Special Update: Israel at War
In this special episode of Inside The Epicenter, Joel and Carl delve into the current conflict taking place in Israel.
“Israelis are scared. They’re hurting. We’re grieving. We don’t know what the future holds, and most Israelis don’t know WHO holds the future.”
This is a special episode of Inside The Epicenter. Joel and Carl delve into the current conflict taking place in Israel. They discuss the recent attacks, the implications of the conflict between Israel and Iran, the spiritual aspects of the situation, and the importance of supporting our brothers and sisters in Israel.
With firsthand accounts and insightful analysis, this episode sheds light on the realities faced by the Israeli people and emphasizes the need for our prayers, support, and understanding.
Transcript:
Joel:
Israel is facing one of its darkest hours in all of its modern history, the Israeli version of 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. We're at war, and this is a special edition of Inside The Epicenter with Carl Moeller and Joel Rosenberg. Stay tuned. Because God loves Israel, Satan hates Israel. Because God chose the Jewish people to bless us, Satan chose us to curse us. Because God said, "Jerusalem, [foreign language 00:00:36] will be the city of peace," thus Satan said, "I'm going to make it a city of bloodshed."
Carl:
Hi, welcome to Inside The Epicenter with Joel Rosenberg, a podcast of The Joshua Fund, a ministry dedicated to blessing Israel and her neighbors in the name of Jesus. I'm Carl Moeller, Executive Director of The Joshua Fund. And today, on this very, very special episode of Inside The Epicenter, we're talking with Joel Rosenberg in Jerusalem to address this unprecedented situation of Israel at war.
Joel, welcome. And we're all reeling with the news that we've seen and heard, but we're asking some very fundamental questions about what's going on right now and what we might be thinking about next, and what we as Christians can do about it. So, Joel, help us understand a little bit about this right now. Israel's at war. What do we do? What do we think about it and how do we get here?
Joel:
Yeah. Carl, thank you so much and I'm grateful that we're able to do this special edition. We're recording this on Sunday evening, Israel time. Israel has been at war now, we're coming up on about probably 36, 38 hours in. As people listen to this, all the numbers that I mention, all the dynamics, just keep in mind that they're changing in real time. But let me give you a sense of where we are right now, then we'll talk about how we got here, where we're going. And as you say, Carl, how Christians can help. And I'll just say upfront, absolutely prayer.
I never want to make the Psalm 1:22 verse six, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem," seem trite. It's not. We're not [inaudible 00:02:21]. But God commands us to pray for peace because that is not the natural state of order here. Because God loves Israel, Satan hates Israel. Because God chose the Jewish people to bless us, Satan chose us to curse us. Because God said, "Jerusalem [foreign language 00:02:42] will be the city of peace," thus Satan said, "I'm going to make it a city of bloodshed." Because God said, "I'm going to give you this land," to the Jewish people, yes, to love their neighbors, but to give us this land, Satan said, "I'm going to take it away." And God said, "I'm going to make the temple mount holy to my name." And Satan said, "Fine, I will desecrate it". And this is where we are. So yes, we've got to pray for peace, geopolitical peace.
We also have to pray for the peace that passes all understanding, because Israelis are scared. And I can't remember the last time I said that. I'm not sure if I've ever said it. Israelis are very resilient. We have a lot of experience with war over 75 years. This is not the same. And I'll explain all that in a moment. Israelis are scared, they're hurting, we're grieving. We don't know what the future holds, and the vast majority of Israelis don't know who holds the future. So this is a problem. We're at a moment of tremendous pain and attack that, again, I was in Washington, DC for 9/11. I wasn't around, of course, for Pearl Harbor, but I'm using those two examples very specifically because this is a sneak attack unlike almost any other time in Israel's history because it's a terrorist attack. So I just want to give that framework, and we can talk about specifics in a moment, but you got to pray without ceasing. And yeah, so let me stop there for a moment.
