The Eric Metaxas Show - Jonathan Bernis

Episode Date: March 3, 2020

Author of many books about Israel and prophecy, Rabbi Jonathan Bernis discusses both subjects, as well as his role as a leader in the Messianic Jewish community.

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I tell all my relatives to take it. relief factor.com. Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. It's the show about everything. And we do mean everything. Yes, even that. Yep. And that too.

Oh, you bet. Definitely that. Now here's everything you want to host, Eric Mataxis. Isn't that kind and sweet? And Todd, I know it's because your contract is up and you want us to renew it. And let me just say, you can butter me up all you want. Not going to happen. We've moved on.

Hey, folks, I have in the studio my friend, John, Jonathan Bernice from Phoenix, Arizona, which is currently in the southwestern part of the United States. Jonathan, welcome. It's great to be here. I'm a little disappointed, though. I was expecting snow, though. I was expecting snow in New York? In New York. I haven't seen that in a long time.

You know what, de Blasio abolished it under his plan to bring us into the socialist future. He had to, we had to let go of the snow. It's kind of sad, really. It is. Listen, this is the least snow we've had in quite a while. But in your neck of the woods, you never get snow. I haven't seen snow in Phoenix since I moved in 1999. But I'm from New York, so I'm familiar with snow.

Okay, now, the headline on you is you are Jewish and you believe in Jesus. I've never heard of that. What do you call that? I am still Jewish, contrary to what my rabbi told me and all my family, my aunts and uncles. Yeah, I'm a Jewish believer in Jesus. I call myself a messianic Jew, which developed in the 70s, the term developed in the 70s, to affirm that Jews who accept their Messiah remain Jewish. We haven't converted to Christianity.

Well, it's kind of funny because, you know, of course, I'm being sarcastic when I say, what is that? But I think there are a lot of people, they have a view of Christianity like there's Jews and there's Christians, and you think, no, no, no, no. There are plenty of people who call themselves Christians who are actually just Gentile. They're not Jews. They don't really, really believe in Jesus. So you don't become a Christian just by not being Jewish.

The fact of the matter is that anybody can believe in Jesus. And if you happen to be ethnically Jewish and you believe in Jesus, well, that's, you know, it sounds to me like that was the master plan, right? You have this Jewish rabbi named Jesus. He comes for the Jews first, and then he's willing to move on. That's right. It was shocking to me to read the New Testament because I was taught that there were Jews and Christians, Gentile and, Christian was synonymous. We didn't distinguish between Catholics and Protestant, believers, true believers, and those that just simply weren't Jewish. And the New Testament I was taught

was a Christian book, had nothing to do with Judaism other than blaming us for killing their God Jesus Christ. Right. And by the way, that's not what happened. But anyway, I have so many friends, because I'm a New Yorker, and you're originally a New Yorker as well. I have so many friends who are ethnically Jewish who believe in Jesus. So to me, it's no big surprise when somebody says, I'm a Jewish believer in Jesus. I'm a Messianic Jew. I'm a Jew for Jesus, whatever. That to me is normal.

But around the world and around the rest of America, many people aren't even aware of this concept. I think you're unique. You're unique. Although we're growing, there's tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Jews who believe in Jesus now, just in America. But when I've been a believer 40 years and 40 years ago, it was a very rare thing. Yeah. I didn't know anyone else, any other Jew who believed in Jesus.

Yeah. Well, I want to talk to you about Israel today and Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump and the peace plan and all of that kind of stuff. Because I know you have some thoughts on that that I in my audience want to hear. But I want to first ask you, we've had you on the program before, but we've not had you in this beautiful studio. I want you to tell us your story where you came from, how you came to believe in Jesus. I mean, it's not a normal thing for a New York Jew to suddenly start believing in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. It's not, it's becoming more common, as I said. I was brought up in what I call a traditional Jewish home, although we weren't observant.

Jewish identity was paramount. So my father was self-proclaimed agnostic. my mom didn't talk about it, what was important to my parents. And my community was that I was born Jewish, and the continuity of the Jewish people was everything, the survival of the Jewish people. So I was born a Jew, I was to die a Jew. I learned what we call the Shmai, Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one from childhood in Hebrew. And then it was preparation for my bar mitzvah. That was the watershed event for me.

