https://americanvision.org/Recent content The American VisionHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usAll rights reserved.Fri, 08 May 2026 08:11:08 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/episode-91-the-esther-connection-to-gog-and-mogog/Fri, 08 May 2026 08:11:08 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/episode-91-the-esther-connection-to-gog-and-mogog/<p><strong><a href="https://subsplash.com/u/americanvision/give" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Please help us meet a $15K matching challenge here</a></strong></p> <hr> <p><strong>Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope-Episode 91</strong></p> <p><em>Gary <a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/the-esther-connection-to-gog-and-mogog" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">interviews</a> Bob Cruickshank, Jr. and Daniel Harden about Ezekiel 38-39 and how the book of Esther connects to it.</em></p> <p>The Gog and Magog prophecy was an ancient battle fought with ancient weapons — horses, chariots, bows and arrows, swords, clubs, and shields — and has nothing to do with our time. There is no mention of Iraq, Iran, Russia, or any other modern-day nation. It’s true that “Gog and Magog” are mentioned in Revelation 20:8. This can’t be the battle that modern-day prophecy writers claim refers to modern-day Russia and current nations in the Middle East since in their view the “Gog and Magog” battle don’t appear until 1000 years after their version of the Great Tribulation. Greg Laurie and others believe the Gog and Magog alliance of Ezekiel 38 and 39 is very near to our time, not more than 1000 years in the future.</p> <p>The careful reader of the book of Revelation will note that there are many references to the Old Testament. Jerusalem is described as “Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified” (Rev. 11:8). Jezebel (2:20), Sodom, Egypt, Babylon (Rev. 17:4-6), and Gog and Magog are used as symbols of judgment because Israel had become like them and would be judged as they were judged. In the way that God judged these unbelieving cities, people, and nations, God would do the same to Jerusalem because of its unbelief and conspiring with the Roman Empire and declaring, “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15).</p> <p>The New Testament does not predict the end of the world (<em>kosmos</em>); only the end of the old covenant order (1 Cor. 10:11; Heb. 9:26) otherwise Peter’s statement that “the end of all things has come near” to them (1 Pet. 4:7) and John’s assurance to his readers that “it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18) don’t make sense.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/gog_front_large.jpg?v=1453287902" alt="The Gog and Magog End-Time Alliance"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>The Gog and Magog End-Time Alliance</h3> <p>Countless authors attempt to make the case that the events predicted in Ezekiel 38 and 39 are on our prophetic horizon, and it seems that each month new books and articles appear insisting that “given the current world situation, nuclear war is inevitable” based on what we read in Ezekiel’s prophecy. What if we read Ezekiel 38 and 39 literally? Is it possible that the Gog and Magog alliance that was designed “to destroy, to kill and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, women and children” has already taken place? That’s exactly what The Gog and Magog End-Time Alliance attempts to show.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/the-gog-and-magog-end-time-alliance-israel-russia-and-syria-in-bible-prophecy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Gary interviews Bob Cruickshank, Jr. and Daniel Harden about Ezekiel 38-39 and how the book of Esther connects to it. Most Bible commentators make Esther stand alone, without any connection to the rest of the Bible. Gary, Bob, and Dan point out how seamlessly it describes the fulfillment of Gog and Magog and how the Messianic bloodline is kept intact, despite Haman&rsquo;s futile attempts to eradicate it.</p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/the-esther-connection-to-gog-and-mogog" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for today’s episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://americanvision.org/categories/microscope/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for all episodes of Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope</a></p>https://americanvision.org/posts/should-the-olivet-discourse-be-divided/Thu, 07 May 2026 08:17:12 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/should-the-olivet-discourse-be-divided/<p><strong><a href="https://subsplash.com/u/americanvision/give" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Please help us meet a $15K matching challenge here</a></strong></p> <hr> <p>I saw the following on Facebook: “The Sign of His Coming By Hugo Grotius: A Preterist Commentary on the Mount Olivet Discourse with Commentary by Dr. Kenneth L. Gentry and Jay Rogers.” The authors argue that the subject shifts from the judgment on Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple from Matthew 24:4-24:34 to a distant future coming of Jesus in Matthew 24:35-36 and following.</p> <p>Matthew 24:27 and 24:37 presented a problem for Gentry because they use the same language related to Jesus’ coming.</p> <p>• “For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, <strong>so will the coming of the Son of Man be</strong>” (24:27).</p> <p>• “<strong>For the coming of the Son of Man will be</strong> just like the days of Noah” (24:37).</p> <p>At one time, Gentry believed Matthew 24:27 referred to the AD 70 coming of Jesus. He later changed his mind because he could not distinguish this from the use of “coming” in Matthew 24:37, 39, 42-44, and 25:31. He had to postulate two comings to avoid being charged with aiding and abetting full preterism. In his books <em>Perilous Times</em> (pages 72-73) and <em>The Great Tribulation: Past or Future?</em> (pages 53-55), Gentry interpreted Matthew 24:27 as referring to the judgment coming of Jesus in AD 70. Gentry needed at least a few verses to support his futurist view regarding Jesus’ Second Coming. The following is from his 2010 book <em>The Olivet Discourse Made Easy</em>.</p> <blockquote> <p>I should note that my interpretation of this verse [Matt. 24:27] has changed recently. In earlier works (<em>Perilous Times</em>; <em>The Great Tribulation: Past or Future?</em>) I argued that the lightning flash could refer to his spiritual judgment-coming in AD 70. This is certainly possible, given the dramatic nature of prophetic language. But I now reject that view because of grammatical and contextual reasons. The “for” (grammar) in v. 27 clearly gives the reason (context) why they should not expect that he may be off somewhere in a wilderness. His physical return will be visible to all. After all, the original question (24:3) shows the disciples’ conflating of the two events: AD 70 and the second advent. Just a few verses later (24:36ff), Jesus will begin focusing on that more glorious event.<strong>[1]</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>How does Gentry’s interpretation square with his interpretation of Matthew 24:34? If one item before verse 34 has not been fulfilled, then why not the other items? This is quite the dilemma.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/files/CameToPass-cover_large.jpg?v=1770152820" alt="And It Came to Pass"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>And It Came to Pass</h3> <p>“I commend this volume as a fine introduction to some of the most fascinating and important elements of preterist interpretation and hope that it will stimulate serious, scholarly research and discussion into the questions that remain in doubt.” — R.C. Sproul (1939-2017), founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/and-it-came-to-pass" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>The appeal of Grotius (1583-1645) for Gentry and Rogers is that he divides the Olivet Discourse at verse 36.</p> <blockquote> <p>Grotius establishes a structural dividing line at Matthew 24:36, distinguishing between the historical events leading up to AD 70 and the timing of the final judgment, which is unknown. He interprets phrases like “this generation” literally as Christ’s contemporaries who witnessed the siege, and views cosmic imagery (such as the darkening of the sun) as symbolic language for the collapse of Jewish political powers. While he assigns Matthew 24:4-35 to the historical destruction of Jerusalem, he reserves Matthew 24:36 through Chapter 25 for the future, universal final judgment.</p> </blockquote> <p>At nearly the same time, Henry Hammond (1605-1660) published Paraphrase and Annotations on the New Testament in 1653. It has gone through numerous editions over the years. What does Hammond say about Matthew 24:27?</p> <blockquote> <ol start="27"> <li>All such deceits may prove ruinous to you; for this judgment and vengeance upon the Jews shall come so as that it cannot be avoided; but it shall at the same time fall upon several parts of the land, or at a moment, like lightning, fly from one corner to another; this day a great slaughter of Jews in this place, to morrow in another a great way off.</li> </ol> <p>*****</p> <ol start="36"> <li>But of the point of time when this judgment shall come (see note [a] on Heb. x., and 2 Peter iii. 10.) none but God the Father knows that, (see note [b] on Mark xiii.) and that must oblige you to vigilancy, and may sustain you in your trials, (when you begin to faint by reason of persecutions from the Jews, ver. 12, which this is to set a period to,) by remembering that how far off soever your deliverance seems to be, it may and will come in a moment unexpectedly.</li> <li>But this judgment on the Jews shall be like that on the old world in respect of the unexpectedness of it: see Luke 17:20.</li> </ol> </blockquote> <p>Hammond continues to apply these verses to events surrounding Jerusalem’s judgment before that generation passed away.</p> <blockquote> <p>Chap. XXV. 1 At that point of time last spoken of, the heavy visitation on this people, the condition of Christians will be fitly resembled by the parable of the ten virgins, which took hand-lamps, (then in use, and fit to carry abroad for night-lights,) and went out to fetch a bridegroom and the bride, and wait on them to the feast.</p> </blockquote> <p>For additional insight into Hammond’s comments and whether there is a transitional verse, see Jonathan E. Sedlak’s <em>Reading Matthew, Trusting Jesus: Christian Tradition and First-Century Fulfillment within Matthew 24-25</em>. Sedlak concludes that Hammond “interpreted all of chapters 24 and 25 as pertaining to first-century events and the assurance of their fulfillment in past history. According to Hammond, only the final judgment scene of Matt. 25:31-46 could possibly be interpreted in relation to a future state for humanity and a future ‘coming’ in judgment; even so, Hammond still interpreted Matthew 25:31-46 in light of its first-century context surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem, which is considered to be the most obvious way in which Jesus’ disciples would have understood the entire discourse” (279).</p> <p>Gentry believes that the use of “long time” is an important time indicator in Matthew 24:48 and 25:19. He’s not alone. A line of evidence offered by those who believe that events following Matthew 24:35 refer to the personal and physical return of Jesus is the meaning given to “delays” (24:48: <em>chronizei</em>), “after a long time” (25:19: <em>polyn</em>), and the “delay” (<em>chronizontos</em>) of the bridegroom (25:5). For some commentators, these examples indicate that different events are in view, one near (the destruction of Jerusalem) and one distant (a future physical coming of Christ). This is the view of Stephen F. Hayhow.</p> <blockquote> <p>Both parables, the parables of the virgins (vv. 1-13), and the parable of the talents (vv. 14-30), speak of the absence of the bridegroom/master, who is said to be “a long time in coming” (v. 5) and “After a long time the master of the servants returned…” (v. 19). This suggests, not the events of A.D. 70 which were to occur in the near future, in fact within the space of a generation, but a distant event, the return of Christ.<strong>[2]</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>Notice that the evil slave says, “My master is not coming for a long time,” literally, is “delayed” (Matt. 24:48). The evil slave then proceeds to “beat his fellow-slaves and eat and drink with drunkards” (24:49). But to the surprise of the “evil slave” the master returned when he least expected him (24:50). The master did not return to cut the evil slave’s distant relatives into pieces (24:51); the master cut him in pieces. The evil slave was alive when the master left and when the master returned. In this context, a “long time” must be measured against a person taking a trip. A “long time” can be even shorter, “Now Herod was overjoyed when he saw Jesus; for he had wanted to see Him for a long time, because he had been hearing about Him and was hoping to see some sign performed by Him” (Luke 23:8). I cover this issue in my book <em>Last Days Madness</em>.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/LDM-front_large.png?v=1572279906" alt="Last Days Madness"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Last Days Madness</h3> <p>In this authoritative book, Gary DeMar clears the haze of "end-times" fever, shedding light on the most difficult and studied prophetic passages in the Bible, including Daniel 7:13-14; 9:24-27; Matt. 16:27-28; 24-25; Thess. 2; 2 Peter 3:3-13, and clearly explaining a host of other controversial topics.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/last-days-madness" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>The same idea is expressed in the parable of the “talents.” A man entrusts his slaves with his possessions (25:14). The master then goes on a journey (25:15). While the master is gone, the slaves make investment decisions (25:16-18). We are then told that “after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them” (25:19). In this context, “a long time” is no longer than an average lifetime. The settlement is made with the same slaves who received the talents. In every other New Testament context, “a long time” means nothing more than an extended period (Luke 8:27; 23:8; John 5:6; Acts 8:11; 14:3, 28; 26:5, 29; 27:21; 28:6). Nowhere does it mean centuries or multiple generations. For example, Simon “had for a long time astonished them with his magic arts” (Acts 8:11).</p> <p>The delay of the bridegroom is no different from the “long time” of the two previous parables. The bridegroom returns to the same groups of virgins (25:1-13). The duration of the delay must be measured by the context, and in the context of the various comings, the audiences remain the same. Similar language is used in Luke 12:35-48. The Bible defines a long time in various ways: “Now a man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. Jesus, upon seeing this man lying there and knowing that he had already been in that condition for a long time [πολὺν … χρόνον], said to him, ‘Do you want to get well?’” (John 5:5-6).</p> <p>Grotius, Gentry, and Rogers have not offered compelling evidence for a long delay lasting nearly 2000 years! Those who first read the Olivet Discourse never would have considered such a delay.</p> <hr> <p>[1] <em>The Olivet Discourse Made Easy: You Can Understand Jesus’ Great Prophetic Discourse</em> (Draper, VA: Apologetics Group, 2010), 102, note 27. J. Marcellus Kik followed the same line of argument in his book Matthew 24 (page 66).</p> <p>[2] Stephen F. Hayhow, “Matthew 24, Luke 17 and the Destruction of Jerusalem,” <em>Christianity and Society</em> 4:2 (April 1994), 4. Robert Young in his comment on Matthew 25:1 about the Parable of the Ten Virgins: “THEN], that is, when the things mentioned in the preceding chapter are taking place among the unbelieving Jews in Palestine, the rule of the reign of the heavens shall be exercised on the believing ones in a manner similar to the way in which ten virgins were treated by the bridegroom they professed to honour” (<em><a href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/robert-youngs-concise-critical-commentary-on-the-new-testament" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Concise Critical Comments on the Holy Bible</a></em> [London: Pickering &amp; Inglis, n.d.], 25).</p>https://americanvision.org/posts/saving-women-and-babies-with-the-gospel/Wed, 06 May 2026 07:47:09 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/saving-women-and-babies-with-the-gospel/<p><strong><a href="https://subsplash.com/u/americanvision/give" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Please help us meet a $15K matching challenge here</a></strong></p> <hr> <p><em>Gary <a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/saving-women-and-babies-with-the-gospel" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">interviews</a> Eric Ogea about a ministry he and his wife run in the Dallas, TX, area.</em></p> <p>The family is a divinely ordained institution (Gen. 1:26–28; 2:24). God created the family and He alone defines it. The State does not create the family and therefore cannot redefine or control it. But believing it is God, the State is in the renaming and redefinition business (see Dan. 1:1–7).</p> <blockquote> <p>History’s verdict is that by defining marriage as monogamy and making extramarital sex immoral, the biblical tradition laid down a foundation for stable families, strong women, children, economy, and society. By keeping his vows to a woman, made before God and community, a man learns to keep his word in other situations. When keeping one’s word becomes a strong cultural value, then trust becomes the foundation for social life. [Vishal Mangalwadi, <em>The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization</em> (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001), 294–295.]</p> </blockquote> <p>Sound family government follows the assumption that the family does not operate in isolation from God’s governmental canopy of sovereignty and that self-government under God serves as its necessary foundation. God’s Government =&gt; Self-Government under God =&gt; Family Government under God. Breaking this connection puts those with the most power in control.