Why Bible Prophecy Matters

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. Hey everybody, we're gonna be sitting down and you, I hope your mind is gonna be blown about how exciting can Bible prophecy be and why it matters to the young person in your life and also you're gonna find out how you can join us on a very very special upcoming event as we head to Alaska on a Bible prophecy cruise. Stay tuned, there's more information coming, but let's go. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now, open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. Well, everybody, welcome to the Jack Hibbs show. We are so excited to have you with us today because we are getting back to some good old friends that we have both at the table and in the pulpit. And we're gonna find out exactly what that means, but we have with us, Jeff Kenley, who is a noted author and a pastor and a man that is just doing a great great work and we're just delighted to have him. And I don't know, do I call you a sidekick because you got your own thing going on, but you guys partner in crime and I'm talking about Todd Hampson, where these two guys are known as the prophecy pros. If you don't know, if you don't follow them and their podcast and their productions of what they put out, wow, you will after this podcast today, I highly recommend both of these guys prolific authors and except one thing that Todd's got up on Jeff is that my brain works in cartoons. Now, the good thing for the world is I can't draw a stickman, but my whole mind is a cartoon world. I see things going on around people's lives. I see giant draps walking by people and that's how I remember their names actually in events. And I think Todd does the same thing. He's a great cartoonist and you guys have taken these skills that you put together. But right before we went on the air, I was going to say, let's talk about dispensationalism and let's talk about isriology and let's talk about some theology and because both these guys are brilliant. And they said, well, we want to talk about we want to talk about something else. So we're going to I'm going to be a nice host and we're we're going to talk about some great stuff, but they had me honestly. They had me with their new book and that is a visual guide to the end times, a complete survey of the chronological chronology and events of the last days folks look at this. This is written for kids, but exactly anybody because I'm going to add this to my theological adult pastors. It's written for us for illustration purposes only, but I'm telling you guys talk about the book and talk about what's going on. If you can, some stuff we have to limit right now because of whatever. But you know, beyond being the remarkable prophecy prose and the podcasting and all that you guys do, the traveling that you do, the speaking that you do, the writing that you do. And in his spare time, getting his doctorate because he's got all that kind of time on his hands. Jeff and Todd explained the project that we have before us right here. And how do we, how can this program help you guys get this to be a best seller? That's what I want to see. Because kids need Bible prophecy, right? They do. And it's really for all audiences. I mean, it's visual. So kids, teenagers and up would get it. But it's really, it's really the theology in it is, it's pretty deep, but it's condensed. It's like, what are the basics I need to know? But the cool thing about the concept is it really goes chronologically through all the end time events and actually hits on all the things you mentioned, Israelology, dispensationalism, all those, all those key things. It gives people good firm understanding of those things in a visual way that they could understand. And we found that the pictures, like you said, like it engages people on so many different levels. Yes. And it brings them into the truth. And it's like almost like the front porch to getting them into the truth. So once they get into there, then like Todd said, we condensed like key passages and events and people and angels. And there's even a past, a past in there for pastors. What about pastors? How do I get on board with this thing? That's good. You did that. But the whole books for me. Yeah. As soon as you mentioned illustration on that, I think our God is a God that is, I'll use the term technicolor. You cannot read Ezekiel or Daniel or Revelation, where in I'm not saying, by the way, folks, I'm not saying that those books are pictorial because God is showing some allegorical display of something that is other than what is clearly revealed. No, no, no. I'm saying that in reality, God says this angel has a wheel within a wheel and eyes all around covering it. That is not allegorical talk. This is God's creative mind displaying and putting on the record that our God is a very, very illustrative God. And even in his creative powers, we're talking about how how even angels are described where I love how before the throne of God, you've got, I believe they're the seraphim with each has one head, but with four faces. I mean, just right there, just freak out. One head, four faces. That'll keep you up all night. That's great because it's like the same God that paints the sunset for us. Oh, I love it. It paints the mountains and all the rivers and the valleys and everything in the world. He also verbally paints pictures as well in his word. Jesus did the same thing. Behold the sower went out to sow. You're thinking about that. Jesus as the door, Christ, as the river of life. But when you get the revelation, like you said, there are so many bizarre kind of pictures. So we put them in a package where people can actually connect with them. Because as you know, Jack, most people come to revelation. They see a nonchal pass sign or keep off the grass. Nobody comes into this book. It's above your pay grade. So we really wanted to instead of dumbing down the truth, just put the cookies in the bottom shelf in a way that everybody can understand. And you guys are so good at that. You're so good at that. That we've had the joy of having you guys out at our church where you have spoken two years now. You have spoken to a remarkable gathering of junior hires and high schoolers. And they have just eaten up your material. They love you guys. And yeah, so speak more about that. Speak more about what's happening. And as you do, answer this question. I would think I have to imagine this because it was never my situation. But I'm going to guess that there are like you said, Jeff, that there are parents who are might maybe thinking, well, you know, we shouldn't get into the book of revelation with our kids because it might scare them where that is a very, very sad thing because it is the revelation of Jesus Christ. That's the actual title of the book, the revelation of Jesus Christ. And so we get all the way through the Bible. And then just before it's kind of like, you know, the last bite of the hamburger tastes the best. If you know, it's the last scoop of the Sunday with the banana sweat, that's the best. The last bit of the word of God in my opinion is the best at the end. If I remember right, the book of revelation references more Old Testament books than all of the New Testament books combined, which is remarkable. So yeah, there were like 400 different illusions to the Old Testament in Revelation alone. It's really great because, you know, I spent I think 25 years as a youth pastor and I came out of