Truth in Troubled Times: Israel, Persecution, and Prophecy
June 27, 2025
Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett
Co-host: Hon. Sam Rohrer
Guest: Shaheryar Gill
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 6/27/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Isaac Crockett:
Well, hello. And I don’t know how many of you have maybe grown up playing sports, but if you have, you know that many times, like even in basketball, somebody might do a head fake or a pump fake and they’re trying to trick you with what direction they’re actually going in by distracting you. Or in wrestling, they might pretend to be going for your shoulder or your arm, but really they’re wanting to do a single leg takedown. And you have to be constantly aware of your opponent, what the real truth, what the real trajectory is of where they’re going, what we are living in a day and age where Satan is full of deception and in our media, it is full of deception. That is why here it’s staying in the gap media. We try to on every program, fill it with a biblical worldview and show all of you how we can look at the news of the day and dig deeper than the headlines and get through the deception down to what the Bible says and what is clearly right and wrong.
And with that, I’m Isaac Crockett and I welcome you to today’s program. I’m joined by Sam Rohr, the president of the American Pastors Network and regular host of this program. And in a little bit on this program, I’ve got some questions for Sam to kind of go through some of our headline news. But before we go there, we want to welcome back a good friend of ours and a friend of this program, an attorney from the ACL J, Shari Gill with the American Center for Law and Justice Shaheryar. Thanks so much for taking time to be with us today.
Shaheryar Gill:
Thank you for having me as
Isaac Crockett:
Well. Shaheryar, Sam and I have been talking a lot about, obviously so many things happening so quickly in the last week and so much deception out there. It’s hard to know who’s telling the truth, what’s going on, but as we watch these nations raging against Israel, as we’ve seen this change, of course it seemed like in the last few days as now the US has stopped in and stepped in and dropped bombs on nuclear facilities in Iran. You have been working with the A CLJ for years now, and you and the Seculars and others at the A CLJ have been talking about lawfare, not just warfare, but weaponizing the international law against Israel, the breaking and corrupting the false use of law against Israel. And one of the last times you were on, you discussed a whole thing. It’s actually on the un.org. It’s a report of the commission inquiry, Israel’s systemic use of sexual reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence. And it goes on to accuses the IDF forces, the IDF of doing sexual violence or whatever. And you explained the last time you were there that actually there’s no real cases of sexual violence that they’re pointing to. If you could maybe speak about that and now that the newest law class of lawfare that’s coming out where they’re accusing Israel of more crimes against humanity over by targeting educational facilities, if you could just talk to us about that and the deception that’s going on there and shine some light of the truth of what’s really happening.
Shaheryar Gill:
Right. So as you mentioned from the title of that report that we last time about sexual violence, there was no example of rape or forced pregnancy or forced abortion or anything like that against Israeli soldiers. I looked at the entire report, read through it, not one example of that nature. And the accusations leveled against Israel for sexual violence, which were called sexual violence, was nothing close to even sexual violence. So that report was published by the UN United Nations Commission of Inquiry that was created to investigate issues of war crimes in Israel and the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. So this commission periodically writes reports of the current conflict and their latest report is on attacks against educational and religious facilities. As usual, I read the report this time again and no surprises there.
This commission accuses Israel of targeting educational facilities. Now under the law of armed conflict, during an armed conflict, educational facilities which are presumed to be civilian facilities should not be targeted. Only military objects are to be targeted. Now, if one of the parties converts a military target or a civilian target into a military target, for example, if Hamas uses a hospital or a school to carry out its terrorist purposes and carry out military action against Israel, then that facility becomes legitimate military target. So by responding to an attack from that facility or a command and control center in that facility that is controlled by Hamas, if Israel responds and attacks it is legitimate, it’s lawful to attack. Now Israel provides information about why it was a military target, why it was lawful to target, and all of that is information is publicly available. Now what the commission does is simply disregards all of that evidence.
