A Fascinating Interview with Joel Rosenberg

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network.

And I'm not going to be taking calls today. I've got a special guest from Jerusalem, Joel Rosenberg. He is a best-selling author. He's got more than five million books in print.

He is the editor-in-chief for all Israel News and all Arab News and the president and CEO of Near East Media. He's met with a long line of well-known leaders in the Middle East, Jewish, Arab, Muslim, Christian, wide-range, brings a lot of fascinating insights. And Joel, no hype in saying this, but I finished, I listened to the audiobook just finished a couple days ago of Libyan Diversion, your brand-new book that we're going to talk about. But outside of listening to the Bible on audio, which I do regularly, supplementing other ways of taking the scripture, I've listened to more of your audiobooks than any other author. The novels are really, I mean, they draw me in. They keep my attention.

It seems like, it feels like I'm reading actual news like up on the edge of my seat as if it's stuff that's actually happening. And of course, there's no bad stuff in it. There's no profanity and junk in it and there's faith involved. So, yeah, keep up the great work. So, Joel, before we get into the new book, Libyan Diversion, talk about your own background in terms of Middle East studies, interaction, how you got where you are today. Sure. Well, great to be with you, Michael.

First, I'll just put my cards on the table. I'm a failed political consultant. So, after I graduated from Syracuse University, I moved to Washington DC, I got married, then moved to Washington DC and got involved in the political world there. And just over the next ten years, every single candidate that I ever worked for lost.

And that was pretty frustrating and humiliating. But, you know, some of them were quite interesting. One of them, the last candidate I ever worked for was former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He had been prime minister from 1996 to 1999.

He lost his re-election and in the fall of 2000, he was putting together a comeback campaign team and I got hired as a junior communications media aide, not a senior advisor or anything like that, a junior guy. But, and, you know, anyway, it was fascinating to work for him, but he did not come back for nine more years. So, my point is, I had studied at Tel Aviv University for six months. I, you know, had immersed myself for a decade or more.

I mean longer, I guess, in the history and the politics of the Middle East. But, you know, but basically I have a failed political consultant who decided one day after that Netanyahu failed campaign to start making things up for a living. And I wrote my first political thriller in January of 2001. That's when I started it. And that's the novel that sort of put me on the map. It was called The Last Jihad. The first page of that novel put you inside the cockpit of a jet plane that was hijacked by radical Islamist terrorists coming in on a kamikaze attack mission into an American city. Now that was almost nine months before what really did end up happening on September 11th, 2001, which was eerie. And the arc of the novel starts with this kamikaze attack on the United States, but then leads to my fictional American president deciding to remove Saddam Hussein from power because of his connection between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

That was so strange to people. And so, like, how could you have known or where did you even get this fictional idea? It's just so close to real life that, I mean, the book became number one on Amazon, 11 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. But I wasn't a PhD in Middle Eastern history. I wasn't somebody who, you know, I wasn't a former assistant secretary of state or CIA operative. You know, I'm a guy who wrote a novel.

You know, yeah, I spent a lot of time in politics. But for unbelievers, they thought, wow, this is just strange. But you're like a modern Nostradamus. And then Christians were saying, well, it's like prophetic. Now, I never claimed it was prophetic.

I wasn't predicting what was coming. I was trying to write a worst case scenario, first ever political thriller that I'd ever done. But I wanted it to seem real. I wanted it to be based on a concept that that was plausible. And it just it just hit so much closer to reality than I ever imagined or anybody else. And suddenly I had a career.

Yeah, amazing. And that's the thing that's so striking, the eerie relevance of what you're writing. You know, some of us have read historical novels. So it's based on history.

But then the person writes with some flourish. These are almost like historical novels in advance, you know, making them in that sense prophetic. It reminds me, Joel, of a scholarly conference I was at in the late 1980s in Chicago. So some of the world's top biblical scholars were there. And there was a seminar discussing aspects of interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew. Sixty, seventy people in the seminar, some of the top Matthew scholars in the world were there.

And then there was time for interaction with the audience. At a certain point, I raised my hand and I gave my perspective. And afterwards, one of the top Matthew scholars in the world came up to me and said, man, that was amazing insight.

