Free Republic

It is well know that in the Western cultures of Europe and now in America, that the God ordained institution of marriage - which was ordained before the world began (Eph 5:28-33) - has been rapidly falling by the way side. This out right rejection of the institution of marriage is found mostly in liberal/progressive circles and is a progressive liberal trait. What is most alarming is that these "western" countries - which once embraced the Judeo/Christian moral absolutes of the Bible - are now secular wastelands reaping the whirlwind of their anti moral absolute rebellion. As history has always...

In certain Protestant circles (not all), especially among the Evangelicals there is a strong and often vivid preoccupation with signs of the Second Coming of Christ. Many of the notions that get expressed are either erroneous, or extreme. Some of these erroneous notions are rooted in a misunderstanding of the various Scriptural genres. Some are rooted in reading certain Scriptures in isolation from the wider context of the whole of Scripture. And some are rooted in reading one text, and disregarding other texts that balance it.The Catholic approach to the end times (aka Eschatology) is perhaps less thrilling and provocative....

In 51 AD, almost 20 years after the Resurrection, the Apostle Paul became the first to reveal the incredible secret that would become known as the Rapture of the Church. He did this in his earliest written communication, his first letter to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17), repeating it four years later in a letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 15:51). In doing so, Paul finally identified the group mentioned in Matthew 24:31 who would be in Heaven waiting to return with the Lord at his 2nd coming. From Thessalonians we know that, at the Rapture, the dead in Christ...

After numerous failed doomsday predictions, Family Radio founder Harold Camping announced this month that he has no plans to predict ever again the day of God's Judgment. He also issued an apology to listeners, admitting that he was wrong. "We have learned the very painful lesson that all of creation is in God's hands and He will end time in His time, not ours!" a statement on Family Radio's website reads. "We humbly recognize that God may not tell His people the date when Christ will return, any more than He tells anyone the date they will die physically." Camping,...

“For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape." (1 Thess. 5:2-3) There has been much wondering by the American people to the rocket that was mysteriously launched off the coast of California last year. The Pentagon stated that they were still trying to determine if a missile was launched and - if so - who had launched it? What ever the case may be,...

Mayans couldn't even see their own End of Days MY prediction for the year 2012, which I am told begins tomorrow, is that the world will not end. This is despite the belief that the Mayan calendar says that it will. The calendar was devised 5,125 years ago by the Mayans of Central America, a people who never had the wit to invent the wheel, but it runs out on Dec. 21, 2012. The End of Days, so to speak. If, as some seers suggest, thats an accurate prediction, you have less than a year to get your affairs in...

Those of you who regularly tune in to this radio broadcast are not surprised when I say America has been taken over by communists, and along with the rest of the world, is spinning down into the hellish abyss of the Last Days foretold in the Bible. Satan’s global regime is smoothly working its sinister way into place, and the days ahead will grow ever darker. I know there are many, many people who do not want to hear such words and do not believe what I say is true. There are many people who are content to keep their...

As a biblical fundamentalist (one who believes in the realities and ETERNAL truths of the Holy Bible) I have one critique with those who give political commentary and analysis. The average media personality today - whether they be a Left-wing reprobate or a Conservative, REFUSES to see the world, the events at hand and the overall picture of why the world is the way it is from Almighty God’s ETERNAL perspective (2 Cor. 4:3-4, Eph. 6:12, 1 John 2:16-17). These blinded individuals (Left or Right), posses an unbelieving subjective world view which blinds them to the true realities at hand,...

The executive director of a ministry that works with the persecuted church in the northern reaches of Vietnam says he's outraged that a "prophecy" by an American preacher apparently cost the lives of many tribal Hmong people who believed it. The prediction by Harold Camping, 89, of Oakland, Calif.-based Family Radio, was that Jesus Christ would return to Earth to "rapture" his followers to heaven on May 21. Camping said mankind had run out of time, and the Creator of the universe would arrive on that Saturday. The horrific aftermath of the unfulfilled prophecy was reported by James Jacob Prasch,...

What happens when you die? The Bible uses the word death in different senses. Jesus said: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28). Also in Revelation 20:6, John speaks of a “second death,” apparently distinguishing it from the first death or the usual understanding of death. It is important to note that the only way to escape the second death and Hell is through the Lord Jesus Christ (Jn 11:26). Make sure to be in on that one! Now...

