Discerning the Times

Everything is converging but you need to be a discerner to see it. That ought to get our attention.

These are like red lights flashing at me saying, wake up. We're getting awfully close to the final fulfillment of all of these things. Welcome to Understanding the Times Radio. Today Jan Markell has a very special guest, author and commentator Terry James. Terry is general editor of a new book titled, Discerners, analyzing converging prophetic signs for the end of days. The book has 19 contributors including many names you all know and love. Jan spends the hour with Terry talking about some of the chapter highlights.

Here is Jan Markell. Prophecy itself is God's way of reminding us that He alone knows the future and therefore He alone can tell the future. The signs in prophecy are indications to remind us that if you see these things begin to happen then know that the rest of the fulfillment is close behind. And welcome to the program. This is the first weekend just after our annual conference and I don't want to dwell on that other than to thank all of you listeners who did attend or live stream. The conference is available on YouTube as I speak.

CDs and DVDs will be available around the end of October. And my goodness, messages were almost exclusively on encouragement and hope. Encouraging the believer, offering great hope. So I hope you'll check out some of those messages and again my thanks to everyone who participated and prayed for us, etc. And I want to move right into our programming.

By the way, next weekend we'll play one of our conference messages and I'll say more about that next week. But I want to get into today's program because we are carrying a tremendous new book titled, Discerners Analyzing Converging Prophetic Trends for the End of Days. And the general editor is Terry James and other authors. I'm going to include them here. Well, let me just quickly cite some of the other authors. We've got Dr. Larry Sperage-Mino, Escalating Evil Seducers, Don McGee, Descending Dark Delusion, Jeff Kinley, Intriguing Chapters by Nathan Jones, Damon Duck, Final Empire Forming, Tom Hughes. I'm going to have to talk about his topic here in a moment. Harlot System, Astride, Satanic Steed, Chapters by Philip Goodman, Grant Phillips, Jim Fletcher has a terribly cutting edge chapter.

Bill Salus, of course, Pete Garcia, Gary Stearman, Ryan Pitterson. I have a chapter in there, Rapture, Reassurance in Mockers, Last Days, Scoffing. And a chapter by Tim Cameron and Dr. Dave Reagan concludes the chapters in the book. Try to go over as much as we can this particular hour. The goal of editor Terry James is to make every reader a watchman on the wall.

And remember, folks, it says in 2 Chronicles 12 that the sons of Issachar were men who understood the times. This ministry wishes to see every follower, at least of Olive Tree, and the program here to better understand the times, contend for the faith, and become watchmen on the wall. Welcome back, Terry James, and I suspect that is your goal as well, am I right?

Exactly, Jan. I so do appreciate you asking me on again. I look forward to talking about this book and other things.

Sure. Can you say that it's time to discern the times and then you remind us appropriately that the religious leaders of Jesus' day could not discern the time of His first coming. He chastised them. Frankly, my opinion is a lot of spiritual leaders today cannot discern the times of His return again. I think that's exactly right. And that was basically, I believe, the prompting that the Holy Spirit impressed upon me to do this book. I always like to pray about the books before I get them started or any writing I do for the Lord.

And I believe He impressed upon me that if there ever was a time for discernment, it's this time that we are presently in. And so that's kind of the genesis of the idea of the book. And you've written numerous books, and I've been privileged to be in a couple of them. And your previous book was Deceivers. I don't want to go into that, but that was a powerful book. And I think we've sold boatloads of them here at Olive Tree Ministries. And I would have to say, Terry James, this follow up book, Discerners, is even more powerful.

It really is, if that's possible. Let me just highlight a few chapters here and what some of your authors are saying. And eventually I'll have some of these authors on air so they can fully give some commentary to what they've written. And Jeff Kinley, who I deal with very frequently, a wonderful writer, is talking about the descending dark delusion. And the global delusion is coming, he basically says. He refers to supernatural activities, both of God and of Satan, and actually during the tribulation time.

Of course, the church is absent from that. And he talks about lying signs and wonders by Satan, talks about incredible miracles by the two witnesses and the 144,000 Jewish evangelists. And your takeaway on Jeff Kinley's chapter? Well, I think he does a wonderful job of really pointing to exactly what Second Thessalonians chapter two is all about. That people are being prepared now for the coming great delusion. He goes into a great deal of detail about exactly what's happening today with regard to people being set up for that great delusion to come. Like you say, he's a great writer and he has done quite a bit of publishing lately and a very popular writer. So we're really privileged to have him, but I think he presents things here that bring out things that are actually happening.

This is not a theory or it's not something way out there, a pie in the sky. He gets down to the basics of where we live today and what's going on with regard to preparation for this great delusion, God's words that are coming. Right, and he talks about this delusion is orchestrated by the Antichrist. Antichrist is going to use lying signs and wonders to convince most people during the tribulation that he is God. He's going to be God-like. Satan sort of gets his way short term.

