Response to Gary DeMar On His Hypocrisy/Let's Discuss The Sergius-Preston Debate

 

It looks like we have gotten a Part 3 to Gary DeMar's hit pieces on me after all in the form of cheap shots aimed at me via a Facebook post. Gary has clearly not accepted my apology for calling him a moron after he viciously attacked Sam Frost. After blocking Frost, I was blocked when he proceeded to continue to talk disgustingly with Don Preston about him which led to the reason I posted what I did in anger but what else can be said? 

I apologized publicly to Gary. He doesn't have to accept apologies, clearly has no plans to, and clearly plans to continue to try and demonize, villify, and discredit me. If Gary wishes to continue in this petty behavior, so be it. I pray Gary can get over someone calling him a moron.

In this Facebook post Gary declares I have no credibility because I debated Don K Preston. This seems extremely hypocritical considering there is nothing wrong with debating someone under a pseudonym. It is also very weird that Gary DeMar makes a fuss about someone's credibility when he is sharing posts about Don Preston who is not only a heretic being he is a full preterist, but also a proven grifter that fakes his credentials. Don Preston after all is the grifter who claims he has an honorary doctorate but when investigated over this claim it all turned out to be a fake "honorary doctorate" from an unaccredited and fake seminary in California called Vision International University that he and William Bell both got it from.

With all the money Don Preston has from his book sales he could have put some actual work in and earned a real and respectable degree from an accredited university or seminary. Yet, he chose not to and this is because he would be eaten alive by academia or a seminary for his outlandish and clownish beliefs about eschatology were he to try and defend his beliefs. This is evident with each and every book he puts out which amounts to nothing more than pseudoscholarship. 

No, instead of putting in the work and earning a respectable degree, Don Preston went to a degree mill that gave him a free degree that ANYONE can get. An unearned and unaccredited fake degree from a diploma mill that Don parades around and puts on every book he sells, as if this was some amazing feat and accomplishment. 

Couple this with the FACT that Don claims to be the president of a "Preterist Research Institute" when the reality is it isn't an institute for researching preterism at all. It has contributed zero research to preterism, zero research to and for academia, and not a single contribution to or for any seminaries are available. Nothing. 

What we do have however, is some information available to us about what Don does with all the book sale cash he gets. It's fine to have a business but Don claims this is a "Preterist Research Institute" which is extremely misleading. (Can find information here at: https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/preterist-research-institute,205884258/ ) 

It's hypocritical of Gary to talk about someone's credentials and then give a grifter like Don K Preston a platform as if he is someone who is credible. Let's get real here.

What this amounts to are cheap shots, projections, and ad hominems from DeMar. It's all a fallacious argument strategy to attempt to take the debate away from the actual topic (the OP/original point) and attempt to redirect the attention to some contrived issue with their opponent(s).

Gary appears to be very insecure with regards to the arguments and discourse that's gone on. It is an unfortunate fact that he REFUSES to write so much as a single sentence that condemns Full Preterism as a dangerous heresy. Instead, when pointed out how he has made some rather faulty assumptions that he holds in common with full preterists and how that leads to dangerous error, instead of giving any answer substantially, he blocks everyone who asks questions and calls him out on this ridiculous and bizarre behavior.

This has all been a distraction from DeMar. Instead of listening to some of the challenges and requests from many people to denounce full preterism and uphold the resurrection of the dead, etc. he has instead picked me out for calling him a "moron" over something that happened between him and my friend Frost. He's not answered any of the challenges given to him by multiple people. Nope. Instead he focuses on me calling him a "moron". Not whether or not Full Preterism is a dangerous heresy but "Lance was mean to me and called me a moron". 

Which by the way, I should be thanking Gary DeMar for these articles! He's put me on many people's email lists. I've quite literally tripled in readership and viewers to this blog and received more praise than hate mail with many people hoping Gary will come to his senses and condemn full preterism while upholding the resurrection of the dead. 

 

Now for my last part I wish to cover the Sergius Bale/Don Preston debate because I wish to share what my intentions were in making that fake account to debate Preston in the first place. 