It simply says when one sentence for each instance it says, we could not independently find any evidence that it was being used by Hamas for military purposes. Whereas when Israel provides evidence videos of weapons being stored or pictures of weapons or explosive devices or Hamas operatives that are operating from those facilities, the commission simply just disregards it. So I went through the report and in each instance the commission simply makes these conclusions. It doesn’t provide any legal analysis, any law or discussion of evidence, but simply makes these absurd conclusions based on and they simply deny what Israel, the information and evidence Israel provides. So that’s the kind of deception that’s going on. And what we at the SELJ do, we’re going through the report, we’re comparing evidence, we provide the evidence of each incident, and we are basically trying to shed some light on this commission as to how the commission is abusing the law and twisting the facts and the law and basically misleading the international community into believing that Israel is committing more crimes.
Sam Rohrer:
And Shaheryar, that’s great information. Don’t have much time here. May have to carry it over, but here’s a thought. I know Isaac, when he visited you in Pakistan, he had mentioned that he’d seen a building there, a house, I guess what a Hebrew in English on the doorpost, something about praying perhaps about Israel. And that just brought up a thought, what do these other countries where persecution, deceptions happening like Pakistan, like Iran, how did they feel about the people of Israel and the nation of Israel?
Shaheryar Gill:
The Bible says, if you bless Israel, I will bless you. And Christians in Pakistan, they read both like us here are old and the New Testament and they pray every day for the nation of Israel, for the people of Israel, for the protection of Israel. And if you go to these churches on Sunday in Pakistan, you will hear that in sermons, pastors openly, they talk about Israel, they bless Israel. So I mean, I grew up watching that, listening to that and just experiencing all of that. And I actually even shared when I visited Israel, I shared with the officials there that this is what Tupac, people of Pakistan who are Christian, that’s what they’re doing. They’re praying for you guys.
Isaac Crockett:
Wow, what a reminder for all of us to be praying for Jerusalem, peace in Jerusalem, peace in the Middle East, praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ. We’re persecuted all around the world and Shaheryar works with them on a regular basis. And so we want to talk to him. We’re going to take a brief time out to hear from our partners, but we want to come back and talk about the Persecuted church right now during these chaotic times. Meanwhile on standing the gap media.org, there are resources about these topics. So we’re going to listen to some partners and we’ll be right back on Standing the Gap today. Well welcome back to our program. I’m Isaac Crockett and my co-host today is Sam Rohr. And we’re talking right now to Shaheryar Gill about some of what’s going on in the Middle East and Shaheryar, you’ve been very involved.
You’re at the ACL J, you are the one who leads their international legal team and defense of so Christians. I just received an email from Jordan Selo of the A CLJ on Thursday of this week. In that email, one of the things he says, he says this, and I’m quoting from Jordan, he says, Christians are being targeted with increasingly devastating persecution. Extremist groups want nothing more than wipe out Christians. Also, in that email, he talks about 77 Christians who were attacked just on Sunday over in Syria where an Islamic terror group sent a bomber in a suicide bomber killing dozens of them and injuring scores of these people, I think 77 in total that were hurt or killed Shaheryar. When we think about that, and you showed me when I was over in Pakistan with you, we actually stood in a place, it felt like a sacred location where a suicide bomber had blown up many in that church and a young man had actually given his life giving that suicide hug bomber a hug, basically wrapping himself around to stop it from being worse.
But like in Syria and in Pakistan, there are some churches there. In fact, throughout the Middle East there were churches before there were mosques. But right now in Iran, the persecution that’s going on, could you explain what that’s like because they don’t have as big of denominational groups that the Christian minority over there is very, I guess you could say scant, but could you maybe describe as we think so much about such a highlight of what Iran is doing with their nuclear capabilities and what they’re doing to the overall civilians of Iran, I’d love to have you just talk a little bit about what’s happening to the church in Iran.
Shaheryar Gill:
Right, so Isaac, with all the news about the war with Iran and the attacks on the nuclear energy plants, some of the regular news that’s about Christian persecution, we’re not really focused on that. But as you mentioned, there’s a minority, a small minority of Christians in Iran. Out of 88 million people, it’s about less than 2%. 2% are all the minorities, Bahais Christians, even maybe a small Jewish community. And Christians are being on the top of the list of people who are being persecuted. Iran has laws that prohibit Muslims from becoming Christians. Conversion is prohibited. It’s punished by a death penalty and it has other laws about blasphemy or even preaching proselytizing Muslims. So the people, normally Christians pray in house churches in Iran, which are sort of the meeting homes and they pray in secret, and the government really just monitors and monitors those people as to what their activities are.