The man of sin empowered by the devil that he is worshiped. And Jeff Kinley reminds us that many will come to faith during the tribulation. Many are going to come under end time delusion.

That's actually the title of his chapter, Descending Dark Delusion. So many come under end time delusion during that tribulation time. Then the days of Noah descend, and I think we're quite frankly very near the days of Noah. I mean the days today remind me, not that I was around back then, but pretty bankrupt time we're living in culturally and morally, etc. I think we are exactly there in the days of Lot.

I like the word that I'm using, the KJV word. He was sorely vexed. I don't know about you, but I am sorely vexed a lot of times with the things going on.

Amen. I'm just moving on here quickly and moving to another chapter that just totally caught my attention. And that is Tom Hughes. I can't wait to have Tom on to talk about this. And Tom's chapter title is Harlot's System Atop Satanic Steed. And Tom is writing about Mystery Babylon, and he feels that it will be an amalgam of religions.

It's called the harlot, the mother of harlots. And of course, opinion is divided on this, Terry, and you know that. And I've just had Ron Rhodes on who feels that Mystery Babylon is the city of ancient Babylon rebuilt. I'm leaning a little bit more, as do many of my other guests, that Europe plays the very key role. Tom talks about the global faith, the one world religion. Tom believes that that harlot is forming now. And I think you would agree, right?

Oh, absolutely. And we can see a beginning at the very highest echelons of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. We see it beginning. The pontiff is way off base on so many things. We see it developing from the top down, so to speak, in so-called Christendom.

Yes. He gives some intriguing insights into Pope Francis and the Vatican in Tom Hughes' chapter. He talks a lot about the end time church and the church in the tribulation. And it's going to be about tolerance and inclusion and anyone can get to heaven. And he reminds us, if we think we have Laodicea now, we haven't seen anything yet. Exactly.

When you have the pontiff of the Catholic Church claiming that atheists will be in heaven, you know you have a problem. I'd want to build on this for a minute, Terry, because Tom and you and I, we're talking about this harlot system that's going to show up here. It's really kind of manifesting now. We're in the Laodicean times right now. But oh my goodness, during the tribulation, it's just going to be something unimaginable. But you know, before it can get that bad in the tribulation, the stage has to be set right now.

Let me play a short clip. This is Ed Hindson and Tim LaHaye talking about spiritual deception. Two thousand years ago, Christ began his discourse on the future by identifying for us specific signs that he said would herald the beginning of the end of time. Watch out that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name claiming I am the Christ and will deceive many. In Matthew 24, Jesus warned, in answering the disciples' question, he warned about eleven times, beware of false teachers and false Christs and false messiahs. As we have moved into the last 150 years, false prophets, false cults, false religions have just exploded. There are numerous cult groups today that are growing into the millions of followers. Spiritual deception has always played a significant role in the human drama, for in every generation, many have come as messengers of light, only to lead their devoted followers into spiritual darkness. In recent years, some of these false Christs have become household names. Jim Jones and the Tragedy of Guyana, Marshall Applewhite and his Heaven's Gate suicide cult, David Koresh and the disciples of the Branch Davidian.

Each of them claimed to be the Christ, the chosen messiah, and each led his flock astray with promises of deeper insight and enlightenment. Christ prophesied that in the final days, these masters of deception will increase in number and influence as a desperate world searches for spiritual direction. And as these counterfeit saviors flourish, their tools of persuasion will include more than convincing rhetoric.

And they're going to increase and increase. And I would be so bold as to say on the basis of Matthew 24, they will increase in power. They'll have power to perform miracles. They'll have power to perform healings.

They will try to replicate the miracles of Jesus and prove themselves to be false messiahs giving false teaching. If you just join me, you're listening to Understanding the Times Radio, Jan Markell here, I have on the line, Terry James, who is the editor of the brand new book, Discerners Analyzing Converging Prophetic Signs for the End of Days. We have it in our store, OliveTreeViews.org, views as in viewpoint, OliveTreeViews.org. It's in our various newsletters.

You can call us if you'd like central time. We can get a book out to you very quickly. And again, some of the participants, the contributors, Larry Sparrow, Jeff Kinley, Nathan Jones, yours truly, Tom Hughes, Bill Salus, Jim Fletcher, Gary Stearman, Tim Cameron, Dave Reagan, and others.

Can't go through everything, but wonderful contributors. Terry, the clip I just played reminds me a little bit of your book, Deceivers, your previous book. Now it's Discerners.

Tell me the difference between the two. I was just thinking the same thing as I was listening to the clips. It's covered much of what we covered in what I consider a great book now because I did it because people like you wrote for it and God blessed it. It's a great book. Many people got it, but it covered many of the things that were talked about in that clip you just played. Now, Discerners, we have deceivers in this world. And so that means there's a greater call to have Discerners from a biblical perspective, particularly involving eschatology or the study of end things. Now, we're just not getting that in the pulpit today, as you and I and others have discussed. And this book, Discerners, is to be, in my view, one of the things I consider to be, it's like a briefing package that can bring people who are without teaching about Bible prophecy, bring them up to date rather quickly and comprehensively. So I think it's like a briefing package and it does it in a very scripturally proper way with some of the great writers of our time. Well, the reason I played that clip, because we were talking about Tom Hughes chapter here, Harlot's system atop satanic steed and about the terrible false religious system on the way. And my point was the only way that false religious system can come into being is that the stage is being set as we speak with a lot of death of discernment in the church today.