You should have kept talking. Well, I didn't base it on Matthew scholarship. I based it on all my years of interaction with rabbis and ultra-orthodox Jews, where I could kind of feel some of what happened back in Matthew's day. They're like, those are amazing insights. Like, well, actually, it was just kind of projecting what I knew back on the text in that way. So what you're doing, you're not just, it's not just a shot in the dark.

It's based on interacting, understanding that this would seem to be logical and plausible. So over the years now, you've had some amazing open doors for you. You even wrote a whole book, just not fiction, but your real-life encounters with different leaders.

Who have you met with, interacted with, whose names we might know? Well, I mean, probably where it started was when I wrote a trilogy of novels, maybe 10 years ago, almost about, uh, ISIS trying to assassinate, uh, King Abdullah, the second of Jordan and blow up his palace and take over his kingdom and assassinate his family. And for some reason, Michael, I, I made King Abdullah of Jordan and actual character in the book by name.

That is not the brightest move, uh, especially when you live across the river from him. Um, but what happened is King Abdullah, one of his advisors read the second book in the series and brought it to the King and said, your majesty, you have to read this. And he said, why? He said, cause you're in it.

Amazing. Talking about it looks like a novel. He goes, I know it's a novel.

It goes, so it's made up. Yes. Well, how, what do you mean I'm in it? He goes, you're a character. I'm a character in the book.

Yes, you're a character and they're trying to kill you and take over your kingdom. And he's like, what in the world are you talking about? But he ended up reading the novel, uh, and it was called the first hostage. And rather than banning me from the kingdom of Jordan forever, which he very well could have maybe should have done. He invited my wife and me to come to Amman Jordan, all expense paid for five days to get to know him and his senior leadership.

Amazing. This set into motion him inviting me to bring a delegation of evangelical Christian leaders from the United States. Though I, at that point was an Israeli citizen with my wife and kids and two sons who serve the Israeli army and so forth. But, but anyway, so, and that led to seven other or seven total delegations of evangelical leaders. Uh, and me being invited to meet with president El Sisi in Egypt, uh, Mohammed bin Salman, uh, the controversial and very consequential crown prince of Saudi Arabia, two different trips to go see him and his inner circle. Well, Mohammed bin Zayed, the leader of the United Arab Emirates, the leaders of Bahrain and Morocco. It like, and of course the prime minister here in Israel, Netanyahu and, and, and, uh, yeah, you're the Pete at a different point and the opposition leader and prime minister.

So it, it has opened doors that shouldn't have been opened. I mean, I'm just being honest, I'm not a billionaire and I'm not a political, I don't have a political movement behind me. I'm a, I'm a failed political consultant who makes things up for a living, um, in terms of political thrillers.

But it is what these things have captured the interest and imagination of these various leaders. And, and now also, yes, I do run a news agencies or I'm trying to write actual factual news to do it. You know, you can't write fake news all the time. But, uh, but yes, what's happening is that God is using the novels, the books, uh, to open doors and we can talk about why would he do that for a kid who grew up in a town of 5,000 people in upstate New York, son of an Orthodox Jew who came to faith in Jesus, son of him, Gentile mom who grew up in a church that didn't preach Jesus.

Like there's no reason you can't, there's no obvious reason. You know, I'm not a Senator, not a Congressman. I'm not, you know, in some intelligence agency, there's no obvious reason why God would open doors for me to go meet with the most powerful leaders in the Middle East. But it's happening and, um, I'm trying to be a faithful ambassador, a faithful witness for Jesus as I go. Amazing.

And you know, what a reminder that God knows how to open doors and that if God has a purpose for your life, he knows how to do this. It's not that Joel hired the most powerful PR team in the world to make this happen or had certain connections. There, there are no connections that you can just get or acquire or pay for to make doors like this open or to have one book after another be a national bestseller. If you haven't read any of Joel Rosenberg's novels, I mean, they really are, trust me, I, I've spent many hours joyfully listening and they're like, come on, what's going to happen next?

Seriously. Um, and, and it's, it's been a, it's been a great, healthy diversion for me, uh, just to kind of chill or a long ride and to take these in. So the newest book, the Libyan diversion, we'll talk about that in the lead character, Marcus Riker in a moment. Uh, Joel, we've got a minute before the break, where do people find, uh, all Israel news and all Arab news?

