The Eschatological Craziness Continues

The Eschatological Craziness Continues

The Red Heifers have arrived in Israel! So says the May 22, 2023, article “Prophetic Anticipation Builds: Unblemished Red Heifers for Temple Ceremony Soon Come of Age.” The claim is, based on Numbers 19, the heifers need to be at least 3 years old for priestly purification purposes. For that you need priests, animal sacrifices, and a physical temple, all of which passed away when the temple was de [...]

Dabbling With Artificial Intelligence

Dabbling With Artificial Intelligence

It seems everyone is talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its advantages and disadvantages. My friends Darren Doane and Brian Godawa are using it for great benefit. Brian has used AI to create artistic renderings for his characters in his upcoming book Cruel Logic. Here’s what his detective Cornelius Van Til looks like: Brian has used an AI artist for his characters in his other books. M [...]

Philosophy Can’t Answer the Biggest Questions

Philosophy Can’t Answer the Biggest Questions

The following is an email I sent to an atheist who attempted to justify and account for an atheistic worldview using philosophical arguments. This is standard practice. Unfortunately, one must presuppose the presence and reliability of the mind. How can an evolved brain give rise to an immaterial thought-producing entity?_______________________ Dear John, First year philosophy stuff is right. You [...]

Gary DeMar’s Prophecy Books have been Banned in Moscow

Gary DeMar’s Prophecy Books have been Banned in Moscow

You may have heard that the folks in Moscow, Idaho—Canon Press, Fight, Laugh, Feast (FLF), and Christ Church and the CREC denomination—have deplatformed Gary DeMar’s books on Bible prophecy that have been in print since 1988! (See the letter sent to me below) We suspect that Gary’s prophecy books are now considered an eschatological “gateway drug” to full preterism unlike those of Ken [...]

The Manson Cult of Modern-Day Leftist Wokeism

The Manson Cult of Modern-Day Leftist Wokeism

Have you wondered how young people could be so ignorant in following the latest claptrap coming from so-called experts? We find bizarre, irrational, and downright stupid claims come from college classrooms. Educated people believe that there are more than two sexes, and that men who identify as women should be permitted to compete against biological women in sports. University campuses are the pro [...]

When Creeds and Confessions Don’t Say Enough and Commentators Don’t Agree

When Creeds and Confessions Don’t Say Enough and Commentators Don’t Agree

The following is an introduction to an 80-page discussion dealing with controversies regarding preterism. It’s not designed as a published work. It’s more of an accumulation of material to help people work through the debate. It goes along with two abbreviated talks I gave at Berean Bible Church’s conference “How Shall We Then Live?” You can read and/or download a copy of the 80-page study here. * [...]

The Three Greatest Communication Inventions

The Three Greatest Communication Inventions

We take book publishing for granted. Today, anyone can be a published author. In fact, you don’t have to print a book to make it available to people. Electronic “printing” by way of eBooks and PDFs (Portable Document Format) can send information around the world without the need of ink and paper. Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1398-1468) Publishing was not always this easy. Gutenberg’s “introduction of me [...]

Vision Requires a Future and Action

Vision Requires a Future and Action

John Nelson Darby, the founder of dispensational premillennialism and the pre-tribulational “rapture” of the church doctrine, the basis of The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) and the multivolume Left Behind prophecy series, taught that “the imminent return of Christ ‘totally forbids all working for earthly objects distant in time.’”[1] This would have included the study of mathematics, medicine, ar [...]

Playing the Gnosticism Card

Playing the Gnosticism Card

Not long ago, I received an email from a woman who asked me if I could direct her to some information that refutes Gnosticism. She wrote that a friend of hers “claims to be on an extraordinarily intense spiritual ‘pilgrimage’ of ‘really pressing in to know God intimately’—but this guy has in effect divorced himself from the material world and from all relationships (including his wife and 10 child [...]

John Lightfoot on the ‘New Heavens and New Earth'

John Lightfoot on the ‘New Heavens and New Earth'

I love reading older commentaries that have not been tainted by elements of dispensationalism and where the authors had the freedom to publish their works without being shunned or denounced. Lightfoot is hard to go up against since his academic bona fides are difficult to question. Lightfoot was one of the original members of the Westminster Assembly that produced the Westminster Standards. His be [...]

How Can Atoms be Put on Trial for Killing Other Atoms?

How Can Atoms be Put on Trial for Killing Other Atoms?

