Is there hope for our future? What about future generations? Will any young person step up and proclaim the gospel to the generations to come? We will talk about it. It seemed like the end of Christianity.
Gen Z was the most atheist, lonely, depressed, and hedonistic generation in human history.
So we can officially say it's not a fluke that Gen Z is the first generation in many years to be probably more religious than their parents. Welcome to Understanding the Times Radio with Pastor Josh Schwartz and Ken Michael. Radio for the remnant. Brought to you by Olive Tree Ministries. Ministry founded by Jan Markell.
In our program, Pastor Josh and Ken talk to Jeff Kinley and Todd Hampson. The Prophecy Prose. They have started a new initiative called Future Hope. In the extended version, Pastor Josh and Ken continue the conversation with Jeff and Todd. You're not going to want to miss it.
You can find the extender version ad-free on our website, olivetreeviews.org. or on our YouTube and Rumble channels. It seemed like the end of Christianity. Gen Z was the most atheist, lonely, depressed, and hedonistic generation in human history.
So, we can officially say it's not a fluke that Gen Z is the first generation in many years to be probably more religious than their parents. How did this happen? Gen Z was the first generation to be raised in a secular post-Christian environment. They were the guinea pigs for the experiment of secularism, so they got to see the effects of secularism firsthand. They grew up lost, hopeless, lonely, and with no meaning in their lives.
They also grew up surrounded by wokeness, which celebrated many groups of people, but said that men were the oppressor group and needed to take a back seat in society. The pews are filling up, notably with young people. Gen Z's attendance at church has quadrupled in recent years. from a small base, but the significance lies more in the direction of travel. This is shaping up to me the first new generation in a very long time to be making the country more, not less, religious.
While not all Christians are on the right, and not everyone on the right is Christian, the right was an important stepping stone for many young men coming to Christianity. Today's culture is certainly more sympathetic to faith than the naughties when millennials like me grew up ensnared by the four horsemen of new atheism. in their era defining bestsellers which was sam harris richard awkwards christopher hitchens daniel dennett Dismissing religion as child abuse, mental illness, or terrorist propaganda, they seem now as dated as the Dead Sea Scrolls. And now Gen Z is still in the majority not religious. But the trend lines are pointing in the right direction for the first time in many decades, and that's.
Pretty extraordinary and heartening.
Now the big question, of course, is why this is happening.
Well the real answer is that But the Lord is working in the hearts of the younger generation and leading them back, leading them back home, back to the truth. And that's what's actually happening. Jesus is happening. I think it's a... It's a deep yet simple truth, which is that Which is that human beings need, not want, not just desire, they need.
meaning in their lives. Welcome to Understanding the Times. I'm Ken Michael, along with my co-host, Pastor Josh Schwartz.
So, is it true that young people are now turning to Christ and going to church in numbers like we haven't seen before? We'll talk about these with our two guests today. We are so glad to welcome them back. You may know them as the Prophecy Pros, Jeff Kinley and Todd Hampson. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you. Great to be back. Fantastic to join you guys again. Been looking forward to it.
So, you guys have launched an exciting new ministry called Future Hope. Jeff, you want to just give us a brief overview of what that entails? Yeah, Future Hope is a vision to reach 100,000 teenagers over the next five years with the hopeful message found in Bible prophecy. And so we're putting that infrastructure together right now. And Todd and I are just sitting on ready to go do just that.
Praise God, that's exciting. And I can't wait to talk more about it with you guys and how people can partner with you, and how we can even partner with you. Really, we've seen a major shift in the last number of weeks, maybe months, since the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Guys, how has this influenced Gen Z? Yeah, I think uh It's kind of amazing, even going back before that.
We were looking at studies about this time last year. That were coming out, and there's been several since then that have come out that talk about the fact that. Gen Z and even Gen Alpha, that next generation coming up. Are they seen the hopelessness of secular culture and secular ideology? And they're looking for genuine truth.
Now, Uh there In some cases, they're finding it in the wrong places, and we're going to talk a little bit about that, but. We feel like we have a wide open door of ministry based on every study that's out there, based on what we've seen personally at conferences. And of course, all along, the Lord knew.
sovereignly what was going to happen with Charlie Kirk and the impact that that was going to have so All this to say, we have a wide open door ministry right now to really pass the baton of faith to the next generation. Either to get them across the faith finish line, if the rapture is going to happen soon, or to prepare them to understand prophecy, understand the gospel. and be the salt and light in their generation in the years to come. Yeah, guys, and we've seen a huge increase in the purchase of Bibles. I'm hearing like 41 to 45% increase.
