Joel Richardson

This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Truth Talk Live. All right. Let's talk the truth. I can't hide it.

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Speak your mind. And now, here's today's Truth Talk Live host. Is Israel the synagogue of Satan? 866-34-Truth. I've got Joel Richardson on the line, and Joel is a New York Times best-selling author, filmmaker, and internationally recognized teacher.

He now lives in the United States with his wife and five children. Joel's heart is thoroughly missional with a special love for all the peoples of the Middle East. And are you there, Joel? I'm here, Michael. Thank you for having me on.

Yes, sir. And I wanted to let you guys know that this is pro-life month. As you guys know, later on this month in Washington, D.C., we are going to be having the March for Life in Washington. And if you guys can join that or just be praying for the pro-life cause, I know I am unapologetically pro-life. My dad wanted an abortion, and my mom said no, and so that's why I'm here.

And, Joel, when I told you that a little bit earlier, what did you say? I said, hopefully, he changed his mind at some point. He sure did. And you said you're pro-life as well, and you've actually taken action on that. Is that right?

Yeah, my wife and I now, 15 years ago, we adopted my first son and That was really be largely because of our pro-life convictions, it's one thing to ViproLife, it's another thing to say, you know, we have room for one more. And uh he was such a blessing. It was such a blessing to us as a family that A couple years later we adopted a daughter, so I now have four daughters, three biological. and one son, and adoption's been a real blessing, a major blessing to us as a family.

Well, praise God. And we are pro-life here, but that's not what we're here to talk about today. Joel, I was going to ask you: is anti-Semitism really rising right now, or is that being exaggerated? No, unfortunately, it's exploding. It's absolutely exploding.

And interestingly enough, it's exploding particularly. among the Gen Z, the Zoomers. You know, with the last presidential election, everyone was excited. They said, oh my goodness, we thought the millennials were all trending toward liberalism. And the Zoomers are suddenly conservative.

They voted for Trump and everyone is excited. But what a lot of people don't realize is there is an incredible trend largely driven by influencers and podcasters. But many of them, again, Gen Zs, and they're not simply conservative, Michael. There is a genuine trend among some of these young guys in particular. Toward outright Nazism, white supremacism, and it's not.

A fringe movement. You've got this young guy named Nick Fuentes. He's one of the most controversial, influential. Podcasters in the country, you know, if you've got. A young guy right now, particularly if he's white in his 20s, he knows who Nick is.

Nick is almost leading a political movement. There have been some Not scientific polls, but there've been some You know, sort of ad hoc polls done recently, and they said, you know, roughly forty percent. of young Republicans in that H bracket are actually supporters of Nick. He's openly a Nazi, openly pro-Hitler, openly Holocaust denier and this type of thing. And look, for those of us that are older, we're going, wait, what?

This is insane. How could you be pro-Hitler? You need to understand if you if you're a you know, in particular a white guy right now and you're about thirty or under, They don't remember a world. They don't know a world that hasn't been really hostile to them. And with the absolute just avalanche of the pro LGB transgender agenda for the past fifteen years has been forced down their throats, they've been taught If they go to public schools, that they're the source of all the world's problems and that they're soon to be replaced and this type of thing.

And so, you know, as these things go, natural human reaction, the pendulum swings to the opposite extreme.

So whereas the left has been ridiculous, whereas they've wildly overplayed their card. Their cards.

Now there's this movement on the right that is terrifying. It's absolutely terrifying. And you know, they're not kidding when they say, you know, you you listen to some of the stuff they say, they're like openly want to, and this is not an exaggeration, it's not a hyperbole, they openly want to kill. everyone in Congress You know, if you're forty and older, they're like, We are going to replace you. You destroyed our world.

You know, they're going, you know, we're we're they're doing DoorDash. Um, you know, working three jobs just trying to live in these little, you know, cardboard box apartments hoping for a wife and a family to them seems out of reach, the affordability crisis. And so the United States has a real crisis. And behind that, you know, because it's look, anti Semitism is always the most convenient hatred. You know, whenever there's a problem, so societal Issues.

Jews are always this minority people that always get blamed, and history is repeating itself. Right now, right in front of us, it's not much different than pre-World War II Germany. Yeah, and why has hatred towards the Jewish people been so persistent throughout history? Not just now, but it's been throughout history. Yeah, I mean, persistently throughout history, I would say because I'm a Christian, I believe the Bible.

