The Middle East War
About this sermon
In “The Middle East War,” Pastor Dean Odle opening prayer identifies Jesus as God in the flesh whose death and resurrection fulfilled predictions made centuries beforehand. Odle introduces current Middle East conflict as a reason to revisit prophecy and answers critics who portray evangelical attention to Israel as blind political loyalty. The message develops its case chronologically from the biblical texts, examples, and applications heard in the sermon.
Chronological teaching outline
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Opening prayer identifies Jesus as God in the flesh whose death and resurrection fulfilled predictions made centuries beforehand. Odle introduces current Middle East conflict as a reason to revisit prophecy and answers critics who portray evangelical attention to Israel as blind political loyalty.
Prophecies such as David’s pierced hands and feet and Micah’s Bethlehem prediction are presented as evidence that Jesus uniquely fulfills the promised Messiah. Odle warns that false teachers use biblical cosmology, Torah observance, New Age ideas, or anti-Israel rhetoric to win trust and then move hearers away from Christ.
The sermon distinguishes recognizing prophecy from celebrating suffering: Odle does not call every Israeli policy righteous, but says Scripture foretells war around regathered Israel. Recalling ministry in Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, and Nigeria, he argues that Christians should preach the gospel to Jews and Arabs while expecting persecution and rejecting a pre-tribulation escape.
Ezekiel 38’s Gog, Persia, Ethiopia, Libya, Gomer, and Togarmah are read as a northern coalition invading a land regathered from many nations. Odle stresses the “latter years,” Israel’s restored habitation, and airborne imagery as markers he believes locate the prophecy in the modern end-time setting.
Recent threats by Russian, Turkish, and Iranian leaders after Israeli strikes are compared with Ezekiel’s coalition. These current reports are presented as possible movement toward the prophecy, while the sermon’s purpose is to show that God foretells events so hearers will believe when they occur.
John 13:19 anchors the claim that fulfilled prediction verifies Christ’s identity and Scripture’s reliability. Odle cites probability illustrations about numerous messianic prophecies and argues that resistance often comes not from lack of evidence but from unwillingness to surrender sin, status, or autonomy.
Colossians 2, John 14, and First Timothy 3:16 are used to oppose philosophies that reduce Jesus to a prophet or created being. The sermon insists that the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ and treats Bible versions that obscure “God was manifest in the flesh” as doctrinally dangerous.
Acts 1:8 connects the baptism of the Holy Spirit with power to testify about salvation and coming judgment. Odle recalls his own conversion and immediate desire to evangelize, then warns that every life leads others either toward truth or deception and will be accounted for before Christ.
Earthly life is described as a brief rehearsal for eternity, making adultery, intoxication, drugs, fame, or temporary comfort a disastrous exchange for the soul. Prayer calls believers to repent, receive cleansing through Jesus’ blood, live holy lives, and remain faithful even through rejection or martyrdom.
The service ends with a direct appeal to believe that Jesus died and rose again, repent, surrender ownership of one’s life, and seek Him through Scripture, prayer, and worship. Odle then gives ministry-school and conference announcements after urging hearers to know personally that Christ has changed them.
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Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.
- 0:05:11
Jesus is Lord, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, God in the flesh who died on that cross for our sins and rose again from the dead. Lord, we are grateful today that every bit of that was foretold thousands of years, hundreds of years, many prophecies foretold the coming of the Messiah, the one true Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, to those who will believe and repent of their sin. Lord, we pray today that eyes will be opened and hearts will be touched, convicted, brought to repentance, that they will bow the knee willingly and receive your love and forgiveness before they are forced to on the day of judgment. Lord, we pray this today in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated this morning. Welcome, everyone. Fire and Grace Church. Those are watching and listening out there all over the world. Now, for some of you, this may be a bit of repetition, but we have new people all the time. We have new people here today. We welcome our visitors and welcome new people watching out there. Um, been praying about this. I was up last night for quite a while praying about all this, but I feel like I'm supposed to go back over some of this, considering the things that are going on in the world right now. And also to address, I guess you'd say some attacks, particularly tax on true evangelical Christianity. Um, I want you to just go ahead and put up the Greg Reese. This is a screenshot. Now, over the years, I have enjoyed Greg Reese's news reports. They have been, you know, he does some pretty good stuff. I'd say I like about 90% of it. But over the last, say, couple of years, it's clear that Mr. Greg Reese and you see where just on this particular site, you got 126,000 views on this particular video here. Um, but he's got quite of a wide influence, large influence. But here's what you need to understand. And listen, I don't listen to ABC, NBC, MSNBC. I don't even listen to Fox News anymore. All that stuff is propaganda. All of its controlled by the same people. It's pretty much owned by one company. Anyway, Black Rock, Vanguard, um, State Street. I mean, those three investment firms pretty much own everything. Um, and so that's why you get the puppet same talking points. It doesn't matter what mainstream news. So you have to go outside the mainstream news to get any real news. Now, every now and then you'll get something that just yeah, that's happening in the world. And it's true on the fake news media. But still you go outside to that night. You know,
- 0:08:13
