The Political Situation in Israel

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Welcome to another edition of the Wrap Report. I am your host, Andrew Rapoport, President and Executive Director of Striving for Eternity and the
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Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a proud member. We're here to give you biblical interpretations and applications of all things of Christian living.
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This is a prerecorded show that we did. I was on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio with Chris Arnzen.
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This is going back to October. And so this is after the events that happened
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October 7th in Israel. So we're discussing the political situation of Israel and the folks in Gaza.
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So somewhat controversial for some people, but not when you actually study history.
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So this is hopefully informative. Maybe some of you have not heard some of these things before.
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These issues with Israel and Gaza are still in the news. And so this is still hopefully helpful to give you a background of what's really going on and a little bit of the history.
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So I hope this is informative. Just to remind you, we are, we being Jim Osman, Justin Peters and myself, are in the
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Texting five friends, letting people know what specifically you got out of this.
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It will help people to learn more and hopefully find out what you see valuable and they might find valuable too.
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So with that, I hope you enjoy this episode of The Rap Report. Welcome to The Rap Report with your host,
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Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the
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Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer
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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross and sports legend
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Jim Thorpe. It's iron sharpens iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors and Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
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Proverbs chapter 27, verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron. So one man sharpens another.
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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have an view and conversation to make one another wiser and better.
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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours. And we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
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Earth. We're listening via live streaming at iron sharpens iron radio dot com.
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This is Chris Armisen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this second day of November 2023.
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I'm thrilled to have back on the program an old friend and a returning guest. His name should not be unfamiliar to most of my listeners.
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His name is Andrew Rappaport, and he is the founder of Striving for Eternity Ministries.
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He is obviously also a very highly sought after conference speaker since I see him in social media being invited to speak at many conferences all over the
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United States. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Andrew Rappaport.
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I could be mistaken. I think you just called me old. Just very is very observant.
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It is a pleasure to be back on your program again, Chris. And we are going to be addressing the current crisis in Israel.
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Many of you may have heard my interview yesterday that had to be conducted in a prerecorded fashion because I was interviewing
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Baruch Maoz, and Baruch Maoz was live in Israel when
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I was recording that interview. Well, not live to our audience, but he was in Israel when we did the prerecorded show because the time difference is so great.
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And I also want to extend my apologies to our listeners because we did have technical difficulties during that interview where the sound was very choppy.
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And I do not know why that occurred. It could have been due to the fact that Baruch is very close to a war zone in Israel.
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And there were actually rockets and jets flying over his roof while we were doing the interview.
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And there were actually explosions that you could hear. They were somewhat muffled. They were not very close, but they were close enough to be heard from the windows of where Baruch was conducting the interview.
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But Baruch Maoz, for anybody who is not familiar with him, he is a world -renowned
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Reformed Baptist scholar, theologian, historian, and conference speaker and author and translator.
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He translates not only classic Christian works from their original languages into modern, readable
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Hebrew, but he also has written new books that he has also translated into modern, readable
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Hebrew and has translated the very first Old Testament into modern, readable
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Hebrew. But fascinating, brother. I hope that you listened to that and put up with the sound problems.
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But today I have someone on the program. I don't know how much different his approach is or his reflections will be to the current crisis in Israel since, unlike Baruch, my guest today,
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Andrew Rappaport, is a dispensationalist. Although a believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace, like some dispensationalists are, like my beloved hero of our modern day,
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Dr. John MacArthur and others. But, so, tell us, first of all, why don't you tell our listeners about striving for eternity ministries?
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Sure, and I think the thing I liked most about yesterday's interview was when he said that you pronounced his name correctly and that his pastor didn't.
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That was great. Striving for Eternity Ministries is a discipleship -based ministry, so unlike most power church ministries where they're singularly focused on whether it be evangelism or apologetics or family or whatever, homeschooling, we are looking to come alongside churches and help them.
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And so one of the ways we do that is to come to their churches, and the difference with Striving for Eternity is we go to any church, any size, we target the smaller churches because those are the ones that have the greatest need.
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And those are the ones that the power church ministries usually won't go to because there's no money. We don't have a speaking fee.
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And so we'll go, do a weekend seminar, whether it be in evangelism, apologetics, how to interpret the
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Bible, social justice, the family, but we train people up. What it is is giving churches that conference -like experience.
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I know, Chris, you go to many conferences that, you know, feeling when everyone's around believers that are just being encouraged in the
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Word, it just spurs people on. But smaller churches don't get to have that feeling. And so that's one of the things we do for smaller churches.
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We also have an online academy. We have some books, and we have podcasts.
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I have a couple of podcasts, The Rap Report, Andrew Rapport's Rap Report, that's the play on my last name.
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And then Apologetics Live, which is a live show every Thursday night, you just go to apologeticslive .com,
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you can check that out. And these are many of the ways that we try to disciple folks and to hopefully encourage people in their faith.
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So all available at strivingforeturning .org. Let me give our listeners our email address right away in the event that you have questions you'd like to ask
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Andrew. The email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,
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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state and country of residence.
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Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Let's say we are discussing something that you have a disagreement over with your own elders, your own congregation, your own denomination.
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You might even be a pastor yourself and disagree with your fellow elders or your denomination or your fellowship or what have you.
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We understand that those would be reasons that would compel you to remain anonymous. But please, if it's just a general question, give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.
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Well, Andrew, first of all, tell me what was going through your head as a
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Jewish believer in Jesus who perhaps has a more intense feeling of kinship with the citizens of Israel during this time where we hear daily reports of satanic, barbaric, unspeakable terrorist war crimes being conducted against men, women and children and infants in Israel.
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And tell us about, I mean, obviously there's been hostilities going on farther, longer ago than we can even remember.
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But there were recent hostilities that seemed to reach new depths of depravity in the part of Hamas.
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And of course, we always have to remember to distinguish between Hamas and those average men, women and children who are
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Palestinian. But tell us about the initial thoughts that were going through your head during this latest episode when it began to appear on the news all day long.
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Yeah, I happened to be at that time down taking care of my father. I was with him and woke up that morning to get to see the news.
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He and I and my bride basically spent the entire day. He's he being liberal now after what, 30 years of watching
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CNN. He's he's he's now thoroughly liberal. But he was not when you were growing up.
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Oh, no, no, absolutely not. Really? Yeah. Yeah. That's that's what watching liberal media every night will do to you.
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You stop thinking you start believing the nonsense. You wonder why people would start and continue to believe the nonsense when they are habitually and dramatically wrong on so many things that they claim were true that would be happening and so on.
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They're wrong over and over and over again. And rarely do they obviously admit it and apologize and what have you.
