bible_study/Podcasts/Prophecy Pros/Season 2/S2E11: Where is America in Bible Prophecy?.md

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Todd: Hey, Todd here, and you’re listening to the Prophecy Pros Podcast on the Edify Podcast Network. Our guest today, Olivier Melnick is the Northwest Regional Director of Chosen People Ministries’, and he serves on the board of directors for Chosen People, France. He’s an author and a speaker and a personal friend of ours. He’s an expert on the topic of anti-Semitism and Bible prophecy and how they intersect. Olivier, welcome to the Prophecy Pros Podcast.

Olivier Melnick: Thank you, Todd and Jeff. I’m very happy to join you today.

Todd: We really appreciate your time, brother. We’ve been looking forward to this. And most of our listeners probably have never heard of you before. So if you could, won’t you tell a little bit about you and your ministry and your background and that kind of thing.

Olivier Melnick: Okay. I was born and raised in Paris, France, in a Jewish family. My parents are both gone now. We’re war and Holocaust survivors. My mother actually was hidden in the South of France on a farm as a Catholic girl during the last two years of the war. And so I was brought up in a Jewish family, but not really religious because as many Jews during the war, my parents lost any shred of faith in any kind of God after the Holocaust. So I was brought up Jewish, but not religious. I moved to the United States after I got married to my American wife who led me to the Lord in 1985, by scaring me about the rapture and telling me that we would be separated if she was taken, and I thought this was crazy, but I believed.

In 1983, she led me to the Lord in the summer of 1983, came back to the States and started getting involved in church, Bible studies, joined different ministries as a lay person, and eventually in 1998, we joined Chosen People Ministries’, and we’ve been with them for almost 23 years now. I currently, like you said, serve in the Northwest and do a lot of travel, a lot of speaking on the topic of anti-Semitism. Started doing that in about 2000 and I’ve written several book on the topic and many articles. This is not a topic that I’ve chosen, this is a topic that God has kind of put on my lap and it gets very draining, very difficult to deal with this on a daily basis, but not that many people that are Jewish, who are believers in Yeshua, Jesus do do this. So I keep doing it until God tells me that I’m going to have to do something else.

Jeff: Amen. Well, Olivier, I first met you at a prophecy conference about a year ago. I think our tables were beside one another, and you gave me a copy of your book End-Times Antisemitism, a new chapter in the longest hatred. I brought that book home, I set it in my stack of books to read, and then I started writing one of my books. And one of my chapters deals with anti-Semitism. But I just want to tell you that, I read your book from cover to cover and you did such an incredible job of categorizing all of the anti-Semitism really all the way from biblical times up until now. And brother, you just did a fantastic job. I highly recommended this book. I quote from you several times in my new book, because you highlight the fact that there is a sub current of anti-Semitism that has really run throughout history. Would you just speak on that for a second, and then tell us about how you see it on the rise right now in America with perhaps even some recent examples.

Olivier Melnick: Well, in the book, which is my second book on the topic, I felt it necessary to go through history and give Christians, a history of anti-Semitism. When you look at the history of the Jewish people, and I just started to teach a Bible study online on that topic two weeks ago. When you look at the history of Jewish people, it’s easy to say that the history of Jewish people has been punctuated by acts of anti-Semitism. And you look at how we look at Jewish people, and it actually is not uncommon to speak of Jewish history as pre-Holocaust and post-Holocaust. And so I wanted to document in that book, the progression of anti-Semitism, which really started as anti theological anti Judaism between the Christians and the Jews in the first couple of centuries after the closing of the Canon, the first, second century.

And then it evolved and evolved to the apex being the Holocaust. Then it morphed. I’m giving you a quick summary here. It morphed within 20 years, two decades after the Holocaust would become taboo, but then it was swept under the carpet. The early stages of political correctness, so to speak. And then it came up again. It never really died, it came out again, and it was rebranded and reborn as the new anti-Semitism where the victims became the perpetrators, and the perpetrators became the victim of a big shift in the way people look at anti-Semitism today. But the bottom line is this, friends, anti-Semitism is a creation of Satan who wants to destroy the Jews because he knows what’s happening at the end of times that God is going to use Israel for the return of Jesus, the Messiah.

