November 13, 2019 Show with Gary DeMar on “Last Days Madness: Obsession of the Modern Church”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions and now here's your host

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Chris Arnzen. Well I can't think of a better way to start a show with Gary DeMar than the

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R .E .M. song it's the end of the world as we know it this is Chris Arnzen welcoming you to Iron Sharpens Iron radio and today is

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Wednesday November 13th 2019 and we've got two post -millennialists on today joining this amillennialist we've got

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Gary DeMar who is the president of American Vision and he is the author of many books including the one that we are discussing today that has been recently brought back into print in a newly revised edition last day's madness obsession of the modern church and we also have joining us today a fellow not only post -millennialist but along with Gary a theonomist and a christian reconstructionist we have pastor

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Christopher McDowell who unlike Gary is a baptist a reformed baptist and he is one of the pastors one of two pastors at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Coram Long Island New York but it's my honor and privilege first of all to welcome you back one of my favorite guests of all time

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Gary DeMar hey it's good to be back and we also have as I said pastor

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Chris McDowell this is his second appearance on Iron Sharpens Iron radio the first time we were discussing his ministry at abortion mills to rescue unborn children from murder and also to bring those contemplating that murder to faith in Jesus Christ and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back as well pastor

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Christopher McDowell thank you Chris it's a pleasure to be here and before we have

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Chris give our listeners a bit of information about Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Coram Gary for those of our listeners who are hearing you for the first time they might even be new believers they might even be unbelievers or members of non -christian religions who have never heard of you or American Vision why don't you tell our listeners about American Vision well

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American Vision was started in 1979 I came on board around 1980 and I came on as really as a researcher and dealing with America's Christian history that's the name

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American Vision and then over a couple of years we we kind of transformed it into a larger ministry called dealing with biblical worldview issues how the

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Bible applies to every area of life and I started with a three volume series called

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God and Government explaining remember this is during the Reagan era and Christians had just gotten involved in in politics people don't a lot of people young people today probably don't even realize that but there was no

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Christian voting bloc in the late 1970s there was a bunch of disgruntled voters at the end of the 1970s after the born again candidacy of Jimmy Carter it was kind of the first time that a particular

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Christian voting bloc was even visible and talked about and so I needed to write something to help

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Christians understand what the Bible had to say about government that government wasn't synonymous with politics that there was

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God is the governor of all things self -government under God is the most important government and then family government church government and they're very decentralized civil government and so we just continued to broaden our reach with biblical worldview ideas and government was the first step and I got involved in the whole eschatology thing because when

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I went out to speak on worldview issues invariably there'd be somebody in the audience who would say oh wait a minute we're living the last day

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Jesus is coming soon all the signs lead to that conclusion why are we bothering with politics why are we bothering with abortion issue and so forth these are all signs of the and again we have to remember that the best -selling book of the 1970s was

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Hal Lindsay's The Late Great Plan of Earth which came out in 1970 and he predicted not specifically but he intimated with a great deal of force that Israel was established as a nation again in 1948

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Matthew chapter 24 34 says this generation will not pass away and all these things take place a generation was 40 years you add 40 to 1948 you got 1988 and that it was all supposed to come to an end before 1988 took place well here we are 2019 we're all still here those types of end time thinking you would think would have passed away but they haven't there are

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Christians out there who are still claiming that we're living in the last days Jesus is coming soon

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Russia is going to engage in the one final battle called

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Armageddon or the and also the dog -and -may -dog battle so I wrote

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I wrote last day's madness during this period of time and wanted to outline for Christians what the

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Bible had to say about about it in a very specific way in fact I remember well when that book first came out and I don't know if you remember but I had arranged at least a couple of interviews with you before I ever had my own talk show

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I was a an account executive for WMCA in New York an affiliate of the largest

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Christian radio network in the world Salem media and I remember setting up interviews with you at least a couple with the late

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Andy Anderson who had a program that it was originally called talk New York and then they changed it to Andy Anderson live and that's when our relationship our friendship began actually and that was a very thin blue book

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I remember and then it's become a massive book by now well yeah

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I wrote a series of articles and at that particular time two guys

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Robert Woldermuth and Michael Hyatt who used to work for Thomas Nelson were writing a new publishing house up in Brentwood Tennessee and they were just they were looking for desperate looking for people to write books for them and I wrote quite a few books surviving college successfully you've heard it said and I did last day's madness they reprinted my

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God and three -volume God and government series and it did expand into something larger than that since since I was now in control of the of the they went out of eventually went out of business

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Michael Hyatt eventually then went back Thomas Nelson he was even the president of Thomas Nelson and Thomas Nelson published my book end times fiction which was a critique of the left -behind series anyway yeah

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I expanded it somewhat to you know to deal with additional additional topics that Christians were asking me about like what about this and what about this and what about this and so I told him what about this and a larger edition yeah and I also remember

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I don't know if you do but it was a much more special event for me than you I guess but I remember the first time

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I actually met you face -to -face was at a conference where you were speaking in Kingston New York at a

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Christian missionary Alliance congregation that actually become reformed and theonomic and you were doing a conference there and that's when

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I first met you face -to -face and we even made our connections more frequent and stronger and I've been blessed and honored to know you all these years since the early 1990s now yes yes

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I hope I get to have lunch with you again and maybe we can also have a haircut the same day again yeah

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Gary and I yes it was we had our haircuts and what seemed to be an all -black barber shop and they did a great job not obviously

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I'm gonna be accused of racism by being as surprised by that but it's just that the fact if your clientele usually has a different hair texture you you might wonder if they're gonna know how to cut a different type of hairstyle but they did a great job and we were both very impressed with the sign in the window if you recall you even took a picture of it in fact we both took pictures of it where they were warning that people with baggy pants wouldn't be allowed in and that they demanded respect of the clientele and also the workers there and that you have to make sure your children behave there was a long list of things that they were insisting upon yeah yeah

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I know yeah but you know if you ever seen a picture of me when I was much much younger

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I had hair that would would fit that type of barbershop well yeah when

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I first met you in Kingston you had hair like that yeah I've got a couple funny stories related to that but we don't have time well we also have as I said before about as I've already announced pastor

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Christopher McDowell who is actually a new addition to the pastoral team at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram Long Island New York in fact he is the one that made it a team because it was a solo act before and now they have two pastors along with pastor

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Rich Jensen many of you may recognize pastor Rich as a moderator in a debate that I emceed between two very dear friends of mine dr.

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James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and also pastor Bill Shishko who is now the pastor of the

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Haven an Orthodox Presbyterian church plant in Deer Park Long Island but they were debating on infant baptism and pastor

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Rich Jensen was the moderator and you all may remember that but pastor Chris and I may interchangeably call you

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Christopher and Chris tell us about Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram Long Island.

