June 10, 2024 • 36 mins
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Experience a profound exploration into the significance of the Middle East and its pivotal role in God's grand plan of redemption in this episode. Taking a deep dive into the historical and biblical context of this region, your hosts, Jeff Pelletier and Neil Johnson, unravel tales of fascinating civilizations, the narratives of Christianity, and the compelling concept of 'the unseen realm'. Engage in riveting discussions about angels, demons, and other-dimensional beings and their enigmatic roles in history. Learn about the notion of ancient aliens and their influence on our fears.
Discover the spiritual warfare between good and evil set in the Bible's pages, and its influence on our modern world. Understand the role of demons and angels, the power of rebellion and the promise of redemption, and how these elements interact in the mysteries of the unseen realm. Delve deep into the complexities of God's plan for humanity and confront the opposition it encounters from demonic entities.
Continue the discussion by examining the importance of Israel, the spiritual power of Jerusalem, and their crucial roles in God's redemptive plan. Gain insights into the impact of this biblical conflict between good and evil on current events in Israel and the Middle East. Understand the responsibilities of believers in maintaining peace in Jerusalem and remaining steadfast amidst spiritual onslaughts.
Finally, reflect on the role of the Christian church as 'notarim' - the watchmen standing against unseen realm's powers and principalities. The episode encourages listeners to comprehend their role's urgency and the importance of supporting and praying for Israel amidst ongoing spiritual warfare. Embark on this fascinating journey, unravel history, theology, mystery, and arrive at a deeper understanding of your part in God's grand scheme for humanity's redemption.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:08):
Welcome to Israel. Why is the Middle East important? We Christians are the Notzrim,
according to most Jews today. We are the watchers on the wall.
Our purpose as members of the Commonwealth of Israel is to serve and protect God's people.
After the formation of the world, God enacted a plan, and that plan began in
(00:30):
the Middle East at the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
And that plan concludes in that same place.
The context of the entirety of God's plan begins and completes in and with Israel.
There is no denying that, nor refuting it, if you are a Jew or a Christian,
and the anthropological evidence verifies it.
(00:52):
For the purposes of this podcast, Israel is both a nation and a people.
Welcome back, folks. This is Jeff Pelletier with Neil Johnson,
and this is Israel. Why is the Middle East important?
We've been focusing on our last two shows about the unseen realm,
(01:13):
and we're going to continue that theme and finish our discussion on the unseen realm.
So let me start us off right away with our goal for this installment today about the unseen realm.
So the question is, what are we witnessing today that we have seen before,
and have we seen it before.
(01:34):
And then the question also is, is creation concerning only God Almighty and humans?
Okay, the created realm is the creation concerning only God Almighty and humans,
or are there also other entities inhabiting or visiting our dimension?
(01:55):
And we've been making the case for this all along, and we're going to make this case again,
and then we're going to give you some information about how we ought to handle
that and what we ought to do and what maybe our role is in this situation as Christians,
as we call at the beginning of the broadcast, we are the nots reem.
(02:16):
So we're going to talk about that a little bit more too.
Okay, so Neil, what are demons, unclean spirits, fallen angels,
the Satan, what's all that? So, it's kind of a catch-all phrase to say demons.
It encompasses seemingly a whole lot of different entities, and there are many
(02:37):
different verses where there are specific references.
There are many different occurrences of examples in the Bible that talk about
seemingly different structure or power type of these visiting entities,
both good, you know, we call them angels, but it seems like there's a lot of other.
(02:58):
Gods, if you will, the Bible calls them gods, of which angels are a category or a class.
Small g gods. Small g gods. They are created.
But the Bible's replete with references, old and new covenants,
referencing the reality of these beings.
(03:20):
And we, today, in the West, we call it all demons.
It's okay. It's like saying, Coke, give me a Coke. I don't care if you give
me a Pepsi, if you give me a...
Give me a Coke. Yeah, right. It's all the same. So we got that from the Septuagint,
right? The Greek translation of the Hebrew.
They kind of made it demons, right? They kind of overall applied that terminology
(03:43):
to these more specific entities called out in the Hebrew texts of the spirit,
the celestial beings,
these created beings. Yeah.
But in the New Testament cultural time, the understanding of demons was pretty
widespread among all cultures, right?
(04:04):
I mean, it wasn't something that was foreign to people back in the day,
right? No, not at all. They were very familiar.
It was almost expected that there would be a cause and effect,
if you will, all kinds of activities related to these entities, these demons.
And we see Jesus in the New Covenant, in the Gospels, addressing these entities
(04:26):
and usually, almost invariably, casting them out and or healing sick people.
And so, what is their role in history?
What purpose do they serve?
Right. So, I can only say that because they're referenced throughout,
they have a goal, and the goal is to thwart God's plan.
(04:50):
Because, again, there are at least three that we can pinpoint rebellions.
One of these rebellions was this cosmic rebellion of these celestial beings.
At least two of them were, actually.
And what we see is these beings are, their offspring are judged.
And they are actually what we call the demons. They are on the earth today.
(05:13):
They're disembodied spirits.
They're hybrids. They're half human, half celestial being.
And that goes back to Genesis 6, right? And that all goes back to Genesis 6,
where it says the B'nai Ha'alohim, the sons of God.
The sons of God. And that phrase, sons of God. Has relations with the daughters of men.
Has relations with the daughters of men. Which is Adam's relations.
(05:37):
Adam's actual relations. And they created these hybrid beings.
They created these hybrid beings, right.
And that's not open for discussion. It's right there in the book.
Well, it's open for discussion in the sense of there are opposing views,
there are differing opinions, there are different interpretations.
Well, I suppose you can make it say whatever you want it to say. And that's the problem.
(06:00):
You can always make something say what you want it to say. And the trick is
to how do I be as careful as I can, as I can as a human, which is very limited
to the best of us. We have a limited capacity to...
Synthesize all that, all that, the meaning of the text, because we're often
asked in scripture, were you in the counsel of God? Did you listen in?
(06:25):
And as you and I've kidded before, I've said, well, Jeff, I have to answer that
question with a big, heavily pronounced no.
Yeah, exactly. So I get the concern and people are afraid to even talk about
these types of things. And I
totally understand why they would change the language and make it not so.
(06:45):
I grew up in the town where the Salem witch trials were held.
And that was all about demonic possession, right? And demonic behavior.
And people were unjustly, right? Later they found out unjustly accused of being
demonically possessed.
And they were killed and drowned and hung and all kinds of things.
And the people realized they made a mistake. And so I could see where something
(07:09):
like that would cause an aversion to calling out a demon and say,
well, we don't want to make that mistake again.
And so the history taught them, their experience taught them to be more careful with that.
But then over time, you know, we kind of eliminated it altogether from our vocabulary in Christianity.