And a lot of times the government arrests the Christians in those churches and charges them with acting against the state. So Christianity to them is acting against the Iranian state. So just last year there were at least 166 people who were Christians who were arrested in Iran for these kind of activities just for meeting, either meeting in a house church or talking to a Muslim, or maybe they may have invited a Muslim or simply again practicing their faith in secret. So Iran has a strong legal system built against Christian activities and proselytizing and conversion. So I think as you mentioned, while we are focused on these big events, we should be aware as to what’s going on with our brothers and sisters in several places, especially. Yes, Iran, Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, and as you remember, Pakistan, we’re dealing with several of cases in which Christians are persecuted. So that’s what I would say in a nutshell, yes, Jordan is right. Christian persecution is growing and people don’t like the name of Jesus.
Sam Rohrer:
No, they don’t. And that’s the basis of persecution. The Lord’s said himself that would be the case. So this is, but we need to pray and thank, so it’s important that we’re doing what we’re doing in Shaar, the report that you gave, let’s just go to Pakistan now, that’s where you’re familiar with that. On previous programs, you had talked about in some cases a part of how you are able to be involved and use your legal training and background is to help the cause of persecuted Christians. There was an individual or another, maybe a couple of them that were on death row in Pakistan. Give us an update on how some of those defense cases are going.
Shaheryar Gill:
It’s the same. We’ve talked about at least three cases in which three of our clients are on death row. They are accused of committing blasphemy against Islam and in prison they have formed a Bible study group where their fate is being reflected in their practices among their fellow prisoners who are Muslims. Now that said, one of the prisoners, one of our clients, he is a young Christian who was falsely accused of committing blasphemy. What he did was, or allegedly did, was he’s is accused of posting a blasphemous letter, which was an evidence in a separate case. In that case, the people who allegedly created that have already been arrested and punished. But this gentleman was accused of posting that page online and there was no evidence that he did that. No evidence was recovered from his phone, no evidence from his online accounts. And the police arrested him and charged him with blasphemy.
He was tried in a trial court, in an anti-terrorism court, and he was sentenced to death. He is in prison. We have filed an appeal in the high court and we recently filed an application with the high court to hear the appeal sooner because there’s no evidence in this case, and it would be a grave injustice if this young man would be serving in prison for a long time waiting for his appeals. So the court has agreed, I can tell you this much, that the court has agreed to hear the case in September. I can’t reveal the date, but what I’m requesting is from the listeners to help to pray for this brother that the court will hear the case that the court will be sympathetic, the court will be just so Asan and his family, a moon and his family and Shazad are other clients. All three of them need a lot of prayers.
Isaac Crockett:
And that’s a great reminder for all of us to be praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ, knowing that they are in bonds. We are told to pray for our brothers in Christ who are in bondage for the name of Jesus. As we think about it, we hear of places like Pakistan or we hear of Iran, this latest thing going on in Syria. We’ve heard of things going on in the Democratic republic of Congo, but really the country that’s growing maybe I think the fastest, the quickest growing in the most right now in persecution of Christians was a bit of a surprise to me. And I’ve been reading more about this, but you were telling me about the Shaheryar. Could you tell us what nation that is that’s growing right now in persecution and a little bit of what we’re going on and how we can be aware and how we can be praying for Christians in that nation too,
Shaheryar Gill:
Right, Isaac? So last year there were more than 600 cases of religious persecution attacks on Christian pastors and attacks on churches in India by Hindu nationalists who want to get rid of India of Christianity. And they a regular basis, they attack churches. India has anti-conversion laws in several states at least. I think it is 12 states now in India that have anti-conversion laws. And those are designed really mostly for against Christians and then even Muslims. But the Hindu majority is obviously protected. The laws don’t punish going back to or converting to Hinduism. So Hindu nationalists then use these laws to accuse falsely accuse Christians and Christian pastors of converting Hindus to Christianity, and they simply attack a lot of times even with the police involved or at least having the knowledge of it. Hindu groups attack Christians, churches, they even kill them, assault them. And if that doesn’t happen, then the police arrest Christians. So almost every day there’s an attack or a false accusation in India against a Christian. So that’s one country that I think we should be looking for or we should be praying for in terms of where Christian persecution is on the rise.