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Hope Reform Baptist Church was founded back in 96 by pastor

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Jensen it was actually a church plant from Grace Reformed in Merrick as you well know

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Chris and at the time there was another elder with him for that plant who since retired and moved down south but I actually joined about six years ago with my family we had started homeschooling and that led us to the doctrines of grace and what eventually led us to Hope by God's very good providence so we've been attending at Hope for about six years now and like I said was a deacon and then installed as an elder just this past year but Hope is a 1689

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Reformed Baptist Church it's you know second one in Baptist confession of faith a lot of us are post male but we don't that's not certainly required to be a member but yeah we were 1689 church and it's the only confessional church

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I know of in Suffolk County right now our sister the only confessional Baptist Church you mean confessional

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Baptist Church right sorry and and Pastor Rich as long as I've known him been a post -millennialist in fact

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I was at an ordination interview that turned into an interrogation of sorts by some of the dispensational pastors who were on the panel but he still got passed through and got ordained and Pastor Rich has always been teetering on the edge of theonomy but not taking the plunge into it yet as far as I know but maybe you're gonna push him into the the river being his co -pastor and you might not even be aware of this because this is before you were there but James White and I were at a specific youth retreat that Hope Reformed Baptist Church conducted in Tuscarora Pennsylvania and in fact

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James White had been the speaker at a number of those youth retreats but on this one particular one they had me doing some entertainment for the kids and James White begged me to be a part of it and that might not sound so unusual now because he's developed a sense of humor but back then he was a very rigid and cold and humorless person so what we did was we sang a song that I wrote making fun of the post -millennial view of Pastor Jensen to the tune of High Hopes and just one verse of it was we've got high hopes we've got high hopes we've got how

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Lindsay stick it in your eye hope so but that was always a precious time going to those youth retreats with James White and all the folks there in fact the last line of that that song high hopes that James White and I did in harmony was where's

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Ken Gentry when you need him there was a small faction of folks there that would always make fun of Pastor Rich in humor of course claiming that they they strongly preferred the teaching of Ken Gentry and that's why we but for those of you listening if you don't hear the end of this program because I plan to repeat all of this information but the website for Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Corum Long Island New York is hopereformedli .net

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hopereformedli .net and the website for American Vision the ministry of Gary DeMar is

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American vision .org American vision .org and you should go right to that website rather than do a

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Google search but I think because I think you'll get up ophthalmologists and eyeglass companies and all that kind of thing stealing our keep stealing our name in fact in fact we had a we got a letter from some eye care place this was years ago telling us to cease and desist the use of the name

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American Vision because they had they had it and our lawyer at the time sent them a letter and said here is here's our trademark application and you will look at the number on this and shouldn't says that we had it before you did intimating that if they didn't stop the harassment that we might turn around and sue them for the use of American well

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I'm gonna give our email address out if anybody wants to join us on the air with a question of your own for Gary DeMar our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

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chrisarnson at gmail .com and Christopher McDowell pastor Christopher McDowell is serving as a co -host today due to his admiration not only of Gary DeMar but also specifically his book

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Last Day's Madness which he as I said before turned into a Bible study that lasted for quite a number of months that will perform

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Baptist Church of Quorum New York but why don't you give us some more detail about the reason for writing

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Last Day Madness he already gave us some detail but the specific title Last Day's Madness and some of our listeners who may be dispensationalist or they may be even a historic premillennialist or amillennialist they may be apprehensive thinking that you are including each and every single one of them in the

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Looney Tunes realm of eschatology so why don't you tell us about the primary reason that you have written this actually massive volume and that has been revised and also let us know what is different about the new version it's not massive

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I mean you talk about you talk about massive it's all the Baptist stuff that keeps coming out three and four and five volumes of systematic it's about 400 pages isn't it it's 400 pages but it's easy to read

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I got subheads and and unfortunately there are no pictures in it but so anyway this all came about when

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I was in seminary and you have to remember I became a

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Christian in 1973 and late great planet earth was it was it was huge it was late great planet earth the book sold like 26 million copies that this is one book 26 million copies and it had an impact

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I think it still does have an impact on Christian thinking on what's happening in our world today here we are facing political changes ethical changes regarding homosexuality it's affecting congregations and the

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Southern Baptist even the PCM I'm a member of a PCA church here and in Marietta Georgia and we're being inundated by a great deal of cultural impact impaction and I think a lot of it there

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I think there are at least two reasons for it one is this idea of this dualistic concept of sacred secular we're not

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Christians aren't supposed to be involved in things of this world branches Schaefer I thought he had dismissed that years ago and his two -tiered approach to reality the upper story in a lower story and we operate up in the upper story we don't really care about what's going on down here now

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Satan controls this world he's the god of this world etc etc etc that's one aspect to it and then coupled to that is this idea that the

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Bible directly addresses eschatological issues that are taking place in our day wars and rumors of wars false prophets anti -christ a tribulation a moral decline and this has a

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I hate to use the word psychological impact but it has an impact on people's future thinking is that look if these things are supposed are evident today what's going on in our culture there's really nothing we can do about changing our culture it's a prophetic inevitability these things are going to happen and you couple that with the you know the premise that Israel becoming a nation again and then the 40 -year period and they change it to a 70 -year period now it's probably a hundred year period since 1948

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I think it I think it's having an impact in on the church and then

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I had a third element to this I think young people are you know they're looking for answers and if they go into a church and they're hearing you know a lot of a lot of pastors saying we're living in the last days there's

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Jesus is coming soon and you know pack your bags and they're you know the rapture is right away could happen at any moment and so forth while the political and social and religious left and Islam are promoting this idea of long -term strategy rebuilding you know building for the future hey you know we're gonna we're gonna take of education we're going to control we're going to control government or take control of every facet of society and this becomes a this becomes a kind of a self -fulfilling prophecy for Christians that they you know that there's nothing they can do or really should do because we're living in the end and I felt

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I just needed to sit down and look at all the popular passages that Christians use to make that kind of case and deal with them in a straightforward exegetical non -emotional way to demonstrate that the

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Bible isn't dealing with those particular prophecies aren't dealing with what we call the end times that they were dealing with a period of history leading up to and including the destruction of Jerusalem that took place in AD 70 and I did that with the

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Matthew chapter 24 and Mark 13 Luke 21 the Olivet Discourse 2nd Thessalonians 2 the

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Antichrist Armageddon all those passages dealing to the people say oh those were referring to our day and I maintain no they refer to events leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 something that Jesus clearly makes evident in Matthew chapter 24 actually actually chapters 23 and 24 and of course there are as we were just talking about off the air before the show there are people that you would agree take that or those truths because even though I'm a non -millennialist

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I consider myself a partial preterist but they take those truths and just like hyper

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Calvinists do they try to force those truths everywhere and they become what we would call hyper preterists they would call themselves just preterists or believers in realized eschatology and there's there's a number of different phrases they use covenant eschatology but they take it to an extreme where they deny even the future return visible physical return of Christ and the future physical visible raising of the dead and you would you would you in fact you know there are quite a few different full preterist as you name it full preterist interpretations

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I mean they some of them are way out and I find it interesting that one of the reasons

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I got into this in the first place was because the impact that eschatology was having on culture and Christian involvement and a lot of these a lot of these full preterists on many passages are actually you know pretty good they align with commentators who have been writing with taking the perspective that I've taken for centuries some

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John Gill was a Baptist he was a preterist on Matthew chapter 24 and and portions of 25

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Adam Clarke was a Methodist you got all Millennials to Jay Adams is a partial preterist as well but I find that the full preterist they're just as bad many of them are just as bad as the dispensationalist and time advocates because they have the same view of culture and worldview

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Christianity that they do they don't they don't see the Bible applying beyond the 1870 they everything took place in 1870 and I'm not

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I have not seen a kind of a worldview study by these guys on on topics that I think are crucial for our time and place yeah and they have a very depressing eschatology far from a post -millennial one that this wretched planet just continues to crank on and never comes to any kind of end and and unless we destroy it with a nuclear war or something but it's quite depressing and I reject it strongly in fact

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I'm working on a debate folks so if you are listening please pray that this debate actually comes to fruition one of the debaters is a former hyper preterist

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Sam Frost who has become I believe he would consider himself today an on millennial partial preterist but I don't

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I don't even know if he's taking the partial preterist position I've read a little bit of his stuff and I have to say

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I'm not real sure where he is okay on on this so it'd be interesting to I hope this debate turns out and again