There was a time we didn't hardly talk about it at all. Right.
(07:30):
And that's the problem. And that's what I was getting to when I said you have
to, as best as you can as a human, parse out these difficult verses,
these difficult sections, these difficult meanings.
And so much is lost in just the translation from Hebrew to English and the Old Covenant and so on.
And so you're right. People are very wary.
(07:51):
And plus, we are culturally predisposed today.
It's called, and we did a show on this, The Law of First Learns.
What did I learn first? I talked about it with somebody else yesterday.
And if you deal with somebody and you've been to seminary and they've been to
seminary, only they've been taught by a wonderful people and wonderful teaching
and a wonderful human with lots of extra supernatural experiences.
(08:16):
But maybe they've been taught as pertains to what you brought up, the Genesis 6 account.
They might teach the Sethite view, which is one view of many permutations,
sort of like the rapture. There's all kinds of different assumptions going into
that, that it's not one uniform megalithic block.
But that is the difficulty. How do I read these difficult portions and come
(08:40):
away with the most accurate interpretation, giving my pay grade is so low?
Yeah. But that's the key. You just made the key right there.
The key word is interpretation, because if we begin with what it actually says, right?
The sons of God, okay, which is interpreted the offspring of celestial beings.
(09:02):
That's what it means, right?
I mean, and those came and had relations, it says, with the daughters of Adam. And so...
We can interpret that however we want, but we can't change what it actually says.
Right, right. And that just becomes, we are all subject to our preferred theological stance.
(09:28):
First learned, first learned, absolutely. What do we believe from reading this? What do we assume?
What are our biases? And it's very hard for the best of us, of which I am not
one of the best of us, but it's hard for the best of us.
I'm with you a lot. To change our theology, if you will, because my tradition,
(09:50):
my preference, my bias or whatever.
But to your point, Jeff, I just want to make another comment.
I think we made it last time.
You do not have to convince somebody who is dealing with demonic reality in any form.
You do not have to convince them. You don't have to convince them that there's something going on.
So I would assume, Neil, if we went back and asked the dead people in Israel
(10:15):
who were dismembered and raped and carved in half,
and so forth, if we were able to resurrect them and ask them if there's evil
in the world apart from humanity,
I think we know what they would say. Right, right.
And I think that that's the whole purpose of our show today is,
(10:35):
as I keep saying to you, Jeff, people are afraid.
People are afraid today. I think you really have to be concerned about the person
who looks at you and says, I am not afraid.
That person's really out of touch.
(11:00):
I know you're afraid. Right. I get you're afraid.
You're a human after all. You don't get this thing, but don't let it cripple
you. Don't let it cripple you.
And that's what we're trying to do with this show for people out there today
is that I know there's fear.
These entities are real. They're powerful, as we said, but they're not God.
And here's what's really going on with them. Yeah, exactly.
(11:24):
And God is here to help us deal with that. And one of the things he does,
but let me ask you this question, Neil.
There's shows on TV, and I'm going to ask, I'm going to use the title of one
of the shows to ask you a question. Are there ancient aliens?
Well, that's a very, that's a very. That's a TV show.
It's a TV show. It's very popular today. And it's sort of a yes and no,
(11:48):
because if you say, are they ancient?
The answer is yes. Yes, they are. Are they alien?
The answer is yes. Are they ancient aliens as the way that these people,
certain people try to portray them as our helpers and they're good and they
come from some star system or whatever?
Because the Bible always talks about created beings associated with stars, right?
(12:08):
That's a euphemism, that's a Hebraism, if you will, for these created beings. Yes, that's right.
But they're more interdimensional than coming from a long way away. So the answer is no.
(12:49):
One of those guys. And he said, there's no heaven. I was up there.
Believe me, there's no heaven.
Okay. And I think he was, he was trying to be in our face about it,
I guess, in one way, but I wasn't surprised by that at all.
You know, it, because heaven is a place in a state of being,
it's, it's a dimension that we don't see.
(13:11):
Right. We can't see in the, the natural realm. Right.
It's in a, you know, Paul talked about the second heaven and the third heaven,
and he wouldn't have visited the third heaven. Well, it isn't up there.
It's somewhere else, you know, I mean, but they are called up.
John was called up, come up here. Right. Right.
(13:33):
But it's not a linear thing, I guess. Yeah.
And again, you're I'll keep using the phrase you're outside of my pay grade,
except I know there is one. Right. Exactly.
And meaning we have no knowledge, probably multiple because the scientists and
I use that word sort of facetiously. facetiously.
(13:53):
The scientists have said there's multiverses. Well, that's exactly what the
Bible tells us. There's places you go when you die, right?
There's places you go after Jesus' death for believers seemingly.
There's places of God's abode, heaven, the north, Zaphon, all these places,
the holy hill, the holy assembly, all these places.
(14:16):
Really all it's telling us, Jeff, is there's different dimensions.
And I only know this one, but I read the books and it tells me there's others.
And I think we also experience things that way sometimes.
So ancient aliens, yes, folks, there are ancient aliens. Okay.
So we got that one solved.
(14:37):
Now their purpose, their purpose, Neil, their purpose of the evil,
of evil, as you said, is to thwart God's plan. And Jesus expressed it this way.
The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.
So that's God's plan, thwarting God's plan, but that's what he called modus
(14:59):
operandi, steal, kill, and destroy.
So it doesn't matter how it appears. It doesn't matter in what form it appears.
He or it or them, I don't know how it works.
I don't either. But nonetheless, the Bible, the scriptures, the Hebrew scriptures
tell us that these entities can and do appear in different forms,
(15:22):
all kinds of different formats,
all kinds of different offerings, if you will.
We know that even Jesus was tempted by what's called the Satan or Satan as he came to be known.
He means the accuser. the accuser, but he was tempted with three temptations
that are recorded specifically.
And so we know that...
(15:44):
One, he presents offerings. Two, Jesus was tempted.
He could have said yes, and he
could have accepted what seemingly was this entity's ability to give him.
In other words, I don't tempt you with something I can't produce.
If I tempted you with $10 million, you'd say, sure, Neil.
(16:06):
You mean it's not like Lucy and Peanuts with the football where she pulls it
away at the last minute? It's not like that?
Well, it kind of is in a sense. It can be that. It can be that.
But these entities do come and they do offer things.
They're not always what they were. And that is why Jesus said, the thief.
In other words, you don't have to look for me. He made this clear in many different
(16:28):
ways in many different times, as had the other disciples in their writings,
that you don't have to wonder about, is that him?
You will know when it's him. You will see him.
These other entities come and they say things like, he's not really who he says
he was, or I am him, or who knows what permutation of that lie.