Isaac Crockett:
Sam, I know we just have a few seconds here, but you’ve been over in Africa working with pastors who have faced a lot of issues. They don’t want us to pray for them to have it easy. What are some ways that we can pray for them though?
Sam Rohrer:
Well, Isaac, that’s an amazing thing. We in America have gotten very, very soft. We’ve never had this, but I have never yet met anyone who’s persecuted, who say, pray to get us out of this, but they say, pray that we have the strength to go successfully through this particular event. To me, that’s how we should pray, Lord, there are those around the world. Most cases we don’t know who they are, Lord, but you know who they are. We pray for them today that you would come alongside of them, that you would give them strength within and may their faith not waiver, Lord. And if we get to the point, Lord, where we face that here in this nation, may we do the same Isaac? That’s about how I pray in these kind of circumstances.
Isaac Crockett:
Amen. Well, thank you for that, Sam Shaheryar, thank you so much for taking time out of a very, very busy schedule to be on this program with us. We’re about to take another quick time out to hear from some of our partners and when we come back we’re going to ask Sam a lot of information about some of the headline news. But thank you Shaar from the ACLJ. I would encourage all of you to go to the aclj.org. You could read articles by Shaheryar and others, Jay and Jordan Selo and others like that of what they have going on throughout the United States, but throughout the world as they seek to stand for truth. And that’s our goal is to stand in the gap for truth. When we come back, we want to ask Sam some takeaways and insights from this very busy Newsweek with some major headline news, but really everything goes back to a biblical worldview.
Well, hello and welcome back to the program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and I’m here with the Honorable Sam Rohr. And we’ve just finished talking with attorney Shaheryar Gill from the American Center for Law and Justice. And we were talking, well really we’re talking about deception. We’re living in days of deception and wherever you go, it seems like it’s hard to find the truth. You read a headline, even we were talking about a headline from the United Nations and certain things stand out at you think, oh, this sounds horrible. And then when you start to research that article or research the person writing it, you find out it’s very different than the truth. But whole books have been coming out about the last four years of the Biden administration of the levels of deception that were going on. And we all assume that there’s a lot of corruption and deception going on in the government, but we shouldn’t just take it for granted.
And that’s here at the American Pastors Network and stand in the Gap media. Our goal is to deliver the truth, to walk us children of light in a dark world. And so Sam, I want to go to you and we’ve talked so much about the lawfare that’s being wielded against Israel, but now I want to shift gears and just look at, there’s been so much going on with the military tactics and the bombing of Iran over the last few days, this last week or less, and on our program, I think it was on Wednesday’s program of this week that you were talking and you said that we don’t want to get into the political perspective so much as we want to look at the biblical perspective. We want to look at context. You said a lot of things and then yesterday you and I were talking about just the deception that’s going on in this world.
One of the things you were reminding me of, and this is a good thing for us to remember, giving the context, you said not one of these world leaders are working outside of God’s sovereignty. Here. We have all these things happening and we have many questions. Each of us personally and other people we know have questions, but not one person, not one president, not one king, not one emperor is working outside of God’s sovereignty. God is in control. Can you expound on that just a little bit to help set the stage and really give us the context for where we are at right now as Christians
Sam Rohrer:
Isaac? I can, and that’s a great question to ask because we need a filter. You referred earlier to biblical worldview. We talk about that as well. What a biblical worldview allows a person in a time of deception and confusion in such a days in which we live to be able to cut through that which is not true and bring to it biblical clarity because only truth will clarify. And truth is only found in God’s word and God’s word gives us all we need to know. Now that being the case, here are a couple of principles. One, we know that in the days in which we live the last days, we know that’s the case because Israel is back in the land. We know that in those days, the leaders of the world, Psalm chapter two, the kings of the earth, the economic kings, the political kings, the business kings, the banking kings, those who are decision makers make things happen.
