Falling Into Place

Guest (Male): Welcome to our programming, Falling into Place with host Jan Markell and Michele Bachmann, brought to you by Olive Tree Ministries. In a fast-moving world driven by news cycle anxiety, Jan and Michele examine breaking global headlines, cultural shifts, and geopolitics through the lens of scripture, concluding that as the Bible predicted, all things are falling into place. Here is today’s program.

Guest (Male): It comes with a price. So we’ve had our sign vandalized I don’t know how many times, "Free Palestine" sprayed across the street on the wall against us. As we continue to march down this line, it’s going to get harder and harder. It's going to be like, either put up or shut up.

Why are you not talking about this? Maybe you know it would cost you viewers. Maybe you know it would hit your pocketbooks and your likes and subscribes and your popularity because every time I talk about Israel, everything goes down.

Guest (Male): That’s right. But if I talk about Nephilim aliens and disclosure, then guess what my ratings do? They skyrocket. Oh, so are we playing a game here?

Jan Markell: Well, Pastor Brandon Holthaus along with podcast host Olivier Melnick have just spelled out a serious problem. Talk about issues like my co-host Michele Bachmann and I will today, and stats seem to well, sink into the cellar. Brandon is accurate, and I have experienced the same over the years.

And yet the Bible says in Genesis 12 that Israel would be a blessing to the whole world. It also says in Zechariah 12:3 that Israel will become the burdensome stone. Something doesn’t add up here. Israel blesses the world, and yet she is cursed, at least by the nations and denominations of the world. And maybe that’s because of her very prominent end-time role.

The dry bones of Ezekiel 37 have come back to life. There is no more key player in God’s end-time plan than Israel. I have a saying: Israel is the time clock, Jerusalem is the minute hand, and the Temple Mount is the second hand. And to those who think they can wipe her out, remember, God says as long as you see the sun and the moon and the stars, Israel will remain a nation. I think Amir Tsarfati says it best here.

Guest (Male): To the Jewish people, there is a promise. And the promise is not that you will be in the New Jerusalem just because you’re Jews. No. The promise is as long as the moon and the stars and the sun are there in this world, you will not be wiped away. You will still be a nation before me.

As humans who live in this world, on this planet, right now, no one can destroy Israel. And I always tell Hamas or Hezbollah or the Ayatollahs: make weapons that destroy the sun, the moon, and the stars. Because only when they will be gone, Israel will no longer be a nation before God. You’re wasting your energy.

Jan Markell: If you want to know what time it is, you have to watch Israel. That’s why most of the world and the church are clueless. Israel is an inconvenience to them. Today most denominations have set the topic aside. They feel it’s not relevant to people’s day-to-day struggles.

Others, due to theology, will not acknowledge that a nation the size of New Jersey is the key to our times. To most denominations, the church has replaced Israel. That’s called replacement theology. There are anniversaries this time of year that many acknowledge. Few ignored the 25th anniversary of 9/11.

Many are remembering the Charlie Kirk event of a year ago. And those of us who are watching God’s time clock, Israel, know that we are coming up on a third anniversary of October 7th, 2023. And some of you have already thought of maybe turning this off because that didn’t affect you, and your church ignored it on Sunday, October the 8th, 2023, and every Sunday after that.

And just maybe that is one reason our churches today are in rough shape. I want to play a real quick clip here of Pastor Gary Hamrick, Cornerstone Church, Arlington, Virginia.

Guest (Male): I’ve personally observed the trend, and here’s what I think the trend is. You saw an indoctrination into academia by liberal theologians. That’s where it started. And then when the academia began to unravel and people started to turn away from Israel, turn away from their Bibles—because that’s what precipitated a turning away from Israel, when you turn away from the Bible—then you started to see it trickle down.

And it started happening in academia, liberal academia. Then it moved into really the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party started to wane in their support of Israel. And then it has crept into the Republican Party. And now we’ve seen it creep into the church. And it has been a slow deterioration to the point now where you even have to ask Christians, do you still believe that God’s not done with Israel?

Because of the whole replacement theology doctrine that has crept into the church now, which is really a Satanically inspired doctrine. And for those who don’t know what it means, it just basically means that the people believe that the promises intended for Israel have been negated, and those promises have now been passed onto the church.

And so when you see this trickle-down effect, it should concern us, but it shouldn’t surprise us because we’re seeing when you start to abandon the Bible and culture moves away from scripture, it’s going to slowly have this deteriorating effect. And now we’re seeing it sadly, even in the church.

Jan Markell: So I want to ask this question before I bring on my co-host Michele Bachmann. Does anyone even in the church care that just three years ago, Israel faced her darkest day since the Holocaust? They probably don’t because at this point, Zechariah 12:3 is in play.

Israel is just an inconvenience, not a strategic ally, not a people called out who gave us the Bible, the prophets, the apostles, the Messiah. And the Bible says salvation is of the Jews. No, because she’s causing tension in the Middle East and she’s causing prices to spike.

