FaithWalk Radio

Ron Susek: This is program number two with Mona Oshana, an Assyrian activist out of Phoenix, Arizona, who asks pointed, straightforward, tough questions. She wants to know about her people, and she wants to know about the great prophecy of Isaiah. She's a brilliant woman. She asks very straight-level questions, and I was so impressed with her and the dialogue that we had, I thought I wanted to share it with you. So here is Mona Oshana.

Finding and knowing God is a faith walk. The Bible says that without faith, it is impossible to please God. Our hope lies in the coming Messiah, who will establish God's peaceful kingdom on Earth. This is FaithWalk with Ron Susek. Dr. Ron is an evangelist committed to encourage and equip your faith walk as we pass through these turbulent end-time days, awaiting the soon-coming kingdom. Here again is Ron Susek.

Mona Oshana: There was a target on the backs of the Assyrians specifically. You go back in the time of history for a certain reason, that they were annihilating one of the biggest evangelists at one point, which was the Assyrian church. By the way, the Assyrian church at one point were all the Church of God and the church that the disciples had in fact established on Earth in Acts. They were known as the Church of the East, the West, the North, and the South.

The Church of the East remained faithful to its faith and did not change its name. That's why it is today known still as the Church of the East, with the exception of being known as the Assyrian church because as a stateless nation, no one would know the Assyrians still exist. But I know that there was a target and there's a reason why ISIS targeted Mosul again. Can you go over and just talk about why Mosul, why were the Assyrians targeted?

Ron Susek: I can. Assyria was the founding people and creators of the civilization. We're using things today that they invented back in the cradle of civilization. They have a 4,000-year history in that region of Northern Iraq and part of Turkey and so forth. They, without question, blessed the world. I'm totally convinced that many historians, and the only history book I know that has no bias in it is the Bible. Every other history book has bias in it.

I know that historians have painted very dark pictures about the Assyrians. But if you want to know what God thinks about them, read Ezekiel chapter 31 and it'll blow your mind. God said, "I made them beautiful." God raised them up. They didn't raise themselves up because they were genetically superior; they were raised up by the hand of God for a purpose. They so blessed the world that you will read in Ezekiel chapter 31 that when God brought them down for one word—pride—the world mourned. They mourned.

Now if the Assyrians were wicked people, the world would be rejoicing, not mourning. But the world mourned because they were losing all kinds of values that were flowing to them through the Assyrian people. We won't take time to go into that tonight, but it's true that it's amazing how the Assyrians, this empire, blessed the Middle East.

They collapsed in 612 BC by the Babylonians and some other nations. God brought them down because of the pride. But what the church has never been taught, particularly here in the West, is that Assyria some few years after the resurrection of Jesus Christ became followers of Christ as a whole nation. For 600 to 700 years, they were the megaphone of the Gospel. They took the Gospel to China and many other nations. They sent Thomas to India. On and on goes this remarkable story that has been robbed from the church in the West. We just didn't have the information, but it's there in history.

As a result, they became a target, I believe, of hell. A target for two reasons. Number one, Satan despises the preaching of the Gospel. If you read the life story of Jesus, the biographies on Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you'll discover that Jesus was resisted and opposed in almost every chapter for various reasons. That is what Assyria, this great voice of the Gospel, began to run into.

The second reason why I believe there's a particular target on the Assyrian back is because when Assyria is finally reconstructed as a nation-state and when they are now in union with the Jews and the Egyptians, I'm here to tell you Satan will be bound for a thousand years in the pit. These three nations will be the great megaphone voice of God around the world.

So I think that it's imperative to Satan to try and God gives him this opportunity to try to destroy the plan of God. He tried to murder Christ before the cross. Satan is always attacking what God is doing. But what that is doing is strengthening our faith. The harder Satan attacks, the more foolish he is because that is what strengthens our resolve to follow God and obey God, knowing that ultimately he hands us an absolute victory over this wicked one and hands us the privilege of guiding the world.

Guest (Male): Dr. Ron has been talking to us about the end-time days and wants us to prepare for the coming kingdom. He has written a book titled *The Assyrian Prophecy* that is a missing part of the end times puzzle.

