What facts prove Israel is the greatest of the end times signs? Find out with hosts Tim Moore and Nathan Jones on the television program, Christ in Prophecy!
Air Date: January 18, 2025
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Transcript
Tim Moore: Hello again and welcome to Christ in Prophecy. We’re on the backside of January and so much lies ahead, as we are a quarter of the way through the 21st Century.
Nathan Jones: Since Christ in Prophecy initially releases for broadcast on Sunday morning, many of you will still be anticipating the inauguration of Donald Trump as President on Monday, January 20th. And some of you will watch this program after that transition of presidential power, but our comments today will still apply.
Tim Moore: That’s right, much has been said about the 2020 and 2024 election outcomes. Whatever motivated millions of Americans to reject the Trump presidency in 2020, there was no misinterpreting the result in 2024. Americans overwhelmingly affirmed their preference for Donald Trump.
Perhaps they were tired of the weak leadership exhibited by Joe Biden and his Administration, both at home and abroad, or they grew weary of the constant browbeating of the Left as it tried to impose its own skewed agenda on an unwilling electorate. The complicity of the media in perpetrating narratives that were demonstrably untrue is also leaving many legacy news outlets without viewers and fearful of their own future.
Nathan Jones: By contrast, we are not fearful of our own future. We know Who we have believed, and what He has promised, and where we are headed. And even though we do not know exactly when He will come to gather us up to Himself, the Signs of the Times tell us that His return is imminent… and drawing closer each day.
Tim Moore: Our consistent message at Lamb & Lion Ministries is that we are living in the season of the Lord’s return. We do not set dates or engage in wild speculation or harebrained conspiracy theories. Instead, we point people to our Blessed Hope, encouraging Christians all the more as we see the Day drawing near, and urging unbelievers to flee from the wrath to come, and into the loving arms of our Savior.
Nathan Jones: Following the categories laid out by our founder, Dr. David Reagan, we point to the Signs of nature, society, spiritual signs, world politics, technology, and Israel. All those categories of signs have increased in frequency and magnitude in recent years. And following Jesus’ birth pains analogy, we recognize that this increase in frequency and magnitude, foretell the approach of His return, first for Christians in the Rapture, and then with us at the glorious Second Coming.
Tim Moore: And for just the past few years, we’ve been highlighting a new development regarding those signs, their unprecedented convergence. Never before have the End Time signs been coming together and intertwining at such an accelerating pace. But today we want to highlight what we consider the greatest sign of all, the Sign of Israel.
Of all the signs, the re-emergence of Israel in just the past century marks the most important prophetic development since John recorded the Revelation Jesus shared with him on the island of Patmos. For those with eyes to see, the existence of Israel is like a glaring neon light. And for those with ears to hear, it’s like a prophetic klaxon, sounding a triumphant blast for those awaiting Jesus’ return, and a warning alarm for those on whom God’s wrath abides. So how about it, Nathan? What do you have to say about this greatest sign of all?
Nathan Jones: Well, we know that Jesus said, “When the fig tree rebuds,” in other words, He’s pointing to Israel, we know that His coming is near. That’s called the Fig Tree Sign, and we could look at that and know that when Israel comes back as a nation, which happened on May 14th, 1948, that that would be a fulfillment of prophecy, that a nation that had been long dead would come back to life.
Parallel, you can go to Ezekiel, Chapters 36 and 37, with the valley of dry bones where Ezekiel saw this valley of dead bones come back together, come back to life, though missing their soul for the Lord, but they would come back as a nation again. And who has ever seen such a thing? Who has ever seen a nation come back from the dead after 1,900 years? Tim, we could be sure The Hittites are the Iroquois Nations, the Mayans, the Incans, the Mongols. They’re not going to reform as an empire nation again. But the nation of the Bible coming back, to me that is one of the greatest proofs that God exists.