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/RFC-front_large.png?v=1603236877" alt="Restoring the Foundation of Civilization"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Restoring the Foundation of Civilization</h3> <p>There are many Christians who will not participate in civilization-building efforts that include economics, journalism, politics, education, and science because they believe (or have been taught to believe) these areas of thought are outside the realm of what constitutes a Christian worldview. Nothing could be further from the truth</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/restoring-the-foundation-of-civilization" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Gary interviews Eric Ogea about a ministry he and his wife run in the Dallas, TX, area. Eric and Karen help women who are considering abortion and teach them how to view all of life through a biblical worldview. Eric explains that while pro-life ministry is often viewed as &ldquo;women&rsquo;s work,&rdquo; there is a great need for men to get involved as well.</p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/saving-women-and-babies-with-the-gospel" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for today’s episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here to browse all episodes of The Gary DeMar Podcast</a></p>https://americanvision.org/posts/using-penguins-to-support-homosexuality/Tue, 05 May 2026 07:42:10 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/using-penguins-to-support-homosexuality/<p><strong><a href="https://subsplash.com/u/americanvision/give" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Please help us meet a $15K matching challenge here</a></strong></p> <hr> <p>Scientists have claimed that same-sex coupling in nature offers prime evidence that homosexuality among humans is naturally and morally normal.</p> <p>• Whatever animals do in nature is natural.<br> • What’s natural is normal.<br> • What’s normal is moral.</p> <p>How can we mere mortals impose our rules of sexual behavior on what’s natural in the animal kingdom? Homosexuals extrapolate that what animals do naturally in nature applies to what higher “animals” can do naturally without any moral judgments attached.</p> <p>For example, <em>And Tango Makes Three</em> is an illustrated children’s book about two male penguins that raise a baby penguin. It’s based on a true story of two male penguins in New York City’s Central Park Zoo that “adopt” a fertilized egg and raise the chick as their own.<strong>[1]</strong></p> <p>In his book <em>Biological Exuberance</em>, Bruce Bagemihl claims “The world is, indeed, teeming with homosexual, bisexual and transgendered creatures of every stripe and feather…. From the Southeastern Blueberry Bee of the United States to more than 130 different bird species worldwide, the ‘birds and the bees,’ literally, are queer.”</p> <p>Here’s a typical unthinking response:</p> <p><img src="https://americanvision.org/images/uploads/kirsten.png" alt="Kirsten Michels" title="Kirsten Michels"></p> <p>The lower-animal/higher-animal model breaks down when other so-called natural behaviors in animals are considered. For example, the Bible states, “It has happened to them according to the true proverb, ‘A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT’ [Prov. 26:11] and, ‘A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire’” (2 Pet. 2:22). These are natural behaviors of animals. These are not normal human behaviors. Gregory Koukl makes these striking points:</p> <blockquote> <p>It’s not unusual, for example, to see male dogs mount each other in an erotic way. There are two problems with this view, however…. [T]he observation is flawed because it assumes that erotic behavior in other mammals is the same as homosexual desire in human beings. Male homosexuals engage in sodomy because of an attraction to a gender. They are male erotic, and sodomy is an expression of that desire.</p> <p>Does the animal kingdom display this kind of same-gender eroticism? When a male dog mounts another male dog, is it because he’s attracted to the male gender of the other dog? I don’t think so. This same poor pooch will slavishly mount sofas or shrubs or anything else available, including the leg of your dinner guest. None of these things is the object of the canine’s sexual lust; they are merely the subject of it. The dog does not desire your unfortunate visitor. He simply desires to be stimulated. It doesn’t prove they have homosexual desire in any way parallel with humans.<strong>[2]</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>Consider the case of Timothy Treadwell depicted in the movie <em>Grizzly Man</em>. He lived among bears for 13 years and considered them his “family.” In 2003, Treadwell and his companion, Amie Huguenard, were mauled and mostly eaten by one of the Alaskan grizzly bears he considered to be “All in the Family.” While he thought of the bears as his brothers and sisters, the bears thought of him as lunch.</p> <p>Then there’s the case of Armin Meiwes, who killed and ate 43-year-old Bernd-Jurgen Brandes.<strong>[3]</strong> What did Mr. Meiwes do that was wrong, given the premise that animal behavior is a normative model for human behavior? For a detailed telling of the story, see Nathan Constantine, “A German Revival,” <em>A History of Cannibalism: From Ancient Cultures to Survival Stories and Modern Psychopaths</em> (Edison, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, 2006), 186–191.) If the bears that ate Treadwell were only doing what came naturally, then how can the cannibal nature of Meiwes be judged as abnormal, given evolutionary assumptions?</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/files/neighfr_large.png?v=1695172157" alt="Why It Might Be OK to Eat Your Neighbor"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Why It Might Be OK to Eat Your Neighbor</h3> <p>The most damning assessment of a matter-only cosmos devoid of a Creator is that we got to this place in our evolutionary history by acts of violence whereby the strong conquered the weak with no one to support or condemn them. Why It Might Be OK to Eat Your Neighbor repeatedly raises the issue of accounting for the conscience, good and evil, and loving our neighbor. It’s shocking to read what atheists say about a cosmos devoid of meaning and morality.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/why-it-might-be-ok-to-eat-your-neighbor-book" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>What did Mr. Meiwes do that was wrong, given the premise that animal behavior is a normative model for human behavior?<strong>[4]</strong> If the bears that ate Treadwell were only doing what came naturally, then how can the cannibal nature of Meiwes be judged as abnormal, given evolutionary assumptions?</p> <p>A few years ago, I saw an ad for a television special on Turner Network Television titled “The Trials of Life.” The full-page ad showed a composite picture of six animals, one of which was the bald eagle, with the following caption: “Discover how similar the face of nature is to yours. The way you love, the way you fight, the way you grow, all have their roots in the kingdom we all live in: the animal kingdom.” The implication here is obvious: Humans are only an evolutionary step away from <em>other</em> animals. In biblical terms, men and women are not animals. God did not create Adam out of another pre-existing animal.</p> <p>While channel surfing, I came across the second installment of the six-part series “The Trials of Life.” I soon learned what Benjamin Franklin meant when he described the eagle as a bird of “bad moral character.” With two eaglets in the nest and not enough food to go around, the mamma allows the weakest eaglet to die. She then cannibalizes it and feeds it to the survivor.</p> <p>A 2002 article carries this title: “Bald eagle kills, eats its young”: “Wildlife biologists are baffled and intrigued by two incidents captured on videotape at a bald eagle nest in Portsmouth, Virginia —an eagle parent attacks, kills, then eats its two scrawny young.”</p> <p>Was this natural or unnatural? Is this moral animal behavior that we should emulate? How do we know? Should we follow the example of the eagles or just the supposed homosexual penguins?</p> <p>Do chimpanzees have a moral code or a justice system? Since they are supposedly so close to us genetically, should they be prosecuted for crimes? Naturalist and filmmaker David Attenborough was asked, “What has been your most distressing/upsetting moment in your career?” He answered, “Seeing chimpanzees kill monkeys. They do this to eat them. They chase them, set an ambush, catch them, and tear them apart.”<strong>[5]</strong> Watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7XuXi3mqYM" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">this video</a>. Attenborough is applying human moral standards to chimpanzees. The Bloodhound Gang’s song <em>Bad Touch</em> has this line (and a video to match): “You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals; so let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.”</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/bts-front_large.png?v=1601296021" alt="By This Standard"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>By This Standard</h3> <p>Millions of Christians have sadly not recognized the continuing authority of God's law or its many applications to modern society. They have thereby reaped the whirlwind of cultural and intellectual impotence. They implicitly denied the power of the death and resurrection of Christ. They have served as footstools for the enemies of God. But humanism's free ride is coming to an end. This book serves as an introduction to this woefully neglected topic.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/by-this-standard-the-authority-of-gods-law-today" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Animals rape on a regular basis. Should we make the leap the homosexuals want to make regarding penguins? If homosexual behavior in penguins is a template for human sexuality, then why can’t a similar case be made for rape among humans? As hard as it might be to believe, the connection has been made. Randy Thornhill, a biologist, and Craig T. Palmer, an anthropologist, attempt to demonstrate in their book <em>A Natural History of Rape</em> <strong>[6]</strong> that evolutionary principles explain rape as a “genetically developed strategy sustained over generations of human life because it is a kind of sexual selection—a successful reproductive strategy.” The authors claim that even though rape can be explained genetically in evolutionary terms, this does not make the behavior morally right. Of course, given Darwinian assumptions, there is no way to condemn rape on moral grounds. The same could be said for homosexual behavior, and everything else. If we are the products of evolution, then there can be no moral judgments about anything. If homosexuals want to use penguins as their moral model, then they need to take all animal behavior into consideration when they build their moral worldview. If we should follow the animal world regarding homosexual penguins and thereby regard human homosexual behavior as normal, then we must be consistent and follow the animal world regarding rape, eating our young, and eating our neighbors, and decriminalize these behaviors as well.</p> <hr> <p>[1] Cristina Cardoze, “They’re in love. They’re gay. They’re penguins&hellip;. And they’re not alone” (June 6, 2006).</p> <p>[2] Gregory Koukl, “Just Doing What Comes Naturally: Mother Nature’s Way.”</p> <p>[3] “German cannibal tells of fantasy,” <em>BBC News</em> (December 3, 2003).</p> <p>[4] Theodore Dalrymple, “The Case for Cannibalism” (January 5, 2005). For a more detail telling of the story, see Nathan Constantine, “A German Revival,” <em>A History of Cannibalism: From Ancient Cultures to Survival Stories and Modern Psychopaths</em> (Edison, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, 2006), 186–191.</p> <p>[5] Lauren Davis, “This is the Most Disturbing Animal Behavior David Attenborough Has Seen,” <em>Gizmodo</em> (January 9, 2014): Link <a href="https://bit.ly/43ooszK" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">here</a>.</p> <p>[6] Randy Thornhill, and Craig T. Palmer, <em>A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion</em> (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000).</p>https://americanvision.org/posts/questions-about-israel/Mon, 04 May 2026 06:59:06 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/questions-about-israel/<p><strong><a href="https://subsplash.com/u/americanvision/give" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Please help us meet a $15K matching challenge here</a></strong></p> <hr> <p><em>Gary <a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/questions-about-israel" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">answers</a> several questions about Israel from a regular listener.</em></p> <p>There is no indication that Matthew 25:31-46 describes a single event. Rather, the passage describes a judgment over time, related to Jesus’ dominion as an “everlasting dominion” (Dan. 7:14). Jesus was “exalted to the right hand of God” where He rules until all His enemies are made a “footstool for [His] feet” (Acts 2:33, 35). Paul writes that Jesus “must reign until He has put all of His enemies under His feet” (1 Cor. 15:25). Milton Terry writes that “the ideal of judgment presented in Matt. xxv, 31-46, is therefore no single event, like the destruction of Jerusalem.” Terry continues:</p> <blockquote> <p>The Old Testament doctrine is that “the kingdom is Jehovah’s, and he is ruler among the nations” (Psalm xxii, 28). “Say ye among the nations, Jehovah reigneth; he shall judge the peoples with equity. He cometh, he cometh to judge the earth; he shall judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his truth” (Psalm xcvi, 10-13). The day of judgment for any wicked nation, city, or individual is the time when the penal visitation comes; and the judgment of God’s saints is manifest in every signal event which magnifies goodness and condemns iniquity.</p> </blockquote> <p>Keith Mathison has a helpful take on Matthew 25:31-46, a passage often used to support the Second Coming. He asks, “which judgment is being described in Matthew 25:31-46?” He links it to Daniel 7 which he argues “is a prophecy describing the inauguration of the messianic kingdom rather than the second coming.” He goes on to state that Jesus is describing “the heavenly judgment of the nations that Daniel associates with the inauguration of Christ’s kingdom (Dan. 7:9-10).” The King of glory is continually judging and reigning among the nations. The judgment began in that generation (Matt. 11:21-24; Luke 10:13-15).</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/LDM-front_large.png?v=1572279906" alt="Last Days Madness"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Last Days Madness</h3> <p>In this authoritative book, Gary DeMar clears the haze of "end-times" fever, shedding light on the most difficult and studied prophetic passages in the Bible, including Daniel 7:13-14; 9:24-27; Matt. 16:27-28; 24-25; Thess. 2; 2 Peter 3:3-13, and clearly explaining a host of other controversial topics.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/last-days-madness" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Gary answers several questions about Israel from a regular listener. Genesis 12, Matthew 25, and John 8 are all discussed as Gary shows that the Bible doesn&rsquo;t have a special plan, apart from salvation in Jesus Christ, for those who claim to be Jews. All sinners, Jews and Gentiles alike, are saved through the finished work of Jesus, not through who they claim as an ancestor.</p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/questions-about-israel" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for today’s episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here to browse all episodes of The Gary DeMar Podcast</a></p>https://americanvision.org/posts/joel-richardsons-prophetic-glove-doesnt-fit/Fri, 01 May 2026 07:32:38 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/joel-richardsons-prophetic-glove-doesnt-fit/<p><strong><a href="https://subsplash.com/u/americanvision/give" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Please help us meet a $15K matching challenge here</a></strong></p> <hr> <p><strong>Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope-Episode 90</strong></p> <p><em>Gary <a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/joel-richardsons-prophetic-glove-doesnt-fit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">responds</a> to continued feedback from his recent online debate with prophecy writer Joel Richardson about Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38-39).</em></p> <p>Jesus tells His disciples that when the temple’s approaching desolation became evident, it would be time to head for the hills. Most roofs in Israel were flat with an outside staircase (Mark 2:4) designed for occupancy (Deut. 22:8), storage (Josh. 2:6), and rest in the evening (2 Sam. 11:2). In addition, Jesus referred to the strict Sabbath laws in effect at that time. An acceptable distance for travel on the Sabbath was about three-fifths of a mile as determined by Pharisaical law (Acts 1:12), not enough travel-distance to get out of harm’s way during Jerusalem’s sign-laden destruction.</p> <p>History shows that Christian Jews did heed Jesus’ warning before the armies of Titus captured the city. Most who remained were slaughtered. Estimates put the number killed at more than one million! Thousands more were taken into captivity and enslaved by the Romans. “The Emperor Vespasian brought 20,000 Jewish slaves to Rome after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. The Arch of Titus depicts a menorah as part of the plunder from Jerusalem. Vespasian and his successor Titus used the slaves to build the Roman Coliseum.”</p> <p>The prophecy regarding pregnant (Luke 19:44: “your children within you”) and nursing mothers and young children (Matt. 24:19) fits the time parameters of the Olivet Discourse leading to the destruction of the temple in the generation of Jews to whom Jesus was speaking. Josephus, an eyewitness to the events, describes a horrific scene of “the cruel massacre of women and children” and “the painful famine in which the people suffered so terribly while Jerusalem was besieged.”<strong>[1]</strong></p> <p><a href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/matthew-23-25-a-literary-historical-and-theological-commentary" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">James Jordan</a> makes an interesting typological connection to Jesus mentioning leaving the cloak behind:</p> <blockquote> <p>The man working in the field is not to bother going back for anything, not even his cloak. The cloak is the one thing that is so precious and needful that it cannot be taken as a pledge during the nighttime hours, but has to be returned each night to its owner [Ex. 22:26-27]. Leaving the cloak behind, then, means leaving everything behind.