(16:50):
And that is why Jesus said the thief only comes, even if he comes bearing gifts, revealed knowledge,
supernatural ability to do this or that or the other thing, he's really only
coming to kill you, to steal from you, and to destroy you. That's it. Amen. Amen.
So we know, and we've talked about this before in another show,
(17:11):
but we know that God set us up in the garden to win.
We could be with him and have kids and have a wonderful, glorious life forever, right?
And be alive forever and be with him and it would be awesome,
right? No death, no nothing, right? And then we made a mistake.
Adam and Eve made a mistake and they rebelled. That was the first rebellion
(17:36):
against God that we know of, right? They rebelled against God.
And God said, okay, if that's the way it's going to be, I'm sorry,
but I specifically told you not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
I specifically told you not to do that, and you did it, so now this is off. The bets are off.
(17:57):
And he threw him out of the garden, and then the plan of God from that moment
on is to get us reconciled back with him, to give us a way back.
And that was the journey that humanity embarked on after he threw us out.
And God set up a plan, right, which includes Jesus, right, and the Jews and Israel,
(18:22):
right, to reconcile that rebellion between us and him so things can go back
to the way they were, right?
And since then, the enemy has been trying to— He's been trying to thwart God's
plan for vested interest.
He has a very vested interest, and not just he as though it's one.
(18:44):
There are a multitude of these entities, again, of which I don't know all of
them, but the Bible names them as different ways.
The New Covenant, referencing the Old, calls them powers and principalities and thrones and so on.
And we see that throughout the Scripture, that that's how the Older Covenant
also refers to these beings.
(19:04):
So when you said there was that first rebellion, yes, indeed, there was.
And thank God, as I always say to you, it was rebellion of ignorance.
Yes, humans did what they weren't supposed to do, but it was because they were ignorant.
This thing called the serpent or the spirit that came in, whatever it was, it knew better.
It knew what was going on. It understood on a larger scale how this works.
(19:30):
And to him, it was not forgiven. To humans, thank God again.
We didn't know. And so it was a rebellion by ignorance, if you will.
Ignorant does not mean stupid.
Ignorant means I didn't know. Right. Exactly. Yeah.
So, Neil, I just want to pause here and just tell our listeners,
I'm going to put something up on Facebook, on our Facebook page,
(19:53):
which is Israel Wives the Middle East Important.
And just to give you some insight into the truth about the unseen realm.
Okay. Numbers chapters 22 through 24, Daniel 10, 12, 13, Daniel 20 and 21.
Psalm 29, 82, 89, five through seven, John 1, 6, Job 2, 1, Job 15,
(20:19):
8, 1 Kings. And I'm going to stop.
I'm going to stop, but I'm going to put all these verses up so you can go through
the Bible yourself and read for yourself the proof about what we're talking about here.
So it's not like we made it up, just saying. Okay.
So, Neal, what are we witnessing today?
So what we're witnessing today is nothing new.
(20:41):
From the very, very beginning, God promised, for instance, as we've said before,
the land to your inhabitants, because it was part of his restoration.
In other words, once Adam and Eve, our forebears, fell, if you will,
in the in the fall through ignorance, they were cast out of the garden.
So in other words, all earth was not a garden at that time. It was supposed
(21:04):
to be, but it wasn't. So they were cast out.
The fact is, is that from that very moment on, there's been a battle between
the demonic, if you will, using that term as a catch-all, and humanity.
There's been a battle. And God's plan in the battle has been,
I want to bring humanity back into right standing with me.
(21:26):
And that's what the Bible's all about, is redemption, restoration. That's right.
At its core, that's what the Bible is all about. So we've often said it says
a great many other things about a great many other things, but at its core,
it's still saying, how do I redeem this?
So God has a plan.
It does not include this demonic entities of which we see in Genesis 6.
(21:51):
Sorry, you're not invited to the party.
Why? Again, because they knew better and their offspring knew better.
And that's what we read about in the Genesis 6 rebellion,
that there was another rebellion, right, sometime after that initial one that
we read in Genesis 3 with the serpent and going into the garden and confusing
Adam and Eve and so on. It gets to be a bit of a theological discussion.
(22:14):
But at its core today, there's nothing new.
So what we see with that is that this Satan figure, if you will,
or Satan himself, however you want to describe it. Also, Diabolos is known as.
Satanos and Diabolos are two names, but there's many others, right?
(22:35):
Many others. Many other names. Yeah. Yeah. But he knew, and from the beginning,
he only knew partially how this was going to work. He doesn't know everything.
He's not omniscient at all. No, he didn't know. And also the scriptures,
the old covenant scriptures, do not call out specifically A, B, C, D, E, and F.
And then I will be there and then I will do this and such. They're very veiled.
(23:00):
Let me give our listeners a proof text of this, okay? It's Matthew 8, 29, okay?
It says that Jesus is confronting some spiritual entities in the Gospels,
and they say to him, what do you want with us, Son of God?
They shouted, have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?
(23:23):
Right, right. Now, they don't know when that is, of course, but they know there's
an appointed time and something is going to happen.
And they're afraid. And they're afraid. And they want to thwart God's plan,
which these entities work through humanity.
So when you ask that question, what's going on today? What are they doing?
It's nothing new under the sun.
We see this throughout, whether it was the promise to Abraham and then 400 years
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later, outcome his offspring, his descendants.
But guess what's happened? Satan knew enough to, hey, if I've got to thwart
God's plan through these people, at At least I will populate Canaan,
the promised land, with my people.
And whether it's Pharaoh who said, I will kill all the firstborn,
whether it's Herod the Great who asked the Babylonian magicians,
(24:10):
well, when did this happen?
And then he proceeds to kill all the male heirs of a certain age.
Let's not forget Haman and Esther. He was going to destroy the whole nation.
He was going to destroy all of them because Mordecai wouldn't fall down to him.
But really, what's behind this? It's the same spirit that's behind it today,
(24:34):
whether it's in more modern days, the Hitlers, or in our present moment,
Hamas, PLO, Hezbollah, Houthis, etc., Iran, etc.
So why, Neil, why do they want to take the Jews down?
Why do they want to take Israel down? Because, again, as we have said,
and we'll say it, make it clear perfectly, is that.
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If I can do away with the people, if I can do away with the land,
if I can do away with the holy city, and what I mean by do away with is make
it non-Jewish, no Jews, no Israel.
It's called something else. I've eliminated that.
I have either postponed the judgment or I have won.
(25:19):
And you have to remember these entities, while they are afraid of Jesus,
There's just no doubt because God knew, I can't give this to a man.
I gave it to one great man named Moses, and he did great things.
Yeah, he did great things, but he didn't cut the mustard all the way. Yeah, exactly.
God said, I have to do this myself. Yeah, exactly.
But he didn't say that specifically, delineate it specifically in the Old Covenant,
(25:44):
that the demonic realm could see that.