Dallas seminary not really knowing what to do with my degree. I just thought, well, I'll just teach them the Bible, right? What I discovered is they didn't want pizza and games. They wanted the truth. There you go. Students want two things. They want love. They want to know that you care and they want to know that you care enough to give them the truth because they've got antenna. They know when you're playing games with them. And so just give them the truth. And last year when we were here and this was my experience over my youth pastor career that students, when you bring them the solid truth of the word, they're not going, I can understand that. No, they can understand any depth of theology and biblical truth that an adult can. Absolutely. And so our job together corporately is to do what the psalmist said in Psalm 71. He says, Oh God, you've taught me from my youth and I still declare your wondrous deeds. Here's our prayer even when I'm old. That's us. Even when I am old. Oh God, do not forsake me until I declare your strength to this generation, your power to all who are to come. That's right again. That's Psalm 71 versus 17 and 18. Psalm 71 versus 17 and 18. And I believe teaching revelation actually unlocks the whole Bible for students because it helps them understand the complete story of scripture. Nobody goes to their favorite movie and walks out before the ending. But that's how we treat the Bible. It's too scary. And by the way, what we're seeing, we're doing these youth conferences that were spurred on by our partnership with you guys last year. And what we're finding is that when students hear about, because the thing people are afraid to teach them is the future judgments, because they're some freaky stuff. Yeah, yeah. We have students saying come into the Lord and then we have conversations with them. Why did you come to the one young man in Knoxville? We said, why did you come? What, what did it for you? Because he grew up in the church. Yep. He said, he said, I never heard that before. And I always thought, oh, I'll just, I'll just accept the Lord when I'm older. But I don't want, but I don't want to face that. If that's, if that's anywhere in the near horizon, I want to be out of here before that. Yeah. Well, wow. So I had no church upbringing. I walked into a church the first night I had ever heard the gospel. That message was entitled, how to inherit hell was the name of the sermon. And it was the judgment of God. Yeah. In fact, it was Greg Laurie was given the word that night. Wow. I was 19 years old. Gosh, I was 19 years old. I think he was like, he was like 25. But I heard the gospel for the first time. But what made me respond to the gospel was the absolute fear and terror of the coming judgment, because that sermon he gave, how to inherit hell. And he went down the list of those that are outside of the kingdom of heaven in eternity. And the first one at the top of the list was a coward. Is that amazing? Wow. Before the the Hormongers and the murders and the false prophets and all that stuff. The first one at the top of the list for those who inherit hell is the coward. Yeah. And man, I'm like, oh, my gosh, because I just remember hearing the gospel. And then I wanted to be thinking, well, I can maybe accept Jesus, you know, and keep that kind of quiet. And I'm telling you, man, by the time that service was over, I was just sweating. I was nailed. I mean, it was like a conversion that I later read from the Puritan era. You would have thought Jonathan Edwards was preaching. My palms were sweating. I was absolutely busted. And I knew that if I didn't, I did not do this. I was in mortal danger. Eternal damnation was like a blade behind my neck. And so look, I was 19 years old. That's what I needed to hear. And so some people, of course, need to hear that. Others are one in by the remarkable precious grace of God. Some of us need to hear about fire. That's right. But yeah, you mentioned an awesome thing in this great, great book. This should be reading for everyone. You should all you should all get this. So I'm not just saying this because you guys are friends. One of the reasons why maybe the biggest reason why we're friends is because like Amos three three says, how can two walk together unless they're in agreement? It's the truth of the word of God that has brought us together. I would respect these guys if they were to say to me, we can no longer be friends with you, Jack, because you've gone nuts. You've departed from the truth. That's that's respectable. It's the agreement upon the word of God that causes us these guys to put out this tremendous book that your kids need to know. Don't underscore or I should say underestimate your kids. Let them know this really in the Christian community. This is published by Harvest House publishers, great publishers, great people. Let's buy this. It's Christmas is coming up, buy it, get it for people. What a great gift. Toys come and go. This is something that a kid can pick up and really hang on to for the rest of their life. But you know, I'm just passionate about this book being a mega-seller. It's got to get out there people, order it, get it. But listen, walk us through, show them why this book is so vitally important. Yeah, so there's really a theme to the book and the theme is that Todd and I are your your pilots on this this flight. So you climb aboard prophecy airlines and you get aboard, you've got your boarding pass and you come on board and we just walk you through what it takes to get ready for takeoff. And throughout the book, we take you through the various major events. Todd does some incredible illustrations. We go through what's cruising altitude. How do you adjust to the air? You know, that kind of thing. And we take you through the rapture. We take you through dispensational theology. We take you through all events and people. Todd, what else is in here? Yeah, I mean, it really is a theological course in in eschatology. It explains, you know, the difference between Israel and the Gentiles, God's program for the is why they're such a struggle. You guys should autograph it. We'll send it to Tucker Carlson. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And can you see happy. Yeah, the action to do that. And that's the thing about this book. Yeah, and I mean, it goes through all the key figures we see in the end times. And again, it's in chronological order. So yeah, and it presents all the views. And then it shows the strength of the pre-trib, you know, the literal interpretation method. How we know Israel God's promises to Israel still stand. All of that is packed in here. All the really, all of the vital issues that people are dealing with today from Israel to standing with courage and culture, all that stuff. And how we're going to see evil and coaching in the end times, all that is in this book. But yeah, I mean, it's, it is just full, every single page has artwork on it. And the hardest part was distilling down the information. It's taken what we've written, budget. It was still tough to compare. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But that's the great thing about an engaging book like this. And Todd and I both came to Christ. You came to Christ as teenagers. Yeah. You know, for me, I was all three of us on church teenage. Unchurched, yeah. Completely. And so for me, you know, it was, when I first, I'd never anything deeper than a comic book when I became a Christian. I didn't know there were any things other than comic books. Probably have to agree. You know, and so for me, when I became a Christian, all of a sudden, and I became a Christian because another 16 year old, and this is why youth are so important to be reached for Christ because they're the primary evangelists for other youth. Yeah. He turned to me at the end of a church service that I've never been into my whole life. He said, Jeff, if you were to die tonight, do you know where you'd spend the diagnostic question? That's right. I'm a 16 year old. Yeah. And I'd been witness to by, you know, the little Christian girls and everybody else come up to me and I'd scare them off. But for that question, it pierced my heart. And I say that only to say that as I gave my life to Christ that night, Jack, I began to have a hunger for truth, a hunger for truth. And over the next 52 weeks, I read 50 books, but it wasn't just elementary. It was like J.I. Packer and A.W. Tozer and How Lindsay and people like that, you know, but just that's what kids have today, though. But we're not giving them that deep truth. We're just maintaining their Christianity. You know what truly bizarre. Thank you for saying that. Those books, for example, that you mentioned and so many more, these books are books that may have been written 30, 40, 50 years ago, but they are presenting eternal truths. And I don't know, we got to break this stupor that hangs over the head of the modern day church because when I got saved in the 70s, immediately, we were encouraged to go and read Tozer. Lewis, we were reading on prayer, Andrew Murray. And right now, I'm drawn to blank, but just J.C. Ryle, this was normal. In fact, the first commentary set, I have to agree with you. I just basically cheated in school because in those days, I could take a picture with my eye and then regurgitated on test day. And then, you know, two weeks later, I couldn't remember any answer whatsoever. But with the Bible, when you get saved, there's this may freak people out, but I'm just going to be honest about it. Two things happened to me. Number one, I wanted to read the Bible. And the second thing was, I wanted to find Israel on the globe. I didn't know where it was. What a weird thought, right? And the reason, of course, where the Lord drew your heart. Yes, because I'm reading in this Israel, in this Israel, in this Israel, now, back in those days, you know, there was no confusion about Palestine, Palestinian, Israel, and Israel, and Israel throughout the entire scripture. And I, being a teenager, where is it? And I was shocked to find out that it's so small that on the globe, you can't even put Israel. The name doesn't fit on the land. It blew my mind, but a hunger for the word. So, yeah, the first books I read and finished were books regarding scripture and Christianity. And those truths that it never changed, I would love to see people once again, start reading, like Reese Howell's Intercessor, or Tozer's the pursuit of God. I think Tozer said it took him 28 years to write that book. Oh, my gosh. And it's only that big. But I make it a point to read that book once a year, just to get my rudder and come to set. So healthy. Yeah. What else is going on? I'm going to say with that, we live in an era where there's so much confusion and fuzziness about everything, about a literal Genesis, a literal six day creation, the book of Revelation, salvation itself. I mean, so many things in our day that are just being watered down, the paradigm has been flipped to where the purpose of the church has become, try to water it down and get everybody in instead of equipping the saints to send them out. So we got a bunch of, we're getting people in, but we're not equipping them, we're not sending them out. So there's so many truths that come and are connected to eschatology and Bible prophecy. And it's one key area that kind of unlocks all of that for people. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, as we talk about in the book, it's like, there's an instrument panel. And all pilots, as you well know, have to look at the instrument panel. They can't fly by their emotions, by their feelings, or with their bodies telling them at the moment, they may be inverted, not know it. And this generation is growing up like no generation, the precedent of this generation is that they have no compass, they have no root system. And to their, you know, credit or demise, their parents don't have that to give to them. And so what we're seeing as we travel around is that really that remnant bride that's rising up is like, I never heard of this stuff before in church. I don't know ones ever told me this before. Exactly. And so we're just simply bringing this truth to people. And Jack, the great, one of the greatest thrills of ministries, you know, is that you see people, you see the lights come on in their eyes when you're teaching and they're like, I'm going to pass down. I'm going to put that in my Bible, you know. And so that's the joy of discovery that Eureka in the scriptures that people are getting right now. You know, I love, I love what you guys are saying. And you said something that triggered. What I just, I absolutely believe that this is true. People might say, no, I don't think so. You're pushing the envelope. And it's this somewhere back in time, somebody said, you can't prove the existence of God. It's got to be by faith. Well, the Christian faith is unlike any other faith because our faith is founded upon fact. What? What do you mean fact? Well, I'll tell you a fact. A fact where a Hebrew prophet announces that the Messiah of Israel and for that matter of the world would have to be born in Bethlehem. Okay. And to me, Bible prophecy proves the existence of God. That may be a huge statement for some people, but I have to tell you, I believe it with all of my heart because in science, you have to, you have to have a theory. And then you put that theory to a test. You take it into the lab off the paper, into the lab. And you, you, you seek to break it, right? If you can break it, it's not scientific. So if it's repeatable, right? Now it's actually a warranted the title of science because science is the reproducible evidence of the discovery. That is the definition of Bible prophecy. Exactly. So in my P brain, I, it's Bible prophecy that gives me so much boldness that's so tearyology. It's the eschatological truth that causes me to know that the so teary logical truth will not fail me. That's right. Absolutely. And you know, we tell students that if Moses and Jeremiah and Isaiah and Micah, all these Old Testament prophets, they either got really, really lucky on their predictions, which no rational person would say. But when you line up, the Bible gets it right every time. It hits a home run with every prophecy. It's never hit a ground ball. It's never struck out. It's a grand slam every time. It's never come close. Never come close. Always right on it. And you know, with Christ for filling 109 prophecies when he came, I mean, that is undeniable proof of the existence of God and of the veracity and authenticity of the world. I love that word veracity. I share with people that that was the main thing that led me to the moon was fulfill prophecy. It was a one thing I couldn't explain away. When I was 13, I would say I was a atheist, even though I would get mad at God when stuff bads. You're 13. You can say. You should know what he takes you seriously. Exactly. But it was fulfilled