</p> <p>Jesus had already made this point in the Sermon on the Mount, where He told his followers to be ready to give up their cloaks if that was demanded of them (Matthew 5:40).</p> <p>Did Jesus mean that the believers should literally leave their cloaks behind, even in winter, when they would need them on the road? I don’t think so. Again, I think we have to take Jesus’ command as an epigram. First, it means to be ready to leave everything behind, just as Jesus left his tunic at the foot of the cross and soldiers gambled for it [Ps. 22:18; Matt. 27:35; John 19:23]. But it probably has a deeper meaning also. In Matthew, Jesus has said that no one sews a patch of new cloth on an old cloak, but instead turns the old one into a rag and makes a new cloak of new cloth (Matthew 9:16)&hellip;. Leave behind the cloak of the Old Covenant. You won’t need it any longer.<strong>[2]</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>With the destruction of the temple, its sacrifices, and sinful priesthood done away with and a new temple (John 2:19), perfect sacrifice (1:29), and new sinless priest (Heb. 7:26-28), the remnants of the Old Covenant were abolished at the cross and outwardly demonstrated with the destruction of the temple.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/WRWfr_large.png?v=1678474893" alt="Wars and Rumors of Wars"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Wars and Rumors of Wars</h3> <p>A first-century interpretation of the Olivet Discourse was once common in commentaries and narrative-style books that describe the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. There is also a history of skeptics who turn to Bible prophecy and claim Jesus was wrong about the timing of His coming at “the end of the age” and the signs associated with it. A mountain of scholarship shows that the prophecy given by Jesus was fulfilled in exacting detail when He said it would: before the generation of those to whom He was speaking passed away.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/wars-and-rumors-of-wars" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Gary responds to continued feedback from his recent online debate with prophecy writer Joel Richardson about Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38-39). Using the famous OJ Simpson trial defense line about gloves not fitting, Gary shows how Richardson&rsquo;s prophetic interpretive gloves also don&rsquo;t fit the biblical facts.</p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/joel-richardsons-prophetic-glove-doesnt-fit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for today’s episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://americanvision.org/categories/microscope/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for all episodes of Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope</a></p> <hr> <p>[1] J. G. Matteson, <em>Prophecies of Jesus: The Fulfillment of the Predictions of Our Saviour and His Prophets</em> (Battle Creek: International Tract Society, 1895), 86.</p> <p>[2] James B. Jordan, <em><a href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/matthew-23-25-a-literary-historical-and-theological-commentary" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Matthew 23-25: A Literary, Historical, and Theological Commentary</a></em> (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2022), 128-129.<a href="https://americanvision.org/categories/microscope/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external"></a></p>https://americanvision.org/posts/why-the-theory-of-something-from-nothing-evolution-is-based-on-magic/Thu, 30 Apr 2026 07:17:36 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/why-the-theory-of-something-from-nothing-evolution-is-based-on-magic/<p><strong><a href="https://subsplash.com/u/americanvision/give" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Please help us meet a $15K matching challenge here</a></strong></p> <hr> <p>Lawrence M. Krauss is a renowned cosmologist and professor at the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including the best-selling <em>The Physics of Star Trek</em> and <em>A Universe from Nothing</em>, which includes an Afterword from atheist provocateur Richard Dawkins. Krauss is an outspoken atheist, evolutionist, and anti-Christian. The following is his starting point, upon which he builds his worldview:</p> <blockquote> <p>[M]ost of the energy in the universe resides in some mysterious, now inexplicable form permeating all of empty space. It’s not an understatement to say that the discovery has changed the playing field of modern cosmology.</p> <p>For one thing, this discovery has produced remarkable new support for the idea that our universe arose from precisely nothing.<strong>[1]</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>He goes on to claim that “every day beautiful and miraculous objects suddenly appear.” Krauss mentions “miracles,” and Richard Dawkins, who wrote the Afterword to Krauss’ book, heaps abundant praise on it, describing evolution as “magic” in his own book, <em>The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True</em>.</p> <p>Evolutionists must believe in “miracles” and “magic,” such as spontaneous generation. An evolutionist like Krauss can’t explain how the world works except to descend into irrationality. The following is from the Preface to his book:</p> <blockquote> <p>In the interests of full disclosure right at the outset I must admit that I am not sympathetic to the conviction that creation requires a creator, which is at the basis of all the world’s religions. Every day beautiful and miraculous objects suddenly appear, from snowflakes on a cold winter morning to vibrant rainbows after a late-afternoon summer shower. Yet no one but the most ardent fundamentalists would suggest that that each and every such object is lovingly and painstakingly and, most importantly, purposely created by a divine intelligence.<strong>[2]</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>I don’t know of a single “fundamentalist” who has ever claimed that God spends His time designing every snowflake. God did design the material (and everything else) and the necessary conditions that make up snowflakes, and the process by which they form. Dr. Krauss has not explained how water came into existence to make snowflakes, or the informational structure that constitutes the substance we call water, to explain how it always reacts the same way to temperature variations and predictable weather conditions.</p> <p>Here is the Kraussian “science” behind it all: “our universe arose from precisely nothing.” So, for Krauss, “nothing” must be “a kind of ‘something’” because “[a]bsolute nothingness means no laws, no vacuums, no fields, no energy, no structures, no physical or mental entities of any kind—and no ‘symmetries.’ It has no properties or potentialities. Absolute nothingness cannot produce something given endless time—in fact, there can be no time in absolute nothingness.”<strong>[3]</strong></p> <p>Dr. Krauss is engaged in some evolutionary sleight of hand. He needs energy to power his evolutionary machine. He must steal that energy from the theistic power plant that he ridicules, misrepresents, and claims doesn’t exist. Consider this bit of irrationality:</p> <blockquote> <p>In fact, many laypeople as well as scientists revel in our ability to explain how snowflakes and rainbows can spontaneously appear, based on simple, elegant laws of physics.<strong>[4]</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>Snowflakes and rainbows don’t “spontaneously appear.” The material, conditions, and natural laws necessary for them to appear exist. What about the “laws of physics”? What makes them laws and keeps them as laws? No one has ever seen a law of physics. How does a materialist like Krauss account for non-physical entities like mathematics and physics in a cosmos that seemingly came into existence out of nothing and continues to operate in terms of fixed and predictable laws?</p> <blockquote> <p>In 1960 the Princeton physicist—and subsequent Nobel Prize winner—Eugene Wigner raised a fundamental question: Why did the natural world always—so far as we know—obey laws of mathematics?</p> <p>As argued by scholars such as Philip Davis and Reuben Hersh, mathematics exists independent of physical reality. … Despite the many other enormous advances of modern physics, little has changed in this regard. As Wigner wrote, “the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and there is no rational explanation for it.”</p> <p>In other words, as I argue in my book [<em>God? Very Probably: Five Rational Ways to Think about the Question of a God</em>], it takes the existence of some kind of a god to make the mathematical underpinnings of the universe comprehensible.<strong>[5]</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>Some evolutionists and non-religionists, like physicist Max Tegmark, have gone so far as to say that the cosmos—including us—“is nothing but mathematics.”<strong>[6]</strong> Does this mean that love, compassion, morality, and a whole host of human emotions are nothing but mathematical constructs? I can hear a biological unit on Valentine’s Day expressing his affinity for his partnered biological unit say, “You are my E = mc2.” Dr. Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon argues, using some of the imponderables in math as an example, that “God has given us all this light”<strong>[7]</strong> to understand the world. Without God, we mere mortals don’t have the capacity to understand our world.</p> <p>Krauss has stated that “Science is only truly consistent with an atheistic worldview…” I’m sure Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Johannes Kepler, Joseph Lister, James Young Simpson, Samuel F.B. Morse, Wilbur and Orville Wright, Werner von Braun, Raymond Damadian (inventor of the MRI), and many other scientists would be surprised to know this, since modern scientists stand on the shoulders of these Christian scientists.</p> <hr> <p>[1] Lawrence M. Krauss, <em>A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing</em> (New York: Free Press, 2012), xiii.</p> <p>[2] Krauss, <em>A Universe from Nothing</em>, xiii.</p> <p>[3] Abraham Varghese, “The ‘New Atheism’: A Critical Appraisal of Dawkins, Dennett, Wolpert, Harris, and Stenger,” in Anthony Flew with Abraham Varghese, <em>There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind</em> (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 170.</p> <p>[4] Krauss, <em>A Universe from Nothing</em>, xiii.</p> <p>[5] Robert H. Helson, “Existence of God: The Rational Arguments from Mathematics to Human Consciousness,” <em>Independent</em> (May 17, 2017): Online <a href="http://bit.ly/2w1Fcli" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">here</a>.</p> <p>[6] Max Tegmark, “The Great Math Mystery,” <em>NOVA</em>.</p> <p>[7] Dr. Soon states, contrary to mere mortal secularists like Al Gore who claim he is helping to “save the planet, that CO2 is “the gas of life.” Link <a href="https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1744777758507504061" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">here</a>.</p>https://americanvision.org/posts/connecting-the-bible-with-the-bible/Wed, 29 Apr 2026 07:05:47 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/connecting-the-bible-with-the-bible/<p><strong><a href="https://subsplash.com/u/americanvision/give" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Please help us meet a $15K matching challenge here</a></strong></p> <hr> <p><em>Gary <a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/connecting-the-bible-with-the-bible" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">discusses</a> his recent debate with Joel Richardson about Ezekiel 38-39, the famous Gog and Magog chapters.</em></p> <p>Nearly every book being published today points to the Gog and Magog alliance as evidence that we are living in the last days and the world is on the eve of destruction. Ezekiel 38 and 39 are being used by today’s prophecy writers as a modern-day prophetic blueprint for our time. As we’ll see, these same prophecy writers almost never tell their readers that there has been a long history of failed predictions based on these two chapters and other prophetic texts. While the world is a dangerous place, this does not mean that Ezekiel was predicting prophetic events 2600 years removed from his time. As I hope to show, Ezekiel’s prophecy had a more immediate fulfillment. The accomplishment of this prophecy was to demonstrate to “the nations” at the time that “the house of Israel went into exile for their iniquity because they acted treacherously against” God (Ezek. 39:23; cp. 38:23). These witnessing nations are described by Ezekiel as Israel’s “adversaries” (39:23). Applying the prophecy of Ezekiel 38 and 39 to modern-day nations is contrary to the historical context. No nation today had any part in Israel’s exile 2600 years ago.</p> <p>The prophecy begins with instructions given to Ezekiel to set his “face toward Gog of the land of Magog” (38:2). Who is Gog and what is the land of Magog? The most popular interpretation is that Gog is modern-day Russia. Magog, a people group that first appears in Genesis 10:2, is thought to be an alliance of nations that join Russia in a failed end-time invasion of Israel. Added to the mix, a leader of this confederation is said to be the “prince of Rosh,” the leader of Russia. In 1972, Carl Johnson wrote <em>Prophecy Made Plain for Times Like These</em>, in which he includes a lengthy quotation from a message Jack Van Impe gave at Canton Baptist Temple in Canton, Ohio, sometime in 1969. Like so many who claim to know what’s on the prophetic horizon, Van Impe made his case for an imminent war with Russia on what the newspapers of 1969 were reporting. This war was so close, he charged, “that the stage is being set for what could explode into World War III at any moment.” The passage of more than half of a century hardly seems like “at any moment.”</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/gog_front_large.jpg?v=1453287902" alt="The Gog and Magog End-Time Alliance"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>The Gog and Magog End-Time Alliance</h3> <p>My library is filled with books that attempt to make the case that the events predicted in Ezekiel 38 and 39 are on our prophetic horizon, and it seems that each month new books and articles appear insisting that “given the current world situation, nuclear war is inevitable” based on what we read in Ezekiel’s prophecy. What if we read Ezekiel 38 and 39 literally? Is it possible that the Gog and Magog alliance that was designed “to destroy, to kill and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, women and children” has already taken place? That’s exactly what The Gog and Magog End-Time Alliance attempts to show.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/the-gog-and-magog-end-time-alliance-israel-russia-and-syria-in-bible-prophecy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Gary discusses his recent debate with Joel Richardson about Ezekiel 38-39, the famous Gog and Magog chapters. Joel believes these events are still future; Gary believes they were fulfilled in the events described in the book of Esther.</p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/connecting-the-bible-with-the-bible" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for today’s episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnb0FMBLWN8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here to watch Joel Richardson&rsquo;s podcast with Gary</a></p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here to browse all episodes of The Gary DeMar Podcast</a></p>https://americanvision.org/posts/the-southern-poverty-law-center-is-not-interested-in-poverty-or-justice/Tue, 28 Apr 2026 07:20:01 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/the-southern-poverty-law-center-is-not-interested-in-poverty-or-justice/<p><strong><a href="https://subsplash.com/u/americanvision/give" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Please help us meet a $15K matching challenge here</a></strong></p> <hr> <p>The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been indicted on federal fraud charges, with the U.S. Department of Justice accusing it of wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The charges stem from allegations that the SPLC funneled over $3 million in donor funds between 2014 and 2023 to individuals associated with extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist Party of America, while failing to disclose these payments to donors.</p> <p>Any time those in the liberal media want to disparage the right side of the political spectrum, they call on a pool of go-to guys and gals to make their case for them. It’s not news reporting; it’s ideological position-marketing designed to destroy the competition. One of their reliable sources is the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a money-raising machine for every known and unknown left-wing kook cause. It has gone from tracking the movements of violent racists, skinhead groups, and a brief resurgence of the KKK, to creating hysteria over mainstream value voters like those who are associated with American Vision. We’ve been on their list for years. We lost our PayPal and Stripe accounts. We were sent white powder during the Anthrax scare. Wanted posters of me were posted around our building to frighten AV’s landlord. He thought it was funny.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/mlht1_large.png?v=1365620692" alt="Myths. Lies, and Half-Truths"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Myths. Lies, and Half-Truths</h3> <p>Like the Bereans of Paul’s day (Acts 17:11), Christians should check the veracity of all opinions against the only reliable standard of authority that God has placed in our hands: the Bible. This may mean a change in belief systems for some. There is no novelty in this. God confronted Peter directly about the inclusion of Gentiles into the household of faith (10:9–16). Paul confronted Peter “to his face” on a similar matter (Gal. 2:11–14). There are times when we all need to be knocked off our horse of mistaken opinions (Acts 9:4). “Testing” is a biblical mandate (2 Cor. 13:5; 1 John 4:1).</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/myths-lies-and-half-truths" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>One of SPLC’s supporters assaulted the headquarters of the Family Research Council.