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. 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. I am with the great Tom Hughes, and we have a loaded, and when I say loaded, I mean loaded show today.

As a father of a newborn, when I say loaded, it has a completely different meaning. Did you know that? It's me thinking out loud because it's like the first time in a couple of weeks where I've used the term loaded where it doesn't refer to a diaper.

Tom Hughes: Well, congratulations. I don't want to hear about it.

James Kaddis: I'm so blessed. Four children. God has blessed me so much. We hope to adopt more, but you know, we'll see. We're praying. We've got a great show. Tom, you're going to light me up, aren't you?

Tom Hughes: We do. There's so much going on. If people can't wake up to see what's happening right now, you're seriously asleep or you're purposely in denial. I can't help but think what Peter said in 2nd Peter chapter three. They are willfully ignorant. Where's the promise of His coming? Our fathers talked about this. It's a choice. They are choosing to be ignorant of the truth.

I don't know how you can not see these things, especially when it comes to people in churches that proclaim to know all about the Bible. If you're really all about the Bible, you'd be bringing this stuff. Don't tell me this. Israel is becoming that cup of drunkenness, not fulfilled yet of Zechariah chapter 12, but check this out. I reported on this week, just the other night. You talked a little bit about it, too.

Pakistan is all over the news for people who are paying attention. Times of Israel reports Pakistan's defense minister says Israel is illegitimate, calls for a united military front among Muslim nations amid pact with Saudi and Turkey. That is crazy.

James Kaddis: There is so much to say here, and I think so little time for us to be able to talk about it. I'm going I don't even know where to start. Sometimes when you read a title of an article, it's more for sensationalism to get you to read the article. This one is not. This article title actually gets you going, and the facts are even more alarming than just the title.

How crazy do you want me to go with this? Because we could run very deep into this and we could fill like we don't have four hours, but on Thursday night we're going to be at your church. We are, and I'm so excited about it. We'll even do Q&A with everyone.

Tom Hughes: That's right. I've got to talk about Christian Zionism, too, on Thursday night.

James Kaddis: Well, I would prefer for our mini prophecy conference on Thursday that you open up with that discussion on Zionism first thing, because it's a way bigger deal than a lot of people think. It's being widely debated by people, and no one wants to use the Bible. They take it completely out of context.

Your presentation is going to be fantastic. It's going to be great, and you guys get to come and see Tom live. Make sure you're early. I'm telling you, we're going to fill up fast. Lately at church, we've been busting at the seams. All of our services are filling up. I think between all three services, just our church alone is going to fill the house. Make sure you're here early if you're driving from all over the Inland Empire. Come over. You're going to love what Tom has to share.

Tom Hughes: And David Tall and JD Farag?

James Kaddis: David Tall, that's right. He's going to be great. We're all going to be together. It's going to be fun. It starts at 7:00 PM.

Tom Hughes: 7:00 PM. Okay, I've got a live "You Can't Make This Up" Thursday 2:00 PM Pacific time. That gives me enough time to drive down there. It should.

In this article alone, this guy from Pakistan, this defense minister, he says this: Israel is a product of the Balfour Declaration, which was established in the 1940s.

James Kaddis: Even though Pakistan is also the product of the Balfour Declaration! Did he really say that? He actually said it. So here are the lies that are promoted out there by all those liars on social media.

Tom Hughes: They bring these kind of things. None of them will acknowledge the current boundaries as we look at Israel were created through the British mandate. It was the British failure to properly execute the mandate. If you take the Balfour Declaration, what was supposed to happen, Israel's supposed to have all the land on both sides of the Jordan River. That didn't happen that way.

The first two-state solution comes about with the creation of Transjordan. But then you go into the mandates. Was the French mandate, the British mandate? You have the different mandates that created these different boundaries over there. Why is it that they only hate Israel, which already had one two-state solution giving Israel the tiny sliver on the west side of the Jordan River?

Then come 1947 with the British mandate, who are supposedly as a mandatory supposed to faithfully decree the land that was allotted to them. Instead, they team up with the UN, aka League of Nations, and say Israel is not even the Jews are not even going to get all of the land that's west of the Jordan River. They're only going to get a sliver of that. In fact, let's give all of this land in here where Judea and Samaria are, let's just even give that away too. The whole thing is a farce.

James Kaddis: I'm just sorry. That's just rich. Completely rich talking about that whole situation, because although the Balfour Declaration relates obviously to so much more to Israel, Pakistan was established as a country in 1947. That was related to British colonization in India that goes back to that time, like the 1850s.

When the Balfour Declaration was made, the future Pakistan was tremendously affected by it because of Islamic influence. That one just drives me nuts. So Britain leaves India, and now all of I just can't deal with it. That is just crazy. Don't get me started on Kashmir.