What are the websites for those? Sure. The best place to go is to all Israel.com again, all Israel.com and it's cross linked to all Arab news. Or you could just go to my website, my homepage, Joel Rosenberg.com and you'll find links to the all Israel news site, the other one. And I've got a TBN show we'll talk about later, the Rosenberg report every Thursday night at 9 PM on Eastern on, uh, on, on TBN, which is, which is dealing with the only prime time television show news and commentary about Israel and the region, uh, produced here in Israel. Right. Called the Rosenberg report and of the Marcus Riker, Marcus Riker novels, which was the first in that series?

The first was the Kremlin conspiracy, which I wrote about seven years ago about a dictator rising to power in Moscow, who can't, who's trying to decide between invading Ukraine or the Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. And, uh, yeah, that's crazy how that's played out. Really.

It really is. And that, yeah, that was, that had quite an ending to that. So if you haven't read any of these, check them out. You can start with the Kremlin conspiracy and get the newest, the Libyan diversion, but we will be right back with my special guest, Joel Rosenberg. Again, brand new book, the Libyan diversion. We'll be right back.

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I do need help. The Truth Network. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome back, friends, to the Line of Fire broadcast. Not taking any calls today. Got a very special guest, my friend, Joel Rosenberg.

We don't get to spend a lot of time together, but it's always wonderful when we can spend time together. And I have just been blessed and thrilled to see the doors God's opened for him, and the favor that's been on his books, and the eerily prophetic nature of the books that he has written. So, Joel, before we dig into Marcus Riker, the character and the Libyan diversion, the latest book, why do you think that God has opened these doors for you?

You said there's no obvious reason, but you had some ideas. Obviously, you've been able to open doors through that for other evangelical leaders, to meet with leaders in the Muslim world, which is so important to better understand these influential leaders in the Muslim world, and to better understand Muslim culture, etc., and then to get a better perspective on Israel, where you want to be fair to all different sides and not just come from one strong perspective, you know, pro-Palestinian, pro-Israel, rather, pro-truth, pro-accuracy. But what are your thoughts on what God's purposes might be in these stories that he's opened for you? Well, Michael, that's a good question, and I think the simplest way to put it is my wife Lynn and I began, you know, years ago, but certainly when we made Aliyah and became dual U.S.-Israeli citizens and lived, started living here in Israel and specifically in Jerusalem, we started praying for our neighbors, right, and who are our neighbors? It's, you know, it's the Egyptians and the Jordanians and the Lebanese and the Syrians and the Iraqis and the Saudis and the Gulf States and the Iranians and so forth, and we started praying, Lord, bless these people, move and strengthen the churches in Israel and the Palestinian territories in these regions. Bless these leaders who have made peace and open the doors for you to bring more leaders to make peace with Israel. You command us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, but also we pray that everybody in this region, whether they're poor or powerful, that they would at least have a chance to hear the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. Somebody would be a witness to them, and then give them a chance to at least receive or reject Jesus, but if they haven't even heard, how can they call on the name of the one they haven't even heard of, right? So that was our heart, and that was really instilled, you know, growing up as followers of Jesus in New Jersey, me in New York.

Of course, I had to get rid of all my New Jersey jokes when I met her, as New Yorkers don't look so fondly on New Jersey. But anyway, yeah, we wanted to be a witness, and we looked at the life of the Apostle Paul. Now, he was usually in chains, but remember he had this incredible calling, and it's a very specific calling in Acts chapter 9. The Lord said through Ananias that Paul would be the witness for Jesus to, of course, to the children of Israel, and to kings, and to the Gentiles.

So that was interesting, right? Because that's a unique, that's basically everybody. You're either a Jew or a Gentile. He added in kings, which doesn't always have to be literally a monarch, but leaders at every level of society. They need someone to be a prayer warrior for them, and a witness, and an ambassador to them. Paul himself wanted to be a witness. He wanted to go to Rome and meet Nero, who was the most demonic leader on the planet, one of the most in history, setting Christians on fire to create lampposts. Like, I don't think he was quite in that full-on demonic stage quite at that point when Paul wanted to meet with him, but God did that.

And so we just believe that every single person on earth needs a friend who knows Jesus. Now, it's a little crazy. When I said to the board of our nonprofit ministry, the Joshua Fund, which is really a venture capital firm, in a sense, to raise and deploy funds to strengthen the church in Israel and in the rest of the Middle East.

