Sid Roth

Sid: Hello. Sid Roth here with Joel Richardson. And Joel, you were one of the first that I heard teach, although I understand it’s not a new teaching, that everything will be centered in the Middle East in the last days and it will be involving the Islamic faith as opposed to the European Union, etc. Explain.

Joel: Obviously as Westerners and as Americans we’ve had the tendency and we’ve committee the error of looking to the Bible believing that it’s very Western-centric. The fact of the matter is the Bible is Jerusalem, Israel and Middle Eastern-centric. This is really obvious to anybody that just looks at the context of the book. But also what’s happened is through a misinterpretation of just a couple key passages. Many of those that have been studying biblical prophecy, they’ve looked at Daniel 9:26, “The people of the prince to come,” Daniel 2, the metallic statue, through a clear misinterpretation of the historical grammatical context of those two passages. The church, many of the leaders have taught that the Antichrist, his empire and his religion would come out of Europe. When we look at those passages afresh and we compare them to the wealth, to the abundance other passages throughout the scriptures, it is clear that the Antichrist, his religion and his empire come from the Middle East and not Europe. And that biblical prophecy is primarily dealing with the Middle East and the empire that will arise in the Middle East. And today we’re seeing the beginning of that exact prophecy coming to pass.

Sid: But one of the good things for the world is many of these Islamic nations, they don’t want to unify, well they may want to, but when it comes down to it, it is very difficult for them unify. And we know about this from Scripture. Will they unify? Tell me what you see from Scripture?

Joel: They will unify, but the Bible also says this empire will be divided. That from its very inception it will be a kingdom that will be divided. After Mohammed died, the founder of Islam, there was a dispute that broke out between what are called the Sunis and the Shia. And so the Islamic empire, so to speak, from its very beginning has been divided…

Sid: Fractured.

Joel: …right up until the last moment. When they’re in the land of Israel, the armies of the Antichrist, the Bible in Zachariah as well as Ezekiel say that they will turn their swords on each other and the hand of each man will be against his brother and they’ll be killing each other. That sectarian violence that we’ve seen in Iraq, for instance, the past several years, will continue up until the very end. They will put aside their differences for the sake of invading Israel and killing infidels, but that sort of sectarian enmity will last right up until the very end.

Sid: Now you put Turkey in a very unique position. Explain.

Joel: Imagine, Sid, if you are a Suni Arab Muslim. You’re there in the Middle East. You desire to see the re-establishment of the Caliphate. The Caliphate is the Islamic government, the Islamic empire. It existed for 1400 years. Eighty years ago, 1923, it was abolished. So now, you know, just say 10 years ago, you’re this Suni Muslim, you look out, you say, who are the ones who can lead this? The old order of the Middle East you had the Arab block. That was Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. You looked at them, you said, these are all Western puppet regimes, corrupt monarchies and dictators. No hope there. You look across the Persian Gulf you see the Iranians. You go they’re courageous, they thumb their nose at the West. That’s good, but they’re Shia. In other words, they’re kind of heretical. There was no hope. Now since 2003, there is a new strong force emerging in the Middle East, and that is Turkey, and the affections, the attentions of the Suni world, the majority sect of Islam, are turning to Turkey and they believe that Turkey is the nation that can revive the Islamic empire. And it just so happens that Turkey has been taken over by an Islamist government and they desire to do just that, to revive the Ottoman Empire of old and to rule the Middle East.

Sid: So it’s almost like history is going to repeat itself.

Joel: Exactly. And people keep asking me, they say, what’s next in the Middle East? What does all this mean, this turmoil, this turnover? When we look at the chapters, Daniel, Chapters 8 and 11, we look at these, they tell the story of Alexander the Great burst forth out of Macedonia, out of Europe swept across the Middle East, very quickly conquered, had this vast empire and then he suddenly died. Well then that was, the kingdom was divided up between his generals. They began to fight it out until it really came down to two primary quadrants of his empire. You had the Northern Alliance, this is the King of the North, and then you had the Southern Alliance. The Northern Alliance was essentially today a Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian alliance. This was called the Seleucid Empire or the Seleucid Dynasty. Historically, under Antiochus Epiphanes they clashed with Ptolemy, which was an Egyptian Northern African Alliance. So you had the King of the North, the King of the South. The Bible tells us that that historical pattern will be repeated. So what we need to understand…

Sid: Well see, and a lot of people think it’s finished. A lot of these Old Testament things are finished. But where does it tell us it will be repeated?

Joel: Well if you go to Daniel 11, it shifts from telling the historical story of what took place, again, with Alexander and his generals, Antiochus Epiphanes, and then in Daniel 11:36, it shifts and it starts speaking of the Antichrist. It says, “The king will do as he pleases.” And these are clear references. Scholars are in near universal agreement. This is speaking of the Antichrist because it speaks of things that Antiochus never did. And so it shifts from the historical to the future. And it says, “In the days these things will take place.” So it’s that historical pattern repeated. What will take place in the next few years, we’ll see the emergence, the continued consolidation of the Northern Alliance of the Turkish, Iranian, Syrian alliance, as well as probably Afghanistan and Pakistan, and then the Southern Alliance: Egypt, Libya, Sudan, and Turkey and Egypt, they both desire to the be rulers of the Middle East. There will be a military conflict between these two alliances with the Northern Alliance coming out victorious. This is what happened historically. It will happen again. On the way back from defeating the King of the South, Antiochus invaded the land of Israel.

Sid: Okay. What I want to find out is, you see, you cannot understand the Antichrist unless you understand Islam. For instance, you’ll be shocked when you find out what the Mark of the Beast is. We’ll be right back after this word.