MARK HITCHCOCK | The Persian Storm (Ep. 902)

Let's be honest, most men drift. We wake up, we scroll, we work, and then we just rinse and repeat. And we know we're softer than we should be. That's why I built the 31-day resilience reset. This is not a devotional. It is a field manual for men ready to stop drifting and start fighting back. So, for 31 days, you'll train your spirit, mind, and body with scripture, prayer, and daily challenges that forge real resilience. Go to www.undaunted.life/31. life/31day to download this resource for free. That's undaunted.life/31day. Start your reset today. This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. Mark Hitchcock, weren't you just here? >> Seems like that. Yes. >> I mean, come on. Like, we we were trying to give you a little bit of a runway before you came back on, and here you are. You circled right back around. >> Here I am. >> Well, here's the thing. So, peak behind the curtain for everybody watching, listen to this. So, I don't know if you know this, well, you should know this because I actually just told you off air. The interview you did, uh, I guess it would be a couple of months ago now, a few weeks ago, has been the most talked about interview so far this year of all of our guests. We've had some amazing, awesome guests, but a lot of Faith Biblers have actually uh, I don't know if that's what we call people at our church, but that's we just coined the term faith biblers. They have stopped me in service to say how thankful they were for the interview because these are people that have watched your sermons for years. You know, you've been their shepherd as a, you know, pastor for years. You know, they may watch some of your stuff on YouTube, but they had never seen you before kind of in that long form like almost just kind of hanging out going into a bunch of subject things. And so I was like, well, we eventually got to get them back on here. But somehow you sat at this table for 3 hours and didn't even mention you had a new book coming out. And so I don't know what the deal is. I don't know like why you try to keep secrets from everybody, but what was the big idea trying to keep the Persian storm from everyone? >> Well, I just, you know, I didn't think we were talking about other stuff. You kind of talking about ministry and different things like that. So, I just, you know, I didn't I don't like to self-promote that much either. So, just didn't didn't think about mentioning that. >> Well, that's actually very true because I don't know how many years I had been attending Faith Bible and someone mentioned one of your books. I was like, Mark wrote a book and then they just kind of looked at me like I was a simpleton. They're like, Mark's written a lot of books. I'm like, my bad. I didn't really know this, but yeah, we don't exactly have a bookstore in the church, but um it was interesting because I have a great relationship with a lot of publishers uh that, you know, God has kind of hooked me up with these great uh publishing houses and Harper Collins is one of those. And so they sent me their catalog for the rest of the year and they said, "Here's who's coming out for the rest of the year. Who are the people that you would like to target for interviews?" blah blah blah. And wouldn't you know it, there was a book coming out in April by uh the very own Mark Mark Hitchcock. And the thing that was interesting about it is this book which is the Persian Storm which guys uh if you are looking at this you can uh pre-order this book. It's coming out I think officially April 21st. So April 21st. >> This was originally supposed to release in June I believe because you finished as long as I have my facts straight. You finished the manuscript before the war in Iran broke out. Yes. And so let's just start there because obviously they, you know, Harper Collins, Thomas Nelson saw it fit to, hey, let's push this up a couple of months, you know, write it maybe a new preface so that people can kind of like contextualize some of the things in the book. But let's just talk through the entire writing process. Why did you even want to write this? How long did it take? And then, you know, the decision- making around releasing it when we are. >> Well, yeah. I've written several books about uh Ezekiel 38 and39. That's the biblical passage that mentions Iran, I believe, in the end times, mentions Persia. And so, I've written a couple books on that. But Harper Collins approached me about updating all of this and bringing it all up to date. And so, just with everything that's been going on over there, obviously, you know, Iran for 40 almost 50 years has been the, you know, number one sponsor of terror over there. I mean, they got all these proxies. And so, we had no idea what was getting ready to happen. So, I I worked on the book, finished the book, you know, in light of October 7th and a lot of things are taking place, the nuclear crisis over there, what happened last year in June, you know, that 12-day war. >> Yeah. >> Um, so we kind of we did all of that, but then all these all these events started taking place here recently. So, what we did is we we went back and rewrote a preface to the book and and one of the important things about it is what I say in there is, you know, look that the the current events are going to change over time, but what the Bible says isn't going to change. So, we want to look at current events through the Bible, not the other way around. We want to look at what the Bible says first and then, you know, if things in our world mirror that. We want to point those things out. So, that's kind of how the process came about. And they move the the date up to release the book, obviously, because of what's going on right now. >> Well, I thought it was it was a very easy read. We were even talking about that off air because some of these books um they don't have to be long to have depth. And it's almost like some authors, they write to try to be intentionally obtuse, right? To almost seem deeper or whatever. It's like, >> but you have to have nuggets, some core nuggets that people can walk away with. Because I don't know if you've had this experience, but I have. I'll read a 400, 500 page book that's real deep. And you know, it really gets into a lot of subject matters. And then someone will ask me, well, what were some of the main points of the book? And I'm like, ah. And then you're like, oh man, I invested so much time in this book and I I I almost got nothing out of it. But um I I guess for you before we even get into the Persian storm because we're going to get into a lot of the detail. And again guys, pre-order the book. You can check it out. >> For you individually, esquetology, end times, uh prophetic writings, prophecy in general, that's not always every pastor's main focus, right? >> And so it's almost like, okay, there had to been a reason why God kind of sent you in that direction and gave you an interest in those things. But then you've obviously heard a lot of the critiques of uh the people that focus on prophecy like, "Hey, none of this is knowable. Like, no man knows the hour. Only the father knows the hour. Why are we spending so much time on this?" >> And then obviously you'll get lumped in with some kind of cuckoo guys that are basically saying at 4:02 p.m. on April the whatever. And then they're trying to give it to us and then they always kind of like, you know, >> try to backtrack, which is insane. They're trying to go uh in fifth gear and reverse uh after the time comes and goes. But for you like what what is your overall fascination with it? How do you feel like that came about? And you know what do you think about kind of the state of you know the study of philosophy or uh prophecy right now is? >> Well, you know when I was around 12 years of age well when I was around 11 uh the late great planet earth came out. I was born 1959. May of 1970 late great planet earth comes out. It's the number one selling book of the 1970s. Sells 27 million copies in the 1970s other than the Bible. It's the bestseller runaway bestseller. Everybody in the youth group is reading the book. My sister was older than me. I read through this book. There's some movies that came out kind of Bquality movies, you know, The Thief in the Night and these that we watched at church. And I was captivated by by by prophecy. Then that kind of went dormant, you know, through junior high, high school. In my early 20s, I started studying the Bible with this old older guy down in South Oklahoma City. We went to a Plymouth Brethren uh church down there assembly. And uh I I wanted to learn about prophecy. He gave me a book by Ha Ironside on the book of Daniel. I went home that weekend and devoured that book and I was hooked from that point on because what I realized is I was reading the Bible, reading lots of parts of the Bible, but I didn't know how to put the Bible together. And I saw that prophecy was the key to all of that. So when I was at Dallas Seminary, I met a lot with Dr. John Walver. He was the dean of Bible prophecy. He was like my old my older than my grandparents, but I mean I got to have spend a lot of time with him. And one time I asked him, "Dr. Walford, why do you love prophecy?" And he said, "Mark, because I love the Bible." 30% of the Bible was prophecy at the time it was written. He said, "If you love the Bible, you love prophecy." Now, hundreds of those prophecies have been fulfilled already, but there's a lot of these prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled. And what I found myself is reading through these big swasts at the Old Testament, you know, these prophetic books. If you don't understand something about prophecy, at least the basics of it, you really don't understand the Bible very well. It's kind of like a a guy I heard one time that he said, "My pastor can take the Bible apart better than anyone I've ever heard, but he can't put it back together again." You know, okay? And a lot of people can kind of, you know, go here and there and kind of look at pieces of it, but prophecy to me puts the Bible together from the beginning to the end. That's why I love it because I love the Bible. >> So, I think that's very interesting. Before we again, before we get into the Persian Storm, I've been asked about this a lot. So, again, I'm I'm not a pastor. I try to make it very clear on my show like look I I've not been given a flock that you know as the writer of Hebrews says that I'm going to have to give an account for. I'm going to have to give an account for every word that I've spoken. But a lot of guys kind of look look to me as like kind of this pseudo pastor. You know I hate any it's it's a little bit strange sometimes because of the things people will admit to me the things they'll share with me. It's like man these people don't have a relationship with their pastor. They don't have a relationship with their elders. Like they don't have foxhole guys that can be around there. But, you know, aside from some of the more dramatic things that guys tell me about their personal life, they'll they'll just say like, "Hey, man. I've never been discipled. Like, I no one no one sat with me on Friday night for 3 hours for however many years to teach me how to do this." So, I guess just in general for that guy that's fervently wanting to seek the Lord and they've only ever read a book like from beginning to end. So, whether they picked up a copy of Lord of the Flies or or some other book, they start at the beginning and they go to the end. That's not always the best way to approach uh the Bible, especially since it's more of a library than it is a book. So, what would be some just generalized good advice for guys that, you know, have an interest in the Bible. They they understand and believe that this is the word of God, but when they approach it, they kind of get bogged down. >> What I would do is I would encourage men there there's a few books I love. One is a commentary by Warren Wearsby, WBE, Warren Wearsby. There's the whole Old Testament in one volume, the whole New Testament in another volume. Uh there's another two volume set, the Bible knowledge commentary put out by Dallas Seminary. An Old Testament volume, New Testament volume. >> If you were, if someone were to get those books, there's another one that's just a one volume called the Moody Bible Commentary. It's the whole Bible in one one volume. And if they read the Bible, get up every