John MacArthur: “There is No Hope for a Better World”

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 [...]

What if a majority of Americans support slavery?

“I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you’ve earned, but not greed to want to want to take somebody else’s money.” — Thomas Sowell, Barbarians Inside the Gates and other Controversial Essays An article I read carried this headline: “Big NY voter majority favors ‘millionaire tax.’” Articles like this one are designed to show that people with money should pay more taxe [...]

Massachusetts and Some of Its God History

The atheist organization The Freedom From Religion Foundation is demanding that the Wayland High School band “stop playing ‘God Bless America’ at school functions because it violates separation of church and state.” The Massachusetts’ school officials are ignoring the group’s threats, and for good reason. First, the First Amendment prohibits “Congress” from establishing a religion. Congress is not [...]

Is There a Kingdom Context to the Olivet Discourse?

A friend sent me a video of John MacArthur preaching on Mark 13, the Olivet Discourse. There is no need for me to interact with it in detail since I’ve written a verse-by-verse commentary on Matthew’s version of the Olivet Discourse. Two items caught my attention. The first has to do with context. Here’s how Mark 13 begins: “As He was going out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Tea [...]

The Seven-Year Tribulation: Clarifying Tommy Ice’s Clarifications (7)

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 Rebuilt Temple: Clarifying Tommy Ice’s Clarifications (6)

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 [...]

Dating the Book of Revelation: Clarifying Tommy Ice’s Clarifications

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 [...]

The ‘Rapture’: Clarifying Tommy Ice’s Clarifications

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 [...]

The Wonderment of the Impossible

In the 1920s, Walt Disney began a new career as a cartoonist. A rarity in those days since the industry had no large market. Once this new entertainment medium became profitable, Disney hired additional artists to draw the thousands of still pictures needed to produce a high quality animated feature. Disney’s early success was with an animated character named Oswald Rabbit. The copyright, ho [...]

False Christs: Clarifying Tommy Ice’s Clarifications

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 [...]

Jesus and the 'Parousia': Clarifying Tommy Ice's Clarifications

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 [...]

It's Not the 'St. Paul Saints' It's the 'Mr. Paul Aints'

Atheists are in the news again. This time they’re infiltrated the wide world of sports. “The St. Paul Saints, a minor league baseball team in the Twin Cities, will become the ‘Mr. Paul Aints’ for one night in August [the 10th] in honor of atheism, the team and the Minnesota Atheists have announced,” Bill Unruh of WND reports. “To enhance the evening even more, every mention of the word ‘Saints’ wi [...]

I Know It's True Because I Saw it on TV

Tom Brokaw stepped down as anchor for NBC News shortly after the previous presidential elections and Dan Rather retired from CBS about a year after him. Through the decades, the mainstream media — print, radio, and television — have pushed the line that facts are neutral, that they speak for themselves.[2] For decades, the had a majority of people believing that newscasters and journalists simply [...]

Clarifying Tommy Ice's Clarifications

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 [...]

If You Love Liberty You Might be a Terrorist

A report on terrorism in the United States has been published by the Department of Homeland Security. The authors of the report are Gary LaFree, professor of criminology at the University of Maryland, and Bianca Bersani, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. The goal of the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) program is to sponsor research th [...]

Talking about Our First 'Gay President' on the Victoria Jackson Show

Victoria Jackson has been heavily involved in politics and the conservative movement since President Ronald Reagan. Many of you may remember her from her performances on Saturday Night Live. She’s always sure to make you smile even while she makes you think. Recently I was pleased to be a guest on her new webshow speaking about the problems with homosexuality and Gay Pride month. We tackle t [...]

Museum Night and the Announcement of Our Worldview Study Bible Project

[caption id=“attachment_6016” align=“alignleft” width=“300”] Grandparents, parents, and children soak in the ancient biblical artifacts at our special night at the museum[/caption] Thursday evening we were pleased to host a special Museum Night for families in the community where we got to show them the Passages exhibit — part of the largest private collection o [...]