Carl:
Yeah. Well, I think, Joel, from my perspective, I was actually on a plane over here to the UK to meet with our UK team at The Joshua Fund for some strategy meetings when I got the WhatsApp from you, "Hey, this is happening. Please pray." That was the first inkling that something bigger than normal was going on. And of course, we've seen now news reports over the last 36 hours or so of the way this is unfolding. We will talk about what this might have in terms of larger implications. But for right now in this part of the conversation, what's really happening in Israel right now? There are lots of things that are going on, but you're there. Tell us a little bit of what you've heard and what you've seen taking place, even as we're still in the midst of the fog of war on this day.
Joel:
Well, let me start with where we are right this moment, Sunday evening, October 8th. Okay. This all started on October 7th. Carl, as I was just mentioning to you just before we actually started recording, the breaking news here in Israel is that the Israeli government has officially confirmed all of our worst fears, that more than a hundred Israeli citizens have been captured, abducted by Hamas terrorists and taken inside Gaza. There's been a lot of video of these moments of people being pulled out of cars, wounded people being put on flatbed trucks or whatever, and driven back. There's one image that just is so searing and haunting for me and may be the quintessential image for most Israelis at this point, which is of a young woman, probably in her young twenties. Her name is Noa, N-O-A. She's captured by two Hamas terrorists. She's put on a motorcycle, she's screaming. She's in tears. She's screaming to her friends as she's taken away into Gaza, I'm sure thinking that she'll never see the light of day again.
And now there's video of her father being interviewed, having had to watch that video to confirm it with his daughter. And he is weeping and almost inconsolable. So the emotional wreckage on the Israeli people right now just from this number of a hundred Israelis captured and abducted and taken into Gaza. So that alone will be horrible enough, but I'll add two other numbers just for the moment. More than 650 Israelis are now confirmed dead, 650 in the last 36 hours. Now, that's bad enough no matter where you're from, but we've got to keep some perspective into context. United States is 330 million people, and we're 10 million in Israel. So it's a magnitude of, you guys are 33 times larger in terms of population than us. If you look at 650 people dead and you put it in an American context, multiplying times 33, just have a sense, that would be like you all in America waking up and hearing that 21,450 Americans had died in a single 36-hour period.
Carl:
Unbelievable.
Joel:
That has never happened. That's more than 9/11, which was 3000. That's more than Pearl Harbor. That is just almost inconceivable for Americans, and this is why this is so bad. And then on top of that, there are another 2000 Israelis who've been severely wounded. That's like 66,000 Americans wounded. That's war, Vietnam-era casualties, not your day-to-day. Those numbers are individual people, but they give you a sense of just how bad this is. We were totally blindsided by a combined sea-air land attack where terrorists were paragliding in, they were coming in by motorized rafts, and they were blowing up the security fence between Israel and Gaza, and then just driving and storming across the border and killing or capturing everybody they saw.
Carl:
The video has been chilling, and certainly it brings to mind other conflicts in the Middle East, but nothing at this scale in Israel. Joel, I know we're going to talk a little bit here about some of the implications for a declaration of war on Hamas, the potential for some of the wider conflicts, but where would Hamas get things like drones and armed drones? Where would those be coming from? And obviously, seeing some of them being used against Israeli forces and even civilians is disturbing, but it raises a much larger question of how did this happen?
Joel:
This is going to be a topic discussed, analyzed for decades to come. Okay, let me just put that in context. It's going to have huge political ramifications. We're going to talk about that in a moment. I was just on the phone with a Joshua Fund staffer. I won't mention his name for security reasons, but he just joined our staff recently and he's just been called up. We spoke today. I prayed with him. I just got a sense of what his life is like suddenly. Married, children. Everything has changed. The massive mobilization of military. But why in the big picture, why has it happened and why has it happened this particular weekend? Well, let's start with this particular weekend. This particular weekend, almost certainly because this is the 50th anniversary of a topic we talked about on a previous show, and that is the biggest sneak attack against Israel prior to this, which was October 6th, 1973, when the combined militaries of Egypt and Syria attacked Israel simultaneously on our highest holy day, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
Egypt attacked from the south, Syria came from the North, and it was so bad that then Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, who of course there's just a movie out right now, you can actually watch it on Amazon Prime, I believe right now. And it's a very, very important movie. But it's even more haunting now to watch it. More important now to watch it. But as you and I talked about when we reviewed that movie, Israel's first and only prime minister who's a woman so far, Golda Meir, she and her generals just didn't look at the intelligence and read it the right way. And she became a hero later. She ended up having to resign because she let the country be hit so hard, but she also rallied the country and the military to fight back and to win, so her legacy mostly will be a hero.