Christian parents wonder today why the majority of their children today leave the church when they become teenagers and never come back. I’ll tell you why. A big part is due to the nonsensical hounding upon Rapture and End Times by most Christian pastors, teachers, and parents. You’ve heard the phrase, “The economy, stupid.” The modern Christian equivalent should be “The eschatology, stupid.” Your eschatology matters. What you believe about the future will determine much of how you live your life, and will affect much of your character. In times of crisis, this truth is magnified. True believers will take...

"This scheme has two returns of Jesus at the end of the times: one ... just for his saints and then his final return after the tribulation," Sproul summed up. Disagreeing with this view, Sproul pointed to the imagery that the Apostle Paul used in his account of the rapture in the NT book of 1 Thessalonians. "The whole point of the imagery here echoes and reflects something that was commonplace in the contemporary world in which Paul wrote – namely, the pattern and practice of the triumphal return to Rome of the Roman armies," the Reformed theologian stated. After...

On December 31, 1979, Smith told those who had gathered on the last day of that year that the rapture would take place before the end of 1981. He went on to say that because of ozone depletion Revelation 16:8 would be fulfilled during the tribulation period: “And the fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun; and it was given to it to scorch men with fire.” In addition, Halley’s Comet would pass near earth in 1986 and would wreak havoc on those left behind as debris from its million-mile-long tail pummeled the planet.[5] Here’s how Smith explained...

Harold Camping emerged from his Alameda, California home yesterday to face reporters for the first time since the Rapture that never happened. Wearing a light jacket and speaking over chirping birds, Camping told the San Francisco Chronicle he was "flabbergasted" that the world did not end on Saturday. "I'm looking for answers," he told the reporter. "But now I have nothing else to say. I'll be back to work Monday and will say more then." Camping followers are similarly perplexed. "I don't think I am going to stop listening to him," one man added, heaving a deep sigh before continuing:...

One of the key passages regarding the second coming of Christ is found in 2 Peter 3:1-18 (the entirety of chapter 3 of 2 Peter). First, let me provide you with the text of the chapter, and then my commentary on it. 2 Peter 3:1-18 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: knowing this first, that...

How is it possible that most evangelical critics of Harold Camping are more dangerous than the failed prognosticator? For the simple reason that it’s no longer May 21, 2011, and Harold Camping will be relegated to the dust bin of prophetic history, but prophecy prognosticators will continue to abound by claiming that Jesus is still coming “soon” even if we don’t know the “day and hour.” In nearly every article I’ve read by evangelicals denouncing Camping, they still claim that all the signs are in place for Jesus’ “soon” return. Here are some examples: Even though Tim LaHaye denounced Camping’s...

I believe that May 21, 2011 will prove to have been a watershed day for millions of people, regardless of the fact that Jesus didn’t come back to rapture His flock, and commence the judgment of the earth, as predicted by Harold Camping. Evidently the calculations of the self-confessed life long Bible student, and civil engineer didn’t quite add up. I hope you don’t think I am being facetious about it, because there is nothing humorous in this at all. In fact, I have no doubt that though things didn’t work out as some anticipated, many lives will never be...

In a previous partial review of Michael Horton’s The Gospel Commission: Recovering God’s Strategy for Making Disciples, I began documenting some of his duplicities in regard to the Lordship of Christ and the meaning of the subject matter of that book. I mentioned how clearly he writes of Christ’s all-encompassing power early in the book, but then spends the rest of the book qualifying it to death. … In order to escape the meaning of Jesus’ claim to “All power in heaven and on earth,” Horton simply relegates the application of this power to a future dispensation. Much like dispensationalists,...

- Catholic Exchange - http://catholicexchange.com - Is the Antichrist Approaching?Posted By Sonja Corbitt On April 29, 2011 @ 12:00 am In Featured on Front Page,Grow,The Marquee,What We Believe | 9 Comments Uprising after uprising in the Middle East; sexual and intellectual scandal in the Church; earthquakes in Chile and Haiti; tsunamis in Indonesia and Japan; and financial collapse in almost every market: given the startling increase in the frequency of global crises—political, religious, financial, natural—one is tempted to begin looking for Antichrist and despair for the future.The pervading anxiety and fear is exacerbated by non-Catholic proliferation of “end time” fiction...

I. The Basis for the Belief in the Messianic Kingdom Premillennialists have often been criticized for basing their belief in a Millennium entirely on one passage of Scripture, Revelation 20. Because it is found in a book well noted for its high use of symbols, they say it is foolish to take the one thousand years literally. But that is hardly a valid criticism. To begin with, while it is true that the Book of Revelation uses many symbols, it has already been shown that the meaning of all those symbols is explained either within the Book of Revelation itself...

