Countdown 2 Eternity

Guest (Male): Welcome once again to Countdown to Eternity with Pastors James Kaddis and Tom Hughes, a weekly radio ministry from Calvary Chapel Signal Hill. Together, Tom and James examine current events and connect what's going on in our world to Bible prophecy.

James Kaddis: Well, hello, my dear brothers and sisters! I want to welcome you to another episode of Countdown to Eternity. I am with the great Tom Hughes, and today the subject is Turkey—and I ain't talking about Butterball.

Tom Hughes: Or stuffing or any of that other stuff. Hey, this subject is big. We have a few big things we want to talk about: Turkey and then we're going to move over to Judea and Samaria because of what's going on there.

Turkey, as in Erdogan, the Prime Minister, and so forth. About a month or so ago, news came out that the Trump administration is making a deal to give Turkey these F-35s. At first, I was like, "What the heck is going on?" I didn't react much to it early, and then as more news leaked out over the next couple of days, I thought, "Wait a minute."

At best, Turkey won't have these for 10 years. That's the assessment that I came to. There's a bunch of hoops that have to be jumped through. So I started thinking I'm not so sure it's just what we've been reading in the headlines, whether it came from prophecy ministries or whatever secular news source.

I started looking into it, and this was in the Jerusalem Post about a week or so ago: "Turkey does not meet legal requirements to receive F-35s, the State Department says." So it has to first comply with certain laws. But even then, you have NATO involved. It's a big mess. At best, it appears maybe in 10 years they might start getting F-35s.

I want to throw this out there because I want to hear your comments on this, as you have a really good handle on the legal issue there. But the other problem is, 10 years from now, how much further along is military equipment going to be advanced?

James Kaddis: We'll be in eighth-generation fighters. That's what I mean. For me, it's really a "go nowhere" kind of thing. It's the President giving Turkey a toy. In essence, that's what's happening. That sounds kind of crazy, but if the F-35s were delivered to Turkey today, it's at least four years before they're flying it.

As it sits, let's go through the list. This is going to help people be able to better understand the things that have to happen. I put this list together a while ago when this came up, when the meeting with Erdogan and the President happened in the White House. It was a conference in the White House where the F-35 thing became a really big deal.

People are conflating the issue of political approval with the actual aircraft delivery. They're two completely different things. Even then, the mechanics of political approval are not just relegated to the executive branch. I want everybody to understand that.

Turkey still possesses Russia's S-400 system—not the S-300, the S-400 system. United States law blocks delivery until that system and all of its related equipment are verifiably removed. Turkey has to meet the certification requirements for that removal.

In order to meet the certification requirements for the removal of the S-400 systems, that in and of itself is a one-year process, and that's with Turkey allowing us to get very intrusive about their region. By the way, that's the State Department saying this. The State Department is bringing up the S-400 argument.

How about the CAATSA sanctions? Think about this: just assuming that the full CAATSA sanction has been removed, which it hasn't been, but let's just say that it has because that was the original sanction that prevented this sale. What about the NDAA restriction?

The NDAA has a massive restriction that's placed upon the sale of these F-35s to Turkey. By the way, it's sticky and complicated because it also relates to NATO. Even if within the NDAA we modify it to a stipulation as such to allow the sales of the F-35, Congress still has to review it. Congressional oversight still has to be stamped upon it.

Congress could easily delay or block the deal. Matter of fact, if the President wanted to look like a hero—I'm not saying he would do this, but I am saying maybe he would—he could say, "Sure, Erdogan, I like you, you like me, you're the man. I'm going to give you an F-35," and then go talk to his buddies in Congress and say, "Don't pass it." He could do that. He could say, "This is what's going on; I'm going to just tell you this right now."

Opposition that we'll see from Congress will not just come from the Democrats; it's going to come from Republicans because they're going to be concerned about Turkey's direct relationship with Russia—not with Israel. The opposition towards Israel is going to be with Russia. Why? Because the disputes that are going on right now between Greece and Cyprus are far more consequential to anybody who's overseeing this because of what we get out of the regional policies that exist within the Mediterranean.

There's a phrase that we use called the Qualitative Military Edge, the QME. That's going to be a big issue because Turkey will undoubtedly bring themselves into the protection of the Qualitative Military Edge with respect to its superiority assertion in front of the portion of Cyprus that they already occupy.

Turkey has control of the northern part of the island of Cyprus. If you look at it, it was like a Mohawk that's on Cyprus. That's under Turkey's control. Turkey could easily turn that into an F-35 base if it wanted to.