But radical Islamists really like to use anniversaries to launch next attacks. That's why every year on 9/11, American defenses are heightened because they would love to do a second round, the sequel to 9/11-
Joel:
... to do a second round, the sequel to 9/11, right? So that's why this weekend, okay. But who's behind it? Who's selling Iran drones and all these things? That's Iran. Okay. Hamas is actually a terrorist organization that's affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which was the sort of original radical Islamist terrorist organization that started in Egypt actually in the 1920s, the Muslim Brotherhood. And it's outlawed in Egypt now, and Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. It's a disaster. Over time, even though the Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni terror organization, Hamas decided, you know what? To get the most amount of money and arms, we should turn to the Shia radicals in Iran. And so the Iranian regime funds arms, supplies, and I believe all the evidence suggests that Iran directs Hamas. So it's almost impossible to imagine a scenario in which this attack, which was very well planned and had been in the planning for months, if not years, it's so multilayered and it was so aggressive and so successful that this had to have come from the Iranian regime in Tehran. So that's where they get these advanced weapons.
And I will say one other thing, all Israel news is reporting that Hamas had figured out where all the surveillance cameras were and used sniper guns and RPGs and everything to take out all of the cameras. And then of course, they'd laid out explosives all along the fence line and blew it up. But this crazy thing that none of us can understand, Israel, it was a weekend, it was a Jewish holiday. So for some reason, the Israeli military just didn't have hardly any combat soldiers guarding that border. It's inconceivable. But that's where we are-
Carl:
Well, I'm in future days, future weeks, there'll be time to analyze where those failures happened that made Israel particularly vulnerable at this time. And again, as you mentioned, the movie Golda talks about how Israel had fallen into this trap before of being complacent on some of these very, very volatile and dangerous fronts.
Joel:
And you know, Carl, probably that there's a reason for letting your guard down. It's not right. The reason is because of all these peace treaties that are coming and that have already happened with the Arab world and the Saudi peace treaty seems to be coming very soon. And I really believe that the Israeli government just got into the mode of focusing on all the good that's happening and got their eye off the ball that, yeah, good things are happening. As we've been describing here on Inside The Epicenter, we keep our listeners very well apprised of what's coming around the corner and what the trend lines are. But you cannot let the monsters out of the dungeon, right? Otherwise, they're going to roam the countryside and devour. And this is what has happened.
I don't want to focus in this tragic moment, I'm not selling a book here, but when I wrote the Jerusalem Assassin as a political thriller five, six years ago, it was about a Saudi leader wants to make peace with Israel but wants an American president to sort of broker the deal. But what happens? All hell breaks loose as the radical Islamist forces in Iran and their proxy forces try to blow up the peace process literally and figuratively. And I believe that's what we're watching. Why? Because what is Hamas' objective? Well, right now it looks like they're trying to lure Israel into a ground war to come into Gaza.
Now, you'd ask yourselves, if you not got a lot of experience with this, why would a small terrorist organization, even if they're backed by Iran, why would they lure the most powerful army in the Middle East into a very tiny territory? Aren't they going to lose? Yes, they're going to lose and they're going to lose big time. So, why would they do that? Because, first, they want to kill a lot of Israelis. Urban warfare will lead to a lot of Israeli deaths. But secondly, and more importantly to Hamas, Hamas wants the television pictures of dead Palestinians. They want Palestinians to die en mass in a war they have started. They want the television images of men, women, but especially children and babies to be broadcast all over the world, particularly the Muslim world. Why? So that the Saudis and others were like, we can't make peace with these people, with the Israelis, they're monsters.