I listened to I think Epic Times great. Uh, the S. G. T. Report. Um, I still go to to info wars and I still will watch some Greg Reese sometimes. But you have to remember that not everybody is on our side, even if they pretend to be. You understand? And some people are there to put out just enough truth so they can gain your confidence and then they lead you down the wrong road. And I believe that's what Alex Jones is. I believe that's what Greg Reese is. Now, Greg Reese is pretty much come out is to be a new ager. And this is the same problem we have within the biblical cosmology, aka flat earth community that there's a lot of infiltrators. There's a lot of people claiming, Oh, the true, you know, the revelation of biblical cosmology has opened them up to the creator. And then you find out for some reason, even though they will acknowledge that this is what the Bible has taught all along about creation, you'll find out that they somehow just can't seem to find the whole truth of the Bible. They can't seem to find Jesus in the mix. And Greg Reese is one of these. He actually did a report on info wars about flat earth, right? Biblical cosmology, true biblical creation, but he wants to lead people down the little new age road, right? Now this, I'm not going to play this video because you can watch it if you want to, but it's disturbing. But this is a clear attack from him on Christians concerning the end times and particularly the where what we feel about the nation of Israel and their purpose in end time prophecy and what God's going to do with them, as well as the nature of this. Now let me state something as we get into this because I'm going to talk about what's coming. The Bible tells us what's coming, just like it tells us the truth about creation. It tells us the truth about Jesus coming the first time and being the Messiah who would die for our sins, right? Isaiah 53 foretold at 750 years BC before Jesus showed up. All right, David, a thousand years before Jesus showed up said his hands and feet would be pierced. They would cast lots for his garments. I mean these are specific prophecies. The prophet Micah 5 to Micah 5 to foretold where Jesus would be born in Bethlehem and that was at least, goodness, 700 to 750 years before Jesus showed up. In fact, no other religious leader has multiple like dozens or like we have hundreds of prophecies foretelling everything about their coming like we do. That's why Jesus is completely unique and that's why we know that he is the only true Messiah, but he warned us. Jesus
- 0:11:13
warned us there will be what? False Christ, false messiahs and false prophets who will show great signs and wonders and they will try to deceive what even the very elect and we have these people. You know, a few years ago to expose the infiltration within the biblical cosmology Flat Earth world, I did a series called Behind the Circus. You know why? Because God let me go behind the circus and see the whole thing and then I exposed every bit of it and I exposed the New Agers, the Torah pushers, the witches, the Satanists, yeah, all of them and boy I caught hell for that. I really actually need to do Behind the Circus 2.0 because there's a whole new crop of Torah pushers and New Agers that are still using Flat Earth, the truth of biblical cosmology to gain a following, to get people's trust and then they lure them into, you know, Old Testament, becoming Old Testament, you know, trying to be Old Testament law keepers and they can't do it. And, you know, I fought that battle 2016, 2017, 2018, you know, and now we got a new crop of them since Rob Skeba's gone, but there's people just come up taking his place now. We got the new Rob Skeba. I won't get into who that is right now. Yeah, and there was a biblical cosmology Flat Earth conference in Florida where I didn't even get invited because they knew probably wasn't a good idea, even though they contacted me. Isn't it funny? And this is what goes on though because, again, the truth, the whole truth, when you get to the whole truth you're willing to talk about the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and you declare who Jesus is, God in the flesh, who died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead and that he is the only way to salvation, to eternal life, to heaven, that really just cuts through all the bull, all the baloney, right? Every bit of it cuts through it and then the New Agers, right, don't like it and they get exposed. But this right here, let me just go and tell you what this is. When you say evangelical Zionists pushing the world into Armageddon, do you know what you're doing by declaring such nonsense? You are actually inciting persecution of Christians, though he did a report one day on how Christians are the most persecuted people in the world, right? But this is what we get, this double talk, right? See Christians, I see that one report and go, oh, Greg Reese is a good guy. They might not all see this. Now, here's the thing. Let me just go ahead and say this right now about
- 0:14:14
Zionists. There are people that have listened to so much propaganda against Israel and let me just go ahead and say it right now. That thing that's been passed around the Internet since the Internet came along, what is it called? The protocols of the elders of Zion, whatever, that basically is supposed to be the Jew plan to take over the world. If any, if you did any real research, you'd find out that it's going all the way back to Russian, Bolshevik, Soviet propaganda, okay? Now, let me say this very clearly. I'm not saying there are no bad Jews or Zionists. There are, okay? Nobody's ever said that, that they're all a bunch of angels over there in Israel. Now, we do have some extremists when it comes to Israel and I think Greg Locke's a good example of one of those because Pastor Greg Locke not too long ago said, we should just go ahead and bomb the Dome of the Rock and obliterate Gaza basically so Jesus can come back. That is not the attitude of a Christian. Can I just say that right now? And I don't care if he doesn't like it. He can text me and email me and be all mad if he wants to, but it's the truth. He got himself in a big hot water for that one. And then recently, oh yeah, just so he claimed to go to Israel and chisel rocks out of the Eastern Gate that's boarded up. Well, first of all, that's an archaeological site and there's cameras everywhere. And if he had done that, he'd have been arrested. So he lied about it and another pastor called him out, said he'd been there 56 times and he knows that you can't do that. And then he called his friends, this other pastor called his friends in Israel that are work for the government and said, hey, check your cameras and see if Greg Locke chiseled rocks out of the Eastern Gate. And they said, yeah, we checked and he didn't do it. So he's a liar again. Okay, so not only did he lie about me and our group be what happened at his church when we were there for the debate, he's now making up lies about he's helping the Lord come back. He's gonna help the Lord by chiseling a little outside because the Lord when he returns, it's gonna come through the Eastern Gate there area. But see, you did that's fanatical type stuff. Okay, because as Christians, we are called to love everyone, even our enemies. And I'm just gonna tell you right now, I don't want innocent civilians, whether they live in Gaza or Lebanon or Syria or Turkey or Israel or anywhere is a Christian. You don't want innocent civilians wounded, injured, killed in a war. But can I just go ahead and inform
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