Want to move on to some more chapters as time allows here. Thank you for including Damon Duck, a globalism chapter and satanic world government on the horizon. I'm always intrigued that the Lord sent along Donald Trump to put a stop to the rush to globalism. Once he's taken out of the picture, anything could happen.

Well, that's right. You know, I've written a great deal about that. To me, it's just astonishing. It's astonishing what happened. I mean, we can't even, I don't think, fully grasp what has happened. God's intervention into this whole thing now. We say often that Donald Trump is obviously, he's like a junior high guy sometimes.

He gets back and he's not exactly a godly man, but he is God's man. Make no mistake, God has put him in office at this time. And the globalists who are trying to set up this anti-Christ platform from which he'll launch his terrible regime, the globalists, unwittingly, the human minions are unwittingly know what they're doing, but they're setting up this platform for anti-Christ.

So that's what we see. And they're going absolutely bonkers because Donald Trump is intervening. He's a nationalist. He is an America first guy. He's not a globalist. It's driving them nuts.

And it's so obvious. Yes, indeed. Europe tried getting rid of borders and dumping nationalism and trying to think about only globalism. And Europe's in the process, obviously, of falling apart. It's just tragic to watch what's happening over there. America seems to be making some of the same mistakes. We're one election away from undoing what you and I are talking about, undoing nationalism, undoing patriotism, forming that one world government. America's one election away. I look at the lineup of progressives on the debate stage every now and then. It's stunning. It's a little bit scary.

Times could change real fast is my only point. Yes. And my question is always, what is the Lord doing exactly here? What is this all about? And there's something going on, Jan. And it is spectacular to behold His direct interference. So I'm excited to see what's going to happen, even though, like you say, scary times ahead, perhaps.

But we know God's in control. And that's what we're about is the study of end time things. And we're right there. OK, I'm talking to Terry James for this hour, and we are carrying his new book called Discerners. And I'll give book information a little bit as we kind of wind down the program so I don't have to interrupt too many times. We're carrying it and I've read about 80 percent of it. I'm going to read it all here in the next day or so. I want to move on to some more of your authors, Terry, because you've got intriguing chapters.

You've got one by Pete Garcia, and I'm so glad you included Pete. What a provocative writer he is. His title, Meaning of Israel's 70th Fig Tree Anniversary. And of course, Pete reminds us this is a miracle nation. It was dispersed for 2000 years and no nation comes back after being dispersed for 2000 years and brought back the culture, brought back the language, the religion, the military, the economic prosperity.

It's the eighth most powerful nation in the world. Terry, he brings out some fascinating dates and numbers. We can't go through them all, but can you summarize? He just talks about the, of course, 1948 rebirth and the modernity of the nation of Israel and what it means. And he does a great job.

He is a great writer. He has laid out what has happened prior to that, leading up to the 1948 Jewish rebirth or Israeli rebirth. He just brings it forward into exactly where we are now. Like so many of them, he brings current issues and events into the, what the 70th year of them being back in the land means and what it will mean, what it is destined to mean. Prophetically, we will leave it within the next few years or even earlier. Us watching Israel is the most, it's the number one sign to watch. Right. And he reminds us before 1948, you could only read about Israel in history books. You could only look back at her before 1948. And then Mark Twain's incredible comment back in 1867, he said the desolation was beyond imagination. He said even the cactus had deserted the country. Let me play a real short clip to emphasize what we're talking about.

This is, again, Tim LaHaye and actually Thomas Ice. There is an ancient Hebrew proverb that proclaims Israel is the center of the earth. In the context of the end times and the signs that will foreshadow their coming, there is little doubt that this small strip of land at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa is the focal point of all that Christ and the prophets taught about the future. You have to put Israel and Jerusalem in every factor about end time prophecies because it's the center of the earth. And in this end time event, you'll find that God still has many plans and promises for the Jews that are going to be fulfilled.

Certain geographic locations are made important by God because God's veracity and truthfulness hinges around him doing certain things at certain geographic locations. So we're seeing that history does not move forward prophetically unless the nation of Israel is involved. Israel's spiritual significance was established nearly 4,000 years ago when God set apart the Jews as his chosen people and promised them this land as their home. Today, Jews from around the world gather in Jerusalem at the Western Wall, the last remnant of their ancient temple.

