When it comes to Bible prophecy and ministry, Jan Markell has been on the frontlines to educate and warn society about the end times. Jan is an author of over 9 books and is the founder and director of Olive Tree Ministries, a news source dedicated to informing the world about current events under a Biblical perspective. Jan also hosts a weekly radio show in Minneapolis called, Understanding the Times, where she discusses world events with prominent leaders from around the globe. In this episode, we discuss the impacts of globalism, lawlessness, and delusional thinking in our modern times.
Other mentions:
Produced by Unmutable™
Transcript
Jeff: Welcome to The Prophecy Pros Podcast. I’m Jeff Kinley, along with Todd Hampson and we’re excited about season two. Got a lot of fantastic guests on the show today and today is no exception to that. Jan Markel is our guest today. And if you’re a fan of Bible prophecy, then you know Jan’s name. But just in case you don’t know who Jan Markel is, let me give you just a quick little brief bio sketch.
Jan was saved under the Jewish evangelist Hyman Appelman when she was a child. And in her early ministry years, she became a part of the Messianic movement working for pro-Israel agencies and for Jewish evangelism ministries. But in 1982, God led Jan to incorporate Olive Tree Ministries. And He has led her to write some eight books with prominent Christian publishing houses. She’s also produced dozens of DVDs, traveled across America as a speaker. And in 2000, Jan launched a radio branch of the ministry, which was picked up for national syndication called Understanding the Times Radio. Of course, Todd and I both have both been on her show many times. Really have a great time when we talk to her. But today her show is heard in some 900 stations across the country and the audience continues to grow, 92,000 subscribers on YouTube. So you need to check her out on YouTube. That’s really where a lot of people listen to the program. But she also puts on the largest prophecy conference that I’m aware of in North America called Understanding the Times Conference every fall. And so we’re just happy to have Jan on the show. She’s a great friend of both of us and we appreciate her ministry. Jan, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Jan: Well, thank you so much for having me. And by the way, a huge disappointment here in 2020 as we had to cancel our Understanding the Times 2020 for September for all the obvious reasons and that’s a heartbreak to me. But anyway, we’re in strange times.
Jeff: Well, we really are. And what’s really crazy is just sort of the ripple effects that this has had on the body of Christ and the way that I think some people are beginning to turn the corner to say, “You know what? I think enough is enough and we’re ready to kind of get back to the Lord’s work again, regardless of what consequences.” And, of course, in California, there’s a huge battle going on right now with John MacArthur’s church and other churches that have told them they cannot meet. They’ve threatened to cut their power, threatened to arrest him for holding services. I know there was a pastor in Chicago, South side of Chicago, the police showed up this past week, this African American church, banging on the doors demanding that they stop meeting. So yeah, perilous times, strange times that we’re living in, but we’re thrilled to have you on the show today and to get your perspective on some things. Todd.
Jan: Sure.
Todd: Yeah. And I just echo what Jeff said, we can’t thank you enough for being on the show. For me personally, it’s great. Great to connect with you here. You’ve been a huge influence on me personally with my end times ministry and my end times ministry understanding. So I just thank you so much for your courage and for your steadfastness and how long you’ve been doing this and in how many different ways. So I really appreciate it.
It’s been a blessing. And speaking of years, 2020 has been a zinger. I mean, we’ve been watching prophecy for years and it seems like the past, I don’t know, 5 or 6 or even 10 years it’s escalated more and more each year. But 2020, I can barely keep up each day and I know you feel the same. And you have a segment that you write each month or a few times a year saying, “I never thought I’d see the day when…” And you capture so many of the confusing and crazy events that line up with Bible prophecy. So with that long intro, how have you seen prophetic developments ramp up like never before in this year of 2020?
Jan: Well, I think just in five, perhaps six months, my goodness, certainly America has changed, but the world has changed. I’m programming this weekend kind of emphasizing the influence of well, kind of the new big brother, certainly in America, other parts of the world as well. My goodness, contact tracing. I mean, give me a break. You’re going to have those we associate with traced and we’re traced who we’ve seen and interacted with. What about forced vaccines? This weekend on radio I play a clip of Alan Dershowitz, it’s probably a month old clip now where he says the government has every right to bring you into a doctor’s office, then a plunge a needle into your arm. That would be for a forced vaccine. I mean, I never thought I would see the day, I’d live a long enough to see the day when not only would government overreach like this, but this has all happened, gentlemen, in less than half a year because it really began in March of 2020.