But they knew enough that it would be this seed.
And that's what we see even in our day today.
And that is what's going on. And that's what we're trying to warn the people
about. This is nothing new. It's the same spirit.
It's what's going on behind the scenes, if you will.
What's motivating man to act and do certain things in opposition to God's plan,
(26:09):
which again is the restoration of all of us, everyone, Jew and non-Jew.
And we have these crazy, powerful, half-breed, demonic offspring of this angelic
rebellion that came down and took human wives, had offspring.
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They are still demonic, disembodied, demonic entities, if you will,
still present in our realm.
Even the book of Revelation tells John, who sat and heard Jesus teaching under
his own wing, if you will, under his arm, face-to-face and personally,
John had to be explained, what am I seeing?
(26:52):
What's going on? And one time an angel, whoever that angel is,
in Revelation, told John, he saw the seals and the bowls and the vials being poured out and so on.
And he said, set free the angels under the Euphrates River,
which again is parodied in other books and in Peter and in Jude referencing
(27:19):
this demonic rebellion.
So, their forefathers are under the Euphrates River, bound in chains,
but they're demonic sons. Yeah.
Seemingly have free reign to do what they will in this realm.
And that's what's happening with this opposition to Israel, because they still
think I'm either going to postpone or win this battle of God.
(27:41):
So then, assuming all of that is true, which it is, okay, it's a fact,
and we've got the scripture to back it up.
If that's true, then what is the calling of the non-Jewish church of Israel,
okay, I'm going to call it that, the non-Jewish church of Israel,
the Christian church is a member of the commonwealth of Israel.
(28:05):
If Israel goes, we're going with it. We are part of the family, okay?
We're adopted in, we're grafted in, okay?
So what is the calling then for us towards Israel? Right.
And, you know, one thing that we're enjoined to believe and to grab on to is
(28:26):
Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, told us in 2 Corinthians,
it's actually 2 Corinthians 2.11, he said, in order that Satan should not outwit us.
We are not unaware of his schemes.
In other words, Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, who reached out as a Jew
(28:50):
to the Gentiles, because he knew this is God's overall plan to whatever degree
he knew it and understood it.
He naturally assumed and assumed, we assumed and knew that there was a Satan,
there was a demonic realm and that he told us, don't be unaware of his schemes.
(29:11):
So everything going on that's opposed to Israel today is a scheme that we've
seen many times in many ways in many peoples who are opposing the reality of Israel.
So we are the watchmen. We are the watchmen. We are the notsrim, if you will.
The notsrim, yes. The notsrim, we are the watchmen. The sentries on the wall. The sentries, right.
Yes, yes. And we are watching for our enemies. Yep.
(29:35):
As well as our friends. And the admonition to pray for the peace of Jerusalem
in Psalm 122 is an intercession on their behalf. Right.
It's part of our role as not serene, right? Right.
To intercede on behalf of Israel, pray for the peace of Israel so that it will
not be harmed, so that it will be preserved.
So when he comes back, there's an Israel to come back to. Right.
(29:58):
I mean, it's so theologically important that there is a Jewish Jerusalem,
a Jewish presence in the land, a DNA, if you will, a Jewish people,
all important for God's plan of redemption.
And if I am opposed to that, I am opposed to God's plan.
And that is what we are fighting today.
(30:20):
So when you say that pray for the peace of Jerusalem, yes, that's one of many,
many, many concepts, many imperatives that you, Notre Dame, you Christians,
that's what what notarim means today in modern Hebrew.
I find it fascinating, Jeff, that in the same chapter where it says notarim
(30:40):
is the same chapter of a promise of a new covenant.
Hey, how about that? We should talk about that next time.
So it also, as you said, there's more to it than just praying.
And we're going to talk in our next episode about giving, right?
And helping materially, helping Israel materially during this time.
It's very important, very important. But, you know, Paul said it very well in 2 Corinthians 10.
(31:07):
And this kind of wraps up what we're talking about here in the unseen realm.
He said, we do not wage war according to the flesh.
The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the world.
Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds, spiritual strongholds.
(31:29):
And that's 2 Corinthians 10, 3 and 4.
And our war is against the powers and the principalities in the heavenly realms.
In Ephesians 3.10, he says, that's our job. The manifold wisdom of God will
be made known to the powers and the principalities in the heavenly realms. That's Ephesians 3.10.
(31:51):
And again, there's nothing new in the new covenant that isn't already displayed in the old covenant.
We keep saying that it's one composite whole.
It's not, I'm going to start over and make a new religion out of whole cloth.
And actually, Yahweh is actually Allah or some such permutation of this.
No, it's the same. So what we have is in Ezekiel 22, verse 30,
(32:15):
we're told that we are to stand in the gap.
In other words, the wall, symbolically, the wall of Jerusalem had a hole in it. It had a breach.
And we are called as the noterim, as the watchmen, stand on that,
hold out the enemy, welcome your friends, but hold out the enemy.
(32:36):
And that is the job, Jeff, of when you say we're watchmen or we're not serene, which we are.
We're called that. We're told that that is our function.
We're told we will carry the children of Israel back in our arms and on our shoulders.
We will carry them back to the land because we're going to have a revelation
of this is important. So.
(32:56):
Ezekiel tells us, stand in that gap, be the watchman, stand as a barrier to the enemy.
And that is what we are doing today. And that is what we're seeing today with
this whole attempt at destroying Israel, destroying the Jews, killing them.
And people that are cheering for this and celebrating this on college campuses
(33:19):
around the Western world are ignorant of what is really happening behind the scene.
And for our listeners, we simply want to say, look, it's nothing new under the sun.
We see what's happening today. And just like the Holocaust, we've used this
example before, you and I, and we've used it on the show, I believe,
(33:39):
in the past, had the people in the Holocaust, which was another attempt to wipe out God's plan,
had the people in a concentration camp during the Holocaust Holocaust known
that the Allied forces have landed on Normandy and in six months they will be in Treblinka,
they will be in Auschwitz, they will be at Bergen-Belsen, wherever they were,
(34:01):
four months, three months, two months, as they march closer,
the exponential rise of resistance would have gone up just exponentially,
as we say, just exponentially.
I don't know if everybody would would have made it, but many,
many, countless many more, as opposed to saying something like, there's no hope.
And as we look around the world today, we can be tempted to say,
(34:23):
it's all falling apart, which it is.
It's all falling apart. Yes, indeed. But I am not ignorant of the schemes of
the devil as to why it's falling apart.
It's falling apart because because these entities are attempting to thwart God's judgment on them.
Stay tuned for a special Hebrew blessing at the end of every episode.
(34:45):
Music.
Including this one. This has been a great discussion.
I look forward to how it continues to unfold.
