We Will Not Be Silenced

Can we cancel the cancel culture?

That's why if you are a believer, I think the only way that the left and the cancel culture wins is if we agree to be silent. Welcome to Understanding the Times Radio with Jan Markell. Radio for the Remnant brought to you by Olive Tree Ministries. Today we feature two guests.

In part one, we welcome a ministry friend, Dr. Erwin Lutzer. The cancel culture is trying to cancel every believer. How can we fight back?

Sure, it's a sign of the times and prophesied in scripture, but many of us aren't going to take it anymore. Here is today's program. I think we're really seeing here the left and many people on the left feel very emboldened right now, and they are trying to shut down conservative voices all across the country and from all different backgrounds.

Conservative voices in politics, conservative voices in media, conservative voices in the faith community, and it's really the liberal woke mob is out there. I have to tell you, actually, I'm honored to be a target because I think that means that I'm doing something right and standing up for the things that we believe in, and I'm not going to be intimidated. And welcome to the program.

We're going to talk about that for the first segment here of my programming. I'm so honored to have a special guest I'm going to get to in just a moment because we're carrying Dr. Lutzer's newest book, We Will Not Be Silenced, responding courageously to our culture's assault on Christianity. And folks, if you haven't noticed today, government must be God. Leftism is the theology of the day. And if you don't embrace that, my goodness, you're a deplorable, you're a homophobe, you're a terrorist, a traitor, a fanatic, a supremacist, a racist, on and on and on.

If you don't embrace that agenda, as a matter of fact, you might even be destined for a reeducation camp if you don't toe the line. I'm going to be talking to Dr. Lutzer because we carry this wonderful new book. We're going to be hitting on some of the issues.

It affects you and me on a daily basis. And you may recall that about five weeks ago, we talked about a related topic here, and I referred to the 28-page document put out by the secular Democrats of America calling for just that, a new secular America. So we'll talk about that and much more. Dr. Erwin Lutzer, welcome to the program. I'm so glad to be with you today, Jan, and thank God for your ministry. And Dr. Lutzer was at a couple of my conferences, 2012, 2013. You are Pastor Emeritus, Moody Church Chicago, Dr. Lutzer. That's right. It's been my privilege to be the pastor here for 36 years.

And I transitioned about five years ago. And I have to say, Jan, that our media ministry is exploding. And I'm so glad that I can have the opportunity to do writing and, as you mentioned, speak directly to the issues today in this book that we're going to be discussing.

Yes. I know you wrote this book eight months to a year ago and probably even thought about it before that. You are prophetic because you're talking about the cancel culture, which has only fully blossomed here in the last six, seven months. How did you perceive 2021 when you're writing back in 2019 and 2020? I think it is God's wisdom and God's providence that he enabled me to talk about things that were in seed form last year. And now, of course, they have become full blown. For example, I have a chapter on the whole idea of propaganda and I talk about collective demonization. Well, that was before all of the deplatforming and all the things that we have seen happen just since the first of the year.

But I anticipated that happening. I looked at the monuments that were being destroyed. I looked at how our history is being vilified.

And God gave me wisdom so that I might be able to understand the underlying philosophy that all of these developments really have. I'm reading a paragraph from your book on page 19, and you say this. The secular left does not believe that America can be fixed.

They say it must be destroyed. You say on the rubble of America's Judeo-Christian past, a new America will emerge, which they say will be free of poverty, racism and white supremacy. You say the secular left's goal is a future in which everyone will be equal on their terms and the disparities of the past will be read about only in the history books. And then you say those who resist this utopian vision are to be vilified, bullied and shamed until they admit to their mistakes of the past and embrace the secular left's great hope for the future. Now, Dr. Lutzer, you and I know that if in fact America were to embrace this agenda, this godless agenda, we don't have a very great future. We only have destruction ahead. Am I right in assuming that some of these people have been given over to a Romans 1 mentality of depravity?

Absolutely. Romans Chapter 1 talks about people who suppress the truth. Going back to the quote, that's actually why I wrote my book. I realized that the radical left does not believe that America can be fixed. It has to be destroyed, built upon a secular Marxist foundation.

And I just want to comment on that for a moment. Marx saw the nuclear family as a unit of oppression, because for him, everything had to do with the oppressed and the oppressors. He saw that men oppressed their wives, parents oppressed their children. God was the ultimate oppressor.

So he saw that the family had to be destroyed. Now, isn't this interesting that black lives matter? And I point out in the book that absolutely black lives matter.

Every black life matters. But isn't it interesting that on their website, they say that they believe in the disillusion of the nuclear family. They say that they are committed Marxists. Once you understand that, you can go to the destruction of our history, because all Marxist regimes want to destroy the past and build upon a brand new foundation. It has to do with diversity studies that I hope we get into, which are thoroughly Marxist, and the whole issue of freedom of speech.

So once you understand that, you can see how these ideas, taught largely in our universities, have filtered down to the culture and that's where we are today. First, I want to make a comment here, and I teased with it a few minutes ago, and that is this organization. I talked about it four to six weeks ago on here, Secular Democrats of America.

Here's what they want, Dr. Erwin Lutzer, and he is my guest here for this segment of my programming. Secular Democrats of America, this is a legit organization encouraging the purging of social conservatives from all levels of government. Christians are deemed enemies of the state.