We've raised and deployed about a hundred million dollars over 16, almost 17 years. But when I asked the board and staff, would you guys pray that I would get to meet King Abdullah and just befriend him, and pray for him, and, you know, be a witness to him, and so forth. You know, they did pray, but I'm not sure how much faith they had.

Even one of the board members years later came to me and said, I thought you were crazy. I mean, I love you, Joel, but like, you're a Jew, you're an Israeli, you're a follower of Jesus, you're a Zionist. You're not gonna get to meet a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, who's a Muslim moderate Middle East monarch.

These are two great tastes that do not taste great together, son. But what we were really brought up, especially he was a disciple in college by a wonderful pastor from India, and he really taught us that we serve a prayer hearing and a prayer answering God, a wonder-working God. Now God can say no to our prayers, but he wants us to aim high. He wants us to pray for open doors, and I guess basically in my life as a failed political consultant and so forth, I'd learned that God says no to me a lot.

I'm okay with that. But he might say yes. We have not, because we ask not, or we ask within pure motive. But I didn't want to meet these leaders to enrich myself, or to gain power, or fame, or whatever. I just wanted to be a blessing to them here in Israel and in the region, and I think those are the reasons. Now, why God said yes to me, that's a sovereignty question that doesn't make sense to me, but I think he put in our hearts, my heart, to pray these specific things, because he intended to answer them. And that's what we're trying to do in our lives, is we're trying to ask the Lord to clean out the clutter and get us thinking the way he thinks. Now, we're imperfect at that, I'm woefully imperfect at that, but the more we end up praying what he actually wants us to pray, he will deliver those things because that's the whole point. Answered prayer, as you know, Michael, but answered prayer is one of the most powerful ways that we experience the invisible God.

Yes, yes. And Joel, you know, I'm so blessed by what you're saying, because it's so Jesus-Yeshua-centered, it's so Christ-centered, saying, hey, God open the door so I can be a witness, so I can shine the light of Jesus to all of these different individuals. You have no political agenda in it, no personal agenda in it, which is an obvious reason why God would choose to use you, because you're not pushing your own agenda. But I just want to stay here for a minute, and then the rest of the broadcast, we want to talk about the new book, The Libyan Diversion, and then even get into some of the larger Middle Eastern issues it brings up. Again, you can find out more about my guest, Joel Rosenberg.com, 13 New York Times best-selling books. You'll understand when you start the first of any of the novels, it'll pull you right in. You don't have to read them in order. I ended up doing that with the Marcus Riker series, but others just read one here or there, and they'll start you in a captivating way, for sure. So that's Joel Rosenberg.com.

You can also find out about the Rosenberg report that airs on TBN, and then all Israel news, all Arab news. But I just want to say this briefly, and then we'll come back with our guest after the next break. So, God moves on you to pray for something. That, to me, is one of the the most faith- building things.

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Click on Donate Monthly Support. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I am here with best-selling author, New York Times best-selling author, Joel Rosenberg, talking about his newest book, Libyan Diversion, and once again featuring Marcus Riker. And by the way, Joel, as I've read your books, you know, bad things happen in the books. I always look kind of like fairy tale, everything, and there's a bullet's about to hit and it doesn't hit, but I mean, tragedy happens, bad things happen, personal things go wrong, people betray others, you know, someone you're not expecting to die dies, and always it's real life. It's real life stuff. So, who is Marcus Riker, who is the hero of the book, Libyan Diversion?

Yeah, great question. This is my favorite character of all the novels that I've written over the years. This series has moved me more than the others, although I've loved every step I've gotten to take along this journey. Marcus Riker is interesting because when I knew I wanted to create a new character in a new series, I really sat down with a yellow legal pad and I wrote down two things that I wanted this character to be, I wanted Marcus Riker to be. The first thing is I knew that he had to have really incredible skill sets as an intelligence operative, as someone defending the country, the United States, and Israel, and the others. So I decided to make him a Marine, someone who had signed up the moment that he saw 9-11 happen, the next day he goes in to the Marine recruiting station in Colorado, and he grows up on the front range of Colorado, and becomes a Marine, and he gets deployed to Afghanistan, where he serves in combat, and he's wounded multiple times, and is honored for that, awarded for that. So I knew I wanted him to be a Marine, then I wanted him to marry his high school sweetheart and rise in the United States Secret Service until he's on the elite presidential protective detail.

