Sid Roth

 

Sid: There is a book that’s shaking up people all over the world. Why do I say that it’s shaking up people? Because certain prophetic events happened it talked about them. And so some of the top secular talk show hosts of America are saying the most amazing things about this book and it was written by a evangelical Christian whose father just happens to come from an orthodox Jewish background. And the book is called “The Last Days” the first book that Joel Rosenberg wrote was called “The Last Jihad.” And Joel how in the world did you get the idea to work into the story line all about the terrorism that would happen to America and you wrote the book before 9/11 and that’s what blows people out of the water. How did you get your thoughts to even do such a book, how did you do such a book I understand you were praying to God about it.

Joel: I was, let me set up what’s dramatic about the book and then I’ll go back and explain that. Because people that have not read “The Last Jihad” does not realize is that the first page of the book puts you inside the cockpit of a highjack aircraft highjacked by radical Islamic terrorists coming in on a kamakasi attack mission into an America city. Now I wrote that 9 months before September 11^th. As the plot of “The Last Jihad” unfolds the FBI and the CIA trance the trail of terror back to Bagdad to Iraq. And suddenly the President of the United States and his senior advisors find themselves in a showdown with Sadheim Hussein over weapons of mass destruction. All of that was written before 9/11 before the debate over going to war in Iraq and certainly before the war itself. And when it came out people were just stunned “How could you have possibly known this?” Now with people getting a sense of what it’s about back up the clock to January 2001. I had worked for a lot of interesting political leaders over the years Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp, Steve Forbs, Rush Limbaugh. As well as former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but after all of that about 10 or 11 years in the political life Sid I felt like my wife and I were praying “What should I do now with the rest of my career?” I had to ask myself “If I had been as passionate about sharing the gospel with people as I had for example with Flat Tack when I worked with Steve Forbs? And the honest conclusion was I’m comfortable but no, I had been more passionate about the flat tax or the social security reform or conservatism in general then I had about sharing my faith in Jesus as the Messiah. So my wife and I began to pray Jeremiah 33:3 “Call to Me and I will hear you and answer you and show you great and mighty things you do not know.” And my wife and I were praying with our kids we’ve got 3 boys Caleb, Jacob and Jonah 9, 7 and 5 years old we call them the Ringling Brothers.

Sid: (Laughing)

Joel:   Three ring circus in our house.

Sid: I’m sure.

Joel:   And we’d been praying with them you know Daddy needs to write a book but we need to ask God for a story something interesting that will draw people in on a fascinating story. And then about ¾’s of a way into it when hopefully somebody can’t put it down Daddy can share the gospel with people, that was my heart; that was my prayer. We were praying Jeremiah 33:3 because Daddy did not have a story to tell. Well in January of ’01 I sat down and the story that began to come out was about this high-jacked jet coming in on this kamakasi attack mission. Now some of the details were different I had visioned a flight coming into Denver and not to New York or Washington at a business jet not a commercial airliner. But the operation times that were so chillingly real in the morning of 9/11 my wife and kids and I we live in Washington not far from the Pentagon I was actually writing the second to last chapter of the last Jihad about a kamakasi attack that leads to a war with Iraq when the news began to break about these attack and it was a horrifying time for all of us in America particularly in Washington. And I had just been to the top of the World Trade Center just a few weeks before with then Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neal we had lunch in there with some Wall Street executives. And I had been right in that restaurant on the 110^th floor just marveling at this amazing feat of human engineering and technology and now is all gone. And I’m telling you as having written a story that just was so chillingly real to events that were now beginning to unfold it was was eerie I’m not sure of another way to put it. But it also felt like there’s no way I could publish this book now I mean it was too real, too raw and it wasn’t until January…

Sid: It’s a good thing that we don’t have to figure things out when we’re working for God.

Joel: Well, that’s true because I said to the Lord…I had been praying Jeremiah 33:3 and You gave me a fascinating story but now this book is useless there’s no way we can sell this book. Well, I felt like the Lord was…I don’t know what the Lord was saying to be honest it was not like He was saying “Wait” I didn’t know what He was saying I was confused. But in January of ’02 my wife and I were watching the State of the Union Address when President Bush talked about the access of evil and said the next great threat to the United States was Saddem Husseim because of his connection to terrorism.