The other thing that's really important—and I know that people minimize this because of the Jew-hatred—but Israel strongly opposes Turkey receiving the F-35. That's not a small thing because everybody thinks it's no big deal, that Trump will just do whatever Trump is going to do. Well, that's not so easy because congressional approval becomes incredibly hard because now Congress has to be willing to say that they're going to fund newer development of other missile systems outside of Israel's purview.

That could create an allocation to the War Department far greater than they wanted to, and they could lose political potency as a result of doing it. Israel could easily say—even though they haven't done it yet, Netanyahu may be too wise to do something like this—but Israel could say, "No problem, you're getting our veto on the use of Patriots anywhere. You're not selling anything anywhere if you're going to give this to Turkey." And guess what? We're going to have to obey them because of the detonation clause that exists within the NDAA. Believe it or not, that can actually hurt us if we don't keep our words to the people that we're selling arms to. So that is a big one.

Here's the other one, and this is a big deal. When Turkey was expelled from the F-35 program in 2019, all of its pilots stopped the training. Although they never flew it officially, in 2019 they stopped their training. That means all industrial participation was dismantled. That means no more flight simulators. The infrastructure that they need in order to bring them forth is easily four to five years away.

Even previously manufactured Turkish aircraft just can't be flown into Turkey. It doesn't work that way anymore. They would need legal clearance. They would have to be inspected. They'd have to be updated. They'd have to be reconfigured. All of their acceptance testing would have to be redone. Every little bit of that would just completely go by the wayside.

The maintenance and logistics system that would have to be created by the United States and utilized by the United States would also have to be created, which is a whole other set of things that would have to be done, probably under the purview of the NDAA. So that becomes very complicated.

Turkey has to retrain all of their pilots—and not just their pilots, but their maintainers. They have to prepare their bases. They have to take established, classified communications and all of their mission data systems—every last bit of them—and they have to be able to demonstrate that Russian intelligence can't access the aircraft because right now Russian intelligence can access all of their aircraft. Where's the firewall system that you're going to put to create that?

Finally, think about this: the new aircraft systems already would be challenged because in order to even get them, you have to fit their manufacturing into the existing, massively busy program that we have of manufacturing airplanes. I think the F-35s for other countries are backlogged. There are a few NATO members that want them. They're backlogged something like six years.

Good luck. Even if everything passed through, good luck. I want to reiterate this: because of the fact that you have a presidential statement or even a presidential order, it doesn't guarantee they're going. What happens if somebody who comes in outside of Trump, who doesn't understand the bigger picture, says, "I'm shutting it down"? They reset all over again. The obstacle is never going to be building the F-35; it's getting it through all the other things—U.S. law, Congress, the S-400 systems, Russian intelligence.

Turkey also has to make themselves vulnerable with respect to their intelligence infrastructure so that the United States can examine it at their will in order to make sure that any self-defeating mechanisms aren't being built in order to guarantee United States air superiority in the region. What's to keep Turkey from saying, "Let's get the F-35s up and let's go start shooting at friendly assets"? The United States has to create countermeasures to stop that. There's a lot there.

Tom Hughes: There is. And again, there's even more there. I think of drone technology. The more we see it advancing forward, you're like, well, 10 years from now, how effective is current military weaponry going to be with the way things are advancing because of AI and drone technology and on down the list?

I'm going to throw something that's kind of interesting your way to hear your thoughts on it. I've thought about this a lot. In Ezekiel chapter 38, it's still in the future. I still get people saying it's going to happen tomorrow. Turkey's going to be a major player at that time. Turkey gets four names in Ezekiel 38.

When this battle takes place coming from the north, we also know Libya and Sudan are going to be coming in from the south. Coming from the north, it reads there's going to be the horses and bucklers. It appears there are boots on the ground, but it also says the exact words in English are "descending like a cloud."

If we think about this, if you have boots on the ground and coming upon Israel like a cloud, is this drone technology? It says "like a cloud," it doesn't say it is a cloud.

James Kaddis: I've said it before, bro. I've thought it would be. I've said that I thought it would be drones or could be drones.

Tom Hughes: It makes a whole lot of sense because what would cause Israel to say it's over, it's game over for us and only God can save them, whereas the rest of the world is just looking on saying, "What's going on? Why are you doing this?" When I look at the F-35 deal to me, for me, I put that on the "no, I'm just not really paying any attention to it" because I think it's a "go nowhere" kind of thing.

