Greg Laurie - Israel And The End Times
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I heard about a guy who was stranded on a desert island. He was finally rescued. And they found that this man had built three buildings. And they asked him, «What are these three buildings?» He says, «Well, the first building, that’s my house. The second building, that’s my church.» «Really? And what’s the third building?» He said, «Well, that’s a church I used to go to.» Come on, it’s funnier than that, isn’t it? So, you know, even if you’re all by yourself, you’ll find something to disagree with, right? We’re talking about hot-button issues, controversial issues, in the light of what the Bible says. And I don’t know that there’s any more controversial issue out there than the topic of what is called eschatology. That just means the study of end-times events or Bible prophecy.
People have disagreements as to what event is gonna happen when. People have disagreements about the nation Israel or the Jewish people. So I want to look at all of that through the lens of what the Bible has to say. I can tell you back in the '70s when the Jesus movement was happening, we talked about this all the time. In fact, the number one selling book of the entire decade of the '70s was titled, «The Late Great Planet Earth,» and it was a book about the end times written by Hal Lindsey. I would say that belief that Christ could come in our lifetime contributed to the revival-like atmosphere. But when you bring this topic up, some recoil, they say, «Oh no, here we go. Here come the end-times charts and the conspiracy theories,» right? And it can be that way and it can be exaggerated and it can be extreme, or we can look at it in a balanced way. Some don’t want to talk about end-times events because there’s disagreement or because maybe they find it scary. But listen to this: Bible prophecy is not given to scare us. It’s given to prepare us.
So we need to know about these things. Why? Let me give you a number of reasons. Number one, if you’re taking notes: the Bible talks about the return of Jesus a lot. And by the way, when I’m done with this message, which will be a little shorter, I’m gonna interview my friend Joel Rosenberg. And Joel is a geopolitical expert. He lives in Israel. He has dual citizenship as both an Israeli and American citizen and is a bona fide expert on the topic. So we’ll discuss this in greater depth. But Jesus, the Bible in general talks about this a lot.
Jesus said in John 14, «Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid: you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. If I go, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, you may be also.» Twenty-five percent of the Bible is prophetic. So it’s not like it’s a side note. It’s front and center. You might say the Bible oozes with the return of Christ. The New Testament contains over 300 references to the return of Christ. That’s one out of every 13 verses. Do you get the idea that God is trying to tell us something? So we should not talk about what God talks about so much. It’s the very opposite. We should discuss it because the Bible wants us to think about these things. So, number one: the Bible talks about the return of Christ a lot.
Number two: understanding Bible prophecy brings hope in a hopeless world. Understanding Bible prophecy brings hope in a hopeless world. Titus 2:13 says, «While we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of God and of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.» It’s a blessed hope. The word «blessed» can also be translated «happy.» So we might call it a happy hope. It’s a happy hope to know that Christ could come back at any moment because if you watch the news all the time, you’re gonna get down. I was talking with someone the other day, and they said, «We watch the news a lot, and it keeps me up at night.» It shouldn’t be keeping you up at night. In fact, you should be looking up. Jesus said, «When you see these things begin to happen, look up, for your redemption is drawing near.»
Number three: understanding Bible prophecy unravels the mystery of history. Understanding Bible prophecy unravels the mystery of history. We wonder, «Why is there so much evil in the world? Why does God allow all of these horrible things to happen?» Even the believers in the book of Revelation chapter 6 are saying in heaven, «How long, O Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those that dwell on the earth?» They’re saying, «Lord, when are you gonna do something about it?» The Bible tells us that judgment is coming. The Bible tells us that one day, Satan himself will be judged, and Jesus will return and make every wrong right.
So the Bible unlocks the mystery of history, and Bible prophecy does that in particular. Here’s another one: understanding Bible prophecy brings a specific blessing to us. The book of Revelation is the only book of 66 that comes with a built-in blessing attached. And it says this in Revelation 1:3, «Blessed,» or happy, «is the one who reads and hears and keeps the word written in this book, for the time is near.» Built-in blessing. So when you study and keep the words of Revelation, you’ll be blessed, or you’ll be happy. And I think what’s true of Revelation is principally true of the study of prophecy in the Bible in general.
One last thing: The key to understanding Bible prophecy is Israel and the Jewish people. And that’s one of the most controversial topics of all: Israel and the Jewish people. When the Jews formed their nation on May 14, 1948, a modern-day miracle occurred, and more specifically, a prophecy was fulfilled, and the prophetic time clock began to tick. It wasn’t just a sign. It was a super sign. Why? Because it was all predicted by the Jewish prophets, like Ezekiel in chapter 37, where he talks about a valley of dry bones, a graveyard effectively. And all of a sudden, all these bones start coming together, and then flesh is put on these bones, and they come alive.