As you can tell, Neil and I enjoy talking about the subject as it helps us to
get to the root of the matter about God and why Israel and the Middle East are
so important. Thank you for listening to this podcast, and we would love to hear from you.
(35:08):
Visit us at our home at podbean.com, Israel, why is the Middle East important?
That's podbean.com, Israel, why is the Middle East important?
And you can find us any place great podcasts can be found.
And you can find us on Facebook using the same title. And you can email us at
(35:28):
whyisthemiddleeastimportant at gmail.com. That's whyisthemiddleeastimportant
at gmail.com We'd love to hear from you.
And if you like what you hear, please invite your friends to the conversation.
You know, one thing Neil and I always say to each other is, I don't know.
Because it is by having an opinion, yet holding it with an open hand,
(35:51):
that we continue to grow.
Shalom. See you next time.
Music.
Music.
(00:08):
Welcome to Israel. Why is the Middle East important? We Christians are the Notzrim,
according to most Jews today. We are the watchers on the wall.
Our purpose as members of the Commonwealth of Israel is to serve and protect God's people.
After the formation of the world, God enacted a plan, and that plan began in
(00:30):
the Middle East at the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
And that plan concludes in that same place.
The context of the entirety of God's plan begins and completes in and with Israel.
There is no denying that, nor refuting it, if you are a Jew or a Christian,
and the anthropological evidence verifies it.
(00:52):
For the purposes of this podcast, Israel is both a nation and a people.
Welcome back, folks. This is Jeff Pelletier with Neil Johnson,
and this is Israel. Why is the Middle East important?
We've been focusing on our last two shows about the unseen realm,
(01:13):
and we're going to continue that theme and finish our discussion on the unseen realm.
So let me start us off right away with our goal for this installment today about the unseen realm.
So the question is, what are we witnessing today that we have seen before,
and have we seen it before.
(01:34):
And then the question also is, is creation concerning only God Almighty and humans?
Okay, the created realm is the creation concerning only God Almighty and humans,
or are there also other entities inhabiting or visiting our dimension?
(01:55):
And we've been making the case for this all along, and we're going to make this case again,
and then we're going to give you some information about how we ought to handle
that and what we ought to do and what maybe our role is in this situation as Christians,
as we call at the beginning of the broadcast, we are the nots reem.
(02:16):
So we're going to talk about that a little bit more too.
Okay, so Neil, what are demons, unclean spirits, fallen angels,
the Satan, what's all that? So, it's kind of a catch-all phrase to say demons.
It encompasses seemingly a whole lot of different entities, and there are many
(02:37):
different verses where there are specific references.
There are many different occurrences of examples in the Bible that talk about
seemingly different structure or power type of these visiting entities,
both good, you know, we call them angels, but it seems like there's a lot of other.
(02:58):
Gods, if you will, the Bible calls them gods, of which angels are a category or a class.
Small g gods. Small g gods. They are created.
But the Bible's replete with references, old and new covenants,
referencing the reality of these beings.
(03:20):
And we, today, in the West, we call it all demons.
It's okay. It's like saying, Coke, give me a Coke. I don't care if you give
me a Pepsi, if you give me a...
Give me a Coke. Yeah, right. It's all the same. So we got that from the Septuagint,
right? The Greek translation of the Hebrew.
They kind of made it demons, right? They kind of overall applied that terminology
(03:43):
to these more specific entities called out in the Hebrew texts of the spirit,
the celestial beings,
these created beings. Yeah.
But in the New Testament cultural time, the understanding of demons was pretty
widespread among all cultures, right?
(04:04):
I mean, it wasn't something that was foreign to people back in the day,
right? No, not at all. They were very familiar.
It was almost expected that there would be a cause and effect,
if you will, all kinds of activities related to these entities, these demons.
And we see Jesus in the New Covenant, in the Gospels, addressing these entities
(04:26):
and usually, almost invariably, casting them out and or healing sick people.
And so, what is their role in history?
What purpose do they serve?
Right. So, I can only say that because they're referenced throughout,
they have a goal, and the goal is to thwart God's plan.
(04:50):
Because, again, there are at least three that we can pinpoint rebellions.
One of these rebellions was this cosmic rebellion of these celestial beings.
At least two of them were, actually.
And what we see is these beings are, their offspring are judged.
And they are actually what we call the demons. They are on the earth today.
(05:13):
They're disembodied spirits.
They're hybrids. They're half human, half celestial being.
And that goes back to Genesis 6, right? And that all goes back to Genesis 6,
where it says the B'nai Ha'alohim, the sons of God.
The sons of God. And that phrase, sons of God. Has relations with the daughters of men.
Has relations with the daughters of men. Which is Adam's relations.
(05:37):
Adam's actual relations. And they created these hybrid beings.
They created these hybrid beings, right.
And that's not open for discussion. It's right there in the book.
Well, it's open for discussion in the sense of there are opposing views,
there are differing opinions, there are different interpretations.
Well, I suppose you can make it say whatever you want it to say. And that's the problem.
(06:00):
You can always make something say what you want it to say. And the trick is
to how do I be as careful as I can, as I can as a human, which is very limited
to the best of us. We have a limited capacity to...
Synthesize all that, all that, the meaning of the text, because we're often
asked in scripture, were you in the counsel of God? Did you listen in?
(06:25):
And as you and I've kidded before, I've said, well, Jeff, I have to answer that
question with a big, heavily pronounced no.
Yeah, exactly. So I get the concern and people are afraid to even talk about
these types of things. And I
totally understand why they would change the language and make it not so.
(06:45):
I grew up in the town where the Salem witch trials were held.
And that was all about demonic possession, right? And demonic behavior.
And people were unjustly, right? Later they found out unjustly accused of being
demonically possessed.
And they were killed and drowned and hung and all kinds of things.
And the people realized they made a mistake. And so I could see where something
(07:09):
like that would cause an aversion to calling out a demon and say,
well, we don't want to make that mistake again.
And so the history taught them, their experience taught them to be more careful with that.
But then over time, you know, we kind of eliminated it altogether from our vocabulary in Christianity.
There was a time we didn't hardly talk about it at all. Right.
(07:30):
And that's the problem. And that's what I was getting to when I said you have
to, as best as you can as a human, parse out these difficult verses,
these difficult sections, these difficult meanings.
And so much is lost in just the translation from Hebrew to English and the Old Covenant and so on.
And so you're right. People are very wary.
(07:51):
And plus, we are culturally predisposed today.
It's called, and we did a show on this, The Law of First Learns.
What did I learn first? I talked about it with somebody else yesterday.
And if you deal with somebody and you've been to seminary and they've been to
seminary, only they've been taught by a wonderful people and wonderful teaching
and a wonderful human with lots of extra supernatural experiences.
(08:16):
But maybe they've been taught as pertains to what you brought up, the Genesis 6 account.
