Countdown 2 Eternity

Guest (Male): Hey, welcome to Countdown to Eternity with pastors James Kaddis and Andy Woods. It's a weekly radio ministry from Calvary Chapel Signal Hill. James and Andy examine current events and connect what's going on in our world to Bible prophecy. Let's lean in and listen.

James Kaddis: Well, hello, my dear brothers and sisters. I want to welcome you to another episode of Countdown to Eternity. And I am with the great Andy Woods. That's number one. And number two, I am mind-blown by an article that I'm looking at right now. And we have to start our conversation with this article. Andy, before I tell everybody the name of the article, first, let me ask you this question: How are you today, brother?

Andy Woods: Oh, James, I'm doing great. And the Lord is blessing, and I'm happy about that. And you find me today in very good spirits.

James Kaddis: I find you almost every day in very good spirits, which is an encouragement to me. You're one of those guys that I very much enjoy talking to for that reason. It is a very cathartic experience to see you as such. Let me take a look at this and tell everybody about this title. This is unbelievable.

It says, "Why US funding for Israel's Iron Dome is losing support on both sides of the aisle." Budgeting for the purely defensive anti-missile system was once a given. But since October 7, left-wing progressives, financial conservatives, and liberal Zionists all have reasons to see it go. That's quite a title, number one.

Number two, what do you do with the phrase "liberal Zionists"? Isn't that kind of like saying "Christian Satan worshipers"? I don't know. Tell us about this article, bro. This is wild.

Andy Woods: Well, I guess we could start there with "liberal Zionists." One thing that you're seeing in the Democratic Party is a change. Alan Dershowitz, okay? And people think Alan Dershowitz is a conservative. He comes across like a conservative just because the Democratic Party is so left-wing. But I've been watching Alan Dershowitz, the great lawyer, for years and years. I remember him castigating the Republicans who impeached Bill Clinton. So Alan Dershowitz is not some kind of knee-jerk Republican partisan at all.

And yet, even he, a Jewish person, just left the Democratic Party. He says, "I can't be involved with this party anymore because of its anti-Israel posture." I remember when Al Gore picked Joe Lieberman to be his running mate. Well, now you fast-forward to today when Kamala Harris was thinking about picking the Governor of Pennsylvania, Shapiro, as her running mate in the last presidential election. And his nomination got shut down because he was Jewish. Now, the Democrats deny that, but the questions that he had to face from the internal party operation relate to his support for the nation of Israel.

I guess my point is these what you call "liberal Zionists" don't exist anymore in the Democratic Party. You don't have voices there anymore that want to stand with the nation of Israel as you have in the past. And that's happening in the Democratic Party. And then there are elements of the MAGA movement now coming on the right that basically are trying to make the argument that if we support Israel at all—we should call it the GAGA movement, not MAGA—and somehow if you support Israel at all as a faithful ally in the Middle East, you give them any deference, you give them any support militarily, you enter into any arrangement with them for technology, somehow you're not "America first," you're "Israel first."

So that's how they think. You have anti-Israel forces on the left, liberal Zionism dead, and you have anti-Israel forces on the right. And so this sounds an awful lot to me like Zechariah 14. The article you're talking about quotes Ted Cruz. He says, "I'm afraid I'm going to wake up one day and the two major parties in the United States of America won't be pro-Israel at all anymore." And so where do you go if you're a Zionist like us in terms of who you're going to support in the next election cycle? So the world, even the late great United States of America, just like God said in Zechariah 12:3 and Zechariah 14:2, is turning on Israel.

James Kaddis: Yeah, and this is a big deal. What a massive shift from what has been the normal thing. US support for Israel's Iron Dome was always automatic. And now it's not automatic anymore. That kind of shocks me. And what used to be very bipartisan, what used to be this major consensus between everybody, is literally fracturing on both sides. And it's kind of a shocking thing to see. We know what the Bible says. We know what Zechariah 12 says. We know what Zechariah 14 says.

But this is not like a small policy change. It's a very purposeful, intentional, strategic shift in the US relationship that we have with Israel. I mean the progressives, which I call the regressives, what they call the financial conservatives that you just mentioned—I wouldn't call them MAGA—and then these J-Street folks, holy smokes, bro, what in the world is happening? That's just crazy.

