WHO WILL CONTROL ISRAEL?

0:14All of us have heard many different things about Mashiach. I think the series that we have is a little bit different than most discussions about Mashiach because we're talking about the reality of the situation versus the illusion that many people have today, whether they be religious or secular. Many people think that if Mashiach, they say, comes today, tomorrow, you sometimes see these trucks from different organizations scream Mashiach now. Many people think that Mashiach will come today or tomorrow. You sometimes see these trucks from different organizations proclaiming, "Mashiach now!" And many times people end off either their speeches or their writings about, you know, "may Mashiach come today." And yes, that's all true. And part of our Ikkarei Emunah, the foundations of our belief, our 13 principles of faith, is that you have to believe that the Mashiach can come any day including tomorrow. And they say, "Wait a minute, but there's a prophecy in the prophets that must come three days before Mashiach. So how could it be that Mashiach can come tomorrow if he has to come three days beforehand? So that means at least minimum it should be three days from now."

1:16is that you have to believe that the Mashiach can come on any day, including tomorrow. And then someone might say, "Wait a minute, but there's a prophecy in the prophets that Eliyahu HaNavi must come three days before Mashiach. So how could it be that Mashiach can come tomorrow if Eliyahu HaNavi has to come three days beforehand? So that means, at minimum, it should be three days from now." So, Chachamim discuss it in a few places, and they say, no, it's not necessarily a law that Eliyahu HaNavi must come three days before, but rather the law is that he has to come at the time of Mashiach, meaning that the Mashiach and Eliyahu HaNavi can come at the same time. One day you have, okay, Mashiach's here, Eliyahu HaNavi is introducing him. There you go, Rabotai, it's Mashiach. That's it, finished. Now, if that was it, all of us would probably start putting some posters on our own cars, saying "Mashiach now." If somebody could just show up one day and fix all of our problems, pay all of our debt, fix all of our marriages, fix all of our different mental issues, drug issues, and all types of problems that people have, because people think that Mashiach is like the Social Security Office, welfare, or some other government division that hasn't been born yet. If that was it, all of us would probably start putting some posters on our own cars saying, "Mashiach now." If that was it, if somebody could just show up one day and fix all of our problems—pay all of our debts, fix all of our marriages, fix all of our different mental issues, drug issues, all types of problems that people have—because people think that Mashiach is like the Social Security office, welfare, and some other government division that hasn’t been born yet.

2:43You know, people think he's going to fix everybody's problems. So let's, if that was it, we'd all cheer, "Oh, Mashiach now." But the truth is, if you look at it in the Gemara, Masechet Sanhedrin, the Chachamim, the greatest Chachamim we ever had, were scared to death to live at the time of Mashiach. Why? Because there is a prophecy in Sefer Yechezkel, chapter 38, Sefer Zechariah chapter 14 and also in Yeshayah and several other places indicate that before Mashiach comes, there are going to be birth pangs, meaning a lot of pain that will happen in the world, including for Am Yisrael, which will precede the actual arrival of Mashiach, and even at the time of Mashiach itself. where there will be a major war, and one of the things that confused many is that in one place it says that Edom and Yishmael are going to go to war. Then, after they go to war and destroy each other, they're going to stop and realize, wait a minute, it's all of

4:05Israel's fault, and both of them together are going to attack Eretz Yisrael. In one case, it says that Yishmael is going to take over; he's going to take over Israel for nine months, meaning Eretz Yisrael will be under the control of the Arabs for nine months. But in another case, Chachamim say that Yishmael will take control of Israel from Edom. If you look at society today, Baruch Hashem, Israel is not run by Edom, or at least that's what we think. So what's the havana here? What we understand here is that before Yishmael takes over, Israel takes control for nine months, Edom will take control for a year. Christians will take over Israel for a year. Now, if you were to say this 15-20 years ago, you know, with the situation being what it was, people would say, "No, why? We have freedom. We're friends with the Americans. There's no reason for us to fear that they're gonna take over." But today, seeing the streets of Israel full of missionaries, Christian missionaries, breaking the law but in the open without a care in the world because apparently a few people are getting paid to allow the Christians to break the law freely. Imagine somebody gave you a ticket that nobody knew about but you knew about it, and no one can do anything about it, to pretty much break the law and do whatever you want. You could rob a bank; you could kill people; you could do whatever you want. Imagine such a ticket—the whole world will turn into chaos.

5:26breaking the law, but in the open without a care in the world because apparently a few people are getting paid to allow the Christians to break the law freely. Imagine somebody gave you a ticket that nobody knew about, but you knew about it, and no one can do anything about it to pretty much break the law and do whatever you want. You could rob a bank, you could kill people, you could do whatever you want. Imagine such a ticket. The whole world will turn into a vote. Well, that's actually what's happening in Israel, where the Christians, for the first time in history, for the first time in history, are missionizing in the streets of Eretz Yisrael openly. Openly. And according to the constitution, it's illegal. According to the Israeli constitution, it's illegal for Christians to missionize. But they're opening churches left and right. They're missionizing left and right. They even had a Christian missionary TV station for a little bit until it got shut down. God only knows what will happen, if it will go back or not, depending on how much money is involved, apparently. But it was a big contract.

6:32But the point is that you have many organizations, Christian missionary organizations being born and bred in Israel by Israelis as we speak. And unfortunately, this is hurting the Jewish world in a very big way, but it's not really paid enough attention. because most of the secular people either care less or some of them are looking for a way out of the Jewish religion altogether. So Christianity is a good fit for some of them because they don't know anything about Torah. So they figure, listen, I can feel religious but do nothing anyway, which is what Christianity is. You feel religious but you do nothing. So, for the secular people, you can't really expect them to defend Judaism. And for the religious people, unfortunately, the religious people are in a coma.

7:32in a spiritual coma when it comes to doing any type of anti-missionary work or even kiruv altogether. Many of them simply care less about it. Of course, there are many that do care, which is how, Baruch Hashem, we and many other organizations are able to continue with their donations and support and so on, but it's a relatively minor A small minority of them actually care enough about helping Am Yisrael do teshuvah because many of them feel like, listen, the secular people are not doing teshuvah because they don't want to, not because they're ignorant. And the religious people that are off today, okay, they chose otherwise; there's nothing you can do. It's almost like they figure, to each their own. So now that you have a... attack on the primary target, which is Israel, by Edom, by the Christians. You can see how this could culminate in a desire for total control. Because the war at the end is not going to be a war for money. It's not going to be a war for just territory. It's going to be a spiritual war. It's going to be based on religion. It's a religious war.

8:50So that's the big thing. None of the trucks driving in the streets saying "Mashiach Now" are showing you pictures of Gog and Magog or anything. None of them are showing you that there's going to be some spiritual war between the Christians and the Jews and the Arabs. None of them are showing you that. And the reason why is because... some people are ignorant of it, and some people are choosing to remain ignorant of it, thinking that since we already went through the Holocaust, Gog u’Magog is already behind us. But no Gadol's opinion is that. Not a single Gadol, not a single sage, in the last hundred years almost, has said that the Holocaust was Gog u’Magog. In fact, Many who have discussed Gog and Magog in the last few hundred years had clear Ruach HaKodesh, near prophecy, when they discussed it, when they said that Gog and Magog will be a three-part war. A three-part war, I believe, three or four, three-part war. And we see, in essence, how World War I, World War II, and unfortunately, what's coming.

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