</p> <blockquote> <p>“Family Research Council’s appearance on the list gained national attention in 2012 when a gunman, <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/shooter-opens-fire-at-family-research-council-offices-over-groups-policies-wounds-guard-80059/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Floyd Corkins, entered FRC headquarters</a> with the intent of killing everyone there. FRC&rsquo;s building manager, Leo Johnson, subdued Corkins and was shot in the process. Corkins targeted FRC after finding the group on Hatewatch. SPLC has continued to label FRC a hate group even after the shooting.</p> <p>“All the groups listed on Hatewatch, with the exception of black separatists, [George Yancey, professor of sociology at the University of North Texas] notes, are either political or religious conservatives. Yancey believes this is because SPLC is a liberal organization and it is using subjective criteria to choose which groups belong on the list.”</p> </blockquote> <p>If you don’t agree with the SPLC leftist litmus test, then you are probably a member of a “hate group.” With its new definition of what constitutes a hate group, the SPLC has become a fundraising machine. “The <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Times" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Los Angeles Times</a></em> reported that by 2017, the SPLC&rsquo;s financial resources ‘nearly totaled half a billion dollars in assets.’ In 2023, its endowment was $749 million, its revenue was $170 million, and its expenses totaled $122 million. In 2024, revenue and expenses were both $129 million, and the group&rsquo;s endowment grew to $822 million.” The tactic has been to strike fear in middle America, so the checks keep rolling in. Most communities don’t see skinheads or even KKKers, so the SPLC needs a larger tangible enemy.</p> <blockquote> <p>These new “hate groups” [added in 2024] are: Advocates Protecting Children in Virginia, the California Policy Council, the Center for Christian Virtue in Ohio, the Child and Parent Rights Campaign in Georgia, the Family Action Council of Tennessee, the Florida Family Policy Council, Frontline Policy Council in Georgia, the Louisiana Family Forum, Massachusetts Family Institute, the Montana Family Foundation, Pennsylvania Family Institute, and the Family Foundation of Virginia. (<a href="https://www.wnd.com/2024/06/splc-adds-gays-groomers-doctors-oppose-gender-affirming-care-hate-map/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">WND</a>)</p> </blockquote> <p>And medical doctors “who oppose <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/04/11/exclusive-doctors-expose-experimental-gender-affirming-care-truly-florida-medicaid-case/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">experimental “transgender” medical interventions</a> … euphemistically referred to as ‘gender-affirming care,’ involve drugs to block puberty, cross-sex hormones to make males seem female and vice versa, and surgeries to remove healthy reproductive organs.”</p> <p>The SPLC will do anything to keep the bucks rolling in. You might remember the census worker in Kentucky who was found hanging from a tree. Mark Potok, a former senior fellow at the SPLC, was Johnny-on-the-spot with his “expert” analysis. He blamed the incident on “anti-government sentiment very much whipped up by militia” types. Here’s the problem. The man wasn’t murdered by anti-government marauders. “Bill Sparkman, the late Census worker, had killed himself, and staged the homicide hoping to get life insurance for his family. Tragic, yes. Right-wing terrorism? Only in Potok SPLC fantasy-land.”<strong>[1]</strong></p> <p>Even the liberal <em>USA Today</em> got the story right. So, was Potok discredited enough that the media no longer called on him and published his “Hatewatch” list? You already know the answer. Of course not!</p> <p>According to the SPLC, hate has gone mainstream, so you’d better send a donation before these “haters” come and get you, too! Am I making this up? I counted a dozen or more categories of giving on their website.</p> <p>The SPLC is a fundraising industry designed to silence conservatives who want their country back, hold elected officials accountable to their Constitutional oath, and uphold certain moral values. There’s not much money in fighting real hate groups now that only a few of the real haters are still around, so the SPLC needs a bigger, more menacing group of haters — your next-door neighbors and the church down the street, and maybe even you!</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/world101_large.png?v=1564514059" alt="Worldview 101: A Biblical View of the World"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Worldview 101: A Biblical View of the World</h3> <p>Utilizing audio, video, and printed material, Worldview 101 will equip the student with the tools necessary to "think God's thoughts" about the world and the created order. It will reveal and redirect the humanistic thought patterns that exist in each of us. The Enlightenment promised freedom, but brought slavery to man's ideas instead. Worldview 101 points the way forward to true freedom of thought in Christ.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/collections/101-series/products/worldview-101-a-biblical-view-of-the-world" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Muslim extremists who kill soldiers in the name of Allah on an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Fort_Hood_shooting" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">army base</a> or plan to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/nyregion/02timessquare.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">blow up the streets</a> of New York City or blow the limbs off innocent spectators at the Boston Marathon are of little concern when there are bigger fish to fry and more money to bank. Violent illegal alien gangs aren’t on the list. Don’t expect any outrage from the SPLC for what happened in Boulder, Colorado. You won’t find violent transgender people on the list, like the young transgender woman who shot and killed six people at a Christian school.</p> <p>When stories about the Boston Marathon bombings started coming in, the media sycophants had their profile narrative in hand. It looked like American right-wing extremists were the likely perpetrators. Tax Day . . . Patriots Day . . . Waco Anniversary . . . Hitler’s birthday . . . Oklahoma City Bombing. It was a perfect storm of red meat journalism reasons why conservative anger finally had its release valve.</p> <p>David Sirota, a blogger at Slate, rendered this post soon after reports of the bombings came in: “Let’s hope the Boston marathon bomber is a white American.” It would have been the best of all possible worlds. Liberals would have used the incident to bludgeon conservatives 24/7. Gun control would be passed, and confiscation would most likely be the next move.</p> <p>CNN&rsquo;s Christiane Amanpour said, “How many of us feel this burden of association and hope beyond hope that this doesn’t turn out to be what it might be?” What it “might be” was someone associated with Islamic extremism.</p> <p>Amanpour has a history of wanting terrorists to be associated with the right wing. She has a history of sympathies with almost anything that’s not American.</p> <p>Amanpour compared Christian girls who wear long dresses to the Taliban in her six-hour “God’s Warriors” series. The last time I checked, young ladies with long dresses weren’t hiding explosives under them and praying that their children become self-initiated martyrs for Jesus!</p> <p>Amanpour “investigates” homeschooling families as well. What the connection is with Islamicists I’ll never know. Islamic terrorist expert Robert Spencer nailed the blatant, agenda-driven hypocrisy of the left when he wrote, “Homeschooling is evil too? Sheesh. Over 9,000 terror attacks <a href="http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">committed in the name of Islam</a> since 9/11, and Christiane Amanpour is spending her time demonizing homeschoolers.”</p> <hr> <p>[1] Lachlan Markay, “Newsweek Trots Out Discredited SPLC Lawyer Mark Potok to Decry ‘Patriot’ Groups” (April 12, 2010).</p>https://americanvision.org/posts/having-questions-about-the-bible/Mon, 27 Apr 2026 07:15:17 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/having-questions-about-the-bible/<p><em>Gary and Robert Cruickshank</em> <em><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/having-questions-about-the-bible-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">discuss how questions</a></em> <em>they had about what they were reading in the Bible led them to where they are today.</em></p> <p>Preaching about the soon coming of Christ has long been used by Christian prophecy teachers as a way of pleading with the lost to commit themselves to Jesus Christ. Such a motivating device can backfire on even the most well–intentioned evangelist. What happens if a listener shouts out, “Preachers like you have been telling us for centuries that Jesus is coming soon. Why should we believe you now?” By crying wolf and being wrong each time, the church is perceived as unreliable. Skeptics of the Christian faith are likely to conclude that since these self-proclaimed prophets were wrong on the timing of Jesus’ return when they seemed so certain (particularly of the nearness of the rapture, the rise of Antichrist, the Great Tribulation, and Armageddon), then maybe they are wrong on other issues which they teach with equal certainty. Maybe the entire Christian message is a sham.</p> <p>The New Testament does use the <em>near</em> and <em>soon</em> coming of Jesus <em>in judgment</em> as a way of spurring the church on to greater works. The near judgment spoken of in Scripture refers to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, not a distant future coming of Christ. Peter wrote, “The end of all things <strong>is at hand</strong>; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer” (1 Peter 4:7). At hand for whom? If words mean anything, then Peter must have had his contemporary readers in mind. What end was he describing? In Luke’s Gospel we read Jesus saying, “But keep on the alert at all times, praying in order that <strong>you</strong> may have strength to escape all these things that <strong>are about to take place</strong>*,* and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36). John says in his first epistle, “Children, it is the <em>last hour</em>; and just as <em>you</em> heard that antichrist is coming, <strong>even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know it is the last hour</strong>” (1 John 2:18).</p> <p>The Bible is not a book that can be taken lightly. The integrity of the Bible is at stake if we dismiss these clearly worded statements of time. As students of the Bible, we are obligated to take God at His word, even when it contradicts what we’ve been taught by popular prophecy writers.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/files/z14fr_large.png?v=1776945869" alt="Making Prophetic Sense of Zechariah 14"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Making Prophetic Sense of Zechariah 14</h3> <p>Making Prophetic Sense of Zechariah 14 covers a lot of ground, including the history of interpretation going back centuries. As this volume points out, interpretations vary, and some are radically different, even when they agree on the time of fulfillment. There is no consensus, given the fact that it’s one of the most difficult prophetic sections found in Scripture, as many well-known and respected commentators have admitted. The unique feature of this work is that it contains commentaries by two people, Robert Cruickshank, Jr., and Gary DeMar. While they may differ along the way, they both agree that the prophecy has been fulfilled. </p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/making-prophetic-sense-of-zechariah-14" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Gary interviews Robert Cruickshank at a conference in Virginia Beach. Gary and Robert have known each other for a long time through phone calls and email but had never met personally until this interview. The two discuss how questions they had about what they were reading in the Bible led them to where they are today.</p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/having-questions-about-the-bible-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for today’s episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here to browse all episodes of The Gary DeMar Podcast</a></p>https://americanvision.org/posts/episode-89-the-puzzle-of-this-generation/Fri, 24 Apr 2026 07:52:25 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/episode-89-the-puzzle-of-this-generation/<p><strong><a href="https://subsplash.com/u/americanvision/give" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Please help us meet a $15K matching challenge here</a></strong></p> <hr> <p><strong>Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope-Episode 89</strong></p> <p><em>Using the analogy of a puzzle, Gary <a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/the-puzzle-of-this-generation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">points out</a> that many prophetic systems try to fit biblical facts into their system, but without having the full picture from the front of the puzzle box.</em></p> <p>Who does Jesus say will see “all these things”? Certainly not a future audience. “So, you too, when you see all these things.” The first “you” is obviously Jesus’ present audience as is the second “you.” No one reading Matthew 24:33 could conceive that either use of “you” by Jesus refers to an audience different from the audience to whom Jesus was addressing. If Jesus had a future generation in mind, He could have eliminated all confusion by saying, “even so they too, when they see all these things, they will recognize that He is near, right at the door. Truly I say to you, that generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” Of course, that’s not what the verses say.</p> <p>The use of “this” confirms that the only generation in view is the one in Jesus’ day. As Greek grammar books point out, the near demonstrative “this” is always used in the New Testament to describe what is near in terms of time, place, and distance:</p> <blockquote> <p>The demonstrative[s] . . . are of two kinds: near [this/these] and distant [that/those]. The near demonstratives, as the name denotes, points to someone or something “near,” in close proximity. They appear as the singular word “this” and its plural “these.” The distant demonstratives, as their name suggests, appear as “that” (singular), or “those” (plural).<strong>[1]</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>We can follow the way Matthew uses the near demonstrative “this” throughout his gospel to see that he has his present audience in view and not one in the distant future: “this way” (6:9), “this day” (6:11), “this fellow” (9:3), “this news” (9:26), “this city” (10:23), “this place” (12:6), “this man” (13:56), “this people” (15:8); “this rock” (15:18), “this desolate place” (15:33), “this little child” (18:4), “this mountain” (21:21), “this stone” (21:44), “this image” (22:20), “this gospel” (24:14), “this generation” (24:34), “this woman” (26:13), “this night” (26:31). “This” refers to what’s near.</p> <p>If Jesus had wanted to identify a future generation, He could have chosen the adjective <em>that</em> to distinguish the generation to whom He was speaking from a future generation (e.g., Matt. 7:22 [“that day” is in the future]; 8:12 [“that place” refers to the place of judgment distant from our place and time]; 10:19 [“that hour” refers to a future time]; 24:10 [“and at that time” refers to a future time but within the time parameters of “this generation”]; 24:36 [“that day and hour” refers to a future day and hour that was near the end of their generation (1 John 2:18; Heb. 10:25), not their present day and hour]; 26:29 [“that day” refers to a time when Jesus is in the kingdom, a future time]).</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/WRWfr_large.png?v=1678474893" alt="Wars and Rumors of Wars"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Wars and Rumors of Wars</h3> <p>A first-century interpretation of the Olivet Discourse was once common in commentaries and narrative-style books that describe the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. There is also a history of skeptics who turn to Bible prophecy and claim Jesus was wrong about the timing of His coming at “the end of the age” and the signs associated with it. A mountain of scholarship shows that the prophecy given by Jesus was fulfilled in exacting detail when He said it would: before the generation of those to whom He was speaking passed away.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/wars-and-rumors-of-wars" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Using the analogy of a puzzle, Gary points out that many prophetic systems try to fit biblical facts into their system, but without having the full picture from the front of the puzzle box. Bible prophecy isn&rsquo;t a stand-alone discipline within biblical interpretation; it must stand alongside everything else taught in Scripture. In other words, it must be consistent with all the Bible teaches from Genesis to Revelation.</p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/the-puzzle-of-this-generation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for today’s episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://americanvision.org/categories/microscope/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for all episodes of Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope</a></p> <hr> <p>[1] Cullen I K Story and J. Lyle Story, <em>Greek To Me: Learning New Testament Greek Through Memory Visualization</em> (New York: Harper, 1979), 74. “This” refers “to something comparatively near at hand, just as <em>ekeinos</em> [that] refers to something comparatively farther away.” William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, <em>A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature</em>, 4th ed. (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1952), 600. “Sometimes it is desired to call attention with special emphasis to a designated object, whether in the physical vicinity or the speaker or the literary context of the writer. For this purpose the demonstrative construction is used… For that which is relatively near in actuality or thought the immediate demonstrative [<em>houtos</em>] is used… For that which is relatively distant in actuality or thought the remote demonstrative [<em>ekeinos</em>] is used.” H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, <em>A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament</em> (New York; Macmillan, 1957), 127-128, sec. 136.