They will as a unified group, lift their fist against the God of heaven. May that say so with their mouth. They may actually say we’re doing something in name, but it’s not the God of the Bible. So the Muslim will say, oh a God. And others will say some other God. So God’s name, just because God’s name is used Isaac, does not mean that a person is actually fearing the God of the Bible. That’s one major thing I think I’ve come to learn. The scripture says that, so they’ll lift up their fist against the God of heaven. What are they favoring? The God of this world? Who is the God of this world? The God of this world is the devil himself. It becomes ultimately the antichrist. So that’s the prevailing world system. It’s a counterfeit system, appears to be good, but it’s counterfeit, it’s deceptive.
That’s number one. Number two, in that scenario though, God is working his way. That’s biblical prophecy. So God has laid down his plan of redemption and all through the time in which we now live to the time of tribulation, seven years period of time to the Christ, second coming to the millennial kingdom, that’s all a part of God’s redemptive plan. That’s God’s plan. And no one stops it. No one alters it. And just like Christ’s first coming was right on time to the exact day of the prophecies, so will all of that which comes about here relative to his second coming. So it’s on God’s timetable and he is never deterred. That’s called the sovereignty of God. Next principle, God raises up nations and puts them down. Acts 17 tells us. So all of the nations that are in place today, Russia, China, Israel, of course, Iran, the United States, all of these nations are here by the sovereign hand of God to serve his purposes.
And they all relate to God’s ultimate purpose of what happens with Israel. And God says, in these days the world’s attention would be drawn to Israel. We’re seeing that happen. That’s all there. That’s all the part of the God’s sovereign hand of blessing. Next principle, God raises up leaders and puts them down. And so there is no person who’s in a position of authority, Biden before Trump. Trump now Obama, Putin in Russia, Netanyahu in Israel, Z in China, they’re all there because God chose to put them there. And here’s the great part about it. The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord and like rivers of water, he moves the heart of the king through events and circumstances to do whatever it is that God wants them to do. And that is the important thing I think is why I made that statement.
There is no world leader operating outside of sovereignty now in pride. They all think they are the boss. They all think that they are the most clever. They all think that they are the most masterfully deceptive as we’ve been hearing in recent days. They all think that it’s all about them and they are the ones that are making things happen but not realizing that whatever they do, they are doing by the directing hand of God and they’re doing and accomplishing only that which God wants to happen. No one is greater than God. And that I think for a believer, Isaac is a great, great confidence that we just should never forget.
Isaac Crockett:
That’s right. And it’s so easy to get caught up in the kind of the surface level events. And I think that’s where some of this deception is really at is it’s a distraction. We could talk about deceiving, but it’s distracting us of where we need to be looking and that’s at the kingdom of God. We need to be seeking first the kingdom of God. Sam, with so much tension on what happened with these bombers and other missiles and things that were launched at Iran would appear. The bombs that were used, everything went exactly as America planned. And we’re talking as stand in gap media, part of American Pastors Network. We have our worldview is from here in America, but it would appear that the Americans that did their part, they dropped everything exactly right where it was supposed to go. Yet there’re still questions, oh, how much destruction or whatever.
But there’s a lot of these things that are getting figured out, even if they’ve taken out the nuclear weapons that Iran had. Now what we’re seeing is groups like Russia, Pakistan. In fact, I was reading an article from the Economic Times, it’s a newspaper out of India and the title of the article is Russia, Pakistan ready to supply nuclear Weapons to Iran. And it goes on and it quotes former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, in which he really makes the case that Iran coming out of being bombed by America may be in a position now for Pakistan and Russia and some of those groups to help them even more in lending their nuclear arsenal to them. Just, I think it was Thursday of this week, president Trump was taking questions about Ukraine and he was mentioning how so many of our weapons have been used up already have gone to Ukraine or already gone to Israel. We don’t have an infinity of weapons set up that we can just go grab these bombs all the time. We have a very limited supply of that. So having with those realities I guess in place, Sam, and hearing how there’s a coalescence together now, whether it be Turkey or Russia or Pakistan or other Arab states, how do you see the reaction to what has happened?