Sid: Which you had in your book.

Joel: Exactly and his connections to weapons of mass destruction. Now at that moment Lynn and I just looked at each other and went aw-o it’s like the Twilights Zone. And the next day my agent called and he said “Do you work for the CIA.”

Sid: (Laughing)

Joel: You know every time I try to tell them “No I don’t.” He says “Well, that’s just what you have to say if you did work for the CIA. I don’t but it was clear at that point that something…a dramatic turning point had just happened. This novel which was so real a few months before because you couldn’t sell it because it was too painful for people now was foreseeing a battle with Saddeum over weapons of mass destruction that was now as it turned out that was a year and a half or a year and 3 months away. A publisher picked it up very quickly and the book came out in November ’02 and at that moment no one had ever heard of Joel Rosenberg, no one had ever heard of “The Last Jihad” but God had a book there that was so amazingly close to reality that He lifted it into the stratosphere. Very few books by first time novelists hit #1 on Amazon.com or spent 11 weeks on the New York Times best seller list.

Sid: How do you know so much about Bible prophecy? How do you know so much about the inner workings of the political scene? How do you know so much about Israel?

Joel: Well, from the time I was in college…well the time I really wrestled through with God and really came to know Him at the age of 17 I became fascinated with prophesy. First and foremost the Messianic prophecy leading up to in fact that Jesus is the Messiah. That just totally intrigued me, that I was excited to… it just every day I leaned it confirmed my faith. But I also fascinated with prophecy of the times at which we live, I was particularly drawn to Matthew 24 and Luke 21. Where Jesus was taught…where the disciples were being asking him “When are you coming back and what are the signs of the last days or the end times before you return? And I just was fascinated, wars, rumors of wars, you know the list, earthquakes, famines, revolutions, persecution of believers, the spread of the gospel. But what fascinated me most was the idea of this parable of the fig tree and the fig tree being so often in the Old Testament the evidence of Israel. And the idea of that Israel would start to blossom again. Or in Ezekiel 37 come together the dry bones coming back together as a country. And then in Luke 21 where Jesus says that “Jerusalem will come back under the control of the Jewish people after a long time after control of a nation of Gentiles. Well, I was born in April of 1967 to months later Jerusalem came back under the control of the Jewish people after as you know 2000 years under the control of many different nations. And this is just totally fascinated me and I…

Sid: You know someone who hasn’t even had an experiential happening with God if they were to just look at these prophecies in Israel they would have to say “This Book is not a natural book, this Bible is a supernatural book and I must believe.”

Joel: That’s right and that’s how it impacted me. And now spiritually like the Lord never took us into becoming missionaries or you know working on a church staff or para-church staff. He took us professionally into the political realm and that’s where and matched kind of a separate track but parallel began to work with very…some of the best Middle East experts in the world.

Sid: Listen you were the Senior Advisor to Netanyahu who I believe is going to be the next Prime Minister of Israel and many other people believe this. What was that like?

Joel: Well, that was a fascinating time because when I got hired to work for the former Prime Minister it was a time when his processor I’m sorry his successor Ahud Burach was Prime Minister. Burach had just come to Washington with Yasser Afafat and Bill Clinton to basically give away 97% of the west bank and Gaza and Samaria.

Sid: We’re going to pick up on that story because we’re running short of time. But what is your personal view of a Palestinian state?

Joel: Well, as I write about this in “The Last Days” I think that…I think that it’s going to happen.

Sid: Unfortunately I do too and I say unfortunately but go ahead.

Joel: Yeah, I think there’s almost like history is compelling it to happen but I don’t believe that you can give away that which is not yours to give. The President, the America President can’t, and the Israel Prime Minister can’t it doesn’t mean they won’t but God promised Judea and Samaria to the Jewish people long before any of the current President or Prime Ministers.

Sid: In other words the west Bank. We’re out of time Joel.