Is that due to this Gen Z and this upcoming generation? Is it because of them, or is it an overall people just getting interested in what the Word of God has to say? I think there's been a huge thrust among Gen Z and among young people, college age, twenty somethings, who are understanding, perhaps for the first time in their life, that this world is not a good place. And Satan has really overplayed his hand with the really the deluge of depravity that he has brought into culture. And these kids are just finding it's not enough.
I mean, the world is just not enough. It's not give me what I need. And these kids are looking for hope. As you said, they're looking for significance and meaning. And the great thing about it is that the Bible has all the answers for that.
And so, what we're trying to do is, and we've seen, by the way, our audiences have been trending younger. We've seen more younger people and young moms and 20-somethings coming to our conferences that we do around the country. And what's encouraging to us about that is that it tells us that the Holy Spirit is sparking a hunger.
So yes, Satan has overplayed his hand. God is stepping into this void, and He is raising up, I believe, a generation of young people that could be the last great harvest of souls before the rapture of the church. Yeah, Josh, I just got back from Oklahoma and we were amazed at how many young people attended this conference. And like you said, Jeff, parents and grandparents are bringing their kids to see this and learn about Bible prophecy, especially. Yeah, and I think it's really important.
Todd, you brought up Gen Alpha, which is the generation after Gen Z.
So we're talking people here ages. probably 25 and younger. There is a growing Desire to know truth.
Now, why do you guys think that is? Is it because of the reality of social media and what they've been taught, and they're finally just trying to search after what's more real, something more realistic than that? Or what are your thoughts? I think there is something to be said for the fact that the more unstable the world becomes, the more people start to look for answers. And the younger generations have seen.
Millennials, and I'm a Gen Xer, and my generation. Go after everything that the world has to offer. And ultimately, find no hope in that.
So they're seeing that happen, even if they can't put it into those words. I think it's impacting them in terms of what to look for and You know, it's the first generation to be raised on social media, to be digitally raised.
So they're inundated with. Thousands of messages every day, more than any other. generation so i think there's a instinctive intuitive nature where they want to cut through the clutter and find out what is really true.
So, I think we have a great opportunity to point them to the gospel, to point them to Jesus Christ. And to prepare them for the next generation or the rapture, whichever comes first. Yeah, great point. And I think I don't want to give social media just a bad name at all because all of us obviously are using social media for one way or another to try and redeem it.
So, how is the gospel going out? How are you guys using social media to get further and further than ever before?
Well, I think just through our existing platforms, we do this, obviously, promotion of our books, of our conferences, that type of thing, making independent, smaller video posts. But to me, the social media is a tool. It can be used for good or bad. For me, the greatest tool is just people telling people. Which is again the greatest tool, the gospel, anyway.
I mean, social media is a great opportunity. It's like a bullhorn, you can kind of spread your message to a lot of people. But once those individuals may not use social media, they may reach out, as you said earlier, Ken, they're bringing their grandkids, they're bringing their kids to these types of things.
So that's part of our effort is to help equip. Individuals to be able to reach out to their circles of influence and bring them to a place where they can hear about this hope and the message that Bible prophecy brings believers today. Great point. If I could piggyback real quick, what we're seeing really is a grassroots effort of people who have seen. the church by and large, not all churches, kind of dropped the ball.
when teaching the full counsel of God or teaching Bible prophecy. And they're finding alternative ways, ways, books, resources, shows like yours. the conferences that Jeff and I do. To reach that next generation in an intentional way, so really, it's given an opportunity for. uh christians everywhere to be on the front lines of ministry to reach this next generation.
Yeah, great point, Todd. I think the big mistake that baby boomers made is they sent their kids off to school and then off to church, and they thought they were going to learn the Judeo-Christian values that they grew up with, and that was a huge mistake.
So now we see social media being a huge influence on our young people. But ultimately, don't we want to get them back into a good Bible-teaching church that teaches the full counsel of God from Genesis to Revelation?
So, what advice would you give parents and grandparents to get kids back into church? Because they need that, I think. You know, social media does one thing, but I think they need other people around them, like-minded people. How can we get them back into a good solid church? Yeah.
Well, oddly enough, I wrote a book with Ken Hamm called Ready to Return, and it's all about how do we get kids back in the church. And our research that we did, we hired America's research group to go out across the nation. And what they found was that students were no longer casting off their faith when they got to college and got in front of that atheistic evolutionist professor, and he's kind of shaking their faith. That wasn't happening anymore. But we were finding that we're losing kids as young as eighth grade.