There they pray and remember the words of God's enduring covenant. Israel will bud and blossom and fill all the world with fruit. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up from David a king who shall reign and prosper. I will grant salvation to Zion and my splendor to Israel. You will be my people and I will be your God. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them. There is an unbreakable bond between God, Israel, and the prophetic events of the future. Terry, I may go back to this topic of Israel because I do, before the time gets away, want to hit some things that Jim Fletcher wrote about in Time Hatred of Israel, but for right now, I am moving ahead because I want to talk to you about what Dave Reagan wrote about, and he's such a good friend and friend of this ministry. He wrote a chapter, the effort to convert God into a cosmic teddy bear. Let me just make some comments about Dave's chapter, and then I want you to comment as well. He relates that more than once when he spoke about the wrath of God, either today or the wrath that come in the tribulation, he was literally silenced, condemned, criticized, or shut down, and that people have bought the lie that God is a cosmic teddy bear we shouldn't fear.

You speak into this, please, Terry James. Well, Dave does want people to know that God is a God of love, of course. God is the ultimate God of love.

He sent his only son to die for the sins of the world, so that everyone have a chance to be saved. At the same time, unlike the secularists who don't even believe in God, most of them say, God is only a God of love. There's no desire to put people into hell.

Well, that's right. He does, and people put themselves into hell by not believing, and that's what Dave writes about mainly, is that even the church today is getting soft on this idea that God would ever judge mankind for the sins. Well, we know what Ruth Graham said about that with regard to America. We've heard that many times, that he's going to have to apologize to Solomon Gomorrah if he didn't deal with America and her many most egregious sins.

And Dave covers this topic very well. As a matter of fact, he gives discernment, great discernment, exactly who God is. He is not that cosmic teddy bear. He is a loving God. He is a Heavenly Father that knows his creation and mankind intimately, and even the hairs on our heads are numbered, every one of us. I believe he knows every shape of every grain of sand on the earth, too, because he is an all-powerful God. Dave brings these things about in his own wonderful way. He's like you, Jan.

He's very passionate about what he writes. So it's a wonderful chapter, and I think people will get discernment, great discernment about what's going on with regard to God and his love versus his judgment and wrath by reading this chapter. Well, his wrath is not meant to punish, but that folks might repent and be saved. But he does write about many kinds of wrath, consequential wrath, cataclysmic wrath, abandonment wrath, eschatological wrath, eternal wrath. He states that he knows many pastors who say that the judgmental God of the Old Testament is not the loving God of the New Testament, but God cannot tolerate sin and man's sin nature. He's not going to excuse it. Many don't want to hear that, of course. Indeed, the eschatological wrath, we read about that, Terry, in the book of Revelation, and it is stunning.

It certainly is. Seven scrolls, seven prophets and seven vials or bowls of wrath, yeah, and each one gets progressively worse. Twenty-one judgments says it devastates the earth. Jesus said if he didn't return when he does, when he will, there'd be no flesh.

Hey, pretty stunning stuff. That doesn't make God a monster. How can he not judge sin and evil?

That's right. Well, what kind of price did he pay? He gave his perfect, only begotten Son as a sacrifice. What more can he do to prevent people from having to go through that wrath that must be delivered against sin? And he brings out the fact the believer is spared the wrath of God. Believer is not spared the wrath of man and of Satan.

That's going on as we speak. It's hard to watch going on in various parts of the world, but the believers spared the wrath of God, the wrath that's going to be poured out, particularly during the tribulation. So I did appreciate Dave Reagan's chapter.

Let me just say one more time here. The book, we carry it. It's in our store. It's called Discerners Analyzing Converging Prophetic Signs for the End of Days. Visit OliveTreeViews.org or call my office or get into our print and e-newsletter. We'll be featuring this. We had it at our annual conference. Some of the authors include Jeff Kinley, Nathan Jones, Tom Hughes, Yours Truly, Pete Garcia, Bill Salus, Gary Stearman, Ryan Pitterson, Tim Cameron.

We just talked about Dave Reagan. Going to hit on some things that Jim Fletcher wrote in my second segment here that we're having to head into in just a moment. Terry's previous book, and we still carry deceivers. Again, that's in our bookstore. And this is kind of a follow up.

This one is called Discerners. We're just off of Understanding the Times 2019. We'll play a conference message next weekend. And I'll say more about the event next weekend.

Right now, I need to take my very first break of the program. When I come back, we're going to continue on here with Terry James. Terry is co-editor of the very popular website known as Rapture Ready. RaptureReady.com. You can get tons of articles, hundreds and hundreds over time, but RaptureReady.com.

He and Todd Strandberg have been working on that for a long time. When I come back, I want to talk with Terry about end time hatred of Israel. We'll be back in just a couple of minutes.

Don't go away. Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. Call us central time at 763-559-4444.

That's 763-559-4444. More with Jan and Terry in a moment. On September 21st, thousands came from 45 states, many Canadian provinces and several foreign countries for our annual conference near Minneapolis, Minnesota. The programming is posted to our YouTube channel under Jan Markell and will be on our website by mid-October. If you would like CDs or DVDs of this event, order in our online store at OliveTreeViews.org.

