In bookstores Tuesday.

Thanks so much for your prayers and patience. After too much travel and too much time away from my family, Inside The Revolution — the non-fiction book I’ve been working on for the last several  years — finally launches in book stores on Tuesday, and is available on Amazon’s and Barnes & Noble’s websites right now. First week interviews include Glenn Beck on radio and TV, Michael Medved, Michael Reagan, the “700 Club,” and Janet Parschall. The first public event we’ll be doing is the 2009 Epicenter Conference in San Diego. Hope you can join us. Full speaking schedule is on my homepage, and will be updated regularly. Hope you enjoy the book, and may God bless  you and your family during these challenging times.

SELECTED MEDIA SCHEDULE

(all times eastern and subject to change)

Monday:

• 10:30am — Taped interview with USA Radio Network
• 11:00am — Taped interview with AFR news network
• 5pm-6pm — Michael Medved radio show, nationally syndicated
• 6:15pm — Michael Reagan radio show, nationally syndicated

Tuesday:

• 9:05am — CBN’s “700 Club”
• 3pm-4pm — Janet Parschall radio show, nationally syndicated

Wednesday:

• Morning — Glenn Beck radio show, nationally syndicated (precise time TBD)
• 5:00pm — Glenn Beck TV show on Fox, (precise time TBD)

EXCERPTS FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO INSIDE THE REVOLUTION:

On April 1, 1979, Iran became the first Islamic republic in history. Three decades later, the shock waves from the Iranian Revolution are still being felt around the globe. Iran today is the most dangerous terrorist state on the face of the planet. What’s more, we are rapidly approaching the most dangerous moment in the history of the Iranian Revolution.

Iran’s senior leaders have taught in recent years that the Revolution is now reaching its climax. They have stated publicly that the end of the world is “imminent.” They have taught that the way to hasten the arrival or appearance on earth of the Islamic messiah known as the “Twelfth Imam,” or the “Mahdi,” is to destroy Israel, which they call the “Little Satan,” and the United States, which they call the “Great Satan.” They have vowed to annihilate the United States and Israel and have urged Muslims to envision a world without America and Zionism. They have come to believe that Allah has chosen them to create chaos and carnage on the planet.

The key leaders in Iran seem hell-bent on accomplishing their apocalyptic, genocidal mission. They are feverishly trying to build, buy, or steal nuclear weapons. Iran is actively testing advanced ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. Tehran is building alliances with Russia, China, and North Korea-all nuclear-armed powers-and has cooperated on the development of offensive and defensive weapons systems with those countries.

Iran’s leaders are building a network of thousands of suicide bombers ready to strike American targets. They are sending suicide bombers and other insurgents, money, and weapons into Iraq to kill Iraqis as well as American and Coalition forces. They are harboring scores of al Qaeda terrorists and leaders inside Iranian cities and allowing terrorists to crisscross their territory. They are making a concerted effort to enlarge the reach of terrorist operations by building strategic alliances with other jihadist organizations, regardless of their theological differences.

The Iranian leaders are digging hundreds of thousands of new graves in Iran itself to bury the enemies of Islam. They are calling for the unification of the Islamic world politically and economically, including the creation of a single currency. They are aggressively exporting their Islamic Revolution to countries throughout the Middle East and around the world.

Put simply, the leaders of Iran believe that Allah is on their side, the wind is at their back, and the end of Judeo-Christian civilization as we know it is near.

I believe just the opposite. As an evangelical Christian with a Jewish father (and Gentile mother), I worship the God of the Bible-the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, who is also the God of the New Testament. I do not believe that God is on the side of the zealots that run Iran. Rather, I believe that the end of their reign of terror is increasingly close at hand. Every day I pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Every day I pray for peace throughout the Middle East. What’s more, I pray for the salvation of the leaders of Iran and the salvation of their terrorist allies, and I encourage others to do the same. And because I serve a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God, a wonder-working God of miracles, I firmly believe that God in His grace can change the leadership in Iran.

That said, the God of the Bible may have other plans. If, in His sovereignty, He chooses not to remove the Radicals in Iran, then I believe a major, cataclysmic war or series of wars is coming soon as a direct result of the Iranian Revolution that was set into motion by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. The United States, NATO, Israel, or some combination thereof could initiate a preemptive strike to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat. If they do not, Iran will soon be poised to launch the apocalyptic war required by its theology to destroy the West and usher in the End of Days. The question we all must be asking is not if there will be war with Iran but when it will begin and who will strike first….