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But well, because it's amazing why anybody would believe them over and over and over again. Just like even in evangelicalism, the false prophets that are prolific and all around us in the media, why people still follow them when they're when their prophecies turn out to be false over and over and over again?
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Well, it's the same reason. They want to believe these people are not lying to them. They want to believe it.
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And because of that, what ends up happening is they listen to the excuses made and they go, oh,
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OK, that sounds reasonable. But it was interesting to watch CNN with him.
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You know, he's suddenly in this. This is the thing that I believe many of the left don't quite understand is even though you might be a practicing atheist.
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Now is my father. He wouldn't believe God even exists anymore.
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He would be liberal. But when this when this attack happened, he's totally is flipping because he's realizing there was peace under Trump.
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Things were changing. So he is flipping. OK, well, at least on this issue. And this is
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I mean, a lot of the universities don't realize all of a sudden some of their funding that came from Jewish people are drying up because Israel is a very important thing to the
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Jewish people. And it to have the state of Israel and to know what folks there have been fighting for.
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Many Jewish people have, even though they may not practice Judaism, believe in in Judaism anymore.
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There's still something special they hold to with Israel. And unfortunately, there's a lot of myths that have been propagated even within Christianity.
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I've been so surprised by the number of people who have lashed out at me for my support of Israel.
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I have been told that I'm not saved. I've been told that I'm supporting terrorists. I've been told that I'm evil.
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You've been told that you're not saved in the Christian community. Correct. Yeah. Who?
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A guy on Facebook. When I posted my I changed my profile picture to be the the
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Israeli flag. He told me that supporting a terrorist group like Israel means
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I'm not saved. And you're sure this person was an evangelical? Well, I can't be sure.
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I don't know him personally. Well, I guess if he or she used the term saved,
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I guess they wouldn't. You would think they at least used the language. But, you know, even when
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I was on Matt Slick's radio show, he had a guy that called in and just very angry that I would talk about the fact that Hamas put out pictures of, you know, babies that they beheaded.
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It's like, oh, that's been debunked. Actually, no, it hasn't been debunked. It was provided from, you know,
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Hamas. They were proud of it at the time. But then when it didn't work out for the media wise, we'll change it.
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But, you know, there's a lot of myths that people have. For example, you know, before 1948, who owned the land that we call
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Israel today? It wasn't some country known as Palestine. Right. It was the United Kingdom.
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The United Kingdom had owned that. And they started talking about creating a state for Israel in like 1914, 1915, around there.
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And the discussion was there were many Jews that lived in the land that we call Israel.
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The land was actually, it had been referred to as Palestine. And by the way, any
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Jewish person that lived in that area prior to 1948 was called a
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Palestinian. Yes. And so when they say all the Palestinians, yet there was
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Arab Palestinians, there was Jewish Palestinians, there was Christian Palestinians. And the current concept and identification of Palestinian is really a modern invention.
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The ethnicity known as Palestinian is always now referring to an
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Arab living in Palestine. But the concept of this being a
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Palestinian ethnicity is a modern concept. Yeah, there is no Palestinian culture, language, state, country.
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So what you have is you have Arabs that lived in the region that we now call
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Jordan, that in the early 1914, 15s, as the
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UK started talking about the creation of a state of Israel, all of a sudden many
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Arabs started to move into that area and to basically balance out so there'd be more
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Arabs than Jewish people. And this is what was going on for decades.
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And then, you know, things softened. They eventually, Jordan, that previously was referred to as Transjordan, became the country of Jordan.
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The UK set that up. Then you have, after that, there still wasn't a state of Israel.
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Israel is founded in 1948. Now, when we talk about a lot of the rhetoric we hear today, so much of it that Israel's oppressors, they are, you know, occupiers.
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Apartheid nation. Correct. All the language to get the left riled up. But the facts are there was no state of Palestine before 1948.
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All Jewish people that lived there were Palestinian. So they weren't some separate group of Arab Muslims, as people think.
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The other thing is that the land was given from the UK, not that Israel, the
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Jewish people, took it over. There was a war, a six -day war. Israel won. Israel's the only country in the world that wins a war and then gives back land.
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Right. So as we look at this, people want to say, like,
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Israel's somehow doing something wrong. Well, Israel, in the different peace treaties, what they ended up doing was to give part of the
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West Bank and then part of Gaza. So they have control. Hamas has control of Gaza.
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In 19, sorry, in 2007, Israel left
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Gaza. They had their own elections. They elected, whether you want to say it was fair or not, you know, whatever.
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But Hamas was elected to run Gaza. Israel does not have any control over what happens in Gaza.
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And the leaders, the Hamas leaders, don't live in Gaza. They live in Qatar. So they don't even have to live under the situation they create.
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Israel provides water and electric to Gaza. And Gaza's supposed to be paying them back but has never done that.
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So here you have a country, and people are upset because Israel's cutting off the water supply and the electric.
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And there's a war. What country says, oh, we're going to provide the people we're at war with, we're going to provide them with electric and make sure they have water, food, things like that?
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That doesn't happen in war. So Hamas brought this upon themselves, and I do want to get into what brought this about, because a lot of people don't understand what really brought this about in an indirect way that we can say the liberals are right, it is
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Trump's fault. So we'll hold on to that until after a different break, because that'll be a fun one. But some of the myths that people don't understand when we look at this is the fact that the arguments made are based on the fact that somehow
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Israel has control over the area known as Gaza. And they don't. There's millions and millions of dollars that gets funneled into Gaza, to Hamas, for under aid.
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And it doesn't go to the people. So the people we need to blame for any oppression for the
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Palestinians living in Gaza would be the leaders of Gaza who are causing it, and that is
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Hamas. And that's why Israel is saying that Hamas has to be removed. You cannot negotiate or work with people who have their intended mission to wipe you out.
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And also, they have little to no regard for the safety, well -being, and lives of the
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Palestinian people. They hide beneath hospitals, and they use their own people as shields and so on.
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This is absolutely cowardice at its height, and it's deplorable, nauseating, and satanic.
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Well, Israel has weapons of war. They have missiles. They have tanks.
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Things like this. Gaza doesn't have that. Hamas doesn't have that. So what do they have?
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What is the weapon of Hamas? It is the world media. It is to put their military bases in places where there's people, and every time
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Israel defends itself and returns fire and tries to take out the soldiers that are hiding in hospitals, what do they do?
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Oh, look at these civilians. I mean, they take a rocket.
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It doesn't take off the way it was supposed to. It lands in the parking lot of a hospital, and they run and say
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Israel bombed a hospital and killed 500 people. And then you look at the video and go, no, nope.
