Chris Mitchell

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for joining us on this week's dateline Jerusalem Pray
dot Com podcasts, and I'm joined this week by David Parsons.
He is the international spokesman for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem,
a senior vice president there, I would say, an expert
on things in the Middle East. He's been here for
decades and he's a dear friend as well. So David,

(00:22):
thanks for joining us today.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Good to see you. Chris. Hope all is well on
your end.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah. So it's been a very very important week with
President Donald Trump visiting Saudi Arabia. Currently, as we record this,
visiting Katar on his way to the UAE United Arab Emirates.
You can probably hear siren in the background right now,
but I'll just keep recording. Sirens are not unusual here

(00:51):
in Jerusalem. We had one last night, a different sounding siren,
and early this morning around seven point thirty another siren
because the huties down and Yemen fired some ballistic missiles
at Israel. Thankfully they were both intercepted. So David, that's
part of life here, isn't it lately?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, yes it is, and my son went and looked
it up. You know, these rocket alarms. They have such
a shrill noise to it, and it's deliberate. They want
you to feel a little fear and get to your
bomb shelters or whatever. So I think it's universal around
the world. They try and give a very disturbing, shrill sound.

(01:34):
It's not pleasant, No, not pleasant at all last night
and this morning. But the hand of God is over
this nation. They could just shoot them all down.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, yeah, So what is your sense about what's happening
now with President Trump and his visit here to the
Middle East. He's not coming to Israel, but he made
a sign some massive economic deals yes today with Saudi
Arabia and doing the same apparently in Qatar and then
the UAE. But overall, what's your sense about his trip

(02:09):
here to the Middle East?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
No, Well, you know, Trump had such an incredible record
in supporting Israel in his first term, impeccable and far
beyond any wish list I had had for so many years.
I worked at, for instance, you know, on the bill
to move the Usmity Embassy to Jerusalem way back in

(02:33):
nineteen ninety five, and had no idea it would be
Donald Trump who would be the one to finally move
it like we wanted to do back then twenty two
years later. So we have to thank God for him.
But I do admit I was a little concerned someone
was the reporting here in the region, especially in Israel.
They're looking for any excuse to present in that Yahoo

(02:57):
was being frozen out by Trump and kept out of
the loop. And there are some things that the Trump
team has pulled surprises on Israel. But there was a
genuine concern that Trump would get here and arrive and
he'd be faced with it's actually over three trillion dollars

(03:19):
in trade and arms deals and investment deals that he's
signing with the Saudis, with Kataris and the Emiratis. That's
a ton of money. No no president, no one has
ever had that sort of massive business deals. And it

(03:39):
looked like the leader of the Saudis, Crown Prince Mohamed
Ben Salvin, was going to throw in, you know, normalization
with Israel by the Saudis, by the Syrians, by the Lebanese,
and offer this really sweet, massive deal, historic, you know,
Nobel Prize worthy deal. If he would just force if

(04:04):
Trump would just force Israel to accept a Palestinian state,
and Trump, you know, we issued a prayer alert against it,
and we're praying for it. That Trump's so strong on Israel,
but this would be a big temptation for anyone, especially
a businessiness man and a deal maker like him. And
it turns out that he said no to it, that

(04:26):
he resisted it and said to the Saudis, you know,
you'll normalize with Israel at some point, but we'll let
you pick the timetable. But I'm not going to force
a Palestinian state on Israel right now. And lots of
other things happening in the region, but I think that
was the biggest development yesterday today. Of course, before he

(04:49):
flew off to Qatar, Trump met with Ahmed al Shara,
the new president of Syria, and there's huge questions around that,
but he says that the US is going to start
the process of lifting sanctions against Syria in order for

(05:10):
al Sharre to prove himself that he'll finally start fighting
terror get rid of the foreign terrorists that are part
of his regime. Now, he's got a whole list of
things to do and we'll see where that goes. He's
asked for a chance to stabilize his country and even
offered to normalize relations with Israel down the road. So