James Kaddis: I wholeheartedly agree with you. I think that there are so many other things. One of the biggest drone programs out there is the F-35. Keep in mind the way the F-35 works: you can have a main pilot flying at the front and all of his wingmen flying behind him are AI. At this point, they're testing it by pilots sitting there just literally watching the plane do the flips and rolls and all that on its own.

Tom Hughes: And so where's the pilot sitting?

James Kaddis: Right in the cockpit.

Tom Hughes: Does he, in a few years down the road, even need to be there? Or will these be autonomous?

James Kaddis: He won't. That was why the F-35 was designed.

Tom Hughes: Well then, you look at that and you go, that makes a whole lot of sense with Israel looking like it's game over, but God rescues them, descending like a cloud.

James Kaddis: 100%. That's not an exaggeration; that's quite literal. I'm very blessed to be very close to a couple of people that are still actively a part of the F-35 system that really have deep knowledge of what's going on with that. None of the people that I know are allowed to read me in on anything, so what I do know is just based on what can be available to the public if dug deep enough. It's not like me having special knowledge, but I do have guys that know what they can talk about and what they can't talk about who can confirm or deny whatever I do bring up. As a matter of fact, I have a moderator who actually works in that program.

Tom Hughes: I have to tell you about someone off the record to you; you'll be very interested.

I want to move over to Judea and Samaria. The Times of Israel: "Netanyahu vows expanded operations against West Bank terrorist strongholds." Katz accuses Democrats' chief Golan of a "blood libel." These are our Democrats calling Israel a blood libel. It's ridiculous. Anyway, so we know where the terrorist strongholds are.

I'm going to throw this out there, too. One of the guests I've had on a number of times over the past several years, Avi Lipkin—I think you're familiar with Avi—he's Israeli, older, and he says some very interesting things. He's not a believer in Jesus, but he's smart, super smart. He also understands military and understands geopolitics.

He said something very interesting a few times over the years. He said way before October 7th, he told me the millions of Neo-Nazis that there are here in America. It was an astounding number, like 20 million or something like that. I remember thinking there's no way. Well, after October 7th, it looks like yeah, there's at least that many.

He also said this, and this is all pre-October 7th, 2023. He said the day is coming when in the U.S., the persecution will rise against Jews. It'll be so severe that they will be flooding back to Israel. I said, "Where are they going to live?" He said they're going to live in Judea and Samaria.

Judea and Samaria is all this hotly contested area, and he said it doesn't matter; it is the land that God gave to Israel, and Israel will have that land. As Jews are making their way back home, they will be flooding into those areas of Judea and Samaria.

He also said this: a lot of Jews, understand this, they have married either Christian wives or Christian husbands. He said they are going to be taking their Gentile wives or Gentile husbands with them when they go back to Israel. And in his own words, he said they're going to be hearing about Jesus. Isn't that interesting? Coming from a guy who's not a believer in Jesus, but yet understands there's a relationship with certain types of Christians. But it's in the areas of Judea and Samaria, which are hotly contested right now. We never hear about them because everything is blown out of proportion in these other news stories.

James Kaddis: I don't even know where to start there. There is so much to say, and I think that it is not a coincidence. I don't think that it's ironic. I think that it just falls right in place where it all started is the place where so much of it is going to end up getting reconciled.

If you think of a place like Bethlehem and you think about so many of these places where the Messiah came, I think of Genesis 49 that says the scepter will not depart from Judah until Shiloh comes, and Shiloh came. As the elders are running down the street ripping their clothes off and putting on sackcloth and ashes and saying, "We've been forsaken because our scepter had departed from us, we no longer have the right to capital punishment and our Shiloh has not come yet," in a small little insignificant town by the name of Bethlehem, He was born. What's remarkable is the place that it all started is the place where it's going to end up reconciling itself.

100%. To me, that fact in and of itself—you can take the geopolitics out of it for a second, you can take all the analysis out of it, which by the way there's plenty of geopolitics there—Mahmoud Abbas is probably pooping his diapers right now thinking about that possibility.

By the way, you should spend some time looking into this new VP that he has, this fake puppet. There are some hugely interesting things. Anyway, it's just amazing to me to just think about how aggressive the movement is that's inspired by Satan to take the lives of Jews—and not just the lives, their reputations, the memory, just everything that relates to Jews. The enemy wants to just wipe it out. Why? Because if you wipe it out, you wipe out the Bible, you wipe out the validity of God's promise, you wipe out faith and trust.

