Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Why Some Christians Are Confused About Israel?

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Why Some Christians Are Confused About Israel? · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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defending biblical Christianity, no topic, off limits.
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And now, here's your host, David Fiorazo.
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Hi guys, another busy week, another great guest coming up, Mr. Jim Fletcher, and we're
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going to be talking a lot about Israel and some history and some current events.
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And I just want to mention, you can catch up with Jim over at patreon.com slash the God
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that answers.
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And we might reference my article over at harbingersdaily.com.
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It's called, we are living in prophetic times.
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Okay, so we want to bring in Jim Fletcher.
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He's an independent writer, researcher, and speaker with a BA in journalism.
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He's a long time lover and supporter of Israel.
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And his work can be seen on the website we just showed you.
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The God that answers on patreon.
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Jim Fletcher, welcome to worldviewmatters.
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Brother, good to see you.
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Good to see you David.
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Good to be with you.
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Yeah.
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So we've talked before in the past on the radio and have had much longer conversations.
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So this has been a challenge for me to condense these things a lot more.
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But tell us about your initial interest in Israel and the Middle East.
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I know you've had about 11 trips over there.
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So you're very knowledgeable on Bible prophecy and the Middle East.
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So share how that is part of your background.
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Sure.
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Well, I credit my father when I was a boy, teaching me that the Bible is true.
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That was the foundation.
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He was very pro-Israel, but he also did something really invaluable for me.
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He taught me how to know why I believe what I believe and he really emphasized that.
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So then later, you know, in journalism school, it all seemed to fit.
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And so over time, my confidence in the Bible became rock solid.
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And so then in the late 90s, I was a book editor for a Christian publisher.
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And one of our authors was going to Israel to research his new book.
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And he just offhandedly said, he's likely to go and help me.
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As I said, sure, you know, and as people say, it really changed the trajectory of my life
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and has been a passion ever since.
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Wow.
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And you're very knowledgeable on what's happening over there now.
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We'll get to that in a minute.
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I do want to mention your book, The Miracle of Israel.
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Tell us a little bit about it where people can get it and then we'll talk about current events.
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Yeah, you know, any, any place that sells books Amazon, of course, Masterbooks published it.
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And I also want to mention, I wrote that with Gary Frazier, who I consider to be one of the very best
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prophecy teachers out there.
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Awesome.
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So you guys can pick that up, The Miracle of Israel.
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Now, over on one of the sites, I believe it was raptured ready under Israel watch.
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I think that's where I came across this article called The Hounds of Hell.
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I'm glad, you know, you were writing this shortly after the events, October 7th happened
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where thousands of Hamas terrorists broke through Israel's security fence in the Gaza
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strip and we know what has happened since so much misinformation out there and a lot
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of propaganda and unfortunately, Jim, and we will get to this.
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There's a lot of ignorance in the church, the Christian church, and a lot of people
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have bought the talking points and really have been deceived.
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So share with us just a little bit from this article.
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I appreciate the fact that you don't hold back and I don't think we have time anymore.
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I think our time is so limited.
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We've got to be straight talking on these issues and really call it like it is.
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So go ahead and share your thoughts.
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When it first happened, were you surprised in what did you think on October 7th?
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Well, I have to admit, yes, I was surprised.
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You know, the audacity of what they did, the ferocity is something that no one will ever
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get over.
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I had been there in May and I was there the week that Hamas sent, you know, a thousand
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rockets into Israel and I was probably overconfident as well because it was it was strange
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being over there reading media reports from home.
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It sounded like the whole country was on fire and I was watching people on the beach doing
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the regular things.
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It didn't really seem like anything was going on and although obviously it was a serious
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issue, but I did not anticipate that Hamas had the capability to do what they did and so
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that morning I just like everyone else followed the news all Saturday on the 7th and it
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was just astonished at what I was seeing.
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You know, there's a lot of questions being raised about how they were able to do this.
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Those answers are going to have to wait until after this war is over.
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Now it's interesting.
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I've had several guests on.
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A lot of pastors perspectives on this in the last couple of weeks.