(05:31):
that is a historic turn of events from just months
ago when a sad regime was still in power in
Damascus and funneling all sorts of weapons to Hezballah in Lebanon.
It's amazing, too fast to keep up with sometimes.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Hey, yeah, oh, just an amazing turn of events in
the Middle East. Did it surprise you that President Trump
said he would normalize relations or get on the road
to normalization and lift the sanctions.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Look, he the Abraham Accords is his baby, and he
wants these other nations to join it. And it was
Al Shara himself. You know, there's an old adage that
if you want to get in good relations with Washington,
the pathway runs through Jerusalem. You got to make some
gesture towards Israel. And that's what he said he would do.

(06:25):
How warm of a peace or you know, normalization just
means you start, you stop this obsessive hatred of Israel
and you become normal. That's really what it means in
this context. And he already said it a couple of times,
so that's not surprising. I think the pace of it
happening so quickly, and Trump wasn't planning on meeting with him,

(06:49):
but I think Crown Prince Ben Salmon in Saudi's and
probably the Turkish President Erdawan sort of pushed this meeting
on Trump and accepted it and said we'll start down
that path and see how we can do it. What
Trump did say today, they still have a lot of
work to do in order to get these sanctions lifted.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, yeah, you were recording this just after you finished
a prayer meeting that you have done daily since October seventh.
And tell us about that prayer meeting and why is
prayer for Israel, Jerusalem and the region so important?

Speaker 2 (07:30):
You know, you know, we've been doing it for over
five hundred and eighty days now, since October seventh, twenty
twenty three. Our ministry was born in prayer. We've realized
that things that Israel faces the crisis, whether it was
you know, COVID or this war or so many times
the rocket wars, we have had to lean into prayer

(07:53):
over and over again. And with the advent of during COVID,
whenever everyone started using zoom and all were making use
of this tool for prayer gatherings online that have been
proven very effective and so for over five hundred and
eighty days, we've had up to one thousand, sometimes up

(08:15):
to seventeen hundred people on praying every day for Israel,
for the region. And we've looked at some of the
data and we've had Christians from one hundred and eighty
three nations taking part in our daily global prayer gathering.

(08:36):
There's only one hundred and ninety five member states in
the UN, so Christians for almost almost every nation on Earth,
even Antarctic. Of people in Antarctica praying with us for.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Really wow, yes, yeah, well that's impressive. Engaging counts inzen
do I've had a prayer meeting for one hundred years,
so you're on your way. Yeah. How important is it
to be praying for Israel at this time? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (09:11):
And look where we go through these birth pangs from
time to time, they seem more rapid in between the
frequency and the intensity. And of course October seventh was
the most intense birth pang for Israel really since this

(09:33):
six days, since the Holocaust, and certainly since Yam Kapoor.
And it's still the pain of it is still with us,
the birthpang, with the still you know, around sixty hostages
minim did, but some still alive being held in Gaza.

(09:53):
Prayer is just the way that you help Israel get
through these birth pangs. We're like a midwife in prayer,
helping them through it, praying against the enemies. It's been
so encouraging to have Christians from all over the world
praying with us. It's been encouraging for us because you

(10:14):
live here watching the scenes, knowing it was so close.
We were down in that area along the guys of
border just two days before it all happened, So it
was quite shocking and surreal for us, and we sort
of got traumatized, even with the Holy Ghost inside and
bold Christians, you know, ready to face the lions den.