So much gets wiped out. The closer we're getting to the reconciliation of it all, the more heated it's going to become at the epicenter. I would argue that the epicenter just isn't the Temple Mount; I would actually argue that a massive portion of the epicenter is going to be where? Judea, Samaria. And I think it's happening.

Tom Hughes: I do, too. It was at one of your Sunday nights that we did where I had done a message on five land purchases that Israel had—two in Judea, two in Samaria, actually three in Judea because one of them was David when he purchased the threshing floor from Oruna. All these land purchases were so significant with the people of Israel. Just think of Shechem alone; you have Abraham and then you have Jacob's well there. You have these things that are really hugely significant when it comes to the nation of Israel.

I think of it like this: from Satan's point of view, what better way to defeat God than to create conditions where He must break unconditional promises to Israel? I think this is why we have all the "hate Israel." The people are going to be able to convince God how bad the Jews are or something like that, therefore You must break your unconditional promises. It's not going to happen, but Satan has to because for him, the Jews are a problem, Israel is a problem, but it's really God. God is his problem, but so tied in with Israel, God's identity is tied in with Israel.

People don't understand that. 203 times in the Bible, the Bible calls God the "God of Israel." 31 times, the "Holy One of Israel." God's identity is tied to Israel and that is the Jew. The attacks against Israel and the attacks against Jews—but Judea and Samaria to me are extremely significant. It's not a coincidence that Shechem is a place of terrorist problems. It now has the Arab name Nablus. Then the other area is Hebron. Well, what do you have there? This is the tomb of the patriarchs.

James Kaddis: Right now, Israel is expanding its massive counter-terrorism operation in Judea and Samaria because of what just happened in Nablus. What happened over there, by the way, nobody's even talking about it.

Let's just not beat around the bush: the best and most aggressive well-known terrorist centers that exist right now are in Jenin, Tulkarm—which we know that, right?—how about Nur Shams? Nobody talks about Nur Shams. That's a massive what they call a refugee camp. How can a refugee camp stay a refugee camp after 70 years? How many generations? It's ridiculous.

But here's the thing to understand: these are real, they are serious, genuine operational strongholds. In one operation—if I remember correctly, it was in 2025—the IDF dismantled 100 explosive devices in Jenin alone. Jenin alone. That's a massive thing. By the way, road bombs? 30 of them, 30 of them in Tulkarm. Think about that for just a second.

What about the weapons manufacturing workshops that they have found in five different areas in Judea and Samaria? Five different areas! The worst part about this is Israel doesn't know where every terrorist is. I suppose you should have the attitude that if they live there, they're terrorists, but that's probably not the most politically correct thing to say.

One of their biggest problems just isn't the terrorism centers; one of the biggest problems is what about the people who are the recruiters? What about the financial pay-for-slay official position that Abbas takes on? It's just absolutely ridiculous. And then to think about how sharply the Democratic party has moved away from Israel, and how about the Republican party? Look at the abandonment on the Republican party side.

Tom Hughes: I look at it, if you just work this out, we have the midterms coming up in November, and then you have a new presidential election coming up two years from now. You look and you go, "This is very concerning." However, the God of Israel will protect them.

In this regard, it was like six months ago that the PA announced they had already trained 60,000—what they call a "police force." But they're terrorists. 60,000 folks.

James Kaddis: My friend Gadi Taub told me it's 90,000. My friend Gadi Taub, who's one of the most connected guys in Israel—I just love him with my whole heart, he's just a wonderful man, good friends with Bibi and he's just a great guy—I've interviewed him many times. He told me that number was 90,000.

Tom Hughes: Okay, but here's the thing: God also talks about the time that comes at the time of the end. We can already see it taking place with Israel. You can go back to the pagers and everything. Israel's tiny and they defeat their enemy. God is with Israel; there's no other explanation.

In fact, there's a couple of guys I was watching, they were talking about how is it that Israel is—they were Israelis, young guys, just out of military—how is it that Israel is able to defeat their enemies? This was very interesting. They said, "You know, we train along with U.S. soldiers, like marksmanship or whatever. We've shot the same rifles, we shot at the same targets and all of that; we're no better than they are in that regard." This is interesting. They said the only explanation is the God of Israel is the one who gives us victory.

