Mm-hmm.

It's a reasoned step of faith based in reality.

Uh, an analogy I use in the book is everyone's seen the trust fall that you do at, you know, different leadership events where a group of people stands behind someone who's standing on a tree or a table, and they fall backwards, and that group is expected to catch them as they fall.

Most people who don't, who have never seen this evidence believe that Christianity is more like doing a trust fall in a dark room, and you don't even know if there's anybody there.

But far from it.

We find Bible prophecy, archeology, internal evidence, external evidence, bibliographical evidence, and by the way, there's a amazing collision of archeol- archeological finds that fulfill Bible prophecy and show that certain prophecies were written long before they came to be fulfilled.

Uh, Jeff and I were in Israel in January, and my mi- even though I knew this was the case, my mind was blown that everywhere we went, there's archeological finds and sites that verify what you read in Scripture, and it, it really takes Scripture and, and makes it a, a 3D rather than 2D, so to speak.

Tell us more about that.

So if the concept, if not the word rapture, the English word rapture doesn't appear in our Bible, um, how do we know that it happens before the tribulation?

Mm-hmm.

That does take a little- little more, you know, nuance, a little more looking at different verses and stuff.

But when you look at the overwhelming amount of evidence, you- you kind of use logic to piece that together.

There are specific verses.

Revelations 3:10 is one that comes to mind if somebody needed, like, one quick slam dunk elevator pitch verse.

Uh, and it says that they will be kept from, tero ek-

Yeah, that's right.

So what is the dream that Nebuchadnezzar has? And what does Daniel make of that dream?

That's a great question, and that's a powerful chapter.

Starting in verse 46, he basically says, I mean, before 46, this is after he interpreted the dream.

But he basically has this dream of a head of gold, kind of an upper body, torso, arms and chest of silver, a midsection of bronze, and then legs of iron, and then feet of iron and clay.

And he can't for the life of him figure out what it is.

And then Daniel fasts and prays and God gives him the interpretation of the dream.

and he goes and he says to nebuchadnezzar you o king are the head of gold that after you shall come another so that's that kind of ticked uh him off but it also got his attention the fact that uh daniel accurately foretold told him what his dream was and told him what they meant and when you break it down to to kind of summarize it what daniel's was shown here is that these are four successive gentile empires that were to come And Babylon was the first of those four.

Who's Belshazzar and what happens?

So what is the dream that Nebuchadnezzar has? And what does Daniel make of that dream?

That's a great question, and that's a powerful chapter.

Starting in verse 46, he basically says, I mean, before 46, this is after he interpreted the dream.

But he basically has this dream of a head of gold, kind of an upper body, torso, arms and chest of silver, a midsection of bronze, and then legs of iron, and then feet of iron and clay.

And he can't, for the life of him, figure out what it is.

And then Daniel fasts and prays, and God gives him the interpretation of the dream.

And he goes and he says to Nebuchadnezzar, you, O king, are the head of gold, but after you shall come another.

Who's Belshazzar and what happens?

And I think that's probably a good place to start and why there's one that you like, especially over the other three.

Yeah, that's a great question.

And when you look kind of throughout church history and see different periods where apologetics were employed to help answer the questions of the day, you kind of see those four categories.

Classical apologetics, which is kind of... defending it with reason and logic, kind of first to support a theistic universe, then historical evidence to argue for Christian theism.

So it really backs it up several kind of classical or philosophical rungs.

And then there's evidential apologetics, which is really what is the direct evidence we can look at And that's personally what reached me as a teenager.

And that's kind of what this book focuses on more is concrete things we can see that show us we have a reasonable faith.

Talk to me about some of the finds of the Old and New Testament.

Why and where did that come from?

That's a great question.

And by the way, it's great to join you again, Janet.

Always looking forward to this.

And we always have a great time.

And it just seems like such a great time of equipping and kind of introducing this topic to a new generation, really.

And I think the main reason that I've fallen in love personally with this topic is that I grew up unchurched.

Why put in the illustrations? I won't call them cartoons, but the illustrations in the book.

Why and where did that come from?

That's a great question.

And by the way, it's great to join you again, Janet.

Always looking forward to this.

And we always have a great time.

And it just seems like such a great time of equipping and kind of introducing this topic to a new generation, really.

And I think the main reason that I've fallen in love personally with this topic is that I grew up unchurched.

Why put in the illustrations? I won't call them cartoons, but the illustrations in the book.

Oh, wow.

But for me, some of the most powerful ones are i- if you start, if you look at the, the Bible holistically, you start with, well, where do we get the idea of a tribulation period to begin with? Well, all the Old Testament prophets talk about the day of the Lord or this, this future time of God's wrath on earth at the end of history, but we don't learn until Daniel Chapter 9 that it's a seven-year period, and it's distinctly for the Jewish people.

The whole, the whole chapter of D- of Daniel, actually the whole Book of Daniel, but, uh, Daniel 9 is all about Jewish history from Daniel's time to the end of time.

And that last seven years is very clearly to reach the Jewish people, to, to fulfill all the promises to the Jewish people and the, and the nation of Israel.

So it has nothing to do with the Church.

Uh, so that's one reason.

And coinciding with that, we learn in r- one, kind of a one, if you had a elevator pitch, one verse would be Revelation 3:10, that says, talking to the Church, "You will be kept from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole earth." And that word from is the Greek word ek, which it doesn't mean protected through.

But what is your take when you look at the timeline?

So talk about this.

this.Yes.

Thank you so much, Janet.

First, it's great to join you.

I've been looking forward to this, uh, once again, and always a pleasure to join you.

It's great discussions that we have, so this is fantastic.

And yeah, the, the Prophecy Pros Academy, uh, Jeff Kinley and I, as we kind of do events around the country and we do the podcast together, one theme we kept seeing is that believers wanted to be grounded in theology.

So can you explain what that [laughs] is in terms of eschatology?