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The hospital's still standing. It was about 25 people in a parking lot, and it was the
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Hamas soldiers that set it off. But our media has been willing to take that and run with it.
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In fact, what you had was you had a representative speaking about that and declaring that Israel was terrorists by bombing this hospital, calling it a war crime.
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And what did we see? We saw a bunch of people supporting Palestine in the Capitol building and refusing to leave.
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I always thought that was called an insurrection when you do that to upset proceedings. I don't know.
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I guess it only works one way. All right. Well, why don't we pick up on more and more depth on the media when we return from our first break?
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We are now back with Andrew Rappaport, founder of Striving for Eternity Ministries, and we are discussing the current crisis in Israel.
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And you were talking about the media. I'm assuming you don't just mean
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United States media, but globally how it has a not only a leftist bent, but an anti -Israel bent.
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And it is quite interesting that leftists would be cheering on a group of people that hate
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Jews with a passion. And even many of these people who are involved in public protests, even here in the
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United States, on college campuses and other places, holding up Nazi slogans and swastikas.
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And the love affair that the left has with this
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Nazi identity is quite amazing because it goes against their rhetoric.
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But that's because people don't realize that the Nazis always were a left wing organization.
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They were the National Socialist Party. Remember that? And by the way,
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I highly recommend for anybody who has never read it, get your hands on Scott Lively's book,
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The Pink Swastika, Homosexuality in the Nazi Party. It will blow your mind.
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It's heavily documented, heavily footnoted, using as references many
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Jewish scholars and historians that were contemporaries of the
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Nazis. And using even those that identified themselves as homosexuals, who were contemporaries of the
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Nazis, who made it clear that it was common knowledge that many, if not most of the early
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Nazis, when the party first launched, were openly homosexual. But anyway, that's another story for another time.
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So tell us about your reaction to the nearly universal opposition to Israel from the leftist media.
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Well, it was interesting because when you first saw this happen,
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I was watching CNN and the CNN hosts were like beating all of the people.
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They had people on that were nobody that wasn't supportive of Netanyahu, but they were beating him, trying to get these opposition folks in Israel to say that this is somehow
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Netanyahu's fault. And they didn't realize everyone is together. Israel prior to this was so fractioned to the point where the reserve army was refusing to go when called up.
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And after this attack on October 7th, there's unity. They've joined together. And the media is upset.
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I mean, look, Biden came out and sounded very strong. We're going to support Israel. He's backing away from that.
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Congress just passed a budget where they're after we have spent, what, $110, $120 billion for Ukraine.
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And, you know, in the Senate, they said we're not going to have anything to do with that budget because it supports Israel. And now
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Biden's backing away. So the thing is that this is something that I said, this is
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Trump's fault. How is this Trump's fault? Here's what brought this about. What you have six
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Middle East peace treaties that have occurred since 1948, four of them under Donald Trump.
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So let that sink in. All the people that said you couldn't do what Donald Trump did, he did.
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He got four peace treaties. Here's the difference of what he did. Everybody prior to this had been trying to get
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Israel to work with their enemies. And every time that a deal was made with Hamas, they rejected it out of hand.
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There was never a time that they would sit there and say, yeah, let's look at that. They were given so much before Netanyahu.
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Barack Obama worked really hard to try to get something and it was rejected. But what did
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Trump do? Trump ended up working with those that were friendlier toward Israel.
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And so what what happened is very simple. There was one more nation that was about to sign a peace treaty with Israel, and that's
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Saudi Arabia. Now, Donald Trump's plan was to get a bunch of back to back to back to back peace treaties so that more of the
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Arab countries there would start to see this as a possibility of peace. And as the larger states start doing it, there might be something that could occur.
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Now, what keeps all of the Arab nations together is one unifying thing, a hatred for Israel.
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And so there's an interesting political dynamic that's going on there. You have these countries that say they hate
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Israel, want to remove Israel, but they actually don't because especially
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Iran, because even though Iran is funding Hamas to go in and do things to Israel, you don't see
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Iran sending people in. You don't see Iran or even Egypt saying to the
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Palestinians, hey, you can come to us. They're not allowing. I mean, remember,
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Gaza borders on not just Israel, but Egypt. Egypt was refusing to let any
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Palestinians come into Egypt. So as they say that it's somehow a war crime for Israel not to let the
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Palestinians, but no one blames Egypt for doing far worse because Israel, at least they used to allow them to come in and work.
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So here's the thing, though, what keeps all these countries together is their unified hatred for Israel.
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Who was the enemy prior? It was for many, many years. It was Iran. Iran is the one country that has a different branch of Islam than the others.
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Many of your listeners may even be old enough to remember the many decades of the Iran -Iraq war.
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This is what was going on. And so Iran saw that if Saudi Arabia was to do a peace deal, that then would be the domino.
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Many people were expecting that, that this would be the domino to cause the other nations to come and have peace.
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So you have many countries outside of the Middle East who are very anti -Israel and yet support
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Israel. That sounds strange. We do it here. You have our country. You have Joe Biden, Barack Obama doing many things to support.
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Barack Obama did more to support the Israeli hating Arabs than any other president and then pretended like he was supporting
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Israel. And the reason why you have so many countries that do that is a very simple reason, Chris. It's a thing called oil.
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You think about what happened when Barack Obama was president. There was an issue with Syria and all of a sudden all the countries,
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France and Russia and the U .S., they all were starting to make divisions on their support or lack of support for Syria based on whether Syria was supporting them with oil.
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And this is the thing is that the rest of the world, unfortunately, would rather have war between Israel and their neighbors so that they don't have to have war over the oil they want from the
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Middle East. This is the political dynamic that's going on there. They're so afraid of having peace with Syria that Iran funded.
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And keep in mind, folks, let's not just blame Iran. Where did Iran get the money from? The United States of America had released $6 billion that we were holding of Iran money.
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And Joe Biden released that. And then just after that, these attacks happened.
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And what's their argument? Oh, but none of that money was used for that. It was only used for aid.
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Well, I mean, Chris, if your car broke down and I just happened to come to you and say, hey, you know,
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I got some money laying around. I got, you know, $10 ,000 and, you know, I'm just going to give you $10 ,000 as a gift.
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And you had money that you were saving maybe for, you know, this car you need to replace.
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But you also had to pay your rent. And I say, but you can't use that money for your car. You could take the money you had for your car that you were saving, pay your rent, you know, and then take the money and, you know, use it as I used, as I said.
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Well, that's exactly what they did here. They're going to go, okay, we'll take it, only use it for aid. But then that releases $6 billion that they could take from elsewhere.
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And so this is the dynamics. When we talk about, you see here so many people, Chris, asking about negotiating, working together, trying to cease fire.