I believe because God has a plan with Israel. You know, He chose them. Back at Mount Sinai in the Exodus, he chose them to be his ambassadors, you know, his priestly royal nation to be a light to the world. And ultimately, you know, when you know the biblical narrative, you know that Jesus is coming back to literally rule the world. from Jerusalem, from Mount Zion, his plan has always been to restore The throne of David.

And Satan has always wanted the throne of David. And so, because God has this ongoing, you know, calling an election, this spiritual plan for Israel. The rage of Satan has persistently been directed toward God's people, Israel. And, you know, there's always the natural reasons people will point to You know, they'll always find some conspiracy theory to blame everything on the Jews, but behind it all, It really is a spiritual disease that afflicts mankind. And unfortunately, we fall for Satan's trap over and over again.

Yeah, and you actually you ran into a guy on the street. I thought you might have been in another country, but you said it was right near where you lived. And he was pretty much blatantly obvious about what he wanted. Do you remember what happened? Yeah, so this fellow was an Iranian guy.

He's actually my neighbor. I learned later. He was on the corner with Palestinian flag.

Now I live Michael, in one of the i if not the most Jewish neighborhood in the Midwest. um mostly reformed, uh, you know, more liberal Jews and You know, I've got good relationship with my neighbors, but since October 7th, um, You know, my neighb my Jewish neighbors, you've seen the anti-Semitism, the tsunami of anti-Semitism. My neighbors are afraid. They're afraid of where they're going to send their kids to college. You know, Jews are openly being murdered even in the United States.

Kids are being harassed on college campuses.

So when I see someone at the end of my street with a Palestinian flag, I pulled over and I was real friendly. I asked them, hey, what are you doing? And he immediately, I just asked him his name. And he said, I'm not going to give you my name. What are you, Masad?

And. You know, and then he just within a minute or two, he started shouting, saying he wants every Hostage from the October 7th war to be mutilated and murdered, is what he said. He said, I can't wait till they're all mutilated. And then he said, I'm from Iran. We're going to bomb you, mother efers.

We're going to destroy every single Jew. And so I had it all in video. I tried reporting it to the FBI. The FBI never called me back. I left multiple messages.

I reported it to the local police, and I did hear that he was arrested for other charges, but I mean, this is a madman at the end of my street. Screaming that he's literally going to kill every one of my neighbors that's Jewish, and this is normalized now. in uh a conservative Midwestern neighborhood. Yeah, we all know what happened in New York, but is criticism of Israel the same thing as hatred of the Jews? And where is that line crossed?

Well, first of all, no, it's not. There are plenty critics of the Israeli government in Israel. You know, they're called Israelis. Israel has a vibrant Spectrum of political opinions. You've got people protesting the government, just like in the United States.

So we're allowed to have opinions, but when it becomes an obsession, as it's becoming for many people, then you go, that just might be anti-Semitism. And I think we're seeing a lot of that today. Yeah.

Well, Joel, we'll be right back after this break. If you've got a question for Joel, do you agree with him, disagree with him? 86634 truth, or just send me a message. But we'll be right back and we'll hear more about Israel. Mm.

You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. All right, this is Michael's Wick. We've got Joel Richardson back on the line, and we are discussing Israel. And I can tell you one thing: I know what Joel just said, but I know every single time I post something either on TikTok or on Facebook about Israel, I can be sure that I'll get a lot of comments. And those comments are not saying, Great job, Michael.

I agree with you. These are people who literally hate me. And I've never seen that before in my life. And so I know that it is a spiritual battle. And Joel, we've got you back, but I wanted to ask you this as well.

To what extent has Christian theology historically contributed to anti-Semitism?

Well, it's been one of the fundamental driving factors. I actually wrote a book called When a Jew Rules the World, in which I saw. surveyed the long history of Christian mistreatment of of the Jewish people. And look, it starts out where, just to keep it simple, once you believe theologically that God no longer likes a particular people, that it's his will to punish them, And then you believe that you're God's servant, it's just natural it's just the logical conclusion that you're going to say, Well, if God doesn't like them, then neither do I. And if God wants to punish them, then as His servant I should probably punish them as well.