They have a 28-page document. It's online under Secular Democrats of America. The document encourages that Christians be ostracized from society. A few extremists in this organization encourage sending Christians to re-education camps. Now, this is a legit organization active in Washington, and they're sincere.

Obviously, they're sincerely wrong and they're sincerely hateful. Do you think that re-education camps are ahead? Possibly, but you know, rather than putting us in camps, what they might be doing is what Marxists always want to do is to capture all of the influencers. They want to capture the media and they already have a good part of that. They want to capture education. That's why in the book We Will Not Be Silenced that we're talking about, I have a chapter on the sexualization of children. They believe that if they can capture the media and law, by the way, that 28-page document has a lot to do with laws and the secularization of the church actually is what it's all about.

What they want to do is to capture it that way. So there is brainwashing that takes place, but much of it is trying to soften us up so that we don't see what's happening. Remember, the purpose of propaganda is to so change people's perception of reality so that even when confronted with a mountain of evidence, they will not change their minds.

You try to do the propaganda, you try to do all of these things, and that also is part of the re-education program. I opened with a couple of clips of Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri. As an author, Erwin Lutzer, you can appreciate that his book was tossed out by, I believe, Simon & Schuster. I think Regnery came along and picked it up because he's standing firm for what he believes, faith, family, all of the things that you and I and your book talks about. I want to play just a one-minute clip here to further embellish what Senator Hawley had to say, because here he's in an interview on Focus on the Family. He says, if I stand up for what I believe, and I'm going to be fired and blacklisted and put out of business, frankly, he sees all of those things as a badge of honor. You look at what happened to Mr. Ike, who was the president of Mozilla. He had given money to a campaign that opposed same-sex marriage many years ago. He was drummed out of that role as president of that company.

He was the founder of the company. There's many other examples we can talk about, but there's an insidiousness occurring right now that people's livelihood is at stake as well. Absolutely.

And I can just look at my own state of Missouri. I know small business owners who have just mom and pop businesses who have maybe donated to conservative causes, donated to faith-based causes, donated to Republican candidates, and they're now on boycott lists. The left comes after them and says to people, go demonstrate in front of their offices, boycott their products, shut them out. This is crazy stuff. And we're seeing, I think, for the first time, an alliance between the big corporations, the biggest corporations in this country, the monopoly corporations, and the woke left.

And this is something we've not really seen before. It's not just the power of government that's being brought to bear. It's the power of these giant corporations in tandem. And that's scary because people really do say, well, wow, am I going to be able to keep my business? Am I going to be able to keep my job?

What if I express my views based on the Bible, based on the teaching of my church and my job? Am I going to be fired and then blacklisted, not able to get another job in this industry? This is happening all over in all of these different industries. And this is why those of us who have a voice have to be willing to stand up and take the incoming criticism and fire and say, we're going to take a stand here on behalf of the people we represent and on behalf of the things we believe in, the First Amendment. Dr. Erwin Lutzer, building here on what Senator Hawley just said, I'm hearing from people whose bank accounts are being closed by banks because they're conservative or they're faith-based.

That's how bad it's getting. In the chapter where I talk about propaganda, I talk about collective demonization. Collective demonization was actually perfected in Russia, and it worked this way. Once the elites took a person and said he was persona non grata, in other words, they were willing to delete him, so to speak, everyone in Russia had to agree.

Even people who didn't know the person wrote letters condemning him because everyone had to march in step. Totalitarianism always has to work together in concert, in unity. Now let's go to Nazi Germany. As you know, Jan, I wrote a book entitled Hitler's Cross.

In Nazi Germany, there were churches that put a Nazi flag on their door because what they were saying is when you come for Christians, don't come for us because we are on your side. It is a virtue signaling today where people say, am I woken up so that I can be looked at as virtuous? How woke can I be? Well, the answer is the more people you cancel, the more people you work together in concert with to destroy, that proves your wokeness. Now in the midst of all of this, we have, of course, the racial issue. I point out, this is so critical for your listeners. When you go to university today and you study these diversity studies, remember the intention is not to bring the races together. The intention is to keep them in perpetual conflict with one another until the oppressed overcome the oppressors. That's what's happening.

And if you belong to the wrong group, you're white and you have certain other attributes, you believe in the Fourth of July, you stand for the national anthem, you are a white supremacist. So that's where we are going in our culture. Josh Hawley was absolutely right.

If everybody submits, then what is left? We're so thankful for people like him and others who say, we will speak the truth and take the consequences. Spending time with Dr. Erwin Lutzer. We carry his book, We Will Not Be Silenced, Responding Courageously to Our Culture's Assault on Christianity. You can find it in my online store at olivetreeviews.org. You'll find it in my various newsletters.

If you want to sign up for those, you can call my office. The book is We Will Not Be Silenced. I have read it from cover to cover. Folks, I can't always do that, but once you start his book, it's so relevant. His voice is prophetic. He wrote it some time ago, at least a year ago. And here it is talking about the culture as we see it unfolding, which is not a very pretty picture.

Dr. Lutzer, let me just ask you a couple of questions here. You say, quoting you here, to our shame, we are afraid of the secular left. This is not a moment for timid souls. Let me comment on that because I'm not sure the average person knows how to fight back and not be silent. After a while, people become weary of watching evil win and the mindset becomes almost things are futile. And then we have a huge system that is against us.