And this is a symbol, he says, of the nation Israel. They’ll be dead, they’ll be gone, and they’ll come to life again in their land in the last days, and we saw that happen before our very eyes. And God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people. To the Jewish people, God said in Deuteronomy 1:8, «Look, I’m giving all this land to you! And so go in and occupy it, for it is in this land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors that you have that is given to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all their descendants.» And I bring this up because people will say, «Well, you know, the Israelis are occupiers. They’ve taken land that belonged to someone else.» Excuse me, the Jews are indigenous to this region. This is their land that God gave to them, and more to the point they haven’t even occupied all the land that God did give them. So they are not the occupiers or the colonizers, as some like to say.
And listen to this one last thing: God is not done with the Jewish people. I want you to look at Romans 11:25. «I want you to understand,» writes Paul, «the mystery, dear brothers and sisters, so that you will not feel proud about yourselves. Blindness in part has happened to Israel, but that will last only until the full number of the Gentiles have come to Christ.» God is not done with the Jewish people. They’re gonna see a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit on their people in general and even on the nation Israel. There is a spiritual blindness among many Jews today. And by that, I mean they are not really open to embracing Jesus as the Messiah. But that’s beginning to change.
The last time I interviewed my guest Joel Rosenberg, he told me there were 15,000 Messianic Jews in Israel, which is actually quite a few. But he just told me now there’s 30,000, so it’s doubled. And he estimates there are 1 million Messianic Jews. A Messianic Jew is a Jew who’s put their faith in Jesus as the Messiah. He believes there is now a million Messianic Jews around the world. So God is at work, and I wanna explore that more together. So now we’re gonna welcome Joel Rosenberg. He’s a «New York Times» best-selling author, and he has a television program called «The Rosenberg Report» and also has a new site, «All Israel News,» another one called «All Arab News.» So Joel, I tell you what, he’s the guy I talked to when I want to get information about that part of the world. So let’s give a warm Harvest welcome to Joel as he comes.
Joel Rosenberg: Thank you. Hello, sir, how are ya? Good to see you.
Greg Laurie: So, Joel, let’s start off with why should we as Christians care in particular about Israel and about the Jewish people? Because there’s a name for it, replacement theology. They would say, «Well, Israel is not a fulfillment of Bible prophecy, and that only happens when the Messiah comes.» And they would say that we should not be that concerned about that part of the world. And what would you say in response to that?
Joel Rosenberg: Well, of course, I disagree with that, and we could talk…
Greg Laurie: So do I.
Joel Rosenberg: Thank you. We could talk about why and I’m happy to go there if you want. But I will say even if somebody here or watching or listening feels that way, I would say, okay, set aside our disagreement on whether current Israel has anything to do with Bible prophecy. Just think about the Great Commission. How are you gonna minister to a nation, a people that you think God has nothing to do with anymore? That’s impossible. I mean, to do it effectively. If God abandoned the Jews and replaced them with a church at the cross because most of my team didn’t get it, right? John 1, «He,» the Messiah, «came to his own,» the Jewish people, the nation of Israel, «and his own received him not. But as many as did receive him,» Gentiles like you and you, «to you he gave the right to become the children of God.» But our team did fail mostly to get it during the time of the gospel, but if God abandoned us then, if he cut us off then, how did Paul come to faith in Jesus Christ after the cross? How did God use him to reach so many Jews and Gentiles? No, God obviously is, right in the scriptures, you don’t have to go until later. Right in the scriptures, we can see God is not done with the Jews. And then go read in Romans 11:9, 10, and 11, and so forth. These are, but I would appeal to my friends who think that way and say, okay, just in terms of Jewish evangelism, just your heart and compassion, there’s a nation that’s grieving. Now, it’s not only us, right? The Palestinians are grieving. The Lebanese are grieving. And I think we are in the most dangerous moment of the war in the past year. I believe it’s very possible that in the next few hours or days, Israel will launch the biggest military attack on the Iranian regime and its nuclear facilities and oil refining facilities in history. And that might end quickly and well for us, or it could lead to an apocalyptic war that makes the last year in Gaza seem like a sideshow. So if you’re trying to show compassion and you think of Isaiah 40, «Comfort my people,» how can Isaiah say that prophetically if, «Oh, well, no, God’s done with us.» Well, how is that comforting if he’s done with it? He’s not done with us. And as you mentioned, now almost, maybe a little bit over a million Jews have come to faith in Jesus. Starting when? Starting in the Jesus revolution. That’s when my father, who was raised Orthodox Jewish in Brooklyn, his family escaped out of Russia. That’s when he came to faith. When he came to faith in 1973, he thought he was the first Jew since the Apostle Paul, Greg, that believed this. He’d never heard of a Jew that believed in Jesus. He never met one. And in 1973, we think there were fewer than 2,000 Jews on the planet who believed in Jesus as the Messiah. Now there are over a million out of a population of about 15 or 16 million Jews. So, in terms of sheer numbers and percentages, this is the greatest moment and era of Jews coming to faith in Jesus and many, many millions more listening than in all of human history. It’s exciting.