Andy Woods: Well, the article and the title of this is "Why US funding for Israel's Iron Dome is losing support on both sides of the aisle." It uses language like this: "What was uncontroversial in the past is now controversial. Now the consensus has shifted." It's this argument being made that Israel is somehow violating some kind of nebulous international law. They never tell you what international law it is because I don't think Israel's doing anything illegal.

But they want to build this case that Israel, by trying to root Hamas out of Gaza, is going against international norms and committing genocide, which is pure propaganda. But what they're saying is since Israel is doing that, then Israel doesn't get funding anymore for the Iron Dome. What is the Iron Dome? It protects Israelis. It protects Israeli civilians. Iran twice, I believe last year and maybe into this year, before Operation Epic Fury, twice launched missiles from Iran towards the land of Israel. And what protected them was this Iron Dome.

And now what they're saying is there's voices on both sides of the political aisle that we don't want to fund the Iron Dome anymore because if we do that, we're encouraging the Israelis that are committing genocide and violating international law. So that's the argument that's being made here. And now what used to be noncontroversial, funding for the Iron Dome—duh—is now controversial. And that's what this article is highlighting.

James Kaddis: Well, and it's ridiculous because within the article, I can see some of the key arguments that they're making here. The one that I think is one of the most hilarious is "Israel is wealthy enough to fund its own military." Well, duh, of course it's wealthy enough to fund its own military. Don't you want to become the beneficiary of it if you serve as a defense contractor? And then they're saying that the US has its own financial problems. Okay, so we're going to make them worse by cutting off one of the countries that actually gives us our money back in some kind of a usable form that actually makes us money in many ways?

Or you just mentioned this one, aid being cut off because of behavior. I can't even begin to get into this. But this is the one that bothers me more than any of them. This one is ridiculous because of how hypocritical it is. They're basically saying we should normalize Israel like any other country because it's not a special case. But we don't do that with any other country. We don't normalize Taiwan, for example, as though it's any other country. We don't normalize China as though it's any other country. We certainly don't do that with Iran. We're not doing that with any member of the GCC.

I mean, I think it's just absolutely ridiculous that they're coming up to these conclusions. And the other part that really bothers me about this is the Iron Dome, and I want to remind this to everybody: the Iron Dome is purely defensive. It's not a mechanism that's used to target people or attack people. And so I think it points to the fact that there's massive erosion on a lot of levels of any type of support for Israel itself. And I think that it's actually beginning to show us that people are beginning to call the support of Israel an immoral action. And that's crazy. So if you're basically going to defund the Iron Dome and you're going to say we're not going to give to it anymore, you're basically saying let's just in a very roundabout way, let's just kill Israelis. That's what's happening.

Andy Woods: Yeah. And here's the great truth of the situation. To be pro-Israel is to put America first. It's plain and simple. Now, the Tucker Carlsons, the Candace Owens, the Matt Gaetzs, the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, the Megyn Kellys, you know, all member of this isolationist right, woke Reich, as they're sometimes called. This is where we as Christian dispensationalist Zionists have a fundamental misunderstanding and disagreement with them. They think that if we're giving Israel any deference that we're not putting America first. The truth of the matter is when you help Israel, you put America first because as much as they want to try to argue that this is not in the Bible, it's in the Bible.

God promises to bless those who bless the nation of Israel. And so when you bless the nation of Israel, you're blessed. You can go back, James, to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, which was the first synagogue built in the United States of America. Our federal head, George Washington, the founder of our country, the father of our country, went and participated in a worship gathering there, and he wrote to them a letter the same day. And he basically said you'll always be free in the United States of America to live under your own vine and fig tree, quotes their Bible, Old Testament, "none shall make you afraid."

And I'm of this persuasion, James, that when George Washington did that, God reached down from heaven and touched our country and blessed it from sea to shining sea. And we've always been that way with Israel. Harry Truman was that way when he was among the first to recognize the newborn state of Israel because of his Baptist belief and heritage that he was brought up with. Richard Nixon, the exact same thing. In the middle of the night, he was summoned by then Golda Meir, who actually had suicide tablets prepared because they thought they were going to lose the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

And he picked up the phone and remembered the story that his mother taught him when he was a Quaker living in Whittier, California, that, "Richard, if you're ever in a position to help the Jewish people..." reading to him from the book of Esther one night, "you should help the Jewish people." And when Richard Nixon picked up the phone and heard Golda Meir's pleas, he remembered what his mom told him. And he told her on the phone, "Golda, I finally understood why I've become President of the United States," which was to help them in their time of need.