That's OliveTreeViews.org. They will be shipped the end of October. You can call us Monday through Friday central time and order at 763-559-4444.

That's 763-559-4444. They will be offered in our print and e-newsletter as well. Speakers included Amir Sarfati, Pastor J.D. Farag, Dr. Robert Jeffress, Pastor Jack Hibbs, Jan Markell and Laurie Cardoza Moore.

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You can download the OnePlace.com mobile app and have a program downloaded every Saturday morning. Here's more with Terry James and Jan Markell as they wrap up their conversation about the book, Discerners. Today many believe we are living in the final generation. Yet there is no way to be certain, for an aura of mystery still surrounds the catastrophic events that, according to Jesus, will one day shake the foundations of this planet. But as we walk in the lengthening shadows of the end times, we can be confident of two things. Christ's prophecies are, at this moment, closer to fulfillment than ever before, and they are resonating with the daily course of human existence throughout the world in a harmony that cannot be ignored. Let us look now to the future, as seen through the eyes of Jesus and the prophets he inspired. For in their words, we will discover important clues to understanding all that is to come.

And welcome back. We're spending the hour with author, commentator Terry James. You've read him, you've heard him various places. He's co-editor of the popular website Rapture Ready, raptureready.com. Let me just quickly say that we're very active on social media, Olive Tree Ministries. Find us on Facebook, Jan Markell's Olive Tree Ministries. Find us on Twitter at OliveTreeMin.

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The YouTube channel is under Jan Markell. I'm spending the hour with author Terry James because we're carrying his new book, Discerners, analyzing converging prophetic signs for the end of days. Intriguing chapters with some cutting-edge authors, including Dave Reagan, Pete Garcia, Bill Salas, Jim Fletcher, Tom Hughes, Damon Duck, Nathan Jones, Jeff Kinley, Don McGee, Larry Sperigmino, Grant Phillips. And I know I'm forgetting some, but it's just a real potpourri of thinking people who are assembling their thoughts on, again, subtitle of the book, Analyzing Converging Prophetic Signs for the End of Days. Discerners is the title of the book. And I said going out of the last segment that I wanted to focus, at least for the opening minutes of this segment, on what Jim Fletcher wrote, End Time Hatred for Israel.

I might play a clip here if we have time. But Terry, Jim did this in your previous book, Deceivers. Now he's done it again for Discerners.

Tell me why. Because the hatred is ratcheting up. You cannot hide it under the bushel.

You've got to keep it out front to show people exactly what's happening. And in order to be a discerner, you need to be fully discerning of what's going on with Israel, because I do believe it is the number one sign of where we are in God's prophetic timeline. And Jim wants to keep Israel out front with regard to the satanic tax coming against that nation. It is true in the last one he wrote about the same topics basically, but this is an ongoing thing that's ratcheting up.

That's the reason. And he references the demonic diplomacy and the drive to divide the land, which of course is fever pitch. He reminds us that the Jews have been hunted and harassed for literally thousands of years. Terry, I was at, this was probably ten years ago now, at my alma mater, Bethel University in St. Paul, what was called Hope for the Holy Land.

It featured Lynn Heibel, Sammy Awad, World Vision. They spent an hour and a half giving Israel a terrible reputation. My understanding, and Jim writes about some of this, he writes that Lynn Heibel has actually tried to infiltrate the Calvary Chapel stream and turn their loyalty away from Israel. Thankfully, Chuck Smith blocked this.

This goes back to 2012. Let me just play just a quick clip here about some of the things I heard at Bethel. And again, folks, I'm doing this because the chapter by Jim Fletcher is titled End Time Hatred for Israel.

As Terry has just suggested, it is off the chart. And the perpetrators are evangelicals. A mentor of mine, Dr. Gilbert Belazekian, highly respected mentor who has influenced Bill and I very much. Loved the Middle East and wanted me to be involved in the Middle East. And I kept saying, no, no, no, Africa is my place, you know.

Finally he said, would you just attend one conference for me? And it was a conference in Amman, Jordan that was taught entirely by Arab Christians. So it was taught by Christians from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, the West Bank. All of the teachers were Arab Christians. All of the learners were Americans and European Christians. And so we just sat there for a week and heard the heart of these Arab Christians. And I cried all week.

And there were two things that just gripped me. One is they just talked about how abandoned they feel by the Western church. Which of course it's true. Most Western Christians don't even know there are Arab Christians. Don't know that there is a community of Christians in the Middle East.

So that's very obvious. The second thing they said was that American Christians do not understand how our attitudes and behavior in relationship to Israel hurts them as Arab Christians. They said, here we are, Christians, we're Arabs, we're living in a primarily Muslim world. And all of the people that we live around here, they look at American Christian relationship with Israel. And they see that American Christians support everything the Israeli government does.