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I I agree with you on what the debate topic should be I'm a little

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I'm a little confused on where Sam Frost has landed but that's another topic for another time you can you can handle that with your work well we're gonna go to our first break right now and when we return

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I'd like pastor Christopher McDowell to explain how the congregation at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram Long Island responded to the last day's madness

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Bible study that you conducted for a and and I want you to keep in mind pastor

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Chris please do not wait for me to ask you to ask a question or give a comment if you see an opening in a conversation just jump in there because since we can't see since we cannot see each other

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I don't want to accidentally or unconsciously leave you out of the conversation don't want you to make sure that you jump in as often as you have something that you want to say and there is an opening in or break in the discussion so and we've also got a number of people already lined up to have their own questions asked and answered in our audience and we'll get to as many of you as we can before the end of the program but if anybody wants to get in line if we can squeeze you in our email address is

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Chris Arnson at gmail dot -com Chris Arnson at gmail .com CHR is a

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RN Zena gmail .com and as always please give us your first name your city and state and country of residence if you live outside the

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USA and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter let's say you have an eschatological view that is different from your own pastor or own congregation or perhaps you're a pastor and you have an eschatological view that differs from your own fellow elders or your denomination well

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I understand why you'd want to remain anonymous but if it's not personal and private please give us at least your first name your city and state in your country of residence don't go away

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I want to thank all of you from the depths of my heart for being great customers to solid -ground -books .com,

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and please keep that going. If you haven't purchased books from them yet, please start doing it, and always remember to tell them that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and obviously with the holidays coming up, there's plenty of reason to buy gifts, and what better gift can you give someone that you love than one that edifies them with the

40:21

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40:28

And now we are back with my guest today, Gary DeMar, President of American Vision, and also my co -host,

40:36

Pastor Christopher McDowell, one of two pastors at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York, and we are discussing the latest edition, the latest revised edition of Last Day's Madness, one of the monumental works of our guest,

40:51

Gary DeMar. And Christopher McDowell, before we go to any listener questions, if you could let our listeners know what led you to first discover

41:00

Gary and his book, and what led you to also implement it for a Bible study. Yeah, actually,

41:07

I wanted to clarify a little bit of that information when we were sharing before about Pastor Jensen and not being a theonomist, and maybe

41:15

I'll push him over. He's actually always called himself a lowercase t theonomist, and you know, with pledging congregation and some people not even sure about eschatology and stuff, he didn't want to put up any necessary barriers for them to, you know, so we put ourselves out there as a 1689 church.

41:34

So I do hold to theonomy in terms of a worldview where there has to be a standard for law and order and justice.

41:42

It only makes sense to have God's law as opposed to man's law. We've seen the effects of that. So I just want to clarify that me and Pastor Jensen are much closer on the same page than you might think.

41:55

So Pastor Rich is a weak t onomist, you're saying. Don't forget about me.

42:02

I've got to see you tomorrow. Okay. No, he's actually been a great mentor to me, and coming, actually, you got to visit with us just recently for that Spurgeon Fellowship Conference on the

42:15

Doctrines of Grace and sit in on a Sunday school. He's actually going to, we're going to a survey of the

42:20

Old Testament, and I was going through the Book of Amos, and so the day you happened to sit in,

42:26

I was recommending Last Days Madness, because when you're in the Old Testament, as Gary has mentioned, you know, these things, you have to know the

42:35

Bible to know what's going on in Revelation, what's going on in Matthew 24. This language is often used in the

42:42

Old Testament, so Last Days Madness for me was a great example of understanding the symbolism, the kind of apocalyptic language that is used.

42:55

So for someone like me and others in the Sunday school class who come from a distensational background,

43:04

I felt that book would be very helpful. In fact, when I first came to Hope, I had come out of a distensational church.

43:10

I'm still thinking about, you know, Left Behind series with Tim LaHaye and all that, and one of the first Tuesday Night Bible study, book studies that we did, when we started having this conversation,

43:26

Pastor brought up Last Days Madness, and we actually went through that to go through Matthew 24 and to look at that, and that was just huge for me.

43:35

I so appreciate you, Gary, for helping to just bring that stuff up and make it so clear, because I really had this sort of piecemeal theology prior coming to covenant theology, and this, you know, with conversations

43:51

I was having with, you know, my brothers at Hope and Pastor Jensen.

43:57

Also, I appreciated Apologia Church's ministry with Jeff Durbin and their podcast, so it's just been a blessing to me and to the church.

44:07

I think anyone who actually gets a hold of it and reads it, if they're coming from a distensational mindset, it's going to connect a lot of dots for them.

44:16

It is interesting, Gary, that there seems to be a growing number of Baptist theonomists.

44:21

When I first became acquainted with you, they were rarer than a Loch Ness monster sighting.

44:28

I mean, there was a, or it still is a church here in Pennsylvania, Emanuel Reformed Church, that is a

44:37

Reformed Baptist church that is Reconstructionist. In fact, the pastor, I don't know if he still does, but for years he wrote articles for Rushash John Rashtuni in the

44:47

Calsinon Report, and I think I knew of one other one, but there seems to be a really significantly growing number.

44:53

Have you experienced that or witnessed that yourself? I, you know,

44:59

I really don't traverse in the kind of the Reformed Baptist community very much, although with James White and, of course, you and Jeff Durbin and others, it's kind of a new experience for me, and I'm actually kind of surprised because it's, really, a controversial topic, to be sure.

45:25

I mean, for me, it goes all the way back to the 70s when Greg Bonson was a professor at Reformed Theological Seminary, and it was controversial there.

45:34

In fact, it got him where they booed him out.

45:40

They just didn't renew his contract, and I was kind of in the middle of that whole thing about the seminary and dealing with Greg Bonson over theonomy.

45:49

So it's been very controversial over the years, and I'm kind of surprised that a lot of people wouldn't get involved in it because, just to say the word, kind of marks you for skepticism.

46:03

So my hat's off to you for, you know, continuing to use the word to describe yourself. Well, we can talk tomorrow.

46:14

Now, Last Day's Madness. I have read the book, but for the sake of our listeners who haven't, who might be apprehensive to pick it up, are you primarily promoting theonomy and reconstruction, or just correcting the errors of eschatological views that may be harmful in the way

46:39

Christians behave as good stewards of this planet to prevent them from being so pessimistic about their role and duty in this world because they think that the end of the world is just around the corner, that you're correcting those errors and the eschatological errors outside of post -millennialism rather than promoting specifically theonomy and reconstruction?

47:11

Now, this is a pure eschatology book. I don't even deal with the millennial question in Last Day's Madness.

47:19

This is a book that simply deals with the major issues related to the end times.

47:26

And the millennial question isn't an end times deal. And I always tell people you can't deal with the millennial question until you deal with the subjects that I have here in Last Day's Madness, because what

47:42

I deal with are events supposedly that happen before you get to the millennium,

47:51

Revelation chapter 20. So I don't touch on that. Everything in Last Day's Madness deals with the events supposedly leading up to the last days that are in our immediate future.

48:06

And my proposal is that those passages don't have anything to do with our time, that they dealt with the time period of the early church.

48:17

I'll give you a good example. The word Antichrist. I always ask the question, I go around and I speak somewhere, I say, what book of the

48:23

Bible do you think the word Antichrist appears in more times than any other book?

48:29

And most people will say, well, the book of Revelation. And I'll say, do you know that the word

48:35

Antichrist doesn't appear anywhere in the book of Revelation? And then I ask, give me the biblical definition of Antichrist.

48:45

And I've only had a few people actually give me the biblical definition of Antichrist.