What the extremists need most-what they pray for most of all-are Western ignorance, apathy, and lack of moral clarity. If the West can be lulled to sleep, if free people the world over can somehow be prevented from understanding the true goals and objectives of the Radicals and mobilizing to take all necessary actions to prevent their success, then the Radicals will soon be able to pull off a series of attacks that make 9/11 pale by comparison and could leave millions dead, not thousands.

Thirty years after the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini to power in Iran, however, it has become clear to me that there is not simply one Revolution under way; there are three. Each is pursued with equal passion and vigor by groups I define as the “Radicals,” the “Reformers,” and the “Revivalists.” And with the stakes so high-and time so short-there are important questions to be answered, and fast….

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HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• Israeli military intelligence chief: Iran has crossed nuclear ‘technological threshold’
• Israel says Iran using nuclear talks to buy time for bomb
• Israel’s bid to halt Iran nuke program has failed
• Iran reportedly test-fires new missile
• N. Korea warns intercepting ‘satellite’ will prompt counterstrike

Netanyahu confers with MK Gideon Sa'ar, #2 in the Likud Party

** BREAKING: Morocco severs diplomatic ties with Iran

** Iran test-fires new long-range missile

With Iran feverishly pursuing nuclear weapons and the White House consumed with the U.S. and global economic crisis and thus far both unable and unwilling to stop Iran, Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu appears set to finalize his coalition government and announce his cabinet ministers, perhaps as early as this week.

• Obama seeks new links with Iran
• Obama taking “wrong” path over Israel: Iran leader
• Iran: Obama Treads Same Wrong Path as Bush
• Pope to visit Holy Land on May 8-15: Benedict XVI tells followers he will visit sites of Jesus’ life, pray for ‘the precious gift of unity and peace for the Middle East and all of humanity.’ Peres: Pope ‘an honorable guest’

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is on the verge of being indicted by Israeli police authorities on corruption charges. Yet he is absolutely determined to divide the capital city of Jerusalem, saying it is the only way for Israel to secure peace with her enemies.

“There will be no peace if a significant part of Jerusalem is not the capital of the Palestinian state,” Olmert said Friday, according to Ynet news.  “When you sit on the chair of the prime minister, which isn’t very comfortable, you have a panoramic view of everything, from end to end…when you see a panoramic image you have to reach different conclusions than the ones you reached when you only had a partial picture.”

I could not disagree with Prime Minister Olmert more strongly. It is not for any Prime Minister to give away that which is not his in the first place. The Bible says that Jerusalem belongs to the Lord. He has chosen it for Himself, and has not given permission for Israeli leaders to tear it asunder.

• Psalm 132:13-14 — “For the Lord has chosen Zion. “He has desired it for His habitation. ‘This is My resting place forever; Here I will dwell, for I have desired it.”
• I Kings 11:32 — “Jerusalem [is] the city which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel.”
• II Chronicles 6:6 — “I have chosen Jerusalem that My name might be there.”

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• Ehud Barak says nation demands “unity” government, hints Labor may join Netanyahu coalition
• Barak causing rift within Labor party
• Netanyahu says will cut taxes in 2009
• Ahmadinejad urges U.S. to give up “satanic ways” before a new relationship with Washington can begin

CORRECTED VERSION: From January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008, Americans lost $6.9 trillion in wealth in the stock markets.

Just since Barack Obama was elected, Americans have lost some $3 trillion in wealth, reports Investors’ Business Daily, as the markets have plummeted some 30%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, for example, has collapsed from 9,625.28 on November 4, 2008 to 6,647.49 on March 4, 2009.

Firesale prices are in effect — Citibank stocks are under $1 and General Motors shares are selling for less than $2 — as investors see major American financial and manufacturing behemoths on the brink of bankruptcy.

Zoom out a bit, and we see the situation even more dire. Since the market’s highs in October 2007, the DJIA is down some 50%. That means over the last 18 months, we have seen half the nation’s wealth vanish into thin air.

In the midst of all this, millions of Americans have lost their jobs (latest headline: Jobless rate jumps to 8.1 percent in Feb., highest since late 1983; employers cut 651,000 jobs) . Small businesses are dying. Big businesses are dying. Credit is tight. Confidence is low. And people are anxious.