Greg Laurie: Yes.
Joel Rosenberg: It’s exciting.
Greg Laurie: So you talk about a potentially apocalyptic situation. So it’s interesting, we have Ezekiel 37 that talks about the regathering of the Jews to their homeland, which has happened. Then we have Ezekiel 38, we read about a large force from the north of Israel, identified as Magog, marching on her. Israel seems to be isolated at this moment. And one of the allies of Magog is called Persia, which changed their name to Iran in 1935. And we see the aggression of Iran toward Israel. And they have a hatred for America as well. We mustn’t miss that. And for some inexplicable reason, we’ve been funding them with billions of dollars, and we know that some of that money, no doubt, has gone to the funding of these proxy terrorist organizations like Hezbollah or Hamas or the Houthis. And so this is…
Joel Rosenberg: You have to, if you got a terrorist organization with an H in front of your name, you’re gonna get a lot of money. Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas. That seems to be the way it’s done.
Greg Laurie: It appears that way. Right. So could any of these events, like, let’s say Israel decides to hit Iran and take out their nuclear reactor kit or oil reserves or producing mechanisms. This could maybe lead to a scenario like that or it may not. We don’t know. But how do you see this in the big prophetic picture?
Joel Rosenberg: Yeah. So I’m concerned by some teachers who teach Bible prophecy with a bit of a dash of sensationalism. I think that’s a problem. I’m really grateful that you don’t. And may your tribe increase. Many pastors are avoiding it entirely because it’s being discredited by those who teach it badly. You know, they all seem like they’re in Area 51. They’re all from Roswell, New Mexico, and the websites they build are all red and black, filled with fire, every sentence is in capital letters with 97 exclamation points after it, and you’re like, «Dude, seriously, have some decaf. It’s gonna be okay.» So that doesn’t help, right? But you’re an evangelist, and you don’t say to yourself, «Oh, I’m not going to preach the gospel because there are lunatics preaching false gospels, preaching the prosperity gospel,» or whatever. You teach it and preach it with more clarity and conviction. That’s what needs to happen with Bible prophecy. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is that I forgot your actual question, and so you may… because I got…
Greg Laurie: The big prophetic puzzle.
Joel Rosenberg: Yeah, the big prophetic picture. All right, so that’s good. Thank you. I don’t think there’s enough data to say that we’re heading into Ezekiel 38-39 yet. Now, October 6 seemed such a quiet day, we felt so peaceful in Israel, that if Ezekiel 38-39 starts kicking in and we do have enough data, then we’ll say, «Okay, the six was the day of us living securely in the land,» that was one of the preconditions, «and then God didn’t tell us about the October 7 war.» That’s sort of a gap, right? Jesus, when he was announcing his ministry, reading the Isaiah scroll from Isaiah 61 in Nazareth, he has to stop halfway through a sentence because he said, «The day of God’s favor is upon us,» right? But he stops. Why? Because the day of vengeance comes in the next part of that sentence, and we’re not at the Tribulation yet, so that’s a 2,000-year gap just in the middle of that sentence that nobody would have seen coming. But Jesus, of course, did. So we have to be cautious. We need to be humble when we teach this. All that to say, I don’t think we’re there yet. We are in a birth pang. Matthew 24, «Wars, rumors of wars, kingdom against kingdom, nation against nation.» I believe that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia itself is a birth pang. It’s the greatest, largest land war in Europe since World War II. I believe the 6 million people that died during the COVID era, I think that was part of a contraction. It was part of the birth pangs. So birth pangs are contraction, release, contraction, release. October 6, we would have said, «We’re gonna release in Israel.» We had made peace with four Arab neighbors. We were about to make peace with the Saudis. We’re clearly in a contraction now that has not let up, and we’re a year in, and there’s no end in sight. It could end soon, and if it ends soon and, we get into release time, six months from now, Greg, a year from now, Israel may be perceived as the greatest superpower in the region because with no… almost… well, not enough help in my view from the United States and no help from the British, who put an arms embargo on us, no help from the French, who put an arms embargo on us, the world abandoning us, accusing us of genocide. If Israel wins against Hamas, which it’s already done, Hezbollah, we’ve destroyed half of their missile forces and 4,018 of their top leaders, and if we destroy the top leadership and the facilities that threaten us in Iran, we will all be saying, «The Saudis are about to make peace. The Indonesians are about to make peace.» This will seem like, «Oh, my gosh.» And that would be a setup for Ezekiel 38 and 39 afterwards because it would be the greatest era of calm, quiet, peace, and prosperity in the history of the Middle East since David and Solomon. But if this thing goes sour and Russia decides to team up with Iran and Turkey, then that’s a different scenario. We just don’t know that yet. And so we shouldn’t try to jump and draw conclusions that they’re…
Greg Laurie: Or even want it to happen. You know, I was talking with some professors from a seminary at the University of Haifa, and I said, «Let me clear misconception up that you may have about us evangelicals. I’ve heard it said that the reason evangelicals support Israel is because we want Armageddon to start.» I said, «Nothing could be further from the truth. We love you. We want you to be safe and secure. And, in fact, the Bible tells us in Psalm 122 to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. So we hope for that and we pray for that.» It’s not like we say, «Oh, this is, well, let’s hope it happens.» We don’t want it to happen, but it’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen in God’s timing. But in light of the fact that… look, here’s the bottom line: Christ is coming. As you said, the labor pains are around us. They’re getting in, as the labor pains get closer together, that means the birth is coming. And as we see these events getting closer and closer together, what should we be doing as Christians in the light of the fact that Christ could come in our lifetime?