I ask Gary and the reader: If I constantly talked about Gary, blocked Gary from responding, and then simultaneously demanded Gary, the blocked person, to respond to all the challenges I give, how is Gary supposed to respond to this and how is Gary supposed to engage with this? One simply cannot do so. It is unreasonable. This is what Don Preston did to me. The only way for me to do any discourse or any exchange was to make a new account. However, Don also immediately would block when he saw "Lance Conley" so I did something simple. I took on a pseudonym and named myself "Sergius Bale". Is that seriously the work of someone evil? There's always more to the story than what Gary or Don have shared. It is super easy it seems for Gary to justify any behavior Don pulls since full preterists are clearly part of his tribe and he doesn't see them as being in danger of heresy since he refuses to condemn it. 

Ask yourself why Gary thinks it is wrong for Lance Conley to fake his credentials as Sergius Bale, knowing he was intent on revealing the truth after the debate finished, but Gary finds it absolutely fine that Don Preston proudly and unrepentantly fakes his credentials to the public with his fake honorary degree from a fake university he got from a degree mill? This is hypocrisy, plain and simple.  

I absolutely did fake Sergius Bale's credentials saying he was a Greek Orthodox man who lived in Austrailia teaching history as a professor at a university. I fail to see how this is any different than Don Preston faking all of his credentials to the public. I also had EVERY intention of exposing who I was AFTER the debate ended because I wanted to expose Don Preston for the charlatan he is. 

You see, before I had even bothered to set this account up, Preston had blocked me on Facebook and Youtube and his blog posts and then publicly kept demanding I answer him. He also simultaneously would claim that he refused to do any debate or discourse with me because I "lacked credentials". So it is quite simple: Since Don has fake credentials from a fake degree mill from a fake university, I made Sergius Bale a fake professor from a fake university with fake credentials. 

The saddest part though is, this fake account "Sergius Bale" was extremely easy to tell that it was not a real person. All one had to do was google the pictures to find out that this was not a real person. As a matter of fact, it only took a few weeks for a bunch of the more intelligent people in the Full Preterism - A Thing Of The Past group to fact check the sources, think critically, and figure out that it was me behind the account. The fact that I was able to fake being someone proficient in Koine Greek to Don Preston should speak volumes about his lack of scholarship or intelligence.

I kid you not that when I engaged with Don on several points on that group that he DEMANDED and BEGGED for a debate with Sergius Bale. The only reason Sergius Bale's credentials even came into question was because when I engaged in this written debate with Preston he became completely infuriated because, fact is, "Sergius" beat Don in the debate he begged and pleaded Admin: William Vincent of the group and I for. Don could have googled and fact checked who Sergius was and my credentials like others had done and easily figured out that this was a fake account. What really threw me for a loop was seeing that most of the people who believe the 2nd Coming is future did question the Sergius Bale account while I can't think of a single full preterist that did so because 1) they all believed Sergius was real as they don't fact-check sources, 2) they don't investigate, 3) they don't critically think about anything and just take everyone and anyone's word for things, 4) are unfortunately people who fall prey to grifters like Preston in full preterism. This is just a few of a myriad of reasons that full preterists fell for a fake account. Couple that with the fact that most of the full preterists have multiple fake accounts themselves and it becomes obvious that no one was really angry at Sergius being a fake account and were just trying to cover for Don losing badly at a written debate. 

Here are just a few messages that went back and forth between Preston and Sergius. William Vincent and I can both provide more if necessary that vindicate that Don really wanted to debate Sergius. I even kept mentioning Lance Conley just because at this point it was comical that Don was so adamant to debate me. It should disturb people (which was one of my points in doing this fake account) that Preston claims to be the president of a "research institute" and yet could not do some BASIC research, enough to know who he was debating. I have also never claimed to be some prestigious Bible scholar. Don has and does. I also always fully intended to reveal it was Lance Conley who was really Sergius Bale after the debate ended. It just ended before the debate could finish because once Don was losing, THEN to save face, he began trying to dig dirt on his opponent and FINALLY got some intelligence to ask questions and look for a Greek professor in Austrailia named Sergius Bale.  

I think I've dealt with this enough. The truth is all this stuff from Gary and the full preterists, with the overacting and melodramatic reactions of their followers are all being done to help cover now for not just Don but also Gary's backsides. 

All Gary has done here is attempt a diversion and an ad hominem piece on Facebook and now exposed to his readers through that article of Don's to what a dimwitted moronic grifter Preston really is (I will not apologize for that ad hominem). He's exposed his grifter friend can't refute me in debate which should not be any real shocker since Don has no real credentials and is a pseudoscholar posing as a prostegious Bible scholar.