What part of New York did you grow up in? Yeah. Now, people who are from New York proper are going to say, well, that's not New York, but I grew up in Rochester, New York, which is upstate New York. How many hours roughly from where we are? It takes about six hours. Yeah, so you're way up there. Way up there. And it's not New York.

But it's kind of funny because you're so – you're so far up that it's like it's almost like, you know, part of Ohio or part of – you know, it's a funny thing because it is – It is just, you're as far from New York as, you know, Virginia. It's almost Canada. Yeah, it's almost Canada. So I say upstate New York and I say Rochester. That's not upstate New York. That's Canada. Now, when you talk about being raised in a Jewish home, it reminds me of being raised in a Greek home in the sense that for many Greeks, they, if you say, what are you?

They say, I'm Greek. And they say, what's your religion? Is they Greek Orthodox? But the central identity for many, not all, but is being Greek. It's like this ethnic thing. And the church is like an adjunct. It's like that's where the Greeks get together. But it's not about Jesus.

It's about being Greek. And, you know, you fold in Jesus and the Panahia, the mother of God and the better. But a lot of people, their ethnic identity is everything. And there are so many Jews, like you're talking about your dad is an agnostic. And what a crazy thing, right? To say, like, it's very important that we're Jewish. But the one thing that has held the Jews together since the beginning of time, I'm not so big on that. you know, the God thing. I'm not so big on that. And so there are many Jews that have been agnostics

over the years and stuff. So, but at some point, you decide to think about God and you're telling me you have your bar mitzvah, obviously 13, whatever. What happens at that point? I mean, when you're a teenager, where were you with regard to faith and those issues? Well, two things. First of all, when I was eight or nine years old, I asked my teacher in synagogue and temple, in response to her statement that we were the chosen people. And my question was, what does that mean? What are we chosen for? Who chose us?

Who chose us? And what were we chosen for? And her response was we were chosen to be persecuted. What an answer, huh? So I remember thinking, if that's what a Woody Allen movie. If that's what being Jewish is about, I'm out of this. I'm out of here. Right.

And for that reason, I'm out. And I don't know, Eric, if I was searching for God. But I was searching for the meaning of life. I was searching for, I had a sense of destiny, and I was searching to find out what that destiny was. And the other question that I had as a young child, and it was because my grandfather died very suddenly, and nobody would talk about it. This is very Jewish also. We don't talk about death. We don't know what happens after you die.

We just don't talk about it. And I wasn't allowed to go to the funeral, and I remember. thinking, I was seven or eight years old, thinking, what happens after you die? There must be something more. So those two questions, why am I here and what's going to happen to me after I die were questions that I sought to answer all through my teenage years, and that landed me squarely with drugs in the Grateful Dead. Is that true? It's true. With drugs and the Grateful Dead. What happens when you get? The one thing we know that happens when you die, in every case, we know the phone calls tend to taper off. That was a joke.

Thank you. I'm thinking about that one. It sounded very profound. No, it was meant to sound profound. The phone goes on tape. No, I want to ask you, by the way, you are today, the president and CEO of Jewish Voice Ministries International, and you have a program on TBN. We do. And I have a program on TBN.

We're brothers in that sense. Brothers in TBN. Yeah. Yeah. I've been doing that for about 20 years, and I had no interest in Christian television. And actually, I was living in Russia, reaching the Jewish community in Russia, living in St. Petersburg. So I'm very familiar with snow. Holy cow.

Okay, we've got to go backwards now because I want to get your story. So you grew up. You start, obviously, the standard path, right, of the agnostic Jew or the agnostic Gentile. You know, you're stumbling around and you're not getting many answers. And it sounds to me like that's where you were through most of your teams. Well, I had a driving goal to be a successful businessman and make a lot of money. This was what was ingrained in me growing up in my grandfather was very successful in business. But those two questions were really important to me.

And drugs, getting into drugs was not just recreational for me. Everybody did it. I grew up in that era. You wanted to unlock the doors of perception. I did. I wanted to know what else there was. I heard about the gospel in high school through. called Young Life.