Todd: Amen and I echo what Jeff said. This book is amazing. It’s a topic that honestly, most Christians I know have never really studied in depth. And your book lays it all out concretely and in a way that’s literally, once you start reading, it just sucks you in and you don’t want to put the book down. Olivier, honestly, I think that book has a potential to wake a lot of modern day believers up to the fact that anti-Semitism is on the rise today and the role that it’s played throughout church history and even before that. And unfortunately, even how even so-called Christians have done some horrific things in church history against the God’s chosen people. You hit on it a little bit, but where’s all that coming from? Both in terms of kind of an earthly view, what are the groups now that it’s rising from? Whether it’s Progressive’s and anarchists or Islamic or whatever, but also unpack a little bit more, what you talked about with that ultimate source where anti-Semitism is coming from.

Olivier Melnick: Well, I believe that satan is a very astute theologian. He does not like what the Bible has to say, especially what it has to say about him. And he really does not look forward to his retirement plan. So what’s happening is that he knows from scripture, he knows from Matthew, and he knows from Zechariah chapter 12 and 13, that when the Jewish people say [foreign language 00:07:51], when they call up on the one, [inaudible] and simplicity, he who comes in name of the Lord, that Yeshua, Jesus is going to return. The second coming is triggered by Israel, corporately saying, “We missed you the first time, please come,” and calling on the Messiah. And he knows that this is going to start a series of event in the end times or actually that will be towards the end of the events of the tribulation. But it’s going to start the beginning of the end for Satan.

And so he’s thinking in his narrow minded mind that if he can stop the Jewish people from calling on Yeshua, then He will not come back, and then his career will go forever, even though he knows it’s not true. So he is the creator, he is the mastermind behind ant-Semitism. What we’re seeing today, we’ve seen it throughout history. We see it more today, and I would say more in the last 10 to 15 years. We see a tremendous irrationality. The word that I keep bringing up when I teach on the topic is that the current iteration of anti-Semitism is based on irrational thinking, because people are believing things that are completely irrational. When you look at the two extremes of the people that are actually going against the Jews today, you could look at the liberal left and radical Islam. What’s amazing about those two is, if you put a proponent of the radical left and a proponent of radical Islam in the same room, pretty much, they will agree on nothing except the destruction of Israel.

Jeff: Yeah. It brings common ground to those two groups there, and it’s very interesting. Even recently, but since you’ve written this book, obviously there’s been many more incidences, but just in terms of kind of an undercurrent that’s going on, Olivier, like recently with the coronavirus, there were reports that, Israel is to blame somehow for the coronavirus. And then they tried to blame the death of George Floyd on the Jews, because it turns out that the police departments were supposedly trained by IDF soldiers on take down techniques and arresting techniques. It was, “All goes back to the Jews,” blame the Jews has been this refrain that has been really parroted, like you said not based on facts but based on myth throughout the ages, but more recently.

So as we began to ramp up to revelation, let’s think about this for a second. Tell our listeners, because I think most people have not really thought about even those familiar with Bible prophecy thought about how Israeli centric the tribulation period is. So what’s going to happen to Israel at the beginning of the tribulation? And just take us through just an overview of how that affects the Jewish people.

Olivier Melnick: Well, I think what’s interesting on top of that, Jeff is the fact that we are seeing right now, some things taking place in the Middle East. I’m a very conservative Bible students so I really don’t like to have to backpedal, so I don’t make statement. I’m careful that way, but what I see with the Middle East peace process right now, the peace that’s being signed between Bahrain and United Arab Emirates and possibly Saudi Arabia soon, and whatever other country that that is untold, but that we know is coming is that, it is setting the stage in Israel for Israel to drop her guard down because it’s like, now the Arab world, all of a sudden is concernting together to say, “Hey, you know what? After all the Jews are really not the problem. And we can get along, we don’t have to be enemies anymore.”