day and commit to, you know, just take a book of the Bible, read a chapter a day, and then read in in either Bible knowledge commentary, Wearsby, the Moody Bible Commentary. Read all three of them if you can. It won't be that much. >> And that way you'll understand what you're reading and it'll drive it home to your life. It's just because, you know, a lot of people read the Bible, they don't have any idea what they're reading. They don't have any context. It'll begin to teach you how to kind of interpret the Bible for yourself in its context in in the historical setting. And so you'll begin to see how to read the Bible and study the Bible for yourself. And if you read through a whole book of the Bible, it'll kind of put that book together for you. So when you get finished, it won't be just, well, you know, it talks about this and it talks about this and talks about this over here. It'll put it all together for you. So there there's just those are some really basic tools that that are out there that'll just help you read the Bible and understand. But Warren Wearsby stuff is great. Great content, but real good application. And I think if men will begin to do that, the Bible will really come alive. It won't just be words on a page. The other thing is back before I went to seminary when I was just reading through the Bible for myself, what I would ask God every day, I would say, "Lord, feed my soul with something that I read in this passage." You I might read a whole chapter or two, and there wasn't really much in there that, you know, I really understood, but something every day would grab me. you know, there' be some verse, some thought that the Lord would use in my life and would would would minister to my soul. So, you know, I encourage men to do that as well. But, you know, if you can find somebody that knows the Bible pretty well, that can help teach you like God brought this old old guy into my life, really knew the Bible well, and that was one one of really the the pivotal moments in my life, and and God was doing that in his providence to prepare me for what he wanted me to do later. Well, Mark, one of the things that I've I've seen even in just the advice that you gave here for forging table prep. So, as everybody knows, Jay Jay's been on here several times. We'll eventually get you on here, but it's all lay pastors except for guys like Jay or Matt Chandler or Joby Martin, but these are just guys that approach the Bible very differently. And so, some of the guys when they prepare for the forging table, they will just reread the passage that we're going to be getting to. They'll just read it over and over and over and over and over. Then they'll get to commentary. Mhm. >> So for me, what I like to do is I I have a stack of commentaries right next to me. So I'm going to read the passage and then I kind of will mix and match. So I have the Moody commentary. I have the one volume John MacArthur commentary. I have the Reformation study Bible which has great notes. And probably the my favorite Bible if I'm suggesting somebody to have one is the ESV study Bible from Crossway. I think it's absolutely spectacular. And then, you know, depending upon the book that we're reading, like right now we're in Romans. I probably have about a dozen different commentaries from different writers from different eras. Some guys that are still alive, some guys that are not, and I will just kind of, you know, it's almost like I'll just stare at the shelf until one like speaks to me. Like, and I'm not thinking like in a super Pentecostal kind of way, but I'm like looking at it and I'm just like, okay, for whatever reason, I'm I'm being drawn to this one. And so, I'll pull that out and then I'll just start reading in that one from the section that I am in Romans. And it's very helpful for me because I am one of those guys that will read a a section of scripture and I'm just like, "Oh no, I have no idea what's going on here and the context is completely lost on me." And so that that is absolutely very helpful. But you know, the the encouragement that I would give to guys and that I'm sure you would echo, >> it's about how much of the Bible you consume, not necessarily how good you are at studying it. And so we have guys that are like, "Well, I don't have time to study it, so I might as well not consume it." It's like, >> just get it in there, man. like whether you're listening to the Daily Blade or whether you're just reading the verse of the day or just reading a chapter at a time, just do what you can to get it in there. But as you talked about with, you know, roughly 30% of the Bible being prophecy, it really goes back to this quote from the early part of the Persian storm. You may be wondering how you can trust what this book says when everything in Iran seems to be changing so fast. Here's my answer. That's precisely why Bible prophecy matters. I mean, you basically said something to that effect earlier cuz peak behind the curtain, guys. We are recording this the morning where it is currently 9:20 on Tuesday, April the 7th. >> This is the day where Donald Trump has given really another self-imposed deadline to Iran. Like we get a deal done today or else, right? So he's got this ultimatum that's currently sitting there on the table. And so a lot of you guys are listening to this just a few days after this time period. >> But obviously the publisher has got to be a little worried about when do we release this thing because we've already pushed it up two months and things can also be changing. but really kind of give us an idea as to even even further than what you've said already about why Bible prophecy matters to what we're currently seeing because a lot of people don't really draw the connection like oh that's prophecy that's stuff that you know was you know talked about thousands of years ago isn't that Nostradamus guy doesn't he make all these predictions that don't really come true or any of those types of things and then also kind of like dovetail into why specifically Ezekiel 38 and39 is a specific section of prophecy that helps us understand what's happening right now in the Middle Well, you know, there's about a thousand prophecies in the Bible. About 500 of those have been fulfilled or 500 unfulfilled. >> I mean, that that's quite a track record. Yeah. >> I mean, prophecy is the number one apologetic for the truth of the Bible. It's it's the fingerprint of God. It's the signature of God, I believe, on the Bible. You know, the Quran, Book of Mormones, but they don't have prophecies that have come true. Hundreds hundreds of prophecies have come true. So, we study Bible prophecy because the Bible has this track record of prophecies coming true. In fact, there are ancient prophecies about Persia that came true >> in modern day Iran. So, we can know that the ones that haven't been fulfilled will be literally fulfilled because these other ones were literally fulfilled as well. >> And so, we want to understand prophecy today, I believe, as well. Because, you know, in our world today, the whole focus of the world's on Israel all the time. >> Yep. >> You know, we see just surging anti-semitism in our world. You know, why is that? Why why is it always the Jews throughout all of history? It's always been the Jews. It's not the Irish, it's not the Italians, it's not the Russians. There's not an agelong, you know, desire to get rid of the, you know, the Brazilians or whatever. It's always the Jews because God has made promises to and through the Jewish people that God's going to fulfill. Satan knows that. So, he's trying to eradicate and wipe out the Jewish people. And the Bible tells us, I believe, that that the Middle East, Israel, is the staging ground for the events of the end times. That's where it's all going to come down. That's where Armageddon is. It's in northern Israel. You know, the battle of Armageddon. It's all going to happen there. And so, understanding something of what the Bible says about this, I think, helps us to understand in our world today what's happening. You You have globalism today. I mean, the whole world shrinking back down again. we've got all this technology where, you know, the tools of world domination are here where if someone gets, you know, enough control of of AI and maybe there's some quantum leap in that that they're able to to get control of and drone technology or whatever, they can control the world. So, we see how the world is taking shape exactly like the Bible says it's going to in the end times, one ruler over the world, that this coming antichrist figure. So that's just kind of some general things and you know and people have a lot of questions and I think as believers if we have solid you know sane answers and show people in the Bible when someone starts talking about man can you believe what's happening over there and all you could say you know the Bible did you know the Bible actually predicts a lot of these things that are kind of happening they're like well no you can show them these things it's a it's a way to to to share the gospel with people but you know specifically in Ezekiel 38 and 39 this is a passage that obviously chapters 38 and 39 follow chapter 37. That's a great revelation. But in Ezekiel 36 and37, you have the reathering of the Jewish people to their land. And I believe it's the reathering that started in 1948. 1948, 6% of the Jews in the world are in Israel. Now it's almost half. There's almost 8 million Jews that live in Israel today. About 16 million Jews in the world. So all of this has taken place when we've actually seen that the fulfillment of that with our own eyes since 1948. So if Ezekiel 36 and 37 are happening today, we can believe that Ezekiel 38 and 39 will happen. What that predicts is a coalition of nations are going to come against Israel. We'll talk about this later, but it says when Israel's at rest and living securely. Says that twice. Ezekiel 38 38:11. It also says twice it's going to be in the latter years or it's going to be in the last days for Israel. So it's it's putting this in the in the escaton in the future. And it talks about these nations that will invade Israel in the end when they're at rest and living securely. And it it lists nine nine specific geographical locations. We'll talk about this in a minute. The leader is called Gog. Now I don't think his name's literally going to be Gog. Gog's probably a it's probably a a Sumerian word from a Sumerian word that means darkness. So it's just kind of you picturing this ominous figure. We know that Gog's an individual because God speaks to Gog and you know says things to him and it says that Gog is the the prince of me the the prince of Ro, Mach and Tubal. So obviously Gog's a person but these other nine names that are mentioned there are geographical locations. So you have Ro, Mach, Tubal, Goomemer, Togarma. But one of them in Ezekiel 385 is Persia. And there are 36 references to Persia or Persians or Persia in in in the in the Old Testament in the Bible. And 35 of those have already happened. They involve past events. But Ezekiel 38:5 is a latter days, last latter years, last days prophecy when Ezekiel's been reathered to when when the Jews have been reathered to their land. And the name was just changed in 1935 from Iran to Persia. And then in 1979 it became the Islamic Republic of Iran. So you know there's a clear connection between Persia and and modern day Iran. Now when you read these names in Ezekiel 38 1-6 these nine places that are mentioned these are the ancient places. You know Ezekiel writes around 570 BC. So that these are the names of these places then. But I think today what we would do is look to the modern counterparts of these places. And if you look at that it it's it's Russia. I it's Turkey. Four of the names are Turkey. You have Mishk, Tubal, Goomemer, and Togarma. And then you have in verse five, you have Persia that's mentioned. You also have a nation called Put, which is modernday Libya. And you have Kush, which is modern day Sudan. >> And these are also, you know, Islamic nations. North Sudan is a Islamic nation. So obviously Turkey right now is a major player over there. Russia, Iran, you know, big-time allies. Iran sending drones to Russia. Russia sending planes back to Iran. So, you know, we we see this big this scenario and it pictures these nations coming against Israel in the end and then we'll talk about this again, I know, but the these nations are supernaturally destroyed by God. And this is a big watershed moment, I believe, in the end times because God says then they're going to know that I'm God. In other words, he's going to use this event to bring about a I think a great conversion of many people in Israel and even gentile nations will know that he's God as well. Hey guys, real quick. You may have noticed a lot of companies out there that are advertising and marketing that they're American companies, but guess what guys? All of their manufacturing and all of their jobs are overseas, right? These companies are manufacturing overseas in order to increase their profit margins, but they're allowing globalism to put America and Americans behind. 