Forgive me, I didn't realize we're going to a hard break. We're going to be right back. Stick around. Well, I dreamed I saw the nights in armor come and saying something. Hey there, folks. I'm talking to Jonathan Bernice, B-E-R-N-I-S. He's with Jewish Voice Ministries International. Jonathan, you were in the middle of making an important point, and we got cut off by the break.

you were saying that the drugs, as you were a teenager, you were looking for something beyond your life. You didn't know what you were looking for. And I think a lot of people are like that. They're not looking for God. They're looking for whatever it is out there that might give them the meaning of life. Exactly. So I believed in God, but I wasn't on a search for God. Right. I was on a search for the meaning of life and what happens after you die. I shared that I was heavily impacted by my grandfather's sudden death and the secrecy that surrounded that and forbidden from going to the funeral. I heard about Jesus really for the first time in high school. I went to a group called Young Life, and it was their presentation of their God, Jesus Christ,

who I thought was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Christ. I had no connection to Jesus as a Jew. I thought he grew up in Rome and the Vatican. And hearing about this God who walked on water, healed the sick, raised the dead, in contrast to the God of Israel, who spoke to Moses, who spoke to Abraham, but now was this distant, disinterested force. We don't even write the name of God, if you ever see in Jewish literature G-D. He's holy, he's righteous, but he's unreachable, he's unobtainable. And I remember asking, what about our God? Why doesn't he speak to people today? This Jesus is personal. He's close. And I was jealous. But when I was approached directly about accepting Jesus, my immediate response, of course, was I'm Jewish. And I always received an apology. People always apologize. Christians, born again Christians. And they were reaffirming my erroneous idea that Jesus wasn't an option for me. That's kind of sad. They affirmed that. Right.

That's what I find funny is that you get a lot of people that act like, oh, you're Jewish. It's like you've been inoculated. You know, we don't need to deal with you, you know. That's right. And it's based on goodwill after the Holocaust. Yeah. But it's sad because he is the way of life. The greatest way to bless a Jewish person is with the good news of their Messiah.

Well, and again, we go back to the, you know, in scripture, it says, for the Jew first. Jesus, I mean, I always joke around when I'm doing public. speaking, I say, you know, Jesus was, I think it was, you know, part Jewish, right? And of course, we know his mother was Italian. But the fact of the matter is, Jesus was a Jew. He was a rabbi. He believed in the Torah, in the God of the Torah. He was not, you know, some stranger who came to invent a new religion. Exactly. I love talking to you because you really get it. And so many, so many Christian leaders don't. And they have this idea that Judaism and Christianity are distinct faiths. And I've been told many times now that you believe in Jesus, you're no longer Jewish.

And any tradition, any practice of my heritage is somehow passed away as the law is taboo. I mean, that would be like if I was born again and somebody said to me, you can't be Greek anymore, no more Suvlaqui for you. It's ridiculous. That would be wrong. But it is interesting. This is why I want to talk to you, because a lot of people have misunderstandings around this. And we know that anybody who's a human being, and that's most of my listeners, Jesus is for you. It's not he's for that group or this group. If you're a human being, he came to make you fully human. And if you're Jewish, it's almost like you're more ready than anybody because you have already downloaded, you know, the software to appreciate it in a way that a lot of Gentiles never will.

Biblically, that's correct. Sadly, we have a 2,000-year history that we have to overcome. Anti-Semitism, persecution, even atrocities in the name of Christ and Christianity. That's the reason that Jewish people are so resistant. We have the Holocaust in our, just in the last generation, where Germans and sympathizers kill Jewish people, simply because they were Jewish and said, we kill you because you killed our God, Jesus Christ. Now, let's be clear. One of the reasons I wrote my book on Dietrich Bonhofer was to make clear that the Nazis, and this is so important to get this right, the Nazis hated Jesus and Christians. They pretended to go along with the church or whatever.

They didn't want to come out and say, we worship the devil. But when you look at, if you wanted to progress in the Nazi world, if you were, we wanted to be part of the SS, for example. They weren't even allowed to go to church services. In other words, the closer you got to the actual Nazi core, the more you realize that this is a death cult that hates Christians. And Hitler and his lieutenants all believed that Christianity is a weak religion. It's a Jewish religion.