Which he did. Henry Kissinger at the time, ironically a Jewish person, was trying to short-circuit that and said let the Jews bleed for a while. And Golda Meir said enough is enough, I'm going to call Nixon. And Nixon helped the Israelis in their time of need. She went the rest of her life calling Richard Nixon "my President." And looked at him kind of as a Cyrus-type figure. So my point is America has always been a blessing to Israel, and that's why God has blessed our country right down to the present scenario. Our current president in his first term has done wonderful things for the Jewish people: moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, etc. It's like these votes on this Iron Dome, it's like they don't even understand that history. They don't care about the history. They want to change the core character of our nation. And so this kind of thing bothers me, like it does you, James, a great deal.

James Kaddis: Oh, yeah. And I think that on so many levels, this is why we have to create a counter-argument to all of this. And like you said, forget the fact that by defunding the Iron Dome, you're seeing more civilian deaths. Let's just really trace this out for people, right? Without it, Israel would have been forced into a series of full-scale wars. If you're so worried about war breaking out in the Middle East, if they didn't have the Iron Dome, it would be so much more expensive for us because they would already be in a bunch of full-scale wars.

Rocket attacks would hit population centers literally every single day. People would be dying every single day. And so the bottom line is this: removing it isn't going to bring peace; all it's going to do is increase casualties because these people hate Jews. So I think it's crazy. Now, I think there's a strategic reality here, like the article talks about, and I think it's one that's worth acknowledging, and that's the fact that some Israeli leadership have created a long-term goal which is less dependence upon US aid. And I think that that's good for Israel. The problem is, is it good for us? It's not good for us.

Andy Woods: Right. Well, the article ends in an interesting way. It says be careful what you wish for. You want to cut the Israelis off, you're cutting ourselves off from all kinds of benefits that most people are unaware of, all kinds of technological benefits, intelligence that we receive. And here's the other thing, James, a very few people for whatever reason articulate this, and I'm not sure why they don't, but the Israelis right now are absorbing attacks that will be aimed at us once the Israelis are out of the way. Let's say they get their goal. Candace Owens recently said that all the world's problems would disappear if we just got rid of Israel. I'm kind of paraphrasing a little bit, but she made that kind of a comment.

Okay, well, let's say Israel does disappear. Let's say they're successful in driving the Israelis into the Mediterranean Sea, which by the way is written into their charters that surround this little nation about the size of New Jersey. So let's say they succeed. Do you think war is going to stop? No. Remember what the Iranian regime chants regularly: "They're the little Satan, we're the great Satan." And so once that target is removed, do you think they're going to just stop attacking players in the world? That's a ludicrous way of thinking.

Even in this last encounter with Operation Epic Fury, the Iranians launched all kinds of missiles and things like that into all kinds of Middle Eastern nations. And that was sort of surprising to watch happen. So once they get rid of Israel, they're going to turn very quickly on anyone that's ever aligned themselves with Israel. And obviously the principal target would be us. So that's why Trump is very clear that whatever happens there in Iran, they cannot have nuclear weapons. These are people that are Shiite Islamic theocrats that think they can bring the 12th Imam to the earth through confusion and chaos that they can cause.

You really want to put weapons of mass destruction into the hands of these kinds of people? So my point is if they ever got rid of the Israelis, which they won't—God is not going to let that happen—then war is not going to stop; it's just going to intensify, and it's going to exhibit negative consequences for those of us in North America.

James Kaddis: Yeah, and I agree. And I think the bigger issue here is to reiterate the fact that we actually need Israel; they don't need us. And I think that's probably the bigger issue to be able to identify. Look, the other thing is, and I think we have to be very careful about contemplating this. It's really important. The issue here is not just funding, okay? It's literally a concerted effort that these people are making, satanically inspired by the way, to redefine the relationship that we as Americans have with Israel.

The thing that people don't understand is that the US-Israeli alliance in and of itself is the type of special relationship that brings a lot more stability to the region, including Eastern and Western Europe, than anybody wants to actually talk about. And you can be as speculative as you want about what the full implications of the termination of that relationship would be, but in essence, we lose our primary leverage mechanism geopolitically, especially in the Mediterranean and in the Baltics. Let me just add that, in the Baltics, if we decide to say we no longer want anything to do with the state of Israel.