They might teach the Sethite view, which is one view of many permutations,
sort of like the rapture. There's all kinds of different assumptions going into
that, that it's not one uniform megalithic block.
But that is the difficulty. How do I read these difficult portions and come
(08:40):
away with the most accurate interpretation, giving my pay grade is so low?
Yeah. But that's the key. You just made the key right there.
The key word is interpretation, because if we begin with what it actually says, right?
The sons of God, okay, which is interpreted the offspring of celestial beings.
(09:02):
That's what it means, right?
I mean, and those came and had relations, it says, with the daughters of Adam. And so...
We can interpret that however we want, but we can't change what it actually says.
Right, right. And that just becomes, we are all subject to our preferred theological stance.
(09:28):
First learned, first learned, absolutely. What do we believe from reading this? What do we assume?
What are our biases? And it's very hard for the best of us, of which I am not
one of the best of us, but it's hard for the best of us.
I'm with you a lot. To change our theology, if you will, because my tradition,
(09:50):
my preference, my bias or whatever.
But to your point, Jeff, I just want to make another comment.
I think we made it last time.
You do not have to convince somebody who is dealing with demonic reality in any form.
You do not have to convince them. You don't have to convince them that there's something going on.
So I would assume, Neil, if we went back and asked the dead people in Israel
(10:15):
who were dismembered and raped and carved in half,
and so forth, if we were able to resurrect them and ask them if there's evil
in the world apart from humanity,
I think we know what they would say. Right, right.
And I think that that's the whole purpose of our show today is,
(10:35):
as I keep saying to you, Jeff, people are afraid.
People are afraid today. I think you really have to be concerned about the person
who looks at you and says, I am not afraid.
That person's really out of touch.
(11:00):
I know you're afraid. Right. I get you're afraid.
You're a human after all. You don't get this thing, but don't let it cripple
you. Don't let it cripple you.
And that's what we're trying to do with this show for people out there today
is that I know there's fear.
These entities are real. They're powerful, as we said, but they're not God.
And here's what's really going on with them. Yeah, exactly.
(11:24):
And God is here to help us deal with that. And one of the things he does,
but let me ask you this question, Neil.
There's shows on TV, and I'm going to ask, I'm going to use the title of one
of the shows to ask you a question. Are there ancient aliens?
Well, that's a very, that's a very. That's a TV show.
It's a TV show. It's very popular today. And it's sort of a yes and no,
(11:48):
because if you say, are they ancient?
The answer is yes. Yes, they are. Are they alien?
The answer is yes. Are they ancient aliens as the way that these people,
certain people try to portray them as our helpers and they're good and they
come from some star system or whatever?
Because the Bible always talks about created beings associated with stars, right?
(12:08):
That's a euphemism, that's a Hebraism, if you will, for these created beings. Yes, that's right.
But they're more interdimensional than coming from a long way away. So the answer is no.
(12:49):
One of those guys. And he said, there's no heaven. I was up there.
Believe me, there's no heaven.
Okay. And I think he was, he was trying to be in our face about it,
I guess, in one way, but I wasn't surprised by that at all.
You know, it, because heaven is a place in a state of being,
it's, it's a dimension that we don't see.
(13:11):
Right. We can't see in the, the natural realm. Right.
It's in a, you know, Paul talked about the second heaven and the third heaven,
and he wouldn't have visited the third heaven. Well, it isn't up there.
It's somewhere else, you know, I mean, but they are called up.
John was called up, come up here. Right. Right.
(13:33):
But it's not a linear thing, I guess. Yeah.
And again, you're I'll keep using the phrase you're outside of my pay grade,
except I know there is one. Right. Exactly.
And meaning we have no knowledge, probably multiple because the scientists and
I use that word sort of facetiously. facetiously.
(13:53):
The scientists have said there's multiverses. Well, that's exactly what the
Bible tells us. There's places you go when you die, right?
There's places you go after Jesus' death for believers seemingly.
There's places of God's abode, heaven, the north, Zaphon, all these places,
the holy hill, the holy assembly, all these places.
(14:16):
Really all it's telling us, Jeff, is there's different dimensions.
And I only know this one, but I read the books and it tells me there's others.
And I think we also experience things that way sometimes.
So ancient aliens, yes, folks, there are ancient aliens. Okay.
So we got that one solved.
(14:37):
Now their purpose, their purpose, Neil, their purpose of the evil,
of evil, as you said, is to thwart God's plan. And Jesus expressed it this way.
The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.
So that's God's plan, thwarting God's plan, but that's what he called modus
(14:59):
operandi, steal, kill, and destroy.
So it doesn't matter how it appears. It doesn't matter in what form it appears.
He or it or them, I don't know how it works.
I don't either. But nonetheless, the Bible, the scriptures, the Hebrew scriptures
tell us that these entities can and do appear in different forms,
(15:22):
all kinds of different formats,
all kinds of different offerings, if you will.
We know that even Jesus was tempted by what's called the Satan or Satan as he came to be known.
He means the accuser. the accuser, but he was tempted with three temptations
that are recorded specifically.
And so we know that...
(15:44):
One, he presents offerings. Two, Jesus was tempted.
He could have said yes, and he
could have accepted what seemingly was this entity's ability to give him.
In other words, I don't tempt you with something I can't produce.
If I tempted you with $10 million, you'd say, sure, Neil.
(16:06):
You mean it's not like Lucy and Peanuts with the football where she pulls it
away at the last minute? It's not like that?
Well, it kind of is in a sense. It can be that. It can be that.
But these entities do come and they do offer things.
They're not always what they were. And that is why Jesus said, the thief.
In other words, you don't have to look for me. He made this clear in many different
(16:28):
ways in many different times, as had the other disciples in their writings,
that you don't have to wonder about, is that him?
You will know when it's him. You will see him.
These other entities come and they say things like, he's not really who he says
he was, or I am him, or who knows what permutation of that lie.
(16:50):
And that is why Jesus said the thief only comes, even if he comes bearing gifts, revealed knowledge,
supernatural ability to do this or that or the other thing, he's really only
coming to kill you, to steal from you, and to destroy you. That's it. Amen. Amen.
So we know, and we've talked about this before in another show,
(17:11):
but we know that God set us up in the garden to win.
We could be with him and have kids and have a wonderful, glorious life forever, right?
And be alive forever and be with him and it would be awesome,
right? No death, no nothing, right? And then we made a mistake.
Adam and Eve made a mistake and they rebelled. That was the first rebellion
(17:36):
against God that we know of, right? They rebelled against God.
And God said, okay, if that's the way it's going to be, I'm sorry,
but I specifically told you not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
I specifically told you not to do that, and you did it, so now this is off. The bets are off.
(17:57):
And he threw him out of the garden, and then the plan of God from that moment
on is to get us reconciled back with him, to give us a way back.