And so this actual discussion was had throughout Christian Europe, I mean, among theologians for hundreds of years. It was called the Jewish Question. You can survey this ongoing debate.

Some people say, well, we should treat them kindly, others would say we should treat them harshly, maybe they'd repent. And eventually Martin Luther, toward the end of his life, he wrote a book called On the Jews and Their Lies. And he says, Look, I'm going to answer the Jewish question once and for all. He goes, This is what we should do: burn their synagogues to the ground, take away their prayer books. Make it punishable unto death and do the same thing to their homes because they commit the same blasphemies there.

He says things like drive them like screaming dogs from one city to the next. And so this laid the foundation. In Lutheran Germany, So that a few hundred years later when Hitler comes along, You know, they were actually giving this book out to Nazi um officers. They were given out Martin Luther's book, Two Nazi Officers, and Hitler basically said, Look, I'm going to answer the Jewish question or the Jewish problem, he called it, once and for all.

Now, Hitler was obviously not a Christian, but he absolutely. Carried out what he did, built on the theological foundation that was laid by Christian theologians. And most Christians are not aware of this part of our history that, you know, as Dr. Michael Brown wrote a book called, You know, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood. Most Jews are familiar with this history.

And if we want to be good neighbors, if we want to be good faithful witnesses to our Jewish neighbors, we should be aware of this history and how bad theology has led. um to horrific treatment of the Jewish people. I mean, I'm talking ISIS Type of behavior, not just, you know. prejudice, but you you're talking outright ISIS-like behavior carried out by Christians. Yeah, and it's and it's really intensifying these days.

And and it and it's I don't think that Martin Luther ever would have dreamed that Hitler would have listened to him. He didn't know in the future, but it tells me we've really got to be careful about what we say. And so let me tell you this, Joel. This is what we said at the beginning of the show. If I had a dollar for every time I posted something about Israel or the flag or supporting the Jewish people, and then I saw in the comment section.

They are the synagogue of Satan. I would have a big stack of cash right here.

Now, it does say in the book of Revelation something about they're not real Jews, they're the synagogue of Satan. How do you take all that? Yeah, so it's Revelation 2:9 and 3.9. And what it actually says is it says, those who say they are Jews, but they're not. And he calls them the synagogue of Satan.

So there's a lot of debate in terms of what this reference is You know, in history, and some people believe it was a particular group of Jews. That was persecuting the the Messianic movement, the Christians at the time. And it may have been, it may have been a particular group of Jews, but I think it's important to note that it says they say they're Jews. But they're not. And so you did have some Gnostic groups in that first century called the Nicolaitans.

And they basically said they were spiritual Jews.

So this is interesting. That today we have, you know, a large section of the church believes in replacement theology. They say they're true Israel, or the church is the new or the true Israel.

Well, the Gnostics in the first century were essentially saying the same thing. And of course they were persecuting the Christians.

So I think to be honest with you, I've looked at all the different opinions. I'm of the opinion that these were Gentiles. Who claimed to be Jews? They claim to be the true or the new Israel spiritual Jews. And they were persecuting the church.

Now, you know, it's possible that it was a a Jewish group, but the point is what people do today is they read that. And they apply it to every Jew that's not a Messianic believer, who's not, you know, it doesn't believe in Jesus. And that is an absolute complete abuse of And improper use of those references, absolutely. But in all likelihood, they weren't even really Jews. But again, even if they were, it was just a particular group.

Yeah, and one of the things that I recently heard Nick Fuentes say, I see some of his clips pop up every now and then, but he said that Hitler is awesome. But it does, people don't always do that. And a lot of times they try to be subtle. And they used to call it, you mentioned it before, replacement theology. But I have hardly ever met any person who believes in replacement theology.

Maybe one lady I met one time who actually called it replacement theology. They call it other things, fulfillment theology. Or no, no, no, it's not replacement theology. It's something else. But at the end of the day, it's replacement theology.

Is that right? Yeah, so this is real controversial, obviously, among Christians. Those who embrace it hate when you use the term, they say it's derogatory. The more technical proper term is supersessionism. They always try to Sort of put lipstick on a pig and call it fulfillment theology or inclusion theology.