48:52

Denial that Christ came in the flesh. Yeah, someone who denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.

48:58

That is the biblical definition of Antichrist. And so he's not a political figure, he's a religious figure.

49:08

And the Antichrist in the New Testament deal with somebody who was alive and well in their day.

49:17

The only place the word Antichrist appears is in John's very short epistles.

49:24

And it says in 1 John chapter 2 verse 18, children, it is the last hour.

49:30

And this is another part of this debate. Time indicators are extremely important, not only when you're dealing with eschatology, but with anything else.

49:42

And so John is writing, says children, it is the last hour. And just as you heard that Antichrist is coming.

49:49

So not only do we have a time reference here, but we have an audience reference. Jesus is addressing a particular audience that he wrote this letter to.

49:57

That's the primary audience. It is the last hour. And just as you heard that Antichrist is coming, even now, another time indicator, many

50:07

Antichrists have arisen. So there isn't a singular Antichrist, there are many Antichrists.

50:13

From this, that is from the fact that there are many Antichrists already in the world that have arisen, we know that it is the last hour.

50:25

Now, last hour here can't mean 2 ,000 years. John is describing a group of people, and you go later on in John's epistles,

50:39

John's second epistle, verse 7, for many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge

50:46

Jesus Christ is coming into the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist. So here we have a specific biblical definition of Antichrist.

50:56

We're told that there were many of them, and we are told that the fact that they are there is an indication that it's the last hour.

51:08

Now, the last hour for what? Now you have to do a little more research, and I think the last hour is the events leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

51:17

You've got Matthew, Mark, and Luke who deal specifically with a lot of text, a lot of scripture on that particular event.

51:29

And so when you go through the Bible and go through the Synoptic Gospels and you see how much material is presented in terms of coming eschatological events that were supposed to take place before that generation passed away, all this fits neatly together.

51:47

And look, I didn't come up with this. I'm not that smart to come up with all this.

51:54

The first book I came across that made this case was a book by Marcellus Kitt, spelled

52:01

K -I -K, and the title of the book was Matthew 24, and it was published in 1948.

52:11

And all Kitt did was to compare scripture with scripture, and that's what Last Days Madness does.

52:17

It compares scripture with scripture. Where does the term Antichrist come from? What does the term

52:22

Antichrist mean? Let the Bible define what Antichrist means. What are the time texts? What's the audience relevance?

52:29

And you don't have to be a seminary student or a biblical scholar to figure these things out. All you have to do is read the text and compare scripture with scripture, and you come up with a very simple way of explaining what

52:41

Jesus had in mind. Now the thing of it is, this is not a very sensational position.

52:49

Everybody wants to know what's going to happen in the future. The people with their charts, and they're talking about, you know,

52:56

Russia's going to invade Syria based upon Ezekiel 38 and 39. That's the new thing that what's -her -name,

53:03

Ann Graham -Lotz, has come out with. And there are others who keep pushing this

53:09

Gog and Magog thing. This is exciting for people. And then you add to that the idea of the rapture, that the church is going to be taken off the earth before all this stuff takes place.

53:19

It's a very attractive position, but the question we need to ask is, does the

53:25

Bible actually teach that? And I maintain no, and I take a lot of time, as you noted with the size of the book, going through all of these issues related to that and trying to answer them in a way that people can understand.

53:38

Well, we have to go to our midway break, believe it or not. This is a longer than normal break, unfortunately, folks, but we need this break in order to survive because our advertisers are what keeps us on the air.

53:49

We also take a longer break in the middle because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, who airs this program twice daily, needs this break to localize

54:00

Zionshirp and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida in order to comply with FCC regulations.

54:07

So please be patient with us during this elongated break, but also make use of the time by writing down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them, helping us to keep on the air longer, and also write down questions for Gary DeMar and send them to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

54:24

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back with Gary DeMar and also my co -host,

54:30

Pastor Christopher McDowell, after these messages from our sponsors. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries and my friend

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Chris Arnson and I are excited to be attending another G3 conference together in Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th, on a theme that is vitally important to all of us,

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If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us on Lord's Day in worshiping our

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I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years. His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries and the

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Dividing Line webcast here. Although God has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach, preach, and debate at numerous venues, some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with Pastor Rich Jensen and the brethren at Hope Reform Baptist Church, now located at their new beautiful facilities in Corham, Long Island, New York.

01:06:08

I've had the privilege of opening God's Word from their pulpit on many occasions, have led youth retreats for them, and have always been thrilled to see their members filling many seats at my

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New York debates. I do not hesitate to highly recommend Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island to anyone who wants to be accurately taught, discipled, and edified by the

01:06:27

Holy Scriptures, and to be surrounded by truly loving and caring brothers and sisters in Christ.

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I also want to congratulate Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham for their recent appointment with Pastor Rich Jensen's co -elder,

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Pastor Christopher McDowell. For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

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That's hopereformedli .net, or call 631 -696 -5711.

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That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island that you heard about them from James White on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Or go to BatteryDepot .com. That's BatteryDepot .com. Welcome back.

01:09:02

This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, we've got as a guest today Gary DeMar, the author of Last Day's Madness, and we also have as my co -host

01:09:12

Pastor Christopher McDowell, one of two pastors at Hope Perform Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York.

01:09:18

If you'd like to join us on the air, if you want to get online, because we do have a number of people waiting to have their questions asked and answered, our email address is

01:09:25

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, and if we could squeeze you in before the program is over, we will do so.

01:09:32

But before we return to the discussion, I just have a few announcements to make regarding special events that I hope you will attend.

01:09:39

The first involves a very key member of Hope Perform Baptist Church in Long Island, New York.

01:09:45

That's Anthony Uvino. He is the founder or co -founder of New York Apologetics, and he, who, along with Eli Ayala, who is the resident apologist for the

01:10:03

Historical Bible Society, whose ads you hear on the show, they, with a brother named

01:10:09

Ryan Gallen, and I may have mispronounced that, but they are going to be speaking at a conference this weekend at the

01:10:17

Presbyterian Church of Islip, New York on 340 Main Street, Islip, and that's

01:10:23

November 16th from 9 a .m. to 2 p .m. The theme that they are discussing is

01:10:29

Building Upon the Rock, Developing a Christ -Centered Defense. That's this weekend,

01:10:38

November 16th, 9 a .m. to 2 p .m. at the Presbyterian Church of Islip, New York.

01:10:45

If you want more details on this event, you can go to reformedrookie .com, reformedrookie .com,

01:10:53

and you can also send me an email, and I will get you the information. My email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:11:00

chrisarnson at gmail .com, so we hope you can make it to that event this weekend.

01:11:08

Also, I am going to be heading out to my old stomping grounds this December. That's New York City, and they are going to be holding the

01:11:18

Foundations Conference, a conference of sermonaudio .com in the heart of Manhattan, in the heart of the

01:11:25

Christmas season, and I can't think of a better place on the planet Earth to be spending at least a part of the Christmas season than New York City. The Foundations Conference is for men in ministry leadership only, and a lot of that has to do with the small venue that they have.

01:11:38

They only seat less than 200 people, so if you're a man in ministry leadership and you'd like to join me there at the

01:11:44

Foundations Conference Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th, go to thefoundationsconference .com,

01:11:50

thefoundationsconference .com. The speakers include Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, Paul Washer, Rev. Jeff Thomas, Rev.

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Ormond Tomasian, Richard Colwell Jr., and Andrew Quigley. Once again, the website is thefoundationsconference .com,

01:12:03

and I hope to see you Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th in New York City at the Foundations Conference.