By Chaplain Mike “We learn from the Bible that Holy God plans to rescue about 200 million people (that is about 3% of today’s population). On the first day of the Day of Judgment (May 21, 2011) they will be caught up (raptured) into Heaven because God had great mercy for them. This is why we can be so thankful that God has given us advance notice of Judgment Day. Because God is so merciful, maybe He will have mercy on you.” • Literature from Family Radio: “Judgment Day: May 21″

That is exactly what postmillennialism believes about the victory of the Gospel. History will see the progressive triumph of the Gospel not only over individuals, families and churches, but also over nations, cultures, and governments. Nation after nation will submit to Christ; they will change their customs, mores, and legal systems to reflect the Law of God. More and more the Gospel will change the hearts of men but also their institutions and their societies; more and more the Biblical worldview will become the operational worldview for the powers and authorities in the land. The church will experience its ups...

Joel Richardson believes the Bible teaches “that the biblical Antichrist is one and the same as the Quran’s Muslim Mahdi.”[1] As I mentioned in a previous article, there’s nothing new about making Islam the end-time bad guy when it comes to prophetic speculation. It has a long history, something Mr. Richardson seems not to be aware of or, if he does know about it, he’s not telling his readers. Francis X. Gumerlock makes this historical observation about Islam and end-time conjecture: In A.D. 637, the Moslems captured Jerusalem, and soon afterward built a mosque on the Temple Mount. One chronicler...

Like [Hal] Lindsey and many who preceded and followed him in pronouncing their generation as “terminal,” [Jeff] Lasseigne is constrained by his dispensational hermeneutic to offer a worldview that is really an “upper-world worldview”: Or as John MacArthur said, “Man’s efforts to bring about a better world . . . amount to little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic to give everyone a better view as the ship sinks” (196).[3] The “rapture” has been a convenient escape hatch for Christians. When times worsened, the “rapture” was preached with great vitality. Millions were assured that before all hell...

Natural disasters 'escalating like labor pains' may be linked to the return of Jesus, says Rev. Franklin Graham. In an exclusive Newsmax.TV video, the evangelist says the end could come in 2012 or later. *escalating birth pains*

The CONCLUSION on CAMPING and his 2011 PREDICTION “we have not followed cunningly devised fables” (2Pt. 1:16) THE BIBLE GUARANTEES you do not need to heed a false prophet:"But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die [by stoning in the O.T.). And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the...

Michael Horton is Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary in Escondido, California. He has written a number of popular books on a variety of subjects. His latest book is The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way published by Zondervan in 2011[1]. Horton promotes a two-kingdom worldview that is similar to the cultural and civil quietism found in Lutheran theology. P. Andrew Sandlin offers this short analysis of the cultural and political consequences of the view: Unlike the Reformed tradition [of which Horton claims to be an advocate], the Lutheran alternative has consistently maintained...

A majority of evangelical leaders believe that Jesus Christ will return to earth and then reign with his followers for 1,000 years, a new survey shows. This end times theology is called premillennialism and 65 percent of surveyed evangelical leaders identify with it. As part of its monthly poll, the National Association of Evangelicals surveyed its board of directors, which include the CEOs of denominations and representatives of a broad array of evangelical organizations, on their eschatological beliefs. "It’s in our human nature to want to prepare ourselves – physically, emotionally, spiritually – for what might be ahead," said NAE...

International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials recently let it be known the direction of their thinking for solving the growing economic crises facing the nations of earth. Their cogitations - it is no surprise to those of us who view ongoing developments from the perspective of Bible prophecy - include two basic elements: 1) They want a single monetary unit; and 2) they want to make it electronic currency. Special Drawing Rights - SDR - represents a synthetic electronic basket of currencies. This system has been around for many years, but now, enhanced by tremendous advances in technology, is viewed by...

I’m beginning to see that prophetic speculation is taking place on the fringes of the Christian publishing industry. Of course, you will still find the occasional prophetic pot-boiler. Mark Hitchcock writes a couple of prophecy books a year. They are mostly exercises in “newspaper exegesis,” driven more by current events than the Bible. Consider these three, all to be published in 2009: The Late Great United States (Multnomah), 2012, the Bible, and the End of the World (Harvest House), and Cashless: Bible Prophecy, Economic Chaos, and the Future Financial Order (Harvest House). How do you go from The Late Great...