It's called the swamp. As you say, we're in a culture where the ones who shout the loudest win. So my point is that the agenda we're being asked by the swamp, the culture, is extremely dark. Some will not cave to it. But how do we fight against legitimate injustices when we're asked to bow a knee to a larger destructive agenda? I am not sure my audience knows how to fight back. I just don't know that they do. And I think by default, they're kind of caving. There isn't just one answer to your question. People are always asking, what can I do? The housewife who stays home, and especially the ones who homeschool their children.

And it seems as if that seems to be the best. For them, the answer to that question is to be faithful at home. For the businessman, it means that I will not write a letter of apology as I was born white. I will not buy into the whole culture of cultural neutrality. I will not submit to those who say that anybody can choose the pronoun of their preference, and you can be one thing at work and another thing at home. I will not do that. And if it costs me my job, it costs me my job, but I will not submit.

That's very important. And if you're a politician, you can be like Josh Hawley, who I know is a committed Christian. You can be like him and you can go out and you can speak and you can take the heat and the vilification. By the way, in my book, as you know, Jan, since you've read it, and I thank you for reading it, I have an entire chapter entitled, vilify, vilify, vilify, where I talk about our culture today, where everybody is outraged. Everybody is vilifying. I'm afraid that the church is being shamed into silence. I make the statement that Christian students in the university today may not be so much talked out of their faith, but they will be mocked out of their faith.

So they want to remain silent. What we need to do is to stand and take the heat. And by the way, I wrote that book not so much to take the culture back, but to reclaim the church, because the church is submitting to the culture. What we need to do is to stand against that.

You know, we don't even need to win. We just need to ask, what does faithfulness look like? Martyrs who die for the faith don't win in this life, but they win in the life to come. Then let me ask you, how far do you think our churches will be pushed? I would fully expect the insistence here, I would say in the coming months, that pastors must be promoting and even engaging in same-sex marriage. I think 501c3s will be taken away, canceled, in other words. Tell me how far you think the churches are going to be pushed. And I'm not talking five years from now.

Let's say five weeks and five months from now. There are many churches that have already totally submitted to the culture. They have become cultural clubs. They no longer tell you that salvation is through Jesus Christ alone, and that we must repent of our sins to be saved. That message has gone down the river long ago. In the book, I talk about, however, in evangelical churches where social justice replaces the gospel. And I distinguish biblical justice, which we should all be interested in because the Bible has a lot to say about that, versus social justice. Social justice is based on radical sexualism, environmentalism, all of these other isms. The point to be made is, social justice is intended to keep the races in perpetual conflict. Saul Alinsky made this clear, and he said that the issue is never the issue.

George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis. I'm sure that many of the demonstrations at first had to do with race, but very soon it had nothing to do with race. It had everything to do with revolution. And if we don't understand that, we will underestimate the power of the cultural streams that we are standing against. It is so critical that we ask ourselves, how do we respond?

And for each person, it's going to cost something to live the Christian life. What Christians need to know, Jan, is that Jesus predicted that this day would come. The question is, are we going to buckle or are we going to stand? You're absolutely right.

Everything that's happening was predicted. It seems to be a bit on overdrive or a bit like a tachometer. It's revving up more literally every day. Again, I'm referring here in our discussion to Dr. Erwin Lutzer's newest book, We Will Not Be Silenced, Responding Courageously to Our Culture's Assault on Christianity. Find it in my online store, olivetreeviews.org.

Find it in my various newsletters. Dr. Lutzer, then, how would you advise a, let's limit this to an evangelical pastor listening today who wants to be among the remnant and wants to stand for truth and wants to stand for righteousness and wants this wokeness absolutely tossed into the dustbin of humanity. He's one of us. How would you advise him?

I think he has to be very careful. But as you know, Jan, I take the position that pastors should not avoid the cultural streams of the culture. We cannot simply stand by. For example, when same sex was legalized, I preached about that at Moody Church. I did it, I think, in a loving and broken way.

By broken, I mean humility. In fact, I had some people who struggle with that who said that they disagreed, but they appreciated the attitude with which I preached. I preached about transgenderism. These things need to be explained to the congregation.

And then there are some things that you might not want to deal with publicly, because they raise so many issues. At Moody Church, what I sometimes did was I had seminars on certain topics so that those who are interested could come so that we could discuss issues that could be easily misunderstood in a public way. Recently, there's an evangelical person and I won't mention him because I'm sure his books have been a blessing. He apologized for preaching against same sex marriage back in 2010 because he was criticized for being invited to speak at our nation's cathedral. What he did is he said, I'm sorry, I hurt people.

The Bible has often been used to hurt people. Now let's just take a deep breath, Jan, and ask, how does this apology sound? I just want you to know that I wrote a letter in the first century that has hurt many people, and it has been used to hurt LGBTQ communities. And I'm profoundly sorry for what I said about same sex relationships, because I know that what I wrote was very hurtful. Signed, the Apostle Paul.

Here's the point. When Paul wrote Romans, he was writing to a culture that was rife with these sins. And he didn't say, I'm not going to mention these sins because I don't want to put up a stumbling block to the gospel. He saw seeing the sinfulness of it as making the gospel necessary. And I suppose as a pastor, I would say this. One of the things that really happens in today's world is people no longer have a sense of sin and no conviction of sin. And as a result, they don't even know if they really need a savior. Grace might be okay.

It might be something you need, but it does not demand any transformation. So that's where we are as a culture and even as an evangelical church. How can the average listener prepare for persecution? It's not just coming, it's already here and it's going to intensify.