They got that. But the devil lies, and he puts this lie out there over and over and over. that what they did they did in the name of Christ or whatever. And you think they persecuted Christians. If you were a serious Christian in Nazi Germany, you're going to be sent to the deaf camps too. You had to keep your mouth shut and go along with the program. So I think the other, the other deception to mention, though, that's important is that there was a climate throughout Europe of anti-Semitism. Oh, definitely. And that contributed to the apathy, simply the apathy, if not worse, really created the environment for what happened.

And actually this gets to the point. How do we know the Jews are chosen by God? Because they are universally persecuted. Why does everyone hate the Jews? White supremacists, black supremacists, they have something in common. They don't like the Jews. They point to the Jews as the problem, the world's problem. And you think, isn't that interesting that God's people are being persecuted, really for being

God's people? There's no logic to it at all unless you believe in an enemy of God, a literal Satan who is committed to the destruction of the Jewish people because he hates God. I first heard this from our friend Mike Brown, Pastor Mike Brown. He gave it speech a talk at Yale University. This is after I graduated. But he was talking about anti-Semitism historically. And I thought, wow, it's so clear that this hatred of the Jews is a hatred of God. It's a universal hatred of God expressed in a hatred for his chosen people. It all comes down to a literal devil, Satan, that is committed to God's plan being kept from fulfillment. Right. All the way back to the garden, the seed of the woman will crush your head.

He believes that he can stop that from happening. How do you stop that from happening? You destroy the Jewish people. And then you destroy Christians now. You try. That's right. Well, so let's go back. So you hear about God.

You hear about Jesus in Young Life, which is in a high school ministry. At what point do you get more interested? In college, after being exposed to spiritual phenomenon that I had no explanation for. And where did you go to college? At the University of Buffalo. Okay, so way up there. Way up there. And what do you mean spiritual phenomenon?

Oh, gosh. I experienced things that had no explanation other than a supernatural realm. I want to hear, I'm all about this stuff, man. Tell us, what happened? I love this. There are so many stories I have to dust off. Just telepathic communication, contact with spirits, the spirit realm. Wow.

So you're in college. You're not a Christian. You don't believe in Jesus, but stuff, spiritual stuff starts to happen, like dark spiritual stuff. Stuff that initially not that I perceived, but as time went on, it became clear and clear. This is a demonic realm. There are demons. It was, it was, I became certain of that.

There was no question. So you're in college. Now, what do you think made this happen when you were in college? That's phenomenal. I think I was on a pursuit, a sincere pursuit of truth. And I got the truth, far more than I bargained for. And what happened that changed everything for me was a girlfriend, a friend that I had been doing drugs with that started to drop out of classes and I lost contact with her. Right, right.

And then she reappeared in my life when I bumped into her on campus, and she looked fantastic. She was vibrant. She just had a look of wholeness and purity. And that's all the only one I can describe it. And I asked her what happened to her, and she had had an experience with Jesus and was recently born again, and she began to call me, literally every day she would call, and tell me about how God had changed her life. And asked me the very questions that I had been trying to answer, why are you here and what's going to happen to you after you die? And that led to a Bible study to going to a Bible study with her, a Bible study that I really didn't want to go to, frankly. I remember her calling and thinking I'm not going to answer the phone and I would answer it.

I found out later that she had all of her friends in her new church and Bible study praying for me by name. I mean, these stories are amazing, and it's so good to hear your story, because many of us have stories like this, that people are praying for you and you don't want to go to the Bible study. You don't want to go to the church. It's just this weird kabuki theater thing that some of us go through. Then you look back and you think, thank God. went to the Bible study. Where would I be today? We're going to be right back talking to Jonathan Burnis. Don't go away. Hey there, folks. That's Casey in the Sunshine Band. Who doesn't love Casey in the Sunshine Band? If you

don't, don't tell me. I'm talking to Jonathan Burness. Jonathan, I know you love Casey. I can just tell by looking at you. I love all those oldies, but goodies. I know. I love them. You are just sharing about when you came to faith. You're a second. guy raised and as an agnostic Jew, you're up at the University of Buffalo. You don't know anything. You're just kind of, and you start having creepy supernatural phenomena happen to you before this friend of yours, this young woman accepts Jesus. And it's almost like, you know, we can't explain these things all the time, but sometimes guys trying to get our attention by allowing the dark forces to in so that we start thinking, hey, something's going on. There's something beyond.

