In the ongoing debate over Bible prophecy, a number of issues keep coming up. One of the biggest disputes is on the dating of Revelation. Was Revelation written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 or nearly 40 years later? Late-date advocates are almost solely dependent on the ambiguous testimony of Irenaeus (120–202). I deal with this bit of external evidence in my book The Early Chu [...]

Dispensational author Paul Benware accuses preterists of not interpreting prophetic passages in a literal way. As an example, he points to Matthew 24:29: “But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” Since Jesus tells His questioners that this [...]

Paul N. Benware’s revised and expanded edition of Understanding End Times Prophecy includes a chapter on Preterism. This is a good sign. Preterists teach that certain prophetic passages have already been fulfilled (e.g., Matt. 24), while futurists claim that these same passages are yet to be fulfilled. The debate centers (mostly) on how specific time indicators like “near,” “shortly,” “quickly,” a [...]

The place of Israel in Bible prophecy has a long history among non-dispensational theologians going back at least to John Calvin. “By virtue of this, [Paul] teaches, the Jews are the first and natural heirs of the gospel, except to the extent that by their ungratefulness they were forsaken as unworthy—yet forsaken in such a way that the heavenly blessing has not departed utterly from their nation. [...]

John MacArthur laid down the gauntlet on the issue of prophecy in his opening talk at the 2007 “Shepherds’ Conference.” He was emphatic that only dispensationalism takes the prophecies concerning the future of Israel seriously. Contrary to MacArthur, the historical record demonstrates that postmillennial Calvinists had developed a prophetic role for the Jews hundreds of years before Scofield. The [...]

A number of people have asked me to respond to a talk that John MacArthur delivered at the 2007 Shepherds’ Conference. It seemed a little out of character for MacArthur because it had a mean-spirited tone to it. It also sounded desperate, as if he has been hearing the foundation stones of dispensationalism cracking all around him. MacArthur, who believes in “sovereign election” as it relates to in [...]

Papers of Isaac Newton have surfaced that show that he predicted the end of the world would take place no earlier than the year 2060, exactly 1,260 years after the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire.[1] His calculation is based on passages that use “ 1260 days” … “42 months” … “time, times, half a time” (Dan. 7:5; 12:7; Rev. 11:2–3; 12:6; 12:14; 13:5). These periods of time are inte [...]

If you want to know when an event in the Bible is to happen, look for time indicators. Some of them are very specific: after three days, in 40 days, after 40 years, at the completion of 70 years. There are less specific time indicators like “near,” “shortly,” “quickly,” and “at hand.” These time words are at the heart of the debate between those who claim that certain prophetic events have already [...]

I just received a book notice from Moody Press for a new commentary on Revelation by John MacArthur with the title Because the Time is Near. At this time I will forego a critique of MacArthur’s use of “near” to describe an event he believes is “near” while the use of “near” by New Testament writers (e.g., James 5:8; Rev. 1:3) did not mean “near” when they used the same word. [...]

Many Christians believe the kingdom can only be identified within the confines of the church, and kingdom activity cannot manifest itself outside the church. In their view the kingdom is the church and nothing but the church. Since the church is “sacred” and the world “profane,” as they see it, the church should not consider the world as an arena for kingdom activity. The world is the domain of th [...]

From a study of the Old Testament we realize that God’s kingdom was a present reality even before Jesus came to earth. The New Testament does not indicate that it has somehow been interrupted or postponed for a distant future fulfillment. Even Nebuchadnezzar understood that God’s “dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation” (Dan. 4:34). There is no “ [...]

Christians act as if they are living as “strangers in a strange land.” As a result, when they learn about a new law that will define what a pastor can preach from the pulpit concerning homosexuality, they will chalk it up to the work of “the god of this world”[1] (2 Cor. 4:4). They will argue that this world is rightfully the devil’s domain until Jesus comes again. If God’s kingdom is yet to be, t [...]

When Christians hear the phrase the “end of the world,” most assume it’s a reference to a great end-time prophetic event like Armageddon, the Second Coming of Christ, or the inauguration of the New Heavens and New Earth. Actually, the phrase “end of the world,” as in the end of the physical world, is not found in the Bible. There is Psalm 19:4, but in context “end of the world” is a geographical d [...]

A prominent end-time advocate writes that “the church is not in the business of taking anything away from Satan but the souls of men.” This person also believes that working to change culture and society is outside of God’s redemptive plan, believing that Satan has control of this world until Jesus returns and vanquishes him. In truth, Satan is a mere creature who was defeated at the cross. If we [...]

The “great prophetic disappointment” of 1988 and the fizzle of the Left Behind franchise doesn’t mean formerly “rapture-ready” Christians have abandoned a belief in the return of Christ, but it has led to a fundamental reassessment of the interpretive methodology that has been used to make repeated dogmatic arguments for an imminent end-time event. Many Bible-believing Christians who cut their tee [...]

The Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins demonstrates that there has been a large appetite for end-time books, even after a long history of failed predictions made with certainty—from Oswald J. Smith (1889–1986) who in 1926 predicted that Mussolini was the dreaded antichrist**[1]** to Edgar Whisenant who was emphatic that the rapture would take place in 1988. Then it was 1989.[2] Twe [...]

While talk of the end times has been going on for more than two millennia, it was only in the 1970s that prophecy hit the top of the charts. “The single best-selling nonfiction book of the 1970s was not The Joy of Sex or even The Joy of Cooking, but Hal Lindsey’s apocalyptic pronouncement, The Late Great Planet Earth.”[1] It was named by the New York Times as the “no. 1 non-fiction bestseller of t [...]

I got another one of those nasty emails—all accusation but no substance. These types of emails generally come from people who have little regard for the history of biblical interpretation, use a system-approach to Bible interpretation instead of allowing the Bible to speak for itself, and believe they have been charged with protecting their idea of the Holy Grail doctrine. Here’s the latest instal [...]

Bible prophecy always seems to be in the news. Wars and natural disasters make it a perennial topic of discussion. While talk of the end times has been going on for more than two millennia, it was only with the publication of Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth in 1970 that the topic entered best-seller status. Estimates put sales of the non-fiction book at more than 30 million copies worldwide. [...]

I received an email about some prophecy “expert” who knows who the antichrist and false prophet are. He says the current leader of Syria is the antichrist and the false prophet is the president of Iran. How many times have you heard so-called prophets pontificating how they know who the antichrist is? Friends, this has been tried before. To rehearse the history would be redundant and e [...]