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My personal favorites are the Whiskey Main mocktoe boots in a natural wedge sole. I wear those around all the time. And they also make great workout clothes. They have everyday pants and shirts. They're getting more into kind of men's casual stuff. They have indestructible hoodies. They're launching new apparel all the time. It's just an amazing, amazing company. So guys, if you haven't already, you need to check them out and support a company that supports Americans. Try Origin out today by going to origusa.com. That's originusa.com. Use the promo code undaunted to get 10% off your order. Again, that's originus.com. Promo code undaunted to get 10% off your order. When I I I really want to get into all those things. Before that, I want to go to something that you said early on. just the overall rise of anti-semit anti-semitism. It's it's just continuing a pace. It's not uh uh happening a new, right? This is something that's continued to happen. But we see a lot of this coming from the left, right? Because they just hate anybody that's religious that believes in God anyway. That's kind of like a kind of a basic standard for being a leftist. But now from the right, we're getting a significant amount of it. And it's coming from people that are kind of on the I've heard them called the conspiracy theory right uh the horseshoe right like the people that where they kind of horseshoe back around and they end up kind of being on the left on some of these positions because they've pushed so far right. They've they've yanked the Overton window so far to the right and it's it's almost a meme now to where it's like okay something has gone wrong in the world up it's the juice. All right well the weather is going crazy in the southeast. It must be a mass op or something like that. And so some of it is obviously MSAD does operations all over the world. Obviously MSAD and the Israeli government is spying on the United States. Like we are their ally, but also we are, you know, at least somewhat tangentially an enemy o of theirs, even though again we're kind of allies, but they're keeping tabs on us. So it's kind of the the Reagan trust but verify kind of a thing. But I I guess in these end times, are we going to see a significant increase of anti-semitism? But then I even as I asked that I had I always think about the people that were living in the 1930s and 40s that had to have felt like the end times right with World War II or being sandwiched between World War I and World War II. I mean the actual Holocaust of Jews. This is all you know pre948 with the creation of Israel. And so I'm like yeah it seems bad because you know of bad posts on Twitter but it's like they weren't being rounded up and you know gassed by the millions either. And so I guess I'm just wondering how to place the the anti-semitism that I'm currently seeing with what we've seen throughout history. >> Well, it's gone, you know, it's it's been consistent, but there's been waves and times of that. Obviously, in the 1930s, you know, people thought Mussolini was the antichrist. You know, there's Roman leader Hitler. Hitler says you're going to have a Reich that's going to last a thousand years, like a false millennium. So, you know, a lot of that but was significant, but it was that was all stage setting because it's out of the ashes of the Holocaust that we got May the 14th of 1948, which is the rebirth of the modern nation of Israel. And so, you know, a lot of people today, you know, you look at a lot of things and they'll say, well, you know, the world's always been in turmoil. There's always been problems. You know, what's unique about today? What's unique about today is Israel that they were never they never a nation from 70 AD to 1948. That's significant. Their language had died. The language had died out. They'd been scattered to 70 countries for 2,000 years. That's never happened in history that a nation people came back to their land like that that have been deported. They actually deported twice and came back to their land. You know, they're deported by the Babylonians as well. So, you know, it it's been throughout history, but now it's ramping up. And and Zechariah 12:1 says, "All the nations are going to gather against Jerusalem. They're going to come in against Jerusalem, but Jerusalem is going to be a burdensome stone. In other words, they're going to try to lift it. And it says they're going to injure themselves. In other words, they're not going to be able to overcome the Jewish people no matter what they do. But you know, Satan, God in Genesis 3:15, God made a promise that the one from the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. >> Yeah. >> Well, Satan knows what's going on. And when God comes and tells Abraham, through you all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed. Satan knows this Messiah is coming. This this headcrusher is coming through through Abraham. Then he knows he's through Isaac. Then through Jacob. Then of Jacob's sons, it's Judah who he's going to come from. Then in 2 Samuel 7, he's going to come from David. So he tries to wipe out David's line, you know, the kingly line. Well, he's unsuccessful, but you know, Jesus dies and rises again. And so now now Satan's on what I call plan B, which is wipe out the people over whom it's promised that Jesus will come and rule and reign. So he's trying to thwart the promises of God. And if he can wipe out the Jewish people, he believes that he can, you know, basically shortcircuit God's God's plan. And so that's why it's always the Jews. It's satanic. I It's demonic. You know, we, you know, a lot of people say about things being satanic and kind of overdo that, but this clearly is satanic. You go to Revelation 12, it's the War of the ages. I mean, Satan is after the woman there that picture that's it's a picture of Israel to to wipe her off the face of the earth. And what we see now is just just a faint foreshadow of what's coming during the tribulation period. The Antichrist is going to be the worst anti-semite in history because he's going to be totally empowered by Satan to try to wipe out the Jewish people. And you know, Israel is this tiny little nation of their size in New Jersey. 8 million Jews live there. You know, a lot of Arabs live there as well. But, you know, everything's being all everything's being done to wipe them out. They're they're in a sea of enemies. I mean, they're surrounded by hundreds of millions of enemies. And yet there they are, this little tiny nation still continuing to exist there. And you know, a lot of people today, you're talking about these people on the far right, the conspiracy theorists. They'll say, "Well, you know, who's Israel today? Is this really Israel?" Well, Israel is a land is a people, but it's a land right? >> It's a land that God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. >> Well, that's what you talk about in the Persian storm. talk about kind of the two main drivers of anti-semitism is one a clash over who is the rightful owner of this land right and if you don't take the Bible seriously you don't take the the land deed that God gave to the Israeli people you don't take that seriously but then also you say Satan is the main driver >> and because if he's the father of lies he's also the father of confusion and if you can sew enough confusion in people and that's what I've talked about uh here recently done a lot of thinking about is just we're in this crisis of discernment as as just a people and we live in a time where there's uh the most ubiquitous time in history for Bible ownership and almost poultry levels of biblical literacy. Right? So, Legionire Ministries did the state of theology in 2025 >> in the statements that would get majority opinions of people agreeing with it. Right? Roughly half of self-described evangelicals, right? People that say the Bible is their main source for truth and you got to believe in Jesus. They also say that God accepts the worship of uh all religions like Judaism and Islam and Buddhism and all those different things. These are evangelicals. And so obviously it's like it's hard to even have a discussion with someone about prophecy when they don't even understand like basic biblical theology. But we're not going to get on a big diet tribe about theology here. I did want to ask even more specifically about Iran because we have we have the Islamic Revolution in 1979. >> But what people don't people don't really understand a whole lot about Islam, right? And as a culture, we treat Islam like it's Christianity and Christianity like it's Islam because of how people react to Christianity when that's like, "No, no, no. What you're describing is Islam." But specifically, the Islamic regime, they believe in the 12th imam, right? This is part of their uh um of Shia esquetology. And so this is called, you know, colloquially by them, the Mai. and that the body will return uh amid kind of this global chaos and warfare and is basically going to establish divine justice. So it almost has earmarks of some of the things that we see in the book of revelation uh through through John. And so just give us a little bit of a better idea because people don't even understand the the Sunni Shia divide. They don't understand that it goes back to a debate over okay which of the sons uh was taken up on the mountain uh and from what line do do these people break off from but specifically how the this Shia esquetology is really undergirling everything the current Iranian regime is doing. >> Well yeah you because you look at the the threats the ultimatives President Trump's making over there and you think you know rational people they don't have any really control of the air. You think they'd say okay we're we're you know uncle you know we're going to surrender you know we're going to give up. But they have this radical uh this radical esquetology. You know, Joel Rosenberg um you may know know his writings. He's written a lot of great fiction books, but uh he has a book called Epicenter that's really good. But he calls the the the regime in Iran an apocalyptic genocidal death cult. >> Yep. >> And that's really what it is. Yeah. But but the whole driver behind it is apocalyptic. And so they may even see what's happening now as part of this apocalyptic scenario that's going to bring the MI back. You know, they think all this chaos is going to put out the welcome mat for the mi. So the mahi to them the 12th Imam went into hiding in in the late in in the late 800s AD. So you know long time ago in the 9th century and he was a boy when he went into hiding went into occlusion. So obviously there was never a 13th Imam that was born because obviously he didn't have children. So, he's been in hiding all this time and he's going to reappear in the end times when, you know, there's a time of chaos and warfare and all this is taking place. And they believe that they can, again, as I mentioned earlier, put out the welcome mat for the Motti by, you know, having this chaos and America's the great Satan. Israel's the little Satan. So, we're we're two of the people that need to be dealt with in all of this. That's why they hate our country so much. They hate the West. So they believe that they're paving the way for the Mahi to come back. And so you it's hard to deal with people like that. And that's why those are the last people on earth that you want to have a nuclear weapon, >> right? >> You know, as crazy as as you know, you know, the Russians were or China might be or even, you know, Kim Jong-un over in North Korea. They're mainly atheists and they don't want to die. Y >> you know, because they think when they die it's over. So there's some there's some