It has also exposed that Gary DeMar is using the Sergius-Preston debate from over a year ago now (12-7-2021) so he can try to blow smoke and cover for his inability to answer questions that have been on many readers of his recent Facebook posts minds. The fact he has to block Sam Frost, William Vincent, and I for asking him simple questions shows insecurity on his part. What is he so scared of? That he may have to admit Frost has a point? That he might have to engage in actual discourse? That he might have to publicly tell people that full preterism is a heresy? That he might have to actually continue to uphold the resurrection of the dead? That he may have to rethink some of his preterist ideals and presuppositions? That oikoumene might not be solely about Rome? What a scary proposition that must be for Gary. I end this post with a blog post from Sam Frost about the word oikoumene.

And Gary, if you're reading this, I am sorry for calling you a moron still. Even if you don't accept my apology, you are still a Bible teacher, so you really should publicly renounce full preterism as a heresy publicly, uphold the resurrection of the dead, and quit blocking and running away from people who ask you questions about it. If you are secretly a full preterist in cohoots with Don Preston like many are beginning to believe, the only thing I can say is you need to find better friends and repent of the heresy. Peace.

https://vigil.blog/2023/01/06/hes-got-the-whole-world-in-his-hands/?fbclid=IwAR3CiGUp_TPCVRCAUISNrGPnV4YKYuFBtym-VQ6BcRW7SfNWSNNjg1rO9VU

Response to Gary DeMar's "More Comments About 'Morons' and 'Idiots' " Article

It appears Gary DeMar has written a response to my previous article where I responded to his first article about me. 

As I always do when someone writes about me or responds to an article, I always try to put the source so people can get full context. Here is Gary's original article.

https://americanvision.org/posts/of-morons-and-idiots/?fbclid=IwAR3tITjWxUb81uYZyLfOb92VRMoKyuk_akpcIlrUF1nJwlIs9iRvbXAiV4Y 

Here is my first response to that article: https://www.hoperesurrected.com/2022/12/response-to-gary-demars-of-morons-and.html  

And here is the post we will be responding to where Gary gives a response: https://americanvision.org/posts/more-comments-about-morons-and-idiots/ 

I did not expect a second article to come out but I noticed immediately upon reading it that Gary DeMar completely dismisses that I made a public apology to him for calling him a moron. 

He basically just dismisses the entire first part of the article and doesn't acknowledge any bit of it. This makes it clear Gary is engaging in bad faith since in his previous article he completely ignored the context behind why I said what I said in the first place. 

I don't need to discuss what I challenged him to do with Frost and his audience because if he does not do any of that and just dismisses what was said it simply speaks more to his integrity as a teacher of the Bible, and the type of character he is unwilling to acknowledge that he played any part in wrongdoing. If he doesn't acknowledge that full preterism is a heresy and uphold the resurrection of the dead and continues blocking everyone who questions him on it and is simply asking him questions or to clarify or to uphold the tradition of the Apostolic Faith, then that is on him for not doing so and ultimately he will be held accountable as we all will in the Final Judgment (John 6).

DeMar claims: "Lance Conley claimed I believe that the word kosmos in passages like Matthew 4:8, 14; 13:35; 16:26 refer solely to the Roman Empire. This is absurd. Lance Conley's work cannot be trusted. I have never said kosmos only refers to the Roman Empire. Not once in ten books dealing with Bible prophecy and countless articles have I ever made such a claim. If he did not read what I have written on the subject before he made his absurd claim, then he is not to be trusted". 

I have read many of, but not all his works. This is basically an ad hominem. I'd also say that it does not really matter how many books Gary DeMar has written and what I have read of him. He appears to many people, not just me, to be changing his views on eschatology. This is why it is so very important for Gary to clarify what he teaches now so he is not being taken out of context, misunderstood, etc. He claims in both his articles that kosmos is not limited only to the Roman Empire but when one goes back and sees the conversations he was having lately with other individuals, many people had come to similar conclusions I had. Many people, myself included, have seen what's been said the last month or so and have presumed him to have changed his positions he once held.

I am totally willing to say it is possible I and many others have misread him and mistakenly presumed something. I will engage in good faith, be charitable towards Gary, and say it is even possible Gary DeMar did not intentionally mean his words to come across that way with regards to kosmos. 