But ultimately it boils down to this, is that God made promises not just to individual Jews, but he made promises to corporate Israel. Yeah.

in the Old Testament. They were made to corporate Israel. And so You know, Paul the Apostle does, you know, very rabbinic Paul, you know, he's always very nuanced. He does make a few points in the New Testament where he goes, look, a Jew is not a true Jew. Unless he is one inwardly.

And that's true in the ultimate sense, in the truest sense. In order to truly live up to who they are called to be, they have to be faithful. That's always been true, but the reality is, as I said, God's promises, as stated, are to corporate Israel. And he ultimately promises that at the end of the day, despite corporate Israel's unfaithfulness, Through the new covenant, he is going to make all, of course, it's just the remnant who essentially survive at the return of Jesus. But at that time, all will be faithful.

And so when you replace God's promises as stated, And you replace them with something else and say, well, that's for the church today, then yes, it's replacement theology. You know, you could just as easily call it divorce theology. You know, they'll say, well, God divorced Israel. You know, that unfaithful. Great harlot, that whore, and then they'll say, But God's mercies are new for me every morning.

You know, and there's so many other ways that it plays out, but the bottom line is, you know, I I'm fine, let's call it supersessionism, but it it really is um It's a distortion of God's promises, His words, as stated, which is a very serious thing. And it has, you know, even if someone says, look, I don't hate Jews, I don't have a visceral hatred toward the Jews, okay, great. But the reality is this theology has demonstrably led to the long historical continuum Of the Christian mistreatment of the Jewish people. And if we care about our neighbors, even if we don't have that hatred, we should be sensitive to those realities and how. Ideas lead to Bad actions because it's again, it's unarguable.

Yeah, and I was watching the debate between Steve Gregg and Dr. Michael Brown, and I think Steve Gregg said, You know, I've never met a Jew that I didn't like. And Dr. Brown says, I must have met a lot more Jews than you have because I've met plenty.

So it's not that every Jewish person is perfect. It's not that the country of Israel is perfect and doesn't have their problems. They do. But we should support Israel and we should support the Jewish people. Let me ask you this: what warning does the New Testament give Christians about arrogance towards Israel and the Jewish people, Joel?

You know, and look, Israel is a barometer. Israel is a test, it's a litmus test. You know, if we recognize that we've been saved by grace, by mercy, that we didn't earn it, then we should not look down on those that the Lord, I mean, as Paul says, they were hardened so that we, you know, the former crazy, stupid, wild olive branches, the Gentiles, could come in. And it's really a barometer as to how much we appreciate His mercy toward us. And He says that if you don't, you yourself can be cut off.

That's a very serious point. Yep. You're listening to The Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. All right, we've got Joel Richardson back. Um, and I've got a comment.

I think it's more of a comment than a question from a Howard out of Charlotte, North Carolina. And let's see how you respond to this, Joel. He says that Israel can exist. We just need to stop giving them money. What do you say?

Yes, so this is a common sentiment that you're getting from a lot of Americans today. They'll say we need to stop giving them money. And look, everybody has a right to their opinion. In my opinion, Israel as an ally is a worthy investment. I believe in America first.

I believe we need to take care of ourselves first. As a Christian principle, in order that we can be a blessing to others. But I believe that among our allies, Look, you know, I can't count how many times Israel's intelligence sharing has saved. um terrorist attacks on American soil or how much they're Military testing of our equipment benefits us. There is a mutual benefit.

in our investment. But I do understand a lot of people think, you know, we're spending too much on you know, foreign investments and that sort of thing. But to say we shouldn't give them any money, look, America or let me let me say this. Israel is the front line. In the Western war against radical Islam.

And, you know, it's kind of like the Lord of the Rings right now. You know, everybody's pointing at Israel and saying, Israel's the problem. And they're ignoring the fact that there's an army of orcs that wants to kill all of us. And just like in The Lord of the Rings, it's either the humans and the elves and the dwarfs get together or they all get killed. And I think that's probably a pretty fair analogy.

Yeah, and it's it People get angry. I mean, this is not the anger that I see, not only online, but people out there in public, just the way they're yelling at people and screaming at people. We've seen this on the left for quite a while, but it seems to have intensified as of recently. And Mom Donnie, when he, I guess he was being sworn in, he gave his speech, and the part where he got the loudest applause was how he was talking about how he was going to support the Palestinians. And I don't know about you, Joel, but if I was Jewish and living in New York City, I might be looking for another place to live.