Tom Hughes: Why not, James? What is it about you that just gets me all stinking riled up? I did a video on this subject a few days ago, and I didn't even pick up on the Balfour Declaration statement. My goal when I go to bed at night, I pray, Lord, give me something to get James wound up tomorrow.

I legit think that's the case. I can say this pretty much everywhere I go, people say they love this program and they love it when I get James wound up. Listen, we are in this place where people are pretending like these things don't matter. Why do you even talk about this stuff? This is no big deal.

Then I find this also interesting. You have a pact, a united military front among Muslim nations amid pact with Saudis, Turkey.

James Kaddis: This is a big deal. Listen to what Tom is actually talking about. What happened on August the 7th, just a few days ago, Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Erdogan of Turkey, and the Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif sat down and signed what was called the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement. They signed it in Mecca, of all places, which is deeply consequential.

I want everybody to understand this. This is not some proposal or negotiation or informal MOU or understanding. It is a formal trilateral defense agreement. I'm not kidding. The part that concerns me the most, which by the way, I have not read the agreement because it's not been published yet. The only thing that I've been able to get exposure to is what the Pakistanis have put out, and I believe India commented on one portion of it.

Either way, here's a portion that bothers me about what the Pakistanis put out, and it's a quote. The quote is, any armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all. This is very similar to NATO's Article 5 stipulation. But I do want to say this right off the bat, because I think it's important. We should not call it another NATO without qualifying a few things because NATO itself actually has an established command system.

They do all kinds of integrated military planning. They have institutions that have been made permanent that are dedicated to being able to understand how Article 5 actually works. I know that there are some people that say Article 5 means they all just have to get together and talk about it. No, it doesn't. Article 5 means they have to defend each other.

There's a lot to say about it. There's a massive nuance related to how that actually works. But none of these mechanisms have been publicly demonstrated here. None of that has been put together. The agreement has not been released, so there's a lot of things we don't know. We don't know, for example, what legally qualifies as an armed attack.

We don't know whether military intervention is supposed to be automatic. We don't know whether each country controls the nature of the response that it provides, or must it be a coordinated response that's agreed between all the countries. We certainly don't know whether the agreement covers existing conflicts, because if it covers existing conflicts, then they've all made a declaration together to go to war together, which would be crazy.

We also don't know whether it extends Pakistan's nuclear deterrence capabilities. Because Pakistan is the only majority Muslim country that actually has nukes. That's a big deal. The other problem that it doesn't talk about is how it affects Turkey's NATO commitments. So if we don't know, like there's a lot of things we don't know, and a lot of people will look at this and go, slow your roll, this isn't as big of a deal. No, it's a big deal.

This has the ability to go very dark very quick, or it has the ability to kind of fall by the wayside. But what scares me more is what each country brings to the table. Saudi Arabia's bringing a ton of money. Turkey is bringing NATO's second largest military. What that brings is massive, and it also brings the influence that they have that extends into Syria because they've effectively colonized Syria.

That's a big deal. What's even more unique, for lack of a better term, is that Pakistan also has a massive military establishment, and the thing with their military establishment is they have huge combat experience, way more than Turkey, way more than Saudi Arabia. They have these long-standing ties that have always existed. Saudi money, Turkish military, the manpower of Pakistan and the nuclear deterrence capability that they have. This is no small thing.

Tom Hughes: I want to get you wound up a little bit more, but I think I might wait until next week. But let me go here for a minute because Turkey's made it very clear, Erdogan's target is the Temple Mount. Over the last couple of years, we already know that's his mindset. He wants a revived Ottoman Empire Caliphate, whatever you want to call it. He wants the Temple Mount.

Now this is interesting. With Ezekiel chapter 38, you have Sheba and Dedan, aka Saudi Arabia, who are not involved. We know with Ezekiel 38 with Turkey, we have Russia, we have Iran or Persia, we have Sudan and Libya. They're coming from the south. You have the invasion from the north. Saudi Arabia says, hey, what are you guys doing?

When you look and you put this deal together, you go, wait a minute. Is this part of what leads Saudi Arabia to protest and say, are you going into Israel for this reason, or why did you exclude us? It's all speculation right now, but to me this is just a mind-blower as this information comes out.

I'm going to blow your mind even more. I want to get into Ezekiel 38 on that aspect. Jerusalem Post Monday of this week says, Middle East countries plan false normalization with Israel anticipating war. Officials from one country in the region advised another regional state to pursue an agreement with Israel in order to lull Israel to sleep while preparing for a larger confrontation. Israel Censor confirmed to the Jerusalem Post on Monday.

The groundwork's already laid for this stuff. And if they're saying this, we know what it's going to look like with Ezekiel 38. The big question is how in the world is Israel going to fall for it?