But good things have happened since October 7th, 2023, as well. For what Satan means for evil, God will use for good. Jews are coming home to Israel, and that’s part of God’s end-time plan. And remember that time clock, the minute hand, the second hand, so that God’s end-time plan can play out as predicted in the Bible.

Their return tells us that a trumpet and a shout are very near. It’s why you see everything in our world ramping up, escalating, all things falling into place like never before. Jerusalem and that Temple Mount are the key to it all, the minute and the second hand on the time clock.

I’m not going to be silent about the issue, knowing it will cost likes and clicks and viewers and listeners. Someone has to say it. Michele Bachmann is a part of the Regent University’s Israel Institute. She was formerly the dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent. She served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2015. So Michele, welcome back to the program.

Michele Bachmann: Thank you. It’s always a thrill. It really is a profound thing to think about how God works in each one of our lives. I was a young student, I had just come to Jesus Christ when I was 16, and young life here in the Twin Cities. They’d never done this before, but they decided to take 17 kids from the Twin Cities over to Israel. This was shortly after—we were planning during the Yom Kippur War to go over to Israel.

So this was something very unusual to go. And I’m so grateful. Now I see the hand of the Lord weaving His will through our lives. Who would have ever known? And so where He took us was to Israel and to the Gaza envelope. So we literally looked at Gaza because the fence line that separates Kibbutz Be'eri, my kibbutz, is Gaza.

So we literally looked at Gaza. They didn’t even have fencing like they have today. We were just wide open, and we could get over to the Mediterranean Sea in about 15 minutes in a car, very close to go over there. And so I spent the summer there and learned about that area. We were with Gazans.

We went over just in a car, no permission, just drove over, talked to Gazans when we were on the beach. And when I think now about that experience, and then later as a member of Congress when I would go over on official travel and meet with Jews who had been hit in Sderot—they had to deal with all of the rockets that were coming from Gaza—to today, with what we have seen.

I’ve gone back to Kibbutz Be'eri. I saw the big giant holes, I’m not kidding, holes this big around from an RPG, a shoulder-fired missile that was fired into a kindergarten. And I used to go into that kindergarten and volunteer when I was 18. To go in there and literally see—I don’t mean to be graphic—but to see the blood on the walls, to see the blood on the floors, to see it out on the sidewalks, and to see the homes that were completely incinerated by fire.

It literally, Jan, it was like walking in hell. It was like walking in hell to see that and to realize the lives that were snuffed out. 10% of the entire population of Kibbutz Be'eri was wiped out on that day.

Jan Markell: Interestingly enough, the Jews are going back to Israel for safety reasons.

Michele Bachmann: Exactly. It wasn’t a very safe day, but they know that they’re not stupid. They recognize history, the 1930s for instance in Western Europe and what that meant for their people. And so all of the signs are beginning again in Western Europe, again in Canada, again in New York City. Now it is global antisemitism.

Jan Markell: Australia, New Zealand, it's everywhere, Canada. It is literally around the world. I think what shocked me the most that day, going back to October 7th, 2023, and the ensuing days and weeks, is that the world—and I’ve said this before so folks if I’m repeating myself, I think this is worth repeating—the world ended up having sympathy for the devil.

Michele Bachmann: Yes. Within 24 hours. Within 24 hours of the event.

Jan Markell: But I think another thing that I need to bring out, and it’s not particularly comfortable to bring out, and I’m going to use another old-fashioned term here, but today or 2023 anyway, those residing in those kibbutzim in the south were—and they're called peace-niks. They thought you could get along with the enemy. They thought they could make peace with radical Islam. They thought they could—

Michele Bachmann: Talk therapy.

Jan Markell: Talk therapy. They were taking the Gazans to doctor appointments. They were hiring them. And all of this time, the Gazans were keeping track of who they were going to murder, where they were, and how they were going to do it, and what doors to break in, etc. Thinking like this is clearly very, very demonic.

Michele Bachmann: They had cased these kibbutz. And remember, this is where Israel began because there were about 10 or so kibbutz that began the state of Israel in 1948. So these Gazans that you correctly stated that the Jews were befriending, they would come in with their jobs, but they cased the homes.

They knew where people lived. They knew where the security personnel lived. They knew where their guns were kept. They knew the points of vulnerability. And so they took all the kindness that was shown them by the Jews in this kibbutz and they used it against them to kill them.

Jan Markell: So what I want to do is show a real short clip here. This is made by Hamas, folks. Not only is it quite creative and I think they may use some artificial intelligence, but the point of the video that I’m going to show you is not so much the Hamas and their love and embrace of violence, hatred, etc., but it’s the very final clip of this very short video.

That is the prize, Al-Aqsa, the Temple Mount. That’s where the tribulation temple is going to be built. It’s not there yet. I believe it’s in the process. But it’s that the Islamic world wants control—quite frankly has control of that 35 acres at this time—and it is going to be the focus of the world.