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In fact, two of the most popular guests, one of them said there's evidence that it could
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have been an inside job.
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Some people were involved from the inside and other ones said no.
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That's impossible.
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That could never happen.
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Of course, and he gave a lot of reasons why it just wasn't reasonable to think that
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way.
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We've got to be very careful about speculating until as you say, more information comes
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just what are your thoughts on that and just how some people want to jump on something
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because it sounds sensational or maybe it'll make some headlines.
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I don't like those kind of comments, honestly.
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Well, you're journalistic background.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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The fact is none of us know anything about this.
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We don't.
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If you're not a member of Israel's military infrastructure, you don't have a clue.
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As I said earlier, what happened?
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Maybe we'll find out the full story at some point.
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I don't know.
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I also resent the fact that people are insinuating that Netanyahu knew about it.
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You know, Allah FDR with Pearl Harbor, which can't be proven either.
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Yeah.
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I will say this.
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I have a little bit of knowledge of this.
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The Netanyahu family would never put their own people in peril.
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If he has made any mistakes, I put mistakes in quotes, it's relying a bit too much on alleged
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friends in the West who are trying to restrain them right now.
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And I don't subscribe to these conspiracy theories about an inside job.
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Now, that's not to say there are not leftists in Israel's government.
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They're all right.
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That's right.
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They've been undermining them all year with the judicial reform stuff, but the idea that
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they kind of let this come in.
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No.
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Yeah.
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I don't think so either.
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I read an article that Jan Markel put out an appeal to pastors, don't keep silent
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on Israel.
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I was just at a Bible study at our church last night, our pastor spoke the whole hour,
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15 hour and a half on what's going on and walked us through events and then connected
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that with not only Bible prophecy, Jim, but the land and the history of the land.
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What God had allotted and what God had promised and the Abrahamic covenant.
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But Jan said, quote, I was, actually, this is someone emailing her, this was in her article.
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She said, I was very dismayed that the church we attended did not even make mention of
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what is going on or what was going on in Israel, nor did the topic arise on Wednesday night,
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though there were several mentions of the Houston Astros game.
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So this must have been a listener in Texas.
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But there are, I hear this a lot, there are a lot of churches, A, that don't preach
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Bible prophecy and B, now more recently, aren't mentioning maybe because they're ignorant
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and they don't understand what's going on over there, Jim, I'd love to get your thoughts
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on that.
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Yeah, this is a big topic.
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It's one of my favorite topics, even though it's a negative one because this is a serious
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problem in the American church.
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Yes.
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It's a combination of ignorance because we make a mistake if we think this has been a
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trend for the last 10 years.
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Our seminaries have been infected with anti-biblical thought for 100 years or more.
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They've turned out pastors who are taught that Bible prophecy is either ridiculous or
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tooth controversy to talk about.
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There's a lot of anti-Israel thought in the church and let me be very specific.
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I don't work for anybody, I work for myself.
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So I'll say one of the biggest problems in the American church is deep anti-Semitism.
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In a lot of it, it's at the leadership level.
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Some of it is under the table, but it's very much there.
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I've seen it now since the Hamas attack, which is another out of left field shot to
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the face that you see professing Christians on social media, just making outright anti-Semitic
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states statements.
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I think it's a huge problem.
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Another factor, I'll just say this quickly, I think over the last 40, 50 years, the church
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growth movement has contributed to this because true biblical teaching in the churches has
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been watered down to the point that you go to a lot of these churches on a Sunday and
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you're hearing a TED book.
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You're not hearing any biblical teaching.
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Now, I think there are still thousands of faithful pastors across the country, but they're
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not very visible.
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It's the visible guys that are the problem.
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Yep.
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Some of the best-selling authors on the New York Times, lists and all that.
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We're both disappointed at the lack of the biblical illiteracy in the Christian church.
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A lot of it has to do with the seminaries how long ago, the 50s, 60s, dropping in
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erancy, the belief in the inerancy of scriptures, and then it goes from there, then the teaching
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on how to build a bigger church or how to, anybody can attract a crowd, but we're seeing
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the fruit of that now.