This is the strategic calculus, and it's all based on the demonic principle from John 10:10 that's a thief, Satan comes to rob, kill and destroy. These monsters, known as Hamas, backed by the monsters in Iran, they want to rob, kill and destroy, but not just the enemy. They want their own people to die so that they can have a propaganda win. That's what they want, and that's what Israel's trying to figure out how not to give them. But it's going to be almost impossible not to have a ground war right now.
Carl:
Well, Joel, we have to take a break right now, but when we come back, I want to talk about some of those implications for Israel and Iran, Israel internally, Israel and Iran, Israel in the Gulf States that we've talked about very often, and Israel in the United States, because all of these implications are now really front and center with what's taking place even as we speak. So we're going to take a break right now and then we'll be back. Our verse of the day today is found in Isaiah 26:3, "You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you." Our prayer request today in this very important hour, number one, that God would heal the hearts and bodies of those who have been affected by the attacks in Israel. And second, that God would guide the leadership of Israel in their decisions to bring about a peaceful and just resolution to this conflict soon.
Joel, we're back. And the mind reels with the implications, the wider implications, for this war. And it has been declared a war by Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Knesset at this point. So I think speaking of it, not just as a conflict or anything like that, but as a war. There are always implications, there are always wider outcomes than just the simple military aspects of this. And with a war in Israel's home, in the villages and towns of Israel proper, what are some of the implications inside Israel for literally all day yesterday, thousands of terrorists, suicide terrorists probably, streaming into Israel, taking over control of areas of towns and villages and kidnapping hundreds and doing all this. What are some of the implications, as we've mentioned, internally for Israel? And then we want to go wider to the region, to relationships with enemies and allies and the United States as well?
Joel:
Yeah, the first thing I would say is that Israel hasn't been invaded since 1973, so it's been 50 years. And this really wasn't invasion. We don't know exactly how many, some people are saying hundreds, I think it may have been more than 1,000 and maybe several thousand actually terrorists that came in. Because even as of today, the Israeli police commissioner was saying Israeli forces were still in combat in 22 different locations in Southern Israel. So that means that terrorists still had stronghold, they had taken over some towns and some communities, they had taken hostages. So the first thing that Netanyahu said when he addressed the country is the first thing we need to do is regain control of all of our towns and villages and communities, and, of course, care for the wounded and the grieving. But then we have to figure out how to do a counterstrike.
Carl:
And also they're calling for the relocation of all Israeli citizens within that band surrounding Gaza. And imagine the dislocation internally for something like that.
Joel:
That's right. That we haven't seen since 2006. In 2006, it happened to be about a month after The Joshua Fund was formed. We got a tax not from the south, but from the north, from the terrorist organization also funded and run and founded and armed by Iran called Hezbollah. And they shot 4,000 missiles in a 34-day period, 33-day period, and a million Israelis had to live underground in bomb shelters or flee to the south to get out of the way. And again, at that time, Israel's military was out-manned. It was a surprise attack. They didn't see it coming. It was one of these moments where you're like, how is that possible? But the troops didn't have enough food, they didn't have enough toilet paper, they didn't have water. It was bad. But that was like a million people. At that time the population of Israel was maybe around 7 million. So think of one out of seven people in your country either living in a bomb shelter or fleeing to the south to get out of the missile range.
So, this is a horrible situation. It's not just a military black eye or bloody nose right now. That is true. But it is a huge public relations bonanza, propaganda bonanza for Hamas and Iran. But emotionally, psychologically, it's got Israelis scared because, first, they feel horribly badly for their brothers and sisters in the south, but they're also thinking, well, what's coming next and from what direction? And that could have been us. And in a country that doesn't know the Lord personally, you can pray all day. I mean, this literally comes after the High Holiday period where everybody was supposed to be praying and fasting and repenting of their sins.
