Olivier is the Northwest regional director of Chosen People Ministries and serves on the board of directors on Chosen People France. He’s also an author, speaker, and expert on the topic of anit-semitism in relation to Bible prophecy. Listen in as we discuss the scriptural relevance of anti-semitism in the world today.

Learn more about Olivier at OlivierMelnick.com

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Transcript

Todd: Hey, Todd here, and you’re listening to the Prophecy Pros Podcast on the Edifi Podcast Network. Our guest today, Olivier Melnick, is the Northwest regional director of Chosen People Ministries, and he serves on the board of directors for Chosen People France. He’s an author and a speaker and a personal friend of ours. He’s an expert on the topic of antisemitism and Bible prophecy and how they intersect. Olivier, welcome to the Prophecy Pros Podcast.

Olivier: Thank you, Todd and Jeff. I’m very happy to join you today.

Todd: We really appreciate your time, brother. We’ve been looking forward to this. And most of our listeners probably have never heard of you before. So if you could, why don’t you to tell a little bit about you and your ministry and your background and that kind of thing?

Olivier: I was born and raised in Paris, France in a Jewish family. My parents who are both gone now were war and Holocaust survivors. My mother actually was hidden in the South of France on a farm as a catholic girl during the last two years of the war. So I was brought up in a Jewish family but not really religious because as many Jews during the war, my parents lost any shred of faith in any kind of God after the Holocaust. So I was brought up Jewish but not religious.

Moved to the United States after I got married to my American wive who led me to the Lord in 1985, by scaring me about the rapture and telling me that we would be separated if she was taken. And I thought this was crazy, but I believed. In 1983, she led me to the Lord in the summer of 1983. Came back to the States and started getting involved in church, bible studies, joined different ministries as a lay person. And eventually in 1998, we joined Chosen People Ministries, and we’ve been with them for almost 23 years now. And I currently, like you said, serve in the Northwest.

I do a lot of travel, a lot of speaking on the topic of antisemitism. Started doing that in about 2000 and have written a civil books on the topic and many, many articles. And this is not a topic that I’ve chosen, this is a topic that God has kind of put on my lap. It gets very draining, very difficult to deal with this on a daily basis. But not that many people that are Jewish, who are believers in Yeshua, Jesus, do this. So, I keep doing it until God tells me that I’m going to have to do something else.

Jeff: Amen. Well, Olivier, I first met you at a prophecy conference here about a year ago I think it was. Our tables were beside one another, and you gave me a copy of your book, End Times AntiSemitism: A New Chapter in the Longest Hatred. Brought that book home, I set it in my stack of books to read. And then I started writing a book, one of my books, and one of my chapters deals with antisemitism. But I just want to tell you that I read your book from cover to cover and you did such an incredible job of categorizing all of the antisemitism really all the way from biblical times up until now.

And brother, you just did a fantastic job. I highly, highly recommended this book. I quote from you several times in my new book because you highlight the fact that there is a sub-current of antisemitism that has really run throughout history. Just speak on that for a second, and then tell us about how you see it on the rise right now in America with perhaps even some recent examples.

Olivier: Well, in the book, which is my second book on the topic, I felt it necessary to go through history and give people, give Christians a history of antisemitism. When you look at the history of the Jewish people, and I just started to teach a Bible study online on that topic two weeks ago, when you look at the history of Jewish people, it’s easy to say that the history of Jewish people has been punctuated by acts of antisemitism. You look at how we look at Jewish people, and it actually is not uncommon to speak of Jewish history as pre-Holocaust and post-Holocaust.

I wanted to document in that book the progression of antisemitism, which really started as theological anti-Judaism between the Christians and the Jews in the first couple of centuries after the closing of the Bible, closing of the Canon, the first, second century. And then it evolved and evolved and evolved to apex being the Holocaust. And then it morphed. I’m giving you a quick summary here, it morphed within 20 years, two decades after the Holocaust would become taboo. It was swept under the carpet. Early stages of political correctness so to speak.

