: God made the heavens and earth. Now let's look at meaning.

In Judaism, the meaning of life is deeply connected to following the commandments of God and studying the Torah. Jews believe life is an opportunity to honor God through actions and contribute positively to the world. In Islam, the meaning of life is to worship Allah and to live according to the Quran and the Sunnas, which are the teaching of Muhammad.

Muslims believe that life is a test. And by following Allah's guidance, they strive for spiritual growth and moral excellence. The ultimate goal is to achieve a place in paradise in the afterlife, reflecting a life lived in submission to Allah's will.

Then we have Christianity.

In Christianity, meaning comes in a very interesting way. The story continues. So for over 4,000, maybe even 6,000 years, God allows Satan to keep humanity in bondage to sin. But right there in the beginning, the Father told him, "Listen, your day of reckoning is coming." And then for 4,000 years, God inspired the Jewish prophets to compile hundreds of prophecies about this coming Messiah. And then, in this display of utter power and control over reality, God fulfills all of these prophecies in one single man who happens to be his son incarnate. And all of this takes place for the epic showdown between good and evil.

You do realize that's what this is, don't you? This thing right here, this thing that was so significant that became the reference point of time, this is the story of God becoming a man for the purpose of going head to head and toe to toe with Satan to free you from him, to reconcile mankind back to himself. That's what the story is.

Meaning? You want meaning? These Christian scriptures, if they are true, tell you that on the grand scale of things, you mean more than anything. Above and beyond all things that happen on this planet, behind all things, there is an epic war between good and evil. And you, humans, you are the prize.

Your soul is the sought-after treasures of the cosmos. The treasure at the center of the war between good and evil. That is the meaning that Christianity pushes and paints into our lives.

Category: origin. Meaning? I won't recap it for time's sake. Next, we have destiny. In Judaism, Ol Hamba is a spiritual realm for the souls after death with various interpretations. So this would be equivalent to the Christian version of Hades, to my understanding. Again, Eden and Gehenna are similar to heaven and hell in Christianity, with hell being different in that it is a temporary place of purification rather than eternal damnation.

And Tachit HaMeit HaTimon, or the resurrection of the dead. In Orthodox Judaism, this is linked to the Messiah's arrival. So you know how I was talking about how the Jews, they don't believe past this point. But the problem is that all of those prophecies about the coming Messiah, they're still in their scriptures. So according to the Jews, they're still waiting on the coming Messiah. Jesus wasn't him. And so that is where this that's tied into the resurrection in Orthodox Judaism.

In Islam, there's Jannah. For those who have lived righteously and adhered to the teachings of Islam, paradise is promised. Then you have Jehannam. Conversely, those who have committed sin and have turned away from the teachings of Islam are believed to be destined to hell, a place of physical and spiritual suffering.

And I thought this was interesting. Some Islamic traditions also discuss the concept of predestination, where it's believed that God has predetermined the fate of every individual. So basically, we have a Calvinist version of Islam out there.

Finally, we look at Christianity. As we dive back into the final story here, and this one has a big plot twist.

God makes a deal with the devil. Sounds weird, but it's in the book. Five passages about it. Just as the Son of Man did not come to serve, but to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all the people. For this reason, Christ is the mediator of the new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sin committed under the first covenant. I feel like that is so important.

Knowing that you were ransomed from your futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. So for thousands of years, there's this ongoing clash between God and Satan. And then somewhere around here, somewhere around here, God makes a deal with the devil.

And we don't know what order it went in. We don't know if God approached Satan and said, "Satan, look, what do we got to do about this? I want my man back." We don't know if Satan approached God and said, "You got something I want. I got something you want."

I imagine it going down like this. Satan says to the Father, "Tell you what, God, you give me the one man I want, and I will release all of your men. And I want your son. I want your son.

If you want your man, these are my ransom demands. Your son is to be born into my world, into my kingdom, and he will have a fallen nature like all other men, and I will have my way with him the way I do with all other mankind. And then I will have him handed over to death, and his soul will descend into Hades, where I hold the keys.

If these demands are met, I will consider the ransom paid, and I will release humanity back to you."

Some time passes, and finally, the son becomes a man, and Satan, you can taste victory in the back of the throat. Why? Because all humans sinned. It's a part of the fallen nature. The assumption is that Satan believed that Jesus as a man was just like all other men. He assumed that in some way, even if in a small way, Jesus would have sinned just like the rest of humanity.

And the reason that we assume that Satan believes this is because he goes on to orchestrate this relationship between the Jewish leaders and the Roman government and this plot to have Jesus sentenced to torture and to death. This is something he never would have done if he had any clue what killing the son was going to do.

So before Jesus was this horrid death of a crucifixion, God holds up his end of the deal. The son is handed over to death to be taken down to Satan's prison of Hades. Little did Satan know, this time he was the one who was deceived.