13 years old and younger, while they're still in the church, because of the influence of social media. Because what we found was that we were good at telling the stories of Jesus and the stories of the Bible, but we were not good at helping them understand why those things are so important and why they're true.
Sort of an apologetic. And so, when kids get on social media, they go out to their school, out to the culture, they find that, well, no one's supporting that. In fact, they're antagonistic against their faith and they have no answers.
So, part of bringing kids back into the church is finding the kind of church that's going to help kids understand why. What they believe is true, and not just to tell them what to believe.
So, that apologetic, again, Bible prophecy fits right into that as a great apologetic. But teaching kids from, I'm talking about, you know, grammar school age about the authenticity, the veracity of the scripture. How do we know Jesus is God? How do we know that he rose from the dead? And not just telling them those old flannel graph stories of, yeah, you should just believe this.
Yeah, no, that's a great point. And I think. There is a great discernment that a lot of these young people have because they have to fight against fake news. They have to fight against AI and automatically generated. Different things on social media.
So, they're really discerning and trying to get to the nuts and bolts of what really is true.
So, hitting apologetics and Bible prophecy.
Now, you did bring up Bible prophecy there. Why is Bible prophecy so important in getting young people to understand the importance of the scriptures? Todd, I'll just real quickly, because Todd and I did an event at the largest Christian high school here in Arkansas. There was 500 high school students. And Todd asked an incredibly insightful question.
He says, How many of you guys have and they're all from evangelical churches? How many of you guys have ever been taught Revelation, Daniel, the end times, Bible prophecy? Not a single hand went up. Then Todd asked, How many of you have ever thought about the end of the world in the last seven days? Every hand went up.
So Todd, I'll pitch it back to you, but that just shows the incredible hunger. These kids are thinking, they're intelligent human beings. They know what's going on. They've got antenna, they understand it. But we have to give it to them.
Yeah, we we really do. And yeah, we we're finding that We need to address the elephant in the room. They're thinking about it. It's on their mind. When we actually show them, oh, the scriptures actually show us what our day is supposed to be like.
And it's laying the groundwork for everything we read about. concerning our future hope, the things that we're looking forward to.
So it really does take the Bible from being. Kind of a dusty book that has some really good information and some key insights to the death, burial, and resurrection. And makes it real and alive in front of their eyes right now so that they can see the world. Through the lens of Bible prophecy, and it really does take them from. Confusion and fear and anxiety.
To anchoring to that future hope that we're trying to give them.
So, the very thing that most churches are afraid to teach other people is the very thing that's going to give them that future hope and the clarity they need right now at this time in history. Yeah, Josh. And he nailed it right on the head there. It's about having a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. I mean, that's in most churches, like Todd said, aren't teaching that.
Yeah, and I think it's so important to understand: just as God brought forth literally the Messiah the first time, like he promised he would, so also we can trust him in the reality that he will bring Jesus back to make all things right and to rule and reign. And it's not that anything in our world today has caught God off guard, but it's all falling into place, as our founder Jan Markell says all the time. And it's so important for kids to understand that we're not just careening out of control. God is sovereign, he's in control, and we can trust him because he knows the beginning. and the end.
So so important, guys. Thanks for bringing these topics up. Yeah.
Absolutely. It's exciting for us, guys, simply because the fact that, you know, when I was a youth pastor for over 25 years, I saw that. Teenagers can handle any type of biblical truth that an adult can. In fact, sometimes better because they're not bringing a lot of baggage, a lot of pre-existing thoughts into the conversation. And so the thought was: are they still like that or are they different?
And so last year, Todd and I went out to Jack Hibbs Church, partnered with Jack, and we did an event for students on Bible prophecy. A thousand students showed up, another thousand were watching online, and they were dialed in from word one. Nobody's talking, everybody's taking notes, they are looking at us and then lined up 50 deep down each aisle asking substantive theological questions about the end times. That just made my heart race, and it tells me that the hunger is there. Amen.
That's huge. That's so important to understand.
Well guys, I want you to listen to this clip and I want to get your take on this when we come back. That. And I had two college students come up to me at a conference this past week. They said, look, we get that. We get that Israel is in Bible processing stuff, but what is to be my attitude?
Toward the nation of Israel now. And where they were coming from, Jack, they're basically saying: look, we don't agree with everything Israel does. in their government. We as Bible-believing Christians, we've read the scriptures and we know this, that We are to be praying for the peace of Jerusalem. We are to be recognizing the fact that God has declared Israel.