Ron Susek: And he who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." Write, for these words are true and faithful. The world is not ending. God is preparing a new world soon to begin. An ancient nation thought lost to extinction is soon to rise anew to prepare for that day. Isaiah identified this nation in a prophecy that has been hidden in plain sight for some 2,700 years.

Its name is Assyria. My new book, *The Assyrian Prophecy*, reveals how Assyria will join with Israel and Egypt to bless the world under the soon-coming Messiah. Amid today's chaos, God is searching for righteous people through whom he will bring the prophecy to completion. When you reach the end of this book, one question will be in your mind: "Lord, what would you have me to do?" You can learn more at theassyrianproject.org.

Mona Oshana: Amen, and I want to bring your attention also, Dr. Susek. That was just amazing. You are so versed and you are so knowledgeable about the history and so aware. This is the difference between how you became aware and God opened your eyes, because the Assyrians have been preaching, have been speaking up, and have been fighting evil head-on for centuries.

The world and they've been fighting in obscurity. It is only now with the opening of the minds and the hearts and the eyes of people and a giant of the faith such as yourself that is preaching, one that is born in the West speaking of ones that existed in the East. This is an amazing partnership and an amazing miracle that only we can bestow the credit and all praise due to God. Because it's amazing that here we are talking with the passion that you speak about, Dr. Susek, it's truly amazing.

I've often made the correlation of why there was an exodus of the Assyrians that are as a whole, as you just mentioned, are Christians. They all escaped the Middle East as a result of persecution, not because they wanted to, but because they were pushed out. They were purged from the Middle East and being still purged. I want to bring your attention to a recent story that just happened.

The president of Iraq ends the recognition of the Chaldean patriarch, putting Christian assets at risk right now. This is an article from Asia News that I had sent you. The remnants of the Christians, of course, it's a developing story. But we know that the Christians for the most part are Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac, however they know themselves. I call them all Assyrian.

Nevertheless, the church has been our safe haven. The church leadership have been our fathers. The church has been our mother. They have been our country. The church is where we've been able to practice our faith, our Aramaic language, our culture, our customs, and everything. So the church leaders have always been the leaders of the community as well as the spiritual leaders.

For the president of Iraq right now to have removed this designation, this recognition of the Chaldean church, which by the way in number, the Chaldean church is one of the bigger churches, more populated churches in Iraq. For them to have taken that recognition is an insult on all and it's truly another attack on all Christians of the Middle East because Chaldeans are everywhere and we're all brothers and sisters in faith.

As we understand, the patriarch is not in Iraq. He had to be removed. I'm not sure what the latest developments are, but the fact that he was accused and was asked to come to court or was going to be basically brought on charges. This is absolutely crazy at this crucial point where our only remnants of the Christians remaining in Iraq.

You've got all of the Middle East saying, "Oh no, we love the Christians. We're a democratic country," and yet you have the persecution still going on behind closed doors or internally in the countries that the rest of the world is not aware of. The reason why I mentioned ISIS is because the persecution of the Christians has not stopped. Only a miracle from God, as you are saying, and only by the divine grace and the divine planning of God that the Assyrians once again will be restored.

But what do you make of this story? As much as we don't want to get political, political is all over us. Political is part of our lives.

Ron Susek: Mona, historically the truth has always been under attack. What's interesting is that evil people have an amazing ability to create a problem that is not a problem and then bring a blame to it. Illustration: we had Daniel who would pray three times a day and he had men plot an evil plot against him. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego thrown into a fiery furnace and the king knew they were innocent and was so relieved when they survived it.

All through history, we have seen truth under fire and that's exactly what we're seeing really here in America as well as in the Middle East. This to me is one of the many signs Jesus gave us ten indications when we're nearing the end in Matthew chapter 24. In that chapter, in the ten indications, he called them birth pangs saying the end is not yet, these are the birth pangs.

But here's what he did say. The 11th thing that he said was, "The gospel of the kingdom will be preached to every nation on earth and then the end will come." Here's what's exciting. In the middle of the persecution that we're even facing here in America now in unbelievable ways, I knew it was coming; I never thought it would happen in my lifetime, but it's here. Well, we have heard that there are some 186 or so nations on earth. No, there are more than that.