this world and you you just shared a really horrifying thing you said that I mean it must be a demonic voice that said this to you but share what you just shared with me it it had to be I'm just we was reflecting on the break on some of the the supernatural things I experienced and one of the stories I was at a Grateful Dead concert at Cornell I was on campus at Cornell I believe and high-end drugs and I heard a voice say watch this this as you like it this was going to be funny or something. And I looked up and a guy jumped over, off the bridge and landed on the pavement in front of me, literally right in front of me. And died. And died. Now, this was a high bridge. Yes. This is horrific. Horrific. And I remember another time I was

standing on the soundboard at a Grateful Dead concert and a voice, maybe it was Satan or a high demon and said, I can't keep you here. This is literally what I heard. I can't. I can't keep you here because the one who calls you is higher. And I had already been exposed to the gospel. Amazing. I mean, I think it's important, you know, that we don't shrink from these conversations because people need to understand there is, there's something beyond the material, and it's not all good. The demonic world is real. And if you just want the simplest reason to run into the arms of Jesus is to escape the clutches of demons. nothing more horrifying. Now, there are a lot of people batted away as though by ignoring it, you can avoid it, but it's real. It's very real. It strikes me, though, too, that when you're

hanging around the Grateful Dead and doing those kinds of drugs, that atmosphere is pretty ripe for dark spiritual stuff. I've heard many people in that world of drugs, which obviously the Grateful Dead is a whole culture, that you're kind of opening yourself up to something. thing out there, but you don't know what it is. I actually became friends with Jerry Garcia, who's since passed away, the lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead, former lead guitarist. And I remember sitting in his hotel room after I became a believer, and I asked him, do you believe this is, there's some demonic activity?

And he looked at me sincerely. It was very sincere, just eyeball to eyeball and said, I sure hope not. I think that there's a realization around an environment like that, like the Grateful Dead, where you know there's spirits involved in what happens. It's a supernatural experience. It's not just music, but I think that many people aren't aware. They have glimpses into the dark side but just won't believe that there's really demons. Or they think it's cool.

they think, hey, this is cool. I mean, look, what is the symbol, the logo of the Grateful Dead? It's a skull. With a lightning bolt. With a lightning bolt. What is the symbol that they use on all? They've got this kind of dancing skeleton. Now, I'm just saying, you know, I think that a lot of people in and around that world are good people, but they're deceived.

And I think that, first of all, when were you going to tell me you were friends with Jerry Garcia? I don't talk about it that much anymore. Well, it seems to me. He was a good. If you're going to come on my program and not talk about that, I've got a problem with you, Jonathan Bernice, because that is amazing. Seriously, like how in the world, were you like the ultimate deadhead to be able to hang out with Jerry Garcia? That's pretty cool. I didn't drop out of college and travel around to Grateful Dead concerts. I did go to a lot

and became friends with the group and experienced, really, that the inner circle of the grateful dead community. And what is that, like 24-7 weed? Uh, not, not so much as I got older, but there was, it was a drug environment for sure. And here's another interesting thing, loaded with Jewish people. Oh, no, no, I know. Loaded with Jewish people, the Bible says, are seeking for a sign. They have a zeal for God. Yeah. But without knowledge. The, the attraction of the Grateful Dead, four Grateful Deadheads, people that stick around is not just the music. It's, or the social scene, but it's the, it's a spiritual environment.

a supernatural environment that really engages the spirit. Now, what years was this that you were, you know, roughly? Well, I went off to college in 78, and by 79 I was pretty heavily into the dead. All my roommates were deadheads. That was, I remember that was the, I went to college in 80, and I remember it's kind of the peak. But what's interesting is that, you know, people would, they would go to a Pink Floyd concert, you know, to see God. And I don't mean Jesus, but I mean, they would want to have a spiritual experience. to be so blasted, and then there's the light, you know, the laser show, and they're listening

to the Floyd music. And they're, they were looking for something. They just didn't know what they were looking for, and they didn't find what they were looking for. But, you know, nothing's changed. People want spirit, spirit, something spiritual. Absolutely. And we don't know that's God. We shouldn't knock it, right? It, the only problem is, what are they going to find? When we come back, we're going to, we're going to find out. We're going to keep talking to you, Jonathan Berners. Please don't go away. Folks, I know you won't go away because who knows what you're going to hear. Hey there, folks. Yes, that's Pink Floyd. American Metaxis talking to Jonathan, what is the website for your ministry? Just one more Jewish voice.tv. Jewish voice.tv. Okay, people can find you and you've got programs and stuff.