“Compassion and humanity are virtues peculiar to the righteous and to the worshippers of God. Philosophy teaches us nothing of them.” — Lactantius (c. 240–c. 320), Divinae institutiones Literature is often a signpost for where we are in our worldview thinking. It’s not that everybody who reads the latest popular novel holds to what an author is expressing, but popular literature can tell us someth [...]

Should We Still Be Celebrating the Lord’s Supper?

Should We Still Be Celebrating the Lord’s Supper?

Since I’ve been studying eschatology, there has been a great deal of pushback. First it came from dispensationalists. This was expected since it’s where I spent most of my time and effort. It’s the dominant view today. In fact, it’s dominated the prophetic landscape for nearly 200 years. End-time thinking, and prophetic prognostication goes back further as Francis X. Gumerlock demonstrates in his [...]

Homosexuality Has Invaded the Church

Homosexuality Has Invaded the Church

A Christian teacher has been fired after claiming on social media that “homosexuality is invading the church.” This prompted Cliff College in Derbyshire to suspend the lecturer. The officials allegedly threatening “to report him to UK counter-terror police over his views.” (Breitbart) These types of incidents are becoming commonplace. Aaron Edwards is right. Many churches and religious leaders hav [...]

Job, the ‘Resurrection,’ and His ‘Miserable Comforters’

Job, the ‘Resurrection,’ and His ‘Miserable Comforters’

One of the few chapel messages I remember from my seminary days was delivered by Dr. Jack Scott. He began by outlining all the supposed orthodox statements made by Job’s “friends.” He then asked: “Right or wrong?” Not waiting for a response, he nearly shouted, “Wrong!” Some of the comments I’ve received in emails, private messages, and on Facebook come from “miserable comforters.” Eliphaz, Bildad, [...]

Sola Scriptura, or Who Will Interpret the Interpreters?

Sola Scriptura, or Who Will Interpret the Interpreters?

I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church. My Catholic upbringing included Catholic school through the fifth grade and serving as an altar boy through my teen years. My first dose of a foreign language was Latin, a prerequisite if you were an altar boy in the 1950s and 1960s. After becoming a Christian in 1973, I began to question several Catholic doctrines based on the Bible. It was sola scriptur [...]

The Soulless Atheist and What It Means for Ethics

The Soulless Atheist and What It Means for Ethics

“The Thing’s shifty scientist, Carrington, helps to keep the ‘super-carrot’ alive, hiding it from the military men who want to destroy it. According to him, ‘There are no enemies in science … only phenomena to study’, and he is awed by the creature’s evolutionary perfection: ‘No pain or pleasure as we know it. No emotions. No heart. Our superior … in every way’, although the compliment isn’t retur [...]

What Gary DeMar Believed and Argued 25 Years Ago!

What Gary DeMar Believed and Argued 25 Years Ago!

The claim has been made that “Gary DeMar has changed his eschatological beliefs” or that he’s been “bewitched.” Not so. These types of comments show how desperate some people are to avoid answering the hard questions. The questions I was asking in 1998 are the same ones I’m asking today (see below). The difference is that I have studied the topic in greater detail, but the original questions and t [...]

The Importance and Sacredness of the Here and Now

The Importance and Sacredness of the Here and Now

In a conference a few years ago, I emphasized the importance of biblical optimism during attacks, persecution, and the advance of secularism. Young people need to believe there is a future waiting for them, that not everything is gloom and doom and escapism. To be overly preoccupied with the future at the expense of the present is to replace discipleship with dreaming. God, the source of all hope, [...]

The ‘Jesus Revolution’ and the Always Soon Coming of Jesus

The ‘Jesus Revolution’ and the Always Soon Coming of Jesus

Listen to the podcast on this topic here The Asbury Revival and the release of the film The Jesus Revolution have gotten a lot of media attention. The reviews of the Jesus Revolution have been good. With Kelsey Grammar, fortunately replaced Jim Gaffigan, playing Chuck Smith (1927-2013), it should be good in terms of production value. Here’s the storyline: Inspired by a true movement, JESUS REVOLUT [...]

Christians Being 'Less than Loving' Means Criticizing Jesus for the Same Thing

Christians Being 'Less than Loving' Means Criticizing Jesus for the Same Thing

The enemies of the truth are always awfully nice. Truth is the strong compost in which beauty may sometimes germinate. — Christopher Morley (1890-1957) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) said the following about the $20 million spent on the “He gets Us” campaign: “Something tells me Jesus would not spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads to make fascism look benign.” Huh? Does she have any idea wh [...]