And that land to be his. Let's remember that. He says it's mine, it's his. That said, Question to the skeptic is: Did God promise that Israel Would go through generations whereby they would suffer greatly, all because they would not obey him. They would rebel against him.
And he told them in Deuteronomy chapter 28: If you obey me, you'll be blessed above all nations. If you disobey, you're going to be cursed above all nations. And of course, I think Jesus backed that up by saying later: to whom much is given, much is required. God had ordained the Jewish people to be his mouthpiece to the ends of the earth with the gospel. The gospel was to go to them first.
They were to be the mouthpiece. The religious hierarchy failed to do that. And I heard Paul this morning say, Look, if you guys deem yourself unworthy of eternal life, we go to the Gentiles. But does it mean that God is done with the Jews?
Well, according to Romans chapter 9, 10 and 11. He is not. You're listening to Understanding the Times Radio, the program founded by Jan Markell.
Now, if you would be interested in receiving headlines every single day of what's going on around the world, picked specifically by Jan Markell, our founder, you can go to our website, that's olivetreeviews.org, and under the news tab, hit the word headlines, and they'll be right there for you. And you can even subscribe to have those into your mailbox daily. We also carry all kinds of different books in our bookstore.
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Now, we are with Jeff Kinley and Todd Hampson this week, the prophecy pros. We're talking about all kinds of stuff about the next generations, the generations to come. And Jeff and Todd, you guys just published a new book, The Visual Guide to the End Times. It's a phenomenal book. I've walked through it.
It is so helpful. It's so, you take hard topics and simplify them with images. Where can people get their hands on this new book? They can pretty much find that anywhere. Books are sold online, from Amazon to Christian Book to Barnes and Noble.
You name it.
So, yeah, anywhere books are sold online, they'll be able to find that. And that was a fun, fun one to work on for Jeff and I. We concepted it. We wrote the whole thing, we did all the graphics, so it was really our DNA in that book. From cover to cover.
It's kind of a transgenerational book in the sense that there's plenty of depth there for more mature believers, but the visuals that Todd put in there are just so engaging. It really does draw you in. Yeah.
Thank you guys for putting that together. I view it as like a coffee table book that people can have in their homes and it could create conversations and that lead to the gospel and the greatness of God and holding all things together.
So guys, there's so much information and disinformation out there listening to that last clip about what's happening in Israel and especially in Gaza. We're hearing that Israel is committing genocide and they don't look at what's going on there and the terrorists that are actually running Gaza. How important is it to know history and to teach history to all of these young people about Israel itself? Yeah, it's a spiritual battle, actually. To combat the anti-Israel narrative, the anti-God narrative, is engaging spiritual warfare, actually.
And what we have to do is understand what Scripture says. About Israel, how Israel, as Jack said in that clip, would be persecuted, they would be scattered, they would experience the curse of God, if you will. But that in Romans chapter 11, Paul asks the question: Has God forgotten his people? Has he rejected his people? And he uses the strongest Greek expression, meganoito, which means God forbid, a thousand times no.
No way could this happen. And because the gifts and callings of God in verse 29 are irrevocable. And because of that, we should look at Israel and say, okay, so what does God say about Israel? In other words, we don't necessarily have to support everything the Israeli government does, but we support Israel's right to exist. Their right to be in the land, their right to defend themselves, and we should try to bless Israel and bless the Jewish people and bring Messiah to them as best as we can.
So it is overcoming kind of that worldly narrative that you see on mainstream media and just respond with facts and respond with what the scripture says. That's a great point. And I think it's so important to really bring it back to facts and bring it back to history and bring it back to what the scriptures say. Because after all, the internet is inundated with this narrative, this anti-Israel narrative that we know is demonic and it's broken. And of course, that's what we would expect the evil one to try to get the masses to believe that Israel is the enemy and they need to be destroyed because that's what he wants to happen after all.
Now, guys, we've been talking a lot throughout this whole program about Gen Z and Gen Alpha, and we've touched on a couple of different times your new initiative, Future Hope. And we've seen that This upcoming generation has seen hopelessness and seen brokenness. We understand that they are viewing the deluge of depravity all day, every day. We understand that they're digitally raised. They want answers to hard questions, specifically the why questions.
So is this what spurred you guys on to really move forward with this initiative of Future Hope?
Well, partially, yes. I think Todd would agree that we have a third ministry partner who has had experience in youth ministry for 50 years and with starting really movements of youth ministries across the world. And all of us together have decided that this is the time is right. And it's almost like the time is right to pick the fruit off the tree because the way that students are. Are thinking about life and about eternity and the substantive questions that every person's asked: who am I?