The other problem is we shoot ourselves in the foot because the Iron Dome technology that we have licensed for Israel to be able to use is fundamentally predicated upon mutual benefit. So if we can no longer mutually benefit, then the technology must be put away; it must be destroyed. That's the agreement that we have. So moving from a special relationship to a normal relationship, as some people would call it, it sounds neutral. It really does. But it's not. It weakens not only Israel's strategic backing, but it weakens our positioning of deterrence in the region.

And it also opens up the door to much greater isolation, and not the kind of isolation that we want. The kind of isolation that's going to bring into the picture or into fruition a lot of destructive patterns. And that's the problem here. I think it's hugely a problem. I know prophetically this may be one of the tools that is used to make the United States of America inconsequential in Bible prophecy, as we believe it's going to be. My hope is that there will be a massive spiritual awakening in America and that the inconsequential status of the United States as it's not listed in Bible prophecy will be as a result of it becoming vacated as a result of the Rapture.

But it's not looking like that's happening right now. It looks like it's getting a lot worse, and it's crazy to see the political pressure that's building right now to distance ourselves from Israel. It aligns with the much, for lack of a better term, the broader pattern that we've been seeing. Israel is increasingly standing alone on the world map. Jerusalem is becoming the stumbling stone. It's becoming the stumbling block. They're trying to pick it up and their backs are about to break, the whole world.

So you know, we look at Zechariah 12:3 and the prediction that's made there, but we've got to look at Zechariah 12:9 that says God will destroy all of those people who chose to come against Jerusalem. I don't know what else to say other than that. This is danger. It's not about a missile system. It's literally about continuing to abandon any loyalty that we've developed with the state of Israel and weakening the alliances that give us the greatest advantage globally. I don't get it. I don't get it, brother.

Andy Woods: Well, the thing is, as is documented or talked about in this article, is they keep saying, "Well, we're going to just treat Israel like any other nation." Well, newsflash: that's where you're wrong. Israel is not like any other country. And as much as all of these replacement theologians and supersessionists and everybody else want this theology to work, it doesn't work. God is very clear that Israel is unique, she's distinct, she's special among the peoples of the earth. The moment God called Abram from the Ur of the Chaldeans and in Genesis 12:3 says, "I'll bless the world through you," is the moment Israel became different than every other country that's ever existed.

I think Richard Nixon with that call from Golda Meir in the middle of the night recognized that. I believe that George Washington, going back to what he said to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, recognized that. And I believe that Harry Truman, who was among the first to recognize the newborn state of Israel, recognized that. All of our luminaries understood this because they were saturated with God's Word. But the current crop that we have, this argument is being lost. Israel is just like another nation.

Well, obviously that comes from the mind of someone that has never read the Bible, or if they've read it, they've dropped into a preconceived hermeneutical system that says the New Testament rewrites the inalterable promises of the Old Testament. And so, James, that's the sad situation that we're into today. And it's really up to people like ourselves and people that follow your ministry, people that follow my ministry, to speak up. And if they're not going to speak up now, when are you going to speak up? You'll never speak up because now is such a time as this, raised up for such a time as this, as we know is spoken in the book of Esther, chapter 4, around verse 14.

James Kaddis: And I'm just thinking about how this is like a disease, bro. It's a sick disease that's spreading. One of the other articles that we looked at is this University of Florida situation, and this candidate that is... it's amazing how there seems to be this natural-born attraction to anti-Semites, to Jew-haters. And it's becoming institutionalized. Again, it's nothing that should surprise us, but my goodness, as believers, we have an obligation to stand up to these things, right? We have to talk about it because it's not like it's getting any easier, and it's not like it's going to get any easier.

I think that's the thing that's just so shocking to me is the fact that we're not thinking through this. We're not watching it for what it is. And I think it's completely destructive. Then you've got the Pope who's going out and visiting these grand mosques, like the grand mosque in Algiers. Like, what in the world? I mean, it's crazy. He's calling for what? Mutual respect and peace-building? What's wrong with you, Pope Leo? Does he even understand what's going on?