(10:38):
This was a tough one. It's been a tough one,
and prayer has helped see us through all of this.
Some days there's been nothing else you can do but
pray yourself and Israel through it.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Tell us about your experience at October seventh, and as
you said, you were down in one of these kaputin
I believe it was to far Aza just two days
before October seventh.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, we had a big solidarity rally about seven hundred
Christians from fifty countries at the end of our feast
of Tabernacles on October fifth. It was a Thursday, twenty
twenty three, and we split up, someone to this kibbut
some to that one touring. We took some people right

(11:25):
out on the border our VIPs and planted trees within
three hundred meters of the Gossa border. And there's no
doubt Hamas was watching us. They knew that they were
about to launch something, so they were watching the border
area and breached it two days later, right where we
planted these trees. And we had lunch at this kibbutz Alumm,

(11:49):
so peaceful, so quiet, you had no idea the presence
of the Lord was with us. We were singing songs, worshiping,
having lunch with them, and all and days later for
it all this area to turn into such a killing field.
It was shocking. It was surreal and we couldn't believe it.

(12:11):
One guy, he's the mayor of the local regional council,
who I introduced to speak to our people. He gave
a nice, warm greeting. Two days later. He was the
first name casualty mayor of for Lippstein, and we loved him.
We've been in his house, we've worked with him for years,
and for him to lose his life like this, it

(12:34):
got made it very personal and it's been you know,
we we were drafted into this battle from the very
first moment to help stand with Israel through it all.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
How would you describe the resilience of the people of
Israel and also how how emotionally attached almost everybody is.
In other words, they may know of somebody who was
killed or captured or wounded on October seventh, or they
may know somebody in the army now or was it

(13:10):
the army.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, yeah, it's a citizen's army. And everyone feels that
you have this social compact. You send your sons and
daughters to go defend the nation, and the nation's going
to stand with them and bring them back and all.
And that's been really tested through this war. Israel is
this unique country, Chris, As you know that they do

(13:36):
these poles all around the world, who's the happiest nation,
the most optimistic about the future. Israel's always in the
top ten, even though it's got tens of thousands of
rockets pointed at it, terror attacks every day, all the
challenges and all the hatreds fewed against the Jewish people
and the state of Israel, and yet there's still one

(13:59):
of the happiest people on earth. It's an usual thing.
But you know that their perseverance and their resilience there
are lessons for us as Christians that I know that.
You know, if if you had terrorists rampaging through your neighborhood,
killing people, raping, torturing, maiming, mutilating and whatever, I don't know,

(14:26):
most Christians would have gone crazy too, and they wouldn't
be able to stick it out. And these people in
these areas, they have a inner strength that is quite remarkable,
and we look at it and we just say we
need to learn from them as Christians. But the people

(14:46):
of Israel do have a sense that the hand of
God is with them and watching over the nation. It
doesn't mean that they're all going to synagogue and praying
three times a day and all the things that really
really just observant Jews to but most Israelis, even the
most of this war, have seen the hand of God

(15:08):
over the nation, and it's quite remarkable.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
You talked about birth pangs in October seventh. You've written
a book about the age that we live in called Floodgates,
a book about the end times. What's that book? Described?
The book?

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, it's I actually got to share then when I
first published it with Gordon on the seven hundred made
a war. It's there to talk about it when we
had the book launch. It's about the flood of Noah
as a paradigm or model for the end of days.
Based on the teaching of Jesus himself. He said, as

(15:49):
in the days of Noah, so shall it be the
coming of the subtle Man. How the moral slide in
the pre flood world that calls God to really had
to move his hand to come and destroy all living
flesh except for Noah to preserve a righteous remnant for
a new fresh start. That this is a model for

(16:12):
the end of days, and we'll bring the righteous remnant
is going to be much much larger than they eight
people and know his family. But Jesus says it, it's
all through the Old Testament, the prophetic analogies and the
prophets all the way through affirmed by Jesus and Paul
and Peter and John in Revelation, all the flood illusions

(16:37):
and analogies and affirmations. And I'm going to do a
follow up book about how the Exodus from Egypt is
also a fall and complete analogy for the end of
days and how the flood in the Exodus fit together,
to give you some idea about what God is, how

(16:59):
it's going to play out, what God is doing, what
is his purpose? Because so many times in Bible teaching,
especially for petic teachings, people are speculating, giving a lot
of sensational stuff, but they don't really teach what the
Jesus and the Apostles taught and don't really tell you

(17:19):
the why why God has to do this. And I
want people to understand that better, why He has certain
purposes and plans to complete his redemptive purposes in the earth.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
If we're living in these days, David, how should we
be preparing and how should we pray?