</p>https://americanvision.org/posts/but-what-about-zechariah-14-/Thu, 23 Apr 2026 08:32:57 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/but-what-about-zechariah-14-/<p>No matter how much prophetic material you cover, there are always people who ask, “But what about this verse and that verse?” My first foray into dealing with Bible prophecy was <em><a href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/the-reduction-of-christianity" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">The Reduction of Christianity: Dave Hunt’s Theology of Cultural Surrender</a></em>, published in 1988. This was followed by <em><a href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/the-debate-over-christian-reconstruction" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">The Debate over Christian Reconstruction</a></em> that same year. It was a response to a debate that Dr. Gary North and I had with Dave Hunt and Thomas Ice that year in Dallas. In 1991, the first edition of <em><a href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/last-days-madness" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Last Days Madness</a></em> was published by Wolgemuth &amp; Hyatt. Many more books followed, along with articles, debates, and radio interviews.</p> <p>Each subsequent book and article attempted to answer additional prophetic passages. <em>Last Days Madness</em> was expanded. I wrote a response to the <a href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/left-behind-separating-fact-from-fiction" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Left Behind</a> series that was published by Thomas Nelson. This was followed by my study of <a href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/the-gog-and-magog-end-time-alliance-israel-russia-and-syria-in-bible-prophecy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Ezekiel 38 and 39 and Zechariah 12</a>.</p> <p>No matter how much material I covered, I would always get an email from someone asking, “But what about Zechariah 14?,” as if everything I had written up to that point was negated because I had not dealt with one of the most difficult chapters in the Bible. Well, after many years of tinkering, I have finished my verse-by-verse study of Zechariah 14. Robert Cruickshank joined me in this venture. The result is <em><strong><a href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/making-prophetic-sense-of-zechariah-14" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Making Prophetic Sense of Zechariah 14</a></strong></em>. It’s two commentaries in one. We each take a stab at interpreting the chapter.</p> <p><em>Making Prophetic Sense of Zechariah 14</em> covers a lot of ground, including the history of interpretation going back centuries. As this volume points out, interpretations vary, and some are radically different, even when they agree on the time of fulfillment. There is no consensus, given the fact that it’s one of the most difficult prophetic sections found in Scripture, as many well-known and respected commentators have admitted.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/files/z14fr_large.png?v=1776945869" alt="Making Prophetic Sense of Zechariah 14"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Making Prophetic Sense of Zechariah 14</h3> <p>There was a first audience to receive what was revealed to Zechariah, and much interpretive difficulty arises from failing to understand Scripture as the original readers would have. Can you imagine someone saying, “This is not for us; we can rest easy. It’s really meant for a single generation thousands of years in the future”? The better approach is to investigate the prophecies in terms of their time and place in redemptive history. Zechariah 14 has been interpreted in various ways throughout history. The chapter describes a future “Day of the Lord.” How far in the future is that time, and what events does the final chapter of Zechariah describe?</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/making-prophetic-sense-of-zechariah-14" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Preterists interpret Zechariah 14 as a prophecy that has been mostly fulfilled, and in some cases, fully fulfilled. The earliest era for fulfillment would have been “in the days of the Maccabean Revolt in the early second century B.C.,” a view held by many scholars like Ephraem the Syrian (c. 306-337), Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 350- 428), Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), John Calvin (1509-1564), Dathius (1773), Hermen Venema (1697-1787).<strong>[1]</strong> Calvin observed, “the Prophet meant here to include the calamities which were near at hand, for the city had not yet been built, the Jews having been much harassed by their neighbors; and we also know how atrocious was the tyranny which Antiochus exercised: in short, there was a continued series of evils from the time the city and the temple began to be built till the coming of Christ.”<strong>[2]</strong></p> <p>In addition to finding fulfillment in events of the post-exilic period, others contend that elements of fulfillment occurred in the first century.</p> <p>Zechariah 14:1-2 is understood by some preterists as describing the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. Others understand it as a prelude to events leading up to the time of the incarnation, Jesus’ ministry, and culminating in the destruction of the temple in AD 70. The “gathering of nations” against Jerusalem is seen as God using Rome as an instrument of judgment. The “plague” and “rotting flesh” are interpreted as references to the starvation and internal violence during the siege, as described by the eyewitness testimony of Josephus (AD 37-100 in his historical work <em>The Wars of the Jews</em>.</p> <p>Zechariah 14:3-7 is interpreted as a symbolic fulfillment, not a physical splitting of the Mount of Olives, like John the Baptist’s comments about mountains being brought low and valleys raised (Isa. 40:3-5; Luke 3:6). Some preterists argue that the “feet of the Lord standing on the Mount of Olives” symbolizes Christ’s presence and victory over the Roman Empire, not a physical return. Actually, Jesus did physically stand on the Mount of Olives (Matt. 21:1; Acts 1:12). Zechariah does not say that the Lord comes down and physically stands on the Mount of Olives, but even if it did, there’s precedence for that action (Isa. 19:1). The “splitting” of the mountain is viewed metaphorically representing the breaking down of the barrier between Jew and Gentile, fulfilled in the early Church’s expansion (Eph. 2:14). The “Valley of the Mountains” is seen as a route for the faithful remnant to flee, aligning with the Christian flight to Pella in AD 66.</p> <p>Key support comes from New Testament parallels: Matthew 23:34-39, where Jesus says the generation alive in His day would see Jerusalem’s destruction; Luke 21:22, which links the siege to the “abomination of desolation”; and Revelation 19, which describes a heavenly celebration after the fall of “Babylon” (symbolizing Jerusalem’s corrupt system).</p> <p>Notable preterist scholars such as Eusebius (c. AD 260/265-339), Theodoret of Cyrus (c. 393-c. 458/466), and Tertullian (c. 155-c. 220), interpreted Zechariah 14:4 as a prophecy mostly fulfilled in the work of Christ during His earthly ministry. Matthew Henry (1662-1714) notes the imagery of “his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives” (Zech. 14:4) was fulfilled when Jesus ascended from the Mount of Olives (Acts 1:12). The mountain splitting in two—creating a great valley—symbolizes the removal of barriers, particularly the division between Jews and Gentiles, enabling the gospel to spread universally.</p> <p>Admittedly, as we can see by the various interpretations, Zechariah 14 is difficult to interpret. What follows after the Introduction is a verse-by-verse study of this popular and diversely interpreted chapter. The variety of interpretations over the centuries has been legion; even among the interpretive positions, there are differences. The following is the Editor’s note from John Calvin’s commentary on Zechariah 14:</p> <blockquote> <p>[J.A.] <em>Dathius</em> [1773] truly says, that interpreters have toiled much in the explanation of this chapter, some taking the words in a spiritual sense, others maintaining that what is here said was fulfilled before the coming of Christ, and a third party holding that all is as yet unfulfilled. He was disposed on the whole to assent to the opinion of <em>Grotius</em>, the same in part with that of Calvin—that this prophecy, as well as some in the preceding chapters, were fulfilled in the times of the Maccabees. See 1 Maccabees 6:26, etc. He indeed admits that this theory does not remove all the difficulties but leaves less than any other.</p> <p>[Johannes] <em>Marckius</em> [1656-1731] doubted not but that the beginning of this chapter is a prophecy concerning the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and he quotes <em>Jerome</em> [c. 347-420], <em>Cyril</em> [c. 376-444], and <em>Theodoret</em> [c. 393-458/446] as having expressed the same opinion.</p> <p><em>Lowth, Scott, Adam Clarke,</em> and <em>Henderson</em> take the same view. But the sequel of this chapter may be better explained by the events which followed the attacks of the Greco-Syrian kings on Jerusalem (see 2 Maccabees 4) than by the events which followed the ruin of that city by the Romans.</p> <p>[Benjamin] <em>Blayney</em> <strong>[3]</strong> [1721-1801] viewed the contents of this chapter, and much of what is found in the preceding chapters, as yet unfulfilled: and so does <em>Newcome</em> in part. [Matthew] <em>Henry</em> is doubtful whether this chapter and the preceding are to be understood of the whole period from the Prophet’s days to the days of the Messiah, or to some events during that time, or to Christ’s coming and the setting up of his kingdom upon the ruins of the Jewish polity.<strong>[4]</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>Martin Luther wrote two commentaries on Zechariah, the first in Latin and the second in German. The Latin edition stopped at Zechariah 13:7-9. Later, he wrote an expanded German edition. When he gets to Zechariah 14, he wrote, “In this chapter, I give up, for I am not sure what the prophet is talking about.”<strong>[5]</strong> Luther’s not alone.</p> <p>Jonathan Menn argues that “the Olivet Discourse is a ‘retelling’ of Zechariah 14. The idea that Jesus was alluding to or ‘retelling’ Zechariah 14 is reinforced by his references to ‘fleeing’ [Matt. 24:16; Mark 13:14; Luke 21:21; compare Zech. 14:5], the sun and the moon being darkened [Matt. 24:29; Mark 13:24; Luke 21:25; compare Zech. 14:6], and his coming with ‘<em>all the angels with Him</em>’ [Matt. 25:31; compare Zech. 14:5b].”<strong>[6]</strong> If this is true, and since the Olivet Discourse described what would happen to that present generation (Matt. 24:34), then Zechariah 14 is a fulfilled prophecy.<strong>[7]</strong> When Rome turned its military forces against the Jews from AD 66-73 in what Josephus described as “The Wars of the Jews,” would any Jew who was familiar with Jesus’ comments from the Mount of Olives have concluded that He was describing a different tribulation from the one they were experiencing (Matt. 24:21; Rev. 1:9) that would have included another rebuilt temple?</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/files/z14fr_large.png?v=1776945869" alt="Making Prophetic Sense of Zechariah 14"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Making Prophetic Sense of Zechariah 14</h3> <p>There was a first audience to receive what was revealed to Zechariah, and much interpretive difficulty arises from failing to understand Scripture as the original readers would have. Can you imagine someone saying, “This is not for us; we can rest easy. It’s really meant for a single generation thousands of years in the future”? The better approach is to investigate the prophecies in terms of their time and place in redemptive history. Zechariah 14 has been interpreted in various ways throughout history. The chapter describes a future “Day of the Lord.” How far in the future is that time, and what events does the final chapter of Zechariah describe?</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/making-prophetic-sense-of-zechariah-14" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Zechariah 14 addresses events leading up to the incarnation of Christ and subsequent events related to His earthly ministry, particularly the final days preceding His crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension. Also, there may be some allusions to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Those who contend that the prophecy was fulfilled in our past are obligated to make their case by appealing to actual historical events, some of which may never have been recorded. Futurists hold a favorable position, as they maintain that the events described in Zechariah remain in the future, even after Christians and other Bible commentators are no longer present to debate the issue.</p> <hr> <p>[1] Al Wolters, “Zechariah 14: A Dialogue with the History of Interpretation,” <em>Mid-America Journal of Theology</em> 13 (2002), 42.</p> <p>[2] John Calvin, <em>Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets</em>, 5 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950), 5:405.</p> <p>[3] Benjamin Blayney, <em>Zechariah; A New Translation: With Notes, Critical, Philological, and Explanatory</em>…(Oxford/London: J. Cooke, Cadell, and Davies, 1797): <a href="http://bit.ly/2W9OBzP" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">http://bit.ly/2W9OBzP</a></p> <p>[4] John Calvin, <em>Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets</em>, 5 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950), 5:406, note 1.</p> <p>[5] Hilton C. Oswald, ed., Martin Luther, “Lectures on Zechariah,” <em>Luther’s Works, Lectures on the Minor Prophets III: Zechariah</em>, trans. Walther H. Miller (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House [1527] 1973), 20:337.</p> <p>[6] Jonathan Menn, <em>Biblical Eschatology</em>, 2nd ed. (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, [2013] 2018), 446.</p> <p>[7] Gary DeMar, <em>Wars and Rumors of Wars: What Jesus Really Said About the End of the Age, Earthquakes, a Great Tribulation, Signs in the Heavens, and His Coming</em>, 2nd ed. (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, [2017] 2023).</p>https://americanvision.org/posts/everything-is-connected/Wed, 22 Apr 2026 07:12:17 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/everything-is-connected/<p><strong><a href="https://subsplash.com/u/americanvision/give" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Please help us meet a $15K matching challenge here</a></strong></p> <p><em>Gary <a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/everything-is-connected" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">discusses</a> economic policies and ideas that sound good on the surface, but set generations of people up for long-term failures and government dependency.</em></p> <p>The professed goal of economic equality has long been used by tyrants as a cover for the most brutal kinds of intervention. It is a fetish, held up before the poor to excite envy, dangled in front of the rich to induce guilt. Revolution and statist oppression are facilitated thereby: the envious will rebel, and the guilty will have been rendered impotent. Ronald Sider does not want the biblical idea of equality before the law—which assumes that there are distinctions among men, and guarantees justice for all, and freedom to fulfill one&rsquo;s calling under God. Sider instead wants a state-enforced egalitarianism, a deliberate, coercive policy of levelling all men to conform to arbitrary, man-made canons of &ldquo;social justice.&rdquo; Equality before the law is incompatible with egalitarianism. The socialist doctrine of economic equality requires the stealing of property and the prohibition of economic freedoms. It ignores the fact that &ldquo;the LORD makes both poor and rich&rdquo; (1 Samuel 2:7), and that if men desire to improve their economic standing they must submit themselves to Him, work hard, and call upon Him for blessing: &ldquo;Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.&rdquo; (1 Peter 5:6-7). But the socialist does not humble himself; he envies. He does not work; he steals. Sider&rsquo;s plea for &ldquo;equality&rdquo; is in reality a grasp for power:</p> <blockquote> <p>The constantly growing demand for food must stop—or at least slow down dramatically. That means reduced affluence in rich nations and population control everywhere.</p> </blockquote> <p>We have already taken notice of several of his other goals, all to be implemented by the state, and all in the name of equality: &ldquo;Just prices,&rdquo; tariffs, commodity agreements, land &ldquo;reform,&rdquo; nationalization of private industries—and, in a passage quoted already, &ldquo;a new world economic order&rdquo;—in other words, &ldquo;equality&rdquo; imposed by a world government.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/files/ScreenShot2023-09-25at6.33.22PM_large.png?v=1695681488" alt="Productive Christians: A Biblical Response to Socialist Economics"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Productive Christians: A Biblical Response to Socialist Economics</h3> <p>In Productive Christians: A Biblical Response to Socialist Economics, David Chilton exposes the follies and fallacies of socialism, but he also systematically outlines the biblical alternative — an alternative that lays the groundwork for real justice, progress, prosperity, and freedom for the rich, the poor, and everyone in between. First published nearly half a century ago, it is more relevant and more prescient than ever. Chilton’s crystalline prose and take-no-prisoners style is as entertaining as it is informative. This is the way books on economic issues should be written: biblical, understandable, and practical. This new edition also includes a 23-page appendix that Chilton wrote 43 years ago. "Studies in Amos" is an eight-part article series originally released in 1980.