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How do you have a cease fire with people who came in to a music festival, killing thousands, kidnapping hundreds to thousands?
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Including women and children. Yeah, grandmothers, killing them. And the leftist media was like, oh, look how they took care of them.
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They had shampoo for them, and they had water and food and aid. Aid, by the way, funded by the
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Western world. But think about that. The left media wants to praise the fact that, yeah, they kidnapped them, but they're treating them well.
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Well, that should tell you that they planned this kidnapping. Why did they kidnap?
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Well, they said why they kidnapped. So that if Israel was to respond, they would use these people they kidnapped because they knew
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Israel would not kill, would try everything they can not to kill innocent people, especially their own. And so they wanted to use them.
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And that's why Israel is having the response that they have that's so harsh, where they're not even considering this time.
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I think this is going to be the one time that this situation may be resolved. Because what's happened every other time is, you know,
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Hamas, Hezbollah, they shoot some missiles in, they do a skirmish, Israel responds, and the world tells them to quiet down, to stop, they back off, and it just continues on in this forever cycle.
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But the Hamas leader yesterday said that they want to do, they're ready to do and want to do another
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October 7th, and they'll do it again and again and again until there is no Israel. You're not dealing with people that are trying to say, we would like to get some land.
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You're dealing with people who want to wipe people out. They want a genocide.
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And they are attacking innocent people, people that are just at a music fair. And they targeted that.
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They were going house by house. Let me just explain one situation what they did. They took a young boy.
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They held his family hostage. As they made this boy, and they told the boy that they were going to kill his family if he didn't do what they wanted.
34:05
And they used this boy to knock on all of his neighbor's houses so that the neighbors would open up, they'd come out of their, because a lot of them have secure areas within their homes, they'd come out and they would, you know, look to see, okay, we recognize this voice, we'll open the door.
34:23
And as they'd one by one open the door, these soldiers would go in and slaughter the families. And then they come back and take this boy to his home where he gets to watch them kill his family.
34:33
This is what you're dealing with. And these folks were on a drug that they took that just knocks out all the conscience.
34:39
I mean, they have no morals at that point. And they were doing vile things.
34:46
And for people to want to support this, especially in America, where you have, you know, you were mentioning with Germany and the
34:54
Nazis with the homosexuality, you have the transgenders and the homosexuals for Palestine.
35:00
Are you kidding? Right. They are the first ones that these Arabs would kill. Yes, and that would go for even a broader spectrum of leftists.
35:11
If they were living in a nation under Sharia law, just because of many of their feminist views, pro -homosexual views, you know, on and on and on we could go.
35:25
They would be the first under the chopping block. And this love affair that the left has with, and even, you know, those that claim to be
35:41
LGBTQ activists, this love affair they have with defending
35:48
Islam in the public eye is really strange.
35:55
And you wonder what is behind it. You know, and the squad,
36:06
Rashida Tlaib and her name escapes me. AOC?
36:12
No, no, the other one, the Muslim. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
36:18
Well, I'll think about it in a second. But anyway, I have said publicly, why don't they demonstrate their solidarity to Palestine by going there?
36:27
Yeah. Because Muslims don't like loud feminists.
36:34
You know, none of it even makes sense. I mean, there are people who have said to me, oh, that's because they're in a stealth manner trying to bring
36:45
Islam to the United States and entree a law. I don't buy that. I mean, it could be true. But do you have any ideas why these leftist feminists who identify as Muslim, and even to the point of one of them constantly wearing traditional
37:01
Muslim dress, concealing her head and so on.
37:07
What's the deal with that? Well, I think that they're using the left.
37:14
Look, Islam looks as a religion for those who really practice it for world domination.
37:22
Okay? And they'll use any means possible. So they will use
37:27
America. They'll use the left because the left is the one that's going to kowtow to them. Because the left doesn't have any morals or principles anymore.
37:36
They only care about getting votes. They care about their power. It's Ilhan Omar I was trying to remember.
37:42
Who's in this country illegally, by the way. Right. Yes. Who married her brother to get into the
37:50
United States. Yeah, that's the claim and the argument. And she used a different name.
37:56
And they said, oh, and this is what you have, where the left will defend their own regardless of what the truth is and be like, oh, well, you know, in our world, they sometimes use their maiden names, their mother's maiden name for their own.
38:11
It's like, yeah, okay, but that's not what she was doing. So, you know, the thing is that they will use this to push their agenda.
38:21
But the reality is that she, you know, I'm sure in her case, she doesn't care about the
38:27
Palestinians. She cares about her own power. She cares about her own agenda. And she uses these things to promote herself.
38:35
I mean, Black Lives Matter is out there promoting their support for Palestine. And yet, what do you see?
38:41
You end up seeing that, like, who's really the oppressed people? Well, in one sense, we could say the
38:48
Palestinian Arabs that are in Gaza are oppressed, but not by Israel.
38:53
They're oppressed by Hamas. But you would think if you're going to look at who's being oppressed, go to any map, look at the state of Israel, how big that is.
39:02
It's about the size of New Jersey. Then go look at the rest of the Arab world around it. Right. There's plenty of places.
39:09
I mean, you got to keep in mind that this is not, we're not dealing with people as claimed that have generation after generation after generation for thousands of years that lived in this area known as Palestine.
39:20
Many of them moved in since the 1900s. This is not the claims that people have been making that these
39:28
Arab Palestinians have been there all along. Many of them started moving in only after there was talks about making a state for Israel.
39:37
So, you know, these are the things that people, the inconvenient truths that people don't want to face when they discuss this stuff.
39:46
You know, but this is when we do talk to people, we have to understand the history of Israel.
39:53
It really doesn't matter who lived there a thousand years ago, two thousand years ago, three thousand years ago, because there's been plenty of wars and the ownership of that land has changed plenty of times.
40:05
But the denial of Israel, who was given that land by the UK, who had the land, had the right to create the state of Israel, is being denied.
40:16
And they're looking to cause genocide. And the people who are most often arguing for the oppressed are now supporting those who are the oppressors, those who are looking to cause genocide.
40:29
It's backwards. Well, let's go to a listener question. This may help to set the stage so our listeners will be able to recognize that although you and I, Andrew, may disagree over issues that involve eschatology, we have disagreements over the role of Israel in biblical prophecy, and so on, it will still show that as we have been doing so far, we can have great harmony in our worldview over what's going on right now.
41:06
So Cindy in Findlay, Ohio says, Andrew, I was a pre -trib, pre -millennial dispensationalist for 35 years.
41:15
At this point, I am an Amil partial preterist. Chris, could you explain that to your audience for those who don't know?