Tim Moore: It certainly is. We’ve talked before how, at different times in history, I cite both a czar in Russia and a king in France, who asked one of their advisors, and let’s face it, many of the advisors back in the olden days were actually priests or people who were trained up in the Church, advising a king. And in two separate instances, it’s recorded that a king or czar asked, “Give me proof that God even exists,” and the answer was, the Jews.
The fact that the Jews are still around, dispersed as they were back in the 17 and 1800s, proves that God exists, because He has preserved and protected them. Yes, they’ve endured pogroms and persecution, but they still were an identifiable people group. And as you said, all those other -ites, even the chigger bites, as Dr. Reagan used to say, they have disappeared from world history. The Jews are still here.
And I love the analogy you pointed out, or the prophecy, the Parable of the Fig Tree. One of the most uncharacteristic things Jesus ever did was to curse a tree, when He was hungry, the Scripture says. Gospel writer says He was walking into Jerusalem and He was hungry, and He saw a fig tree. And so He came up to it, but there were no figs. And Mark says it wasn’t the season for figs, and yet Jesus cursed the tree. And you think, now wait just a minute.
Was Jesus ignorant about the timing of fig trees producing fruit? No, and so there had to be a reason why He cursed a tree that wasn’t bearing figs out of season. But we’re told later that even the disciples were shocked when that fig tree had withered and died. And Jesus then in Matthew 24 says, “Watch the fig tree. When you see it spring forth again, producing leaves and fruit will be born, you know that He is near.” I find that such a beautiful picture of what happened to the Jewish nation, as it was cursed for a season, as it was dispersed, as we have identified many times, but as it will come back to life, springing forth new leaves and indeed, new fruit. And so when we see that happen, and we have, we know that He is near, “right at the door,” as Matthew 24:33 says.
Nathan Jones: Absolutely, and when you think of the fact that the Jewish people were expelled out of their land in 70 AD, for over 1,900 years they’ve remained Jewish. Why is that? Well I was reading a historian who said the fact that persecution of the Jewish people kept them so-called circling the wagons, keeping tight communities, keeping their faith, keeping their traditions. And those traditions, even though unfortunately they didn’t point them to God always or sometimes drew them away from God and made tradition more important than the Torah, it still kept them Jewish. And so it’s a unique thing in history, the fact that, it’s a miracle, I would say, that the Lord has kept the Jewish people Jewish. And another reason, too, He says, is because they had small communities.
Now in Egypt, when they started becoming more populous than the population, they were seen as a threat and the Egyptians wanted to deal with them. But since the Jewish people were spread out all over the world in tiny communities, it kept them also to maintain their identity Jewish, too. The fact that we could talk to a Jew today, and they remain Jewish after all these years, I mean, look at America. We’re what, over 200 years? You go back 300 years, 400 years, the whole continent though is completely different. But the Jews are still Jews.
Tim Moore: The Jews are still Jews. And they maintain not just their identity, they maintain their language. They can still read and write in Hebrew. As a matter of fact, I’m always amazed when I go to the Israel Museum and see the Isaiah Scroll depicted right there in the center, and little Jewish children, schoolchildren, can read that scroll written by a scribe thousands of years ago, because the language has not changed. Nathan, you and I couldn’t read English from a few hundred years ago because we wouldn’t make sense of it. And yet they do. I find this is a… there’s another beautiful demonstration of God’s providence.
The Jewish people, throughout that diaspora period from AD 70, literally until the last century when they were dispersed around the world, they still maintained a desire to go home. Home to where? Specifically to the Promised land, and to Jerusalem. Because at every Seder meal, their Passover meal once a year, whether they were living in a ghetto in Eastern Europe, whether they were persecuted in Russia, whether they were living in the New World here in the United States or the Americas, every year, every Jewish family would say, at the end of that meal, a hopeful prayer, “next year in Jerusalem.” That seed was planted so deep.