In Zechariah chapter 12, I just feel like I've got to read this because in that day, chapter 12, verse 6, God says, "I will make the governors of Judah like the firepan in the woodpile and like a fiery torch in the sheaves; they shall devour all the surrounding peoples on the right hand and on the left, but Jerusalem shall be inhabited in her own place. The Lord will save the tents of Judah so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall not become greater than that of Judah. In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David like God."

So we look at this: the threat of the enemy, but God is giving them the insight to go in there against these thousands of people in these hotbeds. The other thing with areas like Shechem and Hebron, the evidence for God and His people Israel is overwhelming. With archaeology and everything that's there, the enemy of our souls doesn't want anybody to know that because he wants to delegitimize God and delegitimize the Bible.

James Kaddis: 9/11 taught us a lot of things, and I keep this list really close to me because of how bad it is. By the way, this list is completely outdated. The increase in anti-Semitism is crazy. The Anti-Defamation League—and you know what they're all about, right?—the Anti-Defamation League recorded 9,354 anti-Semitic incidents in 2024 alone. They call that the highest number in 46 years of reporting. That's a 344% increase over five years.

The total included 6,552 harassment incidents, 2,606 acts of vandalism, and 196 assaults. 58% contained an Israel-related or Zionist-related element, like "You Jew" or something like that. Campus incidents in 2024 alone increased by 84% to 1,694. This is the ADL's audit, by the way, so it's not going to show it completely in its entirety. When you have 1,694, that means that's 1,694 incident reports, not a count of an individual anti-Semite or a Neo-Nazi; it's an actual report that shows the circumstances.

The American Jewish Committee found that 77% of American Jews felt less safe after October the 7th. 56% changed some aspect of their behavior because they feared anti-Semitism. One-third said that they had personally been targeted by anti-Semitism during the previous year.

The honest conclusion of many of these reporters—many of them, including the liberal God-hating ones—is that October the 7th exposed a much larger anti-Semitism problem than any Americans ever realized.

Tom Hughes: It woke up what was hiding in the hearts of people. All these people that are coming out, people are saying, "Well, where do you think it's really coming from? Do you think they're just..." No, I say it's been in there all along. God used October 7th to reveal it because you would think it would be the opposite, that people would actually stand with Israel. No, the exact opposite happened. This is ugly as sin, it's hateful, it's wicked, it's of the devil.

James Kaddis: But listen, we find peace and comfort in it because God told us it would happen, which means that God is in control. Zechariah 12:3 said it. We're seeing it increase, by the way, in the persecution of Christians. This is 2 Timothy chapter 3. None of this should surprise us, but all of it should motivate us to live righteously, to walk in purity, and to seek God with a whole heart because we literally are living in the last days.

Amen. So we're at time again. I'm going to give you a final word, bro, please.

Tom Hughes: Join us August 13th, and then we'll be in Santa Barbara at the end of the month too. It's going to be outstanding. Time goes by so fast.

Let me go back to what you said. This gives us great hope. Jesus said, "See, I have told you these things beforehand." He told us these things not so we would be discouraged or lose hope, but actually the opposite. Because it's going to get ugly, we can stand strong. Also knowing the persecution is going to rise against Jews, instead of cowering to peer pressure and believing everything you see on TikTok or something like that, what does His word tell us?

We stand strong, we stand with Israel, and we understand God's covenants—plural—with His people Israel. Jesus is not coming back until that day when Israel cries out, "Baruch Haba B'Shem Adonai," blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. We're going to move forward, and we've got to stand strong. We've got to link arms or shields together and press forward.

James Kaddis: Amen. Amen. And I can tell you this, bro, it's time to get serious. We've got to get serious, guys. We've got to take this seriously. We've got to embed this within our hearts and our minds. Time's running out. We love you guys. That's why we call the show Countdown to Eternity. We literally are counting it down, and it's pretty amazing. So, we love you guys. Get out there, fight the good fight.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Countdown to Eternity with Pastors James Kaddis and Tom Hughes online at countdowntoeternity.com. You can listen to this episode again right there at countdowntoeternity.com. I should also mention Tom Hughes is online at hopeforourtimes.com. Take a look at his available resources and some of the top stories at hopeforourtimes.com.

Pastor James has a new book called "The Last Book: Revelation isn't a book of fear, it's a book of hope." "The Last Book" is a guide to Revelation, giving 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" by James Kaddis. Available right now at countdowntoeternity.com or amazon.com.

If you'd like to support what we're doing at Countdown to Eternity, there's a place to give at countdowntoeternity.com, then click the give tab. And then join us next time when the countdown to eternity continues. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.