41:25
Okay, an Amil partial preterist would believe that there will be no earthly millennium as dispensationalists believe, and even post -millennials in a different way believe.
41:42
When I say millennium, there will be no period of a golden age or a time where Christ is physically— this would be the difference between post -mill and dispensationalists.
41:59
Post -mill don't believe that there will be a physical reign of Christ on the earth yet in our future.
42:09
And the partial preterist—and by the way, the millennium could also be viewed as the gospel age ever since the ministry of Christ was successfully accomplished on this earth with his redemption provided for his people.
42:28
That could be considered as a millennial age or golden age, and that the devil is in chains, not that he doesn't have influence in the world, but that he is prevented from having the global influence he otherwise could have had because the gospel has spread globally since the days of Christ.
42:49
But anyway, the preterist part is—and not all amillennialists are any kind of preterist.
42:57
But partial preterists basically believe that the majority of prophecies in the
43:03
New Testament and in the Old Testament have already been fulfilled except those that involve a future, visible, physical return of Christ and the bodily resurrection of the dead, both the saved and the damned, and the elect being glorified with Christ in heaven, and the damned being cast into hell for eternity.
43:29
Other than that, most, if not all, prophecies have been fulfilled, whereas dispensationalists believe that there are a great many that have not yet been fulfilled.
43:40
I'm assuming you agree to some extent with what I just said, Andrew? Yeah, I do. Okay, and so anyway, so her question is, it's my understanding that those who believe in a pre -trib rapture are taught there are to be no signs prior to the rapture.
44:01
She's talking about, obviously, the secret rapture. But you're going to have to answer that when we come back from the midway break, because I just realized we've got to go to the midway break.
44:09
Cindy of Findlay, Ohio says, it is my understanding that those who believe in a pre -trib rapture are taught that there are to be no signs prior to the rapture, but it seems as though a lot of dispensationalists seem to be predicting that it is near based on the current
44:27
Middle East situation. How do you see this? Well, I would argue that ever since Paul, people have been thinking that the end times are near.
44:39
Yes. I mean, it really is a thing where we shouldn't be trying to get our theology from looking at the newspapers.
44:48
And by the way, I hope you're not insulted by saying you're one of the very few dispensationalists I've heard say that. You know, just remember that dispensationalism is a way of interpreting the
45:00
Bible. It is not an end times view. A premillennial view is a byproduct of consistent hermeneutic that dispensationalists would employ of reading the
45:14
Bible in a normal, you know, historical grammatical approach. So you know that all millennialists and post -millennialists also believe they are using the historical grammatical approach.
45:26
Yeah, there's differences with the way that we interpret the Old Testament prophecies, right?
45:33
And that's what it comes down to. But the thing is that as we examine these things, dispensationalism is not an end times view.
45:42
And by the way, my support for Israel, you know, as one person was challenging me, because you're just dispensational, you know, you're only supporting
45:51
Israel because you're dispensational. I'm like, no, I'm supporting Israel probably more because A, it's right, because there's a justice issue, but B, because I'm Jewish.
46:04
And so, you know, this person was challenging me and saying, you know, do you believe that Israel being a state is fulfillment of prophecy?
46:14
My answer is I don't know. I mean, it could be, and it could be that God waits another thousand years or 2 ,000 years, ever since Paul.
46:22
That is also something that very few dispensationalists say publicly. Yeah, well, I don't fit perfectly into any camp.
46:31
Truthfully, if you want to know what I am, the most I identify with is a system of theology known as Rapportianism, and my last name is
46:40
Rappaport. You got to ask me what I believe. That's interesting because I am
46:47
Christophorian in my eschatology and Arnzenian in my soteriology.
46:57
Yeah, I mean, it's a thing where I look at this and, you know, someone was saying, well, do you think it's
47:02
God's will that Israel is a state? I said, absolutely. How can you say such a thing? I said, because they're there, because I believe
47:09
God's sovereign. And the fact that there is a state of Israel means it was, it is
47:14
God's will that there be a state of Israel, because if it wasn't, they wouldn't be there. Yes, well, God's will involves, especially since you share my
47:22
Calvinism, God's will, everything that occurs in heaven and on earth and anywhere in the universe, it comes to be because of a decree of God, but that does not necessarily mean it's a fulfillment of prophecy.
47:38
Correct. And that was the point that I ended up making. I know that it's God's will that Israel be a state right now.
47:45
I'm not saying that's fulfillment of prophecy. You know, this is the thing that we have to realize is that we have the scriptures, and many people think they know prophecy, many people predict dates and things like that.
47:58
And yet, what do we end up seeing? We end up seeing that they've been wrong countless times when they predict
48:03
Christ's return. Why? Because the Bible isn't going to, isn't explaining when he's coming back, no matter how much people try to guess.
48:12
And I don't know if the rapture, the rapture, people would say, is the next big event.
48:18
And by the way, even with that, there is some differences within premillennialism that would have a different timing for the rapture to occur.
48:30
And so, in her view where she was saying she was raised premillennial, pre -tribulational, you know, there's differing views that people would have with when the millennium occurs and when the church is taken.
48:46
There's mid -trib, there's post -trib. So, they're not all universal with that.
48:51
So, but that's no indication, I don't think, with what we see going on today.
48:57
Is it prophecy? We won't know till it's over. Now, one of the things, and I hope that I don't trigger you or any of the dispensationalists who are listening,
49:10
I think that amillennial and postmillennial people have been unfairly charged with anti -Semitism for not believing the current state of Israel is a direct fulfillment of biblical prophecy and for not applying texts such as Genesis 12 and verse 3,
49:35
I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
49:41
I don't believe that that is an application for modern, secular, atheistic
49:48
Israel. I mean, I know that there are believers in Israel and they're not only Christians, of course, in a minority, but there are
49:55
Orthodox Jews, but it is a secular state. And I do not apply that text to the
50:04
Jews as a specific and unique people. And that does not, though, diminish the fact that I believe that, number one, it's insanity not to be looking out for the well -being of the
50:24
United States' closest ally in the Middle East. You don't hear Israel crying out for the death of America.
50:31
You don't have Israel calling out that America is the great Satan. And also because these people, these men, women, and children of Israel are the subject of grotesque and satanic and barbaric terrorist attacks.
50:53
And, you know, are you as a Christian going to only be concerned if your next -door neighbor, for instance, is being attacked by psychopaths and tortured and murdered?
51:06
You're only going to be concerned about it if your neighbor is a Christian? You know, obviously not. So, I mean, does what
51:12
I have said make sense to you, and do you have any response to it? Well, yeah, I mean, I think that anyone that's going to try to use that passage to refer to modern -day people saying that, oh, if you are
51:26
Amillennial or Postmillennial, you're somehow anti -Semitic, is, A, misapplying the term anti -Semitism,
51:35
B, misapplying the scriptures, because that passage didn't have to do with the state of Israel the way it is today.