It's like that tachometer. It's going to rev up and rev up. We have an administration, again, not friendly to people of faith. How can my listeners prepare for this? And I think they're going to almost have to prepare mainly spiritually.

But if you have some other advice, please share it. First of all, they have to understand the deeper issues. And if I might mention, that's why I wrote the book, We Will Not Be Silenced. Once you understand the underlying philosophy, then you begin to know what's really happening.

You have to understand social justice biblically, but also the false views that are being taught even today in evangelical churches. Having done that, you have to ask yourself the question, what does faithfulness look like to me? And that means we have to be loving. We shouldn't shout, but we have to talk. We should not falsely accuse. But at the same time, we have to point out and we have to do it lovingly.

And then we have to take the consequences. You know, in the early church, when they were willing to be beaten, they didn't say, now, Lord, help us so that we might not be persecuted again. They said, Lord, give us courage and boldness. And here's the point that the Apostle Paul makes very clear. Persecution actually positions us for influence for the gospel.

It gives us a new platform. I quote in my book from the persecutions in Germany, that one pastor said, persecution has given us a new alphabet because the time has come, he said, when the gospel can no longer nearly be preached in words. It has to be preached in deeds. It has to be preached in suffering. So if you look at church history, you realize that for 2000 years, the church has not had a lot of freedom.

It's always been an island of righteousness in a sea of paganism. So we say to the American church, let's wake up, realize the task ahead, and receive the consequences, and trust God as a result of what we have done, namely the consequences, and move forward. That's what the church has always done long before we began to have freedom as we do in America. I think we're going to be coming under, and I'm going to emphasize here, man's wrath, Satan's wrath, because the church never comes under God's wrath. That's why the church is not found in the tribulation, vanishes after Revelation 4, verse 1, because we never come under God's wrath. But as you say, we certainly have come under man's wrath, Satan's wrath, for thousands of years here. If you had one word of wisdom for anybody listening who feels they need to prepare, it would be what?

It would be this. Jesus said, blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my name's sake, for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you, rejoice because your reward will be great. That would be my word.

Let's not back down, but let's accept the pressure from the culture and do it as a badge of honor. Dr. Lutzer, and that's who I've been speaking to for this segment. We carry his book, We Will Not Be Silenced, responding courageously to our culture's assault on Christianity. Find it at olivetreeviews.org. You can find it at various places online, but we're carrying it. You can find it in my newsletters or by calling my office. I only have a few minutes left, but I want to ask you this question because we carried your book, When a Nation Forgets God.

This is some years ago, and we no longer carry it. I have to say that book impacted me greatly, probably five, six years ago now, subtitled Seven Lessons We Must Learn from Nazi Germany. Well, that book is very applicable to today as well. I'm down to about two minutes, but could you sum up just a few lessons that we could learn as Americans from Nazi Germany?

And again, not to end here with tomb and gloom, but again, how do we rise above this? You look at some of the people in Nazi Germany who actually gave us a way forward. Niemöller was told don't preach in the church against the Reich. Hitler said you can preach the pure gospel, but you cannot get involved in the political scene. And Niemöller said no, and he was in a concentration camp. You think of Bonhoeffer who stood against Hitler. He was willing to say what needed to be said and take the consequences.

And as we know, he was hung in Flossenburg. What I'm simply saying is let's not be angry. Let's be loving, but let us speak and not be silent.

Let us not be shamed into silence. The last chapter of my book is entitled Strengthen What Remains. It comes from the words of Jesus to the church of Sardis, the church of Sardis had no longer seen the world as an enemy, so it bought into the culture. And here's the thing, Jan, and this is a good place to end. In that passage in Revelation 3, Jesus said you are dead, but you think you're alive, but later on he says, but there are still some of you in Sardis who have not soiled your garments, and you shall walk with me in white, for you are worthy. And I say to everyone listening today, let us be among those that Jesus speaks. They have not soiled their garments, and they are still walking in righteousness in a world that is filled with anger against God. Folks, we find ourselves here in the middle of, it's known as the cancel culture, from the cancel culture to big text censorship, which is what we're experiencing.

Those on the left, they're determined to dismiss, defeat, and repress any opinion that isn't in line with theirs. Now, this isn't anything new. I think it's new in its intensity. It's new to America. We just talked about Nazi Germany. It was prominent there in the 30s and 40s, and all of a sudden it's staring us straight in the face.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer talks about all of this. Again, the book is We Will Not Be Silenced. We do carry it. I can't always read cover to cover every product that we carry and then promote, but I did this because we're in the midst of being silenced 24-7. We have a former president who was totally shut down on social media. Christians are next. The church is next to be shut down on plenty of platforms, but starting with social media.

We're actually going to talk about that in programming coming up in a few weeks. Dr. Lutzer, thank you for all you do, and thank you for your writing. Your books have influenced me because I've read three or four of them. Each and every one is so relevant. Your previous book, The Church in Babylon, Heating the Call to be a Light in the Darkness, so relevant for today, and that's what I thank you for, is for tapping into the tone of today and trying to help us be salt and light and delay the decay.

Thank you so much, Jan. God bless you, and God bless your listeners. And remember, the point is not success. It is faithfulness.

Faithfulness. Amen. We'll be back in just a couple of minutes.