Todd: That’s amazing. It reminds me, Jane, of when Jesus talked about the early part of the tribulation period, and he says there, he says, “All these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.” And it seems like right now we’re seeing the birth pangs of the birth pangs begin. We’re not in the tribulation obviously, but we are seeing a lot of stage setting prophetic developments and things. Some things are in their embryonic form. Some things are in their later development form, but we are seeing these things happen. With that as we’re sort of looking at the landscape as people who kind of keep our finger on the pulse of what’s going on in culture and the world, tell us from your perspective, have you seen a rise or resurgence in the interest in Bible prophecy in the past few years? And if so, why?
Jan: Well, to be honest, one of the greatest heartaches to me… And let me just back up and go back to where I was influenced by eschatology. As a fairly young believer in the 1970s, somebody gave me a copy of Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth, which I devoured in a day or so. And Hal told me personally, because I brought him to the Twin Cities twice, he simply wanted to make the doctrine of the last days, he wanted to put it in more simple language, which he succeeded at doing with his Late Great Planet Earth and some subsequent books as well. But that book so influenced me. At the same time I was reading that book in the mid ’70s, I then took my first trip to Israel and kind of the rest is history. I mean, everything in my life was turned upside down by those two events.
And then I came home from the trip to Israel and just coincidentally and probably a God coincidence the organization known as Jews for Jesus was ministering in my church in Minneapolis and I went up and talked to them again. And that’s an organization at that time of young people. And I was very young at the time. And I said to them, “I think I need to be a part of your organization.” And they said, “Why don’t you to come to our summer outreach in New York City next summer and we hand out 2 million gospel tracks on the streets of New York City,” which I did and sort of the rest is history.
But going back now more directly to your question is I would love to say that over that time period, which is a lot of years, that I have seen an intense increase in eschatology. And I think I did in the ’70s and ’80s and even the ’90s thanks to the Left Behind series. But then starting in about 2000, roughly, came the church seeker sensitive movement and the seeker sensitive leaders and pastors said, “We don’t go here. This is going to make people uncomfortable. Besides, we don’t know for sure which theology and eschatology is proper so the best idea would be the set it aside.” That means we’ve had probably over 20 years of wishy-washy in the pulpit as it concerns end times. And that means we’ve had a literal generation of people being confused and told that this topic we’re talking about right now is not all that important, it’s confusing, we can’t know for sure, let’s leave it alone. And so we’ve got people for the last 20 years who are not gaining any interest in this. It’s falling off dramatically every day.
Todd: Yeah. That’s so sad. And as we look at what’s going on, Jan, in the church today, like you said, there’s a lot of self help sermons, a lot of feel good sermons. A lot of sermons even right now on how to deal with anxiety and depression, all the things that we’re going through. But it’s very interesting to me. I remember what Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 2:5 where he just told them about the apostasy and the antichrist, he’s about to tell him about what’s going to happen in the tribulation. And then he says, “Don’t you remember that while I was with you I was telling you these things?”
Jan: Well, I mean, I would love to see… Yeah, I headquarter in the Twin Cities and I think I know almost every evangelical church in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. And I can tell you that out of probably 10,000 churches there may be a maximum of six that would be covering the topics we’re talking about today. So you consider how many people are in those churches that, again, are clueless about the issues we’re talking about unless they tap into a radio program like mine, a podcast of yours, one of you gentlemen, your books, which are fantastic. But somebody’s probably got to guide them to these things because again, the churches might not do that. Thankfully, what I am so grateful for is the online community, the electronic community, which is making up for the lack in our pulpits. And because of the electronic, be it YouTube, Facebook Live, a lot of these venues, the podcast community, even my Understanding the Times Radio, which airs on a lot of radio stations, but also electronically. Folks, if they want to find this, they can find it, but they got to search a little bit.