So this is setting the stage for this person that Jeff knows very well, not personally but [crosstalk 00:12:02]. Exactly. Which is very funny because I’m in the process of writing a paper for Dallas Seminary right now, on the person of the antichrist in Daniel. So this is very fresh in my mind. But the antichrist is going to come, this person who is against Israel, he wants to replace Jesus and he’s against Jesus and he wants to take his place, and he’s going to sign a covenant with Israel. So we’re looking at the seven year tribulation. He’s going to sign a covenant at the beginning of the tribulation and then break that covenant and make life, miserable, is not even the word to use. Basically bring death and destruction to whoever is left behind.

I’m a pre-trib, I believe that will be gone during the rapture before that. But the antichrist is going to do whatever he can to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. But first that covenant has to be signed, which means that also a temple is going to be rebuilt. I think I’ve been to Israel many times, you go into the Temple Institute, they’re ready. They’ve got everything except for maybe they’re already half for the ashes of the Red Heifer, but they’re ready to rebuild. And that temple is not condoned by God, but it has to be rebuilt because the antichrist is going to desecrate it and call himself God. And in the process, he is determined to destroy the Jewish people. There’s going to be a tremendous hardship against Israel during the tribulation, but there’s also, and I don’t know, do you want me to go any further on that, but there’s also a very interesting passage in Matthew about the sheep and the goats.

And I find this to be very encouraging, to know that there will be people that will go through the terrible time of the tribulation, but that will actually go out of their way to help Jewish people. And that’s not what’s going to get them saved because what gets them saved is by faith only in Yeshua only. But because they are saved, they’re going to see that God has a special place for the Jews and they will go out of their way to help the Jews during the tribulation. That warms my heart because I see there’s still hope for some Jewish people during the tribulation, mind you, it’s better to reach out to them before the rapture than after obviously.

Jeff: Absolutely. Yeah. “When you’ve done it to the least of these, you’ve done it to me,” Jesus said, speaking of his Jewish brother.

Olivier Melnick: Exactly.

Todd: I just love the light that you’re bringing to that and the awareness that you bring into it. And with all that, what do you see all of this setting the stage for, in terms of like, what’s next biblically, prophetically speaking, like we look at Ezekiel 38 and with the cords, maybe sending Israel up to be in a place where they’re feel more at peace and let their guard down, like you said, what do you see as next that we should kind of keep our eyes on?

Olivier Melnick: Well, I’d like to turn that question on its head a little bit and not so much what’s next, because what’s next is basically what the Bible tells us what’s next is going to be… Technically the rapture could take place in the middle of this podcast. There’s nothing, [crosstalk 00:15:53]. The rapture, that would be nice. The Rapture is imminent, it could happen anytime. There’s nothing that needs to happen before the rapture as of this point right now, we know that. So after that, we’ve got the seven year tribulation and the end of the tribulation, Israel recognizes that they miss the Messiah. But what I’d like to spend a moment discussing is that there is a need right now. And that is the topic of my newest book, I don’t know if you guys have it or not, The Time Is Now, which is a smaller booklet that I did. After 20 years of discussing about anti-Semitism is getting and how bad it is, I put this little book out together on, seven steps Christians should take to help the Jewish people.

I see a need right now for a group of people that I’m very familiar with, they are called, the righteous among the nations. And they were started in 1953 by Yad Vashem in Israel. They’re Gentiles who helped the Jews during the war at the risk of their own lives, not taking any money and really helping to hide and feed and send the Jews into a safe place. They continue to be a group recognized from the Second World War. But I see a need right now for Christians today to realize the gravity of what’s happening and that’s coming against the Jews globally from the right, from the left, from the church even, from radical Islam, from all angles and be prepared to go out of their way.I call them the new righteous among the nations. I talk about them in a little booklet. And I think that we have a biblical mandate as Christians, especially Gentile Christians, to prepare to help the Jewish people again, not to get saved but to get them protected and to eventually get them saved. People will have a chance to say, “Hey, listen, I want to reach out to you. I want to really help the Jewish people, because my Messiah is Jewish, because I have a relationship with the God of Israel, because he loves Israel so I love Israel.”