Why? Because I wanted to show in that first book, The Kremlin Conspiracy, this guy knows what he's doing. He's not an assassin, okay, he's not James Bond, he's not Jason Bourne, he's not Mitch Rapp from the wonderful Vince Flynn series, he's not an assassin, he's not a hunter per se, but he definitely knows how to kill you, if he has to, but his nature, his training, and his character is to protect. He's a protector. So that's the first part that I knew, but the second part is I needed him to be wounded, not just physically, but there's gonna be a slight giveaway, but I'm just gonna say it for the context for your readers, because we're now five books in. Early on in the series, his wife, high school sweetheart, and his only son are murdered.

Yeah, that was a shocker, I didn't see that one coming, and that was a hard one to take. Yeah, it is, and the reason I did it is because I wanted Marcus, well Marcus is a believer, not all my lead characters over the years has been, but he's not an evangelist in the classic sense. He's a secret service agent. You're supposed to be quiet and standing there with sheer boredom until the one second of terror changes your life, and hopefully you react correctly.

That's the life of a secret service agent, tremendous boredom and punctuated by sheer terror. So I wanted him to be a believer, but I wanted him to be someone who's spent his entire professional life defending his country, its leaders, and its values, but is feeling guilty because he couldn't end up protecting the two people in the world that he loves most. And that wound, aside from the physical wounds of combat, but the wound in his heart, in his soul, is something he has to carry and deal with.

How do you move on from the loss of a spouse, the loss of a child, and how do you get over that guilt and say, all right, Lord, what am I supposed to do next with my life, and how do I serve you faithfully, and not just go into a total depression and kill yourself, or some horrible, you know, whether it's immediate or, you know, drugs or alcohol or whatever. So this is a complicated enough character in Marcus Reicher that I thought I could run with this guy for a while. He'll interest me, and if I'm interested, hopefully others will be interested as well. God, so as you're doing this, there's obviously a tremendous amount of thought going into this. Those of you who want to write novels, listen carefully what Joel's saying, because you paint pictures of characters, you think these things through in advance, and as someone who's never written a novel, this is this is really interesting for me to hear. But Joel, you give meticulous descriptions of things.

You'll talk about aircraft, you'll talk about weaponry, you'll talk about various aspects of military life. Where do you, did you know a lot of this stuff in advance, or is this research you did just in the midst of writing your books? Well, you know, probably a novelist's best friend in this day and age is Google or something, right?

So I'm fortunate that there are plenty of resources now. In the old days you had to go to the library and look it up, you know, in the card catalog system, which most of your listeners probably don't, at least your younger listeners, they're not even thinking about. But one of the things I've learned, I have to be careful of, Michael, is I can't, I can't write military thrillers, or what Tom Clancy wrote, which was called techno thrillers, because I'm not a former marine, I'm not a former Secret Service agent. Like, I have to be careful, there's research I can do, but I'll never be able to fit the role of somebody who's actually lived that life. Don Bentley, for example, is a wonderful believing, best-selling thriller writer, but he was an Army Ranger, right, and he was a helicopter pilot in combat, and he was a former SWAT team officer, so he has those skills. What makes my novels distinctive is the political and geopolitical construct, the what-if scenario that's horrible, you hope it never happens, but you think, oh, that could happen, that could happen tomorrow, and so putting my characters in these scenarios that you think, oh, I just pray that never happens, but what if it did, and I'm sort of running a geopolitical war game, that's closer to what I actually know, because 30-some years I've been traveling the globe and meeting leaders, and, you know, over time, world leaders started reading the novels. Obviously, I mentioned King Abdullah, but Vice President Pence was a reader and a fan, he and his wife, of my novels back when he was in the House of Representatives. Mike Pompeo, when he was in Congress, became a fan of my novels, invited me up for coffee to meet with him when he was on the House Intelligence Committee.

