I received the following from three high school girls who go to school in Denmark about a school project they were working on. “The answers will be used in the presentation and nothing else, we will not be using it for social media or anything else…. We got your number from ‘the American vision’ and then under ‘contact us’ your mail was there and then we just wrote to you.” [...]
Gary responds to two recent postings about current events and the “rapture of the church.” In our day, prophetic speculators are misleading millions of people with their supposed certainties about the next series of events they believe are signs that Jesus is about to return to “rapture” His church. For example, in 1988 John F. Walvoord wrote that “in these present closing years of the [...]
You do not need to know Greek to understand what the Bible says about sexual relationships, including same-sex sexuality. When someone appeals to the Bible to make a case for a theological or moral position, it’s necessary to begin where the Bible begins. Starting with the New Testament and something that took place in 1946 is not the best starting point. An old argument is getting some press via [...]
In this rebroadcast from early 2021, Gary discusses an interchange he had with “Chaplain Mike” on Facebook. Being “spiritual” does not mean “made up of spirit.” “Spirit” is not a ghost-like substance that inhabits the truly “spiritual Christian.” The adjective, as in “spiritual man” and “spiritual body,” does not mean ethereal, incorporeal, immaterial, otherworldly, or even unworldly as depicted i [...]
Gary discusses a recent appearance by Ray Comfort on the Dr. Phil Show. Throughout the book of Revelation marks given on the hand and head are symbolic. Commentators do not usually claim that when God gives a mark to set apart His people that the mark is visible to the eye. For example, in Revelation 3:12 we read: “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not [...]
Just as early Christians benefitted from the roads created by the Roman Empire, so we benefit from electronic and networking advances today. Eschatological ideas have consequences, and many Christians are beginning to understand how those ideas have shaped the cultural landscape. A world always on the precipice of some great and inevitable apocalyptic event is not in need of redemption but only of [...]
I saw the article “Preterism Examined and Refuted” by Charles H. Campbell on the AlwaysBeReady website. I picked a few of his examinations and refutations and quickly put together a short response. There were many more, but I didn’t see anything new that I and many others have not already dealt with in great detail over many centuries. For example, see my book Wars and Rumors of Wars, an expositio [...]
The latest in last days madness comes from, naturally, the Middle East. It concerns the drying up of the Euphrates River. Supposedly the dry Euphrates is an end-time sign that the end is near. When Russia invaded Ukraine, that was said to be an ancillary fulfillment of Ezekiel 38-39. Linking Russia with the Hebrew word rosh in Ezekiel 38:2 and 39:1 goes back a long way. Rosh is not a prophetic mar [...]
Gary discusses the providential history of his life after high school and college. The War of the Worlds depicts a clash between very alien societies—one planetary world hell-bent on destroying another. The fictionalized Martian attack was relentless. Cobra-like periscopes emitted pulverizing beams of energy that ravaged the countryside. The sleek and deceptively beautiful Martian flying machines [...]
Some readers get upset any time I point out how modern-day prophecy writers misrepresent the Bible. My critics don’t seem to mind that Hal Lindsey has been wrong over the years in an area of study that has made his reputation and so much of Christendom has embraced as “gospel.” I’ve pointed out a number of these “miscalculations” in previous articles and books. It was amazing to see how people def [...]
Gary answers a listener question about 2 Peter 3 and the fire language. If there’s one passage of Scripture that is repeatedly brought up as an indictment against people who object to modern-day prophetic speculation it is 2 Peter 3:3–18. If you dispute with those who argue that all the signs around us indicate that we are living in the “last days,” then you are labeled a “scoffer” or a “mocker” ( [...]
A recent film was a spectacular box-office failure for several reasons, and speaks volumes about public support for the gay ideology. In 2006, Larry David wrote this in the New York Times: “Somebody had to write this, and it might as well be me. I haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain, nor do I have any intention of seeing it.” He writes this as something of an apology. Like it is expected that all good [...]
When I became a Christian in 1973, last days madness was all the rage. Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth was becoming a mega-bestseller. Lindsey had implied rather strongly that something called the “rapture” would take place before the 1948-1988 generation passed away. You can read his comments in the hardback edition on pages 53 and 54. I don’t know if he ever revised LGPE. I was new to [...]
Authority figures have been claiming to speak for God ever since the beginning in the Garden of Eden. There are mostly harmless misreadings of Scripture such as: the belief that the forbidden fruit was an apple (no fruit is specified), that Jonah was swallowed by a whale (it was “a great fish”), and that angels have wings (they don’t). These and other fables parade as facts only because we have he [...]
Gary discusses yet another new book release claiming to help readers understand Matthew 24. Matthew 24:1–34 is a key prophetic passage, and its interpretation is one of the most hotly debated subjects in “end times” discussions. We must put aside our preconceived interpretations and let the Bible interpret the Bible. After all, this is the only acceptable approach to take when trying to understand [...]
Once Christians adopt a quietist and radical separationist perspective on Christ and culture, the other tyrannical shoe will drop. In time, churches in Nazi German were “confined as far as possible to the performance of narrowly religious functions, and even within this narrow sphere [they] were subjected to as many hindrances as the Nazis dared to impose.” This assessment is from a 1945 report pu [...]
Part Two of Gary’s discussion of a new book by David Jeremiah and the publishing history of (failed) prophecy books. Hal Lindsey and dispensationalists in general have a low regard for the Law of God, [1] similar to the views of the arch-heretic Marcion (second century A.D.). “Marcion stressed the radical nature of Christianity vis-a-vis Judaism. In his theology there existed a total d [...]
Gary discusses David Jeremiah’s new book, which is essentially repeating the same message about being “near to the end.” Christians have always had disagreements over theology. The letters of the apostles to the first-century churches were designed to clear up doctrinal confusion, error, and heresy. The letters are well-reasoned, and, of course, they are truthful. Scripture and h [...]
A Christian posted on Facebook that she was eager to leave this world because it’s not home. Actually, it is her home. Similar to her dual citizenship (Phil 3:20), she has two homes, one in this world and one in the next. Until God calls us to our heavenly home, we are responsible for our earthly home that God made possible for us to have. Christians are often caught between “This World Is Not My [...]
Gary discusses how failed prophecies take a toll on those who believe them. Hal Lindsey argued that Revelation was written in the form of an ancient code that needed a time machine to speed to the right prophetic era where the original symbols could be understood. “You might say,” Lindsey writes in There’s A New World Coming, “that [the apostle] John was put into a ‘divine time machine’ and transp [...]