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Sign up at our website under resources at OliveTreeViews.org. We'll get through this new year together as we await His return. This ship is sinking folks. There's a lot of people out there talking about prosperity and how good times are coming.

Really? Just look around you. Now God's in control. So everything's happening perfectly according to His perfect prophetic timeline and plan.

But you connect all the dots and this ship is sinking. Jan is now joined by online evangelist, Chad Thomas. Chad is a young man reaching young people with the good news of the gospel, emphasizing the lateness of the hour. He encourages us not to love this world as it is fading, but to fill the lifeboats while there is time. Here's the conclusion to today's program. Life as we knew it, it is not going back to normal. There's a whole new normal that's coming, a new world order. This ship is sinking and it's sinking fast. Everything is happening and it will happen according to God's perfect prophetic plan and His timeline. But we see where this is all headed. We don't know how much we're going to see before the rapture of the church of Jesus Christ.

All we know for sure, and I'm in good company when I say this, is that the rapture of the church of Jesus Christ will occur before the Antichrist is revealed and before he confirms the covenant with many for one week to start the seven-year tribulation period. Welcome to part two of my programming. Talking to Chad Thomas for this segment of Understanding the Times Radio, Chad does many times a week prophecy updates on YouTube, a media format for today's generation.

By the way, his title is Watchmen on the Wall 88. Can we reach the millennial generation or just say anyone under the age of 40 or 45 years old? With the issues that are front and center today, but that the younger generation often finds to be inconvenient, a threat to their future, way too negative. Well, I believe we can. Chad Thomas also believes we can, and we're going to talk about that.

And he is reaching his generation very effectively. And by the way, Chad is 32 years old. Chad, welcome back to the program. Thanks for having me again, Jan.

It's great to be here. We're talking here about the Instagram culture, and it's kind of all about them. Even the church thinks that way. The seeker movement kind of encourages their way of thinking. You're talking to them. You're reaching them. They're listening.

What are they saying to you? It's interesting that you mentioned the Instagram culture. We're told very clearly in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 1 to 5, where the apostle Paul tells us, In the last days, perilous times shall come. And he gives a whole list of what the state of the world is going to be like. And when you read through that entire list, you will see that's exactly what's happening right now. And with the increase in technology and the explosion of social media with Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, all these other forms of media, you're seeing again how obsessed people are with themselves. What's incredible about this, Jan, when you read through this entire list, you'll see that this is happening right here and right now. Again, like you said, with the Instagram culture, most people are, again, they're thinking that things are going to improve. That's what you said to me. They're thinking things are going to return to normal.

Now, I opened this program with a clip of you. This ship is sinking. Now, that's certainly on the negative side. It is, I think, somewhat realistic. Can we right a sinking ship?

Can we lift the Titanic? That's the assignment of the church is to be salt and light and delay the decay. Younger people want to believe they have a future. They want to believe that their future is not going to be interrupted, even by the rapture of the church. In other words, some of them, not all of them, I've got some emails here.

If I have time, I'll read a couple of them. They're younger people, and I think they're in their 20s even, and they're looking up exactly as you and I are. Absolutely, Jan. This ship is sinking. I know when you hear that term, like you said, it can be depressing, but the reality is the Bible tells us exactly what the state of the world is going to be like.

Again, everything's going to happen according to God's perfect prophetic timeline and plan, but the ship is sinking regardless of how you want to view it. And like you said, I mean, I'm around people my age all the time, and people see what is happening. They see something's going on. Automatically, what they're thinking is, it's okay, this is just a little rough patch in humanity. We're going to get through this. We're going to get our lives back to normal. We're still going to plan our vacations next year and keep planning for the future. Even if we have to wear our masks or whatever we have to do to obey the government and the regulations, we're going to do it because we want our life back. I know many of them feel that they can have their best life now, the American dream.

I understand they can be earthly minded. You said recently in one of your updates, this could be a year to remember. Tell me why you said that. The reason I said that, Jan, is because for the last few years we've been seeing the cry for Mideast peace and security, peace and safety, peace and prosperity. You see it with Pope Francis, more recently with Jared Kushner and French President Emmanuel Macron. They've had this Abraham Accord, this historic peace deal that was made by the United Arab Emirates and Israel. And we see many Arab nations getting involved with this peace process, which is absolutely incredible because we're told in Daniel 9-27 that there will be a covenant that is confirmed with many for one week. Again, we can't be dogmatic and say this is the Daniel 9-27 covenant, but we see where this is all headed.

The stage is getting set for it. It could be a precursor. Let me just comment on all of that.

I don't want to take a lot of time because I want to give you the time. The peace talk in Israel, I mean, it has tremendous prophetic implications. There's no question about it. Keep in mind, I just want to refer to a couple of verses here and then we'll move on from this, but it's important. Keep in mind it says in Ezekiel 38, in the context being the Gog Magog War, the Russian invasion of Israel with many accomplices, including Iran and Turkey, that when that war transpires, Israel will be living securely. Does securely mean she will just be trusting in the Antichrist or can we throw into the mix her Arab neighbors will not be on war ground with her or could it be both?

So you want to highlight the words of Ezekiel 38, 10 through 12, that she will be dwelling in peace and safety, dwelling securely. Chad, anyway, that jumped out at me as we're talking peace here. No, absolutely, Jan. I mean, this is amazing things. And I know you've said frequently the tribulation period is casting its shadow on the earth.