Who knew that he would turn into a CIA director and a Secretary of State? So I've gotten a lot of, you know, over time, as the books have become successful and read by wonderful, everyday, ordinary people, but also world leaders, they've invited me to come spend time with them, and they become sources for me. You know, I wrote a novel a few years ago called The Jerusalem Assassin, which is about a Saudi leader who wants to make peace with Israel and uses Marcus Riker as a back channel to try to set up such a meeting. Well, I ended up getting invited to meet the actual crown prince of Saudi Arabia twice. So, you know, over time, by the way, he's reading the novels now, so when you get a chance to actually go to a palace and meet with a world leader and spend not just five minutes in a photo op, but hours and hours talking, sometimes on the record, some sometimes even better if it's off the record, you pick up a lot of detail. And, and so I think that it's the it's the geopolitical political thriller. That's what makes my novels, I think special. Not the military details. Sometimes, you know, I, I once thought that a Glock nine millimeter had a safety.

I mean, technically, it sort of does, but not the way I thought of it. So now I've shot a Glock nine millimeter. Now I've shot a SIG sour like, but I was sort of dense on an ignorant on some of those things, and people call me out on it. But once vice presidents and presidents and kings and crowns princes are reading your books, you really have to dial up your game. Because when Michael Brown's reading it wonderful, but you might not know what these other guys know. And so I have a whole boat of your attention and then and then moms and teenagers and people all over the country and all over the world. So it's an exciting, very challenging, weird job. Yeah, but you know, all the the failed political consultant thing. First, if you'd been a successful political consultant, you'd be doing that full time.

Wouldn't have time for this. But everything you learn being in the political world being with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and then these other doors that have opened it, I love to look back and see what God can do and how he can do it. And so much of the time, what he wants us to see is what watch what I can do. It's not all about you and your best efforts, and I'll bless them. It's about I'm going to do things that you could never do.

And then it brings him the glory. And here you sit, not patting yourself on the back is look at what an amazing writer I am, but say it's kind of amazing to see what God has done. And obviously, you know, I'm going to read things, and if there is wrong biblical content or, you know, missing the Hebrew or something, I'd spot that. But that's, you know, when you write, to me, as I've studied things Middle East for so many years, there is a realism.

You know, Jerusalem assassin, the realism of that, and the nail-biting end to that as as well. So yeah, folks, you might be saying, well, tell us more. Although I want you to read it and enjoy it again, the new book, Libyan Diversion.

We've got two minutes before the break, and then one last segment. What about this idea of terrorists coming in, Islamic terrorists coming into the nation via Mexico or secret tunnels? How much of that is based on some level of reality? Right, so the current political thriller, The Libyan Diversion, my most recent novel that you're mentioning, this, the entire premise is, what if Americans, the American president, gets diverted, distracted, is looking one direction, while the world's worst terrorist is sending in teams of radical Islamist terrorists into the United States, through the Mexican border, and bringing radiological nuclear dirty bombs with them, in order not to just pull off another 9-11 style attack, but an actual nuclear 9-11. That's the premise, and what's strange is, you know, the novel just came out in May, and you know, the crisis on the US-Mexican border is horrifying. Like 5.7 million people have illegally entered the United States just since President Biden took office, just two and a half years, and this year 83 people on the FBI terror watch list have already been arrested entering the United States illegally, 83, last year was 98 for the whole year, this is 83 and we're only halfway through the year, and you think, well who did we miss?

Who in the United States, and what are they plotting? And that is the premise of The Libyan Diversion. God forbid, let's pray it doesn't happen. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, as you read some of these books, you turn them into prayer points, really.

But don't let some of these things happen. Alright, we'll be right back with Joel Rosenberg. Go to JoelRosenberg.com, you can find out about all the different books, you can find out about all Israel news, all Arab news, and The Rosenberg Report that airs on TBN, the newest book.

We're talking about The Libyan Diversion. If you want to start with the first of the Marcus Reicher series, it's The Cuddling Conspiracy. And if you want some good reading, some reading where you don't do with profanity, and junk, and bad values, and actually Facebook you in the end, check these out. I'm Paul Burnett, a board-certified doctor of holistic health, and I want to take this opportunity to talk to you about the importance of healthy blood flow, and how it's enhanced by a miracle molecule known as nitric oxide. You see, blood vessels release nitric oxide, which increases blood flow known as something called vasodilation. At TriVita, we take blood flow seriously for our members, and we've developed a nitric oxide plus supplement that has been formulated with natural ingredients designed to maximize nitric oxide production in our blood vessels, which increases blood flow. You may be wondering why you don't have as much energy as you used to. One study that I came across revealed that by the age of 40, we only produce about 50% of the nitric oxide production as compared to our 20s, and by the age of 70, the study showed that we're only producing about 15 to 25%.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us, friends, on the Line of Fire. Shout out to our sponsor, TriVita. Thanks so much for partnering with us, helping us bring this broadcast around America.