01:12:09

Then, the G3 Conference that you heard Gary Damar mention earlier. The G3 Conference is one of my favorite events.

01:12:18

It is absolutely spectacular. It will be held January 16th through the 18th, 2020 at the

01:12:25

Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. This January's theme is on Worship Matters, and they also have a phenomenal lineup of speakers, including, once again,

01:12:41

Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, and also my very longtime friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

01:12:48

Phil Johnson, the Executive Director of John MacArthur's Media Ministry, grace to you, happens to be the most interviewed guest on Iron Trip and Zion Radio in our history since we launched in 2005.

01:12:58

My friend Todd Friel, who you've been hearing promote this conference through advertisements on the show, he is the founder of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio.

01:13:09

Derek Thomas, who's a world -renowned Presbyterian author and teacher and conference speaker.

01:13:16

My friend Dr. Tom Askell, who is the Executive Director of the Founders Ministries, which is the

01:13:23

Calvinistic ministry within the Southern Baptist Convention. And Kosti Hinn, who is the nephew, believe it or not, of Benny Hinn, but Kosti, unlike his uncle, has renounced the word of faith heresies that he was raised in, and he is a

01:13:40

Reformed Baptist and a cessationist, who just recently left his post in California and accepted a call to a church in Arizona, where he is now pastoring.

01:13:51

And there are many more on this roster, and the latest addition is John MacArthur himself, and I would go to the

01:13:57

G3 conference if it was just John MacArthur speaking. I so highly regard him as one of my modern -day heroes, even though I disagree with him on eschatology.

01:14:05

But he is a wonderful preacher and teacher, and if you want to join me there, Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th, in Atlanta, Georgia, at the

01:14:16

Georgia International Convention Center, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com,

01:14:21

and I strongly urge you, if you have a business, a parachurch organization, a special event, or anything else that you want to promote to a large number of Christians, this is an ideal place to man an exhibitors booth, just as I have done for three years, and this

01:14:37

January will be my fourth year where I'm manning an exhibitors booth for Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

01:14:43

It's well worth your while, because they have over 5 ,000 people that attend this every year, and with John MacArthur on the lineup,

01:14:49

I am very confident they will have over 6 ,000 people there. That's just a educated guess.

01:14:54

So if you want to join me there, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com, and register to either attend only or to also man an exhibitors booth.

01:15:04

That's g3conference .com, and if you want to man an exhibitors booth, do so quickly or register quickly, because they're going to run out of exhibitors booth space a lot more quickly than they'll run out of a room in the auditorium where you can sit, because it's a massive place, the

01:15:19

Georgia International Convention Center. So register at g3conference .com. Last but not least, if you love this show and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, you look forward to the guests and topics that we feature on this show that are sometimes never heard anywhere else, or at least rarely, you love sharing the free downloadable mp3s with your family, friends, and loved ones.

01:15:41

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01:17:00

Now, we thank Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island for being a regular supporter of this show.

01:17:06

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01:17:13

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01:17:29

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01:17:35

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01:17:41

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01:17:56

So, please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you could send in a question to Gary DeMar on his book

01:18:06

Last Day's Madness, and once again, that's chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:18:12

We are now back with not only Gary DeMar of American Vision and author of Last Day's Madness, Obsession of the

01:18:18

Modern Church, but we also have our co -host Christopher McDowell with us, and let me, before I go back to Gary or have

01:18:27

Pastor Chris ask any questions, let me make sure that I get at least a couple of these questions read from listeners.

01:18:34

Who have been waiting, hopefully patiently, but they've been waiting for a long time. We have

01:18:39

Andrew in Avon Lake, Ohio. Many of my dispensationalist friends claim that the nation of Israel must be fully restored to its old covenant state in order to have a literal fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies about its future.

01:18:56

If that is true, then why wouldn't Babylon and Assyria need to be fully restored in order for their prophecies to be understood literally?

01:19:07

Some dispensationalists I know are preterists concerning prophecies about Babylon, Assyria, etc.

01:19:14

Why is this option not allowed to be applied to Israel in their system? That's a pretty good point.

01:19:20

Gary? I think the reason is they would say that God had a specific covenant with Israel, and God didn't have a specific covenant with Babylon or Assyria, so it's the idea of having a perpetual covenant.

01:19:34

But here's the problem with that, with it even with the perpetual covenant, because what the dispensationalists teach is that God put on hold his covenant with Israel when supposedly the nation of Israel rejected

01:19:51

Jesus as the promised Messiah, and we are now living within a period of time that the dispensationalists have claimed is the

01:20:00

Church Age, which was something that was never really predicted in the Bible. And so what

01:20:06

God has done, according to the dispensationalists who believe in an eternal covenant with Israel, is they postponed that eternal covenant for nearly 2 ,000 years.

01:20:16

So they're very sketchy about this eternal covenant with Israel. Then, once the rapture takes place, the

01:20:23

Church is taken off the earth, now God starts dealing with Israel again. This is the 70th week of Daniel, which is a seven -year period in which the

01:20:32

Great Tribulation takes place. And then during that seven -year period, two -thirds of the

01:20:37

Jews living in Israel are slaughtered. So God, first of all, postpones his covenant with Israel for 2 ,000 years.

01:20:45

Then he finally is going to deal with Israel again, and during the time he deals with Israel again, he allows the

01:20:52

Antichrist to come in and kill two -thirds of the Jews. So God waits 2 ,000 years to renew his covenant with Israel, then he gives them over to the

01:21:02

Antichrist, so millions of them are slaughtered again. And I had a debate with Dr.

01:21:10

Michael Brown, a great, great guy, we get along very well, and I asked him about this. I said, Dr. Brown, you talk about this eternal covenant with Israel, but yet during this

01:21:20

Tribulation period, two -thirds of the Jews are going to be slaughtered. So when is this covenant for Israel going to be established forever?

01:21:29

It certainly is not going to be established during the seven -year period because the Jews are going to be slaughtered.

01:21:35

He didn't have an answer for it. I've been waiting for a couple of years. He told me he was going to get back to me on it, but he never has.

01:21:41

You know, I used to work for, as you know, a major radio station in New York City, and I always was baffled by the

01:21:51

On Eagle's Wings commercials, which were basically the people promoting this

01:22:00

On Eagle's Wings ministry were dispensationalists, and they were promoting rescuing

01:22:05

Jews from the Soviet Union and other parts of the world. I guess this was before the fall of the

01:22:11

Soviet Union or those living in the ruins of the Soviet Union after it collapsed, who were living in impoverished areas and so on, and perhaps being persecuted.

01:22:21

But they wanted to bring the Jews back to Israel, and yet these same people believe that two -thirds of them are going to be slaughtered, which made it very bizarre to me.

01:22:31

It was almost like you're promoting the sale of tickets on a train to Auschwitz or something, and I don't mean to do that disrespectfully, but it really meant basically that same thing, if you believe that two -thirds of those in Israel will be murdered.

01:22:46

Well, this is the thing, Chris, is that a lot of dispensationalists don't understand this.

01:22:52

They've never heard this position, but that is their position. I have numerous quotations from these aren't fringe dispensational writers.

01:23:01

These are mainstream dispensational writers who are very clear that Zechariah chapter 13, verses 7 through 9, is designed for the tribulation period in which two -thirds of the

01:23:16

Jews are going to be slaughtered. Charles Ryrie, John Walvoord, and others have held this particular position, and I had a debate with Thomas Ice a number of years ago, and he said, oh, well, that's true, but billions more are going to be slaughtered as well.

01:23:37

And I thought, you know, this is the position that has gained the ascendancy among Christians today.