Yeah. And folks, if we know we're out of here before the Antichrist is revealed and before that covenant is confirmed, that just shows you how close we are. Frankly, we can save the debate as to whether Israel should be making any kind of peace deals. There are voices, frankly, on both sides of this issue. What's important to believers is what does the Bible say about Israel's status in the last days as it concerns war or peace with her neighbors?

Clearly, there'll be last days war with Israel and also peace concerning Israel. Let me ask you a few direct questions talking to Chad Thomas for this segment of Understanding the Times Radio. Chad's very active on social media, particularly he's active on YouTube. And so are we. We're also active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, very active on his channel, hischannel.com, lightsource.com.

Just a quick heads up here. Because of censorship, we're posting obviously our radio program to our website, but now we're posting our radio videos to our website as well. OliveTreeViews.org, OliveTreeViews.org. Just go to radio and then complete archives and you'll find our radio program and the video of the program.

If you're a visual person, you might want to watch it. Still on YouTube until they censor us. So we also post it to our website. Go to radio and then complete archives for the complete programming, both audio and video.

OliveTreeViews.org. Chad, you told me that partly because, this is a little bit shocking, partly because of your pre-trib position. In other words, you believe the church will be taken in the rapture of the church before the tribulation begins. You have literally had death threats. Now, let me back up and just say that not everybody who does not hold to a pre-trib position is violent, but I'm just a little shocked to hear that.

So talk to me about it. Well, Jan, I know one of the things that you've said frequently is the blessed hope has become the blasted hope and it can get pretty violent, especially in comments and emails. And yes, there was emails and messages I had received threatening my life and then people saying that they're not going to like it when they get a hold of me.

Also, people emailing me that they have my address and they literally sent me my address and gave me the square footage of my home. And did they go on and explain why they were so troubled? Well, yeah, it's because I believe in a pre-tribulation rapture and they didn't hold that view. They're upset. They're claiming I'm deceiving people.

I'm a false prophet that I need to be taken care of. Why can't we sit down and reason with one another? Now we've deteriorated to death threats when we disagree.

I didn't think I'd see the day, folks. So how did you handle it? Originally in my original channel, when I had close to 100,000 subscribers, I had nobody working with me, like helping me control the page. What I did in the meantime was I had shut my channel down just until I could rebuild the new team and deal with all the war and madness that was coming against the channel. Now I have a whole new team. I have moderators and things are being controlled.

So that way when nasty stuff gets sent that it's dealt with. I'm moving on and I've gotten tougher skin too. And you actually had said the same thing.

One of my sister in Christ, her name is Cheryl. She said, you need to get your rhino skin on. You do, absolutely. I'm learning through all this too, folks. I've got to be tougher because it's not easy what we do.

You know that too. We're going to play a little clip of you, Chad. This is you and one of your little updates here and we can talk about it after we play it. I believe the rapture of the church itself is the trigger that's going to cause complete worldwide civil unrest, complete chaos and complete worldwide economic collapse and the Antichrist will come onto the world stage and he'll make order out of chaos. And everyone's going to be looking to him as the Messiah, the false Messiah.

He's going to solve all the world's problems, Mr. Fix-It-All. But you see a lot of people right now putting their faith and their trust in world leaders to get us through bad times and everything is going to go back to normal. No, this ship is sinking and you need to get on the lifeboat.

That lifeboat is Jesus Christ. So if you're somebody that thinks things are just going to go back to normal, we got years and years and years and years left. Again, just look around you and look at what the Bible says. And when you connect all the dots and everything that's converging right now, especially what's happening right now with the nation of Israel, we see the call for peace and security, peace and safety in the Middle East. The signing ceremony of the historic peace deal just made between the United Arab Emirates and Israel and you're starting to see other Arab nations getting on board with this. Can you see the continued cries for peace and safety, peace and security? You will see where this is all headed.

Chad, what I'd like to ask you, and I'm going to preclude it. First of all, we just heard your clip there about the stunning things that are going on. Looking at the tide of our times, I think the most significant thing I've observed is the stunning rise of lawlessness, the spirit of Antichrist. I saw the spark begin here in my hometown of Minneapolis. At least I saw it in the media.

I wasn't at the location of the George Floyd incident. From there, the lawlessness has spread to about 50 US cities, and then all the way to Europe and Australia, causing a mass exodus of people out of these cities. I don't see things returning to normal either.

These riots are going to lead to a rapidly sinking ship. And then I talked to you privately and I said, okay, now you tell me what you've seen this year that just stands out the most. I couldn't agree with you more in your observation.

Talk to us about what you've perceived and observed. Absolutely, Jan, and what you just mentioned in terms of the lawlessness, I couldn't agree more with what we're seeing right now in the spirit of Antichrist. I had mentioned to you, I think one of the things that stood out to me the most was you have this coronavirus pandemic, or plandemic as a lot of us like to call it, that basically shuts down the whole world.

It couldn't be any more evident where this is pushing us toward. You connect all the dots with this pandemic that shuts down the world. It's setting the stage for a coming new world order, a coming one world government. This one world religion and this coming one world currency, the mark of the beast system, which the beast system, the technology is here for it now, but it's not going to be implemented until during the tribulation. What this whole pandemic has done is it just pushed us that much closer to the tribulation period. You're absolutely right. And look how fast it's happened. It took only months to literally change the dynamic of the entire world. The other amazing part too is, Jan, people want to live and they're going to do whatever they have to to live.