What do I think is really happening, Carl? What's really happening is God is letting Israel's enemies hit us hard, just like they did in biblical times. Why? So that Israelis will wake up and think we're doing something wrong. We're doing something wrong spiritually. God's trying to get our attention. It's not that God's on the side of the enemy, he's not. But he's letting the enemy hit hard and even win, at least in the near term, to get Israeli's attention for them to turn to him rather than just to the political, military, and intelligence community. Obviously, you have to do both. But it's classic in the Bible, it's so much so that in Second Chronicles chapter seven, starting in chapter six, really, Solomon as he's dedicating the temple in Jerusalem is saying, "Well, Lord, we're focused on you today, but if we get to a point where we drift from you and get our eyes off of you, and you let a plague come to our land," like Coronavirus I would say, or, "You let a war come and the enemy is devouring us or all these other things, and we're not paying attention to you, please-"
Joel:
... all these other things and we're not paying attention to you. Please, if we turn back to you, would you please hear our prayer and rescue us? And this is where God famously responds to King Solomon in 2 Chronicles Chapter 7, verse 14. Well, "If my people were called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then yes, I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sins and I will heal their land." He wants to forgive sins before He wants to heal the land. He wants to heal the land, but He's trying to get our attention. And whether this leads Israel into a soul-searching spiritual environment, I hope so. It's too early to say that yet.
But this is one of the things. We're going to talk about what Christians should do, but I don't want to wait till the end. I want - everybody to be thinking. We need to be praying not just for safety, but we want to be praying most of all, yes for safety, yes for peace, security, but peace with God, right? It's not just geopolitical peace. Often, God lets geopolitical peace be removed for a while so that people will turn to God and say, "I need peace with You. I'm at war with You. I'm not paying attention, or I'm actually aggressively against You and I need to repent. I need to turn around. I need to change. I need You to help me to change." You can't just repent. You have to repent and say yes to Jesus as the Messiah. This is God's plan, not just for Gentiles, but originally for Jews. And my people mostly don't see that, but this is part of what God is doing.
The word says in the scriptures, I believe it's in a Hosea, "I will shake Israel and all the nations," right? Why does he do that? To get our attention and focus us on Him and on his word, and ultimately on the Messiah, the Lord Jesus.
Carl:
You make a great point, Joel. I'm driving over here in the UK on the other side of the road and I have one of those new rental cars that the wheel shakes when you hit the line between the lanes. And if you don't signal, if you're not prepared for it, it shakes. It gets your attention. Of course, it's doubly scary when you're realizing that cars are heading at you from the other side of the road. But I think God shaking Israel, it's too soon and perhaps not sensitive enough to say that this is the reason. But certainly, God uses these tragedies in our individual lives and certainly in a national way to gain attention for what's really at stake here. What really is at stake here are the spiritual souls of millions of Israelis and Arabs for that matter as well. Anyone who doesn't have a personal relationship with Jesus as a living God, it's going to be a much, much worse fate for them. And so shaking is a good, apt description perhaps for this.
Joel:
And I'm glad you brought up our need to pray for the Palestinians. Look, there's about 2 million Palestinians that live in the Gaza Strip. It's one of the most densely populated areas in the world. You've actually been there. I have never been there because I would've had my head cut off. Fortunately, you as a Gentile Christian, going with somebody who was very much trusted as a Christian, Brother Andrew, to meet with leaders in Gaza were allowed. But I will say that the 2 million Palestinians, the vast majority are Muslims. They are living under tyranny, but it's not Israel. This is an important point. Israel doesn't occupy the Gaza Strip. Israel's prime minister in 2005, Ariel Sharon, withdrew all Israeli settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005 and gave all of the Gaza Strip back to the Palestinians and said, "You can have it. We don't want it. It's yours as a gift. We just want to live at peace with you." But what happened? The terrorist organization, Hamas, took over in 2006 just the next year, and now Palestinians are living under a horrific reign of terror, not Israel. It's by a Palestinian terror group named Hamas. And so we need to pray for all the Hamas leaders to come to faith in Jesus. I know one who did. He's been to my home. And it's a very interesting story, but the people. The people are being shaken also. And God loves them also. He loves the people on both sides and wants both sides to know him.