I would still argue that kosmos being about Rome is found nowhere in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 & 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Timothy, Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, nor Revelation. DeMar says he has pointed out that kosmos "sometimes refers to events that are limited to the inhabited earth and/or the political boundaries of the Roman Empire". I can only find 1 Peter 3:3 where it uses it for something ornamental, like an ornament of heaven but the rest of 1 Peter uses kosmos about the whole world unknown and known. The Revelation only makes sense with it being about solely the Roman Empire if we have a preterist bend to it. If we go beyond the scope the preterist desires to delimit the word, then it naturally, like the rest of Scripture goes beyond the Roman Empire. I am glad to see however that DeMar decided to clarify his position is still like his books because people, not just myself, are unsure of what he believes now since he continually seems to be changing his positions on things. 

Now as far as oikoumene goes, I stand by what I said earlier that it is very obviously not about the Roman empire in Hebrews 1:6 and 2:5. The author of Hebrews as I said before would not make sense if we took Gary DeMar's interpretation of it. Jesus is not the firstborn of the inhabited world nor is He the firstborn of Rome (1:6). He also did not subject to angels the inhabited world or Roman Empire to come... this makes zero sense. Sam Frost and myself noted DeMar does zero exegesis of Hebrews 1:6 or Hebrews 2:5. Instead he just quote mines people. He quotes a lot of scholars he says agree with him. 

I didn't know who this Robert Cruickshank was that Gary quoted but when I went to do a little google search and Facebook searches I found that this person that Gary apparently is in full agreeent with on most things is a full preterist. If I am incorrect that he isn't a full preterist I will correct this error but it seems very obvious from what I could see of his posts and an Amazon book that he wrote the foreward to a full preterist named Dan Harden's book where Harden says quite literally the resurrection of the dead has already been fulfilled in 70 AD. This is further confirmed when we see Don Preston has Robert writing guest articles on his blog sites. It should be alarming that Gary DeMar even thought about and decided to quote a full preterist to show agreement with them. I think I am safe to say that to the public looking at this it all seems suspicious and should make Gary's following demand he clarify his position about full preterism being a heresy or not. I don't see it the way Gary and Robert do on these verses in Hebrews and certainly some scholars agree with my take as well. This is certainly not just something Sam Frost or I came up with. 

Apparently a Calvinist minister John Murray agrees with Gary and says kosmos in Romans 1:8 is simply hyperbole. I can see how someone would think in that manner but I still respectfully disagree that it is only the known world here in context. I think Paul is thanking God through Jesus Christ for all the Roman believers because their message and faithfulness and gospel of allegiance to Jesus Christ IS being proclaimed by the apostles and angelic beings throughout the whole world, both known and unknown. I come to these conclusions based on my studies of the Early Church and 2nd Temple Judaism literature I have been studying for years. Gary is free to disagree but I don't think Paul has just the Roman provinces in mind here and I can find scholars who also agree with me just as Gary can find some that agree with him.

Paul is likely not in the Roman capital yet when he writes this letter and is somewhere outside it. He has heard great things about them and considers this a great feat considering where they are is the center of paganism. He has the whole Church around the world, wherever Christ is being preached known and unknown, in context, because in vv. 6-7 earlier, Paul tells the Roman Church that they are those who are called to be holy ones and loved by God. Humans in Christ are called to be part of God's family and take part in His governing counsel over the Kingdom of God. He calls them "brother and sister" (Romans 1:13) showing us that he considers them all family. In Roman culture if you call someone this term you are obliged to be responsible for them as family. So with this in mind and the entire Church hearing of this community of believers that are now part of their growing family doing great things, as far as I can tell, this clearly CAN be argued for being NOT Rome solely but being in a broader context, including those places not inhabited by Rome, such as India for example, where St. Thomas went to evangelize to Parthian King Gondophares (clearly one of many kingdoms that are outside of Rome).

He next quotes Henry Alford saying that "The Gospel had been preached through the whole Roman world, and every nation had received its testimony, before the destruction of Jerusalem (quotes Col 1.6, 23; 2 Tim 4.17). This was neccesary not only as regarded the Gentiles, but to give God's people the Jews, who were scattered among the nations, the opportunity of receiving or rejecting the preaching of Christ" and Norman Geisler's commentary on Colossians where he says that Paul's usage of "to every creature under heaven" "is obviously a figure of speech indicating the universality of the gospel and its proclamation, not that every person on the globe heard Paul preach. In Acts 2:5 this phrase describes countries without including, for example, anyone from N. or S. America (cf. Also Gen 41.57; 1 Kings 10.24; Rom 1:8)".