Yeah, exactly. The loudest applause was for the orcs.

Now, I'm not saying all Palestinians are orcs, but if you're talking Hamas, If you're talking what Hamas has done on October 7th, You're talking some of the most barbaric, like inhuman behavior imaginable. You actually had a doctor at Sheepa Hospital who murdered. A young teenage girl, you know, in the hospital. This is what the doctors are doing. Never mind what they're doing in the tunnels underneath the hospital.

It doesn't matter if you're Jewish, atheist, whatever. This is something that as humans we should be able to stand against, and yet it's getting the loudest applause because people are getting educated from TikTok. They're not really studying. They don't go there. They don't meet the people themselves.

They get their propaganda from TikTok. And they think Israel is the problem, as I said, and they're ignoring this army of, um Of orcs that are that want to kill us all. And eventually, they'll realize that, like, look. Everyone's complaining about the Israel lobby in the United States, and they're ignoring the fact that people like Tucker Carlson are literally getting paid. Getting paid by Qatar, which is a nation that's supporting terrorists outright.

They're giving. Um you're giving uh refuge to Hamas leaders and so forth. These are some of the most vile people in the world. And we're being played. Bottom line is we are we are being played by Qatari and Hamas propaganda, and we've fallen for it.

On the right, the left has fallen for it for years, but now the right's falling for it as well. And it's the new trendy thing on social media to hate Israel, and people don't realize that they have fallen for foreign propaganda. Yeah, let me ask you this. I know you and the guy that you used to do the show with at FAI, you do not believe in a pre-tribulation rapture. And if you do hold to that belief of the pre-trib, and I, by the way, I don't believe in a pre-trib rapture either, but if you do hold to that belief, then it's the Jews who are here during the tribulation and they're the ones who have to go through it.

But do you believe in a pre-wrath or post-trib? I used to say I was preRAP post trib, sort of a hybrid between the two. But after I did about forty sessions teaching through it, I kind of just said, you know, ultimately I'm post-trib. I think pre-RAF has some incredible it makes some incredibly important points to understand that the return of Jesus is a complex series of events that unfolds. It's not just something that happens in the snap of a finger.

But ultimately, I believe it happens at the last trumpet. And so I I do still think there's a way that you can kind of reconcile some of the strengths of prerath and post trip, but ultimately I'm post trip. Yeah.

And so when you look at that, one of the things that I see Is that there is, it's kind of scary. I mean, like you said before, there was a time where if you wanted to get your news, you had ABC, NBC, CBS, and that was it. And nowadays, anybody can post anything. And you may not be very bright, you may not know what you're talking about, but if you have a lot of followers, people are going to follow you and watch you. And I think, in a sense, it's a good thing because if you look at the guy, I think his name was Nick, he was out in Minnesota and he started knocking on the doors of daycares.

Well, 30 years ago, that probably never would have happened.

So that's a good thing that the corruption and the exposure is happening from this side, but you also see a darker side to anybody being able to anybody being able to post anything. Is that right? Yeah, with the decentralization of everything, information is essentially now anarchist. It's every man for himself. And so people are not accustomed to this.

They're used to sort of trusting. the big, you know, or trusting or not trusting, the big media. And you know, the whole decade of fake news and this type of thing.

So now it's any man for himself.

So anybody, as you said, who's talented. Candice Owens is incredibly talented, but she is a narcissistic borderline paranoid schizophrenic narcissist. or Nick Fuentes. The guy is incredibly talented. But he is a toxic little uh little uh weasel.

And yet these are people that are being listened to because they're entertaining. And so every mother who's at home who's bored and she's given over to conspiracy theories, she's listening to Candace Owens. And so people are getting their no news from the loudest, the most consistent, often the most toxic. And it's really sad. It's sort of demonstrating human nature in that we're drawn to the worst.

um the most disgusting. And it's really requires as Christians, it requires incredible restraint because the bottom line is if you are out there trying to communicate, you're if you're not giving yourself over to the conspiracies and all the crazy, vile stuff, you're going to get less clicks, you're going to get less attention. And that's okay. You know, I'm happy to have less followers and maintain my integrity. Yeah, and so if you do stand for the truth, you're either going to gain followers or you're going to lose them in some capacity.