How do you see the reaction in the Middle East being really prophetical? It seems that there’s this anti-Israel coalition coming out now of places like Russia and Turkey. I’d just love to hear how you think that fits in with what the Bible has prophesied will happen in the end times.
Sam Rohrer:
Well, Isaac, I think there’s a couple of different things I think that’s coming out of that. Again, the west of which we are the part Europe support and all that, the West has designs on controlling the oil in the Middle East. That’s what it’s been about. That’s what our dollars hinged to. And in Iran, the goal is primarily regime change. Nuclear abilities that they were pursuing is the excuse to do that. But what is desired by the west is a political leadership in Iran that answers to the West. That’s the bottom line. But Iran is a part of the eastern axis. It’s been making alliances with Russia and with China and with North Korea. And this effort now of our getting involved like we have in Iran, the goal is to subdue them and make them roll over so that they become subservient to the west.
Alright, now how’s prophecy fit in? Well, prophecy, let’s say we talked about some in the program biblically, Iran Persia referred to in scripture is never a friend of Israel. So there is going to be no regime change. Biblically we can say there’s not going to be any regime change that’s going to make them favor Israel. In fact, they become a part of an alliance of nations of Turkey and of Russia and of China, maybe Pakistan, maybe China, of which they operate together and they ultimately coalesce and they come as a group against Israel. So that’s where biblical prophecy helps us. This is an alteration, a distraction at this point. But biblically we know this coalescing that’s coming together, it’s actually been probably been sped up by the action we just saw in Iran.
Isaac Crockett:
Now Sam, all of that just brings us back to our need to go to the Lord in prayer, to pray for our nation to pray for this world, to pray that the Lord’s will be done, his kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We’ll be right back for our final segment on Stand in the Gap today. We welcome back to the program. As we wrap up this program, we’ve talked about a lot of different things we’ve been looking at truth and troubled times started by talking about Israel and some of the deception that’s been going on against them, looking at the persecuted church during all of this chaos in the Middle East. And then looking at the chaos, looking at all the things that have been happening this week, the last few days and how that fits in with prophecy.
And Sam, I want to go back now to really the nation of Israel, kind of coming full circle in the agenda today. In times of conflicts, wars, the fighting that’s been going on lately that we’ve seen, there are a lot of unforeseen circumstances, there are a lot of side effects from the headline news. And I want to talk about something you talked about this week with your guest, Chris Katulka from Friends of Israel, and you were talking about what life is like for the people in the nation of Israel right now. You and Pastor Matt Recker were talking about this. In fact, I’ll ask Tim, could you go ahead and play a little clip from that program right now? And then Sam, I want to talk to you about that.
Matt Recker:
What can you now tell us about the emotional situation, the family, the economic status, the family status of the people that are inside Israel as a result of this recent conflict, but really this long ongoing war that began last October 7th, almost a year and a half ago.
Chris Katulka:
It’s taken a toll on families. In fact, divorce rates are up right now because of what’s happened since October 7th in Israel. Divorce rates have gone up and families are suffering because their loved ones are gone for so long. Their money that they have, of course it is difficult with the money because they’re not able to work. So of course they’re more heavily dependent on the government. And so it’s a lot of suffering that’s going on in Israel right now with the people. But this time, October 7th and today, the Israeli people, they got accustomed to how to maneuver life dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah. It amplified because Israel went from the defense to the offense. But the reality though is that in the midst of all that, the IDF was still doing what it normally does. It’s always dealt with Hamas, it’s always dealt with Hezbollah. Since Israel launched its preemptive strike against Iran, this has been a different story for Israelis and I think most people have to get that. This one I think really struck at the heart of Israelis. It was different than anything they’ve ever experienced before, especially the modern Israelis. And so this one was a game changer for them and I think changed the way that they see the war that they’re in against the Iranians.
Matt Recker:
Alright, Sam, what was your reaction when you heard Chris saying that?