restraint there. There won't be any restraint with Iran. you know, they they're going to use these weapons to bring about the apocalypse that they believe is going to happen. And that's why they'll kill their own people. You know, they'll kill 40,000 of their own people. They'll do whatever they have to do to keep that regime in place. Let me just say this, too. Just pause for a second, is, you know, in the books I write like this, I always make clear upfront, I love the Iranian people. >> Yep. >> I know several Iranian people here in in in our area. Um, I love the Iranian people. I pray for Iran. It's the it's the Mulla regime. It's the regime. It's just like in Germany, in Nazi Germany, the regime has is running everything over there, is oppressing and dominating its people. There's actually a lot of uh spiritual awakening happening in Iran. Many many people coming to Christ and we need to be grateful for that. So, anything I say here today, I'm writing, I'm not I don't hate Iranians. I don't hate the Iranian people. I love them. But it's this apocalyptic genocidal death cult of a regime that that's running everything over there and oppressing these millions of people who live there. >> Yeah. And you you echo that quite often. You mentioned it several times in the Persian storm. One thing that I am curious about because I I don't doubt what is being said because I've heard the exact same thing about the fastest growing church in the world is actually in Iran and you have so many people because of you know basically being jaded by the Islamic death regime that's running Iran. They're going from Muslim to atheist and then they're seeing a guy in a white robe in their dreams and that guy happens to be Jesus and then they're becoming Christians. >> How can we substantiate that that's happening? Again, I'm not I'm not skeptical that it is. Like I I believe that it is, but with a country that has turned off the internet, they they I mean, we can't even get videos of the bodies that are obviously being stacked up all over the country that are, you know, being killed by the regime. So, how can we know for sure that the the church is growing over there? And if so, how is it continuing to grow? >> Well, yeah, I think there are some of these visions that are taking place and all, but you know, several years ago, I was on with John Ankerberg. You know, if you heard of John Ankerberg, his program goes all over the world. I was on there. We did a prophecy program, me and Ed Heinson and Ron Rhodess and wonderful time together. But before we got on, he he brought us up into the room. He says, "I want you to know who you're talk who your audience is." He said they get more mail and and email and feedback from Iran than any other country in the world. And these are programs. We were talking about Bible prophecy and talking about Israel, you know, Israel being being key. And he told me that one lady describes how she's sitting in a back room in her house with the blinds fault down with foil on all of her windows watching a you know TV, this little TV that she has somehow she's picking up his channel and and sends in and asking these questions about what's happening. And I remember when I was there, man, I got tears in my eyes. I thought, yeah, if if these are the people we're talking to. I mean, what a privilege to do that. I mean, that's anecdotal, I know, but but still, I mean, he get he said it it was in the hundreds of thousands, some years, a million uh responses from people in Iran. So, you know, whether they're all believers or not, there was this interest, you know, in what he was talking about about the Bible and especially these prophetic programs. >> Yeah. And I think it's really important for people to remember. And I remember first having these thoughts when I was reading Nabil Keshi's book, the late Nabil Keshi. He passed away of cancer in his ear in his mid-30s. It was pretty tragic. But um he wrote a book called Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. And he was raised up basically to be an apologist for Islam growing up. And he wasn't Sunni or Shia. I can't remember which sect he was a part of, but ran into a a fervent Christian that was a friend of his. And they would kind of like banter back and forth. And you would think like, "Oh well, his buddy just argued better and argued him into the kingdom of God." No, no, no. Like Jesus revealed himself to Nibil in his dreams and then that happened here in America and then you hear about these insane conversion stories in countries where there aren't street preachers, right? There's not evangelical Bible churches on every corner like here in Oklahoma. Well, not Bible churches, but you know, churches of some kind, you know, Christian churches of some kind. But it's like the the Holy Spirit will not be denied. Like the father will will not be denied and he will show the son to everybody. Um, I do think it's important at this point to to kind of okay, how did we get here? Because in the book, you elucidate a bunch of history. We go back thousands of years. But even if we're just focusing on what's happening right now, I think it's it's important to go back. So October the 7th is kind of an inflection point from uh 2023, that's when Hamas killed about 1,200 uh innocent Jews and took several hundred more hostage. Uh the next day, Hezbollah, which is an Iranian terror proxy, they began attacking Israel from the north, which actually displaced a bunch of civilians. November of 2023, uh the Houthis, which is another Iran Iranian terror proxy from Yemen, they actually began hijacking commercial vessels. In April of 2024, Iran launched its first ever direct attack on Israel. So whether 300 plus drones or missiles, all kinds of that stuff. Uh a few months later in September of 2024, Israel pushes Hezbollah back in Lebanon. They actually went into Lebanon to push them back. Uh Hassan Azarallah, who is the leader of Hezbollah, was assassinated. In December of 2024, we see the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria. And that was not just, you know, Bashar al-Assad. This was, you know, the family uh the you know uh the Assad family that had been in rule for half a century right there in Syria. And all the while this is going on, we have Iran. They got to 400 plus kilograms of uranium which was enriched to 60% purity which has absolutely no civilian use purpose whatsoever for energy or whatever. Um which is just below the 90% threshold uh for a nuclear weapon. Uh Iran continued developing you know advanced centrifuges expanding their nuclear infrastructure doing a lot of stuff underground these crazy elevator systems under these mountains all kinds of stuff. Then we have the 12-day war which you talked about. This was in June of 2025. This was between Iran and Israel and the United States had a hand in that as well. There was massive air strikes on the Iranian nuclear facility, specifically at Natans and Fordo. In late 2025, we see a bunch of civilian uh protests erupt in Iran. Had a lot to do with the fact that their currency, which was basically worthless, crashed from worthless. So, whatever is below worthless, it crashed even farther. Uh the real it was like 1.3 million to1 reals to US dollars. And so, they're having trouble getting water in Tran. They thought about moving the capital because they couldn't even get water. And so they start slaughtering um tens of thousands of their own citizens with a an absolutely brutal crackdown. Then we see the beginning of operation epic fury in fe February of 28th of 2026. We see the assassination of the Iranian supreme leader Ali Kaini and a bunch of other senior officials. Even yesterday, another senior official of the Kudz force uh was assassinated on April the 1st, right? So last week, Trump addressed the nation, basically giving them the state of the war, kind of what was coming up. And then, like I said, here we are sitting on April the 7th on Trump's, you know, self-imposed deadline. And so there's a lot happening obviously on Easter morning. Like, could you have drawn it up any any more poetically, uh, we rescue a down pilot whose first transmission after he had ejected and landed was, "God is good." That was his first transmission to the people that he knew the entire country of Iran was coming to look for him and we're in his backyard. He didn't know he was going to make it and that's his first transmission. They find him on Easter morning. Like come on, that's got to be a movie. But all of that Mark kind of leads to something that is really a hinge point of your book which is we are currently seeing a convergence of three incredibly powerful groups or countries. So we have Russia, Iran and Turkey. And as you've already talked about uh Russia in terms of prophecy is Rash uh Persia Iran but then then you have was it Messik is that Tubal Goomemer and Betharma is all Turkey >> and I mean Mark I was in Turkey about 10 years ago and it wasn't as Islamist as it is now like with Erdogan being there. Um Kelsey and I actually took a picture in between the Haga Sophia and the Blue Mosque and about a year later a suicide bomber clapped himself off where we took that picture. Right. This so Turkey is almost an unrecognizable country from where it was even 10 years ago and it's somehow in NATO. Uh and so I think there's this tremendous convergence of all these different places. You mentioned earlier uh Libya, Sudan, uh there are other countries that are that are part of this. just talk a little bit more about the convergence, how this was predicted and also how it's kind of like coalescing as we see right now. >> Yeah. Well, you know what you you have these different nations mentioned again like I said these are ancient places but with the modern counterparts you know these places are these nations that we've mentioned and you know the these are places that are that are immediate that that are coming together unlike anything we've ever seen. You know Iran you know they had a coup in 1953 the United States actually helped with that put the Shaw in power. Of course, the Shaw gets put out of power in 1979. It's been a radicalized place. Turkey, I've been there many times. Wonderful country. I love the western part of Turkey, but yes, under Erdogan, you know, very, very anti-Israel. Um, Turkey right now is got a lot of leverage in Syria. >> Yep. >> Iran due to all their troubles back home and Russia due to the Ukraine war kind of kind of left. >> There's like a vacuum. >> Yeah. Now, Turkeykey's come and filled that vacuum. So, you got another Ezekiel 38:39 nation involved there. So what we see is is a convergence of these nations. But one thing I think is interesting when you look on a map, you look at Israel, you look at Russia, you look at Turkey, you look at Iran, you look at Libya, you look at Sudan, those are kind of the outer ring of Israel's enemies. >> Kind of the far enemies. And so what many have surmised is in Ezekiel 38:6 after it mentions all these nations, specific places, it says, "And many peoples with you." So it may include some of the nations within that ring. In other words, it's kind of given the outer ring. It's like these are the far enemies, but it could be that some of the near enemies of Israel are included in that as well that aren't specifically mentioned. So, you have Jordan, you have Egypt, you have Saudi Arabia, you have Lebanon, you have all these Iraq, you have all these other nations that are within that uh kind of inner circle. So, you know, it could be more than just the nations that are listed there. But but those big three, you know, we we see with Russia, Turkey, and Iran, the alliances between them. Now, Turkeyy's really interesting. They're kind of the fly in the ointment because Turkey is the most pragmatic nation I know of in the world. You know, they they're allies with Russia, but they're supplying arms to Ukraine. >> You know, they're part of NATO. Um, so they'll they'll, you know, they they play everybody against everybody to for their own benefit. But eventually, someday Turkey though is going to move towards the east. There's no doubt about that. They're going to that's where their allegiances are, their their alliances are. So somehow that's going to all shake out. You know, one of the things I always say about all these prophecies is there can be a lot of twists and turns before we get there. You know, because you look at Iran, what if, you know, again, when