Then it came out again, it never really died, it came out again, and it was rebranded and reborn as the new antisemitism where the victims became the perpetrators and the perpetrators became the victim, a big shift in the way people look at antisemitism today.

The bottom line is this friends, antisemitism is a creation of Satan who wants to destroy the Jews because he knows what’s happening at the end of times that God is going to use Israel for the return of Jesus, the Messiah.

Todd: Amen. And I echo what Jeff said, this book is amazing. It’s a topic that honestly, most Christians I know have never really studied in depth, and your book lays it all out concretely and in a way that’s, literally, once you start reading, it just sucks you in, you don’t want to put the book down. And I think Olivier, honestly, I think that book has a potential to wake a lot of modern day believers up to the fact that antisemitism is on the rise today and the role that it’s played throughout church history and even before that. And unfortunately, how even so-called Christians have done some horrific things in church history against God’s chosen people.

You hit on it a little bit, but where’s all that coming from both in terms of kind of an earthly view, what are the groups now that it’s rising from? Whether it’s Progressive’s and anarchists or Islamists or whatever, but also unpack a little bit more what you talked about with that ultimate source where antisemitism is coming from.

Olivier: I believe that Satan is a very, very astute theologian. He does not like what the Bible has to say, especially when it has to say about him. And he really, really does not look forward to his retirement plan. So what’s happening is that he knows from scripture, he knows from Matthew and he knows from Zechariah chapter 12 and 13, that when the Jewish people say [Hebrew], when they call up on the one whom they’ve pierced and say, blessed is you who comes in the name of the Lord, that Yeshua, Jesus is going to return. The second coming is triggered by Israel corporately saying, we missed you the first time, please come, and calling them the Messiah. And he knows that this is going to start a series of event in the end times, or actually that will be towards the end of the events of the tribulation, but it’s going to start the beginning of the end for Satan.

So he’s thinking in his narrow-minded mind that if he can stop the Jewish people from calling on Yeshua, then you will not come back, and then his career will go forever, even though he knows it’s not true. So he is the creator, he is the mastermind behind antisemitism. And what we’re seeing today, we’ve seen it throughout history, but we’ve seen it more today, and I would say more in the last 10 to 15 years, we see a tremendous irrationality. The word that I keep bringing up when I teach on the topic is that the current iteration of antisemitism is based on irrational thinking, because people are believing things that are completely irrational.

When you look at the two extremes of the people that are actually going against the Jews today, you could look at the liberal left and radical Islam. What’s amazing about those two is if you put a proponent of the radical left and a proponent of radical Islam in the same room, pretty much, they will agree on nothing except the destruction of Israel.

Jeff: It brings common ground to those two groups there. And it’s very interesting. Even recently, but since you’ve written this book, I mean, obviously there’s been many more incidences, but just in terms of kind of an undercurrent that’s going on, Olivier, like recently with the coronavirus, there were reports that, oh, Israel is to blame somehow for the coronavirus. And then they tried to blame the death of George Floyd on the Jews because turns out that the police departments were supposedly trained by IDF soldiers on take down techniques and arresting techniques. So it all goes back to the Jews. Blame the Jews has been this refrain that has been really parroted, like you said, not based on facts, but based on myth throughout the ages, but more recently.

So as we begin to ramp up to revelation, let’s think about this for a second, tell our listeners, because I think most people have not really thought about, even those familiar with Bible prophecy, thought about how Israeli centric the tribulation period is. So, what’s going to happen to Israel at the beginning of the tribulation, and just take us through just an overview of how that affects the Jewish people?

Olivier: I think what’s interesting on top of that, Jeff, is the fact that we are seeing right now some things taking place in the middle East. And I’m a very conservative Bible students so I really don’t like to have to backpedal, so I don’t make statements. I’m careful that way. But what I see with the middle East peace process right now, the peace that’s being signed between Bahrain and United Arab Emirates and possibly Saudi Arabia soon, and whatever other country that is untold but we knew is coming, is that it is setting the stage in Israel for Israel to drop her guard down because it’s like, now the Arab world all of a sudden is concerting together to say, hey, you know what, after all, the Jews are really not the problem, and we can get along, we don’t have to be enemies anymore.