Nathan, I’ve asked people who scoff at God’s provision for the Jews and have leaned toward replacement theology to explain then, in their understanding, Ezekiel 36. Now you talked about the dry bones, but in Ezekiel 36, the Lord makes a prophecy to mountains, declaring that, “You will once again be inhabited by My people.” And I ask these budding or leaning replacement theologians, “Does that mean that you have a desire to go back to Israel?” And every one of them I’ve asked has said, “No.” I said, “Well then how do you explain this prophecy?”
And they can’t. And I say, “Well, it’s because it’s not you who is addressed by this prophecy to a bunch of mountains in Israel. It’s God’s chosen people, the Jews, and they do have a yearning to go home.” And it’s like a light bulb goes off. I’ve never had a claiming replacement theologian be able to contradict that because they realize that promise is only for the Jews.
Nathan Jones: That’s because it’s based on covenants. God made covenants with Abraham, the Abrahamic Covenant, an unconditional covenant of people and a land. Then He made what’s called the Land Covenant. And the Land Covenant said, “Hey, as long as you obey Me, then you can enjoy the blessings of the land. But if you rebel against Me, then I will kick you out.” Now some replacement theologians say, “Well, the Lord has gotten rid of the Jews because of that unfaithfulness. He’s washed His hands of them.”
But I like to think of the Land Covenant this way. When my son was a teenager, we got him a car, and we said, “Son, you can drive this car, but you have to put gas in it. You can’t speed. You have to be home by curfew,” all these different rules. “If you disobey it, then I will take the keys. I will put the car in the garage and you won’t be able to drive it. You’ll still own it, but you won’t get to use it.”
And that’s what God was doing with the Land Covenant. He says, “If you’re unfaithful to Me, I will kick you out of the land for a period of time. But you never lose that land.” So that argument that the Jews don’t have any claim to the land, there’s the Abrahamic Covenant, the Land Covenant, and then there’s the Davidic Covenant, that a king from the line of David will rule and reign from Jerusalem. That’s a future prophecy we’re still waiting for. So yeah, the Jewish people have it in their hearts because God who never changes, made covenants with them that are unalterable and they will happen. And the Jewish people are promised that land and they will reclaim it.
Tim Moore: And Paul makes it clear that because the Jews were set aside for a period, “cursed” is the language used in Scripture, and we think of that as a permanent cursing, but it’s not. It’s a period of disciplining, a curse relative to the blessings that had flowed on them while they were being faithful to God. And Paul said because of that, the Gentiles have now been given the Gospel, and have been grafted in, but our job is to make the Jews jealous that we even have a relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that we know the Messiah by name. And certainly that is our responsibility. But let’s go back to this greatest sign. What have we seen, and not just with our own eyes, but over the last number of years, I dare say about the last 100 to 120 years? What has happened that makes the re-emergence of Israel the greatest sign of all?
Nathan Jones: Well prophecies that God made thousands of years ago, that the Jewish people would be regathered. So we’ve been talking about the diaspora. We’re talking about them retaining…well, what about this prophecy about returning, a prophecy that was supposed to be so incredible that the Jewish people will consider the Exodus…
Tim Moore: Yes.
Nathan Jones: Lesser than this. And you go to Isaiah 11:11, it says, “It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time, to recover the remnant of His people who are left from,” and He lists a bunch of nations. At verse 12, “He will set up the banner for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah,” so we’re talking about both Israel and Judah, from where? “The four corners of the earth.” Tim, not the Babylonians…
Tim Moore: Nope.
Nathan Jones: From Babylon coming back, or small remnant, a second exile, which we knew happened in 70 AD. They’d be dispersed not just to Babylon, but the four corners of the earth. And not just those from Judah, the Jews, but also those from Israel, the other tribes. They’d all become one again, and they would all return to the land of Israel, in unbelief. And brother, we are seeing that happen, since the late 1800s, when the First Zionist Congress met, and Herzl and the others said, “Hey, we need to go back to the land of Israel.” God began calling the Jewish people to return to Israel in great waves, great, called aliyots, great aliyots…
Tim Moore: Yes.
Nathan Jones: Back into the land of Israel. And we’re watching that even today.