And here the Antichrist will rule for well, seven years. The first three and a half years he will be friends with Israel, and at that three-and-a-half-year point, he will break a covenant with them. They will flee to Petra, and those that survive the tribulation—that’s where it says in Romans 9, 10, and 11, which the detractors of Israel need to be reading—all Israel is saved.

That means those that survive the tribulation see Jesus coming back in the second coming and accept Him as Lord and Savior. But Michele, my point there was you can see—and Hamas made this video—you can see their obvious love of warfare.

Michele Bachmann: Creativity, actually. But everything they do is war. That’s all their mind is on. They’re not going to lay their weapons down. No, it’s never going to happen. That’s the so-called border of peace, and that’s their plan, that Hamas will lay it down.

And I’m really thankful that you showed that final piece, which is the ultimate goal is the Al-Aqsa mosque, because that was the name. You know this, that was the name, it was called the flood, the Al-Aqsa Flood. That’s what October 7th was. So everything for them is symbolic of their ultimate goal: kill all Jews because we want all the holiness, or we want all the holy sites.

And it goes right back to the book of Genesis, which God chose a Jewish people to put them on a Jewish land because this was the covenant for the benefit of the whole world. And ever since, Ishmael has been supremely jealous of Israel. They wanted to be the chosen one for the covenant. And so all of this is about we’re going to kill off the Jews and now we are the descendants of Abraham. It’s a sick, sick theology, but this is what they mean.

Jan Markell: I’m just going to read three paragraphs from Melanie Phillips. I love Melanie. She’s been a great lady. She’s been in my home. She was on my radio program six, seven years ago. And she says—it’s a long article, I’m reading just three paragraphs—she says: "The tsunami of global antisemitism in the wake of the massacre of Israelis on October 7th, and during the Gaza War that followed, has caused as much bafflement as horror at the sheer perversity of this violence.

It is now clear, however, that what we’re looking at is even more sinister kind of a pattern of behavior. Appallingly, the slaughter of Jews excites a large number of people so much that it galvanizes them to howl for the blood of more." She’s very blunt here, but she couldn’t be more accurate. Again, this is Melanie Phillips: "This was manifest on October 7th itself when mobs started pouring into the streets of Western cities screaming about genocide and intifada now, even while the Israelis were still battling the Hamas terrorists perpetrating the slaughter."

Last paragraph: "The terrorist atrocities against Jews have produced not sympathy or horror, but rather spikes of Jew-hatred even in other countries. This isn’t just confined to a few cranks and nutjobs on the fringes of society. It involves many thousands of people. There’s nothing remotely normal or explicable about this. It’s a form of madness that’s taken widespread hold."

Now what Melanie doesn’t fully understand is it’s the spirit of Antichrist, obviously. It’s the deception of the last days. It’s good is evil, evil is good. It’s an upside-down world. There’s so much biblical, I think, that plays into this that you need to be a real believer to fully understand, which is kind of why we’re doing what we’re doing today is to give a pretty solid biblical explanation from our perspective.

Michele Bachmann: Well, because on October 7th, that spirit was released in the world. And that’s what I think is important for people to recognize. We’re living in an upside-down world that doesn’t make sense. When you have the most barbaric, medieval type of slaughter against a people, and within 24 hours there’s a whiplash and people turn against the people who were slaughtered, it makes no sense.

To the point where you can have middle-class people in America who’ve now turned and they are favoring the Palestinians. The ones who were the perpetrators are now seen as the victims. And that’s what I can’t believe, that you have young people, little elementary school kids, adults, churches that have completely turned and flipped completely and said we’re not for Israel anymore.

Now we’re turning and we’re all about the poor Palestinians, the people who actually did the violence against the Jewish people. Turning away from scripture, that’s Jan what’s happened, is that people have turned away from what the Bible says. You look at Genesis 1. You look at all of the book of Genesis, go through the entire Bible, go all the way to Revelation 22.

Israel is in every part of the Bible because Israel is key to the end times, as you’ve often said. That’s why it makes no sense that people who for decades have stood with Israel, now all of a sudden it’s like October 7th was a break. It was a separation. It’s like think of an earthquake, and you have one hill over here and one hill over here.

It’s like people in the delusion, the madness, as Melanie Phillips said, but as you rightly said, they have jumped a spiritual divide. And they’ve gone over to the side that is anti-biblical. This is where people need to wake up. Wake up because you don’t want to be on the wrong side of this divide.

Jan Markell: The pastors need to wake up, too. And unfortunately, theology gets in the way. And we have a lot of amillennial pastors, not all. Explain amillennial.

Michele Bachmann: Amillennial would be—well, you and I are premillennial dispensationalists.

Jan Markell: I call that "left behind" theology. Pre-tribulation. Israel is the key to end-time events. There’s a distinct role between the church and Israel. There’s a literal Antichrist, a literal tribulation, a literal rapture, a literal second coming. Amillennialism believes we’re in the millennium now. Started at the cross and it goes for—well, it was supposed to go a thousand years.