And I think they said that Ben Shapiro, after he made his bold stand speaking at Turning Point USA, that he's been losing an average of 1,000 followers every single day. But, you know, he spoke the truth. And at the end of the day, we're not going to have to stand before our followers. We're going to have to stand before the Lord. And one of the things that pushes me is I know that I am going to stand before the Lord one day.

What pushes you to stand for the truth, even in spite of adversity? Look, every ethical exhortation in the New Testament is rooted in the fact that he is coming back. You know, we're called to persevere in suffering and pain because he's coming back. We're called to live lives of holiness because he's coming back. And I believe that.

You know, everything that I talk about is about his return. It's, I believe, the entire New Testament that is the gravitational center and epicenter of, you know, it's the focal point of hope and expectation. And I believe it's the center and the heart of the gospel itself. He came, he has come, he made atonement, but he's coming back to save us. And so everything for me is rooted in his return.

And I believe, I believe that, as you said. That the things that we do now for him will be rewarded on that day. And I don't care about clicks and follows, I care about speaking the truth. Yeah, what speaking of persecution, I mean, what what do you think has been the harshest or the toughest moment for you when you've been standing for truth on Israel? Um with regard to Israel Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, I've had personal friendships, very close friendships, people who are being sucked into A lot of the trends right now that we've talked about on this program, and it's causing actual personal conflicts.

I've lost friends, speaking the truth. You know, over the past couple years, I've gone through hell speaking the truth about church corruption and even. Friends that had disqualified themselves from ministry, whether you, I'm not sure if you're aware of any of this, and even heroes of mine, people that were my spiritual fathers, but speaking the truth and calling for New Testament accountability. Um I've you know, I've gone through the emotional ringer. I've lost probably half of all the relationships that I had a few years ago.

because I was determined to maintain my integrity. At the end of the day, You know, dying with a clean conscience and standing before the Lord with a clean conscience is all we have. And, you know, in this life, it's the whole world is kind of a good old boy system that says, ah, just, you know, look the other way. this type of thing. And it's speaking the truth is always going to come with a cost.

Let me ask you this. I mean, you know, there are Christians who do not support Israel, and there are obviously Christians who really hate Israel. Will you do ministry with somebody who believes in supersessionism or replacement theology? That's a good question. Look, if someone in a good spirit like so I'm actually going to debate Steve Gregg, I think I love Steve's demeanor.

I think he's a great example of someone who holds to bad theology, but I think he does so with a pure heart. As much as I can tell, we don't know anyone's heart, but Look, if someone I think is sincere and they've got bad theology, you know, then I would do ministry depending on what type of ministry. But no, I would not. Join myself in partnership with someone. I believe the Lord takes partnerships, you know, marriages, so to speak, very seriously.

And because to me this is such a foundational component of the gospel message. It would be very difficult. But, you know, if I was just. You know, look, if someone Has no choice but to go to a church that doesn't have good theology. I say go serve at the church.

Love your community. Serve faithfully at the church. Look the other way. You know, hold your. hold your tongue or when you hear some of the stuff that you don't like.

In other words, to me, living in New Testament community is important. But if you have the option to find a church that has good theology, then choose that one. But if there's no other option, then Christian community is always critical. Yeah.

I got a message from a James in Roxborough, North Carolina, and he says, Yeshua says, if you put family or anyone else above him, you are not worthy of him. He says, So, Joel, just because someone disagrees with you, he said, count it all joy. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and that's actually rooted in where Jesus says: unless you're willing to hate your mother, your father, your Your brother and this type of thing. That's actually rooted in the story of the golden calf incident when the Levites actually went through the camp.

and each one killed, you know, his spouse, his children, his neighbor, his friend. And then they were commended in the The Blessing of Moses, the last words of Moses.

So that's one of the hard things of Jesus for sure, and it's one of the hard things to follow for sure. Yeah, we will be right back after this break for our last segment with Joel Richardson. We will be right back. Looking forward to it. We'll be right back.

Truth Talk Live You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. All right, we are back with Joel Richardson. And man, we got some comments here, buddy, but I don't really know how many of them we can actually say on the air. We got at least three or four that says F Israel. One of them says, We're saying F the government of Israel, not the Jews.