Tim Moore: We are seeing that today. And you know what’s a miracle to me is, even in the late 1800s, those who were faithful, you think of Blackstone and others who were convinced that the Jews would return to the Promised Land, to Israel. But they said, we don’t know how in the world that’s going to happen because right now, late 1800s, the Jews are very happy in places like Germany and Poland, where there were millions of them. Even in Russia where there were pogroms, they were relatively at ease. They didn’t have the motive to go back to the Promised Land.
But these faithful Christians reading the Word of God said somehow God will motivate them. And sure enough, He did. In the 1900s, there was a trickle of Jews that began to return. But by the middle of the century, especially following the Holocaust, that trickle became a flood, as Jews fled from Europe, and even from other parts of the world to return to Israel, to make aliyot, to go up, again, to their ancient Promised Land.
Nathan Jones: And when you think about it, there’s about 14 million Jews, which is really tragic when you think how ancient the Jewish people are, how the persecution of Satan against the Jewish people has left them only with 14 million. There should be like the Arabs, hundreds of millions, but 14 million. Half of them live in Israel now, seven million or so.
We read in Ezekiel 38 and 39 that, “When the Gog, Magog war happens,” when Russia leads an Islamic coalition against Israel, there’s two things that result from that. One is that all the Jews will decide to return to Israel, whether they feel it’s safer there, or whether persecution ramps up and they have to go back. But the remaining seven million will return to Israel. And two, it shows the world that God is in charge, that God’s name is Holy. And because God is revealing Himself through Israel and not the Church, I believe the Gog, Magog war is post-Rapture.
Tim Moore: Yes.
Nathan Jones: Because of that, which means that the Rapture is even closer. The fact that that alliance is, ah, I’m getting ahead of myself. But the fact that that alliance is there shows that we’re even closer.
Tim Moore: We get so excited, obviously folks, talking about these things, because they’re coming to pass before our very eyes. In Ezekiel 36 again, some people will say, “Well, God surely wouldn’t keep His promises to the Jews. They don’t deserve it.” And my answer is, “Well, do you deserve the blessings of God?”
Nathan Jones: Yes, exactly.
Tim Moore: Nathan, do you and I deserve even salvation? No, that is the grace of God, and that is His faithfulness. And He says in verse 32 of Ezekiel 36, regarding the regathering, the reestablishment, “‘I am not doing this for your sake,” declares the Lord; “let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O House of Israel.'” But He is doing it for His name’s sake, to demonstrate His faithfulness. And as you kind of alluded to, Nathan, this second regathering will be so miraculous that will make even the deliverance from captivity in Egypt pale in comparison. To this day, the Jews celebrate that deliverance from captivity in Egypt every Passover, but they will eventually realize that His regathering in the modern era to Israel, surpasses even that great deliverance.
Nathan Jones: Absolutely, absolutely, so we’ve talked about the diaspora, we’ve talked about the regathering. Well now, Israel needs to become a nation again. They weren’t a nation in the late 1880s.
Tim Moore: Yes.
Nathan Jones: They had back and forth as the UN and Great Britain took land away. But eventually on May 14th, 1948, Israel was reestablished as a nation again. Matter of fact, the Lord prophesied, there’d be the birth pains of becoming, the baby coming, would actually come after the baby’s born. In other words, there’d be wars and conflicts that Israel would have to face. This is a fulfillment of Isaiah 66:7-8…
Tim Moore: Yes.
Nathan Jones: Ezekiel 37:21-22, that Israel would be a nation again. And to top it off, Jerusalem would be controlled by the Jewish people. Now we know the Messiah won’t return until the Gentiles are done trampling Jerusalem. They’re clearly trampling Jerusalem today. The antichrist will trample Jerusalem. But in Zechariah 8:4-8, Jerusalem would be reoccupied again. And we know that happened in the Six-Day War in 1967.