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Tell them Dr. Brown sent you. If you go online to TriVita.com, be sure to use the code BROWN25 to get your 25% discount and 100% of your first order donated to the Line of Fire. Okay, so, Joel, as we look at your latest political thriller, the Libyan Diversion, let's just step back and raise this issue. You do deal with different political scenarios around the world, but in some of these books, some of these recent books, they talk about Islamic terrorism, but a lot of the Islamic terrorism is also against Islamic people. As you've met with people like the Crown Prince of Jordan or Saudi Arabia or some of these other countries, would you say that many of them are also combating terrorism? Yeah, I mean, one of the most interesting things about meeting the King of Jordan is that in the novels that I was writing, the King is fighting ISIS. That's why they want to kill him, and one of the things he talked to me about when he invited my wife and me to come spend time with him was how this is a battle between Muslims and Muslims, between Muslims who are, I mean, obviously, you know, as a follower of Jesus, I don't agree with Islamic theology, right?

Of course. I prefer a moderate Muslim king who is fighting ISIS and is pushing back against violent extremists than, you know, you know, so that's obvious, but I think most Americans right after 9-11 weren't so sure if there were any Muslims who were against this stuff because the only people we heard about were radicals and terrorists, and many Muslims were either too afraid or felt prideful and thought, well, why should I defend, you know, myself as a moderate when I don't believe that? Yeah, but we didn't know that, but now, you know, I've gotten to meet some of the most powerful and influential moderate Muslims in the world. I still want them to know Jesus personally as a savior that died on the cross and rose again, but I'm glad that they are fighting terrorism, and, you know, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, when we were sitting with him in the palace the first time, we asked him, well, what do you think about Iran because you seem to have a real conflict with the leadership of Iran, and Mohammed bin Salman said to us on the record, Michael, he said the supreme leader of Iran is the new Hitler. I mean, that sounds like Benjamin Netanyahu talking or me. You wouldn't think that the leader of the epicenter of Islam would think that a fellow Muslim was a new Hitler, but he is, the leader of Iran is, you know, if he can build nuclear weapons in Iran, right, the supreme leader could attach those to high-speed missiles, and he could do in six minutes what it took Adolf Hitler six years to do, and that is to kill six million Jews.

So that's why it's so dangerous, but to hear a Muslim leader of Saudi Arabia say it, this is something that most people, most Christians, most Americans, most people around the world just aren't aware because the media is not covering these levels of nuance, and these are important levels, it's not just nuance, these are major differences, but you're not gonna hear that on 60 Minutes or CNN or, you know, some, you know, left-wing woke TV network, you're just not gonna hear it. And this is why I not only write novels, but we also run all Israel News and the Rosenberg Report, because I'm trying to not just entertain, but educate, and I'm trying to use a multiplicity of mediums, of media, right, whether, some people, they don't want to be educated, so they want to be entertained, fine, so then I use a novel, right, but other people are like, no, I want to know about Israel, I want to know what's happening geopolitically, archaeologically, spiritually, and that's why we created all Israel News. A few months ago, Michael, as you know, because you reported on it, we, all Israel News broke the story that two ultra-orthodox members of the Netanyahu government had introduced a bill to outlaw sharing the gospel of Jesus, and you would go to prison for a year if you told somebody about your faith here in Israel.