51:45
So, you know, people have a habit of taking scripture and reading something that they think they can apply because the way it's worded sounds like it fits.
51:59
I mean, every time we have a president, we had Obama, Trump, there were Christians that were trying to use different passages of the
52:06
Bible to say, see, it supports them. You know, and that's not the way you're supposed to read the Bible, folks.
52:12
I'll encourage people to go to strivingturning .org, take our course on biblical hermeneutics.
52:17
It's free. That's how we make our money. Oh, wait. But we, you know, you can take our free course teaching basic things on how to interpret the
52:28
Bible, because a lot of people in both camps, all camps, you have people that wrongly interpret scripture and wrongly use scripture.
52:39
So I don't think that's a fair assessment for a dispensationalist to make toward a omni -mill or post -mill to say that they're anti -Semitic.
52:49
And by the way, Cindy in Findlay, Ohio, you have won a free copy of Andrew Rappaport's book,
52:56
What Do We Believe?, which has even received glowing accolades from the likes of Phil Johnson, who may very well be the most interviewed guest on Iron Trip and Zion Radio in our history.
53:09
He is the executive director of John MacArthur's Grace to You Ministries. And so make sure that we have your full mailing address in Findlay, Ohio.
53:18
Why don't you tell our listeners about this book that we are giving away? Sure. What Do We Believe? is a
53:23
Christian systematic theology, and it's not intimidating like most systematic theologies.
53:29
It's not 700 pages long. It's about 200 pages long, written in a way that almost anyone would be able to read it.
53:37
I have junior high school students that read it and understand it. And then the thing, though, that makes this book a little bit different is it's one of the only books
53:47
I know that deals with an area called textual criticism at a lay level. Textual criticism is trying to get back to the original writing of Scripture.
53:56
It is the number one challenge you will get when sharing the gospel, is that you cannot trust the Bible because it's been edited.
54:02
It's been corrupted. It's been changed. And scholars will study this, but very rarely do you see anyone explaining it at a lay level.
54:11
This book has a chapter to do just that. And so it's something
54:17
I think is very helpful for folks to learn a basic understanding of Christian systematic theology.
54:23
And then another advantage of it is that it is often, I'm told, used as a quick reference when people want to start studying maybe the doctrine of salvation and dig into it.
54:33
And what they want to do is just read a few pages and not have to read 30, 40, 50 pages of a thicker systematic theology.
54:43
Something about the way I write, I guess. I've been told I write very concisely. So, I don't know.
54:49
I preach and I take a long time to say things, but I write and I guess it's really short and concise and to the point. Well, I happen to think very highly of Phil Johnson's discernment.
55:00
And he has, as I said, thrown some very high praises your way for this book.
55:06
So, thank you, Cindy, for the excellent question. And let's see here.
55:15
We have another question from Barbara in White Plains, New York.
55:22
And Barbara says, It seems to me that a lot of the hostility that goes on today towards Israel is because the left is engaged at waging a war in the name of reverse bigotry and discrimination.
55:44
Whoever has the darkest skin is their heroes. And although they seem to be completely ignorant that many
55:52
Israelis have skin just as dark as Palestinians do, it seems that that, in my mind, is the reason they favor these people in Hamas and in Palestine during these current activities going on in the
56:10
Middle East. I think that there could be very much credibility to what our listener,
56:17
Barbara, has said. In fact, I wonder, and I have wondered, if the hordes of immigrants, illegal immigrants, illegal aliens,
56:32
I should say, crossing our borders, if they were Nordic, if they were pasty -faced white folks with blonde hair and blue eyes coming from Scandinavia and Germany, would the left be so excited and jubilant to welcome them with open arms?
56:52
I mean, I think that there's credibility to this. I may not agree so much with the credibility.
56:58
Let me explain why, Barbara. The thing has nothing to do with the color of skin, though that's what they claim, because you can see that they will have no regard for Asians, which they'll sit there and say, well, they're white.
57:13
Why? They're a minority. It's because they're educated. Why do they not like the Israelis? They're educated.
57:19
For the left to push their Marxism, they need uneducated people.
57:25
They don't want people that work hard, think through things, get an education, focus on having good, strong family values.
57:34
They want to promote anybody who they think is going to be easily manipulated so that they can keep their power.
57:43
If people were coming across the border that were Asian, they wouldn't open arms to them.
57:49
They don't open the arms to folks that they think would be hard to manipulate.
57:55
They want people that they think are easy to manipulate. I think it has more to do with that.
58:01
They just try to figure a way to twist it to say color of skin matters, because if you think about it, in this country, and for those who are listening overseas,
58:09
I'll just try to give some explanation. There was a gentleman who had shot up an
58:15
Asian massage parlor, and just prior to that, in fact, the morning that that event happened, there was discussion and articles going out saying that Asians have white privilege.
58:29
What does that mean? It means that they have good educations, they have good jobs. In fact, in America, Asians are the least likely to have a single mother family.
58:40
They have the strongest family values, the strongest worth ethic. Single parent family.
58:48
We could say it that way, too. I don't mean single. Oh, I see what you're saying.
58:53
I understand what you're saying. You mean unmarried or divorced. Okay, I understand.
59:00
But you see, the thing is that you end up having that the Asians have what we should all want to have, good, strong family, good education, good careers, making money.
59:13
The reason they have all those things is because it's based on that strong family, work ethic, and education.
59:20
And the left has done everything they can to destroy that very thing in America. What did they do? They brought drugs into the black communities, promoted the idea of women getting paid to have children by having a welfare system, destroying the family.
59:38
The black family in America used to be much stronger than the whites. And the left destroyed that.
59:45
And they destroyed the schools. And this is what they want. They just want people to manipulate.
59:51
Look, study history. I know this show is not, we're not this time. Usually Chris, I'm on your show, we talk a lot of Bible.
59:57
This one's more politics and world events. But if you study history, you know that when you have a system where you have people who want to have complete and utter control, they need to manipulate the masses.
01:00:10
And that's what it's about. They don't believe that Black Lives Matter cares about black lives.
01:00:17
Because if you look at the organization, they cared about the founders getting their millions and millions of dollars and funding only a couple of black lives, theirs.
01:00:26
And that's why you have so many of the Black Lives Matter chapters that were suing the headquarters because the money wasn't going to them.
01:00:32
So they say, oh, it's about the black lives. But really what it's about is these people getting their power.
01:00:39
Well, thank you, Barbara. Make sure we have your full mailing address in White Plains, New York.