Todd: Yeah, I agree. And I think you and I had talked about this before, Jan, where it’s almost… Well, it definitely lines up with the Bible prophecy and it probably is part of the falling away that just at the time when we have more of a chance for us being the generation that’s going to see the Lord’s return, all the signs are screaming at us and at this very same time almost nobody’s paying attention it seems. But it seems like God has strategically placed people almost on a grassroots effort and people that are so passionate about it like you and Jeff and myself where we’re just going to find a way to get the message out there. And it’s almost a calling as kind of a burden, I guess, in that although we’re very passionate about it, it’s not like we asked for it. It’s like we just see it so clearly and feel so compelled that we have to share the message. And you’ve been doing that for 40 years, Jan, and I just thank you. I can only imagine the flack you’ve caught at different times. Actually, I’ve heard some of the flack you’ve caught from some prominent Christian leaders at different times, and I just thank you for your courage.
And one of the signs we’re seeing is just lawlessness and delusional thinking. 2 Timothy 3 if you read the first five verses of that, it’s like a mirror of the daily news, especially right now. And you’ve seen that lawlessness and delusional thinking in the wake of the horrific death of George Floyd, which of course, that was a horrible event, but obviously there’s been a lot of other evil forces behind it causing the lawlessness and the anarchy and all that kind of stuff. And you live kind of in ground zero of that. You live in Minneapolis so you kind of have a front row view of that. Tell us a little bit about that, what you’ve seen and also how that lines up with Bible prophecy.
Jan: Man, I think the lawlessness is one of the key signs of the times that has manifested here in 2020, not that we didn’t have lawlessness before. I mean, in October of 2019, President Trump came to Minneapolis. And I consider Minneapolis-St. Paul the Heartland, I mean sort of like Omaha and some of these cities in the Midwest that perhaps are not quite like on the East coast and West coast. But even last October Antifa completely tore up parts of downtown Minneapolis because of Trump’s visit here. But little did I think that a few months later in May of 2020 that because of the George Floyd incident that Minneapolis and St. Paul… First of all, a five mile section of Minneapolis is completely burned to the ground. And I’m certainly not defending whatsoever the actions of the one police officer, but now that video of the entire incident has been released and it shows that Floyd was acting up long before the police even stepped in and he was talking about being unable to breathe before they put him on the ground there because he was filled with fentanyl.
But having said all that, it’s still a terrible ordeal and terrible ordeal for Mr. Floyd. But my point is that as a result of that terrible incident, five miles of Minneapolis is burned to the ground and a great section of St. Paul as well. So I have seen mankind at his worst up close and personal. And not personally because I wasn’t in that neck of the woods, I’m in the suburbs, but I’ve seen enough video images to see the demonic hatred and behavior that is going on in this lawless community be it Black Lives Matter, which is totally marked as communist, godless organization that’s committed to the destruction of the family of America, a lot of things. Antifa is the same. And in my case in Minneapolis, they destroyed the section of the… particularly Minneapolis, but St. Paul as well… where low income people are, and they destroyed all their shopping places. So if Black Lives Matter is all about African-Americans, my goodness, they destroyed their grocery stores, their pharmacies, et cetera. And so there’s some tremendous irony to that.
But here’s the followup to all of that because following the terrible ordeal, that was the last week of May 2020, then what did our brilliant city council come up with? And you talk about end time strong delusion, I think this is the epitome of end times strong delusion. Our city council voted unanimously to get rid of our police department. Well, now how much sense does that make?
Todd: None.
Jan: But that’s going on all over America. But can you imagine getting rid of the one outfit that’s committed to pushing back against this kind of violence? So again, you’ve got the strong delusion, you got the lawlessness. Here’s what you’ve got gentlemen, you’ve got the setup for a man with a plan who’s going to step in and say, “I can fix all this.”
Todd: Absolutely. It’s setting it all up for that. And that’s the unfortunate thing. And this connects to the next question I’m going to ask is a lot of people don’t realize it’s not just political. And like you said, the phrase Black Lives Matter is different than the organization. A lot of people don’t even realize the organization the founders say they are trained fascists and their goal is to take down the country, but they’ve hijacked compassion for other things that people want to stand up for and they’re using that as leverage. But really what’s behind all of that, and this is what I try to get across to people… And actually just to piggyback off what you said, I have a friend that lives in Minneapolis and he has some family that lived downtown there. They literally had to leave at 3:00 in the morning because early on when it first started getting lawless, and they said the same exact thing. It was so demonic, so evil, so overrun with evil that they were the scariest they’ve ever been and literally had to leave their house in the middle of the night and have not been back since. So the people that are there like yourself and others who live in there, the rest of the country doesn’t realize how bad it is there and in Seattle and some other places. So it’s crazy.
