In a previous article, I dealt with “Confronting Eschatological Gnosticism” when very specific time words in Scripture are redefined but only when it comes to the topic of Bible prophecy. For example, when the Bible says that Jesus was “near Jerusalem,” dispensationalists have no problem understanding “near” to be close in proximity: “Now while [the people] were listening to these things, Jesus we [...]

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to have a great discussion with my sister-in-law on the topic of Bible prophecy. It was very encouraging. Because of it, I thought I would resurrect something I wrote some years ago on the topic since there are a lot of Christians in churches where they are getting less than accurate teaching on eschatology. Some pastors don’t realize that other views approa [...]

Who were the mockers Peter was describing in 2 Peter 3:3–4? Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues as it was from the beginning of creation.” Many prophecy writers conclude that these verses describe a distant eschatolo [...]

Some of the responses to my article “Atheists are Duped by Bad Eschatology” are interesting. Not a single atheist offered a rebuttal. I suppose an atheist would say that it’s all poppycock since there is no God. It doesn’t matter what Jesus said or didn’t say. The prophetic Jesus—right or wrong—is a myth. At that point, the debate becomes epistemological: How do you know what you claim to know whi [...]

A fellow who calls himself Morgue and looks like Jeremy Irons in the 2002 remake of The Time Machine starring Guy Pearce has declared that Jesus was a liar because His prediction about His return did not happen as He predicted. Here’s the link to the video. Morgue, as in the place of the dead, and not Mork as in Mork and Mindy, claims that if Jesus lied about this one thing, then how can Jesus be [...]

If someone burps in the Middle East, the end-time speculators come out of the woodwork and claim that this time it’s the end. People said the end was near more than 100 years ago when Europe went to war, and 51 years ago when Hal Lindsey wrote The Late Great Planet Earth, and 20 years ago when the Sabbath Millennium was said to start. The rapture and the antichrist have once again taken center sta [...]

“1. Preterists. The prophecies contained in the Apocalypse were fulfilled with the destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of heathen Rome.”[1] If today’s prophetic theorists are to be believed, Jesus will be returning “soon.” Dave Hunt’s book How Close Are We?, written nearly thirty years ago, claimed to answer the question in the subtitle: Compelling Evidence for the Soon Return of Christ.[2] On t [...]

There have been some comments recently about the Interpretive Maximalism of James B. Jordan. This has been an ongoing discussion for nearly 30 years. An article by Pastor Uri Brito from 2015 posted on Facebook brought the topic to my attention again: “James B. Jordan and Interpretive Maximalism.” Since I’ve known Jim since the mid-1970s and have benefitted from his works over the years, I thought [...]

Some years ago, Dr. Gary North and Ken Gentry wrote articles for a monthly newsletter titled Dispensationalism in Transition. So much about dispensationalism has changed over the years that C.I. Scofield most likely would not recognize it. The Scofield Reference Bible that first appeared in 1909 and was revised by the author in 1917, has gone through several revisions since then. “In 1967, Oxford [...]

Sam Waldron who teaches at Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary has been writing on the topic of postmillennialism. In his “DatPostmil? #4: Does the Growth of the Kingdom Require Postmillennialism?” he discusses some of the parables of Jesus. While he agrees with the growth imagery of the parables, he dismisses “postmillennial implications of these passages,” in particular “the Parable of the Whe [...]

A plain reading of Matthew 16:27–28 gives the distinct impression that what is being described by Jesus was going to take place within the time frame of that generation, their generation. (See Part One: “What Did Jesus Mean about His Coming in Matthew 16?”) Some would still be alive but most would have died before Jesus came in judgment against Jerusalem, an event that took place in AD 70 and prop [...]

Matthew 16:27–28 has been interpreted in numerous ways over the centuries. A plain reading of the text gives the impression that what is being described by Jesus was going to take place within the time frame of that generation—their generation. This is Part One of a two-part series titled “What Did Jesus Mean When He said, ‘There are some of those who are standing here who shall not ta [...]

A popular end-time prediction is that Daniel 12 is referring to events in our day, more than 2600 years from the time the prophecy was given to Daniel. For example, Hal Lindsey claims the following: “When Daniel emerged from the vision, the angel instructed him, ‘But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase [...]

A popular argument for a pre-tribulation rapture is the claim that while the “church” is mentioned 19 times in the first three chapters of the book of Revelation, in chapters 4–18, dispensationalist Mark Hitchcock writes, “there is absolute silence.” Similar to the way dispensationalists place a gap in time between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel 9:24–27, they place a gap between the last verse [...]

If this past election has taught us anything, it tells us that facts don’t matter. Showing an image of a nearly full-term baby in his mother’s womb to members of Congress did not dissuade the Democrats from supporting abortion until and even after a baby’s birth. Democrats ignore the science and the empirical data behind the transgender movement. The ACLU has declared that there is no advantage fo [...]

Eschatology is still big business. It’s not that a lot of people are making money with it, although some are, but because many Christians can’t seem to think in other terms. When things go bad, many Christians immediately conclude that we’re living in the last days even though this type of thinking has been around for many centuries with the same results. We’re still here fighting the same battles [...]

Through a comment on Facebook, I learned that Ed Dingess posted a 45-minute critique of a message that James White gave on the topic of postmillennialism that served as a response to a sermon that John MacArthur gave. You can listen to the Dingess’ “rant” (as he calls it) titled “James White’s New Dance with Postmillennialism” here. I’m not going to offer a response to it. James White is more than [...]

A popular metaphor for prophetic irrelevance is the sinking Titanic theme. “This metaphor was made famous, of course, by the 1950s radio preacher J. Vernon McGee, who warned his listeners with the rhetorical question, ‘Do you polish brass on a sinking ship?’ (Quoted in Gary North, Rapture Fever: Why Dispensationalism is Paralyzed (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1993), 100.) Apparent [...]

God tells Israel that He will not bring another calamity on Jerusalem like the one He brought in Ezekiel’s day: “And because of all your abominations, I will do among you what I have not done, and the like of which I will never do again” (Ezek. 5:9). One commentator who believes that there is yet to be a future Great Tribulation to surpass all the tribulations brought upon Israel writes the follow [...]

One of the stumbling blocks to a preterist interpretation of the Olivet Discourse is Jesus’ statement about the Great Tribulation “such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall” (Matt. 24:21). Critics of a preterist interpretation of the Olivet Discourse maintain that such a tribulation has never occurred even though Jesus made it clear that all the events He [...]