Sid: The Complete dwelling place for God, that’s what God’s up to right now, that’s why He’s supernaturally revealing Himself to Jews and Muslims worldwide.  We are in the last of the last days and that’s why I’m so excited about my guest, Joel Richardson because he has received what Daniel talks about when he says the scroll or the scriptures will not be understood until the time of the end. Its Supernatural.  And he has the easiest understood teaching of end times and in fact the 3 DVDs series is called “Islam and End times.”  People that hear this ninety-nine percent of the people who have heard his explanation on the end times say, “It’s so Biblical it makes so much sense it’s exactly what Daniel said, we now understand the end times.”  Now on yesterday’s broadcast Joel, you said, “For us to watch Turkey,” why?

Joel: Well, we have to understand recent Middle Eastern history, Turkey for over 500 years ruled the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire is really the Empire that the Islamic Empire culminated with.  The Islamic Empire having existed from shortly after the death of Muhammad, the founder of Islam for roughly 140,000 years and again it culminated with the rule of Turkey of the Middle East.  And the Bible prophecies that in the last days this Empire would be revived, the Bible says that this empire that it would essentially suffer a fatal head wound and that it would come back.  This is the beast of Revelation 13; many people believe this is the actual anti-Christ and it very well may be the anti-Christ, but we need to understand that the beast of Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 are first and foremost speaking of the empires Sid Roth.  So the Bible says that this Empire, this anti-Semitic anti-Christ empire that ruled the Middle East would suffer head wounds and come back.  And in 1924 the secular reformer Mustafa Caramel out of Turk he abolished the Islamic Empire, he abolished the office of the Caliph.  This is like the Pope of Islam, today throughout the Islamic world there is a cry for the reestablishment of the Caliphet and all of the nations that were once members of this empire are now reuniting and coming together and they’re crying out for the reestablishment of the Neo-Ottoman Empire throughout the Middle East.  And amazingly Sid, you know I’ve been talking about this and drawing out the scriptures that show these things.  I recently just read a letter that was sent to the leaders of the Turkish government, the president and the Prime Minister that was sent by a Rabbi Menachem Froman.  He’s one of the more prominent Hasidic Rabbis in Israel, he’s the leader of the Deco Movement Settlement and he literally is calling for a Neo-Ottoman Empire.  Believe it or not this religious rabbi has expressed that he would rather live under a Muslim government then a secular Jewish government.

Sid: And maybe you can explain something to me since we see that Turkey will be such a major end-time player; maybe even where the anti-Christ emerges from.  Why is it that the United States of America is so heavily invested in Turkey?  I mean we send them fighter jets; we sent them weapons; we have bases there.  Do you see any tie in with that in the end-times.

Joel: Well, absolutely.  We need to understand that when the Anti-Christ first emerges on the scene he comes as the trusted mediator.  He comes as a bridge builder; he is able to mediate a covenant or a peace treaty between Israel and the surrounding nations.  So the anti-Christ is trusted by both sides; he has a measure of political capital that he’s able to pull something like this off that Bush and all of these former Presidents have not been able to do.  The Anti-Christ comes along, he is the mediator of the covenant, three and half years into the covenant he reveals his true nature.  Turkey today is clearly geographically and in every other way a perfect ideal candidate to be the mediator between Israel and Middle East.  And even when we look at Menachem Froman letter that I just spoke of, he repeated speaks of Turkey as the only salvation, the only means to achieve peace between the Jews and the Palestinians.  And he speaks about them about them being a perfect mediator nation.  Turkey has been working through Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey to mediate everything in the Middle East over the past few years.  Every time that there’s a conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan Turkey is there to mediate.

Sid: Well, I’m beginning to see why you say “Keep your eyes on Turkey.” Now, another thing that I find fascinating is you’ve lived in the Middle East, you’ve had a great deal of relationship with the Muslim people; you’ve studied Islam.  And you’ve seen such amazing similarities between what Christianity calls the anti-Christ; and what Islam describes as their messiah or Mahadee. – Its Supernatural.

Joel: The Bible teaches that in the last days this charismatic world religious political leader would emerge and he would revive an empire and then he would then lead this empire to invade the land of Israel where he would try to set up an eventually would succeed in setting up his seat of authority on the Temple Mount where he would try to rule the world with his one world religion from the Temple Mount.  And the Bible says that he will have seven years to accomplish all of these things before Jesus returns; this is what the Bible teaches.  Islam teaches that at the end of the age their messiah figure known as the Mahadee that he would come; that he would revive the Islamic Empire; that he would be the governor of all of Islam the religious, political, military leader of the whole Islamic world; that he would then lead the Islamic world in an invasion of the land of Israel; he would kill Jews.  And literally, sacred Islamic tradition teaches, that the Mahadee would set up his seat of authority on the Temple Mount where he would cause the whole world to submit to Islam and Islamic sacred tradition teaches that the Mahadee would rule for a period of seven years.  The two stories are identical; Islam has taken the Biblical Anti-Christ, it’s flipped the story on its head and it’s made him into there savior.

Sid: That is absolutely amazing, do I dare ask you, has God revealed to you the timing of the rapture?

Joel: Well, personally I believe that with regard to the rapture, we need to take the attitude that says this, hope for the best, prepare for the worst; I believe this is wisdom for all of life.  Certainly, there is a lot of debate within theological communities, pre- trib, post- trib; again my approach, is hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Sid: Sell out to Jesus, and you’ll have a pan trib, it’ll all pan out.

Joel: Well, yeah, yeah you know fix your eyes on Christ and that’s all we can do.

Sid: Final thoughts?

Joel: Again, many Christians thinks it’s wonderful that Islam teaches that Jesus Christ will return and they do; but what we need to realize is that Muslims teach that when Jesus returns he comes back not as the Jesus of the Bible, he comes back as a Muslim prophet and he literally abolishes Christianity.  He tells Christians that they’ve had it wrong all along, he never claimed to be the Son of God, their Bible has been corrupted; they’ve been deceived and then he literally slaughters Jews.  The Jesus of Islam in the end times is the very antithesis of the Jesus of the Bible, according to Islam Jesus comes back to abolish Christianity and to kill Jews.  Christians need to recognize that Muslims have been set up and when we pray for Muslims we need to say, “Lord, you saved me, you opened my eyes, you touched me, now these that are so deeply bound by deception, do for them what you did for us; have mercy on Muslims today; open their eyes and raise up a million mighty evangelists throughout the Islamic world who would be fearless that would go forth.  That you would have mercy on them even as you have had mercy on us because you are the God of mercy and we believe in your goodness.”

Sid: I’m interviewing Joel Richardson on … Islam and the end times and I see why this prophet pulled you out of 7000 people; told you things about yourself that only God could know and then said, that in the future God would give you revelation on the end times.  You probably didn’t have a clue of what he meant when he talked about that revelation or did you?

Joel: Well, the last thing in the world I would have believed was that I would be teaching on the end-times, it’s never been…I have always been a missions guy, I’ve been an evangelism guy; I’ve been given to reaching out to Muslims, reaching out to the poor.  And you know I did have a little bit of a cynical attitude in general towards the end-times because we’ve seen so many false predictions.  We’ve seen so many of these things, but as the Lord began opening these things up to me I recognized the church needs to be made aware of these things.

Sid Roth: And they will be open up to you…