Big difference. How would you respond? That's a Kyle. How would you respond to Kyle?

Well, why? Why F the Government of Israel? Because they've protected their people? I mean, isn't that the job of the government? You know, look, people like that, they've been listening, as I said, to the wrong folks where You know, everything that Israel does is evil.

There's some dark. shadowy group and the bottom line is you know, Netanyahu, love him or hate him, he's done a good job protecting his people. Standing up and doing what's right. And so I feel bad for people like Kyle. Yeah.

Well, we'll pray for him. Speaking of which, Jesus told us to love our enemies and to do good to those who persecute us and speak against us. I know sometimes for me, it's hard to love some of these people who are saying the stuff even worse than Kyle was saying, with curse words all littered throughout their comments. But how do you love those people in spite of all that they're doing to you? You know, I'm a feisty guy from Boston, Michael.

I'll be honest with you. I I probably get a little too carnal myself on social media. you know, make little playful jabs back and uh and that sort of thing. But the reality is It's a spiritual sickness. Like if you claim to be a Christ follower and your response is F this, F that.

That might be a a pretty big red flag that you've got a a spiritual disease. And so, you know, as you said, we got to just pray for people. But ultimately, I I'll just say this too. A big part of the problem today is that we don't do business face to face anymore. It's all on social media.

It's all detached. It's all anti incarnational. We don't see the person we're talking to. And it's so easy to fall into these behaviors when we're not doing life the way we used to do life, which was face-to-face. And so I try to live more incarnational.

I try to. I try to remember that there's a real person on the other side of that avatar social media account and that sort of thing. And when people act that way, quite frankly, I just block and delete. For the most part, I try not to pay attention. And um but in real life, I try to listen, I try to hear, you know, what's the heart, what's What's the emotion?

What's the story behind this person's behavior? And I think we need to be more deliberate about being that. Look, God didn't so love the world that He sent a text message and heart, heart, heart emoji, kissy face. You know, he came down, got in our face, and we need to try to be that way more that way ourselves. Yeah, well, I know you've you've got a pretty big platform.

Have you had people who have maybe listened to you and maybe they messaged you or sent you an email and they said, hey, I was on the other side, but after listening to you, you won me over? Yeah, I mean, certainly, yeah. Look, I get comments going in every direction constantly. And when you're dealing with the public, My rule is: I don't accept praise or criticism. I don't, not say, I don't receive.

Criticism or praise from anyone I don't know. I try to only receive criticism or praise from people who know me personally. Um because either one can destroy you. The praise can destroy you. Um the criticism can can kill you.

And so you just have to try to be faithful and not listen to the noise. It's um you know, being a public figure is a really weird difficult thing and it destroys In fact, very few public figures I've finished strong. And so to walk faithfully is a challenge, and that's just one of the rules that I've made for myself. Yeah, and and if people want to follow you, obviously they can just type in Joel Richardson on YouTube or Joel Richardson on uh X or I I believe even uh TikTok. I saw you there.

I don't think you're too active on that. But what's the best way where people can actually listen to you or follow you? Yeah, really. YouTube, Joel Richards, just Joel Richardson on YouTube. My website is joelestrumpet.com.

I've got a new book, since I'm on the radio, may as well mention it. You can get that on my website that I'm real excited about. And yeah, but I'm usually just kind of messing around on Twitter, to be honest, but I have an ongoing Bible study that I'm doing. on YouTube, which I'm really uh enjoying doing. And what is the new book?

It's called Gospel of the Skull Crusher.

So it's a survey of messianic prophecy. And I'm using the real visceral metaphors that the Bible uses. Jesus is the one that's going to crush the head of the snake. And, you know, so the chapters are, you know, the dust liquor talking about Jesus or the. the cloud rider, you know, these type of metaphors And I filled it with beautiful artwork because I decided, you know, people aren't really reading books anymore.

I wanted to recover that old you know, ex pleasurable experience of holding a book, that tactile sensation. I put a lot into it to make it a real beautiful, you know, kind of a tabletop coffee table book. that people like to read and enjoy. And I tried to write it For a high school level readership. readership level.

So it it tells the story of the gospel by really just surveying everything the Bible says about Jesus, all of the promises and prophecies. And it's it's probably, I think, the best book that I'll ever write. What's the name of the book again? Gospel of the Skull Crusher. What a name for a book.