Mark Hitchcock, a contemporary prophecy writer, references Smith’s calculation that “there are approximately 250 verses in the Old Testament that, at the time they were given, were prophecies of events yet to take place in Egypt.”[2] Nothing is said about any verses from the New Testament that deal with Egypt’s end-time place in prophecy. In fact, there is not a single verse in the New Testament that mentions anything about a prophetic role for any mid-eastern nation, including Israel! This means that the burden of proof is on the futurist to prove that Old Testament prophetic passages related to Egypt...

Now let’s get down to where the real problem with all this hand wringing over prophetic signs. Given dispensational prophetic presuppositions, there can’t be any prophetic events or preparation of prophetic events this side of what dispensationalists call the “rapture.” If the “rapture” is “imminent,” that is, if it can come at “any moment” and could have come at any moment for the past 2000 years, then it has to be a “signless event.” Keep in mind that I am not a dispensationalist. What I’m about to show is the major flaw in so much talks about “signs of the...

So I was thinking this morning.. Doesn't the bible mention a peace treaty with Israel that will be broken in the end times? Daniel 9:26-27 (New International Version, ©2010) 26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing.[a] The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’[b] In the middle of the ‘seven’[c] he will put an...

Joel McDurmon, hosting today's show for Gary DeMar, exposes End-times Dysfunction (E.D.) for what it is. Joel shares with doomsdayers how they can get relief from their paranoia and troubled souls.

Thus far, we have looked at prophecies dealing with Israel’s history up to the nation’s worldwide dispersion in unbelief. The whole history of the Jewish people was foretold beforehand to them through Moses, the prophets, and the Messiah Jesus of Nazareth. While in that dispersed state, the Jewish people would be without land, kingly ruler, free from the idolatry of the past, and wandering from place to place throughout the nations of the world. This last condition aforementioned was popularized in Europe by the pejorative term “the wandering Jew” in the thirteenth century. The ugly and brutal fact of Anti-Semitism...

Things are happening in our world that are indeed signs of the end times, said evangelist Greg Laurie. While this certainly isn't the first time a preacher has made such a statement, the ongoing chaos in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East, among other things, has prompted the Southern California preacher to prepare Christians for the last days. "What every last days believer needs to know" was the name of Laurie's message, preached to thousands at Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, Calif., and over the internet on Sunday. "I do believe that these are bona fide signs of...

E. Earle Ellis writes that “the present existence of the Jerusalem temple (11:1) and its future desolation (11:2) are fairly strong indicators of a pre-AD 70 date for Revelation.”[8] In order for a post-A.D. 70 composition and futurist interpretation of Revelation to work, a rebuilt temple must be assumed, but it cannot be proved by anyone who claims to interpret the Bible in a literal fashion. There is not a single verse in the New Testament that says anything about a rebuilt temple, something that even dispensationalists acknowledge. Here’s what temple rebuilding advocates Tommy Ice and Randall Price admit: “There...

In others words, when God begins to bring the Jews back into their land He gave them, Christ will return! The phrase “will return” is omitted from most modern translations of the Bible since the Masoretic text (upon which the majority of modern translations of the Old Testament are based upon) and the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) do not include it. But the Dead Sea Scrolls copied some 150 years before the birth of Christ and over 1,000 years older than any previously discovered manuscript of the Bible includes this very phrase! The passage reads as...

Part of the reason for the return of Israel’s Messiah will be to enforce the everlasting decree of God’s land grant to the Jewish people and to overthrow the nations of the world in league with the anti-Christ who will violently attempt to take the land away from them (Zech. 12-14; Ezekiel 47:13-48:35). In fact, the boundaries God gave for the Promised Land stretch from the river of Egypt (Wadi el-Arish) to the Euphrates River near the Syrian/Iraqi border (Gen. 15:18-21) — an area yet to be occupied by the Jewish nation that well includes the two presently disputed areas...

Preachers and theologians are often fond of saying that History is “His story,” meaning that God plans and determines the details and events that make up human history ruling over the process from beginning to end to fulfill His great purpose for Mankind. Nothing could be truer of Israel. The history of the Jewish people is “His story” played out within human history, which has been revealed, foretold, and written in the Bible. Israel’s history is supernatural from beginning to end. It began with the Patriarch Abraham some 4,000 years ago when God called this nomadic wanderer from Ur of...

As I wrote last week, “Most people don’t realize that many if not most of Jesus’ parables were intended not as general morality tales, but as particular pronouncements of coming judgment and change. Jesus was warning Jerusalem to repent and to accept its new King (Jesus) or else fall under ultimate condemnation of God. In fact, much of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels pertains primarily to that pre-AD 70 crowd, and without reading it in this light, we misunderstand it. And when we misunderstand it, we misapply it.” The following section of Luke requires this understanding. The parables Jesus tells...