This is just showing us when the time does come during the tribulation period, where they're going to require you to have this mark of the beast in your right hand or on your forehead, how easy it deceived people are going to be to accept this. You're listening to Understanding the Times Radio. I'm Jan Markell. I have on the line from the East Coast, Chad Thomas. Some of you are watching his updates. They're a couple times a week, if not more.

Watchman on the Wall 88. He actually took his channel down and that was over some consternation that was going on online. The online community can be friendly. It can also be an attacking community. Some unfortunate things happened and Chad was able to rebuild as he is now.

I encourage you to check it out and to be supportive of him. And Chad, you're talking to all ages, am I right? When you're on your online outreach, is it all ages?

Absolutely. What are they saying about what you just spoke about? Frankly, we've talked about a number of things here in just about 17 minutes. We've talked about the peace in the Middle East. We've talked about the spirit of Antichrist. We've talked about the coming New World Order.

Some of these are a little bit daunting. So tell me what your listeners think about this. Are they looking up or are they looking in fear? Jan, what's amazing with a lot of my viewers and commenters, what I'm seeing a lot of is people are excited. They see what's happening. They're saying they know their redemption draws near, that the day is approaching because we're told we will see that day approaching. Like it says in 1 Thessalonians 4.18, we're to comfort one another, comfort one another with these words.

People are excited. Now, I know that there are some people that may be in fear over this. If you're in Christ, you have nothing to fear.

Amen. Because you're not going to be here. Now, I got to reiterate, folks, we don't know how much we're going to see before the rapture. We're just told we're not going to be here for the tribulation period, which is a horrific time frame. We don't know how much we're going to see before the rapture of the Church. Now, I tell all of my viewers, you need to live each day as if today could be the day, but also prepare to occupy if it's years from now. And I'm not saying it is years from now.

I mean, you can agree it could be a lot sooner, the way things are moving. I do see, from my experience on how long I've been on YouTube especially, that there seems to be a lot more of the younger generation that's rising up, Jan, that are getting interested in end times eschatology. They see something's going on. They're encouraged. But at the same time, there's a discouragement because they're friends. They're laughing at them, and they can't seem to get their family members on board. They're discouraged because they want people to get saved, those that they love and they care about. I want to read a couple of emails.

These are from younger people. I want to start, and I can't name him. I can tell you that he's in Dubai, and I got this email, and I just feel I have to at least read it.

I'm not going to name him, be too dangerous. But you can pray for this young man. He says, I'm a 16-year-old and living in Dubai. I've been a regular listener to your program for the past few months, and always enjoy the words of encouragement from your prophecy updates and so on.

I'm writing this email to inform you about what is occurring here in Dubai. Beginning with my experiences at school today, there has probably never been more struggle from a single day in my entire life. Upon praying a few weeks ago about what my place is at school and what it means to truly be the only Christian out of a class of 150 students, I had decided to take a stand and no longer bow to the majority on ideological, theological, or political issues in order to appeal to the mob.

He says, this was not easy. And today, after asking the Lord repeatedly for the right opportunity, certain remarks made by my peers and teachers around me warranted a respectful response. And I exposed myself as a believer in Christ and strongly against abortion. I condemned the Black Lives Matter movement.

This came at a price that, to be honest, I was expecting. I have now been labeled a racist, Islamophobia, sexist, hateful, and many other names, and have lost many friends I consider dear and close. Despite not being popular in any sense of the word, the entire class now knows, nevertheless, I never have been happier or more content and feel as though what I did was completely right. I always remember Matthew 5-11 when faced with such ridicule. Jesus Christ is with me till the end, and I'd rather stand with God and be judged by the world than stand with the world and be judged by God. What I believe, I hold near in my heart, and it will not change regardless of my current situation.

Even though this pandemic, my faith has grown even greater despite the new challenges of being a student this year. Chad, that's a 16-year-old. He's in Dubai. That's not his home country. He's there from another country.

I'm not naming. Look, would you encourage this young man, please? Absolutely. What I can tell you, young man, just remember that we're told in these times that people are going to call good evil and evil good. And that's exactly what's happening today. But you're an ambassador for Christ. He's chosen you for such a time as this to rise up. And he tells you in his word that you're going to be persecuted, but your reward is going to be great in heaven. I'm just going to encourage you that you are loved so much by our King. And like I said, you are his ambassador. You've been born for such a time as this. He's called you for such a time as this to rise up. And there's millions of young adults in this world right now that are going through similar things to you.

They're faced with this opposition. Again, you're called evil for the good, for what God has called us to do. But you're taking a stand and you're going to be rewarded. You just need to hang in there, keep the faith, keep doing what God has called you to do and keep planting the seeds. It might seem like the seeds you're planting right now are falling on deaf ears, but God will provide the increase in his timing, whether it's now or during the tribulation, because millions come to Christ during the tribulation period. And it could be that the seed you plant, young man, is the seed that God will use.

He'll provide that increase at some point during the tribulation period. You are making a difference. You encourage me. What Jan just read that email, that encourages for me to be stronger in my faith. I want to read another one, Chad, talking to Chad Thomas. This is from an atheist.

He's another young man. He says, I'm an atheist, but I listen to your show nearly every week. For about 10 years, when I lived in Minneapolis, I listened as well, religiously. Seriously, I didn't miss a single week. Even attended Understanding the Times Conference in 2014.