Jan: That’s right. And a police precinct was burned to the ground and our mayor who is, I call him pajama boy, he’s a 30-something mayor who is clueless as to what he’s doing. But our mayor pleaded with our governor to step in as the police precinct was being burned down and our governor said, “Just let it burn.” So this is Democrat Party politics. It’s blue state politics. And as Curtis Bowers said on my radio program here recently, he’s a communist expert as he’s trying to expose what Marxists have been doing in America for 100 years, if you’re in a blue state, get out. You have no protection. It is unsafe, totally unsafe. And the politicians are going off the rails with their delusions. So these are challenging times, that’s all I can say. But the Bible never said that the last days would be a picnic. The Bible says that the times would be perilous. And I think the key verse or verses would be in Romans 1 that God’s going to give these people over to a reprobate mind and that’s what’s going on.
Todd: Lines up with Bible prophecy and it lines up with another topic and I’d love for you to share a little bit about this because I know you’ve done some in depth research for years to where people used to think it was complete conspiracy theory, but now it’s fully out in the open. And that’s the topic of globalism. I mean, the world economic forum right now is calling for a global reset of the economy in January ’21. So it’s out in the open. So how does globalism and this push towards a one world government and all that play into Bible prophecy and the destruction we’re seeing here in America?
Jan: Well, and I have. And I’ve commented and done radio on that. And let’s keep in mind that the globalists never let a crisis go to waste and they’re always looking for a crisis. And the one they picked out about 10 years ago was global warming and climate change. Well, that didn’t work out real well. And how convenient that here in 2020 this coronavirus came along. And the uniqueness about the coronavirus is that it’s not a local problem. It’s not an American problem. It’s not a Western society problem. Corona has hit almost 200 countries and the globalists have realized this is the crisis they’re not going to let go to waste. How are we going to conquer this crisis if we don’t come together as a global one world community, one world government, one world, perhaps even one world ruler? You and I know it will be the antichrist, whether they do or not, I don’t know. And they are in a panic. These globalists are in a panic. And apparently their man, at least in America, is Joe Biden, which is just a terrifying thought when we watch this gentleman as he commentates daily.
But I think this is the perfect storm, the perfect storm that came along in 2020. I mean, was it manmade? I mean, I think the virus was manmade in China. But here again, it’s hit almost 200 countries and it’s brought every one of those countries to a standstill and the globalists are going to step in and they have because they never let a crisis go to waste.
Todd: And that’s a key point. And even a lot of believers I’ve talked to don’t realize that there’s something like that much bigger behind the scenes that driving a lot of the chaos we’re seeing. And that’s exactly it.
Jan: Absolutely. I mean, it is a global conspiracy. Now, do these guys sit around in dark rooms, smoke filled rooms, discussing how they’re going to implement the antichrist plan? I don’t know. Probably not because I suspect they’re godless and they certainly don’t know the Bible. But I think they understand that the world needs a one world system to bring all of these problems under control. And man, did they get handed one on a silver platter in actually end of 2019, late December 2019. And then it blossomed of course in January, February 2020.
Todd: Yeah. Like you said, I think most of them actually think they’re doing a good thing. I think there’s some that are overtly evil and they may not understand all the ramifications, but I think most of them think they’re actually doing something good and it’s a humanistic way of looking at the current problem. And the Bible predicted centuries ago exactly what it was going to look like and here we are.
Jan: Yeah, I think so too. I think it’s a little bit like a lot of socialists. Socialists think that the plan of socialism is going to equalize everything and it’s basically a good thing. I mean, just read history and see the bloody history of socialism and communism. But I think they’re thinking this is all for the good of mankind. But again, it’s going to take a single government and that’s a whole nother message, how globalism has mushroomed here in the last 100 years or so and particularly in the last 30, 40 years.
But we live in absolutely stunning times and I just encourage your listeners to be like the Sons of Issachar who understood the times and not be like most in the church who are not even wanting to because it’s too frightening so they’re going to run the other direction instead of trying to understand the times. And there’s a little remnant out there. I don’t know what. I know I think Bill Canuck suggests it’s about 5% of the church that desperately wants to understand the times and get everybody else to understand the times and become Watchmen on the Wall. And I just pray this little percentage grows and grows and grows.