And that was the journey that humanity embarked on after he threw us out.
And God set up a plan, right, which includes Jesus, right, and the Jews and Israel,
(18:22):
right, to reconcile that rebellion between us and him so things can go back
to the way they were, right?
And since then, the enemy has been trying to— He's been trying to thwart God's
plan for vested interest.
He has a very vested interest, and not just he as though it's one.
(18:44):
There are a multitude of these entities, again, of which I don't know all of
them, but the Bible names them as different ways.
The New Covenant, referencing the Old, calls them powers and principalities and thrones and so on.
And we see that throughout the Scripture, that that's how the Older Covenant
also refers to these beings.
(19:04):
So when you said there was that first rebellion, yes, indeed, there was.
And thank God, as I always say to you, it was rebellion of ignorance.
Yes, humans did what they weren't supposed to do, but it was because they were ignorant.
This thing called the serpent or the spirit that came in, whatever it was, it knew better.
It knew what was going on. It understood on a larger scale how this works.
(19:30):
And to him, it was not forgiven. To humans, thank God again.
We didn't know. And so it was a rebellion by ignorance, if you will.
Ignorant does not mean stupid.
Ignorant means I didn't know. Right. Exactly. Yeah.
So, Neil, I just want to pause here and just tell our listeners,
I'm going to put something up on Facebook, on our Facebook page,
(19:53):
which is Israel Wives the Middle East Important.
And just to give you some insight into the truth about the unseen realm.
Okay. Numbers chapters 22 through 24, Daniel 10, 12, 13, Daniel 20 and 21.
Psalm 29, 82, 89, five through seven, John 1, 6, Job 2, 1, Job 15,
(20:19):
8, 1 Kings. And I'm going to stop.
I'm going to stop, but I'm going to put all these verses up so you can go through
the Bible yourself and read for yourself the proof about what we're talking about here.
So it's not like we made it up, just saying. Okay.
So, Neal, what are we witnessing today?
So what we're witnessing today is nothing new.
(20:41):
From the very, very beginning, God promised, for instance, as we've said before,
the land to your inhabitants, because it was part of his restoration.
In other words, once Adam and Eve, our forebears, fell, if you will,
in the in the fall through ignorance, they were cast out of the garden.
So in other words, all earth was not a garden at that time. It was supposed
(21:04):
to be, but it wasn't. So they were cast out.
The fact is, is that from that very moment on, there's been a battle between
the demonic, if you will, using that term as a catch-all, and humanity.
There's been a battle. And God's plan in the battle has been,
I want to bring humanity back into right standing with me.
(21:26):
And that's what the Bible's all about, is redemption, restoration. That's right.
At its core, that's what the Bible is all about. So we've often said it says
a great many other things about a great many other things, but at its core,
it's still saying, how do I redeem this?
So God has a plan.
It does not include this demonic entities of which we see in Genesis 6.
(21:51):
Sorry, you're not invited to the party.
Why? Again, because they knew better and their offspring knew better.
And that's what we read about in the Genesis 6 rebellion,
that there was another rebellion, right, sometime after that initial one that
we read in Genesis 3 with the serpent and going into the garden and confusing
Adam and Eve and so on. It gets to be a bit of a theological discussion.
(22:14):
But at its core today, there's nothing new.
So what we see with that is that this Satan figure, if you will,
or Satan himself, however you want to describe it. Also, Diabolos is known as.
Satanos and Diabolos are two names, but there's many others, right?
(22:35):
Many others. Many other names. Yeah. Yeah. But he knew, and from the beginning,
he only knew partially how this was going to work. He doesn't know everything.
He's not omniscient at all. No, he didn't know. And also the scriptures,
the old covenant scriptures, do not call out specifically A, B, C, D, E, and F.
And then I will be there and then I will do this and such. They're very veiled.
(23:00):
Let me give our listeners a proof text of this, okay? It's Matthew 8, 29, okay?
It says that Jesus is confronting some spiritual entities in the Gospels,
and they say to him, what do you want with us, Son of God?
They shouted, have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?
(23:23):
Right, right. Now, they don't know when that is, of course, but they know there's
an appointed time and something is going to happen.
And they're afraid. And they're afraid. And they want to thwart God's plan,
which these entities work through humanity.
So when you ask that question, what's going on today? What are they doing?
It's nothing new under the sun.
We see this throughout, whether it was the promise to Abraham and then 400 years
(23:47):
later, outcome his offspring, his descendants.
But guess what's happened? Satan knew enough to, hey, if I've got to thwart
God's plan through these people, at At least I will populate Canaan,
the promised land, with my people.
And whether it's Pharaoh who said, I will kill all the firstborn,
whether it's Herod the Great who asked the Babylonian magicians,
(24:10):
well, when did this happen?
And then he proceeds to kill all the male heirs of a certain age.
Let's not forget Haman and Esther. He was going to destroy the whole nation.
He was going to destroy all of them because Mordecai wouldn't fall down to him.
But really, what's behind this? It's the same spirit that's behind it today,
(24:34):
whether it's in more modern days, the Hitlers, or in our present moment,
Hamas, PLO, Hezbollah, Houthis, etc., Iran, etc.
So why, Neil, why do they want to take the Jews down?
Why do they want to take Israel down? Because, again, as we have said,
and we'll say it, make it clear perfectly, is that.
(24:56):
If I can do away with the people, if I can do away with the land,
if I can do away with the holy city, and what I mean by do away with is make
it non-Jewish, no Jews, no Israel.
It's called something else. I've eliminated that.
I have either postponed the judgment or I have won.
(25:19):
And you have to remember these entities, while they are afraid of Jesus,
There's just no doubt because God knew, I can't give this to a man.
I gave it to one great man named Moses, and he did great things.
Yeah, he did great things, but he didn't cut the mustard all the way. Yeah, exactly.
God said, I have to do this myself. Yeah, exactly.
But he didn't say that specifically, delineate it specifically in the Old Covenant,
(25:44):
that the demonic realm could see that.
But they knew enough that it would be this seed.
And that's what we see even in our day today.
And that is what's going on. And that's what we're trying to warn the people
about. This is nothing new. It's the same spirit.
It's what's going on behind the scenes, if you will.
What's motivating man to act and do certain things in opposition to God's plan,
(26:09):
which again is the restoration of all of us, everyone, Jew and non-Jew.
And we have these crazy, powerful, half-breed, demonic offspring of this angelic
rebellion that came down and took human wives, had offspring.
(26:30):
They are still demonic, disembodied, demonic entities, if you will,
still present in our realm.
Even the book of Revelation tells John, who sat and heard Jesus teaching under
his own wing, if you will, under his arm, face-to-face and personally,
John had to be explained, what am I seeing?