James Kaddis: It even says in here the proposal was not intended as a path toward lasting reconciliation. The officials advised to use the period created by an agreement to prepare for future war. The claim would seem to make sense. These Middle Eastern countries are basically saying that the Abraham Accords is a false premise that they're creating to get Israel lulled into a false sense of security.

Based on Ezekiel 38, that could be a real possibility. I guess what I'd like to play out in my mind is how in the world would Israel fall for something like that again? Even from a geopolitical perspective, I don't want to discount God and God maneuvering the minds of people. But from a geopolitical perspective, especially with the type of hawks like Benjamin Netanyahu, how in the world does that work?

Tom Hughes: I have the same question. One of my friends texted me the other day and he said, Ezekiel 38 could be here quicker than we think. I said, dude, I don't think so. There's a huge hurdle. Bring in everything you want. How on earth is Israel going to get to Ezekiel 38:11, this false sense of peace? Who right now could they trust? The only thing that makes any sense to me, if it were to happen anytime in the next five years, would be one is that Netanyahu's gone and Israel is led by some wicked leaders. Or the Rapture takes place. The Rapture could change everything.

James Kaddis: The only geopolitical path that I could see where this happens would be Israel actually believing that the regional threat that exists in their neighborhood is actually manageable. You stay close to your friends, you keep your enemies closer. The path would probably look like what it's beginning to look like right now. Iran's conventional power is done, severely weakened, maybe the IRGC is not in the picture. Hezbollah and Hamas and other proxies of Iran are just completely contained, they're disabled.

Saudi Arabia and any other GCC participants normalize with Israel. Then you'd have to have like a regional defense system where all these countries hold together that are already treatied with Israel. I would probably say you'd have to get Israel, America, Saudi would probably jump in, the Emiratis would probably jump in because of the participation they've already had with Israel. Maybe the Jordanians and the Egyptian intelligence groups would probably get together and kind of coalesce a little bit.

But I'm telling you this right now, the United States would have to provide formal security guarantees in order for that sense of peace to be set within Israel. That's what I think. But the problem is how do you do economic integration? You have to economically integrate with every single one of these countries. There has to be a financial reason to preserve peace.

If they're not economically integrated, I think that's what Saudi Arabia is trying to do with the pipelines and so on and so forth, then you don't have the mechanism anymore for all the other tools that they use to kind of keep things there, like advanced surveillance and all that kind of stuff. But here's my problem. Take advanced surveillance, cyber intelligence, missile defense like the Iron Dome, all these early warning systems that they have. They gave Israel lots of confidence. How did it work for them, bro? October 7th was a massive failure. Low tech already demonstrated how this can happen.

Tom Hughes: Let's go back to October 7th. I also want to throw in here, did you see what happened with IDF going in there Monday or Sunday? They're going to take it back no matter what everybody says. But I want to go to October 7th. A while back you and I were talking about what kind of security deals will Israel have and I said well maybe the US will give them some kind of security thought and even troops in there. You doubted it and I think you were right.

Israel has a huge problem with what happens after Trump is gone. All these other countries that are making these agreements are making agreements because that's the question they're asking: what happens when Trump is gone? If you look at everybody apart from Marco Rubio, this whole thing is not looking good for Israel, except that God is on the throne. We know that. I don't see how they could because they have to be looking two years down the road. They can see what damage has been done on the right and they already know what the left is like and how the Islamists and communists are taking over city after city in America.

Israel's got to be seeing the writing on the wall. October 7th was a low-tech operation. You and I both had conversations about this in October and November of 2023. There's people in Israel that are deep staters and there's radical left people in Israel just like you have here in the US. There were some generals that were complicit in October 7th. You interviewed the young lady Kifar Bir. She said that she was inside in the safe house, they didn't find her for like 12 hours, but she knew that the IDF was outside but they weren't given the order to come in.

We had talked about there were like two or three generals that basically said stand down. When I was in Israel in this past October, we went to the lookout. There were four or five women that were reporting to the generals and were saying hey, something fishy is going on in Gaza right now. They're moving all kinds of people around. They were told by a general basically be quiet, mind your own business, hang up the phone. Those were the first people that were killed as Hamas came in. They went to that watchtower and took out all those young ladies that were reporting about Hamas coming in. Israel has a deep state problem there.

James Kaddis: As long as there's Bibi Derangement Syndrome that's out there, you're going to have this problem with the Shin Bet. You're going to have this problem with these deep state operatives and there's a lot of them. Perhaps the greatest problem that you're going to have is the influence that is still wielded by what we would call the judge advocate general in Israel as well as the attorney general. They are amongst some of the most corrupt people alive. The system that exists in Israel is very corrupt.