prophecy. That was the main apologetic that got me there. And then after that, like you said, we have a book. There's a book of history and science built in reality. So when you test it against the real world evidence, whether it's archaeological discoveries, scientific facts that have been in the scriptures hundreds and thousands of years before we knew they were fact from science. Exactly. And at some point, you have to put the evidence together and say, all right, there's a mountain of evidence here. You still can't evidence someone into belief. It's still a work of God and they still have to respond with the Lord. But you can at least break down those barriers to beliefs. Take away the excuses and say, you got a choice to make. We just gave you a whole mountain load of evidence. Yes. You have a choice to do what with the Lord right now. Because linked directly to that is the fact that every single prophecy was fulfilled literally, specifically, precisely as written. Now, there are people on the internet right now on Instagram, they're making these videos saying, you know why? There's no rapture going to come because there's no rapture in the Bible. There's no rapture even mentioned in scripture. And all millennialism, all these views, Jack, it's like they don't see or they don't stay consistent with the fact that God, what he said in the past, he's still going into the future. The same way he did in the past, literal prophecy. I must be getting really old because when I see those arguments and hear those arguments and there's some guys out there that actually have YouTube pages that they spend their time telling the world how wrong I am and how wrong you guys are by name. Well, why don't you respond to them? You should say something. Yeah, forget it. For what? I'm not going to convince this knucklehead. That's right. And I can say knucklehead because I got saved in a pre-millennial, pre-tribulational, futurist, literal interpretation, New Testament church. And so when you're young like that and you're new and you're eating it up, the Holy Spirit, honestly, bearing total witness to what Pastor Chuck Smith was teaching. But at some point I started reading some books, started out, believe it or not, it started out reading a little pamphlet that a guy by the name of Keith Green had written. Now, he's a musician at the time, but he wrote an argument about post-tribulationisms. And basically he said, that's where the real men are. Any whimper can look forward to getting rescued or escaping out of here. It's going to take a man to go through the trip. And so I'm 19 years old, I'm 20 years old, I'm thinking, yeah, you know, like my raw knee. And that's right. So it's funny because when I was challenged by that, I departed for a good year from my foundation that had been taught and I got to tell you, I was miserable. Being a post-tribulation is not because I still believe that God's grace would be there for me to stick my head out and get cut off. I believe God's grace would be there. You know where I just couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't take any longer that I was starting to lose confidence and salvation because if I was wrong in this area, then I must be wrong in that area. But then I see this happening. And I see a difference between the church and Israel and I had to spiritualize. And then I had to place the church in the area where Israel is at and the tribulation. I was so messed up and I got to tell you, God was so good to me and so merciful to me. He let me go on that bonehead journey because when I came back to the pre-millennial pre-tribulation, a literal view of Scripture, I had more weapons to argue with the post-tribulation brothers. And yeah, I do call them brothers. They're just wrong. And by the way, they're going to be so happy they're wrong, right? They're going to be so happy. But that said, this word, when it's prophesied literally to the point where it's almost, I mean this affectionately, it's almost to the point that God is so obvious in the details that it's almost crazy that he would do this where the Messiah is going to be betrayed for. Not 29 pieces of silver, not 31 pieces of silver, 30. He thought that was important enough and because he did, it is important enough. And you can just imagine that as the Jews begin, I think in the not-too-distant future, the veil begins to be lifted, right? They're going to read passages like that for them. It's just going to explode because they're going to realize, oh my gosh, they'll testament, warned us, not to us. They'll mourn for the one who is pissed. They'll see it and they'll finally realize. That to me is part of the beauty of the Word of God and people sometimes don't study the Bible because they're afraid of it or they don't know how to interpret it and that type of thing. But other people say, well, God's just very general about certain things. He's just very, yeah, he's going to come back one day, you know, type of thing. But God has given us so much detail, thousands of Bible, 8,300 Bible verses that talk about prophecy in the Bible that give us so much specificity. So instead of saying, well, I can't know or no, you can't really know. Guess what? Only one views right. Only one views right. You must study the Scripture for yourself to come to reason conclusion based on a literal interpretation Scripture. And that's a beautiful point because every believer out there knows this intuitively. We are sinners. We're imperfect. We want to impose our emotions and our desires on the Scripture. We want it to say what we want it to say, but the literal or I'll call it the plain sense interpretation. We believe God says what he means means what he says. Take it at face value. Don't force another theological griddle on it to say, well, he didn't, his promises to Israel, even though it says it's everlasting and eternal, didn't really mean that. The New Testament reinterpreted the Old Testament. Right. Right. If we want to be, you know, intellectually and theologically honest, we let the Scripture tell us what it means. And then it makes the whole Bible make sense. The whole thing lines out like one big story and you can see those truths. All the things we talk about, the rapture, Israel's role, all these key things that are that are front and center in our day. The answer is right here. If we'll just let Scripture speak, it'll tell us exactly what those things are. Wow. You just jared a memory. Now, I'm not intellectual enough, honestly, and I don't know enough, but I can start the engine on this and then please respond because it dovetails into what you guys just said. If I remember right, prior to 1948, there was the German School of Higher Criticism that in their theological view of end time events, they spiritualized the future of Israel. That Israel was not really going to be a country again. The Jews were not really going to go back there. They were not really going to be. God's done with them. And there was a guy who by the name of Harry Ironside, who him and Dr. John Wolverid would take journeys around the US and speak on Bible prophecy. And they would say, there's going to be a future Israel, right? Everybody would laugh. In no way, that's ridiculous. No, no, it's going to happen. Those guys stayed with it and then when it happened, wasn't the fallout of Israel being born a second time, Isaiah chapter 66 in a day, May 14, 1948. Wasn't it from that time, and maybe you can please elaborate on that? Didn't