So I think we need to wake up the Christian church right now. We need to wake them up to the reality that they are going to need to take a stand for Israel even more so. I look at the chapter 25 of Matthew. I look at that chapter, it’s going to take place in a tribulation where we can take the principle of helping the Jews, because we love the God of the Jews, we can take the principle and do it today, even though that chapter speaks of something taking place in the tribulation. That’s what I like to concentrate on right now, trying to wake up the Christian church to the fact that the Jews are going to need them. And we really, as a church failed 75 years ago.

Todd: Really indeed.

Jeff: Olivier, a couple of questions that just come to my mind is that… Because I want to piggyback on that just a second, a little bit more, but how do you think persecution? And just more of a… Sometimes it’s hard to nail it down and to give specific examples, but sometimes it’s just in the air, how do you think that anti-Semitism across the world is really playing into God’s plan to drive Jewish people back to Israel? What’s the cause and effect relationship you see there?

Olivier Melnick: Yeah. I definitely see that’s part of the equation because we have seen a large number of Jewish people going back to Israel in the last, maybe 10 years. I think it started with an event that took place in France in 2012, where a rabbi was skilled at a school in the South of France. And then it kept going. And so maybe eight years, I document that in both my books, but there’s definitely an increasing number of Jewish people moving to Israel in fear for their life because Israel might not be a cakewalk, but it’s definitely a country that is not going to deny that the Jews need protection. Currently there’s no place but Israel that is safe for the Jewish people. I get stuff constantly. I just got two different emails recently coming from France, where a long stretch of an avenue right next to the shores in New Zealand, parallel to the Louvre Museum and they have like a series of arcades.

And then on every single one of the pillar, somebody at sprint painted a swastika for like hundreds of yards. And then two weeks prior, they went into a kosher restaurant, happens to be my nephew’s friend who has a kosher catering business, they destroy the whole restaurant and said, “Hitler was right. Didn’t kill enough Jews.” But that happens all the time, a lot of it in France, a lot of it in different countries of the world, and in some cases, in places where people don’t even know a Jewish person. They’ve never met one, is based on the hearsay, it’s based on the false narrative, but it’s forcing Jewish people to go back to the land, which is something that is predicted in Ezekiel. And so they’re going to go back in unbelief. This has been happening for a while now, the Jewish people are going back to the land in unbelief. So without being a sensationalist, we are really living in prophetic times because the prophecy is being fulfilled in front of our very eyes.

Jeff: Absolutely.

Todd: Yeah. A lot of people that I know when I try to talk to them about Bible prophecy, and I want to introduce them to the relevance of Bible prophecy in our times, I always challenged them and say, “Please just go read Ezekiel 36 through 39. And you can see that has been filled since 1948, and it continues to be.” And it reads in the exact chronological order of what we see. And so I highlight that and I also remind people, Jesus is a Jewish savior. I hear people say, “Jesus was a Jewish carpenter.” No, he still is Jewish. That’s one thing that I think a lot of believers don’t grasp and think of, he is Jewish. And in the end times there’s going to be this beautiful culmination of the merge of the church and God’s chosen people. What can you share with us about that? Like how all this ties in the end times?

Olivier Melnick: Well, I was looking for that scripture, as you asked the question. Actually on my iPad, I’m looking for that scripture, and I think it’s in Zephaniah. I love that scripture when it talks about in the millennial, 10 Gentiles would walk and would want to grab the hem of the garment of a Jewish person because they know God. The Jewish people at the end of the tribulation, corporately will all see that Messiah the Jesus is the Messiah and would recognize him and call him to return, which is what triggers the second coming of the Messiah. And so in the millennium, we have Jews and Gentiles who get along [crosstalk] doesn’t exist anymore. And not only that, but the head become the tail and tail become the head.