It's great and all that Gary can mine quote scholars who agree with him but as far as Alford goes, the NT at least from my understanding after Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension marks the end of the Exile and the start of the Restoration which does not end until the 2nd Coming. In Whole Counsel of God podcast, DeYoung (PhD) rightly points out that this isn't just a figure of speech going on and that when Paul says that the Gospel was "preached to every creature under heaven" this does not in 2nd Temple Judaism era only apply to humanity but applies universally. This also includes angels and demons in context. This applies to non-humans, animals, and the universe itself. This may sound odd and far too mystical to us with our modern sensibilities but this is exactly what is taught in 2nd Temple Literature, 2nd Temple scholars would confirm this is found as well. This is also taught by scholar Michael Heiser, Archbishop Dmitri Royster, and more who are just as talented, I'd argue more so, as teachers of the bible and bible scholars as Gary's Reformation commentators are.

Gary commits bad faith here and an ad hominem here when he claims: These are such common concepts that only someone who has an agenda would try to distort what I and others have written". 

I have no agenda except Christ, certainly not one against Gary DeMar. I have called him to follow after Christ and Truth and to be the best teacher of the Bible he can be, which means clarifying what he believes to the public about full preterism being a heresy or not, as one who teaches the Bible rightfully should. DeMar has not done so and has refused to do so unfortunately. 

I'll say this again as I said in the first article I responded to. I shouldn't have called Gary DeMar a moron. I let myself become angry and said a hurtful stupid thing about DeMar after I watched him attack my mentor and friend Sam Frost with Don Preston and called him out for it, then posted that he was a moron. I was wrong and I apologize yet again to Gary DeMar for calling him a moron. 

Nowhere has it been my agenda or intention to distort what Gary and others have written. If I have misread Gary DeMar, misunderstood DeMar, or misinterpreted DeMar's intentions with regards to his usage of kosmos, then I am certainly not alone in this matter and simply put, for a lot of people, myself included, we have watched what he posts on Facebook and are now suspicious and unsure of what he now believes. I have read a lot of his books and used to use him as a reference when I was a full preterist, knowing him to be a strong early-date partial preterist. 

Just like I changed when I left full preterism, I know Gary DeMar can change because people change their minds all the time. Sometimes they end up going against everything they have written before as well which is why, I can't stress this enough, that as a teacher of the Bible, Gary should publicly clarify and renounce full preterism as a heresy if he does not believe it to be true. It is as simple as that. I also would tell him to uphold the resurrection of the dead as a future biological event as I would any teacher of the Bible. I pray Gary DeMar will uphold the Nicene Creed when it says "And He will come again with glory to judge the living and dead. His kingdom shall have no end" and when it says "I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come". That's my only agenda here is that I, as a Christian, call Gary DeMar to follow Christ and uphold the faith of the apostles and the Council of Nicea. Likewise, Gary should call me to do the same. 

As far as kosmos and oikoumene are concerned, I think I have made my case clear and I think it is great that Gary has clarified now that kosmos is not solely about Rome. That's great! He and I obviously will have to agree to disagree on the NT usage of oikoumene because I don't see it the way he desires it to be. There is no need to rehash that argument as one can go to my first article and see what I wrote.

It also should and was noted before that Gary DeMar did zero exegesis on Heb 1:6 or 2:5. All he does is quote commentaries that agree with him. Second, if Gary were presumed correct about his take on Colossians and also says the "end" came in 70 AD then there is no other conclusion one can make except full preterism. If one takes that position we have to conclude the resurrection of the dead, restoration of all things, etc. happened on or by May 9, 70 AD. Anyone with common sense will see that none of this took place in 70 AD. They'll also see quite clearly that the Early Church clearly doesn't accept that to be true and all hold the 2nd Coming and resurrection of the dead to be future. 

As he did in the first article, I expect he will simply dismiss and ignore everything that has been said in this article as well. He may just continue being upset that I called him a moron but we'll see! Stay tuned to see if there's a Part 3 from Gary DeMar.