I want to continue with your story. So you saw some gruesome, dark things. Jerry Garcia, as you said, he was a nice guy. He was a great guy. In fact, I saw him a number of times after I accepted the Lord and went through this transformation. And I really had a burden for him. And I remember talking to him, I think it was one of the last times, if not the last time I talked with him. And he was really sincere. He was a really sincere guy. And he was trapped. As I mentioned to him on the break, he really was confined to his hotel room. but just a really sweet guy who didn't have much contact with people and was not a happy guy at this point. I saw him just really struggling with the unhappiness of the whole on-the-road experience. And he said to me, with great sincerity, you really need to get out of this.

This scene is not for you. Wow. And he really helped push me on. Wow. And it was out of real, it was sweet out of real sincere, a true sincere heart to see me do what God had called me to do. That's so, that's beautiful. Well, okay, so you came to faith as a result of this young woman, you know, pulling into this Bible study and stuff. And so what were you studying in college?

What happened to your life? Well, I was studying business administration. I just finished my second year. year. And I said earlier that I had this one goal of being a successful multi-million, a successful businessman, multi-millionaire. And now it was confronted with the call on my life. I knew shortly after that Bible study that God was real, that he was calling me to share with my people, the Jewish people, the truth that I had discovered that Jesus was my Messiah. I was, I was. I was. I was, was absolutely stunned when I opened the pages of the New Testament and read Jesus, the son of

Abraham, the son of David. That was a shock to me. What's Abraham and David doing in the book of the Christians? I theorized a Star Trek, a Star Trek parallel universe or something. There must be two Davids and two Abraham's, and then discovered that Jesus was Jewish, as you said earlier, all the disciples were all Jews. Let's be honest. There is no book more Jewish than the New Testament. It's wall-to-wall Jews. Everybody, Mary, Jesus, Matthew, Mark, maybe not Luke, but John, everybody is Jewish. That's what I discovered. And then I went back to my own scriptures, and I discovered prophecy after prophecy after prophecy that laid out this picture of the Messiah hundreds of years before Jesus came. And I saw Jesus in all of these prophecies, as if Isaiah 53. Psalm 22, throughout Zachariah, it was just life transforming.

What's more shocking finding Jewishness all through the New Testament or finding Jesus of the New Testament all through the Old Testament? The whole thing. The whole thing. And I knew that I was called into ministry, so after another year of business, I left the school of business and pursued a degree in humanities and studied scripture. and went into ministry when I was 24, planted a messianic Jewish congregation in the city.

My mother lived, so it was in Rochester, New York. Wow. So I did that for nine years and then moved to Russia. And you say you moved to Russia because you wanted to reach Russian Jews with Jesus? I was compelled to because I traveled there just to meet Jewish people. I heard about refusenics, and I found Jewish people. more open to the gospel. In five days or six days in Moscow and St. Petersburg, I had the opportunity to share my faith with more Jewish people than in six years in ministry in upstate New York,

and they would invite their whole families, and they'd all get saved. So God clearly spoke to me and said, go to St. Petersburg and reach my people. So I moved to St. Petersburg, and by 1993, 94, we were filling football. stadiums doing music festivals. Are you kidding? About 80% Jewish. Can you imagine this? A football stadium filled with Jewish people for a music festival, a Jewish music and dance festival, knowing they were going to hear the gospel. And we did this all over Russia, Ukraine. And this was, you were leading this? You were leading this? These were our music festivals that we conducted from 93 to 2004. Actually, we just did one in Warsaw. Poland had about 6,000. thousand come and 22% Jewish in Poland.