Speaker 2 (17:40):
Yeah, you first of all have to walk up rightly.
It says of Noah that he was a righteous man
a zotc in the Hebrew, and he's the only person
in the Bible that's described that way, a righteous man.
That he was upright in his generations. It means that

(18:02):
he had not participated in the illegal union between these
rebellious angels that come to earth and the daughters of men.
He was still perfect in his Dna. He was still
like Adam, and so we have to keep ourselves clean

(18:22):
from the world and walking up brightly. It says that
he found grace in the eyes of the Lord that
were there, and Hebrew as hen or favor. He found favor.
It's the Rabbis describe it as a special ability that

(18:42):
God puts over you to see right and wrong from
his eyes, from his perspective, and to stick that grace
that comes with sticking with his judgment and assessment what
is right and wrong, rather than falling prey to the
popular trends of day that say homosexuality is okay, abortion

(19:03):
is okay, transgender is okay. You look at these things
from God's perspective. The grace of God stays on you
to keep you on the path of righteousness. And that's
so important, and that's something we all need to pray
about that we don't compromise and cave into these crumbling
world standards of morality around us.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
There's a book or a title name Slouching toward Gomora.
Do you see all these things happening in our time.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, the Bible says that Solomon Gomora are held out
it as an example of the judgment to come. There
will be a catastrophic global judgment. It just won't be
by water, It'll be by fire this time, and says
that Solomon Gamara are an example. And Peter says it,

(19:58):
I think it's first or second p where he uses
the same analogy and says, Sodom and Morrow, what happened there?
And look, I think even the whole thing, the whole
question of Israel at heart, it's a moral question and
the ability to see Israel from God's perspective. Most of

(20:20):
the world sees embombing, you know, Palestinians and Godza and
they're starting and this and that. But you know, this fight,
it's a spiritual battle. It's just not a battle over territory.
And what the Jews faced on October seventh. They've been
facing those sort of pilgrims, expulsions, inquisitions, holocausts, all of

(20:42):
that for centuries and centuries. This obsessive hatred and scapegoating
and jealousy against the Jews, and the ability to resist
that and see the restoration of Israel through God's eyes.
It takes a special grace from Him uh. And it's

(21:03):
part I believe of being the righteous remnant in these
days in order to see this conflict as spiritual and
having to do with God, the final acts of God's
redemptive purpose in the earth which involve Israel.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Did that become so much more stark? On October seventh
there seemed to be a dividing line globally between those
who would support Israel and those who would support Amas.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Sure. I think in the immediate aftermath you saw the
mutilation of people. I saw some of the footage that
it's I don't want to go describing, you know, but
someone is already dead and they're trying to chop his
head off a blunt shovel. It's really sick stuff. And
of course you want to stand with the Jewish people

(21:54):
that touched the raw nerve of the Holocaust, what happened
all and down the gods of border. But over time,
as Israel's F fifteen's and F sixteens, the Palestinians don't
have it, you know, and the constant imagery and the
constant criticism against Israel, it might sort of undermine, you know,

(22:16):
your stand with Israel. But I think we've just decided
to double down that the intensity of the hatred and
the criticism, it's so unfair against Israel. It's nothing different
than what Hitler threw out him or anyone else. And
until you start realizing that at all, we can't agree

(22:37):
with you. We're going to stand with Israel. And if
the kids and the children and gods are starving and
being malnourished right now, then release the hostages. Just release them. Yeah, yeah,
that's all you have to do. That's all you have
to do. And it's not that Israel's trying to starve

(23:01):
the people there, it's they're trying to keep the food
out of Amasa's hands because Amos uses the food to
control the people, recruit them into their ranks, everything else
that they do, all the evil they do, that is
their last line of control over the people. And Israel's
trying to break that while still feeding the people, preventing

(23:24):
some sort of starvation or something. And things will be
all right there in the end. But Hamas has to go.
Amas has to go.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Well, we're right on the cusp, but maybe a large
IDF offensive and operation against them us to bring the
war to an end. And Lord willing free all the hostages. So, David,
if you've had this per meeting going on since October seventh,
how can people find out about it?