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/productive-christians-in-an-age-of-guilt-manipulators" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Gary discusses economic policies and ideas that sound good on the surface, but set generations of people up for long-term failures and government dependency. Socialistic promises sound appealing, but someone (spoiler alert: you, the taxpayer) always has to come up with the money to fund these promises. Taking from one area always affects other areas because our economy is interconnected.</p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/everything-is-connected" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for today’s episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here to browse all episodes of The Gary DeMar Podcast</a></p>https://americanvision.org/posts/why-millennial-animal-sacrifices-undermine-christianity/Tue, 21 Apr 2026 08:02:26 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/why-millennial-animal-sacrifices-undermine-christianity/<p>Joel Richardson posted the following on Facebook: “Why Millennial Sacrifices Do Not Undermine the Cross.” There are several problems with this claim. <em>First</em>, Revelation 20 does not say Jesus will reign on Earth for the symbolic thousand years, that another temple will be built (I’m losing count), or that animal sacrifices will take place. Everything the premils say about Revelation must be imported from other parts of the Bible, without regard to context. This was an early practice, as I show in chapter 3 of <em><strong><a href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/new-testament-eschatology-what-the-early-church-believed-about-bible-prophecy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">New Testament Eschatology</a></strong></em>.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/files/NTEfr_large.png?v=1712955428" alt="New Testament Eschatology: What the Early Church Believed About Bible Prophecy"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>New Testament Eschatology: What the Early Church Believed About Bible Prophecy</h3> <p>It has been maintained by some modern writers that the early church was predominately premillennial and exclusively futuristic on Bible prophecy. While these claims have been made with certainty, there has always been a lack of clear historical documentation to support them. Sometimes the historical record has been stretched and exaggerated to fit an already developed theory. But since the futurist perspective has been promoted as an early church reality by so many for so long, few question it. New Testament Eschatology challenges this prevailing futurist view with a careful study of the historical record. The evidence shows that many early church writers understood the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 to be the end of the Old Covenant world.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/new-testament-eschatology-what-the-early-church-believed-about-bible-prophecy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p><em>Second</em>, there is nothing in Scripture where we are told that animal sacrifices should or could serve as a memorial for the fulfilled redemptive work of Jesus.</p> <p><em>Third</em>, has Joel Richardson read the book of Hebrews? An entire NT book was written to settle any ambiguity about the temporary typological sacrificial system that had passed away.</p> <p>Some people commented that the temple rites were still operating. This is true. Paul went along with them to gain access to his Jewish audience. “Because of the Jews” (Acts 16:3). Paul had to deal with “the false brethren who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage” (Gal. 2:4). It’s worth reading Paul’s entire argument in Galatians 2, including his rebuke of Peter. The dispute with the Judaizers could have been resolved by saying, “You can continue to circumcise and offer sacrifices as memorials.” It would have created what Paul and the rest of the NT writers were trying to avoid, and dispensationalists want to perpetuate. There aren’t two trees: there’s only one (Rom. 11:11-24). There aren’t two men: there’s only one “new man in Christ” (Eph. 2:11-22).</p> <p>In Tim LaHaye’s <em>Prophecy Study Bible</em>, we read what dispensationalists claim will take place during the “millennium.” “No foreigner who is uncircumcised in heart and flesh may enter [the temple], neither will any descendants of the Levites conduct services, other than the godly descendants of Zadok.”<strong>[1]</strong> There aren’t any descendants of Zadok. And if there were, they would not be needed. Circumcision of the heart was an Old Covenant requirement (Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4). While circumcision of the heart is still required under the New Covenant (Rom. 2:28-29), physical circumcision is not. Those in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, are the “true circumcision” (Phil. 3:2-3).</p> <p>John C. Whitcomb, Jr., in his article on “The Millennial Temple” in Tim LaHaye’s <em>Prophecy Study Bible</em>, writes that “five different offerings in Ezekiel (43:13-46:15), four of them with bloodletting, will serve God’s purposes. These offerings are not voluntary but obligatory; God will ‘accept’ people on the basis of these animal sacrifices (43:27), which make reconciliation [atonement] for the house of Israel (45:17, cf. 45:15).”<strong>[2]</strong> Whitcomb attempts to moderate the problems associated with this unbiblical view by claiming that “the offerings will not take away sin (see Heb. 10:4), but they will be effective in sanctifying Israelites ceremonially because of His infinitely holy presence in their midst.”<strong>[3]</strong> This is crazy talk!</p> <p>This interpretation is impossible for at least three reasons. <em>First</em>, these sacrifices are said to be “for atonement” (reconciliation) (Ezek. 45:15, 17), not as Whitcomb claimed, “as effective vehicles of divine instruction for Israel and the nations during the Millennial Kingdom.”<strong>[4]</strong> <em>Second</em>, Jesus is the once-for-all sacrifice whose blood cleanses us from sin (Heb. 7:26-27; 8:13; 9:11-15; 10:5-22; 1 Peter 3:18). <em>Third</em>, sanctification comes by “the washing of water with the word” (Eph. 5:26), not by the washing of blood from animal sacrifices.</p> <blockquote> <p>Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe;</p> <p>Sin had left a crimson stain,</p> <p>He washed it white as snow.<strong>[5]</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>Jesus said it Himself, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The debt of sin has been paid—<em>tetelestai</em>. The covenants made with Noah, Abraham, and David are complete. There’s nothing left to fulfill. Any return to the shadows of the Old Testament darkens the truth that Jesus is “the light of the world” (John 8:12). “Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow” (James 1:17). Notice how the apostle Paul calls on God’s people not to let anyone judge them regarding “food and drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon, or a Sabbath day—things which are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ” (Col. 2:16-17). Those were the “elementary principles of the oracles of God” that the New Testament Christians were told to leave behind (Heb. 6:1).</p> <p>In the original <em>Scofield Reference Bible</em> (1909), a note on the nature of these blood sacrifices described in Ezekiel seeks to obscure the problem related to blood sacrifices during the thousand years of Revelation 20 by claiming that “these offerings will be memorial, looking back to the cross, as the offerings under the old covenant were anticipatory, looking forward to the cross.” I wonder why the Judaizers didn’t think of this argument.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/files/10PMfr_large.png?v=1726012494" alt="Ten Popular Prophecy Myths Exposed and Answered"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Ten Popular Prophecy Myths Exposed and Answered</h3> <p>Since the reestablishment of Israel in 1948, “end-time” prophetic speculation has been on the rise. While there is a long history of date setting, the past century has seen an exponential increase in the number of books proclaiming that the end is near. It’s time that the “Boy who cried wolf” syndrome be dealt with in a biblical way. Millions of books have been sold proclaiming countless false prophecies. Many Christians are beginning to take a second look at the biblical prophetic record. A seismic shift in biblical eschatology is taking place around the world because Christians, some for the first time, are willing to challenge what they have been taught based on what the Bible actually says.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/ten-popular-prophecy-myths-exposed-and-answered" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>A note in the <em>New Scofield Reference Bible</em> (1967) acknowledges that “a problem is posed” by the atoning nature of these sacrifices “since the N.T. clearly teaches that animal sacrifices do not in themselves cleanse away sin (Heb. 10:4) and that the one sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ that was made at Calvary completely provides for such expiation (cp. Heb. 9:12, 26, 28; 10:10, 14).” How do the editors solve the problem given their literal hermeneutic? First by suggesting that the blood sacrifices “will be memorial in character,”<strong>[6]</strong> and second, “the references to sacrifices is [<em>sic</em>] not to be taken literally.” Ryrie takes a similar position: “If the great festivals of Passover and Tabernacles are to be observed during the Millennium, there is no reason why sacrifices would not also be offered. Then, of course, they will be memorials of the finished sacrifice of Christ.” Where Jesus says, “It is finished” (John 19:30), dispensationalists claim that bloodletting and blood sacrifices will continue for a future thousand years with the slain, resurrected, and glorified Jesus sitting on David’s throne from Jerusalem. With His nail prints and sliced side in plain view, the people will still be sacrificing animals!</p> <p>Ezekiel does not say these sacrifices “will be memorials.” The Bible clearly states that they are “for atonement” (Ezek. 45:17, 20). This means that Ezekiel’s visionary temple was either part of the Old Covenant renewal of the sacrificial system that arose during the post-exile restoration period, or the fulfillment that came through the once-for-all redemptive work of Jesus (Luke 24:25-27, 44-45). Jesus is the fulfillment of the temple and sacrificial system. “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Heb. 9:12). Why would there ever be a need for such memorials when we have the Original is Jesus! Are we to assume that the description of the crucifixion is not enough? Do we need the shadow to memorialize the reality?</p> <p>If the sacrifices are “memorial in character,” as Scofield and Ryrie claim, or are “not to be taken literally,” which Whitcomb contends, then such conclusions violate dispensationalism’s insistence that since “fulfilled promises have been fulfilled in a literal way,” then “that leads to the conclusion that all the promises will have a literal fulfillment.”<strong>[7]</strong></p> <p>If the millennial sacrifices are a “memorial” looking backward in time, why did the author of Hebrews make such an issue of all the blood sacrifices being done away with in terms of what Jesus did if they could be practiced as a memorial? It makes no sense because the Bible doesn’t even hint at the absurdity of it all. Richardson and those who support his views are reviving the Judaizer heresy.</p> <hr> <p>[1] Tim LaHaye, gen. ed., <em>LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible</em> (LPSB)(Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2000), 886, comments on Ezekiel 44:5-15.</p> <p>[2] John C. Whitcomb, Jr., “The Millennial Temple,” LPSB, 883.</p> <p>[3] Whitcomb, “The Millennial Temple,” 883.</p> <p>[4] Whitcomb, “The Millennial Temple,” 883.</p> <p>[5] “Jesus Paid it All” by Elvina M. Hall (1865).</p> <p>[6] Charles Feinberg follows the memorial approach when explaining why there will be animal sacrifices during the millennium. “The Church has had for some 1900 years a memorial of that sacrifice of Christ in the Lord’s Supper; Israel as such has had none. [Animal sacrifices] will be that memorial for them primarily.” Jesus stated that “this cup [filled with wine] is the new covenant in My blood” (Luke 22:20; cf. 1 Cor. 11:25). Remembrance of Jesus’ shed blood is done through wine, not the blood of animals. Since Jesus will be physically present, according to premillennialists, won’t the nail marks in His hands and feet and the spear mark in His side be enough to remind people of His redemptive ordeal? The Lord’s Supper was inaugurated with Jews using wine and bread. Feinberg reasons, “If no sacrifices are needed where Christ is present, why were they permitted of God all through the earthly ministry of Christ?” The simple and obvious reason is that Jesus had not yet shed His blood. Feinberg hoped to defend his view by asking this question: “And, thirdly, greater wonder still, why, after He had assuredly perfected our salvation forever on the cross, did God allow those sacrifices to go on until 70 A.D. when the temple was destroyed?” Charles L. Feinberg, <em>Premillennialism or Amillennialism?: The Premillennial and Amillennial Systems of Biblical Interpretation Analyzed and Compared</em>, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Van Kampen Press, 1954), 336-337. The fact that God called for the destruction of the temple, which included the sacrificial system, is clear testimony that the sacrificial system was finished when Jesus’ redemptive work ended.</p> <p>[7] Benware, <em>Understanding End Times Prophecy</em>, 34.</p>https://americanvision.org/posts/economics-in-the-first-century/Mon, 20 Apr 2026 07:09:12 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/economics-in-the-first-century/<p><em>Gary <a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/economics-in-the-first-century-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">continues his interview</a> with economist Jerry Bowyer. Many details given in the Gospels are extremely important for a proper interpretation of what Jesus said and did and why.</em></p> <p>Theologians virtually ignore the economic commentary in the Bible. In the few cases where it gets any attention, economic commentary in the Gospels and other New Testament writings tend to lapse into simplistic class warfare nostrums. Liberation theologians import Marxism wholesale (but they try to sell it retail) into theology. Academic historians of first Century Palestine/Judea have been pushing an account of a poor peasant Jesus leading a poor peasant’s revolt based on the idea of mass displaced workers in Lower Galilee.</p> <p>Actual archeological findings paint a picture of an industrious and entrepreneurial economy during Jesus’s time there. Reading the Gospels in light of archeology and history, which are now available to us, gives us a very different picture than the one you’ve been told regarding what Jesus taught about work and money.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/maker-takers_large.jpg?v=1648865334" alt="The Maker vs. the Takers"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>The Maker vs. the Takers</h3> <p>"This is how biblical theology should be done. Jerry Bowyer mines the New Testament for all kinds of usually overlooked details that help explain the time, traditions, and most importantly, the economics of first century Jerusalem and the surrounding culture to understand the heart of what Jesus was actually teaching." —Gary DeMar</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/the-maker-vs-the-takers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Gary continues his interview with economist Jerry Bowyer. Many details given in the Gospels are extremely important for a proper interpretation of what Jesus said and did and why. These historical and cultural clues are often overlooked, but they add depth and context to the New Testament that modern readers can and should apply to their reading and preaching of the Gospel.</p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/economics-in-the-first-century-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for today’s episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here to browse all episodes of The Gary DeMar Podcast</a></p>https://americanvision.org/posts/episode-88-the-islamic-mahdi-the-antichrist-gog-and-magog/Fri, 17 Apr 2026 08:09:41 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/episode-88-the-islamic-mahdi-the-antichrist-gog-and-magog/<p><strong>Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope-Episode 88</strong></p> <p><em>Gary <a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/the-islamic-mahdi-the-antichrist-gog-and-magog" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">discusses</a> current Facebook speculation about the war in Iran, Islam, and Ezekiel 39-39.</em></p> <p>My library is filled with books that attempt to make the case that the events predicted in Ezekiel 38 and 39 are on our prophetic horizon, and it seems that each month a new book appears insisting that “given the current world situation, nuclear war is inevitable.”<strong>[1]</strong> Of course, a nuclear war might indeed take place, but we have to question whether Bible passages like Ezekiel 38­ –39 and Zechariah 12 make such a prediction.</p> <p>These and other chapters are used by modern-day prophecy writers to defend the belief that Russia and her Islamic neighbors will attack Israel. It’s argued that this attack will put into motion a series of geo-political events that will set the stage for a coming world leader and an eventual worldwide “great tribulation” that can only be stopped by the direct intervention of God, but only after the Battle of Armageddon when billions of people have died.</p> <p>This interpretation has a history going back to the eighteenth century but gained near universal acceptance with the publication of the first edition of the <em>Scofield Reference Bible</em> in 1909. The extended note that Cyrus I. Scofield adds to Ezekiel 38 in the 1917 revised edition identifies Russia as the subject of the two-chapter prophecy. He includes Zechariah 12:1–4 as a parallel passage. So many contemporary prophecy writers follow the script outlined by Scofield and others before him that this interpretation has become a point of prophetic orthodoxy.</p> <p><em>The Gog and Magog End-Time Alliance</em> will challenge the arguments used by today’s prophecy writers who claim modern-day Russia is the subject of Ezekiel and Zechariah’s prophecies that will set off a chain events leading to the end of our world as we know it.