Joel Rosenberg: Yeah. Okay, a few things. One: I would say that I believe the verse that captures best where we’re at, aside from Matthew 24, is Amos 9:9. This is where God says, «I will shake the house of Israel among the nations.» Satan has sent this horrible attack from every different direction against Israel. This isn’t that God did it. It’s Satan doing it to kill us, to destroy us. But God is sovereignly letting it happen. Why is he doing that? He’s doing that so that we will be shaken as a people and as a region to let go of anyone or anything or any ideology or any religion other than faith in Jesus for our hope and our peace and our eternal security. So God is shaking us because we have not woken up yet as a people or as a region. So when you understand Amos 9:9, then it begins to make more sense. «Why is God letting this happen? Isn’t this mean?» Well, it’s not mean, but we, as Jews, are sheep that are not acknowledging or embracing our Shepherd. Some believe there isn’t a Shepherd. Some believe that the Shepherd hates us, the Shepherd’s impotent, the Shepherd is a moron, you know, we have, Israelis have all kinds of views of God, but they’ve forgotten Psalm 23. The problem is, if you reject the Shepherd or you don’t want to listen to him or whatever, you are under the false sense that the countryside is safe. But the fact is, one of the reasons we have a Shepherd is not just to feed us and take care of us, but to protect us from ravenous wolves. And there are forces, there are ravenous wolves throughout the Middle East, throughout the world, that hate Jews and want to destroy us. I’ll say this. Two last points I’m gonna quote from my favorite book of the Bible, which is the book of Joel. So I encourage you to embrace that as your favorite book as well. Joel chapter 3, verse 1, «For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, and I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat.» Which mean God judges. «There… then I will… then…» after he rebuilds Israel, after he brings the Jews back, then he’s gonna bring the nations to attack us. «Then I will enter into judgment with them,» the nations there, «on behalf of my people and my inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations; and then they have divided up my land.» The nations of the world are responsible for, first, driving us out of Israel, and now that we’ve regathered, for trying to divide up our land and give it to our enemies. So to wrap that up, I would say The Joshua Fund, «All Israel News,» we talk about four things we want to encourage Christians to understand and do.
Greg Laurie: So Joel has an organization called The Joshua Fund that he’s referring to. Go ahead.
Joel Rosenberg: Yeah, it’s a ministry that we started 18 years ago to educate and mobilize Christians to bless Israel and her neighbors, Palestinians and others, in the name of Jesus. And so we encourage people to do four things: learn, pray, give, and go. Part of my role was the educational side of this. This is why I’m doing this, and I appreciate you inviting, especially this weekend. And the more we understand what God is doing, what he wants to do, what the enemy is doing, it will motivate us to pray and to pray more specifically. As we pray more, we will have a heart to want to give our time, our talent, and even our treasures to invest in building the kingdom and fulfilling the Great Commission in the epicenter, in the Middle East. And then go. Now, often we say, «Go to Israel.» Now I would say don’t go to Israel. But I would say go and preach the gospel to everybody in creation. And by strengthening The Joshua Fund, as just one example, this is what we’re doing: we’re investing in the local believers, yes, for humanitarian relief, but also to strengthen them so they can preach the Word of God and fulfill the Great Commission. Again, Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Jordanians, Iraqis, and Egyptians. This is a group of people that don’t know Christ. And how are they gonna say yes if they haven’t even heard? And we need to strengthen the local church so that they can reach their people and hopefully fulfill the Great Commission in our lifetime. So as horrible as this year has been, Lynn and I and our family and our team are so grateful to be there because this is why we’re there: to love our neighbors and to love our enemies and to help the local believers fulfill the Great Commission.
Greg Laurie: Well, Joel, thank you for all that you do. You’re a bright light everywhere you go.