Speaker 2 (23:55):
They can go to our website. It's just icej dot or.
That's all you put in the search line ICEEJ dot org.
That will take you to our website and on our
homepage there there's a button there with praying hands pray
with us that you can go on and you'll be
able to register to join our daily Global Prayer Gathering,

(24:18):
or we have a twenty four seven prayer vigil round
the clock or all around the world that there's people
from like seventy nations participating in that. It's called the
Rochholders Prayer Chain. And then our Daily Global Prayer Gathering.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, so that's just one of many things that the
ICJ does. What else do you do and what you've
been doing since nineteen eighty.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, Yeah, we still put on that. We put on
the Feast of Tabernacle. It's the largest Christian event in
Israel every year each fall during the biblical festival sou Coat.
We've helped one hundred and ninety thousand Jews make ali
al they return home to Israel from all around the world.

(25:08):
We've done all sorts of charitable work throughout the land,
and right now we have seven major rebuilding projects that
are active down in the cause of border areas, helping
these communities that were so battered on October seven, helping
them recover and rebuild. We're helping the most vulnerable, those

(25:28):
who have been traumatized, the elderly children. You know. We're
doing a youth activity center, a children's center with Traumacare,
and elderly activities center, activities and Traumacare, A therapy farm,
animal therapy farm with therapy horses. We've already given four

(25:50):
therapy horses and we're going to redo their whole petting
zoo and help them. It works wonders with the children,
even with me. I get around our therapy horses and
some of these animals, and it does wonders because we
have been through a lot here and other things that

(26:11):
we're doing right now to help these communities recover. It's
the largest, sort of most ambitious set of building projects
we've ever had in Israel at one time, but it's
so needed, the needs aren't great. In order to draw
the people back to people who are evacuated. It's not easy, Chris,

(26:31):
in your home. Can you imagine a family member murdered
inside your home and you flee because of the war.
And here, even if it's a year and a half later,
it's hard to move back to that place, back to
that home, it would be hard. And building new homes,
but they need help with their community, building schools and

(26:53):
activity centers, things like this in order to draw the
people back and give them the sort of communal life
that these people are so used to.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, well, the amazing stuff that the Icy he does.
And I know if you want to know more, you
go to icej dot org. And if you want to
join the prayer team as well, David, would you close
us in prayer?

Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yes, Chris, Lord, I thank you for this opportunity to
speak to people on this pray dot com podcast. I
thank you for my brother Chris and all that he
all the good that he does and speaking truth and
giving updates from here in the land. I ask you
to bless his whole team. Bless all the listeners. We

(27:40):
bless them from Zion. Lord, I stir them to pray
for Israel, to pray for this nation. Lord, that you
would hasten your work among this people in order for
them to be able to receive their promise Messiah in
the days ahead, no matter what sort of birth paygs
come along. Lord, that you would raise up an army

(28:02):
of prayer warriors all around the world to help, as
it were, as a midwife, helping Israel through each and
every birth, paying each and every challenge. In Jesus' name,
I pray.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Amen, Father, I pray for David and the icej that
you would continue to use them to comfort comfort all
the people of Israel and so many practical and spiritual ways.
And Lord, we pray for each and everyone watching or
listening that you would keep them safe. And Father, we
pray that you bless them from Jerusalem. And Lord that

(28:37):
you would help them fulfill the purpose and the plan
and help to walk in those good works that you
have ordained since the foundation of the world. In Jesus name, Amen,
Well David, thanks so much for joining us.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Salam.