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/gog_front_large.jpg?v=1453287902" alt="The Gog and Magog End-Time Alliance"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>The Gog and Magog End-Time Alliance</h3> <p>What if we read Ezekiel 38 and 39 literally? Is it possible that the Gog and Magog alliance that was designed “to destroy, to kill and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, women and children” has already taken place? That’s exactly what The Gog and Magog End-Time Alliance attempts to show.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/the-gog-and-magog-end-time-alliance-israel-russia-and-syria-in-bible-prophecy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Gary discusses current Facebook speculation about the war in Iran, Islam, and Ezekiel 39-39. Once again, the popularizers take world events and cram them into a verse or two in the Bible, completely ignoring both the original context and the audience. They claim to interpret the Bible &ldquo;literally&rdquo; but stop doing so when the biblical facts don&rsquo;t fit their current scenario.</p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/the-islamic-mahdi-the-antichrist-gog-and-magog" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for today’s episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://americanvision.org/categories/microscope/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for all episodes of Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope</a></p> <hr> <p>[1] Tim LaHaye and Ed Hindson, <em>Global Warning: Are We on the Brink of World War III?</em> (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2007), 84.</p>https://americanvision.org/posts/borrowed-moral-capital-is-holding-the-world-together-but-for-how-long/Thu, 16 Apr 2026 07:13:56 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/borrowed-moral-capital-is-holding-the-world-together-but-for-how-long/<p>The phrase &ldquo;Do you believe in God?&rdquo; is a direct line from Andy Weir&rsquo;s novel <em>Project Hail Mary</em>, where the character Ryland Grace asks his colleague Steve if he believes in God. In the 2026 film adaptation, this question is reimagined as a conversation between Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) and project leader Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller).</p> <p>Stratt responds to Grace’s inquiry about her faith with the line, “It’s better than the alternative” (or “It beats the alternative”), acknowledging that belief in God offers hope when scientific odds are overwhelmingly against them. Well, it’s more than that. (If you watch the film in a movie theater, stay for the closing credits and listen to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUuCQv5EJhM" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Ike and Tina Turner song, “Glory, Glory.”</a>)</p> <p>Richard Dawkins, a prominent high priest of the religion of atheism, has declared that he’s a “cultural Christian.” Of course, he is. He has no other choice. So is every atheist who doesn’t consistently follow through with his or her atheistic assumptions. If I could sit down with Mr. Dawkins, I would press him to be logically consistent with his materialistic, atheistic, and evolutionary assumptions. I would have him consider Canada’s Psycho Killer or watch this short video titled “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x__pGaIXKic" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Cruel Logic</a>.”</p> <p>Luka Rocco Magnotta (born Eric Clinton Newman) was accused of killing and dismembering 33-year-old Lin Juna, a male Chinese student. Magnotta carved up Juna’s body, sexually abused the corpse, and filmed and posted the horror online.</p> <blockquote> <p>Days after the killing, Montreal police discovered the victim’s torso in a suitcase by the trash outside an apartment along a busy highway.</p> <p>His severed hands and feet were sent through the mail to federal political parties in Ottawa and to two schools in Vancouver. The head was found in a Montreal park months later.</p> </blockquote> <p>The ten-minute video shows Juna “being stabbed in a frenzy with an ICE-PICK, before being dismembered, sexually abused and his flesh EATEN with a knife and fork.”</p> <p>In a letter to <em>The Sun</em>, Magnotta wrote that “Once you kill, and taste blood, it’s impossible to stop.” Is this a remnant of an evolutionary survival mechanism that has been repressed because of what Richard Dawkins calls “culture Christianity”? Kind of like domesticated pigs that escaped their pens, live and breed in the wild, and go feral. <em>The Lord of the Flies</em> comes to mind.</p> <p>In an atheistic, materialistic, mud-to-man evolutionary process, did Magnotta do anything that could be considered morally wrong? If he did, what is the basis of the standard that Juna himself could have used as he was being “sliced and diced”? Who says that ice-picking someone to death and eating the carcass is fundamentally evil? Who gets to say that this or that behavior is good or bad? By what standard are such judgments made?</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/files/neighfr_large.png?v=1695172157" alt="Why It Might be OK to Eat Your Neighbor"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Why It Might be OK to Eat Your Neighbor</h3> <p>Love your neighbor, or Eat your neighbor? It’s been said that you can’t get blood out of a stone. Similarly, no matter how atheists try, they can’t account for moral standards that must be obeyed when there is no accounting for good or evil. The most damning assessment of a matter-only cosmos devoid of a Creator is that we got to this place in our evolutionary history by acts of violence whereby the strong conquered the weak with no one to support or condemn them.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/why-it-might-be-ok-to-eat-your-neighbor-book" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>The standard can’t be for something called the “social good” since defining what’s good for society doesn’t have an unimpeachable moral foundation, given the origins of what we call life today. If the evolutionary theory of origins is true, there was no morality when the first sign of life emerged from the biotic soup. It was a molecule-eat-molecule beginning to the survival of the fittest.</p> <p>If the first life form had the equivalent of an ice pick, it could have used it, and there was no law in the cosmos that would have said, “Thou shalt not icepick to death your fellow life-form molecule.” An evolutionist might argue that it was good for more highly evolved life forms to develop a moral code for the good of society. “Mutual cooperation is the necessary outgrowth of evolution,” the Darwinists tell us. Says who and by what impeachable standard? Maybe our arbitrary moral laws are holding back greater evolutionary development.</p> <p>Let’s get back to Richard Dawkins, who described himself as a “cultural Christian” in an interview he gave before delivering a speech at Charleston College in South Carolina on March 9, 2013.</p> <p>“I guess I’m a cultural Christian,” he said. He compared his cultural Christianity to people who “call themselves Jews, including Herb Silverman. He’s a Jewish atheist. He identifies with Jewish culture, believes he’s a part of the Jewish tradition, and that’s valuable.” This answers nothing. What about someone who identifies with a culture that, at one time, identified with cannibalism and human sacrifice?</p> <p>The Aztecs had raided neighboring tribes for years, capturing thousands of victims for human sacrifice. Cortez and his men were horrified at what they saw. Aztec temples were stacked with human skulls. When Cortez spotted a sacrificial pyramid, he made his way up the hundred and fourteen steps with some of his best soldiers following close behind. Montezuma was at the top waiting for him. What Cortez and his battle-hardened men saw shocked them. Montezuma had just sacrificed some boys, and blood was everywhere.</p> <p>Bernal Diaz, an eyewitness, describes the scene: “All the walls &hellip; were so splashed and encrusted with blood that they were black, the floor was the same and the whole place stank vilely&hellip;. The walls were so clotted with blood and the soil so bathed with it that in the slaughterhouses of Spain there is not such another stench.”<strong>[1]</strong></p> <p>As the Spaniards climbed down the temple pyramid and made their way through the city, they saw more unspeakable horrors. They passed rooms where the bodies of sacrificial victims were being prepared for feasts. They saw racks that held more than a hundred thousand human skulls. Aztec society was built on blood, the blood of thousands of helpless victims.</p> <p>It was their tradition and culture. Who was to say it was wrong?</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/NOS-fr_large.png?v=1674137941" alt="No Other Standard"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>No Other Standard</h3> <p>No Other Standard is Dr. Bahnsen’s response to various books, articles, and other critiques that have circulated over the years. Bahnsen skillfully takes his critics’ arguments apart, showing that they have either misrepresented his position or misrepresented the Bible. Line by line, point by point, he shows that they have not understood his arguments and have also not understood the vulnerability of their own logical and theological positions. Joe Louis once said of an ill-fated scheduled opponent in the ring, “He can run, but he can’t hide.” Likewise, Bahnsen’s critics. No Other Standard corners them all, and one by one, floors them.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/no-other-standard-theonomy-and-its-critics" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Montezuma, following Dawkins’ “cultural Christian” and Silverman’s “cultural Jew” traditions, should have said to Cortez. “I’m a cultural Aztec. You can’t rightly judge my cultural traditions and customs by these arbitrary foreign traditions. In fact, there is no such thing as a cosmic judge of anything.”</p> <p>What could a consistent atheist say to the Aztecs? There were no “cultural Christians” among them. It took an outside moral worldview to put an end to it.</p> <p>Jackson, Dawkins, Silverman, and nearly every atheist who claims justification for a moral worldview must borrow morality from Christianity because there is no way to account for morality in a materialistic world. Darwin wrote about a “moral sense” among animals, but he lived in a world shaped by a distinctly biblical moral culture. He was projecting that moral culture onto evolved biological units that were killing and eating for survival.</p> <p>While channel surfing many years ago, I came across the second installment of the six-part series “The Trials of Life.” I soon learned what Benjamin Franklin meant when he described the eagle as a bird of “bad moral character.” With two eaglets in the nest and not enough food to go around, the mother eagle allows the weakest eaglet to die. She then cannibalizes the dead eaglet and feeds it to the survivor. Was this natural or unnatural? Is this moral animal behavior that we should emulate? How do we know? Should we follow the example of the eagles or something else?</p> <hr> <p>[1] Quoted in Albert Marrin, <em>Aztecs and Spaniards: Cortes and the Conquest of Mexico</em> (New York: Atheneum, 1986), 111.</p>https://americanvision.org/posts/the-maker-vs-the-takers/Wed, 15 Apr 2026 07:38:51 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/the-maker-vs-the-takers/<p><em>In this <a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/the-maker-vs-the-takers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">first part</a> of an interview with author Jerry Bowyer, Gary discusses the economic and cultural arena of the first century.</em></p> <p>Jesus’s confrontation with the rich young ruler is probably the most cited episode in the Gospels on the topic of wealth. Unfortunately, it is often cited by people who want to use it as a cudgel in their own ideological war against the market economy and in favor of centralizing more power in the state.</p> <p>As I mentioned in the introduction to this book, years ago when I hosted a daily radio program, a leftist listener called my show and tried to use this passage from the Gospels to attack me for my free-market views. She quoted (actually misquoted) that passage as saying, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven.” That is a common misquote. The passage doesn’t say anything about going to heaven. It mentions entering the kingdom of heaven, which is a different matter.</p> <p>But aside from that quibble, the use of that passage as an ideological weapon in the leftist cause is a serious misreading of the passage. Jesus offered that statement as a commentary on a confrontation He had with a man of the state, a rich young ruler. Right off the bat, it seems quite unlikely Jesus intended His words to be used to grow the power of the state when the man He had just confronted lived off his access to the power of the state.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/maker-takers_large.jpg?v=1648865334" alt="The Maker vs. the Takers"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>The Maker vs. the Takers</h3> <p>Theologians virtually ignore the economic commentary in the Bible. In the few cases where it gets any attention, economic commentary in the Gospels and other New Testament writings tend to lapse into simplistic class warfare nostrums. Liberation theologians import Marxism wholesale (but they try to sell it retail) into theology. Reading the Gospels in light of archeology and history, which are now available to us, gives us a very different picture than the one you’ve been told regarding what Jesus taught about work and money.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/the-maker-vs-the-takers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>In this first part of an interview with author Jerry Bowyer, Gary discusses the economic and cultural arena of the first century. The Bible cannot be interpreted properly without a clear understanding of the times and customs of the people and places described in the text. As an example, Jerry helps add clarity to Jesus&rsquo; words to the rich young ruler.</p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/the-maker-vs-the-takers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for today’s episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://americanvision.org/24515/the-maker-versus-the-takers-what-jesus-really-said-about-social-justice-and-economics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Read Gary&rsquo;s article about Jerry&rsquo;s book</a></p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here to browse all episodes of The Gary DeMar Podcast</a></p>https://americanvision.org/posts/has-christianity-become-socially-irrelevant-even-if-privately-engaging/Tue, 14 Apr 2026 07:22:33 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/has-christianity-become-socially-irrelevant-even-if-privately-engaging/<p>Thomas Jefferson, serving as the ambassador to France, and John Adams, ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, the Dey of Tripoli’s ambassador to Britain, attempting to negotiate a peace treaty with the Islamic world of their time. Jefferson and Adams argued in vain that the United States was not at war with Islam. The following is from a March 28, 1786, letter addressed to John Jay, Secretary of Foreign Affairs for the Continental Congress, and signed by Adams and Jefferson. It concerned their conversation with the Tripoli ambassador:</p> <blockquote> <p>We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the ground of their pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation.</p> <p>The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman [archaic word for Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.<strong>[1]</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>Unless a nation submits to Islam—whether that nation is an aggressor or not—that nation is at war with Islam. Islam’s goal is to conquer the world, either by the submission of one’s will or by Allah’s sword.<strong>[2]</strong> Islamists are in it for the win. “Responding to France’s ban on the Islamic veil,” in 2004, “the [then] new head of the Muslim Brotherhood asserted Islam ultimately will triumph over the United States and Europe ‘I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America, because Islam has logic and a mission,’ said Muhammad Mahdi Othman….”<strong>[3]</strong></p> <p>When President Jefferson refused to increase the tribute demanded by the Islamists, Tripoli declared war on the United States. A United States Navy squadron, under Commander Edward Preble, blockaded Tripoli from 1803 to 1805. After rebel soldiers from Tripoli, led by United States Marines, captured the city of Derna, the Pasha of Tripoli signed a treaty promising to exact no more tribute.<strong>[4]</strong> See chapter 11 of my book <em><strong>The Case for America’s Christian Heritage</strong></em>.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/cachfr_large.png?v=1675169569" alt="The Case for America’s Christian Heritage"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>The Case for America’s Christian Heritage</h3> <p>It’s not enough to relive history. There’s much work before us to reset the foundation stones of a firm reliance on Divine Providence. We need to heed the words of Benjamin Franklin who quoted Psalm 127:1 during the drafting process of the Constitution: “except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it,” and “that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel.” The principles that were true and necessary centuries ago for building nations are equally true and necessary today.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/case-for-americas-christian-heritage" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>As expected, there are many Christians today who believe that the rise of Islamic persecution of Christians is a sign that we are living in the last days. What’s happening to Christians around the world at the hands of Islamists is horrific, but it’s not new. There’s a history of Islamic persecution of Christians that goes back centuries. Philip Jenkins presents us with a brief look into the war that Islam has had with Christians:</p> <blockquote> <p>Through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Turks dominated most of the south-eastern quadrant of Europe, and in 1683, they came very close to capturing Vienna, the capital of the HolyRoman Empire. As Hilaire Belloc noted, “Less than 100 years before the American War of Independence, a Mohammedan army was threatening to overrun and destroy Christian civilization, and would have done so if the catholic King of Poland had not destroyed the army outside of Vienna.”