people watch this here in a few days, we've gone in and just decimated, you know, their country, people say, well, how's Iran going to ever rise out of the ashes to do this? Well, you know, things can happen very quickly. You know, they could get a nuclear weapon from North Korea that they could, you know, somehow uh have access to. So, you we don't know what all is going to happen. And I I I believe in the pre-tribulation rapture, the timing of the of the rapture being before the tribulation period. And so, one of these days, I think the next event on God's prophetic calendar is the rapture of the church. All believers are going to be taken out of this world. Now, you talk about a rearranging of things. You know, it's going to be the the the greatest event in history since since Noah's flood. >> Yeah. There'll be all kinds of things that are happening that'll take place very quickly I think as you know people coalesce into different different groups and all of that. So what we're looking at now we're looking at our world today and the Bible tells us what's going to happen but we always look at Bible prophecy current events through the Bible not the other way around. We don't want to look at current events and say oh let me go find something in the Bible that fits this. We look at the Bible, we read it, and we say, "Wow, in the latter years and the last days of Israel, when they reathered to their land, they're going to be invaded by this coalition of nations." Well, who are these nations? Wow, these are nations that, you know, are are some of Israel's main enemies today to have the will and the the capability and the desire to attack Israel. And so, when we look at these things, we see it happening. I I always refer to this as as the stage is being set. It's stage setting. In other words, what we see today is not the fulfillment of these things. It's the setting of the stage. Israel being reathered to their land is in fulfillment. Um, none of these nations have attacked Israel yet. They haven't come together and formed this coalition yet. So, the stage is being set. And I believe then after the rapture takes place, these things will begin to come together in a real concrete way. And then these events will begin to be fulfilled uh during the tribulation period. >> And don't worry guys, we're going to get to the rapture. But you're going to have to hold off just a little bit because one thing that I found was very interesting and you talk about this in the book. Uh countries that are not explicitly named or are are clearly identifiable in biblical prophecy are the two most dominant countries in the world right now, the most hegemonic countries, and that's the United States of America and China. And so we don't see them specifically. And so again, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but it almost made me think like, okay, this stuff has still got to be fairly far off because with how dominant the United States and China are militarily and financially, especially the United States, the most dominant military and financially, you know, the dollar is still the the world's reserve currency. Doesn't that, you know, imply that, you know, it's going to take a while because we are rotting away from the inside, right, with with unchecked immigration, uh, illegal immigration with, you know, immigrating a bunch of Muslims post 911 that is like destroyed entire cities and swas the United States. Obviously, the debt crisis is preposterous, right? Uh, you know, the trillions of dollars that were adding to the national debt. There's not a single one of our political parties that cares about that spending. They're all spending like drunken sailors. And so at the same time, it's like, okay, there could be a poof event that happens that absolutely crushes the United States of America. But can we surmize that maybe this is still a little bit of a ways off because of the power of those two countries right now? >> Well, it's possible, but again, like you said, if if the rapture takes place, you know, about five to 10% of people in America answer questions correctly when you ask them about what do you have to do to go to heaven? Yeah. >> You know, it's not 33% or something. It's probably say it's say it's, you know, 5%. Tens of millions of people. Oh, it's tens of millions of people. And it's the salt and light. And you talk about a debt crisis. You talk about a mortgage crisis. I mean, America, you know, goes down. And when we go down economically, the whole world goes down, right? You know, a few years ago, Greece was having financial problems. It was affecting the whole world. Well, Greece's economy isn't even close to California, right? So, the world's tied together now. >> We don't know like with with China, you know, could there be some plague that that that's over there that that kills millions of people over there? You know, God's going to have his ways of having the countries that he's predicted rise to ascendancy. Other countries are decreased. You know, the America is never mentioned in the Bible. Obviously, America, United States never mentioned. I mean, of course, people will say, well, you know, a lot of countries aren't mentioned in the Bible, but but you know, you have Ro that's far north of Israel, Russia. You have Mach and Tubal and Turkey. You have, you know, Put and Kush. These are pretty far away. So, God could have alluded to America in some way. Very, you understand. And now some people think America is Babylon and in Revelation 17 and 18 that we're the unnamed nation in Isaiah 18. There's a lot of places where the 10 lost tribes of Israel. There's all kinds of theories about America, >> but I just don't think America's mentioned. But I think if we were the great superpower we are today in the end, it would seem to me there'd be some reference to us. So I think the silence is significant. I think America will be reduced somehow from our superpower status. Again, it could be, you know, the dead implosion, but all these other things, but I think it's mainly the rapture. I think the rapture is going to be the event that that makes America a second rate nation overnight. And then how things will play out after that, after the rapture, what God will do. You know, we really don't know. What we can do is read in the Bible and say, "Here's the things that are going to happen. Here's the people that aren't and aren't mentioned. Here's the people that are mentioned." And I think we can draw some conclusions from that that I don't I I think are are are good solid conclusions. But again, there's going to be a lot of shaking of things and twists and turns and and different events. Like you would have never imagined if if we're going in there just obliterate Iran. I would never imagine that would have happened. >> Yeah. >> But you know, then after all of that, you get a new regime maybe in there and everybody goes back in helps rebuild Iran. They get back. Well, you know, all those radical people that believe in that Shiite esquetology, they're not going anywhere. >> They could easily retake the country at some point in time. you know, the the the remnants of the IRGC, you know, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, they're going to still be there. >> Yep. >> And so, you know, we don't know how it's all going to play out. That's why, again, we go to the Bible, say, here's what the Bible says is going to happen. And we do look at these events in our world and say, you know, boy, the, you know, things are playing out. You know, I like to use the illustration, you look at a at a at a puzzle, there's a picture on the top of the box and and that's what you're supposed to to finally to get to. that that's the the final result. Well, as you're putting the puzzle together and putting the pieces together, you're trying to to make the the puzzle you're putting together look like that picture. And to me, the Bible, the scenario in the Bible that's laid out is the picture on top of the box. And as the p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p puzzle pieces go in place, as our world begins to look more and more like the picture on top of the box, the closer we're getting to Christ coming again. Israel in the land, this Gog Magog coalition, the yearning for peace in the Middle East. Israel's going to be at peace when this invasion happens. I mean, it's going to be peace there. It's going to be a temporary peace. The globalism, all these things to me are all setting the stage and moving things forward uh to the events God's predicted. Well, so let's let's talk even more about that because you know, like you've said, we can kill all these leaders of Iran. You can kill people, you can't kill an ideology, right? So that's what people just kind of misunderstand about Islam. It's like because there's all these reasons that people will give. Uh it's typically a fairly soft-headed position, but it's basically like, oh, they hate us because we were in in their country. They hate us because, you know, we invaded. They hate us because we stayed there. They hate us because we put bases there. No, they hate us because they hate us, right? And like that's the entire point of what they do. We are the infidel, right? And whether they're, you know, overtly trying to kill us by, you know, with with AK-47s or suicide vests or try to kill us slowly slowly with something like tea, which is a is something that we get from the hadith and also the direct teachings of Muhammad, which is to tell basically uh Muslims to go to Christian places and Christian countries and act nice and just wait for the day to strike. That's what tea that's what the entire concept of tea is. But if we look at the puzzle pieces, right, and you talk about the puzzle in the book, and then you go back to Butler, Pennsylvania. >> Mhm. >> And at the last split second, Donald Trump turns his head a few degrees and a bullet that would have turned his head into a canoe instead nicks his ear and he's alive. A assassin was there at his golf course ready for him to pull up on the next hole and potentially be taken out. And those are just the ones that that we know about, right? And so I just think about, okay, because there were a lot of people, you know, very mag people that are like, you know, God loves Trump and, you know, God's going to use Trump and all that. And I was like, okay, let's not go too crazy with it. But it's like, man, did God literally specifically intervene to save Donald Trump so that he would go in with Israel in the 12-day war, so that he would invade and bomb Iran right now, so that he could put this, you know, ultimatum in place today as we sit here on April the 7th. And then I guess how does that dovetail even with the Abraham Accords? Because in the first Trump administration you had the Abraham Accords which was naturalizing relations between USIsrael and then UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco, Kazakhstan and Somali land. And we're in discussions now technically with Saudi Arabia, Syria, Oman, and Qatar. And it's like that's that wouldn't have come if Ted Cruz was the president. It wouldn't have come if Kla Harris was the president. It's happening specifically cuz Donald Trump is there. And so there's no way to know, Mark. I'm not trying to like pigeon hole you, but like can we safely say that God is drawing a straight line with the crooked stick that is Donald Trump? >> No, I think that's definitely true. I mean, in God's providence, you know, Trump's the man that God wants in office. Now, you know, for the four years that Biden was there, that's the man that God wanted to because, you know, God God lifts up rulers and he brings down rulers. But, you know, I kind of I kind of look at, you know, if President Trump would have been elected in in 2020, we there it wouldn't have been nearly the same because you'd have had him and four more years. People get tired of that. You had a you have a you have an incredible contrast. My goodness, you know. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, he's there doing these things. And so, he's God's man who's doing these things. Now, again, as you said, you call him a crooked stick. I mean, you know, no one's going to argue that, you know, everything about Donald Trump is is exemplary, but he's there doing these various things. He's shut down the border for, you know, the illegals, you know, flowing into our nation. He's prosecuting this war. You know, a lot of people will say, "Well, he's just Israel's pawn." You know what I mean? You got Bethany Yahoo and he just does what he wants him to do and whatever. Look, we're acting in our own self-interest. Um, Israel's a valuable ally, even if you didn't have the Bible. I mean, Israel's the has the second strongest air force in the world. They've got Mossad. They got all the intelligence there. We need them and they need us. And we're helping one another in doing this. And I do think that's one of the reasons that God continues to bless our country in spite of all of our other problems. Because going all the way to Genesis 12:3, God told Abraham, "Whoever blesses you, I'll bless. The one who curses you, I must curse." And I believe that's still in effect today because over in Romans 9:4, it says, "The covenants belong to Israel." Doesn't say belonged. It's present tense. They belong. >> And part of the Abrahamic covenant is those you bless who bless you all bless. Those who curse you all curse. I believe one of the reasons why God continues to have his hand of blessing upon our nation, which really there's so many reasons why God shouldn't be blessing us like he is, is because of our support for Israel. Now, that doesn't mean that we support everything Israel does. They're fallen people. They, you know, they they do things that are wrong. They, you know, have a lot of policies that that aren't right, and we we we can stand against those. But as a as a general rule rule, we want to be a supporter of of Israel and of the Jewish people. And that's being eroded now, too, because in the Democratic Party, for the first time ever, more people support Gaza and the Palestinians and support Israel in the Democratic Party. Just happened this year. So, there's a there's a massive erosion of that. That's another reason I think that the coming of Christ may be near because we see America, many people turning more and more against Israel, especially who are younger. And I think America is going to have to remain strong until the rapture because think if we're if we if we go down I mean Israel Israel's in trouble. >> Yeah. >> So it just makes sense to me that we'll remain strong and be their defender for them. Then the rapture takes place then it's kind of all bets are off and you have this Antichrist figure that comes and kind of brokers some peace deal that's going to take place. And so peace is coming to the Middle East but it's going to be brief. I mean it's going to be a temporary peace. Well, I want to double down on something that you said because people can have their opinions, right? Whether they inform those uh with proofs or evidence or truth of any kind, but when I hear human beings say that Donald Trump is a pawn of Israel or of Netanyahu, >> I defy you to come up with a human being alive today that is less controllable than Donald Trump. We can't control his tweets. And then he was kicked off Twitter. He created his own social media platform so he could talk crap on the internet, right? He's the least controllable human being. Oh yeah. Maybe in the history of the planet Earth, right? It's him or Nebuchadnezzar, right? And so in those types of circumstances, I just I I look at these people like how how did you come to this conclusion? Again, that's kind of the conspiracy theory, right? That he's just, you know, well, at first it was Democrats. He's a Russian cat's paw. Now he's Netanyahu's puppet. And I'm like, I I just don't really understand. There is a tremendous inequity in the power balance between the United States and Israel. and you just elucidated it because if the United States basically left Israel on their own, >> right, outside of the intervention of God, like they're smashed. They're crushed. And so I I think that that's just one of those things I just don't really understand where where people come from there. But before we move on, I do want to get to the rapture. Just quickly on the Abraham Accords, >> is there any connection with the Abraham Accords and biblical prophecy? Because here's the thing with the Abraham Accords, it's paper, right? There's no enforcement mechanism. It's kind of like when people appeal to, oh, this is a violation of international law. I always like to ask, who enforces international law? Who is the law enforcement arm of international law? Oh, wait, there isn't one. And people will say, the UN, it's like the UN, they're peacekeepers, right? Look, go back to what happened in Rwanda, the genocide and all that. What was the UN? What were the the the soldiers doing there with their light blue helmets? Absolutely nothing. They were watching uh people get slaughtered in the streets. And so, but I I'm trying to figure out are these just, you know, things that look good, you know, uh, in terms of a headline, but you know, these these countries that I listed earlier could just easily turn on Israel because there's no enforcement mechanism. Does that work in the prophecy at all? >> Well, you know, you got the you got the Abraham Accords, then you have this board of peace that President Trump's established. He's the head of it, >> of course, >> and you got to have a billion dollars to get into it, which, you know, maybe given to rebuild Gaza. But you know what I just what I see is you know in his in Daniel 9:27 it says he somewhat the antichrist in the previous context. He's the prince who's to come. He's going to make a firm covenant with the many in Israel for one week of years for seven years. And when it says he's going to make this covenant that word can be translated different ways. It can mean he's going to confirm a covenant or strengthen a covenant or make strong. In other words, it may be something already in place that he comes and makes strong or it can mean the word can mean to compel. In other words, he may come on the scene and kind of be a, you know, a guy with, you know, an iron fist and just tell the parties, "Here's what we're going to do." You know, it's it's a compelled covenant, but it can mean to strengthen or to make strong. So, it could be that there's framework in place and he comes and just strengthens what's already there. And again, none of this stuff that we see today is the fulfillment of prophecy. But isn't it interesting? The Bible says when when Israel's invaded, they they gathered to their land. Ezekiel 36:37. They're attacked by these nations. Ezekiel 38:39 twice. They're at rest and they're living securely. And when's that ever been true of Israel? Since 1948. So, they're going to have this covenant, I think, or a guarantee of peace from this antichrist. And they're going to let their guard down. And what do we see today? a foot over in the Middle East all the time. Peace, constant peace process. My whole life has been the peace process in Israel. But you've had the 1948 war, the 56 Suez war, 1967, the six- day war, the Yamipper war in 1973, the Lebanon war in the early 80s. You've had multiple inifadas, all the proxies, these wars with Iran. I It's just been constant warfare, just brief respits of peace between. So, we do know that there's going to be this time of temporary peace for Israel. And I I can't help but think the Abraham Accords, the Board of Peace, all these things are going to somehow play into all of that. Now, again, we don't know exactly what form it will take in the end, but the Antichrist will come and he's going to broker, he's going to forge this peace and he's going to do something that no president or secretary of state's been able to do, you know, in the last 80 almost 80 years over there in the land of Israel. And I think this is all the setup for it. So with all that in mind, as Christians sitting here in April of 2026, should we be rooting for the alliance of the United States and Israel? Should be roo be rooting against it? Should we be, you know, Switzerland like hanging out in the middle like not really like taking a side? Like what should our posture be towards the the military alliance between the United States and Israel? >> Well, I think it's a good military alliance. Again, regardless of the Bible, what the Bible says, you know, if you just take the Bible out of it and just look at it geopolitically, you've got a nation over there, the only democracy really over there in the Middle East. Yeah. >> You they've got an incredible military. They have they have nuc they do have nuclear weapons. >> Um they're, you know, they have an all this intelligence that they can provide to us. So, I mean, to me, it's a good marriage between nations for all of those reasons. And and and you know, helping put down Iran. I mean, the 12- day war, they did most of the heavy lifting in the 12-day war. We brought them in the bunker busters. >> Yeah. >> You know, kind of at the end, but they did they did most all of that to try to keep Iran from getting getting nuclear weapons. So, I think it's a it's a good alliance. You know, does Israel go too far sometimes in many people's eyes. Maybe they do, but again, if you've been surrounded by almost 80 years by people that want to kill you and wipe you off the face of the earth, sometimes you're probably going to overreact a little bit. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, again, myself, I'm a I'm a supporter of what we're doing with Israel as a nation geopolitically, but but biblically, I'm a supporter of that as well because we're blessing the nation of Israel. I think God has America providentially in place as a supporter for the nation of Israel until the end times arrive. That's my that's my personal view. Again, we don't have to support everything they do. >> Yeah, they're they're fallen. They have a fallen uh you know, government just like ours. But I think we want to be an ally of Israel. And I think that's one of the reasons that God has raised America up and made us the great nation we are to be able to do that and and to help them. >> All right. So, everybody's been very patient with us up to this point talking about geopolitics and warfare and all that, but all anyone wants to know about is was Kirk Cameron right with the Left Behind series and all those different things like does does that look like how it's going to be? And so, uh, you know, you have studied prophecy and esquetology for a very, very long time. And so there are a lot of different viewpoints on the rapture. Let's go ahead and uh get into that. If you wouldn't mind kind of just explaining briefly the main schools of thought or schools of argument for for how that will happen pre-trip, post-trip, all the all the different things and then we'll get into kind of like the details of what you see from scripture about how that will actually take place. >> Well, yeah, the the rapture, you know, you'll often hear people say today, well, I don't believe in the rapture. You hear people say, I don't believe in the rapture. Well, you have to believe in the rapture because in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, that previous verse says, you know, th the dead are going to be rise first. They're going to be caught up, you know, and then it says and and and uh uh it says there that we're going to be uh caught up to meet the Lord in the air, those who are alive. It's the Greek word harpado to be caught up, to be snatched or seized. So, that's going to happen at some point in time. We who are alive and remain are going to be caught up together to meet those who are being resurrected in the air. 1 Corinthians 15 says we're going to be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. So that's going to happen at some point. So the issue to me is not is there a rapture. It's clear there is. Um it's the timing of it. By the way, we get the word rapture when Jerome translated the the uh the Bible into Latin. He used the word uh rapio to translate the word harpado. Okay? >> And so we get the word rapture from rapio which is a Latin word. So people say, "Well, the word rapture is not in the Bible." Well, it's it's caught up. It's the word caught up. It's harpado, but it was translated rapio. So, we get the word rapture. But there's different views of the timing of that. Then, um there there's the pre-tribulation view that the rapture takes place before the tribulation period begins, the seven-year tribulation. Others put it at the middle of the tribulation. Then there's the post-tribulation view. It's at the end, kind of in conjunction with the return of Jesus to the earth. Uh there's another view