So as we pray, I don't want us to pray simplistic just for geopolitical peace. Yes, for that. But we want to pray that something spiritual and eternal is happening both in Jewish hearts and in Muslim hearts. And I would also add at this point, we can talk more in a few moments, but I just want to say, I want to encourage people who are listening to this podcast to make a financial contribution to the Joshua Fund. The Joshua Fund provides humanitarian relief. We have staff on the ground here. We thank God all of them are safe. But we encourage the local believers, they're the ones that do the humanitarian relief. They're the ones that encourage and train pastors, and we bring others of course, to do that as well.
And of course, through this podcast and other projects, we educate people in all of the world who don't live here or aren't going to be able to visit or even if they wanted to visit, they're like, "All right. Mm, not today." We get that. And that's why we do this podcast. That's why we do all Israel news and all Arab news and the Rosenberg reports help people understand what's happening and then have not just a two-minute news soundbite on the ABC evening news, World News Tonight or whatever, but to hear Christians who know the situation say, "Well, what's really happening and how can we be involved?" And I just want to encourage people, we talk about here at Joshua Fund, learn, pray, give, and go. So as you're learning through this podcast what's happening, why it's happening, what the implications are, how scared Israelis and Palestinians are, Palestinians are living in... they don't really have bomb shelters, but they're living in their basements and they're terrified right now by what's happening.
As you learn more, we want you to be able to feel more equipped to know how to pray more precisely. And as you become invested in praying for people's souls and their spirits and their bodies for healing and so forth, the Lord may very well stir you. Hey, you can do more. You could financially help the Joshua Fund help be a blessing to both Israelis and Palestinians, and to educate more people to learn, pray, give, and go. We won't talk about go right now because this is not a time to come here, but this too shall pass. I've been through this many times. This is the worst I've seen in my 35 years of traveling here, and much less than nine years that we've lived here. So we're not focusing on the going right now.
But learning, praying and giving is a very important part of how to not just be a bystander, not just an observer up in the bleachers, but say, "Lord, how can I help?" And the Joshua knows how to help. We have people on the ground, even if they close all the airports and turn off all the planes, we're all here and we make a difference.
Carl:
And Joel, I so appreciate you mentioning that and the fact that there are implications globally, geopolitically for what's going on, but there's also real spiritual implications here, and there's a very practical need for people and having boots on the ground, so to speak, in Israel during the midst of this, to be responding to needs that our partners are bringing to us and to having the resources to do that, it's one of the most special parts of working with the Joshua Fund. I was with a church here in England today, and I was so moved when the pastor actually spoke about how to pray for Israel, how to pray for the very things we've been talking about.
And he also mentioned, he said, "Please talk with us, he meant his staff and the church, "about where to send your money." Because there's probably dozens of places right now where you could send funds. But to know that the Joshua Fund is there, it's got hands and feet on the ground, and it's actually encouraging our partners' ministries through these resources, it's really important.
Joel, how about some final comments as we have to draw this podcast to a close pretty soon here. What are some things that we should be praying for? What are some things that Christians, again, can be doing besides praying and also maybe some of the things that we can be looking to the scriptures for in the days ahead?
Joel:
Yeah. Well, the first thing is I think the scriptures are clear that we're not supposed to fear. That's one thing to say that. But I have our oldest son and his wife and her brother are all here visiting us here in Israel this past week. First, we actually went to Cairo for a few days. They wanted to see Egypt. We climbed inside pyramids. We took a boat ride on the Nile. We need to do a Joshua Fund trip to Egypt. And it was so fasc- we saw mummies, we saw King Tut, his tomb and whatever, the gold. It was fascinating. And so then we brought them here. And of course, Caleb lived here when we moved here. And he lived here for several years, worked for a media ministry here, but then went home to marry Rachel, his college sweetheart.
So all that to say, his wife and her brother, they had never been here to Egypt or to Israel. So they've been here. We took them going from Cairo up to the Syrian border. We took them into the Hezekiahs tunnel in Jerusalem, and we did everything, Caesarea. And now they're like, "Wow, you're really giving us the full experience," because the day they were going to leave, suddenly this war breaks out and their flight is canceled and almost every flight is canceled. And now, we feel terrible for them, although as parents, we're kind of happy, not by the war, but we're getting to spend a couple extra days with them.
