Sid: I have Joel Rosenberg on the telephone speaking to him at his home in Washington D.C. If you’re not familiar with Joel he wrote the book “The Last Jihad” which spent 11 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. It was number 1 on Amazon; he’s got his last 2 books over a million in print. Some of the quotes are absolutely amazing about this book. Here let me read about what people say about his book. Sean Hannity said “Riveting to the point you can’t put it down. A heart pounding edge of your seat, rollercoaster ride, so intertwined with modern events it’s scary.” US News and World Report says “Rosenberg is a modern Nostradamus.” News Max says “Eerily prophetic.” See these are secular people and they don’t understand why he has, if you will, such insight into the future. They don’t understand that Joel, just like me, is a Messianic Jew, a Jewish believer in Jesus. I’ve interviewed him on his previous book, but Joel your new book it intrigues me so much it is called the “The Ezekiel Option.” What is it based on in scripture?
Joel: It’s based on Ezekiel chapter 38 and 39, what many believers call the “War of Gog and Magog.” It really is a prophecy that I learned about almost 15 years ago, and as a Jewish believer in Jesus and whose family escaped out of Russia and who’s had a heart for Israel for so long, and I’ve worked for a number of Israeli leaders. I was intrigued, just always fascinated with the idea that Russia and Iran would one day form an alliance and build a coalition to come to attack Israel, in what Ezekiel says specifically is the last days. Just over the years of just kind of studying that in my political professional life I just always kept an eye out for what was happening.
Sid: One of the reasons your book became a bestseller is some of these great talk show radio hosts saw that you were predicting things before they happened in your previous books. As a matter of fact, I don’t have this in front of me but you just got a quote on your latest book which is called “The Ezekiel Option” by Rush Limbaugh. Would you read that to me please?
Joel: Sure. Yeah he just sent us the book, just sent me this wonderful quote he’s very kind. He said “If you only read one novel this year this is it. The Ezekiel Option is brilliantly conceived and flawlessly executed. One of the most exciting political thrillers I have ever read. I literally could not put it down it’s like an episode of 24 with a supernatural twist. Rosenberg has become one of the most entertaining and thought provoking novelist of our day. Regardless of your political view you’ve got to read his stuff.”
Sid: Now since I have your book right here in my hands and I know what you have written, you did something in this book that you have never done before. Which excites me to no end; there is such a strong Christian witness in this secular book. How did you have the chutzpah to do this?
Joel: Well that’s a good question Sid. A lot of prayer… look in many ways the first 2 novels “The Last Jihad” and the “The Last Days” were straight political thrillers about Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat with the gospel woven throughout. That was my point was to write a thriller that would draw people to Christ where the spiritual temperature would go up. This book really takes that to the next level; there was a fear I had when I was writing it that this means perhaps this is definitely the end of my political career.
Sid: [Laughing]
Joel: You know that’s a choice I had to make was I going to write books to try to really reach people for Christ, or was I still keeping a door open to working with political leaders…
Sid: That’s always the choice people will have to make.
Joel: Yeah that’s right. I have to tell you something that every time I’ve gotten nervous about whether I should be bold in sharing my faith either in meeting interviews, speeches, or in my novels. My wife has always said “Look Joel you can’t just build bridges you have to cross them.” I have had a good career by God’s good grace of building a lot of bridges with political leaders including in Israel…
Sid: As a matter of fact for those who didn’t hear our first interview. You were involved in strategizing with Netanyahu.
Joel: Right.
Sid: And who I think will be the next Prime Minister of Israel. What do you think?
Joel: I think that’s true and it could happen before the end of this year or early next.
Sid: So you’ve had a very successful political career not to mention the outrageous success, it is outrageous! Did you ever in your wildest imagination Joel think that you’d have a book for 11 weeks would be on the New York Times Best Seller list?
Joel: No not at all.
Sid: I mean you have a million books between the 2 in print. That’s a lot of books.
Joel: It is. Look my career was always behind the scenes working with Rush Limbaugh, Steve Forbes, or Netanyahu, or former Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky whose book on democracy became such a hit in the Bush Whitehouse with the president himself. This is my career, it’s always been behind the scenes helping other people shape and communicate their message. I felt a few years ago that the Lord was saying “Hey I have a message. Why don’t you help me communicate this?”
Sid: So Joel just briefly what’s the premise of this new book “The Ezekiel Option?”
Joel: The premise is that with Saddam Hussein out of the picture and Yasser Arafat out of the picture the American president is pressuring Israel to make a final peace deal with the Palestinians.
Sid: Boy that sounds familiar I’ve read that before! But go ahead.
Joel: That’s right. AND just as John Bennett and Aaron McCoy the 2 senior advisers to the president feel like they’re just about to get this deal set suddenly a dictator starts rising in Russia and building a nuclear alliance with Iran. This dictator in Russia comes to the United Nations general assembly in September. He gives a speech in which he says “Look the United States and Russia have had disagreements over the years on many issues, but one of the issues we agree on is our concern over weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.” Now this dictator says that “We disagreed with how the United States handled the situation with Iraq, but if that’s the standard then we must apply the exact same standard towards Israel who also has not just weapons of mass destruction but nuclear weapons.” So this gentleman new leader, fascist leader of Russia basically lays down this assertion “Israel has 30 days to dismantle their weapons of mass destruction, or face an international coalition that will destroy them, just like the United States built a coalition to destroy Iraq.”
Sid: Boy that’s a real Catch-22 Israel would be in big trouble if they disarmed.
Joel: Israel would be in big trouble it’s the worst case scenario for them… it’s also a very difficult situation for an American president, even a friend of Israel, even an evangelical would have a very hard time in this current political environment. Imagine if this happened right now…
Sid: By the way, you have also a premise in your book which I have seen for years, and I don’t know if you realize how prophetic you are. You talk about a big find of oil in the Middle East in Israel.
Joel: Yeah. Well that’s beginning to happen…
Sid: I know! I mean it’s so… He let me tell you something else speaking of oil, and I’m talking about the oil of the Holy Spirit. I know you just got back from Israel, but I also just got back from Israel last month. I rented 2 secular auditoriums, and they were jam packed with unsaved Israelis over 50, listen to this Joel, in 2 nights over 50 Israelis just didn’t make weak little decisions, made first time bold decisions that Jesus is the Messiah.
Joel: Wow!
Sid: Do you realize in 2 nights 50 Israelis?
Joel: That’s amazing.
Sid: This is to me indicative of the times we’re living in. Just as God had me got to Israel I know that God had you write this book “The Ezekiel Option.” I believe there are people listening to us right now Joel. There’s a wife listening that is trying to get her husband saved and I can’t think of any better way than buying this book for a husband. By the way, I understand that when you went to Israel about the same time as I did, you also saw a real move among Jewish people coming to the Lord.
Joel: I did. You know one of the things I asked… we met with about a dozen different evangelical leaders there, Jewish believers. I asked a number of them, when I was born in 1967 how many Israeli believers in Jesus were there? They said probably 5 or 6. Worldwide they said there was probably less than 200 Jewish believers in Jesus on the planet in 1967. In Israel today they estimate there’s between 7 – 10,000 Jewish believers in Jesus, and worldwide the numbers range from 60,000 to north of 100,000 but if you say 80 – 100,000 that’s extraordinary what’s happened just since 38 years that I’ve been on this earth. I think this is just the beginning. I think this is evidence… remember what Jesus said in Matthew 23:39 He said to the people of Israel “You will not see me again until you say ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
Sid: You know Joel I did something so different when I went to Israel and God blessed it, and that’s what you are doing with your book.