Andy Woods: Well, with this first article you're talking about, Fishback, this comes from thedispatch.com. It says, "Florida College Republicans and their love affair with James Fishback." And it's documenting what happened in one of these young kind of Republican groups there on a campus in Gainesville, Florida, where the guy drew standing-room-only crowd to listen to him. He's one of these conservative guys supposedly, MAGA guy, and he starts to go on a tirade against the Jewish nation and how we need to put America first and that includes cutting Israel off.

And then you look at the guy's history, and he's running interference for people like Nick Fuentes, who are Holocaust deniers. So why is a guy like this getting standing-room-only type of situation there amongst the future conservative voters of the United States of America? It's just a stunning development. And you throw into the mix not just anti-Semitism, but the Pope. I'm of the persuasion that the papacy is largely being used to bring in what I would call a Chrislam, or the one-world religion of the last days. And just trying to draw a happy face around Islam and making it sound like this mosque in Algiers—by the way, a massive mosque, one of their most famous mosques—he calls it God space, sacred space, sacred learning.

He's just trying to, it's one of these let's just all hold hands and join religiously. So you're seeing a kind of an amalgamation of what I call Christendom, apostate Christendom, Roman Catholicism with Islam. That's Revelation 17:15, a harlot which is a religious system exercising universal jurisdiction throughout the earth. No matter how you slice this with the world turning against Israel or one-world religion of the last days, the scenario that the Bible anticipates for the end of the age is coming into existence very rapidly, very quickly, and in very sharp focus.

James Kaddis: Yeah, I would agree. Okay, so the Bible told us to expect this. We're seeing it all come into fruition. Final words, bro, we're about out of time. What would you tell anybody who's seeing this right now with their own eyes? What say you about all of this? Because there is a lot here and there's a lot to talk about.

Andy Woods: Well, it's depressing if you look at it from the standpoint of humanistic reasoning, but it's very optimistic when you look at it from the standpoint of God told us this would happen. This is proof that the Bible is God's Word. I mean, these political trends that even just a few years ago seemed impossible are materializing. That shows us that there's something bigger than us out there that authored and inspired the Bible. So the question for people is if this is true, then do you know that God personally? Because he's the only thing that's going to sustain you in these last days.

And there's a way to know Him personally: it's through what He's done through His Son. Christ's final words on the cross were, "It is finished," tetelestai, which is an accounting term, actually, found all over the Greco-Roman world archaeologically. It was what was put on bills that had been paid, paid in full. That was Jesus' final words on the cross, translated "it is finished," but coming from the Greek word tetelestai. And even that word is in the perfect tense in Greek, meaning one-time action, ongoing results.

Christianity is not a "doing" system; it's a "done" system. And God calls us to not try to raise ourselves up by our own bootstraps, but to trust in the finished work that He's accomplished for us 2,000 years ago. We hope that many people will take in these warnings. These are serious times, but there's a way out, and the way out is Jesus. We encourage people to trust in His finished work.

James Kaddis: Amen and amen. And it's simple. It's just willing to say, "I put my faith and trust in You, Lord." That's where it is and that's where we find it. That's awesome. Andy, thank you. What a blessing for you to be here. Folks, we do sincerely hope that you have enjoyed watching this or listening to it as much as we've enjoyed making it. The whole goal is to continue to make you aware that Christ could come for His church at any moment. And listen, it's true: Jesus is coming soon. We need to understand it and recognize it. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Countdown to Eternity. We love you guys. God bless you.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Countdown to Eternity with pastors James Kaddis and Andy Woods. If you joined us late or would just like to hear this again, stop by countdowntoeternity.com. Countdown, the number two, eternity.com. Hey, have you heard? Pastor James has a new book. It's entitled "The Last Book." Revelation isn't a book of fear; it's a book of hope. "The Last Book" will give you what you need to know about Revelation, the Rapture, and the end times. Learn what the Bible says about the days we're in and what God's promise is for believers in "The Last Book," available right now at countdowntoeternity.com. That's also the place to go to give to this ministry.

And thank you very much for your financial support and prayers. Again, we're at countdowntoeternity.com. I should also mention Andy Woods is online at andywoodsministries.org. Browse through his latest media, check out some of his recent interviews and available resources at andywoodsministries.org. Then join us next week as the Countdown to Eternity continues right here. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.