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 [...]

Most Christians have a limited view of what constitutes a biblical worldview. I suspect that many believe that the Christian’s earthly life is a holding pattern for heaven. Earth serves as a way station for true living after death. Is this why God created us? We’re born, we live out our lives the best we can, and then we prepare for heaven. In the interim, the Christian’s goal is to evangelize the [...]

I came across the following post on Facebook: “Prof. D. J. Engelsma gives a devastating rebuke to the Postmil notion of ‘Christianizing the world.’” The poster asked for comments. Here was my first comment: “David Engelsma is fixated on the common grace argument. That’s a Christian Reformed Church amillennial problem. Engelsma uses almost no Scripture. His eschatology is closer to dispensationalis [...]

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 [...]

One of the arguments used against preterism is that it was developed by Spanish Jesuit Luis De Alcazar (1554–1613) who wrote a commentary titled Vestigio Arcani Sensus in Apocaplysi or Investigation of the Hidden Sense of the Apocalypse in which “he proposed that all of Revelation applied to the era of pagan Rome and the first six centuries of Christianity.” Here’s a typical example: “The Praeteri [...]

It all started with comments that Grace Community Church Pastor John MacArthur made where he “warned that today’s world is ‘perfectly suited for the Antichrist to come’ amid the chaos and ‘lawlessness’ stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.” MacArthur went on to say: Now we are a global world. And that is a setup that we’ve been waiting for through redemptive history since the Lord promised that the [...]

Frequently, around Christmas time, we are treated to yet another (often just a repeat of previous “findings”) naturalistic explanation of the biblical “Star of Bethlehem.” Natural explanations of biblical phenomena can sometimes have their place, but they can also be diversions—for unbelievers and believers alike. A far better approach for believers is to know and receive the deep, rich biblical m [...]

I’ve been putting an outline together in preparation for two talks I did for the December 18–19 online “A Purchased Victory: A Conference on the Bright Hope of Postmillennialism.” My two talks deal with biblical and cultural impediments that are often raised against postmillennialism. One topic I did not mention is the place of Israel in prophecy at it relates to postmillennialism. The following i [...]

The following is the introduction to two talks I produced for the “A Purchased Victory” online conference that will be available to view December 18–19 at CruciformMinistries.org. There’s a scene in the 1993 film Searching for Bobby Fischer where Josh Waitzkin, played by Max Pomeranc, is being taught that the complexities of chess require knowing more than where the pieces on the board are at any [...]

FrontPage Magazine is one of my favorite go-to sites. It was started by former Communist David Horowitz. Horowitz is Jewish, as are many of the site’s writers. In addition to his memoir Radical Son, he has written Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christian America as a warning to once Christian America. He understands that the United States was founded on fundamental biblical principles even if tho [...]

Almost daily I get questions about prophetic topics. In most cases, I’ve already dealt with them in my books Last Days Madness, The Early Church and the End of the World, Why the End of the World is Not in Your Future, Wars and Rumors of Wars, 10 Popular Prophecy Myths Exposed and Answered, The Rapture and the Fig Tree Generation, Prophecy Wars, Identifying the Real Last Days Scoffers, and Left Be [...]

Eschatology is the study of the “last things.” The more popular terminology is “Bible prophecy.” There are numerous schools of thought on the subject. The most popular version—dispensational premillennialism—teaches that particular prophetic events are on the horizon, that a “rapture” of the Church precedes a seven-year period that includes the rise of an antichrist, a rebuilt temple, and a Great [...]

Vern Poythress wrote “2 Thessalonians 1 Supports Amillennialism.” It was originally published in THE JOURNAL OF THE EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY in 1995. The following is from the Abstract of the article: 2 Thessalonians 1 supports amillennialism because it is in tension with all the other major millennial views…. 2 Thessalonians 1 is in tension with postmillennialism. The text of verses 5–7 in [...]

It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be on no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. . . . For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision me [...]

Recently, I was interviewed by Hank Hanegraaff on the topic of eschatology. Why is this an important topic? Because millions of Christians are bound by it and live in terms of it in a negative way. Considering the following that was sent to me by a friend: I had a woman tell me today that it may work out better for Christians to vote for Biden because it would hasten Jesus’ return and his second c [...]

I knew it was going to happen. On September 16 I did an hour and forty-minute interview with Hank Hanegraaff for his “Hank Unplugged” podcast that is scheduled to air Tuesday, September 22nd. I mentioned that the various peace talks with Israel and Arab nations will be seen by some as an end-time event that will usher in the antichrist. According to some prominent prophecy writers, the antichrist [...]

While there has been a dramatic shift in Bible prophecy teaching since I started writing, speaking, and debating the topic when I was in seminary in the mid-1970s, there are still a lot of people who continue to push the belief that we are living in the last days. The following meme caught my attention, especially when there were a lot of “Amens” in the responses: What “end” was Peter referencing? [...]

Mientras que el escritor de la carta a los Hebreos dice que deberíamos “tener entrenados los sentidos” (5:14), los Bereanos buscaron en las Escrituras diariamente para asegurarse de que Pablo estaba diciendo la verdad (Hech 17:11), y Juan dice “sino probad los espíritus si son de Dios; porque muchos falsos profetas han salido por el mundo” (1 Jn 4:1), parece que hoy los cristianos están siendo fác [...]

On January 21, 2020, I traveled to Dinosaur Adventure Land in Conecuh County, Alabama, where I debated the topic of the Rapture with Kent Hovind. Kent took the Post Trib/Pre-Wrath position while I took the position that there was no rapture since there is no future seven-year period in which the Antichrist makes and breaks a covenant with Israel. I based my arguments on Daniel 9:24–27, a sequence [...]