NTEB BIBLE RADIO: Rightly Dividing

The Middle East is shaking on every side right now, and the headlines are lining up like pieces on a prophetic chessboard. Trump is in Turkey, strengthening ties with Erdoğan and signaling that he may reverse the F-35 ban and lift sanctions tied to Turkey’s Russian S-400 purchase — even as Israel has reportedly warned that arming Turkey with F-35s could destabilize the regional balance of power. At the very same time, the U.S. has restarted strikes against Iranian targets after renewed attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, with CENTCOM calling Iran’s actions a violation of the ceasefire. Hey, Christian, if you’ve been waiting for the end times to start, you’re already late to the party.

“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” Matthew 24:7,8 (KJB)

On this episode of the Prophecy News Podcast, then comes Macron, the man we are watching closely as the possible, and probable, biblical man of sin, walking into Damascus like he owns the place to meet Syria’s new president Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. During that visit, two IEDs exploded near the Four Seasons Hotel where Macron was staying, wounding at least 18 people, while Macron continued his meeting with al-Sharaa at the presidential palace. That is an astonishing visual. Western diplomacy blessing a rebranded jihadist regime, bombs rocking Damascus, Iran burning again, Turkey being courted, and Israel surrounded by shifting alliances. This is Middle East Turmoil in every sense of the phrase – war, diplomacy, betrayal, reinvention, and prophetic foreshadowing all colliding at once. The world calls it stabilization, reconstruction, NATO strategy, and regional diplomacy. Now, the world may be confused watching all of this unfold, but the student of prophecy knows what’s going on. The nations are moving, the alliances are shifting, Damascus is shaking, Iran is raging, Turkey is rising, and Europe is inserting itself into the heart of the Middle East. Welcome to Day 2,307 of 15 Days to Flatten The Curve, and Day 130 of World War Trump in Iran. It’s a great day for an end times Podcast, so let’s get after it…TO THE FIGHT!!!

Trump’s war with Iran did not produce regime change, it produced regime reinforcement. After all the bombs, all the bravado, all the ridiculous chest-thumping press conferences and victory laps, the Iranian regime is still standing. Not only is it standing, it is standing harder, colder, more paranoid, more ruthless, and more committed than before. Trump promised strength, but what he delivered was another unfinished American war in the Middle East, one that gave the mullahs a new survival story to sell to their people. They can now say they endured the wrath of America and Israel, buried their dead, absorbed the strikes, and still remained in power. Trump has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

“Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.” Luke 14:29,30 (KJB)

On this episode of the Prophecy News Podcast, the bitter irony is that Trump mocked the weakness of every president before him, only to produce the same tired result: bombs dropped, speeches given, victory declared, and the enemy still alive. Iran’s nuclear ambitions remain. Iran’s terror networks remain. Iran’s hatred of Israel remains. Iran’s hatred of America remains. The Revolutionary Guard remains. The Islamic system remains. The only thing that changed is that Tehran now knows exactly how far Trump is willing to go — and where he will stop. That is dangerous information for them to now have. A wounded enemy is bad enough, but a wounded enemy that knows you don’t intend to finish the fight is worse. Way worse. America was told that Trump had changed the game, but the game looks painfully familiar. Washington bombs, Israel braces, Iran survives, and the world continues to grow more unstable. The regime that was supposed to fall is now more hard-line, more suspicious, and more determined. Trump has not eradicated them, Trump has energized them. The war that was supposed to weaken the mullahs instead has strengthened their hand. The president who promised regime change may have instead handed the regime its next chapter. That is not victory. That is World War Trump producing exactly what unfinished wars always produce: stronger enemies, greater deception, deeper instability, and a world moving one step closer to the time of Jacob’s trouble.

The Gospel of John opens not in Bethlehem, not in Nazareth, not with Mary or Joseph, but in eternity past: “In the beginning was the Word.” John does not begin with the cradle, he begins with the Godhead. Matthew presents Jesus as King, Mark as Servant, Luke as the Son of man, but John presents Him as God manifest in the flesh. That is the battleground. Every cult, every false religion, every counterfeit Bible, and every antichrist spirit eventually attacks the deity of Jesus Christ. John answers them before they even speak: the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1 (KJB)