Why am I here? Where am I going? And of course, God answers all those questions. And so, what we're asking God to do is to really start a movement. We desire to bring students together in sort of regional conference-type situations to help equip them with the hopeful message found in Bible prophecy.
But we're also going to be equipping youth pastors across the nation as well to teach them how to teach eschatology and Bible prophecy to their students so that we create more of a multiplication effect and not just a gathering effect. Amen. That's phenomenal because at all of Tree Ministries, we have what we call the pastor's huddle. And in so doing, we bring pastors from all around the U.S. and even the world to train them in eschatology.
And now for you guys to do something similar and bringing youth pastors in to train them in eschatology, I mean, it is so important to see these things working together. I'm so encouraged to hear that. Yeah.
Now, guys, as we close here, I think we have to put out a caution because what we're seeing, and I think even Jack said it in one of your programs, young people are being led to maybe the wrong type of church, and we don't have to get into the denominations, but they're not. They're being led to areas where they're not going to hear the full counsel of God. How do we steer them in the right direction to make sure that they're hearing the truth, that they're going to a rock-solid church that teaches especially Bible prophecy? Yeah, that's key right now, and part of the reason why. Are the movement we feel God is calling us to help foster?
Is directly linked to Bible prophecy and eschatology. We want them to understand Israel biblically, we want them to understand the end times biblically. Because what we found is that when you study Bible prophecy, you're really studying the entire story of scripture from Genesis to Revelation. You're learning the proper hermeneutic, you're learning. how to distill truth from scripture.
For yourself.
So, as we see this generation that is open to truth. Uh, there's a lot of danger out there, they're getting sucked into cults, they're getting You know uh Misinformation about Israel and the end times and everything else.
So that's why we included that in this, why it's such an important part to that.
So, I think just letting them know what to look out for as they're looking for a church, really helping them to wrestle with these key things related to Israel and eschatology. in my opinion will help Put them on solid ground and help them evaluate. Churches that they're attending to see if it lines up with what the Bible actually says. And we'll be identifying those churches as well as we go out and partner with different hub events that will get kids to into those churches as well and hopefully infect in a good positive way some of the churches they're going back to. That's great.
Now say there's a pastor listening that really wants to partner with you guys or to have maybe a conference at their church. How can they get in contact with you? And what is the process of doing that moving forward? Yeah, just go to futurehope.now, and there's a contact form there. You can reach out, and our national director will call them and contact them and get the conversation started, give them all the information they need in order to make an informed decision.
Great.
Well, our guests today have been Jeff Kinley and Todd Hampson. You probably know them as the Prophecy Pros. Gentlemen, any final words you each want to give? We're just excited to be a part of something that God is doing. We're not manufacturing anything.
We're just simply joining what the Holy Spirit is doing and using our distinct and unique gifts and desires and abilities to help any way we can to be good servants in this cause. Yeah, amen. I would piggyback on that and just say. That this futurehope.now, if they want to go there and check that out, we'll give you all the information you need. This is different than anything we've done apart or together.
We've done things where we're offering services like a A one-off conference or a podcast or books. this really is something that the lord is doing that we can't even control And we're just trying to join him in what he's doing. And it is a wide open door of ministry. Uh, that we need a lot of partners to come alongside us with.
So, we invite you into this ministry with us. to help us reach the next generation with the hopeful message. Of the gospel through the lens of Bible prophecy. Praise God.
Well, thank you guys so much for stepping up and stepping in with these. Friends, I do feel like after this conversation, there is a hope for future generations. And the generation coming up after the millennials and Gen Z and Gen Alpha, they are going to hear the truth because of faithful men like Todd and Jeff. And I'm so thankful to have a partnership with them and to have this conversation. Gentlemen, thank you again for joining us.
That's a blessing. Thank you. Appreciate it. We have to be willing to tell them what we know of the person of Jesus. Our Messiah was an observant Jewish rabbi.
When you walk through the gates of the New Jerusalem, the book of Revelation tells us that the gates you enter on will be inscribed with the names of Hebrew men. And at the center of the city is the throne with that observant Jewish rabbi seated there. It'll be an awkward place if you hate the Jewish people.
So the goal in our interaction with our Jewish friends is not to teach them to worship like we worship. But to introduce them to the person of Jesus so that they might know him as their Messiah. Welcome to the extended version of Understanding the Times. I'm Ken Michael, along with my co-host, Pastor Josh Schwartz.