Missiologists, people who study missions, have calculated that there are 12,000 nations on earth. Now the word nation comes out of the word ethnos. 12,000 ethnos groups on earth. Here in America, we have Latinos, we have Africans, we have Europeans, so we have all kinds of ethnos. We have many little nations inside of what we call America.

Here's where it really gets intriguing, Mona. They tell us that we are within 200 nations of every nation on earth having learned about the coming kingdom. Within 200 out of 12,000, we're within 200. Some think we can reach that 200 this year. Jesus said when that is reached, then the end will come.

We may be far closer to the coming of Christ. The world is getting uglier. We are seeing evil prevail in unbelievable ways. We are all paying prices for it in one way or another. When Jesus appears, game's over. We call it the Apocalypse. What does Apocalypse mean? It means revelation. You are going to see the truth. No place to hide. No one can sit in front of a court or in front of a congress and lie. It'll be impossible because Jesus, who has truth coming out of his mouth and knows the hearts of men, is going to expose everything.

If there's ever a time for people—political people, average people, all of us—to repent, it better be now because if not, when he comes, it's too late to repent. You're on your way to the lake. It's over.

Mona Oshana: Absolutely. You just mentioned our country and I wanted to talk about our country. I know that there's no one more aware and more versed about, I mean, the fact that you are in the West and when we're saying that we that were persecuted came from the East to the West and of course we thought we were coming to a Christian nation. We were coming to practice our faith.

Lately and I know that that picture that we showed earlier, Alfred, if we can put that up. I want to start out by talking about the situation and the circumstances in our country. First, and this is from your post on your Facebook page, Dr. Susek: "First we overlook evil, then we permit evil, then we legalize evil, then we promote evil, then we celebrate evil, then we persecute those who still call it evil."

And then of course you quote Isaiah 5:20: "Woe unto them who call evil good and good evil." Those are the times that we seem to be living through today. Often those that, and I'm not just talking about the Assyrians, anyone that has been persecuted, anyone that has survived persecution or comes from oppression can see the signs of the time.

I want to talk about our country in the times today and all of the signs that we are witnessing of the coming of Christ. In addition to what you were just speaking, this is not getting political; this is becoming realistic. This is getting real and understanding that the fight is real and the fight is not a physical; it is a fight between good and evil.

Now, having said that, we've always understood that the church has come through and it's the church that has always come through for people that have been in pain and has been with open arms and open doors. I know churches are not structures; churches are congregations of people. They are made up of people. But today we are seeing, and I'm going to speak personally, that there is a lack, that there is a missing-in-action situation of the church. Dr. Susek, as one that preaches on the Gospel, what is the condition of the church and where is the church during these evil times?

Ron Susek: Let me take everybody back to the beginning. I believe that the philosophy that God would have intended for America was given in 1620 when the pilgrims gathered in the captain's quarters on the Mayflower and wrote the Mayflower Compact. The first two concepts of that compact was, "We are doing this for the glory of God and the advance of the gospel."

Then you come down through the decades when you finally have the writing of our constitution and how do we begin it? "We the people." What happened to "for the glory of God"? What happened "for the advance of the gospel"? Why should that not be the forerunner of our constitution, the preamble? No, it's "we the people." Is that the deification of mankind?

So when we started as a nation, rather than beginning it—and there's no reason why we couldn't have, by the way—remember that Israel was a nation that really was under God and followed God through Samuel and other prophets. Then they said, "We want a king just like every other nation." That was the day that I think Israel failed the world because the world's not had an example to follow ever since.

America had the chance to be that example. When we wrote the constitution, I must say that we had great men who understood the Bible. They understood what they were running from in Europe and that was that the king was above the law and he was cutting off heads and he was just a tyrant, a string of them, not just one. So they were escaping to have freedom of worship primarily, as well as freedom of practice. So they built many biblical principles into the constitution.

Those principles, Mona, have been under assault by evil people from day one. What we didn't realize when we put in the words "we the people" is that Satan handed a great wedge because what are they doing? Trying to divide "we the people" against each other. That is the collision we're witnessing right now and that is what is weakening us and that is why you are right in saying the church is not showing up.

