There May Be Hope for Some End-Time Prophecy Theorists
A few weeks ago I was asked to participate in a panel discussion on Bible prophecy. I had been on this program before. To my surprise, the audience reaction to the first show was very favorable. As a result, I was invited back. One of the participants is a behind-the-scenes producer who has been involved in a number of end-time film projects. He knew who I was, but it was obvious with our conversations between takes that he didn’t have a handle on what I actually believed. I asked him if he was interested in producing a documentary on competing views of Bible prophecy. He was polite in telling me that when he read the Bible, he read prophecy in a literal way. Here was my response: “I bet you that I interpret the Bible more literally than you do.” Silence. I then asked him the following questions:
Can you give me one verse that explicitly teaches a pretribulational rapture?
Can you point out one verse from the New Testament that teaches that the temple will be rebuilt?
Where in Revelation is the seven-year tribulation found?
He could not identify a single verse in support of any of these end-time beliefs that are very popular with Christians today.
A number of popular end-time prophecy writers are beginning to acknowledge that there are problems with their system. For example, Thomas Ice has admitted, in agreement with me, that the weapons in Ezekiel 38 and 39 have to be interpreted literally – bows and arrows are bows and arrows and not missile launchers and missile and horses are horse and not horse power.
“I have come to agree with DeMar who says: ‘A lot has to be read into the Bible in order to make Ezekiel 38 and 39 fit modern-day military realities that include jet planes, ‘missiles,’ and ‘atomic and explosive’ weaponry.’”[1]
This is a huge concession and goes against so much of what is written by many popular prophecy writers with whom Ice is associated with.
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