Blanket support for everything. And they totally seem to be unaware of the plight of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. They don't seem to understand that there was any injustice or any problems that they are facing. And so that inflames the Muslim world. And here we are as Arab Christians. And we used to live in relative peace, you know, in harmony with our Muslim neighbors. But now we're being equated with American Christianity, which appears to be very imperialistic, militaristic, and totally unaware of the plight of the Palestinians. Terry, I think that probably shocks you as much as it shocks me because suddenly American military might and are standing by Israel. The result of that is we've inflamed the Muslim world. Terrorism is our fault, Israel's fault. That's exactly what happened not long after 9-11, remember. We started asking, well, why in the world, why do they hate us so much?

We're going to have to do something to make them not hate us so much. And Willis' satanic delusion that Jim was talking about developing is what it is. Again, this is Jim Fletcher's chapter on hatred for Israel, end time hatred for Israel. He even quotes, I mean, Russell Moore is Southern Baptist Convention, but no friend of Israel. He says the current secular state of Israel is not the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham.

Jesus is. He reminds us that Russell Moore says we need not hold to a dispensationalist view of the future restoration of Israel, and he doesn't, Russell Moore. Goes on to name some others here, evangelicals who are coming against, which never would have happened 30 years ago, Terry. No, but it is now becoming the mainstream, Jen, and that's one of the things Jim writes about here so well, and he outlines it so well, is the fact that the evangelical church, for example, is going off on a tangent against Israel, and even agreeing with those who are saying that they're not necessarily the real Jewish people. I heard you say, or I read what you said, that if they think we're not Jews in Israel, why don't they just leave us alone? Why the hatred for Jews?

The world thinks that we're not Jews talking about the people in Israel. Let me read a paragraph by Jim. He says, what has become clear is that the enemy is going right into the heart of evangelicalism. Honestly, it's a smart strategy with the failed and failing mainline denominations and the slide of the Catholic Church into cultural irrelevance. It's smart for Jew haters to attack evangelicalism, the one-time bastion of support for Israel.

None of this is an isolated incident. The same year, pro-Palestinian Christians, led by Lynn Hybels, tried to infiltrate, again, Calvary Chapels with their seminar program that presents alleged Israeli abuses of Palestinians, and I referred to this. Fortunately, Chuck Smith slapped that effort down, but Chuck has now gone on to glory.

What will the future bring here for pro-Israel support? That written by Chuck Smith. And I have to say, Terry James, he has been my guest for the hour, and that would be I often write articles that are titled I Never Thought I'd See the Day. I never thought I'd see the day that I'm reading stuff Jim Fletcher has written, and it's leaping out on the pages, because it is so true, and it's shockingly true. It is shockingly true, and Jim knows these things, and that's the reason he keeps on the cutting edge of all this, is because he goes out and interviews these people, sometimes almost endangering himself to do so.

So he keeps a date on these things, and he sees a growing hatred for Israel, an anti-Semitism that is growing, and we can all see that, I think, sometimes from the headlines. This is a tremendous chapter that will again, I think, give discernment to the people who read it. Yes, indeed. Let me ask you about a couple of other chapters here. It's hard to know which ones to leave out, and you've got a captivating chapter, Prophetic Coalition Forming the End Times Prophecies of Ezekiel 38-39. Of course, no one addresses that better than Bill Salus, so glad you have that in there, and you want to say a word about that?

Yes, I do. Now, there are three things, basically, I see that contribute one, number one, to the number three signs, maybe. Number one, I think, is Israel itself being back in the land and so forth. Number two, being part of the peace process that is ongoing, that is eventually going to develop, that the Antichrist will sign. And then, in a very much more specific way, as Bill points out, the development of the coalition forming to the north of Israel, which is an exact coalition given by Ezekiel the prophet in chapters 38 and 39 of the book of Ezekiel, and we see it happening, that is Russia, Iran, ancient Persia, Iran, and Turkey. Turkey is getting farther away from NATO and the U.S. and certainly turned against Israel, and more and more into the camp of the Russians and the Iranians, and this is a significant development. This is a reason, I think, that the primary thing we should be looking for as discerners, as watchmen on the wall, as you put it, are these developments, particularly those geopolitically north of Israel. You've got an interesting chapter in here by Ryan Pitterson. I've not had Ryan on air.

My audience may not be real familiar with him. Days of Noah, days of Lot, lunacy. Can you summarize that? Because I believe, and we referenced this early in the hour here, that we're kind of back in the days of Noah and Lot.

And indeed, when we look at headlines and we see the transgender nonsense, just everything's off the chart right now. But days of Noah, days of Lot, lunacy, just give me a summary. I think that Ryan shows where we are on God's prophetic timeline in that he more or less delineates. What God says that really, really gets his hackles up is when people turn their back on him as a people. And that's where we are right now. The end of all of this is madness. Romans chapter 1, verse 28 says he turns them over to a reprobate mind.

That's what we see now on a global scale. Ryan looks at Matthew chapter 24, verses 36 through 42, and Luke 17, verses 26 through 30, where as it was the days of Noah and as the days of Lot, so will it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. Christ will next catastrophically intervene when things are going on just the way they were back in those days.