01:23:49

And the out of all this is, oh, it doesn't really matter, because we're going to be raptured before any of this takes place.

01:23:58

Yeah, we won't be murdered and annihilated. We won't be, yeah. We'll be taken off the earth, and we'll be with Jesus in heaven while all hell breaks loose on earth, and God allows another holocaust to take place.

01:24:14

God fulfilled all of his promises to Israel. You know, you look at Pentecost.

01:24:20

There were Jews living in Israel from every nation under heaven. The gospel went to the

01:24:27

Jews, and the Jews took that gospel to the far reaches of the world at that particular period of time.

01:24:36

Paul said that the gospel had been preached to every creature under heaven. The remnant that Paul talks about in Romans chapter 11 was the remnant that was saved, and what we find throughout history that Jews and Gentiles were both grafted in together into one new body.

01:24:56

Ephesians chapter 2, the dividing wall is broken down. Jews and Gentiles come together, making one new man in Christ.

01:25:04

This idea of a postponement is fanciful. The Bible doesn't talk about it.

01:25:10

The Bible doesn't talk about this distinction between Israel and the church. The church is not something new in the

01:25:17

New Testament. The Greek word ekklesia is translated as kahal by a

01:25:24

Hebrew translation. If you look at the Septuagint, which is a Greek translation of the

01:25:29

Old Testament, you'll see that the Hebrew word kahal there is translated as ekklesia. In Acts chapter 7,

01:25:38

Stephen talks about the ekklesia in the wilderness, the church in the wilderness. You see the same thing in Hebrews chapter 2.

01:25:46

There wasn't any new thing in the New Testament. The ekklesia translated as church, it wasn't anything new.

01:25:53

The first ekklesia in chapter 5 is in fact made up exclusively of Jews.

01:26:05

By the way, that is the basis of a dispensational system. This church age is something new.

01:26:11

There'll be a rapture. God will have a seven -year period in which the Antichrist arises, and then the

01:26:17

Jews are going to be slaughtered. There isn't anything in the Bible, no specific verse, that teaches any of that.

01:26:24

It's called like the parenthesis view, right? That the church is only a parenthesis. It was a book by Ironside called

01:26:32

The Great Parenthesis. There's no parenthesis in the Bible. They make up stuff. They put a gap between the 69th and the 70th week of Daniel.

01:26:42

And what's interesting about that, in order to get out of Daniel chapter 9, there's 70 weeks, and at the end of the 69th week, the prophecy clock stops, and then now we're living in this thing called the church age, and the church age will stop when the rapture of the church takes place.

01:26:57

You cannot find that in that passage. And in fact, what you find in Daniel chapter 9 is that Daniel is contemplating near the end of the exile, which is a 70 -year exile.

01:27:12

And that exile was coming to a close, and he was reading the book of Jeremiah about this. 70 years.

01:27:19

Now I want you to think about this. The 70 years of exile is parallel to the 70 weeks of years at the end of Daniel chapter 9.

01:27:28

So you get 70 years of captivity at the beginning that was coming to an end, and then this prophecy is 70 weeks of years.

01:27:34

What if God had decided he was going to put a gap between the 69th and the 70th year of the exile?

01:27:41

And after a few years, some of the Israelites who were still in captivity said, maybe we ought to ask

01:27:47

God what this is all about. He said, and so they call him God. God, what about this extra years?

01:27:55

Oh no, they're not extra years. It's a parenthesis. And so you're still living in the 69th year.

01:28:02

I just put a parenthesis in there. We're going to keep you in captivity who knows how long, maybe 2 ,000 years, and then eventually

01:28:08

I'll let you out of the exile by getting rid of the parenthesis. And we're supposed to believe that that is what 70 years of captivity would be about if God put a parenthesis in it.

01:28:19

It's the same with the 70 weeks of years. 70 weeks of years, the 70th week, the first half of the 70th week is

01:28:27

Jesus's ministry, and the final thing that happens is the gospel going to the

01:28:33

Jews, and eventually Peter has his vision about the gospel going to the Gentiles.

01:28:39

That's the end of the 70 weeks. You know, when I used to hear those ads on Eagle's Wings, I couldn't help but think that, you know, because they would run those ads like a telethon sometimes,

01:28:50

I couldn't help but think that there might be like a Ku Klux Klansman somewhere listening and calling in saying, how much does it cost to send 10

01:28:57

Jews back to Israel? You know, I mean, the whole thing was nonsensical, and when I asked somebody, when

01:29:03

I confronted them about this bizarre excitement that they have of Jews returning to Israel, knowing that two -thirds of them will be slaughtered, of course that was never in the ad, they said, oh, that's because it's ushering in the rapture.

01:29:17

And I'm like, so even if you view that as a part of your eschatology, why be excited about the

01:29:22

Jews that, you know, you're excited about the rapture at the expense of millions of Jews being killed?

01:29:29

But not only that, you really can't start putting gaps in parentheses where you want to put them.

01:29:35

Here's an interesting little story. At one of the Democrat National Conventions a couple years ago, there was a

01:29:42

Jewish man there, a Democrat, he's talking about evangelicals and so forth and the love of Israel, and he brought up this very topic about, yeah, yeah, yeah, they support

01:29:53

Israel, they're going to be raptured out of here, but there's going to be another holocaust that takes place after that.

01:29:59

And you never heard from this guy again. This is the position, and I mentioned,

01:30:08

I could say I mentioned this to Thomas Ice when I debated him, and he, you know, no one has an answer to this.

01:30:14

They have to hold to that particular position, and I debated somebody on a,

01:30:19

I forget who the fellow was, he actually believes that Israel has to be kicked out of the land again and be brought back believing in order for this to be fulfilled.

01:30:31

So we should, so according to them, that Israel is the dispensationalist system, that Israel is going to have to be kicked out of Israel again and be brought back believing.

01:30:40

I mean, the system just cannot hold water over time. And thank you,

01:30:45

Andrew. Give us your full mailing address so that cvbbs .com, Carmelin Valley Bible Book Service, can ship out to you a copy of the newly revised edition of Last -Date

01:30:55

Madness, and we thank not only cvbbs .com for shipping out all of our winners every time that we are giving away books and other items, we thank them for shipping those items out to our listeners free of charge, and we also thank, obviously,

01:31:10

American Vision for providing these copies that we are giving away. Before I go to my co -host,

01:31:17

Christopher McDowell, I want to ask one more audience question. We have John in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, who says,

01:31:24

I am curious as to why so many preterists believe that God still has a plan in the future for Israel as a nation.

01:31:34

Wasn't God's purpose for the Jews fulfilled with the coming of the Messiah? I'm not sure that preterists actually hold that position.

01:31:45

Well, I'll give you an example. I think maybe this is where John's coming from, I don't know.

01:31:51

Somebody that I have known for many years, a friend of mine who I disagree with on his federal vision views, but a person that I've known for many years as a friend,

01:32:00

Steve Schlissel, I think he made sense in saying, although the new nation of Israel that rose up in the mid -20th or early 20th century, although not a fulfillment of biblical prophecy, obviously occurred under the divine decree of God, because he is in sovereign control of all things.

01:32:27

Could that be a part of the reason why some preterists would view the things the way that John in Carlisle was saying?

01:32:37

Well, that particular view, the idea that Romans 11, there are a lot of post -millennials, older post -millennialists,

01:32:44

John Owen and others, and actually the Westminster Confession of Faith, it may be in the

01:32:49

Baptist Confession of Faith. I'm not sure. But Romans chapter 11, post -millennialists use that to say there will be a time in the future where Jews will embrace

01:33:01

Jesus as the Messiah. And as a post -millennialist, of course, I hold that same position. Of course,

01:33:07

I also believe that Muslims and Catholics and Communists are also going to embrace

01:33:12

Jesus as the promised Messiah. That's part of the post -millennial perspective.