that begin to tear apart the critics because of the exactness of the Scripture? Can you shed some more light on that? Absolutely. And really from about the time of the 4th century, all the way to 1948, all millennialism and replacement theology ruled the day. Now, to their credit, let's give them a little bit of credit here. If you're living in 700 AD and you're looking at these Scriptures, you're going, well, obviously this doesn't mean Israel because Israel has been scattered to the wind to 78 AD. So, I mean, to a certain degree, you kind of understand that. But when you, again, study the Scripture literally, you come to conclusion, you say, well, I have to deal with that because God said they're coming back. And so, maybe I just should believe they're going to come back. People like see Isaiah Skofield, people like that, Dr. Louis Spirit, Chaffer, who founded Dallas Seminary. Those were the people that said, but it says it's going to happen. And so, here's the thing, people that believed in replacement theology, that believed in all millennialism, that everything's just spiritualized. When May 14, 1940 had happened, it should have been the gang changer of all gang change. Yeah, change, Matthew, I'll change it. Change your glasses. That's right. But what they did, many of them, to this day, cling to that. They cling to the system of belief. They're following the traditions of men. They are. They are. Absolutely. At that point, you're following the traditions of men. Matthew 23, when Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees and said, Jesus, they say, show us a sign. And Jesus said, you guys can tell me if it's going to rain tomorrow, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. Jack, the sign of the times was physically standing in front of them, and they couldn't see it. So, here comes Israel, the super sign of the last days. It's the greatest prophetic sign of the modern day. And yet, people are looking at that. And instead of recognizing that as Fulfill's scripture, they demonize that. Yes. And they say, no, no, it's not the real Israel. Oh, yeah. And in doing that, think about it. In doing that at this time, are you flirting with the doctrines of demons? Are you flirting with a deception? Because as Jesus stood before the Pharisees and would not believe, he said to them, you won't hear me, you won't listen to the words I'm saying, and you will not believe. Today, we have Israel standing on the world scene and people refuse to believe. That is the same spirit. And I'm not, this is not exaggeration. If you are looking at the Messiah's face 2,000 years ago, and he tells you, you're not going to see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes to the name of the Lord, that's a future statement. That's right. Yeah. And we know, and everybody should have got it then, which you didn't have to be an Einstein to figure it out. Hey, Zechariah talks about this. Hey, we know Old Testament prophets that spoke about this. Jesus tries to set them up to get a little bit of the grudge door open and it just wouldn't open. Today, we have the same Lord who, before he comes back, has set up Israel as the greats call it what you want. Lightning rod, flashlight, lighthouse, spark, and we're seeing people like you just said, I will not believe this. And they're getting all, I don't know. I don't know what to say. It really is a deception. And by the way, it's Matthew 16, not Matthew 23. But here's the point that that scripture makes is that all of those prophecies that previously came true literally. Now we have Israel literally coming true. In fact, Israel has to be a nation in order for the prophecies of revelation to come true. So hello, you know, the first step is there. Here's my question to those people. Where in the Bible does it prophesy that a counterfeit Israel will rise in the last days and half of all the Jews on the planet will come back and they'll want to build their temple just like scripture says and they'll return just like scripture says, but they're not the real Israel. Show me that prophetic scripture because you would think, you would think, Jack, if that were really going to happen, God would have warned us about it, right? What he does say is no, watch out. Israel will be back. 100%. Somebody, I believe, I may have this wrong, but I think many, many years ago, a man by the name of Zola Levitt was, I think this was before he was a Christian. He was Jewish. And he had a Christian in one of his classes. And he was puzzled by that and challenged her, challenged her, kind of mocked her, ridiculed her and asked her or said to her, prove to me that God exists. And she said, I can prove that with one word. And she said, Israel and him being a Jew, he thought she was going to say something else. And he said later on to hit him like a ton of bricks because he couldn't cope with the reality. Oh my gosh. Israel. And here we are today. So there's a lot of people today. I guess I should throw a commercial up right now. Right? We need to do this. We were talking about all this in depth. Yeah. It's going to happen right there. If you like what's happening here, we have to remember this, you know, because because now we have to do it. Yeah. Yeah. So you guys, we want to encourage you that the wonderful people at Harvest House Publishing who have been so generous to publish the books that we've written independently and collectively God has been doing a work. And we love these guys. But Harvest House prophecy crews with Todd and with Jeff and with myself that is going to be on June 20th, June 20th to the 27th. And it is going to be in Alaska crews. We're going to have a lot of fun. But we are going to go deep. We are going to be in the word. We're going to not only host you in teaching, but in Q&A. And we're just going to have the time of our lives. And so Alaska crews June 20th to the 27th. And you can find out more information at jackhibs.com. You can go to jackhibs.com. And that will direct you to the wonderful people that are putting this together. And we encourage you to do that. Space is limited. But make sure you want to act on that. That's June 20th to the 27th, 2026, which will be here in a couple of weeks the way time is going. And if the Lord doesn't come back before then we'll see you on this trip. But we'd love to have you. We're going to have a lot of fun. So with that said, I find it interesting right now. We've got all these dynamics going on. And I've been saying it this way. COVID was a big test. BLM was a big test. Marriage and abortion, always a big test to the church. Genderism, identity, gender selection, mutilation, all this insanity, all this stuff against things that God has set our sacred and perfect and been wonderful to him. Right? And now we come to, and I really want, no man knows the dearly hour. Nobody knows. But now the big dividing rod is Israel. The reason why I just said, what does that have to do with anything? No man knows the dearly hour. And the big dividing rod is Israel. After the topic of Israel, like COVID was a topic and BLM was a topic and genderisms a topic, what could be greater? What else is there? What could be greater than Israel as a dividing rod? That's right. I find it so fascinating that Jesus even commends the church at Philadelphia because they kept his name and they kept his word. And it's interesting to me. And I'd love to get your take on this. He says, I'm going to cause those who say that they are Jews