Now, they were buying, selling, they were building, planting, they were doing all the things that normal life seemed, and I think that business was booming, frankly, in both eras. The moment that Lot went out of Sodom, judgment fell. The Bible says, well, Ryan covers all of these things in a very good fashion, and he's an excellent writer. And again, giving discernment on exactly where we stand on God's prophetic timeline, I think, based upon the days of Noah and the days of Lot. Talking for the hour with Terry James, who's general editor of the new book, Discerners Analyzing Converging Prophetic Signs for the End of Days. You can find it at OliveTreeViews.org.

Just go to my store, you can give us a call, we can get one out to you. Sign up for the print and e-newsletter, be featured in there as well. And Terry, I wrote a chapter, Rapture, Reassurance, and Mockers Last Days Scoffing. And I think that's the thing that's shocked me the most, and it shouldn't, because the Bible promises that what we're talking about this hour is going to be the subject of incredible mocking and scoffing. But I, again, never thought I'd see the day when I'd live to see it go off the chart, because it's everywhere. It is everywhere. 2 Peter chapter 3, verses 3 and 4.

Yes. Yes, the last days mockers will come, and that's where we are. And the sad thing, Jen, is it's not even really so much among the secularists of the world as it is against the Church. Particularly when it comes to the Rapture, they just seem to think that we are something out of the bottomless pit ourselves when we even come to the Rapture. Yeah, we're from the bottomless pit, you're right. Yeah, and that is exactly where we stand. That shows us where we stand on God's perfect timeline. Your chapter, in my opinion, is among the very most important, because it really specifies precisely the condition of even the Christian community today. And how many of these people are Christians who deny the Rapture?

I don't know. It seems to me that God lays it out so perfectly. Like Paul does, the Apostle, the coming pre-tribulation Rapture, God says we're not appointed to wrath in Revelation chapter 3, 10. And yet we are held up as ogres for even bringing it up. We scare people and all of this kind of thing. I don't know what about the Rapture scares people when you get them out of what's going to be hell on earth.

Hell on earth, that is correct. Spending the hour with Terry James, Jan Markell, Understanding the Times Radio. I want to read a couple of paragraphs, Terry. This is an article from your website, again, RaptureReady.com. Get your response to it.

I just saw it this morning. It's an article by Jonathan Brentner. The title of the article is The Signs Scream with Both Peril and Hope.

Let me read three paragraphs that are very short. And he says, Nature groans in pain and so do believers as we wait in eager anticipation of the completion of our salvation when Jesus comes to take us home. Brentner says, for those paying attention, world events scream with great danger for those who do not know Jesus as their savior. For those who trust him, we await the sound of the trumpet and the shout of an archangel. And then he says, the screams of impending peril. If the Christ rejecting world were to be granted a glimpse into what is coming for them during the tribulation, their faces would resemble the scene Edward Munch painted. And that's the silent scream.

That's the painting being referenced here. For now, they remain oblivious to the signs of their impending peril. We know as the day of the Lord. They cannot see how the signs of the approaching tribulation scream for all to see.

Instead, they see their lives continuing for the indefinite future with the hope of future generations. Now, it's a long article. I read three paragraphs, Terry. I'm sure you can comment on what I just stated and read. You say it's on Rapture Ready? Yes.

I'm going to have to look that one up from Jonathan. You know, that's great. But, you know, what I have in mind there when I hear all that is that's why it is so important for us as Christians, true Christians, believers in eschatology, that is, end times things as God laid them out. That's why it's so important for us to discern the times we're in. That is because we've got to warn these people. You know, we've got to warn people of what's coming. It's not something that's just a figment of our imagination.

It's coming, and we can see it developing. Those who are discerners can see it developing. I know I'm hawking the book maybe too much, but that's what this book does for people. It shows you how to become a discerner so that you can reach out to other people, particularly the lost, and even bring brothers and sisters into an understanding so that you make a witness out of them also. Very well stated.

Nothing to add to what you've just said. Intriguing title, The Sign Scream with Both Peril and Hope. Terry James, if there were one thing that you would encourage the audience to keep their eyes on, and we've talked about Sign Scream with Both Peril and Hope, your book is targeting a lot of the things that we should be paying attention to, and each one hits some different things. You, Terry James, one thing you would like to encourage the audience to keep their eyes on as we sort of are in a countdown?

One thing, if I can use one word, is the convergence of all things. Then to get specific, it's got to be Israel, because that is God's prophetic timepiece in my view. Jerusalem in combination with the ongoing peace process that will eventually, that Antichrist will prove or confirm, that to me, Jerusalem in that peace process is the second hand of that timepiece. That's what we've got to watch. Now again, we talk about, I think, the Temple, the development of the Third Temple. That's interesting to watch, very interesting to watch. I'm not saying it's all important, but it is very important to watch, because those developments are coming along very quickly. And then, of course, again, Bill Salus's chapter on the Gog Magog developments above Israel, those things there are something to look at.