So this is setting the stage for this person that Jeff knows very well, not personally.

Jeff: Barely.

Olivier: Right, right, right. Exactly. Which is very funny because I’m in the process of writing a paper for Dallas Seminary right now on the person of the antichrist in Daniel. So, this is very fresh in my mind. But the antichrist is going to come, this person who is against Israel, he wants to replace Jesus and he wants to, he’s against Jesus and he wants to take his place, and he’s going to sign a covenant with Israel. So we’re looking at the seven year tribulation, he’s going to sign a covenant at the beginning of the tribulation and then break that covenant and make life, miserable is not even the word to use, basically bring death and destruction to whoever is left behind.
Now, I’m a [inaudible] pre-trib, I believe that we’ll be gone during the rapture, before that. But the antichrist is going to do whatever he can to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. But first, that covenant has to be signed, which means that also a temple is going to be rebuilt. I’ve been to Israel many times. You go to the temple, they’re ready, they’ve got everything except for maybe the red heifer or the ashes of the red heifer. They’re ready to rebuild. And that temple is not condoned by God but it has to be rebuilt because the antichrist is going to desecrate it and call himself God. And in the process, he is determined to destroy the Jewish people.

So there’s going to be a tremendous hardship against Israel during the tribulation. But there’s also, and I don’t know if you want me to go any further on that, but there’s also a very interesting passage in Matthew about the sheep and the goats. I find this to be very encouraging, to know that there will be people that will go through the terrible time of the tribulation but that will actually go out of their way to help Jewish people. And that’s not what’s going to get them saved because what gets them saved is by faith only, in Yeshua only. But because they are saved, they’re going to see that God has a special place for the Jews and they will go out of their way to help the Jews during the tribulation. That warms my heart because I see there’s still hope for some Jewish people during the tribulation. Mind you, it’s better to reach out to them before the rapture than after obviously.

Jeff: Absolutely. Yeah, when you’ve done it to the least of these, you’ve done it to me, Jesus said, speaking of his Jewish brethren.

Olivier: Exactly.

Todd: I just love that the light that you’re bringing to that and the awareness that you bring into it. And with all that, what do you see all of this setting the stage for, in terms of what’s next biblically, prophetically speaking. We look at Ezekiel 38 and with these accords maybe sending Israel up to be in a place where they feel more at peace and let their guard down, like you said. What do you see as next that we should kind of keep our eyes on?

Olivier: Well, I’d like to turn that question on its head a little bit. And not so much what’s next, because what’s next is basically what the Bible tells us what’s next, is going to be, I mean, technically the retro ridiculous in the middle of this podcast.

Jeff: Yes. That’d be nice.

Olivier: That would be nice. The rapture is imminent. It could happen anytime. There’s nothing that needs to happen before the rapture as of this point right now. We know that. So after that, we’ve got the seven year tribulation, and at the end of the tribulation, Israel recognizes that they missed the Messiah. But what I’d like to spend a moment discussing is that there is a need right now. That is the topic of my newest book, I don’t know if you guys have it or not, The Time is Now, which is a smaller booklet that I did. After 20 years of discussing about antisemitism [inaudible] how bad it is, I put this little book out together on seven steps Christians should take to help the Jewish people.

I see a need right now for a group of people that I’m very familiar with that used to, they are called the righteous among the nations, and they were started in 1953 by Yad Vashem in Israel. They’re Gentiles who helped the Jews during the war at the risk of their own lives, not taking any money and really helping to hide and feed and send the Jews to a safe place. And they continue to be a group recognized from the second world war. But I see a need right now for Christians today to realize the gravity of what’s happening and what’s coming against the Jews globally from the right, from the left, from the church even, from radical Islam, from all angles. And be prepared to go out of their way, I call them the new righteous among the nations, I talk about them in that little booklet.