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We've got to take a break already.
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I think I want to do that instead of asking you another question.
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So let's do that.
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When we come back more with Jim Fletcher on current events on Israel and a little bit
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of history, that you may not be aware of next.
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Today's show is brought to you by Harbinger's Daily, the world news biblically understood.
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Stay informed at harbingerstaley.com.
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Our guest is Jim Fletcher, journalist and lover of Israel, and his website you can get
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more information and read some of his writings at patreon.com slash the god that answers.
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What did you think about the pro-Palestinian protests, parades, whatever you want to call
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them in America, American cities, very shortly after this horrific attack.
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And then I want to ask you, in light of what you wrote in the hounds of hell, the article,
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I'm just reading some things that happened.
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We didn't see all of these things, but there were videos out there and it was brutal.
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These people are demonic.
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And I just want to get your thoughts on that, how I don't know, there's such a disconnect
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I believe in this country.
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Go ahead and share.
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Yeah, the protests themselves are almost encouraged by a combination of lack of leadership in
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the political and religious realms.
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It shouldn't be allowed to get away with this.
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The people that are protesting are really no different than the Hamas terrorists themselves.
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They themselves are a fifth column in western countries.
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The irony is they wouldn't be allowed to protest anything if they lived in Gaza.
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But here, they can defame people, I mean, you have these protesters affirming that it's
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okay to slaughter Jewish children in front of their parents.
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This is nothing but what Paul called a reprovate mind in Romans.
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It's not a mystery.
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That's the source of it.
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And what's interesting, they are justifying this.
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I mean, some people do it out of ignorance.
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If you think about how many generations have been raised in the progressive secularized
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atheist Marxist school systems and how many people are not hearing the truth in churches,
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yeah, they're going to believe the talking points.
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The left is talking points.
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What the media says, I want to talk to you about some of the detail.
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You call this a next level horror or what happened in Israel and in the article.
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You're mentioning things that I don't know if a lot of people have seen or heard about,
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at least read about and you talked about, as you just mentioned, Hamas terrorists be
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heading babies in front of their parents.
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We've seen at least heard, I mean, about dead bodies.
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I've seen the corpses burnt.
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You, friends, may have seen this on some outlets, not the typical news, women, including
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the elderly, brutally beat up or raped corpses all over, just dousing people in flammable
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liquids.
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Some shot in the head.
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I mean, these are, and now we've got some hostages.
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This is horrific.
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These people are evil.
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It is a demonic agenda that has gone on since, I mean, most, before our lifetimes, and
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it's just ignited now, what do you see happening, Jim?
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The media is never going to report the full truth.
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We know that.
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We've got to be very discerning where we get our news and information.
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So there's so many things to deal with on a lot of fronts in the church and then the general
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public on what they hear, but just go ahead and share your thoughts on how I don't think
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people know how demonic this is.
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Well, they don't, but social media has actually given us an advantage now.
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I don't, I haven't watched Network News in years.
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I haven't read a newspaper in years.
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You can find out everything you need to know by checking social media.
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And so I can conclude that a lot of people, they don't want to see it.
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They don't want to hear about it.
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I hear this a lot.
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People want to stick their heads in the sand.
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I think that's dangerous for two reasons.
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One, you, if, if, if you call yourself a Christian, you are abandoning God's people.
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You're abandoning the Jews of Israel with that ridiculous view.
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I honestly to test it.
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But the other thing is, people like that don't realize that in a certain way, Hamas benefits
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from our silence.
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They benefit from ignorance and fact is, you know, we're seeing American embassies in
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the Middle East being attacked because of our weak political leadership.
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You're seeing, you know, a lot of threats come from, from that area, the world, Hezbollah
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just threatened this last week.
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The fact is, with, with our open borders that, that the, the Washington is allowed, we've
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got terrorists in this country.
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And, and if you think that you can stand by and, and not say anything and, and let the
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Jews be left to their fate over there, please understand the time is coming when they're
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going to come for you.