If you want to encompass that in one word, probably I would say Israel. Another kind of topic I had referenced to you off-air, because with interest in the subject matter we're talking about here for the hour, it's probably at an all-time low. In my lifetime, it's at an all-time low. I mean, I can recall in the 70s and 80s and even early 90s when this was still a very popular topic, the church now seems to be, not all, but many churches seem to be sound asleep, other than a remnant. And the remnant is very interested.

My goodness, we had thousands attend my conference last weekend from, I believe, 45, 46, 47 states across the country, six provinces in Canada. So the remnant is very much alive and well and very interested. But the rest of the church isn't. So why a book like this?

Well, that's a good question. Christianity itself and believers have to overcome even that lack of interest or whatever. For example, Jesus talked about the people go down, there are many, many, many thousands and billions of people who go down the broad way to destruction, but there are only a very few that go in that narrow gate. But still, we are encouraged to go ahead and present the gospel message, even though it would look discouraging to most people, because most people out there are not interested. But yet Jesus encourages us to go, and it's the same way in the matter of eschatology or Bible prophecy.

There may not be a great interest there, but the fact is, it's needed. God wants to have that discernment among people, so regardless if there's not interest or not, we still have to present that message, just like we have to present the gospel message to those not interested. We have to present this eschatological message or end-time message to those who are not interested. There will be some. The Holy Spirit will cause some to believe and to understand. We need more witnesses in this era.

We have to go ahead no matter what. So that's one of the reasons for the books, keep continuing with the prophecy books. I intend to write them until either the Lord comes in there or I go to the portal of death to Him. RaptureReady.com is an incredibly popular destination for the folks who do want to understand the times, discern the times, become watchmen on the walls.

I mean, I'm encouraged that the remnant remains so enthusiastic. Sadly, I just learned of a church in the last day or two here in the Twin Cities area. I actually spoke at that church when I was just starting out in ministry, so it was a number of years ago.

Wonderful church in a suburb of Minneapolis. The pastor actually made fun of anybody who would want to attend, say, a conference like mine. He didn't reference it, but he may have been that in his mind thinking of an Understanding the Times conference or a Prophecy Conference put on by a few others throughout the country. It seems to me, you know, the topics we're talking about here, Terry, we've talked about them for an hour, they're seen as frightening or they're seen as divisive by a lot of church leaders.

Therefore, we have to avoid these topics at all costs. Your point, and mine too, is we can't possibly discern the times without understanding some of the things your contributors here have written about. Well, I think that's exactly right, and like I said, I believe it's just like a briefing package that brings people up to date quickly on everything going on and what it means. These are messages they're not getting in the churches, unfortunately, from the book. So that makes this book doubly important in my view. I think that's what makes it an important volume for our times. So I really hope people will get that, and I'd sure like to hear some feedback on it.

Yes, we'll ask for some feedback from the radio program. Terry, I'm down to a minute or two if you want to sum things up. I think ultimately we want people to obviously escape the peril of the Tribulation through, certainly by putting their faith and trust in Jesus Christ so that they will be among the church that would be raptured, and of course, more importantly, that escape the perils of the flames of hell, and that is only possible through faith again in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to wrap up our hour with that emphasis, you've got some time to do so. Well, I think the fact that the Tribulation Era is coming is something to be proclaimed. That's what this book does. That's what we intend to do as you and I who speak and write on these things, intend to make people aware of just exactly what the world is facing, and possibly very soon, and even people who, like you and I, we have no real idea of what that horrible time is going to be like in the Tribulation Era, and certainly not what it's like to be in hell. We know what we've been told, what we've read about, but the fact is that it's coming, and people need to be forewarned about it. That's what this book is about, and I hope that it gets the message across that certainly I know these authors have been Holy Spirit influenced to get that message to people, and I believe that that's what will come across. Terry James, thank you for all you do. The book again, Discerners Analyzing Converging Prophetic Signs for the End of Days, OliveTreeViews.org, or give my office a call, or get in our various newsletters. Let me go out of the program. I haven't used this little saying for, well, I think a couple of months.

I'm going to use it today. When the time was right, the sea parted, the walls fell down, the lions went hungry, the sun stood still, the waves were calm, the stone was rolled away, the clouds were parted, the Lord ascended, and when the time is right, the King of Kings will return. God is never early. He is never late. He is always right on time, and His plan for you is good. I want you to remember that as we go out of the program. His plan for you is good.

His plan for you is actually perfect. I want to thank you for listening, and we will talk to you next week. Online, on air, at our conferences, and in print. We want to encourage you that things are all falling into place. We encourage you to become watchmen on the wall.

Check out our store on our website for many more cutting-edge products to better equip you. Visit OliveTreeViews.org. That's OliveTreeViews.org. Get our mail by writing to Olive Tree Ministries and Jan Markell, Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. That's Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. Thank you for trusting us in a day of deception, delusion, doubt, and denial.