Sixty five years ago today, Israel became a nation again. Prophetic writers saw this event as the end-time sign that something called the “rapture” could not be far off. Within 40 years of that May 14, 1948 date, prophecy writers were telling us, Jesus would return and take His Church to heaven to be followed by a seven-year period where the temple in Jerusalem would be rebuilt, animal sacrifices [...]

James Hamilton, representing a hybrid view of historical premillenialism, said something like the following during the Symposium that he, Sam Waldron, and I participated in on February 23, 2013 in Reno, Nevada: “If preterists didn’t have Josephus, they wouldn’t be preterists.” I’m working from memory, but this is pretty close to what he said, and if it’s not exactly what he said, it accurately rep [...]

For decades now, modern-day prophecy writers have been claiming that the increase and severity of earthquakes are sure indicators that we’re living in the “last days” and the “rapture” is near. It happened again when an earthquake hit Haiti January 12, 2010 and also the March 11, 2011 earthquake that sent a tsunami to Japan has already revved up current end-time speculation. Tim LaHaye, the best-s [...]

On February 23, 2013 I participated in a Symposium on the book of Revelation with Sam Waldron (SW) who holds to an Idealist interpretation and James Hamilton (JH) who holds to a Futuristic Premillennial (non-dispensational) interpretation. I represented the Preterist position. We each had 55 minutes to present our case. We then had 20 minutes to offer a critique of the other two positions. This wa [...]

In preparation for the Reno Symposium on Revelation, I did a lot of preparation work. Some of it I was able to use (some of which you can find here). The following concerns the claim that Revelation should be interpreted in a consistently literal way. Nobody interprets the book of Revelation literally, as the word is normally understood. Hal Lindsey, for example, is best known for his claim that t [...]

In preparation for “Revelation: An Evangelical Symposium” to be held on February 23, 2013 in Reno, Nevada, that will explore three different views of the book of Revelation, I’m developing a series of questions that people might ask about the preterist view of Revelation. All three positions (preterist, futurist, and idealist) will consider when prophetic events were to take place and how they wou [...]

My first introduction to the topic of Bible prophecy came by way of Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth. That was in 1973 when I was in my final year at Western Michigan University. Having very little knowledge of the Bible, I was intrigued with the argument and the seemingly incontrovertible evidence that we were living in the last days. The signs, I was told, were all around us. It all seemed [...]

Because American Vision is a worldview ministry, we address issues that are broader in scope than most ministries. As a result, we take issue with a number of topics that many Christians hold dear. My discussion of eschatology gets the attention of many who first land on American Vision’s site. Some of them are shocked that I hold a position on prophecy that is not in the mainstream. Of course, th [...]

You may have heard Mark Alan Siegel, chairman of Florida’s Palm Beach County Democratic Party, tell an interviewer the following about what he thinks about Christians and their relationship with Jews: “The Christians just want us to be there so we can be slaughtered and converted and bring on the second coming of Jesus Christ. “The worst possible allies for the Jewish state are the fundament [...]

If you tell someone he can’t do something, in most cases that person will stop before he even tries. Of course, there are some people who take the impossible as a challenge and use the impossible as an incentive to work hard to disprove the critics. Many of the advances in science, technology, and everyday life are the result of people who fought against impossible odds. Life is full of impossible [...]

As I’ve shown in previous articles (they can be referenced here, here, here, here, here, and here), Tommy Ice has not supplied a single verse that supports either a pre-tribulational rapture or a rebuilt temple. Let’s move on to the third question that I ask of dispensationalists: 3. Where in Revelation is the seven-year tribulation found? Here is Tommy’s attempt to answer my question: The answer [...]

The second question that I often pose to dispensationalists after challenging them to give me a verse that teaches a pre-tribulational rapture relates to the rebuilding of the temple. Tommy Ice references it in his article “Answers and Clarifications for Gary DeMar.” You can reference the other five posts here, here, here, here, and here: 2. Can you point out one verse from the New Testament that [...]

This is the fifth installment of my response to Tommy Ice’s article “Answers and Clarifications for Gary DeMar.” You can reference the other four posts here, here, here, and here. Tommy brings up the dating issue of when Revelation was written. He takes the position that Revelation was written around A.D. 95 while I and many others believe with good exegetical and historical reasons that it was wr [...]

This is the fourth installment of my response to Tommy Ice’s article “Answers and Clarifications for Gary DeMar.” You can reference the other three here, here, and here. I don’t expect Tommy or Brannon Howse to read them as thoroughly as I tried to write them, but I don’t want it to be said that there is not an answer for the type of prophetic material out there that is passed off as s [...]

In his article “Answers and Clarifications for Gary DeMar,” Thomas Ice has been trying to set me straight on issues related to the Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24. This is my third response. You can read the first and second responses here and here. Of all the signs listed in the Olivet Discourse, Tommy Ice points to Jesus’ comments regarding “false Christs.” He doesn’t say anything about the abund [...]

Crown Rights Media recently recorded a series of video interviews with me and its host “the Chocolate Knox,” speaking about practical applications of controversial theology. You can see all these videos as they’re released at http://www.crownrights.org/. [...]

Tommy Ice continues in his article “Answers and Clarifications for Gary DeMar” with a discussion of the Greek word parousia. (You can read the first part of my response here.) Tommy states that parousia is “used four times in Matthew 24 (verses 3, 27, 37, 39). The leading Greek Lexicon of our day says, parousia means “arrival as the first stage in presence, coming, advent,” and “of Christ, and nea [...]

Twenty-five years ago Tommy Ice and I engaged in debates over eschatology. Tommy is a dispensational premillennialist. I’m not. One would think that in 25 years of debates (nine in all) and numerous books and articles by me and other non-dispensationalists that Tommy would get what I believe about eschatology right. A friend sent me a link to Tommy’s article “Answers and Clarifications for Gary De [...]

Dr. Michael Yousseff is an Egyptian-born American and founding rector of The Church of The Apostles. His messages are broadcast 3,800 times a week into 200 countries through Leading the Way Ministries. He holds a PhD from Emory University in Social Anthropology. Church of the Apostles is a magnificent church that has an old-world cathedral look about it. It’s located just north of Atlanta, Georgia [...]

The following ad copy appeared in World magazine for Joel C. Rosenberg’s new book Implosion: Is America an Empire in Decline or a Nation Poised for a Historic Renaissance? This ad copy startled me. I’ve read most of Rosenberg’s books and debated him on the meaning of Ezekiel 38 and 39. (He wasn’t up for a second debate.) He’s a dispensationalist. Dispensationalists don’t believe in a Renaissance. [...]