that's become popular called the pre- wrath rapture. Puts it about three4s of the way through. Then there's actually another view called the partial rapture that those who are ready and on fire for God and living for him, they're going to get caught up pre-ert, but the rest of the believers will stay here to go through the tribulation and get taken up in different times as they're ready. So there's kind of five five main views. I hold to the preerttrib view because the Bible tells us that we're exempt from God's wrath as the as church age believers. Now, all the different views all agree that we're exempt from God's wrath because because that's what it the Bible says. We're not appointed under wrath. But midtribers say, "Well, the wrath's just the last half of the tribulation. That's the wrath of God. So, we're caught up at the middle." The post-tribers say God's wrath is kind of concentrated right at the end, and we'll be protected through that. And when the Lord comes at his second coming or his return, we'll be caught up and meet him and kind of do a U-turn and come back to the earth. But I believe the whole 7-year period is the wrath of God. So I think we have to be caught up before that period of time uh begins. >> So this may seem like a simple question, but it never really occurred to me until I was reading the Persian storm. So if the rapture happens, as you say, like the the souls will be taken, but the bodies will be left behind. So, are we literally thinking that there will be >> hundreds of millions of dead bodies just poof instantly everywhere on the planet just just scattered about? Cuz obviously that's going to be a little bit of a cleanup issue. Like, is that kind of what what we're seeing? >> I think the body is taken up. The whole person's taken up. Now, some people wonder if the, you know, clothes will be left, you know what I mean? So, maybe piles of clothes. Tim Laay, you know, he wrote the Left Behind series. Tim was a good friend of mine. He said one time he said some people have had so many surgeries and stuff there may be more left here than goes with them. Plastic surgeries, glasses, dentures. I mean you know I mean you think about how comical but you think about if that were true how that's going to freak people out. And I've wondered as well when because bodies are going to be resurrected, >> right? >> The dead bodies the Lord will bring in their perfected spirit of those who've died. Their bodies will be raised. Will will the tombs and and the graves be, you know, kind of burst open? Now Jesus, you know, the stone was rolled away really more to let the people in than to let him out. You he was he could go right through the wall. But I've wondered, you know, could it be that that that God will do that? And you think about this will be like something like the Night of the Living Dead. I mean, people be freaked out. Zombies and, you know, people be wondering what in the world has happened. I mean, you think of what a dramatic event that will be when millions of people all over this earth are gone in and and it says it's in it's in a a flash. It's in in the time it takes to blink your eye, this event's going to take place and it's going to be an earthchanging event. I mean, it's going to it's going to rock the world like nothing in human history besides the flood. >> Well, so the so just for clarification, so the saints that have been buried, like the the the believers that have been buried, um, and again, we have to understand obviously some people are buried with their their bodies intact. Some people uh are killed in explosions and like there's all kinds of ways that people have passed away. So where are those those people on a on a soul level? Where are they now? Because if if the rapture is going to catch them them up, then then where is their their soul u I guess taking up space as we speak? >> Well, when someone dies today who's a believer, I I believe that the immaterial part of that person's soul, the spirit goes to the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem. That that's the abode of God today. Their body stays here, you know, if it's cremated or whatever, buried, whatever happens. And so their spirit's perfected. And one of these days when the Lord comes, their body is going to be raised an immortal, imperishable body. It says Christ will bring with him those who fall asleep in Jesus. He'll bring their perfected spirit with him from heaven. They'll be rejoined. But if you're alive on the earth when the rapture takes place, you're going to get caught up body, soul, and spirit in a moment of time and be changed on the way up. You have to get a new body. 1 Corinthians 15 says, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." We This body is not fit for heaven. So those who've died, the bodies raised and rejoined, those alive caught up immediately to to go and be with the Lord. But it's going to be, I mean, a dramatic event. And, you know, I I've often wondered, how's the world going to explain this? >> You know, I've wondered with all this UFO stuff going on nowadays, you know, that's really emerging and all the government stuff, you know, they will they explain it that way. You know, I've wondered, will the Antichrist come out and say that he's got some new weapon, you know what I mean, that maybe he used? like, "Hey, I caused all these people to disappear and hey, I'll do that to you, too. You know, if you don't, you know, agree with me or bow to me or whatever, I've got some, you know, weapon that's going to just dissolve you or whatever, cause you to disappear." So, we don't know how the world's going to explain this, but in light of all of the the things that are happening in our world today and all the deception that's out there, you can see how they'll be able to concoct some some theory or some scheme that will will explain this and but it's just going to grip the world through, I think, with fear and and just again allow the antichrist, I think, to come in and try to calm the waters, you know, in this world that's been so disrupted. People are going to be looking for somebody with answers. Well, no matter no matter what the actual explanation is, everyone will know the truth. The Jews did it. It's the Jews fault, right? You know, it's MSAD op. Now, this might seem like a little bit of an elementary question, but obviously I have to think in terms of my own life. And so, in terms of my lived experience, I've got a 5-year-old and a four-year-old. Okay? And so, I've thought about this before, and you and I talked about uh, you know, election and, you know, reformed uh, theology and things like that. And you obviously you solved the Armenian Calvinist debate the last time you were here. We checked all the boxes. But I did think about like, okay, take a household that's, you know, mom and dad are both believers and they have a six-month-old and then rapture happens, but let's say the baby wasn't elect or would not have been elect or what is that baby just in this house by itself. Who's going to take care of this baby? And like I was trying to think of like the practical implications like were their bodies just stacked up everywhere? What about families that are mixed? What's going to happen to some of these kids? Like anyway, try to clear that up for me cuz I was just trying to think like practically like what would happen in my neighborhood if some of us went and some of us didn't. >> Well, you know, there there's still there's a lot of mystery like I've uttered a lot of things with the rapture that we don't know. The Bible doesn't tell us. What we do know, and I think this is beautiful going all the way to the beginning, God loves to save households of people. >> You get Lot, his daughters, his wife. Of course, she turns back. You have uh uh when at the Passover, you know, there's families gathered together there and they put the blood on the door. You know, they're families. Um, you take in the ark, you know, God has Noah, his family that go in the ark. You go to into the New Testament in Philippians chapter uh 16, God tells the Philippian jailer, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved and your household. So, it seems God loves to save households of people. So, at the rapture, my view is is that the the you know, those who are too young to be able to believe or understand of believers will will go will go to heaven. Um you know in the left behind series everybody all all kids even of unbelievers went to heaven in the left behind series. Every child 12 and and under you know was caught up. Will children of unbelievers be left here? Obviously the tribulation's seven years. They'll have time you know during that period of time to to turn to Christ. Um ultimately we don't really know. But it seems to me you know again you just think about it. You know God's going to take take someone to heaven. We're not going to know less in heaven than we know now. We're going to know more. You know, you're going to know if somebody is left behind or not there with you. It's not you're going to go to heaven and forget about your six-year-old child. You're going to know that. To me, it would seem inconceivable that God would do that. I I think when believers go, their children who are young, who don't understand, can't can't understand the gospel, will go to heaven. Now, what will happen to the children of unbelievers? I don't know. You know, we go back to that that old song, you know, Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. God loves our children more than than we do. Um, and that's hard for us to imagine sometimes, but I always fall back on and some there's some verses that are my fall backs, you know, in the Bible back in Genesis when uh, you know, Abraham says, "You will not the God of all the earth do what's right." And and in Deuteronomy, his ways are higher than our ways as the heavens are above the earth. So, those are some of my verses when I get to things that are kind of beyond me. I just go to God's gonna do what's right and God's ways are higher than my ways. And I don't use those as a copout, but there's just, you know, very, very shallow limits to my infinite mind to understand those things, but they're good questions. I've had a lot of mothers come up to me after I've talked about the rapture, kind of tears in their eyes, you know, what's going to happen to my my baby or my child, you know, when the rapture takes place. They're they're really legitimately shaken and concerned about that. So, we don't want to blow those concerns off, but we do want to realize, you know, with my grandkids, I pray for them every day. And I one of the things I think about every day is, God, you love them more than you love me, more more than I love them. >> Yeah. >> And and and my my prayer for them all the time is I've mentioned this actually at church. I pray for all my grandkids. God, just be half as good to them as you've been to me. Yeah. >> And I'll be I'll be sat satisfied and happy. God's been so good to me. Well, and in even further, um I am curious because you even mentioned like there will be there will be people that can still turn to Christ after the rapture. Yes. And so I I think you referred to I think it was in Zechariah or something like that. There's a scripture that basically says yes. It's not like, hey, that's it and then the rest of you y'all are just screwed for as long as the rest of this experiment takes place. But I'm I'm curious of what that means specifically for the churched person >> that is not a follower. Right? So this is a person that has gone to church. You know, I explained to you my theory of country music theology, right? So, you know, they were baptized when they were a kid. They believe in God. They love America. They vote Republican and they listen to country music. So, God loves all that stuff. So, they get to go to heaven. Boom. Rapture happens. They weren't taken up. And so one of the most haunting verses for me is, you know, where we're the section where it's talking about like depart me, depart from me for I never knew you. And they're like trying to make their case like, "No, I you know, I I cast out demons in your name. I did all this ministry in your name." And then it's like, "Yeah, but you you weren't a follower of mine. You knew about Jesus, but you you didn't know Jesus in here." Is that that that almost feels like a really good thing for the person that thinks they're saved if they can witness the rapture and realize, "Oh man, >> like I guess I wasn't. I guess I was doing Christianes things. I was checking some Christian adjacent boxes, but I had never put my faith in Christ." Do you see that as being like a postraure like a tremendous conversion of people that were can you even say they were lukewarm because they were never even in the game to begin with? I'm just curious how that all is going to work out. Well, yeah, there's tons of people that are just nominal Christians, you know, like you believe in kind of folk theology, you can call it. >> I I do think that the the rapture may be the greatest evangelistic tool in history because in Revelation 7, you've got 144,000 Jews that God converts. 