01:33:19

And so, if one subscribes to the Westminster Confession of Faith, that is in fact built into the system, but not necessarily as a post -millennial doctrine.

01:33:34

So, it just depends on who you're talking to and on what basis. Romans chapter 11 doesn't deal with a distant future conversion of Israel.

01:33:46

Paul is describing what was taking place in his day, and you can see that in Romans chapter 11.

01:33:56

Let's see here if I can find it real quick. While you're looking, I'll just give our email address again. It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

01:34:03

and if you have any intention to send us a question, you've got to do it immediately, because we've already got a line growing here.

01:34:09

So, if you want to send a question, do it now. It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Romans 11, chapter 11, verse 1.

01:34:17

I say then, God has not rejected his people, has he? May it never be, Paul writes, for I too am an

01:34:23

Israelite, a descendant of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew, or do you not know that the scripture says in the passage about Elijah how he pleads with God against Israel?

01:34:38

Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have torn down thine altars, and I alone am blessed, and they were seeking my life.

01:34:43

But what is the divine response to him? I have kept for myself 7 ,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

01:34:51

Now listen to this next verse. In the same way, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice.

01:35:06

And so, all of these passages in the Old Testament referring to Israel, Paul says, this was taking place in his day.

01:35:14

The fulfillment was taking place in his day. And just like Elijah and the 7 ,000,

01:35:22

Jews by the tens of thousands were embracing Jesus as the promised Messiah. All you have to do is read the book of Acts.

01:35:28

3 ,000 here and 5 ,000 there, and Paul takes the gospel throughout the whole

01:35:35

Mediterranean world, and you find in Colossians 1 -6,

01:35:45

I can find it here, about the gospel which has come to you just as in all the world.

01:35:50

Also, it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing. Verse 23, indeed, if you continue in the faith, firmly established and steadfast and not removed from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven.

01:36:10

So the gospel had gone out to the whole known world at that particular time. The Jews heard the gospel, and the remnant embraced the gospel, and there were those who didn't.

01:36:22

That's the fulfillment of all the Bible prophecies in the Old Testament. Thank you,

01:36:28

John, and give us your full mailing address so that you can receive a free copy of the newest edition of Last Day's Madness as well.

01:36:35

Before I go to another listener, I want Christopher McDowell to chime in, because I know he is waiting with bated breath to ask you a question.

01:36:45

I thought I could be a host, so I could answer real quick. As we're going through and I'm listening to this, and obviously,

01:36:53

Gary, you've been doing this for a long time and interacting with the other side and trying to bring to light their errors and their hermeneutics and whatnot.

01:37:03

I've heard time and again about the redefinition of generation. You know, it was 88 reasons that Christ was hung back in 88.

01:37:11

40 years was the generation. Then it was 50 years, 60 years, 70 years, maybe 100 years.

01:37:16

Maybe whoever was born then, if they could live to 100 years old, they won't die before this happens. Do you have hope in interacting with the other side, and as long as you've been having this debate, well, we have hope, obviously, that this dispensationalism will eventually die out.

01:37:33

The adherents will abandon it. That sort of goes along with the post -mill eschatology.

01:37:39

But do you have a time frame that you're hoping for, that you think that they'll finally give up the ghost on that?

01:37:48

I think it is generational, although there are a lot of young people. But all I know is that when

01:37:54

I started this, involving this, when I was in seminary, then in the 1980s, when I would do interviews,

01:38:01

I would get tons of resistance from people. In fact,

01:38:07

I did a three -day, three -evening interview out in California, a radio interview, over three nights, nine hours, and we offered it as Gary DeMar Under Fire, and it was all on eschatology.

01:38:22

And it was just interesting to see how this has changed over the years. In fact,

01:38:27

I'd be on some programs on eschatology, and everybody who called in was, oh,

01:38:33

Gary, I read your book, or yeah, I've heard this here, and I gave up dispensationalism.

01:38:39

In my lifetime, it has changed dramatically, the number of people who are abandoning dispensationalism.

01:38:46

In fact, I just put up a series of short videos on my Facebook page, and two - and three -minute clips that I did when

01:38:55

I was out in Moscow, Idaho, and it's amazing how many people would comment,

01:39:00

Gary, I read your book, I used to be a dispensationalist. There are a lot of young guys, Jeff Durbin and his crew out in Arizona, Apologia.

01:39:11

It's a growing, growing movement among Christians today, and in one of the short videos

01:39:19

I did, there hasn't been a scholarly book defending dispensationalism in at least 20 years.

01:39:27

They're all very popularly written, they just regurgitate.

01:39:33

If you look at their bibliographies and their footnotes, you'll see that they just repeat what all these other dispensational books have said.

01:39:42

They avoid preterism. If they do mention preterism, they only do it briefly, and they don't necessarily ridicule, but they really don't get into the argument that I raised.

01:39:53

I can't get a debate with any dispensationalists today anymore. I quit even trying to do that.

01:40:01

There you go, Chris. John MacArthur's going to be at G3. Why don't you have

01:40:09

James White get a debate, a friendly debate.

01:40:14

John and I will get on stage, we'll discuss eschatology with James White as the moderator.

01:40:19

I think that's an excellent idea. How far I'll get in convincing anybody to do that is another story, but I agree with you, that would be it.

01:40:29

I'm a post -millennialist, but not maybe that post -millennial. Pessimistic theonomist.

01:40:41

Well, we're going to go to our final... I'm actually serious. I think you ought to talk to James and say, hey,

01:40:47

Gary DeMar, John MacArthur. Tell John MacArthur we have a mutual friend with Kirk Cameron.

01:40:55

Maybe we can get Kirk to come up there as well, and the three of us with James as the moderator.

01:41:02

We'd be a great... I bet you would fill the place. Oh, I am totally serious when I agree with you on that, and perhaps for 2021 we can pull that off,

01:41:12

God willing, of course, because I would love that. I think that you would draw probably the biggest crowd that they ever had having something like that.

01:41:20

But we are going to our final break. It's going to be a lot briefer than the last one. If you want to send us a question, do it immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

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01:44:50

Christ Reformed Community Church is the perfect my conviction that God is both creator and sustainer of the universe.

01:44:56

He rules and reigns providentially over our lives. He directs not only the historical events of the world, but also the personal events of individuals.

01:45:06

I agree with Christ Reformed Community Church that the very purpose of the church is to make disciples, that we are tasked with the responsibility to evangelize locally, nationally, and globally, and that we are to equip the saints for the work of service.

01:45:21

Unlike the man -centered, seeker -sensitive movement, they do not gauge the success of biblical discipleship by how many people are in a church, but by the faithful ministry of God's Word and Gospel.

01:45:33

For more details on Christ Reformed Community Church, visit christreformedcc .com.

01:45:40

That's christreformedcc .com, or call 904 -955 -9881.

01:45:48

That's 904 -955 -9881. Tell Pastor Andrew that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:45:57

I'm Pastor Andrew Smith, and I'd like to urge you to consider joining Christ Reformed Community Church of St.

01:46:04

John's, Florida, in financially supporting Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Every day at thousands of community centers, high schools, middle schools, juvenile institutions, coffee shops, and local hangouts,

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Long Island Youth for Christ staff and volunteers meet with young people who need Jesus. We are rural and urban, and we are always about the message of Jesus.