Todd: Me too. And with that, I know we’ve talked about a lot of scary things. For you and I we’ve studied it and we have the context, but we always try to, like you do on your show. Actually you have a phrase you use that the world’s not falling apart, it’s falling into place. As we close out this episode, what bit of hope can you share with our listeners during this unprecedented year of 2020?
Jan: Well, we serve a God who knows the future, who orchestrated the future, who outlined the future in the Bible, who wants us to understand the future, who wants us to be like the Sons of Issachar who understood the times and knew what Israel should do. So I think the most encouraging thing of all is that we serve a God who has everything under control. We serve a God who answers prayer. We serve a God who wants to clue us in ahead of time and He’s done that through the Bible. And I know we’ve got all sorts of extra biblical. We get people coming up with dreams and visions and all of this that talk about the future.
And I urge people to be cautious about that because it can be subjective when we’ve got the Bible that outlines everything that is to come, outlines it in detail. And what a privilege the three of us have to be able to just open the pages of God’s word and there is all outlined the things that are happening now and the things that are yet to come and that much of what’s to come the church is going to escape, thank God because of the pre-tribulation rapture, which is another program. But the church is not destined for God’s wrath. The church is destined certainly for man’s wrath and Satan’s wrath, and we see that going on in various parts of the world. But gentlemen, we are seeing man’s wrath and Satan’s wrath against the church in America now as we speak. So that’s a new equation that’s come along here in the last three, four or five months. But again, we will never see God’s wrath, and praise the Lord for that.
Todd: Amen. And Jeff and I do actually have a couple programs on that and we unpack it pretty clearly and like you, catch some flack for taking such a bold stand. But to me, it is crystal clear in scripture that we are raptured prior to those horrific things, and thank God we are.
And lastly, is there anything… Thank you so much for sharing that hope with our listeners. So y’all heard it here, study Bible prophecy. It’s not going to scare you. It’s going to prepare you. It’s going to help equip you to see with clarity what’s going on in the world right now. And Jan, if you would, before we shut down this program or end this program, could you share with our listeners where they can learn more about you and your ministry and your radio program?
Jan: Well, thank you. Just find me at olivetreeviews.org. It’s Olive Tree Ministries, but olivetreeviews.org. And I air on about 900 radio stations. And let me just share with you real briefly, gentlemen, because we posted our current radio program on coronavirus and some various aspects of it. We post that, our radio program to YouTube every Friday, that radio programming airs heavily Saturday, Sunday. And I just got a notice as we were talking… We posted the program to YouTube on Corona this morning about 9:30 or so. As we were talking, I got a notice from YouTube that they took the program down because it violates their community standards, which is a heartbreak to us. We spend two and a half days making the YouTube. We put video in it. We put images in it and it reaches a huge electronic audience. It was just taken down by YouTube, but that’s our new world. You can’t tell the truth on the electronic media. You can’t do it.
Todd: Wow. That is heartbreaking and not surprising. So again, I appreciate your courage and we will do our best to help get the word out on that episode. If we can’t do it by YouTube, we’ll let other people know in anyway we can.
Jan: Thank you.
Todd: You bet.
Jan: They can find it on my website starting at midnight tonight, olivetreeviews.org and go to radio. You can find it, the visual form on His Channel, hischannel.com and various other places, oneplace.com. But YouTube, no way. They will not tolerate the truth there.
Todd: Oh, that’s a good point. Hischannel.com. They definitely will have it up there. And Jeff had a little bit of technical difficulty, so he dropped off, but he wanted to tell me to thank you. And I want to thank our listeners for joining us. Again, you heard all the information about where to find out about Jan’s ministry. If you want to find out more about the Prophecy Pros Podcast or Jeff’s ministry or my ministry and to find out when new podcast episodes are coming out, go to prophecyprospodcast.com, and you can find everything you need to there. And be sure to tune in next week on the Prophecy Pros Podcast.
Jeff: Hey, for more resources and show notes, how to contact us, how to ask questions, go to prophecyprospodcast.com. Hey, we’ll see you next episode. Or maybe not. Maybe we’ll see in the air.