Pastor John Hagee Speaks Out

OCTOBER 09, 2007
GLENN BECK PROGRAM
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

GLENN: Hello, sir, how are you?

PASTOR HAGEE: I'm fine, Glenn, how are you today?

GLENN: I'm very good. So where do we start with your controversial views on Iran?

PASTOR HAGEE: Well, you first begin with the principle that there's a right and there is a wrong. There's an evil and there's a righteous. There's a light and there's a darkness. You cannot continue to walk in this American political fog and come to definitions of right and wrong. We have to recognize that Iran is a threat to Western civilization. Iran is deadly serious about acquiring nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad has pledged to share those weapons with terrorist organizations around the world. The statements this man is making, they are not statements off the cuff. They are statements that he has made from prepared speeches, which means it was the thought process of his innermost being. He's saying that Israel should be wiped off the map, he's saying that Israel will disappear in a sudden storm, and that means a nuclear storm, he said I can see the day God willing, that God being Allah, when there will be no more Israel and no more America. Very clearly this man intends to attack Israel first, he wants to create a nuclear Holocaust and then he wants to bring that sight to the streets of America.

GLENN: You had several meetings with fairly prominent individuals. You've met with Benjamin Netanyahu. Have you had enough conversations with these people to tell them that you believe that we're living in the end times, and what is their reaction?


Pastor John Hagee

PASTOR HAGEE: Yes, Benjamin Netanyahu sat in my office and we have talked about the geopolitical circumstances of the Middle East. Benjamin Netanyahu sat just across my desk and told me that when he was prime minister, he had to give photographic proof to the United States intelligence agencies to convince them that Russia was in Iran helping them produce long-range missiles. Now, those long-range missiles would have the ability to hit London, New York, and Jerusalem, and right now Israel. Iran is trying to get their hands on nuclear weapons and if they can put nuclear warheads on these missiles, can you imagine, Glenn, a world where London, New York, and Jerusalem have been hit by a nuclear missile on the same day. That's the nightmare scenario that Ahmadinejad is trying to put together and he's dangerously close to doing it.

GLENN: Everyone will say that Iran is a third world country, it doesn't have this kind of power, it doesn't have the control that we say. He is just thumping his chest and he's just a guy who's using religion to whip everybody up in his own region and hold onto his power, that he doesn't have -- he is not a threat because he just doesn't have the power to get it done.

PASTOR HAGEE: That's a serious mistake and it's totally wrong. He does have the power, he does have the wealth, he does have the assistance. The Russians have been helping him for years. The intelligence agencies of Israel know that he's dangerously close to having nuclear capability. He does have a following of at least 200 million people. There are 1.3 or .4 billion Islamics and all authorities say that 15 to 20% of these people feel that they have a mandate from God to kill Christians and Jews. That means he has 200 million people following him who would be willing to strap a bomb on and to walk into the place where you're eating or to walk into a school or to a university or to a church or to a synagogue and blow everybody up in there and think that they have done God a favor. This man does have the motive, the ability, and the theology to drive him to do it. He believes that if he starts the third world war, the twelfth Imam will suddenly and mysteriously appear. I understand they don't know where he is now and they don't know who he is. But if they start this world war, he will appear and lead them to victory and produce a global Sharia, which is an Islamic law that rules the world.

GLENN: All right. So what makes you believe -- by the way, we're talking to Pastor John Hagee. What makes you believe that we're living in the end times? No man will know.

PASTOR HAGEE: Well, the Bible says no man knows the day, nor the hour. That's a 24-hour period of time. So that means no one can set the date that Jesus Christ is coming back to Earth. But the Bible says that as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the son of man. The days of Noah were these: That God told Noah that a flood was coming, that he was to build the ark and that when he built the ark, the animals would get on it, he would put his family of eight people on that ark and God would shut the door.

Now, as it was in the days of Noah, whenever Noah got that ark built, which took him over 100 years, and the animals were on by the assistance of God himself, his family was on and the Bible says and God shut the door. When you're Noah, you've built the ark, the animals are on, your family's on and God has shut the door, you know it's time for the rain to start. You don't know exactly what day it's going to start, but you know it's very, very near. And the Bible gives a series of prophetic signs in the Bible that will be a very clear indicator of the terminal generation that is on the face of the Earth.

GLENN: You know I'm playing devil's advocate here, so to speak. You know, people have been saying the end is near forever, forever. I mean, even the apostles thought he was coming back pretty quickly.

PASTOR HAGEE: That's true.

GLENN: So what makes you say that this is, this is it, this is the scenario?

PASTOR HAGEE: Well, the thing that makes me say that is the Bible signs that were given. This is the only generation that has ever lived on the face of the Earth where all of these phenomenons line up like lights leading an airplane to a landing strip. There's thirst of knowledge explosion of Daniel 12. Daniel said -- God's saying to Daniel, shut up the book, the book that Daniel is writing, until the time of the end. That's a very important phrase, "Until the time of the end," when knowledge shall be greatly increased. Now, that phrase literally translates there will be a knowledge explosion. We are the generation that has had that knowledge explosion. From the Garden of Eden until the 12th century, men rode on horseback just as King David and Julius Caesar and George Washington to found this nation. And then came the automobile and then came jets and then came a man on the moon. Consider communication. From the Garden of Eden until the 12th century, men communicated principally the same way, beatings of drums, mirrors from mountains to mountains. But then came the telegraph and then the television and now we have the ability, with satellite television, to communicate to people all over the Earth anywhere on the Earth because the knowledge explosion has happened. From the Garden of Eden to the 12th century and medical science, nothing changed. But now medical science has become so advanced that we've had to redefine death because we have the ability to keep people alive with machines and stimulants. So we are, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that generation that has had the knowledge explosion. So that's signal number one.