And the Jewish people will in a way lead under Messiah Yeshua. But I love that scripture. I can’t find it right now because I’m talking and looking at the same time. But, 10 men from the nations will follow, and I’m paraphrasing the scripture, or follow a Jewish person and say, “We want to go with you because we know that you know God.” So that tells me two things. Number one, that the Jewish in the millennial, and of course you have to know they’re come to saving knowledge of Yeshua. They’ll get into the millennium, they’ll survive the tribulation. Those who will, of course the Jewish believers will return with us at the second coming, but they will know Yeshua, but also anti-Semitism will stop. The Gentiles will be in a good way, jealous of the Jews, in a good way, wanting to go with the Jews because the Jewish people will reflect the awesomeness of God at that time.

Jeff: Well, and the ultimate irony of history is that every anti-Semite, from Gentiles to radical Muslims will one day stand before a Jewish savior at the great white throne and be judged by him. Kind of, one of those things it’s like, the ultimate oops moment, when they finally realized that. Well, Olivier, I want to ask you this question here, because many people that are listening here have Jewish friends. There are everything from complete atheists who are Jews and rice only, but not in religion all the way up to Orthodox Jews, a varying forms. I was on the Ben Shapiro show once, and he made that a point, “I’m an Orthodox Jew, but I love your book,” And that type of thing, Jews are open to truth, common ground, as we talked about earlier, but how would you say, or how would you suggest that people, if they have a burden for a Jewish friend, how do you open a conversation with someone who is either from the Jewish faith or raised in a Jewish household?

Olivier Melnick: Jeff, this is not a good question for the last two minutes of a podcast.

Jeff: Okay. All right. Good.

Olivier Melnick: So this is what I would like to do. I would like to invite myself at a later date to do a podcast on how to share Messiah with [crosstalk 00:25:41].

Todd: That’d be awesome.

Jeff: It also needs to be the topic of a follow-up book that you need to write.

Olivier Melnick: Yeah. No, we have those books, they exist. But there are some basics on how to reach Jewish people with the good news of the Messiah, and it’s different on the spectrum from being very agnostic and anti-God to being ultra Orthodox. And I could not do justice in giving you an answer in a minute [crosstalk 00:26:11]. I think it would be really worth our time to discuss this at a later time. If you guys are interested.

Jeff: [crosstalk 00:26:17]. No, I think that would be a highly listened to podcast. That would be great. Olivier, you are an incredible man and we appreciate you so much. We love your heart. We love your spirit. Just the love that flows from you for all people. It was just such a great joy to be able to meet you and to read your book, and to really hear where the path that God has chosen for you and the mission that God has given to you. I know our listeners need to really check you out and talk about just the things that you have accomplished. Tell us right now, tell our listeners where they can find out more information about you and your ministry.

Olivier Melnick: Well, I am part of chosen People Ministries’. So anything they want to know about what the mission is doing to reach out Jewish people with the gospel of Jesus, they go to chosenpeople.com. They’ll find what we do, the campaigns that we do, or they can help in prayer and support and all the resources that we have a lot. My books and DVDs and various things are available on newantisemitism.com. They’re also on Amazon if you look for them. One is called, The Time Is Now and the other one is called End-Times Antisemitism, as you mentioned earlier. You go to my website to newantisemitism.com, you can find those resources. I’m always open, I have my email, is there on a website. I’m always open to answer questions. If somebody has a Jewish friend who needs to know about Jesus, I’m an email away.

Jeff: That’s great. Well, Olivia again, thank you so much on behalf of Todd, myself, we love you as a brother, but more than that we just… Not more than that, but in addition to that, we really do appreciate your ministry and pray God’s richest blessings on you as you penetrate the darkness with the message, the truth about our great God and savior Jesus Christ. You’ve been listening to the Prophecy Pros Podcast with our guests, Olivier Melnick, and we appreciate so much your tuning in and being able to join us on these podcasts. This has been a great journey, and we want to thank Harvest House Publishers for sponsoring our podcast. And we want to thank the Edify Network for helping us get the message out there, but more than that, the message about Jesus Christ taking that light into the darkness is what we’re all about. So, thanks again for listening. Jeff Kinley, Todd Hampson saying thanks again from Prophecy Pros Podcast.