Having Questions About the Bible

Gary and Robert Cruickshank discuss how questions they had about what they were reading in the Bible led them to where they are today.

Preaching about the soon coming of Christ has long been used by Christian prophecy teachers as a way of pleading with the lost to commit themselves to Jesus Christ. Such a motivating device can backfire on even the most well–intentioned evangelist. What happens if a listener shouts out, “Preachers like you have been telling us for centuries that Jesus is coming soon. Why should we believe you now?” By crying wolf and being wrong each time, the church is perceived as unreliable. Skeptics of the Christian faith are likely to conclude that since these self-proclaimed prophets were wrong on the timing of Jesus’ return when they seemed so certain (particularly of the nearness of the rapture, the rise of Antichrist, the Great Tribulation, and Armageddon), then maybe they are wrong on other issues which they teach with equal certainty. Maybe the entire Christian message is a sham.

The New Testament does use the near and soon coming of Jesus in judgment as a way of spurring the church on to greater works. The near judgment spoken of in Scripture refers to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, not a distant future coming of Christ. Peter wrote, “The end of all things is at hand; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer” (1 Peter 4:7). At hand for whom? If words mean anything, then Peter must have had his contemporary readers in mind. What end was he describing? In Luke’s Gospel we read Jesus saying, “But keep on the alert at all times, praying in order that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place*,* and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36). John says in his first epistle, “Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18).

The Bible is not a book that can be taken lightly. The integrity of the Bible is at stake if we dismiss these clearly worded statements of time. As students of the Bible, we are obligated to take God at His word, even when it contradicts what we’ve been taught by popular prophecy writers.

Making Prophetic Sense of Zechariah 14

Making Prophetic Sense of Zechariah 14 covers a lot of ground, including the history of interpretation going back centuries. As this volume points out, interpretations vary, and some are radically different, even when they agree on the time of fulfillment. There is no consensus, given the fact that it’s one of the most difficult prophetic sections found in Scripture, as many well-known and respected commentators have admitted. The unique feature of this work is that it contains commentaries by two people, Robert Cruickshank, Jr., and Gary DeMar. While they may differ along the way, they both agree that the prophecy has been fulfilled.

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Gary interviews Robert Cruickshank at a conference in Virginia Beach. Gary and Robert have known each other for a long time through phone calls and email but had never met personally until this interview. The two discuss how questions they had about what they were reading in the Bible led them to where they are today.

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American Vision’s mission is to Restore America to its Biblical Foundation—from Genesis to Revelation. American Vision (AV) has been at the heart of worldview study since 1978, providing resources to exhort Christian families and individuals to live by a Biblically based worldview. Visit www.AmericanVision.org for more information, content and resources