(26:52):
What's going on? And one time an angel, whoever that angel is,
in Revelation, told John, he saw the seals and the bowls and the vials being poured out and so on.
And he said, set free the angels under the Euphrates River,
which again is parodied in other books and in Peter and in Jude referencing
(27:19):
this demonic rebellion.
So, their forefathers are under the Euphrates River, bound in chains,
but they're demonic sons. Yeah.
Seemingly have free reign to do what they will in this realm.
And that's what's happening with this opposition to Israel, because they still
think I'm either going to postpone or win this battle of God.
(27:41):
So then, assuming all of that is true, which it is, okay, it's a fact,
and we've got the scripture to back it up.
If that's true, then what is the calling of the non-Jewish church of Israel,
okay, I'm going to call it that, the non-Jewish church of Israel,
the Christian church is a member of the commonwealth of Israel.
(28:05):
If Israel goes, we're going with it. We are part of the family, okay?
We're adopted in, we're grafted in, okay?
So what is the calling then for us towards Israel? Right.
And, you know, one thing that we're enjoined to believe and to grab on to is
(28:26):
Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, told us in 2 Corinthians,
it's actually 2 Corinthians 2.11, he said, in order that Satan should not outwit us.
We are not unaware of his schemes.
In other words, Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, who reached out as a Jew
(28:50):
to the Gentiles, because he knew this is God's overall plan to whatever degree
he knew it and understood it.
He naturally assumed and assumed, we assumed and knew that there was a Satan,
there was a demonic realm and that he told us, don't be unaware of his schemes.
(29:11):
So everything going on that's opposed to Israel today is a scheme that we've
seen many times in many ways in many peoples who are opposing the reality of Israel.
So we are the watchmen. We are the watchmen. We are the notsrim, if you will.
The notsrim, yes. The notsrim, we are the watchmen. The sentries on the wall. The sentries, right.
Yes, yes. And we are watching for our enemies. Yep.
(29:35):
As well as our friends. And the admonition to pray for the peace of Jerusalem
in Psalm 122 is an intercession on their behalf. Right.
It's part of our role as not serene, right? Right.
To intercede on behalf of Israel, pray for the peace of Israel so that it will
not be harmed, so that it will be preserved.
So when he comes back, there's an Israel to come back to. Right.
(29:58):
I mean, it's so theologically important that there is a Jewish Jerusalem,
a Jewish presence in the land, a DNA, if you will, a Jewish people,
all important for God's plan of redemption.
And if I am opposed to that, I am opposed to God's plan.
And that is what we are fighting today.
(30:20):
So when you say that pray for the peace of Jerusalem, yes, that's one of many,
many, many concepts, many imperatives that you, Notre Dame, you Christians,
that's what what notarim means today in modern Hebrew.
I find it fascinating, Jeff, that in the same chapter where it says notarim
(30:40):
is the same chapter of a promise of a new covenant.
Hey, how about that? We should talk about that next time.
So it also, as you said, there's more to it than just praying.
And we're going to talk in our next episode about giving, right?
And helping materially, helping Israel materially during this time.
It's very important, very important. But, you know, Paul said it very well in 2 Corinthians 10.
(31:07):
And this kind of wraps up what we're talking about here in the unseen realm.
He said, we do not wage war according to the flesh.
The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the world.
Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds, spiritual strongholds.
(31:29):
And that's 2 Corinthians 10, 3 and 4.
And our war is against the powers and the principalities in the heavenly realms.
In Ephesians 3.10, he says, that's our job. The manifold wisdom of God will
be made known to the powers and the principalities in the heavenly realms. That's Ephesians 3.10.
(31:51):
And again, there's nothing new in the new covenant that isn't already displayed in the old covenant.
We keep saying that it's one composite whole.
It's not, I'm going to start over and make a new religion out of whole cloth.
And actually, Yahweh is actually Allah or some such permutation of this.
No, it's the same. So what we have is in Ezekiel 22, verse 30,
(32:15):
we're told that we are to stand in the gap.
In other words, the wall, symbolically, the wall of Jerusalem had a hole in it. It had a breach.
And we are called as the noterim, as the watchmen, stand on that,
hold out the enemy, welcome your friends, but hold out the enemy.
(32:36):
And that is the job, Jeff, of when you say we're watchmen or we're not serene, which we are.
We're called that. We're told that that is our function.
We're told we will carry the children of Israel back in our arms and on our shoulders.
We will carry them back to the land because we're going to have a revelation
of this is important. So.
(32:56):
Ezekiel tells us, stand in that gap, be the watchman, stand as a barrier to the enemy.
And that is what we are doing today. And that is what we're seeing today with
this whole attempt at destroying Israel, destroying the Jews, killing them.
And people that are cheering for this and celebrating this on college campuses
(33:19):
around the Western world are ignorant of what is really happening behind the scene.
And for our listeners, we simply want to say, look, it's nothing new under the sun.
We see what's happening today. And just like the Holocaust, we've used this
example before, you and I, and we've used it on the show, I believe,
(33:39):
in the past, had the people in the Holocaust, which was another attempt to wipe out God's plan,
had the people in a concentration camp during the Holocaust Holocaust known
that the Allied forces have landed on Normandy and in six months they will be in Treblinka,
they will be in Auschwitz, they will be at Bergen-Belsen, wherever they were,
(34:01):
four months, three months, two months, as they march closer,
the exponential rise of resistance would have gone up just exponentially,
as we say, just exponentially.
I don't know if everybody would would have made it, but many,
many, countless many more, as opposed to saying something like, there's no hope.
And as we look around the world today, we can be tempted to say,
(34:23):
it's all falling apart, which it is.
It's all falling apart. Yes, indeed. But I am not ignorant of the schemes of
the devil as to why it's falling apart.
It's falling apart because because these entities are attempting to thwart God's judgment on them.
Stay tuned for a special Hebrew blessing at the end of every episode.
(34:45):
Music.
Including this one. This has been a great discussion.
I look forward to how it continues to unfold.
As you can tell, Neil and I enjoy talking about the subject as it helps us to
get to the root of the matter about God and why Israel and the Middle East are
so important. Thank you for listening to this podcast, and we would love to hear from you.
(35:08):
Visit us at our home at podbean.com, Israel, why is the Middle East important?
That's podbean.com, Israel, why is the Middle East important?
And you can find us any place great podcasts can be found.
And you can find us on Facebook using the same title. And you can email us at
(35:28):
whyisthemiddleeastimportant at gmail.com. That's whyisthemiddleeastimportant
at gmail.com We'd love to hear from you.
And if you like what you hear, please invite your friends to the conversation.
You know, one thing Neil and I always say to each other is, I don't know.
Because it is by having an opinion, yet holding it with an open hand,
(35:51):
that we continue to grow.
Shalom. See you next time.
Music.
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