<strong>[5]</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>Thousands of Christians were enslaved. Muslims occupied “the role of aggressors and slave-masters. Balkan Christian populations remained under heavy-handed Turkish oppression until modern times, suffering a brutal occupation that can legitimately be compared to later European experiences under the Nazis and Communists.”<strong>[6]</strong></p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/godandgovt_large.png?v=1608039906" alt="God and Government"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>God and Government</h3> <p>With a fresh new look, more images, an extensive subject and scripture index, and an updated bibliography, God and Government is ready to prepare a whole new generation to take on the political and religious battles confronting Christians today. May it be used in a new awakening of Christians in America—not just to inform minds, but to stimulate action and secure a better tomorrow for our posterity.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/god-and-government" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>This very brief history should dispel any notion that our fight with Islamic extremism is something new and a sign of the last days. It’s not. In fact, the fight with Islam goes back nearly 1500 years, and throughout that history, prophecy writers have viewed Islam in its many incarnations as a prophetic end-time villain signaling the near return of Jesus in one of the five “rapture” positions <strong>[7]</strong> or in the Second Coming itself.</p> <p>There is no doubt that Islam has designs on conquering the world. What’s held it at bay for many centuries is a fully robust Christianity that has advanced civilization. When Christianity is embraced as the “light of the world,” secularism and religious cults like Islam fade in the bright light of a full-orbed Christian worldview. When Christians retreat from theworld, evil can migrate into areas where it was once dispelled (Matt. 12:22-29). Over time, Christianity ceased to be a comprehensive, world-changing religion. “[W]here religion still survives in the modern world, no matter how passionate or ‘committed’ the individual may be, it amounts to little more than a private preference, a spare-time hobby, a leisure pursuit.”<strong>[8]</strong> Theodore Roszak used an apt phrase to describe much of modern-day Christendom: “Socially irrelevant, even if privately engaging.”<strong>[9]</strong></p> <p>The advance of Islam in our day has taken place because of Christianity’s privatized religion and the advance of secularism. Religion, like nature, abhors a vacuum. G.K. Chesterton observed that when people cease to believe in God, they do not end up believing in nothing; they end up believing in anything, no matter how absurd.</p> <p>The danger for Christians today is that they are being told, and many are believing, that the reemergence of aggressiveIslam is a sign of the end. Rather, Christians should see Islam and anti-Christianism as indicators that Christianity has adopted a false gospel of dualism and escapism. When the world seems to be on the brink of destruction, prophecy books fly off the presses faster than people can read them, assuring the people of God that this time the end really is near.</p> <p>A few years ago, I received a letter from someone who claimed that it is impossible to transform society in any meaningful way since “the world is being run by Satan.” Like many Christians today, the letter writer is a believer in an end-time scenario that demands the return of Jesus in our generation to take us out of this world. Until that happens, don’t look for, and don’t expect, to be successful at any type of long-term societal transformation. While she agrees“that each of us can make a contribution to the quality of life on this planet, we will never ‘transform society.’ If we could, God wouldn’t have said that He would have to do it. He’s sending His Son to vanquish the wicked.”</p> <p>In the meantime, like so many who are caught up in this type of “prophetic inevitability” thinking, there’s not much Christians can or should do. Too many Christians are caught between “This World Is Not My Home” and “This Is My Father’s World.” Which is it? It’s the latter. That’s why we are taught to pray that God’s will be done “on Earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 5:10). Since all authority in heaven and Earth has been given to Jesus (Matt. 28:18-20), how can Satan be running this world? Satan is a single creature with limited power.<strong>[10]</strong> The problem isn’t Satan; it’s us (James 1:13-16). Satan was described to the Corinthians as the “god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4). Older translations translated the Greek word <em>aion</em> as “world.” The more accurate translation is “age.” Satan was and is no more a god than a person’s belly is a god (Phil 3:19). Satan was and is no more a god than Herod was a god (Acts 12:21-24).</p> <p>Many people don’t realize that Christianity gave rise to the best in art, science, music, literature, education, economic theory, publishing, and much of the Western world’s legal system. For the most part, Christians were not dualists. They believed God is sovereign over everything, including this world. This truth helps explain, for example, why “real science arose only once: in Europe. In contrast with the dominant religious and philosophical doctrines in the non-Christian world, Christians developed science because they believed it could be done, and should be done.”<strong>[11]</strong></p> <p>The following example of “prophetic inevitability” thinking is extreme, but even more moderate examples end up having an impact on Christians and how they view this world and what can be accomplished this side of heaven:</p> <blockquote> <p>“Do you realize if we start feeding hungry people things won’t get worse, and if things don’t get worse, Jesus won’t come?” interrupted a coed during a Futures Inter-term I recently conducted at a northwest Christian college. Her tone of voice and her serious expression revealed she was utterly sincere. And unfortunately I have discovered the coed’s question doesn’t reflect an isolated viewpoint. Rather, it betrays a wide-spread misunderstanding of biblical eschatology . . . that seems to permeate much contemporary Christian consciousness. I believe this misunderstanding of God’s intentions for the human future is seriously undermining the effectiveness of the people of God in carrying out his mission in a world of need . . . The response of the (student) . . . reflects what I call the Great Escape View of the future. So much of the popular prophetic literature has focused our attention morbidly on the dire, the dreadful, and the destruction of all that is.<strong>[12]</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>As radical as this example is, this type of thinking prevails more than one would think. Jan Markell is a believer in an end-time scenario that demands the return of Jesus in our generation to rescue us from inevitable doom. Until that happens, do not look for or expect to be successful at any type of long-term societal transformation. In fact, to participate in this type of work, Markell tells her audience, is “delusional” and will keep “people out of heaven.” It’s like rearranging the deck chairs as it sank. Get in the lifeboat and wait to be rescued! The secularists and Islamists are not heading for lifeboats. We are most fortunate that there were enough people centuries ago who were not hoodwinked by an eschatological claim like hers. What would Christians who follow Markell’s end-time worldview be saying and doing today if they were faced with calls to abolish the slave trade and build long-lasting, productive cultures?<strong>[13]</strong></p> <hr> <p>[1] <em>The Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States of America from the Signing of the Definitive Treaty of Peace</em>, 10th September 1783, to the Adoption of the Constitution, March 4, 1789, 3 vols. (City of Washington: Blair and Rives, 1837) 1:604-605</p> <p>[2] Robert Spencer, <em>The Truth about Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion</em> (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2006) and Robert Spencer, <em>The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)</em> (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2005).</p> <p>[3] “‘Islam will Invade Europe and America,’” <em>WND</em> (February 4. 2004): <a href="https://www.wnd.com/2004/02/23076/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">https://www.wnd.com/2004/02/23076/</a></p> <p>[4] Brian Kilmeade and Don Yeager, <em>Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates: The Forgotten War that Changed American History</em> (New York: Sentinel/Penguin Random House, 2015).</p> <p>[5] Philip Jenkins, <em>God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis</em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 106.</p> <p>[6] Jenkins, <em>God’s Continent</em>, 106.</p> <p>[7] The five “rapture” positions are defined in terms of when Jesus returns to take the church off Earth in relation to a future seven-year “great tribulation” period that supposedly is the final week in Daniel’s “seventy weeks” (Dan. 9:24-27): before (pre), in the middle (mid), partially, just before God pours out His wrath on unbelievers (pre-wrath), or after (post),</p> <p>[8] Os Guinness, <em>The Gravedigger File: Papers on the Subversion of the Modern Church</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1983), 72.</p> <p>[9] Theodore Roszak, <em>Where the Wasteland Ends</em> (New York: Doubleday, 1973), 449.</p> <p>[10] Jay E. Adams, <em>The Christian Counselor’s Manual</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1973), 126-127.</p> <p>[11] Rodney Stark, <em>The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success</em> (New York: Random House, 2005), 14.</p> <p>[12] Tom Sine, <em>The Mustard Seed Conspiracy: You Can Make a Difference in Tomorrow’s Troubled World</em> (Waco, TX: Word, 1981), 69.</p> <p>[13] Rodney Stark, <em>For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery</em> (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003) and Vishal Mangalwadi, <em>The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization</em> (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011).</p>https://americanvision.org/posts/comparing-popular-end-time-beliefs-to-scripture/Mon, 13 Apr 2026 06:52:23 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/comparing-popular-end-time-beliefs-to-scripture/<p><em>In this <a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/comparing-popular-end-time-beliefs-to-scripture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">third and final part</a> of his interview with Canadian television program, Thrive, Gary points out several aspects of how most modern prophetic teaching doesn&rsquo;t fit with what the Bible actually says.</em></p> <p>In Matthew’s gospel we read about “those days which were before the flood” and “the day that Noah entered the ark” (Matt. 24:38). Similarly, there were days before the coming of the Son of Man who prophesied judgment on the temple and city of Jerusalem and the day of the coming of the Son of Man. The same people were involved in both the “days before” and “the day of” the Son of Man. Those who “were eating and drinking” and “marrying and giving in marriage” were the same people who were shut out on “the day that Noah entered the ark.” They were all a part of Noah’s generation.</p> <p>Noah entered the ark on a single day similar to the way Jesus as the Son of Man came on the “clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matt. 24:30), a day and hour known only to the Father (24:36). “Some shall be rescued from the destruction of Jerusalem, like Lot out of the burning of Sodom: while others, no ways perhaps different in outward circumstances, shall be left to perish in it.”<strong>[1]</strong></p> <p>Jesus said His coming “will be just like the days of Noah” (24:37). The people were doing normal things—“eating and drinking” and “marrying and giving in marriage.” Jesus told His audience that life would be going on as usual when He returns in judgment against the temple and city of Jerusalem. Jesus did not describe evil behavior like drunkenness and sexual sins like “‘exchanging mates’ or ‘wife swapping,’” contrary to what prophecy writers like M. R. DeHaan and Jack Van Impe claim.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/files/pwfr_large.png?v=1736370066" alt="Prophecy Wars: The Biblical Battle Over the End Times"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Prophecy Wars: The Biblical Battle Over the End Times</h3> <p>If you’re willing to take the Bible at its word, the study of prophecy can strengthen your faith, but if your trust is in man’s speculations, you will be disappointed every time. And that is why Bible prophecy is such a crucial area for apologetics. Skeptics of all stripes have condemned the Bible as inaccurate merely because various well-meaning Christians have been in error about the End Times.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/prophecy-wars-the-biblical-battle-over-the-end-times" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>In this third and final part of his interview with Canadian television program, <em>Thrive</em>, Gary points out several aspects of how most modern prophetic teaching doesn&rsquo;t fit with what the Bible actually says. He discusses a few verses that created questions for him when he was a new Christian and caused him to study the issue much more closely.</p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/comparing-popular-end-time-beliefs-to-scripture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for today’s episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF3tBHUpMoc&amp;t=2s" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Watch the video interview here</a></p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here to browse all episodes of The Gary DeMar Podcast</a></p> <hr> <p>[1] Thomas Newton, <em>Dissertations on the Prophecies, Which Have Remarkably Been Fulfilled, and at This Time are Fulfilling in the World</em> (London: J.F. Dove, 1754), 379.</p>https://americanvision.org/posts/episode-87-a-response-to-john-beveres-the-king-is-coming/Fri, 10 Apr 2026 07:30:24 -0400https://americanvision.org/posts/episode-87-a-response-to-john-beveres-the-king-is-coming/<p><strong>Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope-Episode 87</strong></p> <p><em>Gary <a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/a-response-to-john-beveres-the-king-is-coming" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">responds</a> to a recent bestselling book by author John Bevere called &ldquo;The King is Coming.&rdquo;</em></p> <p>What Jesus declared on the Mount of Olives and what Matthew records for us was a prophecy about the future of Israel’s then-living generation. Jesus spoke to His present audience around AD 33, and the temple was destroyed in AD 70. The destruction of the temple <strong>was</strong> future, but only a future that was a generation in length! It’s surprising that Donald Green, a critic of a first-century fulfillment of Matthew 24, could write the following: “A reader previously unacquainted with preterist writings will no doubt wonder how they could claim past fulfillment of the Olivet Discourse, when so much of its language seems to refer to the future.”</p> <p>The entire [Olivet Discourse] prophecy was about the future, <em>a future that was in the generational sights of that first-century generation and is now fulfilled!</em> Green makes several unsubstantiated charges. I found this one to be the most outrageous: “when the ordinary sense of a passage in that section of the Olivet Discourse seems future, the preterist understands it to be using figurative language to refer to a now-past event.” This is absurd. The entire discourse was about the future when Jesus answered His disciples regarding their questions about the destruction of the temple and the end of the age (Matt. 24:2-3). There is nothing figurative about earthquakes, wars and rumors of wars, famines, false prophets, false christs, a great tribulation, and fleeing to literal mountains in literal Judea. Green has almost nothing to say about how preterists take a non-figurative interpretive approach to all these prophetic elements in the many books and articles that have been written on the subject over the centuries. The reason preterists take a non-figurative approach is because the Bible does. When a symbolic or “figurative” approach is followed in particular passages, it’s because the Bible follows such an approach. The Bible is the best interpreter of itself.</p> <div class="product_card"> <div class="product_image"> <img src="https://store.americanvision.org/cdn/shop/products/WRWfr_large.png?v=1678474893" alt="Wars and Rumors of Wars"> </div> <div class="product_info"> <h3>Wars and Rumors of Wars</h3> <p>A first-century interpretation of the Olivet Discourse was once common in commentaries and narrative-style books that describe the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. There is also a history of skeptics who turn to Bible prophecy and claim Jesus was wrong about the timing of His coming at “the end of the age” and the signs associated with it. A mountain of scholarship shows that the prophecy given by Jesus was fulfilled in exacting detail when He said it would: before the generation of those to whom He was speaking passed away.</p> <a class="button" href="https://store.americanvision.org/products/wars-and-rumors-of-wars" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Buy Now</a> </div> </div> <p>Gary responds to a recent bestselling book by author John Bevere called &ldquo;The King is Coming.&rdquo; While he makes several good points in his book, Bevere also falls for the &ldquo;chicken little theology&rdquo; that claims the sky is falling and Jesus is coming &ldquo;any day now.&rdquo; Gary clears the confusion by pointing to what the Bible itself actually says.</p> <p><a href="https://garydemar.libsyn.com/a-response-to-john-beveres-the-king-is-coming" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for today’s episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://americanvision.org/categories/microscope/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="external">Click here for all episodes of Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope</a></p>