And we are so glad to have back with us the Prophecy Pros, Jeff Kinley and Todd Hampson. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us for this extended version. Glad to be here. Thank you. So gentlemen.
With everything going on, with the hostages being returned, and Gaza is about to be redone, the Jewish people have really felt two years of just unimaginable pressure and heartache and pain. And our Jewish friends here in the cities have been telling us, now is the time to preach the gospel and share the gospel with our Jewish friends and neighbors. Why don't you each of you give us a synopsis of what is the best way to reach out to our Jewish friends?
Well, obviously, there's a lot of baggage and obstacles to overcome from the church's standpoint. It's in speaking to our Jewish friends. There are certain words that you should probably avoid. They don't resonate with the word Christian and things like that.
So just presenting the Jewish Messiah to them. In the scripture, but doing it, I think, in the context of relationship, you know, the idea of just preaching to Jews probably is a little bit put-offish to them, but just building a bridge to them through a relationship that you have with them. Maybe giving them some trusted resources from some voices in Bible prophecy, maybe a book or a video, something like that, as an intro. Yeah, I agree. And our good mutual friend, Olivier Milnick, has really helped me and a lot of other people really understand the history.
Of anti-Semitism and how Jewish people perceive Christianity and stuff like that.
So being sensitive to that history is key. And as Jeff said, I think just being a genuine friend. I think for me, one thing that I've noticed with Jewish people I know that has built a bridge. is openly acknowledging the rise in anti-Semitism. When they realize you see what they're seeing and you recognize it and you want to speak against it, they know they have a friend.
So I think that's a great end, a great bridge to build. And then just lead as the Lord leads in how you present the gospel. There are a few Old Testament passages you can use if the opportunity comes up. to just show them Hey, here's Jesus in the Old Testament, and then leverage that. But really, it boils down to that relationship: building a bridge, letting them know they have a friend in you first.
Before you present the gospel, I think that's one key, key thing that we can all do. Yeah, that's a great point because relational evangelism is way more effective, in my thought, than just trying to beat someone over the head with a Bible and say, You've got to believe this. No, they've got to be able to trust you first. And so, building that relationship is deeply important. And we shouldn't be afraid of building relationships and friendships with our Jewish neighbors because they're just people like us too, and they need the gospel like we needed the gospel.
Now, guys, Israel is a hot topic, as Ken noted.
Well, we've got the hostages released and all kinds of things going on.
Now, how does Israel fit into Bible prophecy?
Well, Israel is key to Bible prophecy. In fact, I call Israel the Rosetta Stone of Bible prophecy. It sort of deciphers the code for us because once Israel became a nation again in 1948, it's like game on. I mean, God's prophetic clock, his hourglass, began ticking again. And now the prophecies that are Prophesied in Revelation, Daniel, 2 Thessalonians, Matthew 24, all throughout the New Testament, are now possible because there's an Israel.
Prophecies concerning Antichrist and the peace treaty and the temple, all these things.
So Israel really is sort of the lens through which we view Bible prophecy. And so I tell people, keep your eye on Israel. And you'll kind of know kind of where we are on the timeline, so to speak. But it's very important. And I think it, and Todd, please speak to this, the idea of bringing awareness to the church about the biblical and prophetic significance of Israel.
Could not be any more important than it is right now. Yeah, I agree 100%. That's exactly where I was going because it used to be there were theological differences that didn't really. Have overt, broad, real-world consequences, but those times are gone, and there's a winnowing of the church right now, and there's a big debate within evangelicalism. And the biggest pushback or complaint that I hear when I tell people.
Israel's a super sign of the end times is, well, Israel is just a secular state. They're not even religious. They're mostly atheists and secular and with a little bit of a religious overtone in their traditions. And I point out to people: well, that's exactly what we see in scripture when we read about. Them making a covenant with a secular Antichrist, a political figure, not necessarily a religious figure, and other hints in scripture that shows they're going to be there in unbelief at first.
And then there's a process of God winning them back.
So, I think it is the issue of the day. And I think, from a prophecy standpoint, it's the glaring neon sign, the super sign of the end times. And it's a bonus for us because Technically, the next thing on the prophetic calendar is the rapture of the church. But we're blessed to see the fulfillment of prophecy with Israel becoming a nation again. And that lets us know that God is laying the groundwork for all end-time events, and it lets us know.
that the Bible can be interpreted literally, that when God says something's going to happen, it's going to happen exactly as He foretold.
So it confirms that literal hermeneutic and helps us understand Scripture more clearly. Praise God.
No, that's huge. Thank you for bringing that forth.