I'm talking about the people that hate Bibi that actually want to shut him down. It's funny how they've gone beyond self-deprecation. These are people that actually believe they can preserve their sanity by assuming that the barbarism that we've seen amongst these Arabs is a result of something they've done. In their mind, their thought is if we can change ourselves, well then this barbarism will stop. Well, let's call it what it is. You don't go to dinner with a cannibal. Bernie Sanders is absolutely insane.

Tom Hughes: I want to read this in context. Isaiah chapter 28 verse 14. Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men, you scornful men who rule the people who are in Jerusalem. Who's ruling the people in Jerusalem? I think of the Knesset, the leaders. Because you have said we have made covenant with death and with Sheol we are in agreement. When the overflowing scourge passes through it will not come on us. We have made lies our refuge under falsehood we have hidden ourselves.

It's an agreement that there's going to be wicked people that are leading in Israel, they know they enter into an agreement that's a lie. But they do it anyways and they say and we're going to get along. Like going to dinner with a cannibal. Then God says your covenant with death will be annulled, your agreement with Sheol shall not stand. The overflowing scourge will come and terror will come upon you. Everything you just described fits Isaiah 28.

James Kaddis: There's a lot to say here and what's striking is if you look at what was happening historically, it's eerily similar to what's going on here. Historically this actually referred to all of the leaders in Jerusalem who rejected the Lord and chose to trust all the deceptive political arrangements that was happening for protection. They were involving all of them, foreign alliances.

Egypt was a probability of people they were trusting in, but perhaps it was all during the crisis that was created by the Assyrians. It's interesting because what happened then and what took place, even with the Lord delivering them with 185,000 of these people dying overnight at the hands of an angel, it's striking because the passage appears to carry this anticipatory mechanism that predicts that future rulers of Israel are going to enter into a false security agreement.

It could be the antichrist, it could be other nations. It shows a historical pattern with Israel. Israel has done this forever. It's interesting to see the inclination to where this could go. Do I think that Isaiah 28 is referring to Bibi? Certainly not.

Tom Hughes: I don't think it's referring to Bibi. I look at it where this is all headed, and I would even equate Isaiah chapter 28 in its ultimate fulfillment with Daniel 9:27. You can say the same thing with Assyria and Babylon. Jeremiah is crying out against the rulers, against the wicked people in the temple, against all of the wickedness.

While Babylon is closing in, they said shut up prophet, and they tried to put him away. They turned to Egypt, they were looking for help from all of their neighbors, and it is the pattern that Israel has always had which also leads us to the last days when the whole world lays siege on Jerusalem. It's at that point they finally cry out and God saves them. Help of man is definitely going away. We can see the writing on the wall. But ultimately God is the one who wants to save them and God will save them at His perfect time.

James Kaddis: I just got so much to say about that and where that could end up going because the same pattern is emerging. It's resting in alliances and even during a period where there appeared to be a spiritual awakening happening in Israel, especially learning what some of these ministries have been doing and some of these young soldiers turning their heart to the Messiah. It's funny how these victories would appear to give Israel the type of confidence. It's almost depressing to think about.

Tom Hughes: I was watching this interview of a couple of guys at Sea of Galilee and they were talking about their weapons and being trained. They said we train, they're IDF soldiers. They said we train along American soldiers and everything, we shoot the same targets and everything. He goes, overall, we don't shoot any better than they do.

They were talking about what they attribute their victory to. They said it's not their military training, it's God. There's no other understanding for why we have these victories than God. So very interesting. Intriguing when we look, and we know it's true.

James Kaddis: I need a lot more time to be thinking through some of this stuff and I'm going to tell you right now, I think we're going to have a lot of answers on Thursday when we do our prophecy conference. I'm excited about it. I'm going to spend some time obsessing over this a little bit. It's going to be fantastic. I'll do my "You Can't Make This Up" program live on Thursday, and then I'll head down. You should come early and do it here in my studio. It'd be fun.

Tom Hughes: I'd have to get down there really early. It would be fun, but I wear those goofy jackets and my goofy hat. My hat's not goofy, it's a cowboy hat. All right, that's enough. Let's go.

James Kaddis: It's Las Vegas, bro. Billy Crone got you. He got you. We do hope that you've enjoyed listening to this as much as we've enjoyed making it. We love you guys. Keep fighting the good fight.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Countdown to Eternity with Pastors James Kaddis and Tom Hughes online at Countdown the number 2 eternity dot com. You can listen to this episode again right there at Countdown to eternity dot com. I should also mention Tom Hughes is online at Hope For Our Times dot com. Take a look at his available resources and some of the top stories at Hope For Our Times dot 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 Countdown the number 2 eternity dot com or Amazon dot com.

If you'd like to support what we're doing at Countdown to Eternity, there's a place to give at Countdown to eternity dot 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.