Just yesterday as we were recording this, yesterday was the day one of the war, eight times we had to run to the bomb shelter in our home as the sirens are going off. They'd never experienced bomb shelters. They'd never experienced emergency sirens going off. And they've certainly had never heard big booms and the apartment rattling as the Iron Dome anti rocket system takes out the rockets heading to kill us all here in Jerusalem and intercepts them over Jerusalem. Lynn and I are, I don't want to say getting used to it, but we have nine years of experience. Plus all the years of the Joshua Fund, was 17 years, and then I've been traveling here for 35 years. But it injects fear. No matter how experienced you are, it is not normal.
And then you think, "Well, what else is going to happen?" Right? And nobody was on the roads. I had to go to do some TV interviews yesterday. CBN, TBN, nobody was on the roads. It was just a ghost town in Jerusalem, our capital.
Joel:
Like just a ghost town in Jerusalem, our capital. But the Bible tells us not to fear, but really fear is a very normal human emotion. And we have to turn to the Lord and remember that he keeps in perfect peace. Him and her who keep our minds stayed on Him, on the Lord, on his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, because we trust in him, right? That verse is so great, the verse of the day, but it's not always easy to live, as we've all experienced. So even the disciples, they felt fear and they were with Jesus physically. So I think we got to focus on praying that people here, especially the believers, don't experience fear. We have to remember that most young able-bodied men are being mobilized to go into the reserves to fight or to guard different sections of the country.
Most of the young men I know, including as we mentioned, our newest staff are on the Joshua Fund, he called me to say, I'll try to help as much as I can from the... I said, no, the whole job is reversed. I'm here to help you. Lynn and I are here to help you. We're going to be in touch with your wife and your children and anything they need, you should not think about us at all. If you want to send us an update, how we can pray for you, what you need, do that. But we are now your servants. We're now your employees. How do we help you? So I just want to help people see the reality of this. And then again, we've got a new tour group, a whole tour group of Christian business leaders, and their wives came to Israel. They landed Saturday morning.
They had been planning this trip for five years. The first time they had to cancel it because of Covid. So they rescheduled for the next year. The next year they had to cancel it because of Covid. The next year, one of the wives who was organizing the whole trip got cancer and she passed away. This is their fourth time, and now they arrive, and the whole country is up in smoke. So I just give these some examples. It makes it personal. You have a sense of what's really happening, but we are not supposed to live by fear. But the more we as Christians understand what Israelis and Palestinians are going through, it helps us to learn and to pray and to give. And again, not to go right now, but there will be a time, and we won't bring you over here if it's not safe.
But I want people to hear that because, look, it's not inexpensive to do the work that the Joshua Fund does, and All Israel News does, and Joshua Fund is a big investor in All Israel News and All Arab News. But I want people to hear, this is one of those moments in Israeli history that's actually breaking through to America, Canada, and the rest of the world. We're getting emails, text messages, WhatsApp messages from all over the world, people worried for us, and how is it going? And we are praying for you. This is cutting through because it's so big. And even though it's so bad that it's so big, the good news is it shows why the Joshua Fund exists, why All Israel News and All Arab News exist. Because we exist for the in-between times. But there are moments when believers have to be here and stand, not from a distance, but with our brothers and sisters in the land going through it with them.
And we need to be able to minister to them. And there are going to be massive new needs and massive new expenses, including, I'll just add this one other thing. The media bias. It's bad already. The New York Times led with a story Saturday talking about Hamas militants. They're not militants, they're bloodthirsty terrorists, just get the language right. And you've got a lot of governments worldwide saying, hey, we need to deescalate the tensions. So the next time a mass shooter comes into your elementary school in your hometown, are you going to tell the police, the SWAT team, hey, hey, both sides need to deescalate. That's insane. Our job is to protect the lives of men, women, children from bloodthirsty terrorists, not to deescalate. No, we are supposed to escalate until we get the situation under control.