What should we be doing? If nothing else, there's no reason why we should not have three million people walk into Washington DC and begin to fast and pray and cry out to God because all the human manipulations in the world is not going to correct it. We have some great people in Congress and Senate, some great people, and they are salt and light and they are fighting hard. Church, why do we expect them to be there taking the beating? We need to be on our knees before God in a tremendous wall of prayer in order to see this nation.

Why are we talking about America, Mona? Because what happens to America is like what happened to Assyria. When Assyria fell, the nations mourned. When America goes down, this world's going to be trembling because America, like it or not, has been the stabilizer of the world now for some 250 some years.

It's imperative that the church rise up and realize our role. We're not going to enter into political debates; there are people skilled for that. Praise God for that. We have the ability to lay hold of the throne of the King of this nation, God Almighty, and watch God begin to transform hearts and lives and literally bring down the structures of evil. It can happen.

Whether that is, Mona, who knows, maybe out of this your program a spark is going to happen. I don't know, but I hope so because for the sake of the world, this is the only solution.

Mona Oshana: Absolutely. Dr. Susek, for people that are listening and me included, how do we reconcile what is happening? Because every day we wake up and of course we're information overload. People are not even watching TV anymore. It's not even on TV; it's on their computers, it's on their phones, it's the internet, it's social media that we are seeing pictures and we are witnessing citizens journalists right now all over the world.

Journalism is not the traditional way of doing journalism right now. Everybody that has a phone can become a journalist right now and is reporting of everything that's going on in our schools, in our government, the division in our country. As you said, we the people, there's a wedge there. How do we reconcile that as Christians and make sense of it so that we're not discouraged?

I started the last couple of weeks starting the program with a verse of a Bible because as we don't understand sometimes how medicine works when we are sick but we take it anyway, I feel that we need spiritual medicine. Especially with all that we are seeing, especially the children with everything that's going on. *Sound of Freedom* is being attacked right now because it is exposing pedophilia and child trafficking.

You've got the indoctrination of our children in our school. When a society starts attacking its future, which is our children, that society really is going to stop existing. If America ceases to exist, where will the downtrodden, the people that are persecuted, the people that are running come to if America ceases to exist? How do we reconcile, Dr. Susek?

Ron Susek: Israel was here years ago when Isaiah himself said they are dragging sin along with cords of deceit. They are calling evil good and good evil. So this is not the first time the world has been faced. There was a Sodom and Gomorrah, and we need to recognize, I don't know whether this is the collapse and the Lord is coming or whether God's going to privilege us with another awakening.

But we have to recognize the fact that the world is really twisting the minds of our children and our youth because where we should be teaching them the ways of God and the structures of the home and what a home is. While to you and me it's normal because we were raised understanding that, it just makes sense and nature proves it to be true.

With that fact in front of us, we are watching. We have to remember that it's the minority so far that is still bringing great evil to the forefront. Sadly, they have a lot of the media on their side. Very sad. Which tells us the corruption that is in the minds and the lives of the people that are trying to propagate this and make it good. Well, we're going to be paying heavy prices down the road for this if we do not see an awakening come.

What is an awakening? There's a man named Burns who wrote a tremendous book called *Revival: Its Laws and Leaders* back in 1909. Here's what he said and this is the way I feel, by the way, with what I'm experiencing with getting involved with the Assyrians and the Coptic Christians and soon the Jews.

That is that the spokesman does not create the revival. The Spirit of God puts what he's going to do in the hearts of the people and the spokesman is only articulating what God has already put in the hearts of the people. So it's an act of God, not an act of the spokesman. And that's what I'm experiencing with the Assyrians. When I speak to them, there's an explosion, there's an excitement. It's awesome.

It happened in Toronto with the Copts. It felt like the Day of Pentecost. There was such unity and love and excitement. One priest drove three hours from a conference to attend our session, then three hours back to the conference and he was just as excited as could be. If that spreads, Mona, if that spreads, game's over. We could see a mega-awakening not only across America but across the Middle East.

Guest (Male): This has been FaithWalk with best-selling author, pastor, and evangelist Ron Susek. Join our team by going to faithwalk.org and clicking on "Partner With Us". Well, thanks for being with us today and we hope you'll join us again next week as we find courage for the journey in our faith walk.