And I think that we have a biblical mandate as Christians, especially Gentile Christians, to prepare to help the Jewish people, again, not to get saved, but get them protected and to eventually get them saved, as people have a chance to say, hey, listen, I want to reach out to you, I want to help Israel, I want to help the Jewish people because my Messiah is Jewish, because I have a relationship with the God of Israel, because he loves Israel so I love Israel. So, I think we need to wake up the Christian Church right now, we need to wake them up to the reality that they are going to need to take a stand for Israel even more so.

And so, I look at Chapter 25 of Matthew, I look at that chapter, it’s going to take place in a tribulation but we can take the principle of helping the Jews because we love the God of the Jews. We can take the principle and do it today, even though that chapter speaks of something taking place in the tribulation. That’s what I like to concentrate on right now, trying to wake up the Christian church to the fact that Jews are going to need them. We really as a church failed 75 years ago.

Todd: Really did.

Jeff: Olivier, a couple of questions that just come to my mind is that, because I want to piggyback on that just a second a little bit more, but how do you think persecution, and just more of a, sometimes it’s hard to nail it down and to give specific examples, but sometimes it’s just in the air. How do you think that antisemitism across the world is really playing into God’s plan to drive Jewish people back to Israel? What’s the cause and effect relationship you see there?

Olivier: I definitely see that’s part of the equation because we have seen a large number of Jewish people going back to Israel in the last maybe 10 years. I think it started with an event that took place in France in 2012, where a rabbi was killed at a school in the South of France. And then it kept going. And so maybe eight years, I document that in both my books. There’s definitely an increasing number of Jewish people moving to Israel in fear for their life, because Israel might not be a cakewalk, but it’s definitely a country that is not going to deny that the Jews need protection. And currently, there’s no place but Israel that is safe for the Jewish people.

I get stuff constantly, I just got two different emails recently coming from France, where a long, long stretch of an avenue right next to the [inaudible] parallel to the Louvre museum, like an arcade, a series of arcades. And then on every single one of the pillar, somebody has spray-painted a swastika for hundreds of yards. And then two weeks prior, they went into a kosher restaurant, happens to be my nephew’s friend who has a kosher catering business, they destroyed the whole restaurant and said, Hitler was right, didn’t kill enough Jews.

That happens all the time. A lot of it in France, a lot of it in different countries of the world. And in some cases, in places where people don’t even know a Jewish person, they’ve never met one. It’s based on the hearsay, it’s based on the false narrative. But it’s forcing Jewish people to go back to the land, which is something that is predicted in Ezekiel. So they’re going to go back in unbelief. This has been happening for a while now. The Jewish people are going back to the land in unbelief. So without being a sensationalist, we are really living in prophetic times because prophecy is being fulfilled in front of our very eyes.

Jeff: Absolutely.

Todd: A lot of people that I know when I try to talk to them about Bible prophecy and I want to introduce them to the relevance of Bible prophecy in our times, I always challenged them, I say, please, just go read Ezekiel 36 through 39, and you can see that has been filled since 1948, and it continues to be. And it reads in the exact chronological order of what we see. I highlight that. And also, I also remind people, Jesus is a Jewish savior. I hear people say Jesus was a Jewish carpenter. No, he still is Jewish. That’s one thing that I think a lot of believers don’t grasp and think of, he is Jewish. And in the end times, there’s going to be this beautiful culmination of the merge of the church and God’s chosen people. What can you share with us about that, kind of how all this ties in the end times?

Olivier: Well, I was looking for that scripture, as you asked the question, actually on my iPad, I’m looking for that scripture, I think it’s in Zephaniah, I love that scripture when it talks about, in the millennial, 10 Gentiles would want to grab the hem of the garment of a Jewish person because they know God. The Jewish people at the end of the tribulation, those who corporately will all see that Messiah, [inaudible] Jesus is the Messiah and would recognize him and call him to return, which is what triggers the second coming of the Messiah. And so in the millennium, we have Jews and Gentiles who get along, antisemitism doesn’t exist anymore. And not only that, the head become the tail and the tail become the head. And the Jewish people will in a way lead under Messiah Yeshua.