Now, in the first half of the program, we talked a lot about Gen Z and Future Hope, this new initiative that you guys have started to train youth pastors and young people in Bible prophecy and eschatology.
Now, can we just walk through in the next couple of minutes, maybe what one of those mini conferences or conferences would look like? What topics would you cover and why would you cover those topics? Yeah, sure thing. And they can, for the basic information, they can go to futurehope.now to get the information and to contact us. But it's basically a weekend conference, a Friday night and all day Saturday.
And the overall emphasis is helping them to understand the full. the full story of the Bible so that they can have future hope. Through that, we do have several sessions where we teach them. We start out with a big overview of all end-time events so they can see everything in context. And throughout that, we're weaving in How to interpret the Bible, and we're also weaving in heavily.
That we're trying to give you future hope. The reason we can face the things of the day is because we're anchored to this future hope, these future promises that God has given every believer. But most believers in our day, many believers in our day, Have taken their eyes off the ball, and they don't have that future hope that these students are looking for.
So we start off with the overview message, and then another message on Friday night is the message of the rapture: a clear presentation. Of what the rapture is, and why that is our hope that we're supposed to be looking for. And then there's also evangelistic and discipleship messages throughout this, a push for those throughout this. And then on the Saturday overview. We basically take the overview that we gave them of the chronological order of events.
And then we have several messages where we kind of go slowly through each one of those. Chronological events. And every student gets a manual with places to fill in notes and all kinds of bonus material.
So not only are they learning the timeline, they're also learning how that impacts their future hope. And they're walking away with a manual that they'll go back and keep referring to in the months and the years to come. And also, as we mentioned, we're trying to equip. Student ministry leaders and train them so that they can continue the ministry once they get back to their church. It's very exciting really.
I mean, they go through the tribulation, the second coming, the millennial kingdom, the eternal state. I mean, they get kind of the whole package there just in one weekend. And students are I mean, they are glued to the truth. And it's all new to most of them. And that's the beauty of it.
It's like seeing the best movie you've ever seen for the first time, and they just can't get enough.
Well, that's fantastic. We can't wait to team up with you guys. This is so exciting. We know that these young people get most of their news, most of their information off of social media. What techniques or what can we do as ministries to make sure that we're utilizing social media so that they do hear the truth of the gospel?
I think it's important that when we do social media, that we tell them the truth, that we talk about the truth. Because our power, if you will, our influence, all of us as Christians, is not found through a medium. It's not found through the media. It's found in the Word of God. And so we're all truth tellers, and we want to tell the truth.
Now, we want to be interesting and we want to be creative and sometimes even entertaining as we do it, but we want to make sure that we include the truth. And it's not based on a personality or a style of something, but really, in the end, what God blesses is His Word. And so the Word of God is still living and active and sharpened any two-edged sword, and all scripture is inspired.
So that's what we want to do. Make sure there's truth in what we share with students. That's extremely important because, again, like we've talked about previously, these students are looking for the truth, and there's no more true book in all of creation than God's Word itself. And so we must be. based on God's word and must be proclaiming the word of truth, that is, the word that God has given us.
Now, Todd, you mentioned in some of these conferences that you guys will deal with how to help students understand or interpret the Bible. Why is a hermeneutic so important? I think it's key to equipping them because we're not just trying to help them understand information. We're trying to equip them to study the Bible for themselves. And I think one of the easiest ways to demonstrate.
How we can use a literal or plain sense hermeneutic is just to point to the fact that. 80% of prophecy has already been fulfilled, and it was all fulfilled literally. Therefore, everything in the future, even though some of it is mind-blowing. All of it's mind-blowing, some of it's hard to believe, but we have an 80% down payment from the Lord to say, No, you. You can trust everything I say about the future because I've already have a proven track record to show.
That I say what I mean, I mean what I say. God does not play word games. And that's a big discussion, I think. And that's, we want to equip them to know this isn't just our opinion. And we even encourage them: go write these verses down, look in your manual, go back and read these verses for yourselves.
Don't take our word for it. Get your truth straight from scripture. But we emphasize the fact that we do use that plain sense hermeneutic that You know, all scripture is God-breathed, 2 Timothy 3:16. Every single word in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation can be trusted, and we emphasize that heavily. And that alone gives them future hope, and it also equips them to go back and study the Bible.
With a new hermeneutic, a new lens, so to speak, where they can, oh, they almost take a sigh of relief. Oh, I can trust this book called the Bible. It is true. There is a literal six-day creation that occurred. The flood was real.