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Our mission is to have a noticeable spiritual impact on Long Island, New York, by engaging young people in the lifelong journey of following Christ.

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Long Island Youth for Christ has been a stalwart bedrock ministry since 1959. We have a world -class staff and a proven track record of bringing consistent love and encouragement to youths in need all over the country and around the world.

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Help honor our history by becoming a part of our future. Volunteer, donate, pray, or all of the above.

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For details, call Long Island Youth for Christ at 631 -385 -8333.

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That's 631 -385 -8333. Or visit liyfc .org.

01:47:17

That's liyfc .org. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

01:47:29

New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Andrew Smith of Christ Reformed Community Church in St.

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Augustine, Florida, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Clint Leiter of Highway M Chapel, Sedalia, Missouri, and the

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Lynnbrook Baptist Church on 225 Earl Avenue in Lynnbrook, Long Island, is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century.

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Our church is far more than a Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

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It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people and healing.

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We're a diverse family of all ages. Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ. In fellowship, play, and together.

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Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman and I invite you to come and join us here at Lynnbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

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Call Lynnbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402.

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Or visit lynnbrookbaptist .org. That's lynnbrookbaptist .org. Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

01:50:02

I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years. His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

01:50:08

Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

01:50:14

Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently he wrote a book titled Consider the

01:50:20

Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword. Dan also has a master's degree in theology.

01:50:28

Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states. He represents many

01:50:34

Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

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He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for $1 million or more, and in approximately 10 different states.

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In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history. In New York, his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the

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Law Journal. If you have a serious personal injury or medical malpractice claim in any state,

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I recommend that you call Dan. Consultations are free. There is no fee unless you win.

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Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878. 1 -800 -669 -4878.

01:51:24

Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:51:31

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Welcome back, and by the way,

01:51:54

Gary and Chris, you will probably be pleased to know that Dan Buttafuoco, whose ad you just heard, although he might not be a theonomist or reconstructionist, he does adamantly hold to an early dating of the writing of the

01:52:09

New Testament. So I thought that you'd be happy to hear that, at least. Rejoice in truth, sir.

01:52:15

Amen. We have Jerry in Copeg, New York. How is it that so many in the church today have so misrepresented

01:52:25

Matthew 24? How did its understanding get so far off track?

01:52:31

Do you have an understanding of history where this began, where the view that you hold disappeared from popularity?

01:52:42

I haven't really traced the history of all this, but I do know that going back through the commentaries on the books, it is amazing how many books have been published over the centuries using the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, especially events of Matthew 24, as being fulfilled within that particular generation.

01:53:05

And there, of course, have always been people who have tried to use those particular passages as depicting events that took place in their day.

01:53:15

In fact, we published a book a few years ago by Frank Gummerlach, who's a

01:53:20

Latin scholar who has translated an enormous number of early manuscripts from Latin into English that have never been translated before.

01:53:29

And he has found all kinds of examples of ancient writers who see

01:53:35

Matthew 24 as referring to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. But he wrote a book called

01:53:40

The Day and the Hour. He went century by decade by decade showing people trying to predict the end of the world, that there wasn't a rapture doctrine prior to the 19th century, but how their generation was the generation of wars and rumors of wars and false christians and so forth.

01:54:01

So both views have gone through historically parallel lanes, if you will, down the theological highway.

01:54:11

But the most prevalent position has been the preterist position on Matthew 24.

01:54:18

That's not the case in the Book of Revelation. The Book of Revelation has been treated in so many different ways, it's really hard to come up with a single view.

01:54:29

Probably the historicist view might be the most popular view of the Book of Revelation, which is just really a newspaper exegesis written large over nearly 2 ,000 years of history.

01:54:43

And to get us your full mailing address, and we'll get you a free copy of Last Day's Madness, Compliments of American Vision, and also

01:54:51

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com. We'll be shipping it out to you at no charge to you or to Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

01:54:59

We have Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina. And Grady says, I belong to a Reformed Baptist church with believers of different eschatological views.

01:55:06

We all agree on the basic tenets of our faith and have some interesting discussions among ourselves.

01:55:12

However, I've noticed on some of the podcasts I listen to that some of our brethren will attack others if they don't have the same eschatology.

01:55:21

Do you agree that on eschatology we should agree to disagree and love through Christ and let the world see the love of Christ?

01:55:29

It bothers me when, as brothers, we attack one another in public for the world to see.

01:55:36

If it is one of the basic tenets worth fighting for, that's

01:55:43

Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina. Well, I think it is one of the major, major doctrines.

01:55:50

There's more on eschatology in the Bible than baptism, for example. So if you belong to a

01:55:56

Baptist church and you adhere to a Baptist ideology regarding baptism and you make that fundamental to the faith, you have to say eschatology is even more significant because the estimates are about 25 % of the

01:56:11

Bible is eschatology. Then we have to remember also that liberals have used the doctrine of eschatology to critique the reliability and inspiration of the

01:56:22

Bible. They said, look, Jesus was wrong about his return because he said he would return within a generation and he didn't.

01:56:31

Therefore, Jesus was wrong. The Bible is wrong on this issue. This was something that was brought up in the debate between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson on a film that I was one of the producers on called

01:56:44

Collision. At the Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Hitchens brought up Matthew chapter 24 and Douglas Wilson within just a minute, maybe a minute and a half, immediately critiqued

01:57:02

Hitchens' view and stymied

01:57:08

Hitchens. He had never heard it before. He didn't have an answer before. A dispensationalist,

01:57:13

I'm sorry to say, could not answer it that quickly. There'd be all kinds of redefining what generation meant in this race or the generation that sees these signs.

01:57:24

You know, there's the audience relevance. You can't use the second -person plural dealing with it. It would take them days in order to go through it.

01:57:34

Douglas Wilson dealt with it in about a minute and a half and took the Bible seriously, took

01:57:39

Jesus' word seriously, and Christopher Hitchens didn't have an answer for it. We have

01:57:45

Johnny in Queens, New York. Your intro was a journey back into memory lane. I remember being introduced to Gary and biblical preterism by calling in to Andy Anderson's show in the 1990s and also meeting

01:57:58

Gary for the first time at Kingston, New York. Oh, wow. Both things that I mentioned before. Gary's works have profoundly influenced my life and view of Scripture and walk with Christ.

01:58:08

Well, that was not a question, but just a wonderful thing that he said. Well, Gary, we have a minute for you to summarize and conclude what you want to have etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

01:58:20

Well, I would just say, look, this is a topic that needs to be studied. I think it's not something to war over, but it is something that we need to study with diligence.

01:58:32

I would suggest getting my book, Last Days of Madness, at Americanvision .org. It's too much of a book, since Chris said it was more of a tome than a book.

01:58:42

I never said that. I would suggest

01:58:47

I have a shorter book called Is Jesus Coming Soon? It's just on Matthew chapter 24.

01:58:53

It's a short version of it. And I have another book called Wars and Rumors of Wars, which is just on Matthew 24, but it's more expansive than Is Jesus Coming Soon?

01:59:02

I have other books dealing with that as well. So go to Americanvision .org, go to my Facebook page,

01:59:08

Gary DeMar, and I've got a number of videos up there. American Vision's Facebook page as well.

01:59:14

There are a number of videos up there as well. So study to show yourself approved. That's basically all I can tell you to do.

01:59:20

And I know that the Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York website is hopereformedli .net.

01:59:28

Thank you both for being on my program. I look forward to both of you returning very soon. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in questions.

01:59:35

And I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:59:41

Savior than you are a sinner. Make sure you tune in tomorrow as my guests will be Anthony Uvino of New York Apologetics and Eli Ayala of the