Tim Moore: We sure do, so to recap, we are saying that this diaspora was regathered beginning primarily in the early 20th century. In other words, the early 1900s, God regathered the Jewish people back into the land. They are still streaming home today. And then in 1948, the nation was reestablished, in one day. “And who has heard of such a thing,” as Isaiah writes, but yet it happened, May 14th, by our Western calendar, 1948. And then there was the promise that Jerusalem would again be the capital of the Jewish nation, and that happened in 1967. And Nathan, a dear friend of mine, Udi Merioz, who we featured some of his artwork throughout our publications, and even here on the television set, program, he was the first little boy whose family resettled in Jerusalem.
Nathan Jones: Wow.
Tim Moore: And he has been recognized as the first child to live in the reestablished capital of Israel, Jerusalem, following the 1967 Six-Day War. He is a living testimony that God fulfills every promise. So Jerusalem has been, again, established. What’s another prophecy regarding the Jewish people?
Nathan Jones: Oh yeah, as the game show hosts say, “That’s not all.”
Tim Moore: That’s not all.
Nathan Jones: That’s not all, okay. So after the Romans, they basically destroyed the land of Israel. I mean, when they were besieging Jerusalem by 70 AD, they had cut down the trees. And then as the Jews were kicked out, God promised that the land would go fallow. It would be wild. And certainly that nobody wanted to live in Israel anymore. The land had become barren like a desert. The Ottomans taxed the trees so the people cut the trees down. Mark Twain in the 1860s, a great book, Innocents Abroad, I read it and he, for days he said he’d walk and not see another person. Well that land was asleep, waiting for the Jewish people to come back. So we know in Ezekiel 36:34-35, there’s a prophecy that the land of Israel, which had been desolate, would become fruitful again. And you can find this in all the minor prophets…
Tim Moore: Oh yeah.
Nathan Jones: Especially, prophecy of this desolate land would become fruitful again. What really struck my mind, the first time I went to Israel, was driving from Ben Gurion up to Caesarea Maritime and then up to Haifa. And as you go along the coastal road there, the flowers, and the palms and the fruit trees are everywhere. What was, when you look at pictures from the early 20th century where it was desolate, there’s fruit everywhere now.
Tim Moore: There certainly is, and there’s beauty and green, and millions and millions of trees planted where they had all been cut down because of Ottoman policies, during that empire’s heavy-handed reign in the land. The land has been restored and there’s even been an increase in rainfall.
Nathan Jones: Yes.
Tim Moore: Since the Jews came back into the land. You know, the Lord said in Amos 9:15, that “He would plant them,” meaning the Jewish people, “on their land, and they will not be rooted out from their land again. That which I have given them, says the Lord your God.” And so how has the Jewish nation, Israel, been able to maintain its independence and its sovereignty there in the midst of a very rough and hate-filled neighborhood? Because He’s also allowed a resurgence of the Israeli military.
Nathan Jones: Yeah, that is amazing, that Israel would have, to think that Israel, which is the size of New Jersey, has a military in the top 10 most powerful nations. Of the 11 nations that have nuclear weapons, Israel’s one of them. We’ve seen over the last year, them take out Hamas, cleverly take out Hezbollah.
Tim Moore: Yes.
Nathan Jones: Probably this year deal with Iran and others. Their military would become tremendous, so much so that there’s a prophecy called the Psalm 83 War where Israel will likely have to subdue the neighbors around them. We’re getting into the future, where, I know, but I’d like to circle back to what you said about bringing, because it’s really important…
Tim Moore: Yes.
Nathan Jones: Bringing the Hebrew language back from the dead.
Tim Moore: Yes, I want to go there, too.
Nathan Jones: Zephaniah 3:9, the fact that the Jewish people are speaking a language that’s ancient and dead. That’d be like us picking up Latin, and all of a sudden we’re all speaking Latin again. That’s unheard…nobody would ever think of doing that. But the Jewish people brought Ben-Yehuda, brought Hebrew back from the dead. And it could be possible during the Millennial Kingdom, we’ll all be speaking Hebrew. I hope not.