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People don't know history.
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They don't read history.
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They don't only think about it.
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Do you think that these demons are going to leave you alone if you give them the Jews,
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so to speak?
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They're not.
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Jim, let's talk about what happened at that hospital, they're, they're all a Lee hospital
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that was hit by, well, I think their own rocket, from the rocket launch site, it went
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right to the hospital set of making it over toward Israel, and there's a lot of misinformation
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that was put out immediately, that Israel bombed a hospital, right?
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So, what, what can you tell us about that, and then we'll talk a little bit more about
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some prophetic history?
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Sure.
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Well, it was inevitable that something like this was going to happen.
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In fact, that was all set up, I'm sure, before this, this slaughter on October 7th, this
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is part and parcel of what Hamas does.
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Hamas is not just an on the ground terror unit, they're, they're politically savvy, they,
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they were schooled by the Soviets, Yasser Erifat was schooled by the Soviets and propaganda.
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The propaganda war is every bit as important as the ground war, because they were going
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to have an incident like this, and, and the only thing I would question about the story
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at this point is, you know, now, and certainly, I don't believe Israel did it, but people
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have to ask themselves, why would Israel purposely do something like this, they're already
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under siege by political opinion around the world?
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And so, but people are saying, you know, it was a, the bomb went off accidentally or they,
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they flubbed it or something.
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These people murdered children in front of their parents a couple of weeks ago.
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Do you think they would be reticent to murder their own people?
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They've been using the Palestinians as human shields for 17 years now.
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It doesn't matter whether it was an accident or not, the fact is, they were always going
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to use this kind of story to beat Israel to pulp internationally, and it's working.
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Yeah, it's sad that that what speculation got out before the actual truth did, because
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according to Daniel Rubenstein and many others that I've read about over the times of Israel
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and the Jerusalem post and other places that a rocket launched by Islamic jihad that met,
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it malfunctioned and crashed into that hospital there in Gaza.
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So and you can see there's graphics out there now.
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I'm looking at one right now, but it didn't make it over to where obviously where they were
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trying to shoot at malfunction.
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So you can get information over at the Jerusalem post daily wire and other places, but it's
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sad that we want to believe the sensational headlines just because we want to think the
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war is getting maybe at fever pitch and we want to blame Israel.
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I think it's very naive to do that, but Jim, before we run out of time here, I want to
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talk about some history.
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We know the famous verse on Genesis 12, three, God will bless those who bless Israel and
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will curse those who curse Israel.
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How do we fall under that and what else can you share with us about Israel being God's
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chosen people as far as Christians need to know here in the West?
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Yeah, um, you know, the whole Bible is Jewish, it was written by Jews, but try to get your
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average Christian to know any of that.
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I mean, they kind of don't know, and which is very, very curious and puzzling, but, um,
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you know, I think for a long time, the church has been angered by the whole chosenness thing
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with the Jews.
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Um, I view it as a bit of jealousy, but what they don't talk about is look at the, you know,
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the promises to the Jews are one thing, but look at, look at what they've had to bear
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over millennia.
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The terrible things that have happened to them, uh, you know, the church wouldn't want
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those promises, um, and so I think there's a very, very distorted view of Jews, particularly
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in the American church.
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And, uh, now the flip side of that is there are enormous educational opportunities right
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now, but my question is whether the pastors of the individual churches who are gatekeepers
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will allow it in.
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Yeah, we need a whole, we need a lot of men of God that can speak up to this because, um,
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as we're hearing a lot of people aren't getting this information from their churches,
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which that should be your starting point, getting it from the Bible, from scripture,
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from prophecy, and then looking over the Middle East and looking at what's happening
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through the lens of scripture.
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But if you're not trained to do that, Jim, so I guess that's a question.
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How can the average person that's watching right now speak to this if their pastor is
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not speaking about it?
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What can we share with other people about supporting Israel?
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Well, you know, there are all sorts of resources, um, um, not to make it about me, but, you
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know, my site has that kind of thing.
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Um, Christian's United for Israel does.
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Um, there's another organization called Stand With Us.