What is more beautiful than this? Incredible. It's so wonderful. And I just love the thought that there are some people out there listening, driving down the road, not realizing how many Jews believe in Jesus and that Jesus was a Jew and that we've been missing this for millennia, right? I've seen hundreds of thousands, just in our ministry. in the former Slavic Union. I've seen tens of thousands of Jewish people respond to altar calls,

hearing about Jesus and praying. And it's been a profound experience. We are living in a day when the blindness is coming off of the eyes of the Jewish people. And this should be important to Christians because it's prophesied in connection with the return of Christ to this earth. Absolutely. And what about that red heifer? Just kidding. Honestly, the idea that these things are happening in our lifetime is amazing. I mean, it's an amazing thing that all of these Jewish people are coming to believe in Jesus. Something is happening that has never happened in history. I think we live in the most remarkable time in biblical history, in human history. I used to think how amazing if we have lived in the time of Jesus. But today, so I study scripture, this is

the day that I would want to live in. Wow. Well, we just got a couple of minutes left in this segment. What are some of the things that you see happening? I mean, the Jews returning to Jerusalem to Israel has to be the biggest thing, but there are other things. Well, that's huge. The restoration of Israel in 1948 is miraculous. Jerusalem restored in 1967 as a direct fulfillment of a statement that Jesus made. We find it in Luke chapter 21, that Jerusalem would be trotten down by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled. We're going to go to a break. We'll be right back. Thank you.

Shine a little over. Limmer, limber. Lead us less too far. We wonder. Love sweet voices calling yonder. Shine little over. Limmer, limber. Hey there, don't get dimmer, dimmer, dimmer like the pad below above and lead us on to love.

Hey there, folks. That's the Mills Brothers, and they are rocketing up the billboard charts. Unbelievable. The young people write us letters and letters more Mills Brothers. And so we're trying to reach that demographic. Jonathan Bernice, a couple of minutes left in this hour. We're going to keep you into hour two because I want to ask you about Netanyahu. But before we go, well, we can start with that now. What is your sense? I mean, this bizarre thing. I've only been to Israel once in my life, which was a couple of years ago. And I, it is a staggering thing to think that the culmination of history seems to be focused in this little place where you have the dome of the rock, the birthplace of Jesus, the burial place of Jesus. All of this stuff is right there. It's pretty crazy if you made it up. It's like a novel. It is. And think about it.

It's a little sliver of land. It's about the size of New Jersey. It doesn't have a large population when you compare Israel to. to countries like Nigeria and Brazil, and yet it's front and center in the news day after day, month after month, year after year. Well, many people say, of course, it's a Jewish conspiracy. Of course. But I don't think it's a Jewish conspiracy.

I think it's a God conspiracy. I do too. I think the Temple Mount is probably the most disputed piece of real estate on the face of the earth. And it's a spiritual, this is a spiritual thing. It's a spiritual battle. I think not only the survival, but the flourishing and the prosperity of the Israelis is a remarkable thing. It's a God thing. And God declared it in his word that in Jeremiah 31, as long as the sun shines by day, in the moon and the stars by night, I will preserve the Jewish people as a nation before me.

And then he even mentions their rebellion, even though they have disobeyed my laws, say it the Lord. and then says only if the heavens above or the earth beneath can be measured, will I cease to preserve them as a nation? So you have anti-Semitism, this demonic strategic effort to destroy the Jewish people. I think it's an effort itself, preservation. Satan's attempt to keep Genesis 315 from being fulfilled. But then you also have God, the God of creation, who is higher than Satan, saying, I will preserve them as a nation before me.

So this cosmic battle that's gone on for thousands of years since the time of Abraham, and it's being lived out in that little sliver of land, in that little city of Jerusalem, on the temple mount as the epicenter, and God will win in the end. That's the good news. The fact that you have so many Arab Muslims who despise the Jews and Israel is itself at least interesting. And you think how odd that we should have this happening, that this little group should evoke such depatriate, as we said earlier, all across the board. But now, you know, physically this dispute over this land, over this nation, we need to talk about that. We're going to go to a break here.

In the beginning of hour two, we're going to come back. I want to talk to you after this break, this news break, about Netany. Yahoo and the peace plan right now. Jonathan Bernice, thank you. I want to tell people, you've got an opportunity because we're doing a campaign with food for the poor. They are feeding the poorest of the poor in Guatemala. Guatemala has the infamous title of being the place with the highest level of malnutrition in the Western Hemisphere. The good news is we don't just say, oh, how horrible. We can do something about it. In fact, we're obliged and commanded to do something. If you give $80, you're feeding a kid for an entire year, they get water for life.

That's $80, folks. Phone numbers 844-8663 Hope, 844-8663 Hope, 844-863 Hope.