01:00:46
And we will have Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, ship that out to you at no charge to you or to Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio.
01:00:57
And also, if you are a first -time questioner and that goes for any of our listeners today, you will also receive, on top of getting
01:01:05
Andrew's book, you will also receive a free copy of the New American Standard Bible, which according to one of our versions of the
01:01:14
NASB commercial on our show, that is also Andrew's favorite version of the scriptures.
01:01:21
Yes, I have. I covered it over a couple of years ago. I went from King James, New King James, ESV, and now
01:01:28
NASB. And I should give a shout -out. One of the people we heard during the commercials was one of our speakers at Striving for Eternity.
01:01:35
That's Aaron Brewster. He's got a ministry toward families. We brought him on as one of our speakers.
01:01:42
He still does his ministry as well, but part of our ministry and discipling future, you know, other ministries and other people, he's going to be traveling with me at different places, and we're going to be speaking together on issues of family and counseling.
01:01:57
So, you know, I'll just give a shout -out. If you want to have Aaron come and speak at your church, he's a good speaker, very, very intelligent man.
01:02:06
You can reach out to him. Just email us at speakerspeaker at strivingforeternity .com,
01:02:13
and we'll be able to get you in touch with him or just go to strivingforeternity .org, and you can see what topics he's, you can see his bio and what he speaks on as well as myself.
01:02:22
Yeah, one of my main points of today's show is that somebody's views of eschatology and prophecy that would be in the camp of most covenantal
01:02:39
Christians, although you may have noticed yesterday, Baruch Moaz, who is not a dispensationalist, he is a
01:02:49
Reformed Baptist Israeli, and he agreed with you that he does not know for certain whether or not the state of Israel is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
01:03:00
But there are many that do not, and that should not affect your worldview on how to respond to Israelis being under attack.
01:03:14
That, I mean, it makes no sense to be indifferent about that. If you have a heart beating with new life as a regenerate person, am
01:03:24
I correct? Obviously, you would agree with that. Well, I would, and I would argue that what puzzles me is
01:03:30
Christians who look at the situation in Israel and they're not looking at this and seeing that there's a situation of justice.
01:03:39
When you look at what Hamas did on October 7th and say, well, Israel shouldn't respond to that, that's like saying 9 -11 we were attacked and we should have just said, okay, please don't do it again, folks.
01:03:54
That's crazy. No, Israel has a right to defend their nation when it's under attack, and that's exactly what it was.
01:04:00
It was under attack. And so I'm puzzled by people who want to support the claims, the false claims.
01:04:10
Now, part of it, let's be clear, part of it is that we have a large number of people who don't study history or the cultures of other nations, and so a lot of people are actually believing because they've heard so often the
01:04:25
Palestinian rhetoric that they're oppressed and Israel controls Gaza, and that hasn't been true since 2007.
01:04:35
So once you look at the facts, once you understand the history, you realize that the talking points are not valid, and that even more for Christians to say, we need to stand up for truth.
01:04:47
Amen. And let's see. We have Thurgood in Winter Park, Florida.
01:04:58
And Thurgood says, what does your guest believe about the
01:05:03
United States funding Israel's fight against the
01:05:09
Palestinians and Hamas more specifically, and also about the fact that they would be doing so would be in a contradiction to most conservative understandings of being involved in foreign wars that don't directly affect the
01:05:29
United States. Well, actually, conservatives are divided. You have those that are more isolationist and more
01:05:36
America firsters kind of folk, and those that are libertarian leaning, even if they're conservative.
01:05:47
And then you have those that on the other extreme, you have war hawks who are conservatives who want to be involved in every conflict overseas and who want to turn the foreign nations into little democratic
01:06:03
Americas, but how do you respond to that? Well, first off, I hope that Thurgood is, if he's in Winter Garden, Florida, I hope he attends
01:06:11
Beulah Baptist Church there, great church down there in Florida. But I would say this, the issue is that when we say, well, how's
01:06:21
America funding Israel? Keep in mind, America's also at the same time funding Hamas.
01:06:28
Biden just gave Hamas, while there was no speaker in the house, he was able to, because of that, send out money to Hamas.
01:06:36
I believe it was $100 million to Hamas. So he's playing both sides of it.
01:06:42
He's speaking about defending Israel, but we see him funding
01:06:49
Hamas. So the issue there is a little bit of a fact that my personal view is,
01:06:57
I think that we shouldn't be involving ourselves in many of these world conflicts, especially when they have nothing to do with us, and no benefit.
01:07:05
Now, Israel has been a strong ally with America, and for that reason, I could see
01:07:11
America supporting a strong ally to help protect them.
01:07:16
But I don't hear this, Chris, these arguments being made with Ukraine. When Russia invaded
01:07:23
Ukraine, everybody, there's universal support for Ukraine.
01:07:29
Not from all conservatives, like Tucker Carlson was always opposed to it. Yeah, well, some, but it seemed like there was very few speaking out against it.
01:07:38
And yet, now we know, oh, look, we went into Ukraine because they got blackmail information on our president.
01:07:45
We have given 110 to $120 billion, folks, to fund the war in Ukraine.
01:07:52
So let that sink in. And when they were sitting here complaining about sending money to Israel, we're not, right now, the
01:08:02
House has put a budget together, and the Senate said they're not even going to look at it because it supports, there's support for Israel.
01:08:11
Nowhere near the amount. And Biden said he won't sign it unless there's much more support for Ukraine than for Israel.
01:08:18
And you look at this and say, we, I look at some of the wars we've done, it makes no sense.
01:08:24
We went to war in the Middle East, when Bush, W, was president. And then because of politics, he's like, okay, we're not going to try to get paid back for any of, we're going to help free these people, but we're not going to do anything to get paid back.
01:08:37
Why? Why should America pay to help free other nations that may not even want it?
01:08:48
But why should we fly around the world, spend all this money? So I'm not in favor of America being the world police.
01:08:58
I think there needs to be a justification of why we need to send support. And in a case like if it's
01:09:04
Israel, if it's Britain, it's Australia, one of the five eyes, these are the five countries that work together very closely.
01:09:14
I could see support being there because they're our closest allies, but like Ukraine wasn't one of them.
01:09:21
Well, we're going to our final break right now and we will get to as many of our listener questions as we can when we return from the break.
01:09:30
Welcome back. And we have Rubel in Bogalusa or Bogalusa, Mississippi.
01:09:37
I'm sorry, Bogalusa, Louisiana. I'm sorry, Mississippians or Louisianians.
01:09:46
And Rubel asks, do you have any books you could recommend that teach your understanding of Israel and the
01:09:58
Jews today? And does the book that Chris Arnzen is giving away by you delve into that subject at all?