GLENN: Do you believe, do you believe that the Army of the Mahdi, which is basically the Army of the twelfth Imam if you are Shia and you believe as President Tom does, do you believe that the Army of the Mahdi and President Ahmadinejad are fighting a battle for the literal antichrist?

PASTOR HAGEE: You have asked a question that is really the hot button question in Christian theology right now because when the antichrist comes to the Earth, he's going to do three things. One, he's going to come as a prince of peace, he's going to establish a one world government, and he's going to establish a one world religion and now there are many religious believers, religious theologians who believe that perhaps that one world religion that he's talking about is Islam because one of the things that happens in the tribulation period, and the tribulation period is the seven-year period that happens on the Earth when there's such devastation that happens on the planet is that anyone who does not receive the faith of the antichrist is beheaded, and beheading is the methodology of execution of Islam.

GLENN: So you didn't really answer the question. You don't have to, but you didn't really answer the question. All right. Well, pastor, I appreciate it. Are you surprised at how few people are paying attention to things that are seemingly so clear when Ahmadinejad got up in front of the UN and now has moved to the front of his speeches what used to be at the last: Oh, Allah, give me the strength to hasten the return of the promised one.

PASTOR HAGEE: That's who he's talking about.

GLENN: Yeah, I know that's who he's talking about. And are you surprised how few people are paying attention to this or taking him seriously and how the media is just completely dismissing his religiosity?

PASTOR HAGEE: I am surprised that that's happening in America, and here's the problem. If you admit there is a problem, you have to then solve the problem, and it's just so much more convenient for political leaders, for media leaders to talk about the problem rather than confess there is a problem because if you say there is a problem, you have to solve the problem. And then if you say there's a problem, people become disturbed, but let me tell you something. If we let this man do what he wishes to do, we will see the day that he will put missiles that have nuclear warheads and he will start a world war that will literally destabilize Western civilization and the day. He has the power, he has the knowledge, he has the willingness. 9/11, 9/11 proved that radical Islam has the willingness to attack us. They just didn't have the power. But if Ahmadinejad gets his hands on nuclear power, they will then have the willingness and the power to take us down.

GLENN: Are you advocating going in with troops and taking him out?

PASTOR HAGEE: I think that the United States should put everything on the table and quit talking about the problem and solve the problem. Everyone says that Iran is killing one third of our people in the field of combat in Iraq. That's an act of war. That gives us the license to go in, to take action without dancing with the United Nations for the rest of our lives, but no one in Washington seems willing to do that. I'll assure you whatever it takes, forces on the ground, a military preemptive strike to destroy his nuclear capacity to produce nuclear weapons. If we don't do it, Israel will have to do it because Israel knows they are number one on his hit list and they have the muscle to back him down.

GLENN: Are you under attack? I've got to believe you are. Can you talk a little bit about the strange situation that you must find yourself in where you are under attack for saying, you know, quote/unquote hateful things when you are talking about an individual who has said what he has said and yet there would be those in this country that would label you a religious zealot that would be dangerous?

PASTOR HAGEE: Yes. The same thing happened when Hitler was in Germany, and Hitler was saying we're going to kill the Jews. There were a handful of people who rose up and resisted Hitler and predominantly the majority of the German people resisted. Martin Niemoller was a Lutheran pastor who resisted Hitler aggressively. Hitler put him in prison and the final days of Hitler's administration had Martin Niemoller killed because Martin Niemoller spotted him for who he was, labeled him and everything he said about him came exactly true. History is repeating itself. We are, in fact, reliving 1938. Iran is Germany. Ahmadinejad is Hitler. When Hitler was talking about killing the Jews, no one was listening, and especially the Christians of Europe were strangely silent, the Christians of the world were strangely silent. Here we are in the 21st century. We have another Hitler. He has the ability, he has the power, he has the motive. He wants to put together nuclear weapons to have a nuclear Holocaust in Israel, and this time we have organized a national organization called Christians United for Israel for the purpose of standing up and speaking for Israel and the Jewish people. We're not going to do this two times in a row. We are not going to have another Holocaust, not on our watch. There are millions of Christians in this country who are ready to scream on any given day that Israel is threatened and in a serious way.

GLENN: Pastor John Hagee, I appreciate your time, sir. We're going to spend some more time with you later in the television show, spend a full hour with you. I want to get into a little bit of what you talked to me about last night, that America does not exist in the end times, in the Bible as it is laid out and you said that's because we won't play any significant role. And we'll get more into that later on in the week on the TV show. Pastor, thank you very much. I appreciate it, sir.

PASTOR HAGEE: Thank you, Glenn. I look forward to seeing you Friday.

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