Everything that God prophesied was going to happen happened just like he said. Israel became a nation again, prophesied by every Old Testament prophet except for Jonah. And all these amazing things we have to look forward to in our future, we can bank on the fact that these are going to happen because God is a promise-keeping God. Amen. Todd, you read my mind because I was going to say that the idea is that what they have at the conference, it overflows in their personal lives because they go and they read the rest of the Bible and they go, wow, I can understand all of it.
Not just Bible prophecy, but everything else that's in scripture takes obviously some time and some study, but it gives them a sense of clarity. It gives them confidence. You know, and kids need that confidence today. And, you know, as a 16-year-old, when I came to Christ, Todd came to Christ as a teenager as well, both out of secular lifestyles and non-Christian homes. But when we came to Christ, it was just an amazement to me that I could understand the Bible.
And so that's one of the things about hope that we're giving these students is we're infusing them with this idea that, look, you can handle this stuff. And just get your Bible, start reading it. It's going to start making sense to you now.
Well, you guys came out with a brand new book I want you to tell our audience about. It's the Visual Guide to the End Times. Tell everyone what's contained in this book. Oh, wow. Todd, I want to brag on Todd for just a second, if I can, because Todd put the most incredible illustrations and artwork in this book.
I don't know how many colors we've used in this book, it's more than I can count. But what we did was we cover all the major events, people, places, demons, angels, Antichrist. We cover it's a complete, it's a comprehensive look at Bible prophecy. And Todd and I both obviously came together to write it. But I just think visually it's stunning, it's attractive.
And it's one of these things that if you're 10 or if you're 80, you're going to be able to engage this truth. Yeah, and that's the beauty of it: it can be used by Christians, it can be used by church leaders who want to use it kind of as a resource to get some actual information for their sermons, or it can be given to a non-believer or left around for a non-believer. The thing with visual art is that You can flip it open to any page, and there's going to be something on that page that draws you in, slows you down long enough to check that out. And before you know it, they're reading that whole spread. And then they want to see, well, how does this fit into the pick, the rest of the book?
So it really is a kind of a good, God-given, kind of sneaky way to get anybody engaged with the content. And it is, as Jeff said, it is comprehensive. And it's everything is distilled down to the bare minimum. In terms of writing, that was actually the hardest part: taking big concepts that we've written about before and distilling those concepts down to the bare minimum of what people need to know and still giving them a concrete way to understand the chronology, the key people, the key events. As Jeff said, there's a section on angels and demons, there's even a section at the end.
For church leaders and pastors who have never taught Bible prophecy before.
So there's a flight directive, it has a whole flight theme.
So there's a flight directive at the end that challenges them to teach Bible prophecy and gives them all the benefits of teaching Bible prophecy and introducing it into their churches.
So there's a lot of different angles for this book, and we tried to incorporate all of them. Yeah, without a doubt. It is one of the best illustrated books. Todd, you have so much talent that I've ever seen. I mean, it's just fantastic.
So, how can people get their hands on this? They can buy it anywhere online. Christianbook.com, Amazon.com, Barnes Noble, pretty much anywhere online should be carrying it by now. Jeff Todd, any concluding thoughts as we close this program? We're just excited about what God is doing in the world today.
And also, just to be able to partner with various people in the world of Bible prophecy, different pastors, with you guys, because I think that this is, we're all in this thing together. It's a team effort. And I think God is going to use all of us in a unique way. And this whole idea of futurehope.now that folks can go check out is, I think, going to be a potential game changer to change the actual trajectory. Of youth ministry in America today.
And so we're just praying, God, do exceeding above. Beyond all that we can ask or think. Yeah, amen. And just to reiterate kind of what Jeff just said: it's not our ministry, it's the Lord's. He's doing things with it we didn't even expect.
And we invite everyone in who has a passion for the next generation and has a way to help us leverage this moment to reach them. uh to go to futurehope.now and uh reach out to us and find out how they can help. Jeff Kinley, Todd Hampson, you know them as the Prophecy Pros. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us today. God bless you and what you're doing, and we look forward to working with you in the near future.
Amen. It's always good to be with you guys. Thank you. Thank you so much. Contact us through our website, olivetreeviews.org.
That's olivetreeviews.org. Call us Central Time at 763-559-455. 44 Yeah. That's 763-559-459. four four.
Yeah.
We get our mail when you write to Olivetree Ministries in Jan Markell, Box 1452. Maple Grove, Minnesota. five five three one one That's box 1452. Maple Grove, Minnesota. Mm-hmm.
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