Now with children and such, I'm having a more difficult time keeping up with the podcast. I want to drop you this note to say keep up the good work. Religiously, I'm a non-believer. Culturally, I couldn't be more aligned with your messages. I'm dismayed at the direction of this country, but I'm given hope when I see you standing tall and strong for what is right and good for this nation.

Best wishes to you and your loved ones. That's Greg in Seattle. Chad, we need to encourage Greg. And we've already done this, I think, throughout this half hour.

Time is very, very short. And that Greg in Seattle, declaring himself an atheist, a rather proud atheist, but a kind and gentle one, needs the Lord Jesus Christ before it's too late. Jan, first off, it's amazing that you have unbelievers and believers, both that watch your channel, that follow you. I used to be an atheist.

I used to be somebody just like that. And it wasn't until I read the Bible and I saw that every word in there is true and how much God loves us, what he has in store for us, and that salvation to me and everything I was involved with before Jesus saved me, that he would love me enough to go to the cross for me and pay the full penalty for our sin so that we can be forgiven and be with him forever. Greg, I used to be someone that didn't believe, but from the bottom of my heart, this is all real. This is all real. You see something's going on. This is all in the Bible.

You've been listening to Jan and you're listening to this now for a reason. Jesus is waiting there with his arms wide open. And you can be saved right now. It says in 2 Corinthians 6-2 that now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation.

You put your faith and your trust that he shed his precious blood for you on that cross at Calvary, believing that he died for you, was buried and resurrected on the third day as it is written in the scriptures, and he can save you right here and right now. I'm imploring you to make that decision now, because it's the best one you're ever going to make. Thank you, Chad. I appreciate your encouraging of Greg.

Greg in Seattle and one more email. This is Danielle. She says, I listened to your program from 2019 with Chad Thomas.

I was encouraged to keep telling my friends about the Lord and his goodness. Your program has also shed light for me that there are other younger people my age who are interested. My generation is not all lost. Oh, I agree with you, Danielle.

It's not. I wanted to send this note to encourage you and to let you know that there is a portion of the younger generation who are listening to you, listening to Chad and the other watchmen. And we are encouraged to continue speaking to our families, friends, co-workers and the like. We young people need outlets like yours to stay encouraged and stay focused on God and his word and his promises.

That's from Danielle. Chad, wrap it up. We got a couple of minutes. And you've given a good gospel message, a gospel call to salvation, which, of course, that's the point. That's why you're doing what you're doing.

It's why I'm doing what I'm doing. Yes, we're looking at signs of the times and the signs of the times. We're looking at them because they indicate that Jesus is coming back and time is going to run out as we know it. And as we said, opening this program, suddenly things are happening at an astounding pace that we haven't seen happen before.

We're just trying to highlight them and the various methods that we have to do that. But I give you a minute or two if you want to sum up. Jen, you couldn't have said any better. Jesus is coming, folks.

We don't know exactly when, but man, that day is approaching rapidly. And here's the bottom line, guys. If you're listening to this right now, again, and you don't have Jesus Christ, but you see what's happening around the world, the truth is, again, this ship is sinking and you need to get on that lifeboat. Me and Jen, we're not telling you to get religious. This isn't about religion. This is about a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ that can start for you right now. It's all about putting your faith and your trust in His shed blood, the penalty that He paid you on the cross at Calvary that we can never pay on our own. He says, believe. Put your faith and trust in Me, again, in My death, burial and resurrection. And you can be saved right now. And don't wait on this, folks, because the most important thing is none of us are promised our next breath on this planet. The bottom line is heaven and hell.

They are very real, literal places. And each one of us, we're going to spend an eternity in one of those destinations. And Jesus Christ is the only way to the kingdom of heaven. And He's the only name that can save us. Now is the accepted time. Now is a day of salvation.

But the King is coming. And I just want to see everybody rise up and keep planting seeds and don't be discouraged. It may seem that the seeds you're planting are falling on deaf ears, but don't be discouraged. Keep planting those seeds and telling people about Jesus and giving them the gospel of their salvation and telling them they can be saved right now. Because, again, you don't know who's listening. God gives the increase in His time. And so we all need to be encouraged.

But we don't know how short time is. And like Jan said, we need to get busy, folks, because that trumpet could sound at any moment. Chad, thank you for all you do. Look him up online.

Watchman on the Wall 88 on his YouTube channel. You can find him at least twice a week with very short updates that are commenting on the tide of our times. Very cutting edge, very insightful.

If you've got younger people in your life, direct them to Chad, would you? Because he's going to connect with them. I promise you he's going to do that. Folks, we've covered multiple topics and issues this hour. What unprecedented times we are in. So let's say with the psalmist, I trust in you, O Lord. Our times are in your hands.

And let's remember the words of Isaiah 33, where we read that only God is the stability of our times. I want to thank you for listening. We'll talk to you next week when I'll be joined by Amir Serfati. We welcome your feedback when you write us at Olive Tree Ministries and Jan Markell at OliveTreeViews.org. That's OliveTreeViews.org. Call us Central Time at 763-559-4444. That's 763-559-4444. We get our mail when you write us at Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. That's Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311.

All gifts are tax-deductible. We know our times can be discouraging. It is tempting to unplug from dark news and headlines. But God knew exactly where we would be at this point in time, from the beginning of time. He has everything under control. He has engraved you on the palms of His hands, and everything is falling into place.