Tim Moore: I think we will a little bit. My grandchildren also, already speak one word. They call me Saba, which means Grandfather in Hebrew, and it’s my favorite Hebrew word. So I think that, I try to bear out my testimony that we just might be speaking Hebrew down the road.
Nathan Jones: Amen, amen, now, this is a negative one, but according to Zechariah 12, all the nations of the world would be obsessed with who controls Jerusalem. By the end of 2025, supposedly the UN made a resolution last year that said the Jews have to get out of the Golan Heights, out of what they call the West Bank, and out of Jerusalem. Now, they’re asking the Jewish people to get out of Jerusalem. Why is the UN so obsessed with Jerusalem? Because the Messiah is supposed to return to Jerusalem, and He’s going to rule the world from Jerusalem, and the satanic forces behind the world empires are trying to stop that.
Tim Moore: They are trying to stop it. Satan has always been trying to destroy the Jewish people, whether it was Haman, whether it was Herod, whether it was Hamas, Hezbollah, Hitler. The H’s seem to be very prominent.
Nathan Jones: Yeah, good point.
Tim Moore: But Satan has never succeeded, because God has promised that He will preserve and protect the Jewish people, and that there is an End Times promise for them to all come to salvation, the remnant that survives the Tribulation. And we’ve talked about that at other times. But we have seen this fig tree come back to life. Yes, put forth leaves, yes, in times of great tribulation and trial, little “T.” But God has promised, “When you see this victory come back, know that He is near, right at the door.” And Nathan, we believe that.
Well, Nathan, I get so excited whenever I talk about the Jewish people. And Dr. Reagan used to say, his wife said, “Don’t you wish you were Jewish as you get excited about the Jewish people?” And he wisely said, “No, because if I was Jewish, there’s a great likelihood that I would still have scales over my eyes.” We pray for the salvation of Jewish people. We encourage you to pray for the salvation, not just of the Jewish people, but for a specific Jew that you know. And if possible, share the Gospel with them, soon and very soon.
Nathan Jones: Amen, amen, yeah, this is an amazing time. So many, we want Jewish people to get saved before the Rapture of the Church so they unfortunately don’t go into the future prophecies, which we’ll cover another time. There’s a lot of trials and tribulations coming. The Lord prophesied that. But through those trials and tribulations, the Jewish people will come to accept Jesus Christ as their Messiah.
Closing
Tim Moore: Well, obviously we are excited about what the Lord is doing right before our eyes.
Nathan Jones: And should He tarry, we’re also excited about what He will accomplish this year. Regardless of the twists and turns that lie ahead from a human perspective, we know that the Great Weaver will work all things together for His glory, and the good of those who’ve put their trust in Him.
Tim Moore: We also believe that Israel will be given a respite from war for a season. Following over a year of heartbreak and anxiety, I believe there will be a season of Shalom, and that is why we are planning two Israel pilgrimages in 2025. You know, many people have expressed a great interest in joining us on a Lamb & Lion Ministries Pilgrimage. We hope that you will join us this year in the Promised Land.
Nathan Jones: And we will be continuing to explore the theme we introduced today, the Greatest Prophetic Sign. The writer of Ecclesiastes said, “There is nothing new under the sun,” and that is true in a general sense, but Jeremiah, the prophet of doom we discussed last week, remained hope-filled, specifically because he recalled this truth. “The Lord’s loving kindness indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They’re new every morning and great is His faithfulness.”
Tim Moore: Not only are His loving kindnesses and compassions new every morning, the unfolding fulfillment of His ancient promises are evident, for all who have eyes to see. If you’ve put your trust in Jesus Christ, He has promised to open the eyes of your heart. Allow Him to illuminate your understanding and invigorate your anticipation of His coming. If He is yours and you are His, you can echo the very next verse in Jeremiah’s personal testimony. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore, I have hope in Him.” Today the greatest prophetic sign is the existence of Israel. All the signs point to the One Who has promised, Who is faithful, and Who is coming again.
Are you ready? Godspeed!
End of Program