Carl:
Sure.
Joel:
That language is going to start to seep in, and we're going to start seeing the BBC and NBC and CNN and MSNBC. They're all going to buy that language, that nonsense, that media bias is more important to Hamas than even death. They want to kill Israelis. They want to kill Jews, but they want the world's media to turn against us, so that the rest of the world goes, well, I don't want to have anything to do with Israel. We should isolate them, not encourage them. And those are multiple reasons why the Joshua Fund, in terms of day-to-day, humanitarian leave, caring for the church, strengthen the church, and All Israel News, All Arab News. That's why we exist, because we're fighting a multi-front war. And this war is going to highlight all the needs and all the threats all at once. And so I hope people will not only listen to the podcast, but share it on social media and encourage people, not just to listen to it, but listen to it again. Because there's a lot that we're saying here that you might be really processing for the first time.
And our prayers and financial support are really important. And I just want to say thank you to everybody for standing with us at a critical time. It's critical for Israel and her neighbors
Carl:
Well, and Joel, I would also say it's so important for people to listen to you in many formats. This podcast, of course, the Rosenberg report on TBN, where you did a very special broadcast last night from Jerusalem, and also your books, the Jerusalem Assassin. You brought it to mind. I remember that. And now when you actually say that, it's exactly the circumstances that we're facing right now that bring about so many of those things. And again, your insight into where we are right now and where we may be in the days ahead is profoundly helpful. And it's helpful to the Joshua Fund for us to be able to come alongside in the midst of these crises, helping our brothers and sisters there in Israel, and to bless Israel at this crucial time.
And I want to thank you for making a point both on your television program and on your interviews to talk about the work of the Joshua Fund in that way, because it has real world in implications when people do support what God's called you and Lynn to found, and what God calls us to do every day, to bless Israel and her neighbors. So again, on behalf of us at Joshua Fund, Joel, I want to thank you for standing in the gap informationally, and helping us understand and interpret these really troubling and confusing times, especially.
Joel:
Thank you, Carl. I appreciate everything you're doing to keep the team moving day-by-day. And I want to thank the Joshua Fund board. They called a prayer meeting online, I think it was 8:30 US Eastern time over the night. It was 3:30 in the morning here. I had done eight interviews, and I'd been dealing with people all day through the war, but Lynn decided, no, she needed to get up. I had more interviews to do all today. So my job in the ministry is mostly the external facing explaining to the rest of the world. And tomorrow I'll be on CNBC, I'll be on Newsmax. Just many, many interviews coming in.
Carl:
Sure.
Joel:
But I was glad that Lynn was able to get up in the middle of the night and just be with the team, praying together. This is a spiritual battle, mostly, and it's only going to be won on our knees. So I'm grateful that Joshua Fund doesn't just talk the talk, but really was willing to stay up in the middle of the night and pray. And so thank you and your team and the whole-
Carl:
Well, we're calling people to pray. And in fact, our rapid relief fund that we've just put together for this very purpose has two phrases that are behind it. One is, pray for peace, provide critical aid. That's exactly what we're called to do at the Joshua Fund. And again, thank you for your support, Joel, and thanks to our listeners for spending some time with us on this unique and special and important podcast. And if you'd like to learn more about the Joshua Fund, you can visit our website at thejoshuafund.com. And here you can learn about our rapid relief fund and to assist and bless Israel and the various other things that we're doing around the region. This work is so important. Joel mentioned about healing work that we're doing in this critical region. God is always going to heal when we turn to him, and it's really important for you, our listeners, to remember.
If you want to be participants in the healing work that we're doing in this region, just come to our website. And, of course, anything you heard on the program that you'd like more information on, you can find in our show notes. We'd love to keep you informed and keep you praying for what God is doing in the region and for the situation as it's unfolding minute-by-minute. So stay tuned to the Rosenberg report, to All Israel News and also to joshuafund.com for more that you can be participating in. On behalf of Joel Rosenberg and all of the team at the Joshua Fund, I'm Carl Moeller. Thanks for listening to this episode of Inside the Epicenter.