I love that scripture, I can’t find it right now because I’m talking and looking at the same time. But 10 men from the nations will follow, I’m paraphrasing the scripture, will follow a Jewish person and say, we want to go with you because we know that you know God. So that tells me two things. Number one, that the Jewish people in the millennial, of course you have to know, they have come to a saving knowledge of Yeshua. They’ll get into the millennium, they’ll survive the tribulation, those who will, of course. The Jewish believers will return with us at the second coming. But they will know Yeshua but also antisemitism will stop, the Gentiles will be in a good way jealous of the Jews, in a good way wanting to go with the Jews because the Jewish people will reflect the awesomeness of God at that time.

Jeff: Well, and the ultimate irony of history is that every antisemite from Gentiles to radical Muslims will one day stand before a Jewish savior at the great white throne and be judged by him. That’s kind of one of those things that’s like the ultimate oops moment, when they finally realized that. Well, Olivier, I want to ask you this question here because many people that are listening here have Jewish friends. There are everything from complete atheists who are Jews in race only, but not in religion, all the way up to Orthodox Jews of varying forms. I was on the Ben Shapiro show once and he made that a point. I’m an Orthodox Jew, but I love your book, and that type of thing. People that are open, Jews that are open to truth, common ground as we talked about earlier.

How would you suggest that people, if they have a burden for a Jewish friend, how do you open a conversation with someone who is either from the Jewish faith or raised in a Jewish household?

Olivier: Jeff, this is not a good question for the last two minutes of a podcast. This is what I would like to do. I would like to invite myself at a later date to do a podcast on how to share Messiah with the Jewish people.

Jeff: Oh perfect.

Todd: That’d be awesome.

Jeff: It also needs to be the topic of a follow-up book that you need to write.

Olivier: We have those books, they exist. There are some basics on how to reach Jewish people with the good news of the Messiah. And it’s different on the spectrum from being very agnostic and anti-God to being ultra Orthodox. I could not do justice in giving you an answer in a minute. I think it would be really worth our time to discuss this at a later time, if you guys are interested.

Jeff: Absolutely. No, I think that would be a highly listened to podcast. That would be great. Olivier, you are an incredible man and we appreciate you so much. We love your heart, we love your spirit. Just the love that flows from you for all people. It was just such a great joy to be able to meet you and to read your book, and to really hear where the path that God has chosen for you and the mission that God has given to you. And I know our listeners need to really check you out and talk about just the things that you have accomplished. Right now, tell our listeners where they can find out more information about you and your ministry.

Olivier: I am part of Chosen People Ministry. So anything they want to know about, what the mission is doing to reach out Jewish people with the gospel of Jesus, they go to chosenpeople.com. They’ll find what we do, the campaigns that we do. They can help prayer and support, and all the resources that we have, and we have a lot. My books and DVDs and various things are available on newantisemitism.com, newantisemitism.com. But also, they’re also on Amazon if you look for them. One is called the time is now and the other one is called End Times Antisemitism, as you mentioned earlier. So, if you go to my website, newantisemitism.com, you can find those resources. And I’m always open. My email is there on the website, I’m always open to answer questions. If somebody has a Jewish friend who needs to know about Jesus, I’m an email away.

Jeff: Cool. That’s great. Well, Olivier, again, thank you so much. On behalf of Todd and myself, we love you as a brother, but more than that, not more than that, in addition to that, we really do appreciate your ministry and pray God’s richest blessings on you as you penetrate the darkness with the message, the truth about our great God and savior Jesus Christ.

You’ve been listening to the Prophecy Pros Podcast with our guest, Olivier Melnick. And we appreciate so much your tuning in and being able to join us on these podcasts. This has been a great journey, and we want to thank Harvest House Publishers for sponsoring our podcast. And we want to thank the Edifi Network for helping us get the message out there. But more than that, the message about Jesus Christ taking that light into the darkness is what we’re all about. So, thanks again for listening. Jeff Kinley, Todd Hampson saying thanks again from the Prophecy Pros Podcast.