Most people don’t realize that many if not most of Jesus’ parables were intended not as general morality tales, but as particular pronouncements of coming judgment and change. Jesus was warning Jerusalem to repent and to accept its new King (Jesus) or else fall under ultimate condemnation of God. In fact, much of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels pertains primarily to that pre-AD 70 crowd, and without reading it in this light, we misunderstand it. And when we misunderstand it, we misapply it. The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (Weeds) For many (perhaps even most) Christians, the parable...

Dead birds . . . Dead Cows . . . Dead Fish. Some Christians see these events as signs that the end is near. So-called “on-line theologian” Paul Begley is one of them. TIME magazine quotes Begley : “There’s something biblically going on with the signs of the second coming of Christ.” He is using Hosea 4:3 for support: Therefore the land mourns, and everyone who lives in it languishes Along with the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky, and also the fish of the sea disappear. The context for this passage is very clear. It...

The Silent History of Dispensationalism [Thomas] Ice hopes to rebut preterism by writing on "The History of Preterism" to show that preterism really doesn't have one. The odd thing about End Times Controversy is that five of the seventeen chapters use historical arguments to defend dispensationalism over against preterism. As anyone familiar with dispensationalism knows, there is scant evidence of anything resembling dispensationalism prior to 1830.5 Certainly there is no evidence of dispensationalism among the early church fathers up until the time of the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325), which produced the Nicene Creed, a document that says absolutely...

So in Luke 17:20-37 the Lord explained the two phases of the Kingdom, the invisible phase (the Church) and the visible one (the Millennial Kingdom). He said he was going away and then coming back, and that His 2nd Coming will be physical just like His first one. He also said there will be a believing remnant preserved through the End Times judgments that precede His return (Israel), another group of believers who will be removed to a place of safety before the judgments begin (the Church), and a group of Tribulation survivors. Upon His return, some of the Tribulation...

Soon it will be spring again. The snow will melt, the dogwoods flower. Trumpets will blast, graves will open, and Earth will begin a five-month descent to its fiery end. Radio evangelist Harold Camping can hardly wait. May 21 is Judgment Day, when "this world will be a horror story beyond anything we can imagine," he asserts. ... In a phone interview last week from his Oakland, Calif., office, [Harold] Camping warned that those who do not accept his complex calculations, including even devout Christians, will face "sudden destruction" when Jesus returns. ... Essentially, he argues that May 21, 2011,...

In the past one-hundred and fifty years or so, some Christians have argued that there will actually be two comings of Christ. Believers from the dispensational tradition have said that there will be a “secret rapture” of Christ a few years before His visible return. While even those who confess a secret rapture disagree about its timing, the idea basically says that at some point, the church will be removed from the world by Jesus in order that it might escape an ensuing tribulation. Jesus will then make His physical return some time later, usually three and one-half to seven...

"The Roots of Fundamentalism," by Ernest R. Sandeen, in discussing the history of the Brethren, says that [John Nelson] Darby introduced the idea of a secret rapture of the church and a gap in prophetic fulfillment between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel. These beliefs became basic to the system of theology known as dispensationalism. From 1862 to 1877, Darby lived in and traveled throughout the United States and Canada, spreading his message. He was a very appealing speaker and also intolerant to criticism. At first he tried to win members of existing Protestant congregations to his sect, but...

Evangelical book catalogs promote books such as Planet Earth: The Final Chapter, The Great Escape, and the Left Behind series. Bumper stickers warn us that the vehicle’s occupants may disappear at any moment. It is clear that there is a preoccupation with the idea of a secret rapture. Perhaps this has become more pronounced recently due to the expectation of a new millennium and the fears regarding potential Y2K problems. Perhaps psychologically people are especially receptive to the idea of an imminent, secret rapture at the present time. Additionally, many Christians are not aware that any other position relative to...

In response to my views on Jerusalem and the Mother of Harlots in Revelation 17, some readers expressed their predictable denial. God would never write off ethnic and physical Jerusalem in that way, they say, because He made an eternal covenant with Abraham and his seed. One reader objected thusly: You are forgetting about God’s promise to Abraham, which is eternal in nature. God made a covenant “between me and thee forever.” Either God meant forever, or He did not. Yes, the Jews have been disobedient literally for centuries in denying Christ, but they will be restored in a total...