01:10:07
I guess he's referring to the book that you were talking about yesterday? As my assumption.
01:10:13
The last part of the question was your book. Oh, okay. Yeah, my book I understand. Clearly, I'd support that.
01:10:20
But no, I thought he was referring to books on Israel. Was that just asking your opinion or your recommendation?
01:10:28
Yeah. I mean, I don't know too many books that cover the subject of Israel today offhand.
01:10:37
I might have to get, you know, Chris, maybe I'll try to think through, look through my library, see if I have some things that you can email the listener.
01:10:44
Afterwards, I'll look and see. I just don't know any offhand. Okay. And let's see.
01:10:56
Well, before I go to my next listener question, I want to make sure that you have a few moments before we run out of time to address those primary things that you want to make sure are etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today about the subject that we're talking about.
01:11:13
Well, yeah, the most important thing is to realize that there's a lot of myths that are being spoken about regarding Israel and the
01:11:21
Palestinians. So, just to recap some of those so you know what you need to dig into and find out.
01:11:27
First, you know, before 1948, all the people, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, all were called
01:11:34
Palestinians before 1948. There was no state of Palestine.
01:11:40
There never was. It was the UK that had control of that land. So, it was given to Israel.
01:11:47
They created the state. There was not an opposition. There was no oppression. There was no takeover in that sense.
01:11:54
There were people who didn't like a state of Israel. They're doing propaganda, and we have to recognize what that is.
01:12:02
But the most important thing is when we look at this situation, I mean, you know, people want to blame Israel. Well, just name the time that Israel walked into Gaza and just started shooting people at random, kidnapping people, raping women, taking little children, killing little kids, and doing all this while laughing, videotaping it, and praising
01:12:28
God for doing it. That never happened. In fact, what Israel's doing is they're sending leaflets and putting over the airwaves to get out of certain buildings because they're going to bomb those buildings because they're trying to prevent innocent life from being killed.
01:12:44
People who are not soldiers, who are not involved. Just keep in mind, remember, it is Hamas that's not letting people leave these buildings.
01:12:52
It's Hamas who's keeping these people locked there so that when Israel bombs them, they will die.
01:12:59
So that Hamas can say, look at what they're doing. And remember, the Hamas leadership is not in Gaza.
01:13:05
They're in Qatar. They're not there. They don't have to deal with the ramifications of their decisions.
01:13:11
So the people to blame who are really oppressing those in Gaza is
01:13:16
Hamas. And that's why Israel is saying Hamas has to go. Okay, we have Topher, which
01:13:22
I'm assuming is a nickname for Christopher. Could be wrong. Wyoming, Michigan. Topher says,
01:13:28
I was listening to yesterday's interview with Baruch Maoz, and he said that he believes in the existence of a state of Palestine.
01:13:37
Do you agree or disagree with him? As far as a country that was called
01:13:42
Palestine, not that there should be. It should be recognized by Israel.
01:13:49
So I think the issue is, I don't know how the two -state system would work. I mean, it would be fine if there was a peace treaty that there would stop being the warfare.
01:14:00
But essentially, keep in mind that they effectively have that in Gaza. Gaza is ruled over by Hamas.
01:14:08
So they have their own elections. They have their own government system there.
01:14:15
So I don't know what would be different if we had a two -state system. Well, thank you, Topher. And by the way, this is not only for Topher, but anyone else who sent in a question today that I may have forgotten to inform you of this.
01:14:28
You all have received, or will receive, I should say, a free copy of What We Believe by Andrew Rappaport.
01:14:36
Once again, a book highly commended by the likes of Phil Johnson, Executive Director of John MacArthur's Grace to You Ministries.
01:14:44
And so please, if you haven't already done so, make sure I have your full mailing address. Let me know if you're a first -time questioner as well, because you will also receive a brand -new
01:14:55
New American Standard Bible. And these will be shipped to you by our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.
01:15:02
Andrew, do you have anything going on that our listeners should be aware of? Any speaking engagements?
01:15:09
Any writing projects? Yeah, sure. I mean, I will be on Sunday, November 12th.
01:15:16
I will be at Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas. And then that week, Monday through Wednesday, I'll be at the
01:15:23
Legacy Classical Christian Academy speaking at their Worldview Week.
01:15:28
And we're going to top that off on Wednesday with a debate with an atheist. The debate topic is is
01:15:35
Christianity true? I'm looking forward to that because the... Remember, he chose the topic, but if he's going to argue for truth, he just lost the debate because he has no way of accounting for truth.
01:15:48
Yeah, he has no way to determine that. I will be in February. I'm looking forward to getting with a regular guest you have here,
01:15:55
James White. Both of us will be returning to the second annual Open Air Theology Conference.
01:16:01
Looking forward to that. The way they've structured that conference is becoming one of my favorite conferences.
01:16:08
It's more days than most conferences, but instead of packing it in, there's a lot of fellowship time. The topic will be
01:16:14
Calvinism. So that'll be a lot of fun. And I will be headed back to the
01:16:19
Philippines. So Justin Peters and I are going to be going and doing... I think they're calling it
01:16:25
Strange Fire. They seem to like to take other names that others are using, but I think they're calling it
01:16:30
Strange Fire. But we're going to address the charismatic gifts. And I'll say this, to ask for a prayer from folks, from the audience.
01:16:38
I do have a debate coming up. We didn't set a time, but Dr. Michael Brown and I will be debating whether the miraculous gifts continue, whether the
01:16:48
Bible teaches if they continue. So that's going to be... He was looking for someone to debate after the cessationist film came out.
01:16:54
And so I will be arguing for cessationism. He will be arguing for continuationism. And so be looking forward to that coming in the future.
01:17:03
And if anyone wants to have... There's nothing more that I love to see than two Jews having an argument.
01:17:09
Well, we know how to argue without it getting emotional. We love to... Jewish people love to debate.
01:17:15
But I'll say this, if anyone wants to have... Are you kidding me? Well, we get excited, but not emotional or name -calling.
01:17:23
But if anyone does want to have myself or Aaron Brewster out at your church to speak on many topics that we cover, you could just go to strivingforeturning .org,
01:17:32
strivingforeternity .org, and look at the contact for speakers. It has all the different topics or many of the topics that we cover that we could speak on.
01:17:41
We'll be happy to come to your church and do a weekend seminar. We will go anywhere. Size doesn't matter.
01:17:47
Remember, we target churches that are 20 -25 people so that we can help encourage them to grow in their faith.
01:17:54
Thank you so much for being such an excellent and informative guest. And I want to thank everybody who listened. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater
01:18:04
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