I've got an Andrew out of North Carolina had a question for you. He said, Mike, he said, Would you ask Joel what he thinks of the first book of Enoch?

So, this is a real popular question right now. And look, there's no question that it was a very important book in the first century, Jesus and the Apostles. Would have been familiar with it. Obviously, it's or at least parts of it are quoted. Jude 14 and 15, Jesus seems to reference it when he says, The Son of Man will come in his glory, then he will sit on when the Son of Man comes in the glory of his Father, then he will sit on his throne of glory.

There's various references in the New Testament probably alluding to the book of Enoch.

However, Jesus promised. He said, I'm going away. I'm going to send another. He will guide you into all truth. Either he was faithful to do that or he wasn't.

We have to trust that despite the fact that these guys that ultimately prayed and sought the Lord And determine the canon of scripture that we have today, were led by the Holy Spirit. The book of Enoch did not make it into the canon for a reason. I think it has some things in it that are problematic, but I think it also contains truth.

So it's not scripture and it shouldn't be treated as scripture, but it was a very important formative book in Second Temple Judaism. And so I do believe in studying it, but as long as we recognize that it's not you know, because it has some things in it that are not true, we do need to treat it with caution. Yeah.

And there is so much talk right now in this country about revival. CBN News and s even Fox News and other other news outlets have been saying there is a revival. It's among college campuses and this, that and the other. What do you think? Is this a real revival or do you think there's one coming?

I don't know, you know, and I haven't experienced it myself. I think Christians, we tend to constantly talk about revival, revival. Look, the country is in desperate need of a revival. We need another Jesus revolution.

Some of the trends that I mentioned at the beginning of the program with kids trending toward outright white supremacy and Nazism and this sort of thing is really terrifying. But I know that I do talk to a lot of college-age kids who are like, Yeah, Nick Fuentes, those people are idiots. You know, they're recognizing. But look, the reality is. Um they're popular because they're touching on some very real Um Reactions, you know, and so we do need to acknowledge those things, the hurts, the reactions.

The reason they're popular is for a reason. But hopefully we can reject some of these, you know, these um the pendulum always swings so far. And then it swings back to the other side. We need to encourage kids. Um Look, well, I'll make a joke, but to say, you know, they're all struggling with what it means to be a man.

And you know, they're they're every generation loves to poke their father and say, oh, you know, my parents are horrible and you boomers have destroyed everything. If you want to become a real man, then become a boomer. Get fat, work a hard job, suffer, have a wife, have kids. Take care of your kids, get old, and embrace it because it's going to happen whether you like it or not. And cut the nonsense of thinking that you're smarter than your parents.

Every generation did it, it's nothing new. And yes, you know, our generation made a lot of mistakes. What we've handed our kids. has been a liberal nightmare. And politically speaking, we do need to make some pretty radical changes going forward.

Obviously, looking at the nightmare up there with the fraud among the immigrant community, like issues like that are real. And we need to hand our kids something better. You know, I really believe that we need. People our age, Michael, to really consider getting into politics and making some radical changes. Um I do believe that, but just shy of The fascism that a lot of these morons are calling for, if I can say it that way.

You sure can. And every revival has been preceded by prayer. What is your prayer life like, Joel? Yeah, thank you for bringing it back to what's important. You know, I love the verse in Job when it says, you know, when a man is in a heap.

Uh he stretches out his hand to God. Unfortunately, if I'm transparent, I would say I tend to pray more when I'm in a heap. And I would say probably the past five years of my life, I've been in a heap far more than I've been standing strong. And so I'd say it's been in my weakness. It's been as the as life.

The the harsh realities of life have knocked me to the ground that I've learned how to pray better. And um I wish it weren't that way, but um but most of my prayer life comes out of desperation and uh And the Lord is faithful to put us in those positions if we ever think we're standing on our own. That's it. And before we go, I want to thank you for coming on today. If you guys are listening, please pick up the new book by Joel Richardson.

Joel, give us the name again. Gospel of the Skull Crusher, and it's only available, by the way, through my website, which is joelstrumpet.com. Joel'strumpet.com. And Joel, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. Thank you so much, Michael.

God bless you. God bless you. Truth talk. Why