Sam Rohrer:
Well, Isaac, the response to that was as you asking, what was my response to Chris’s response yesterday or on the program when we did it was this war always brings a fatigue. Israel, though they are, God’s chosen people are not an exception to the difficulties of life. And they are having great difficulties. And it’s not like Isaac unlike any nation. When our nation was involved in World War I and World War II, there were grave difficulties that came to the people of our nation as well as all nations that were involved. I think this is what’s taking place in Israel. But prophetically we know that ultimately, ultimately God has brought them back to the land as a people. And the Lord will manifest his covenant promises to the nation of Israel, to the people called the Jews. And it’ll be manifest in the city of Jerusalem.
And ultimately though Israel as a nation is there in unbelief today, they haven’t recognized Yeshua yet. They will one day at the end of the tribulation period, God will discipline and bring them back to him. And that’s when the completion of God’s redemptive plan, the second coming will occur. And then the millennial kingdom, for which the Jews have long for so long will happen, but only when they believe and trust and recognize that Jesus is Yeshua. So there are a lot of things that are moving on here right now, a lot of considerations, but it all is anchored in God’s promises and God’s redemptive plan.
Isaac Crockett:
And Sam, I know you’ve been able to spend a lot of time in Israel, you have close friends over there. And so you’re watching this again, not just from the headlines, not just as an American or a Christian, but you’re very invested over there. And so I just appreciate any kind of insight that you have, not just from your time over there, but the relations you have over there as well as just final thoughts and encouragement on how we can pray. How can we pray for the peace in Jerusalem? How can we pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ as you’ve already talked about some? And if there’s time, I’d love to have you spend a little bit of time closing our program in prayer today.
Sam Rohrer:
Well, Isaac, one of the things I think that the scripture tells us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And that is that we talked about even on the program early this week, it’s not necessarily that there is civil peace, but it is that they come to recognize the prince of peace. So when we pray for Israel and we pray for their, we pray ultimately that the gospel, that the recognition that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, that they come to recognize that that brings peace to the world and that brings peace to the individuals. And as we talked in the program early this week, there is movement within the land. The religious Jews, Orthodox and others are being driven. All of these things are driving them to the Old Testament passages. And there seems to be great evidence that there’s an increasing interest in saying, wow, we are here.
Oh, that’s in fulfillment of passages in the Old Testament, and these are things that are taking place. Well, that’s what the Torah talks about, the Old Testament and wow, here’s Iran and there’s now Russia. Well, they’re all mentioned in the Old Testament as well as enemies of Israel and things that’ll take place. So those who are fearing God and searching are finding themselves being driven more intentionally to the word of God. And of course, anyone who goes to the word of God as a place of truth will find it that we know. And he also shared with us, Chris did with Friends of Israel about the Messianic movement, is that there are many, many, many Messianic congregations springing up around Israel when I’ve been there. I’ve visited, I’ve worshiped in some of the Messianic churches, but there weren’t many when I first went to Israel.
Now, accordingly, there are evidently many smaller Messianic congregations that are in all of the cities, even some of the smallest of cities. And even in the kibbutz, that was good news that we heard yesterday. And so that is something for which we can pray that the gospel expands not just in Israel but around the world. And as well, we pray that those who are within Israel come to recognize that Jesus is in fact Yeshua, the Jewish Hebrew Messiah, heavenly Father. Lord, I thank you for that. You’ve given us in your word, your entire plan from the beginning to the end. And in the middle you have given us the opportunity by your grace to receive your gift of salvation, Yeshua, Jesus Christ, the Messiah. And Lord, we recognize that that came from the nation of Israel through them. Lord, you brought to us the Messiah. And Lord, we trust and we believe in Him. We pray that those who are listening, if they have not, they would do that today. And that we pray for those things that are happening in Israel, for those who do not yet know you, that they would come to that knowledge. And Lord, for our own leaders who are involved in making decisions that affects that nation or our nation, that they would also in the fear of God do that, which is according to the will of God. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Isaac Crockett:
Amen. Well, thank you for that, Sam, and I love that, that they would have a fear of God and do the will of God. What a powerful way to pray. Hope that we’ll all pray like that. Thank you for listening to us today on Stand in the Gap Today, and I hope that you will pray for us here at all of our ministries here at the American Pastors Network and stand in the gap media. Please pray for us and please, until next time, stand in the gap for truth wherever you are today.
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