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Um, plenty of resources out there in a, you know what, if your pastor isn't going to
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talk about this, if your pastor has been hostile to Israel, bypass him.
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You know, have your own group, have your own study group, um, technology lay, it's easy
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to do.
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So there, there are a lot of resources out there.
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Um, I mean, and I wanted, I wanted to say a couple of quick things, um, all of this in
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the last few weeks has, has caused me to begin to think about what is the definition?
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What does it mean to be pro-Israel as a Christian?
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And I'm seeing a, I think what is a lot of different definitions.
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So I've come up with a new definition.
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To me pro-Israel is loving the Jewish people in Israel unconditionally, period.
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Hmm.
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I'm seeing a lot of the, uh, grotesque posts on social media about, uh, uh, Israel is
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now under judgment.
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And what Hamas did is because, uh, the Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah.
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I, I heard, uh, I read a couple of weeks ago on Twitter X, a famous American pastor made
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that statement, um, I, wow, I, I, it, it makes me so angry.
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Um, the other thing, let me say this quickly, uh, something else that comes out of this,
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that people don't talk about enough.
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If we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, all of it.
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And I do.
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Oh, Genesis to, to revelation.
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Amen.
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Then one of the narratives of scripture is that, especially as we get near the time of
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the end, Israel being great peril, speaking in a human perspective.
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But God says he's going to preserve them.
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He's going to fight for them and end Jeremiah, uh, Isaiah, Zachariah.
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He's going to destroy their enemies utterly.
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Hmm.
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Uh, I believe that 100%.
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Now I, I get up in the middle of the night and check my phone for the news now.
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And they're, you know, there's some unpleasant things coming out.
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Um, but, but I think that as Christians, if I can say it this way, we shouldn't worry
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about Israel's future and safety.
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We absolutely should pray for them, but if, if we're going to be people of faith, we
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should stand on the fact that the Bible, God's Word, promises that the Jewish people will
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survive.
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Hmm.
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Yeah.
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Now what, uh, just to clarify, I know we don't have much time left, Jim.
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But is it, is it one third of Israel will be saved?
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Is that what I understand from Zechariah and other places?
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Well, that, that's in Zechariah chapter 13.
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I honestly think that we should actually have a conversation about just that sometime.
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The teaching there specifically is, and I, there's no other way to say it, Israel is
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going to another Holocaust.
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I don't subscribe to that view.
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Paul mentions in the New Testament that all Israel will be saved.
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I will tell you that I think we don't yet understand all of that detail of what that
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means, right?
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Um, but, but in any case, God promises he will save them physically, but also spiritually.
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Right.
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And that's all known.
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Well, that's the important thing what you just mentioned spiritually because they,
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right now are in unbelieving.
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They are a secular nation, just like America, maybe a little bit more Christianized, but
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there are some Messianic Jews, but the majority of people in Israel, they are not believers.
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That doesn't mean we shouldn't support them.
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And we should still hold them in high regard as the Bible teaches.
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Even those that are practiced Judaism, I was talking with a friend of the other day.
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She lives in, in Judea, Samaria, and she said, Jim, I, I, I go for a walk now outside
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I just feel the footsteps of the Messiah.
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Hmm.
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Wow.
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They, they are in the middle of a spiritual transformation over there.
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Interesting.
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And there's no question.
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Interesting.
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There's so much more history we could talk about and we have in the past, I think people
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could check out your book, The Miracle of Israel and pick that up and, and read that and
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we can, you know, have Jim back and talk about more another time about the wars.
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There's details on the wars from, you know, 60, 67 and 73 that we should talk about.
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And Jim got to let you go already.
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I knew it would go by fast, but hey, thanks for your time, brother.
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And if you go to friends, go to patreon.com slash the God that answers and read some of
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Jim Fletcher's writings.
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God bless you, brother.
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Thank you.
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You too.
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All right.
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Thanks.
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Guys, thank you for subscribing.
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Thank you for sharing.
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That's really important to help us as a new program.
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Get the word out.
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So God bless you and as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.