Now, that was wrong, and why didn't any other news outlets break that story? I can't tell you, I know that we did it, and that news story went viral, and you and others picked it up, but many did, believing outlets and other, and secular, and by Wednesday, that was on a Sunday we broke the story, by Wednesday at 443 Netanyahu declared that bill would never pass, yeah, and then that created even more coverage, so you think, so I'm trying to connect truth with people who pray, with other people too, who maybe just aren't there spiritually yet, or they're not even followers of Jesus, but whether it's a novel, or a news program, or a news site, or a podcast, or a radio interview, I'm trying to help people understand what's happening in this part of the world that I call the epicenter, Israel and the region, from a biblical perspective, and to know, okay, this is not what's happening, what do I do about it, how do I make a difference, Lord, how would you use me, either in prayer, or a financial gift, or some sort of activism, whatever, and, but it's not easy, because we're we're basically a David up against a Goliath media system. Yeah, but you know, God uses the best-selling novels, like you say, then people find out about this Joel Rosenberg guy, oh, he's got a news report on TBN, oh, well, he lives in Jerusalem, oh, he's met with all these different leaders, you know, your enemies and allies book talks about all the different leaders that you've met with, and, and, oh, he's got this all Israel news, all Arab news, also, how does that work? So I'm sure that that gives increase to what you're doing, and Joel, of course, I want to see Muslims come to faith in Jesus, March of this year in London, I made a Muslim apologist, and of course, I want to reach out every way I can to a Muslim friends, with the good news of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God, the Lord, and, but some years ago, I can't mention where it happened, but in the Middle East, one of our grads was martyred, was killed by ISIS terrorists, and, and the next day, the day after he was killed, there was a march with, with devout Muslims, we watched the, the footage when it was posted, and wept as we watched, and you got women in full burqas, you've got, you know, Muslim men marching down the streets, and they were holding up his picture, this, this young man who was 29 years old, father of two, married with two kids, that was martyred for just serving the community there by, by ISIS, and they marched down the streets risking their own lives, saying this is not Islam, this is not Islam, and it's not illegal to be a Christian here, and it was a very, very, you know, like I said, I can't even mention where it was, but it was a seriously devout Muslim country, and yet this was happening, so your average Muslim is, is not a terrorist, your average Muslim is appalled by what ISIS would do as well, so let, let's, let's remember that. Alright Joel, three minutes we have left, what in the world is going on in Israel?

Is there gonna be some kind of civil war? Well, Lord willing, no, I think some of the political flames have dialed down a bit over the last month or so, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has sort of stepped back from the brink of, of jamming through a judicial reform plan, some of which is good, but some of which is actually quite dangerous for all Israelis, but particularly for believers, so we've been covering that, you know, in sort of a moment-by-moment status at all Israel News and on the Rosenberg report, people, we just need to keep asking people to pray, you know, is it, with the Abraham Accords, now six Arab-Israeli peace treaties, it's easy to think, okay, we've been praying for peace, so we're good. Well, yes, but you know, the current Netanyahu government, not Netanyahu himself, but, but a lot of his allies inside his government are, are very, very religious and Jewish, and they are very hostile to followers of Jesus, and, and then, and you have some, some real strange people in this coalition. A number of years ago, there was a Jewish terrorist attack against a Messianic pastor family here in Israel.

You'll recall that. Well, the guy, eventually the Jewish terrorist named Jack Teitel was arrested and put on, on trial. Well, the guy that, the lawyer that defended the terrorist, yeah, the Jew, Ben Gevir, is, yeah, Itamar Ben Gevir, who's now in charge of all of our police here in Israel. Amazing.

So you just have a weird environment. We have to keep praying. There's a lot of spiritual warfare, there's a lot of political tensions here, but I want to thank you before we close, Michael, because you have been in the line of fire for forever, it feels, and you, and, and I want to tell you that my, when I was in college at Tel Aviv University, I started coming across your tapes as you were debating rabbis and engaging Jewish people, and it was very, very interesting because that's the first time I'd ever heard of you, and on cassette tapes. Yeah.

And for time, here we are talking, but I've really come to admire you and how you've used media in various forms to explain to people biblical truth and, and geopolitical truth, and it's, truth is under assault in this world. Yes. We are watching Americans, like, deeply confused over the first three chapters of Genesis. Is there a God? What is a man? What is a woman? Yeah.

Can you switch? What's a marriage? Like, no wonder we're getting close to the Book of Revelation. People have given up on the first three chapters of Genesis, and, and I'm just saying that we're under such a salt of truth everywhere that you standing for truth and being a trusted voice, it's super important, and so it's important here in Israel to know who to listen to that can provide accurate and, you know, credible information, but that's true of what's going on in the States and elsewhere, and I don't know, it's, it's, it feels, it feels very late in the game.

It is. God is at work in the midst of it. Joel, thank you for those kind words.

Friends, we're out of time. Visit JoelRosenberg.com. You want to get the latest political thriller, trust me, it will engage you right from the first pages. The Libyan diversion. Again, JoelRosenberg.com. Check it out. Another program powered by the Truth Network.