and are not, who worship at the synagogue of Satan, to bow down before your feet. What do you guys think that mean? I have my opinion. What do you guys think that means? That's the letter of the churches in Revelation chapter two. And you know, the synagogue of Satan is, there's several interpretations. Sure. Of course there is. That's there always is. But one interpretation says that the synagogue of Satan were the Jews in that city that were persecuting the Christians. So that would be one of the interpretations of that. Others believe that it's actually Satan himself that is persecuting the church and he's using the community to do it as well. So it's a more cultural kind of thing. So there's several different interpretations about that. But what he says to the church there, and what he says to all of the churches in Revelation two and three, he promises something special to everyone who overcomes. That's right. Everyone overcomes. Now you talk about the lightning rod issue. Listen Christian, you have to choose this day. If you're going to get on Israel side, you're going to get on the other side. And for those who believe in the scripture, it doesn't mean Jack that we support every decision that Israel makes. Just like we don't support every decision America. Of course. People say, well, they're a secular government. Well, they were secular in the Old Testament. They were pagan kings in the Old Testament. In fact, what nation on earth has got more of their boobies recorded? Exactly. Exactly. So, but we support their right to exist. Absolutely. They're right to the land. They're right to defend themselves. And then for Christians, as we seek to bless them as much as we can, just like Matthew evangelize them and give them a gospel. Yeah. That's right. Tell them about Yeshua. Yep. So Todd, words on this. I was going to say one thing that keeps coming to mind is just the connection between Israel and eschatology. If you get one wrong, you get the other wrong. Yes. If you lose the interpretation method we're talking about and just let scripture speak, you believe there's a little Israel. It is the flashing neon sign. Yes. I have a book that I bought it. It may be one of the last copies because I haven't seen it anywhere else. But I bought a book from a from a professor from 1936 who wrote a book. It's called God in the Jew. He was a professor. All kinds of other professors you know endorsed it and everything. And in one chapter, it kind of sums up the book and it says, there will never be the national a national restoration of the Jews. I have a copy of the book. Two years later, there's a national restoration of the Jews that like we said, that might drop, verifies that you use a literal interpretation method, which also, again, it's linked to eschatology and it's all in here and all in what we're talking about, that there's a literal rapture. There's a literal future kingdom. There's a literal purpose of God focusing on the Jews during the seven-year tribulation period. I mean, you can't get away from that if you let scripture speak for itself. I know we keep harping on that. Yeah, no, but it's the dividing it's the dividing issue with the now within Christianity and people need to wrestle with that and let the Bible win. So I brought that up deliberately for this reason because the seven letters to the seven churches. So there's the approach and I get it and I understand it that in every era since the church was born, you can see where it has mirrored that time. There's also the fact that these seven types of hearts could be inside a believer at any given time of your life actually. You can be a Philadelphia and then you backslide to be a leo-de-sian. Having said that and maybe this sounds like a cop-out type of interpretation, but what Jeff just said about those who say they are Jews and are not. Okay, what you said I believe is unpercent true. I believe that the interpretation can be can be more broad than specific. Maybe even in the logic of it, the specific statement Jesus makes is broad. How's that meaning this? I can have a dollar bill right now and that dollar bill, I can look at it from various angles and isn't it technically six-sided? You've got the edges and you've got the faces. Okay, that said it's still a dollar bill. So we can only agree on the fact that the seven letters of the seven churches, it's not only history, current, but it's future. Look, we know it's future because he says to the Church of Philadelphia, I'm going to keep you from that hour that's going to come upon the entire world to test all those. I'll keep you from that that time. That said, he says interestingly enough, there will be those who will say they are Jews and are not. Is that something of the past? Sure, you just beautifully said so. Historical layers of life. Could it be something of the future? Of course. That to me is wild because when somebody says, oh, we've replaced the Jews. Right. Big movements doing that. You better watch out. Yeah, because don't say that you're a Jew and you're really not. That's true, that's a good point. Yeah, absolutely. It's an anathema to God. It is. There's cults like better out there. Right. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm going to have a phone call soon with one of those that claim to be the replacement of Israel, want all the blessings of Israel. That's it. None of the curses. That's it. None of the curses. It's like, no, we're the favored children. When in reality, as you know, Romans 9 through 11 spells it out so clearly, is that we're grafted in Romans 11, God says, has he rejected his people? Meganoito, he says. The strongest negative, and we would be like an expletive almost of our language. No way may God forbid. Yeah. And then verse 29, he says, the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable. They're unconditional promises. They're based in God and his own character. So friends, listen, you just heard Jeff say Romans chapter 9, Romans chapter 10, Romans chapter 11. And it just so happens that last Sunday, I brought up a verse out of Romans 15, 8. And out of Romans 15, 8, there's an incredible statement there by the Apostle Paul. And I want to get there with my blurry eyes. I don't have my glasses. So all of you can test me at home. But go to Romans, go to Romans 15, 8. And listen to this. It's precious. And it struck me. I don't think it would have struck me as much if we were not living in the times that we are. But with all the verbiage that's going on and all the podcasting is doing their podcasting. Listen, listen to this. It's Romans 15, verse 8. Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers. Is that a pregnant statement? This is Romans 15, 8. By the Apostle Paul, that Romans 9, 10 and 11, it's awesome enough that those chapters are there. He just doubles down. And he's announcing Jesus Christ, Yeshua, Hama, Shia, is the servant Messiah? Because my Jewish friends will tell me who are not yet Christ's followers. I'm working on them. They'll say, gosh, but Jesus got himself killed. He can't be the one. Armasiah is going to write in on a white horse and just let everybody have it. True later, the servant Isaiah 53. To me, Isaiah 53 is screaming at Romans 15, 8. Yeah, absolutely. And I love that next verse too. In an order that the Gentiles might glorify God. Again, Gentiles humble yourselves. He's using the Jewish people to show you what he's like and how to get grafted in. And then he then he cites prophecy for God as it is written. Four times. Therefore, I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing your name. Boom. He goes to four. This is what's so great. Friends, listen, I don't want to be, I don't want to be crazy about this. I'll try to control myself, but if you do not go to a real New Testament church, I'd go find one. And here's what I mean by New Testament church. How do you know if your New Testament's true? I imagine if you only read the New Testament. How do you know it's true? In fact, even Matthew's trying to help us out because Matthew will say, and this is written because this is what happened or this happened because it was written. You do not know if your New Testament's even true at all unless you studied the Old Testament. How did Paul, Paul did not walk around with a concordance and a New Testament. Jesus didn't use a New Testament. Peter didn't use a New Testament. They showed you that Christ was Messiah from the Old Testament. And here is Paul writing to us and telling us, oh, hey, really Romans 15, 8 and 9, he's saying this, salvation comes through the Jew first and then to the Gentile. And that's exactly what Isaiah said would happen. Remarkably. That's right. And God's going to take those, the nation of Israel off the back burner, if you will, because they're under partial hardening. And he says both in chapter 11 and right here in this chapter, verse 8, you quoted, he's doing this for the sake of the promise he made to the fathers. He has to keep those promises. He has to keep the promises. He has to. How more clearly can you make it? I mean, this was brought home to me recently when I was I was shopping in a very large box store that has grills. And of course, we love grills. And I don't know if you know the big green egg. But the big green egg is like, yes, I do. It's the ultimate of grills. Yeah, I don't have one. It's but I go to people's homes who have it's dangerous because it's so good. But anyway, I'm seeing this grill and my wife is always saying, go ahead, get you one. Get you to get you to serve this. Well, I'll replace the old one. I'll give the old one to my oldest son for his birthday. So I did the same team over. He's like, oh, dad, thank you so much. I said, here's the only thing. The thing, why is a ton? You got to come get it. So it's a y'all come get it. Well, one week past, two week past three after a while, I'm like, you're not receiving the gift. And I told my wife, I said, I mean to some, yeah, I'll get there. I'll get there. And I said, my wife, I said, you know, there's a part of me that says, you know what? I think I'll just give it to the other son. I'll replace you and your gift with the other son. Then I said, no, I can't do that. You can't do that because you gave me my integrity. I gave him my word. Yeah. And so I had to wait for the for the first born son to come get the grill, which he eventually did. I gave the other son a new and he's enjoying the grill too. So well, enjoy. But the point is it's all based in the character of God. People fail to see that that God's very word and character is at stake with Israel. He cannot deny them as long as there are stars in the sky. Jeremiah, Jeremiah 31. 31, there'll be Israel. I think it's Psalm 138 where he says there, I have astamed my word above my own name. Think about that statement from him because we know that at that name, at the name of Jesus, every evil bow and every time we'll confess that there's no other name given among men, whereby we must be saved. And then God says in Psalm 138, I have astamed my word above my own names. Yes. So he cannot lie. He cannot go back on something. Somebody might say though, as a critic, they might attack us and say, you guys are wrong because God changed his mind. He changed his mind there because he told Jonah go there, tell them I'm going to fry him. And he didn't he didn't come through. That's that's friend. That's not true. First of all, the nature of God, he has built into his very nature. The what's the word? His mercy, his grace will afford for us to repent. It's built in, but read the fine print. I think it was some 40 years later. Nineveh was destroyed. Next generation. But the beautiful thing about the God of the Bible is that though he pronounced judgment, the judgment was paused. It was fulfilled later, but it didn't arrive the way Jonah wanted it to go. And I get it. I studied that deeply and I got into Jonah's skin. And I was I was really rooting for Jonah because when you realized what the Assyrians did to the Jews, skinning people alive, making just like by the way, it's quite remarkable. This we're getting totally off the course here. But regarding Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire, I wish I could remember the book I read on this, but Adolf Hitler had researchers comb history to find out what was the Jews greatest nemesis? What was the Jews worst disasters? What can I learn from history so I could do it to them? And did you know that when they made soap out of the bones and lamps out of the skin of Jews in World War II, did you know that that's what they did in the Assyrian Empire? And so God tells Jonah, Jonah, go tell them, I'm going to fry them. All right, right? And when when God pauses because he sees their repentance, Jonah's all angry. I totally relate to Jonah. It's like, what are you doing? Why don't you why don't you let him have it? He did let him have it. Another generation, but wow, the exactness again of God's word. And the difference there is, there was no unconditional promise based on God alone. God's warning. It was the purpose of this statement of judgment was to give them time to repent and a chance to repent. Whereas when you look at the promises to Israel, they are so crystal clear that they're eternal, that they're only solely dependent on God and his character, like you said. Yeah. And then okay, get to the New Testament. God's not the author of confusion. Right. Over and over again, we see God's character is tied to his word. And just think about it logically, if he could play wishy-washy with his promises to Israel, what does that do for us as the church? What do you have to really have confidence? No, no, no, you have no. If he doesn't honor those unconditional promises he gave to the Jewish people fully, then how can we have any confidence he's not out of his word? That's the confidence this generation needs today. That's right. They need the hope that is only found in, like you said, the veracity of the Word of God. And that's what, so over here this weekend, to do this very thing, to help students understand the hope that can be found, the challenge that we see in Daniel's life, but also the trajectory of a life they can live through doing it like Daniel, being like Daniel. That's why we're here. And you know the message I find myself, if I could boil it down into a nut shell that I want to scream at the top of my lungs to students and everybody else is, you can trust this word. It's not a mystery. It's, I mean, it takes some work to learn it, but you can take this word and base your life on every single word in this book. You don't have to question it. It's inherent. It's authoritative. It guides everything that we do from cover to cover. As soon as you veer from that, you're in dangerous territory. You start, well, what is really authoritative? What is really inherent? How can we trust it? I mean, there's all kinds of questions that come to play if you can't