On this episode of Rightly Dividing, John’s Gospel is built around belief. The word “believe” appears again and again because John is pressing the reader toward a verdict. You are not allowed to casually admire Jesus in this book. You must decide who He is. Is He merely a teacher, prophet, healer, revolutionary, or religious example? John says no. He is the eternal Word, the Creator, the Light, the Lamb of God, the Bread of life, the Good Shepherd, the Resurrection, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. John strips away religious fog and brings the sinner face to face with the only Saviour God has provided. A verse-by-verse study through John should constantly point out how the book divides between light and darkness, belief and unbelief, life and death, truth and religious blindness. The Pharisees had Scripture, temple worship, priesthood, sacrifice, feast days, and religious authority — yet they rejected the very Messiah standing in front of them. That is one of John’s sharpest warnings. Religion without the new birth is still darkness. Nicodemus was a master of Israel, but Jesus told him plainly, “Ye must be born again.” The woman at the well had a ruined past, but she received living water. The religious ruler needed regeneration just as much as the fallen Samaritan woman did. This is Part #2 in our verse-by-verse series of the Gospel of John.

The Bible never presents the Christian life as a casual walk through friendly territory; it presents it as a fight, a race, a warfare and a watch. The tragedy is that many men begin with fire in their bones, a Bible in their hand, and a burden in their heart, only to quit somewhere along the way when the wounds, disappointments, temptations and weariness begin to pile up. Some are taken out by sin, some by bitterness, some by pride, some by the love of this present world, and some simply grow tired of standing alone. But Paul’s testimony at the end of his life was not that he had enjoyed an easy road, but that he had stayed in the battle: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:” That is the cry of the faithful soldier, it is yours today, Christian?

"Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier." 2 Timothy 2:3,4 (KJB) 

The question “Who will be the last man standing?” is a searching question for every saved believer here in the closing hours of the Church Age. Will you still be faithful when others walk away? Will you still preach the Book when compromise is easier? Will you still get back up when you fall? Will you still be watching, working and waiting when the Lord Jesus Christ comes for His church? The last man standing will not be the strongest man, the loudest man, or the most gifted man; he will be the faithful man, held up by the Lord, anchored in the Book, washed in the blood, and looking for that blessed hope. The Bible says, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” In a day when so many are quitting by inches, cooling off by degrees, and trading conviction for comfort, may God help us to stay in the fight, rise when we fall, and be found standing at our post when the trumpet sounds!! On this Sunday Service, we ask who will be the last man standing? TO THE FIGHT!!!

The story of America’s founding cannot rightly be told without talking about the Baptists. Because while polished statesmen were debating liberty in halls of power, Baptist preachers were paying the price for it in the prison houses, courtrooms, and hostile colonial towns. They were fined, mocked, taxed, beaten down by religious establishments, and in some cases jailed simply for preaching the gospel without permission from the state. These were not men trying to build a secular nation without God; they were Bible believers fighting the old Roman spirit of state-controlled religion dressed up in Protestant clothing. The Baptists understood that Jesus Christ is the head of the church, not Caesar, not Congress, not a magistrate, and not a government-approved religious machine.

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” 2 Timothy 4:2 (KJB)

On this episode of the Prophecy News Podcast, what the Baptists helped secure in America was not a godless public square, but liberty of conscience—freedom to preach, freedom to assemble, freedom to baptize believers, freedom to print and distribute the Bible, and freedom to worship God without asking permission from a state church. Men like John Leland and Isaac Backus stood against the religious powers of their day and helped push the nation toward the protections that would become the First Amendment. America was not founded as the Kingdom of God, and it was never the Church, but it was founded in the shadow of an open Bible. The tragedy of our day is that the liberty Baptists fought to preserve is now being used by modern America to reject the very God who made liberty worth having. Also present at the founding of the United States of America was the “Bible of the Revolution”, a King James Bible New Testament published by Robert Aitken in 1771. It was so small the soliders of the Continential Army could easily carry it their pockets. And you wonder how it is we beat the strongest army on Earth? With the word of a King! By 1782, the fledgling Congress would authorize the publication of a complete King James Bible, and that became the pillar on which America began. The King James Bible was one of the foundational texts of English-speaking colonial America, shaping literacy, preaching, law, morals, rhetoric, and education. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton were all born in a world where King James scripture was treated as the central authority of truth, and ministers were among their chief educational products. Where we are here in 2026 is a Podcast for another day. Join us as we journey back to when America began, and meet the Baptists, and the Bible, that God used to start our nation.