12,000 men, 12,000 from each tri each of the 12 tribes of Israel. But then after that, beginning in verse 9 to the end of the chapter, you have a number of Gentiles. It can't be numbered. Says, "Who are these?" Says, "These are those who've come out of great tribulation. They've washed their robes white in the blood of the lamb. So I I have this saying I use I think there's going to be great revival during the great tribulation. >> Now a lot of people now that are unbelievers, they'll stay unbelievers. I mean, you know, they're hardened. They don't want to believe. But I think many will will come to Christ. Now, one thing I always add is because sometimes when you when I preach, I'll make the comment if you're watching here today, especially some young person says, "Well, hey, if I can get, you know, saved then after the rapture, I'll just take my chances, whatever." Don't time it man. >> Well, first of all, you don't know when you're going to die. But secondly, I always highlight it's not going to get easier to get saved after the rapture. It's going to get harder. They're going to die. >> The these are martyrs in heaven. >> Yeah. >> The Antichrist is going to unleash a wave, a reign of terror against the Jewish people, but also against believers. You have to take his mark, some visible mark to be involved in commerce in the world. And if you don't take it, don't swear, pledge your allegiance to him. You know, it mentions in Revelation 20, beheading, which I always think's interesting. Years ago, I thought about what's up with beheading. Well, Islam, there's a lot of beheading. It's it's it engenders a lot of fear in people. So, >> you know, I I do think that, you know, there's going to be a you know, the rapture is going to take place. People are going to be left behind. Many who are left behind will stay hardened against the Lord, but I think many many people will come to him. as we wrap our discussion on the Persian storm. I really like how you wrap up the book because you talk about like, okay, now that we know all this or now that we're looking for all of this, like, well, what do we do with this this information? And you give us a list. It's number one, recognize the Bible is true. Number two, recognize your need for Jesus, your individual need for Jesus. Number three, remember God is in control. So, don't get all stressed out. Number four, remain hopeful. Right? A little bit hard for our for the pessimists out there, but guys, don't worry. We're doing this together. We can hold hands. But I wanted to uh really double click on the last one which is reach out to others. And you share a great uh quote from the book uh it is time by Havner. And you give this quote here. I know that some are always studying the meaning of the fourth toe on the right foot of some beast in prophecy and have never used either foot to go and bring men to Christ. Love that. I do not know who the 666 is in Revelation, but I know the world is 666 sick. And the best way to speed the Lord's return is to win more souls to him. >> So I think that's a great clarion call for, you know, for the guys out there that are spending all of this time >> trying to figure out the date, right? They're studying every jot and to try to figure out the date so that they can release a book that has the date so that they can like, you know, get get all the stuff and get all the accolades on TBN or whatever they're doing with their time and money. and they're they're trying to do all these things and check all these boxes, but they're not sharing Christ with their neighbor. It's the same person, and you've you've talked about this even as a pastor. >> You get so busy with the work of ministry, right? With the business of ministry, with the the HR of ministry or whatever that is that some people forget to minister, right? They don't share Christ with anyone. They don't try to care for the widow or the o orphan. They don't try to lead someone down the path of sanctification or in in an evangelistic conversation that ends with the beginning of them becoming a disciple of Christ. And so just give your message to those who are maybe just going to listen to this podcast and move on or to follow up and get the Persian storm and read it in terms of like, okay, take all of what I've said, not with a grain of salt, but realize it has to end somewhere and the funnel comes down and it actually becomes a mandate to evangelize. >> Well, yeah. I think you got two extremes when it comes to prophecy. You got skeptics out there. They don't, you know, they don't they don't think about Bible prophecy ever. They think it's all just a bunch of tabloid kind of Christianity. >> Y >> you know, Jesus mentions a lot of signs and there's all these prophecies that have been fulfilled. I mean, I think God has told us what's going to happen in the future and he knows we're thinking people. We're going to read the Bible and say, "Hey, this stuff's happening today." Then you got the other side is the sensationalizers. You they go out there, like you say, setting dates. There's all kinds of reckless speculation. But in between there's a there's a happy medium there where we look at our world and we say, you know, it looks like this world's getting near their closing time. And you know, people that don't even know the Lord and don't know anything about the Bible, there seems to be this collective sense in our world, we're getting near closing time. I mean, the the AI, the technology, I mean, these things that are coming on, it's just I mean, these are earthchanging things. And so what I think we should do as believers is again not become skeptics, not become, you know, wackos, you know, about all this stuff, but but but let this drive us with a sense of urgency. I you know, in in Ephesians, it says uh that to redeem the time, you know, buy up the opportunities because the day is evil. And so I think every one of us should have a sense of urgency about our lives. We're we're getting older. You know, time's fleeting in our lives, but time may be fleeting as well for us to have the opportunity in this world to tell people we know about Jesus. And I I pray a lot in my my own life. I pray, God, give me the opportunity and the boldness to share the gospel with somebody today. I need the opportunity. You can't I don't like just go up to somebody, hey, do you know Jesus? You know, there's opportunities God gives where you can tell it's a it's a opportune moment, but then you need the boldness to do it. Yeah. >> Because sometimes you get the opportunity, you don't have the boldness. Sometimes you're real bold, but there's no opportunity. You know, just kind of go up and grab some guy by the collar. So, that's a good prayer. I think we're ambassadors for Christ. And if time is short, we don't know how much time that there is before the Lord comes. But I think the Lord wants us though to have a sense of urgency about our lives all the time. Um, again, not not being frantic or or living that that kind of life, but just just looking at our life and saying, you know, what am I doing in helping get the gospel out? Because if we really believe that the world's headed to this time of tribulation, there's an antichrist, and even worse after that, there's an eternity separated from God, do we really care about people who are around us who don't know Christ, maybe even people we love very much? I think a lot of us live and act like functional universalists, >> you know? >> Yeah, >> everybody's okay. A lady down the street, that old lady, she's fine. She doesn't know the Lord. You know, we kind of live like we believe everybody's going to heaven. We don't believe that, but we kind of live that way, right? >> And if we really believe that that much is at stake, we ought to have a a a deep heartfelt uh move in our life to at least open our lips sometime with somebody and just say, "Let me let me tell you about about Christ and who he is and what he's done for me." And if they reject it, I mean, that's not our responsibility to save them. But I think that's a good call here at the end for us to do that. >> Well, I don't want to wrap up before I just address. I don't want a repeat of what happened last time. I want to know what's happening next. So, do you have a book coming out in the beginning of May or something like that? Is there something else we're working on? >> There's a book that I updated and redid that's coming out in October. It's called uh Fast Facts on the End Times. So, it's just going to be a book that's really accessible to just get a lot of good information, kind of the main events, the main players, the main uh some questions and all that in there. So, I think that'll be that'd be a book if somebody's interested in end times. The book I have that's the most comprehensive book about the end times is called the end. I did it with Tinddale years ago. It's about a 500page book that goes starts with why study prophecy the biblical covenants and it just goes through the rapture the judgment seat of Christ the marriage of the lamb the tribulation period the antichrist all it just goes all the way through to to the eternal state. So and it's easy to read. It's not a complicated book. It's but it's 500 pages long. It's a if someone really wants to understand Bible prophecy, I think that would be a really good book for them to read as well. It's just called The End. It's put out by Tindale. >> Okay, very good. Well, guys, we'll have all that in the show notes for you, but anything else you want to get off your chest before we get out of here? >> No, thank just thanks for having me back again this soon. You know, hopefully it's not not too soon to be back, but I'd love to, you know, come back again sometime and do that forging table and just because that's what I just love talking about the Bible, you know, going through those chapters in the Bible and, you know, I love Bible prophecy. I write about it a lot. I teach on it a lot, but as you know at our church, I don't talk about it that much. I mean, I talk we go through books of the Bible. When it comes up, we talk about it. >> Um, so, you know, it's not some hobby horse that I have. I don't want to be some person. It's all I think about. But, but I do think about it quite a bit. But I just want to encourage, you know, all the men out there, make make esquetology and prophecies and end times. Make that a part of your regular diet of what you study. Don't become a fanatic about just studying that, but it should be part of what we study and what we think about as churches. You know, the coming of Christ is mentioned over 300 times in the New Testament in 260 chapters. So, you read the Bible, you're coming across it often. So, you know, become a student of that and try to understand that your your kids have questions today. Your wife has questions about what's happening. >> You arm yourself to be able to help them to understand what's happening in our world today. Well, the uh forging tablelablers have been chomping at the bit to get you on here. So, we'll figure out where the best place to land for you is going to be. But Mark, thanks again for coming on. >> Thank you so much. God bless you, man. >> Thank you for listening to this podcast. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five-star review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@unton.life. That's info@undanton.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook. And check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undauntton.life. And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is their song Perpetual, which is off their self-titled debut album on Faceown Records. The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the Lion of Judah.