take God's word of face value. So Todd just said, you don't have to question it. You know what's amazing about the Bible is, and he's saying you don't have to question it because it's reliable, but there's some of you that don't believe it's reliable. And so you would say, well, I'm going to question it. That's okay. You know, it's so cool about knowing God's truth, God's word. Do you understand that you're not the first one to have that thought of? I'm going to, I'm going to prove the Bible wrong. Did you know over history, the more skilled a person is at their journey to disprove the Bible, because we want the best of the best to go and prove the Bible wrong. So I want you to listen to my loving sarcasm to you right now. I don't believe the Bible's true. You can't trust it. It's got all these flaws and all these boobies in it. Please find one. Will you do that? Because you listen, you're going to be able to do something that Newton was not able to do. You're going to be able to do something that that Voltaire could not do. You're going to you're going to achieve something that like Lee Strobel could not. So all these guys, Josh McDowell's and others, there's so many others. See us Lewis. Oh man. See us Lewis. So many others embarked upon a life's crusade to find the Bible to be an heir. And we are still waiting for someone to produce something. Did you know that? So I know that you believe that your thought is novel, but it is not. And here's the great thing. Jesus said, I have told you these things in advance that when they come to pass, you will believe. He actually said, I was going to say, you will believe that I am he. He didn't say that. He said, you will believe that I am. He said, a go at me in the Greek language, which is equivalent in the Greek language when he said, I've written these things. All right, I told you these things in advance that when they happen, you will believe that a go at me. It is the same one who is in the burning bush, a top mountain sign, I talking to Moses. And so friends, listen, Bible prophecy is your friend. Yes. And the more that you dive into it. And you listen to guys like these two who will not tell you, well, this is the how it is. If it's an area of question, they're going to tell you there's various views on this part. Or we're waiting for this to be fulfilled. Or it happened exactly. And here's the proof of it. Beware of people who say, well, I believe and I think it's the way I interpret it. When Peter tells us, no scripture is given for you to have a private interpretation. Let God's word be the commentary of his word. It's the greatest thing to do. So closing remarks, guys. Well, we're excited about give it hope to this generation. Obviously it's one to the point where we've founded a whole new organization to do just that. You got a future hope dot now to find it more about it. Future hope dot dot now dot now. We believe that now with all this happening in our world and our country and Charlie Kirk and everything else, a door has opened. We must go into that door and reach the next generation. It's our job to do it. Yeah. So that's what we're trying to do. Amen. And here's the beauty of ministry partnerships and like reminded the theology is it was really sparked out of our event here last year. That's right. And then we keep you here all day to tell you how God worked all these details that we couldn't have fabricated for it all to come together. The right people the right time to the point to where now we're trying to take what we learned here and really replicate it all over the country and preach the Bible through eschatology and Bible prophecy to students because of what we'd seen. And this is before any of the Charlie Kirk stuff or or the recent studies on Gen Z and Gen Alpha how open they are to truth which also means they're open to there's a lot of error out there trying to fill that void. So we need we feel like we have a mandate with for a limited time to take this truth to the next generation either to prepare them for the rapture or pass the batana faith so that they can be well grounded through the whole Bible through eschatology for the next generation for years to come. I love what you just said about to prepare them for the rapture because I was blessed to grow up in a church that to be to be prepared for the rapture is to live out passionately every day your Christianity for Jesus fulfilling your ministry occupying till he comes right doing the work of an evangelist Paul told Timothy feed the hungry go visit those that are hurting go to the prison we do that because we believe he could come back today man that's right so we'll wait a minute don't you also have a savings account yes I do are you are you planning on doing something in 10 years yes I do I'm occupying till he comes I believe he could come today I wish he would come right now and I'm ready but and I'll lay this out there we'll end if you're walking around saying yeah I think I got time the antichrist hasn't come yet I can kick back I think things I think there's other things that are going to have to happen first you know what you're going to get kind of sloppy and the last time I read Jesus warned watch out for any servant who says my Lord delays his return how about you entertain this that Jesus said you don't know the dear the hour I'm coming so you need to be busy about my father's business as the message he showed us that he did so let's let's copy him but in doing that I I think that you're going to be more effective for heaven and earth how's that old saying go there used to be somebody used to say you're so heavenly minded you're no earthly good I think that's impossible that's right right I think if you are heavenly minded you will be earthly good and so we're living full throttle and we're hoping that Jesus interrupts us and so you guys is great having you just love what you're doing one more plug for the book Todd can you hold it up yes so visual guide to the end times it is literally for all ages it is completely comprehensive covers everything you really need to know and it distilled form and it looks really cool and it's a good coffee table book so lots of reasons to get it I think maybe I think maybe you guys ought to think about maybe we need to talk about hosting some sort of big gathering I mean great youth it's a good idea yeah right I like like I got to know where like maybe it's in like Denver or in St. Louis where the nation can come yeah yeah people can bring their young people and it can be a a big night a big day whatever yeah just on this stuff alone yes because what a what an what an infusion of hope our young people need hope and Bible prophecy builds hope so guys God bless you thank you I love you guys and until next time listen we believe that it's time for us to live out what we believe in it it's time for real life and that's what we're all about so thanks for being with us on the Jack Gibbs show until next time this Jack Gibbs podcast as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supported will you consider partnering with us through a special gift go to jackhybs.com to learn more and stay connected this episode is brought to you by progressive insurance do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash progressive makes it easy just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies the process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates potential savings will vary not available in all states