Last weekend, I met with some evangelical Christian business leaders in Naples, Florida. They asked me what I thought the future held. I did not offer advice on how to win on Wall Street. But I did share with them a few thoughts from the Scriptures.

In Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus said: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where theives break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where theives do not break in and steal; for where your treasure is, there is  your heart also.”

I asked the men, “More tough times may be ahead. If some of you have lost 30% to 50% of your assets, what are your plans going forward? What if another 30% to 50% of your wealth vanishes, or is confiscated in a massive new tax increase? Would it not be better to invest some or all of that wealth in the kingdom of God now, where it is safe and secure, while you still have it?”

The Lord is shaking our country and purifying His Church. He is requiring all of us to reconsider what we value, where our treasure is, where our hearts are. He is preparing us to see Him face to face. And when we see Him, there will be a day of accounting. He will ask us what we did with the resources He entrusted to us. What, then, shall we say?

The men also asked me, “Where is the United States in End Times Bible prophecy?” When I replied, “The Bible makes no indication that the U.S. is a significant player in End Times prophecy,” they responded, “Why? What happens to us?”

I was honest with them, saying I don’t know. I do believe we are living through the events Jesus talked about in Matthew 24 as signs of the “last days” before His return. That said, I don’t know why the United States — the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the face of the earth in the history of mankind — is not ever clearly mentioned in or clearly alluded to in Bible prophecy concerning the last days. I don’t know because the Bible doesn’t tell us. 

For the last several years, I have been explaining that we could be devastated by a nuclear war. We could be hit by a series of decapitating terrorist attacks. We could be hit by massive natural disasters. And/or we could face a series of economic disasters. Consider just two potential scenarios that could render the U.S. a non-factor in the last days:

Scenario #1: the U.S. could implode economically after the rapture. The rapture is an event described in I Thessalonians 4-5 when true followers of Jesus Christ are snatched away from the earth and meet Jesus Christ in the air at a time when the rest of the world has been saying there is “peace and safety.” How many Christ-followers in the U.S. would disappear in the “twinkle of an eye,” according to the Scriptures? We don’t know for certain. It could be 10 million. It could be 25 million. It could be 50 million, 75 million, or more. The point is the rapture will have a devastating and irrecoverable impact on the U.S. in many ways. Consider, for example, how hard the American economy was hit when nearly 3,000 Americans were lost on 9/11/01. Now imagine the impact the loss of millions of Americans due to the rapture would have on the U.S. economy. You think we have a subprime mortgage crisis now? Imagine what the U.S. banking and real estate system will look like when millions of Christians disappear and are no longer here to pay their mortgages, or their credit card bills, or buy other goods and services. Our economy would implode, and suddenly America would no longer be the economic superpower it has been for a century.

Scenario #2: the U.S. economy could melt down in a Great Depression before the rapture. Such a melt down would emasculate our economic and military power and thus radically reduce our influence in the world. On October 16, 2008, I wrote about “the implications of this financial apocalypse.” Things have only worsened since then. I am praying that the Lord will have mercy on us. But we cannot rule out the possibility that the Lord will remove His favor from our nation and allow us to be rocked to our core economically. Decisive action should be taken to strengthen our economy and help American businesses small and large grow and create more jobs. But the President’s hastily-crafted multi-trillion dollar spending plan will not save the day and revive our moribund economy.

Most Members of Congress didn’t even read the 1,100-plus page bill they voted in favor of, noted Sen. Frank Lautenberg, the New Jersey Democrat. The Obama administration was rushing through this massive and expensive bill without giving the people’s representatives the time to read it and consider its merits. Why? The plan is essentially European socialism and risks making our economic situation worse, not better. According to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the real price tag of the bill is actually $3.27 trillion over the next ten years. The feverishness with which the White House and Congressional leadership are running up our national debt is unnerving. They are rushing so fast to spend an unheard of amount of money without giving the people of the country much less their elected representatives the opportunity to read it, study it, debate it, much less amend it. In the process, they are piling more than $3 trillion worth of crushing new debt on top of the more than $10 trillion of debt we’re already handing over to our children.

What does the future hold? It’s almost as if we can hear the ice cracking underneath our feet. I don’t know if the Lord will allow us to plunge into the icy waters of the North Atlantic. I pray not. But humanly speaking, you and I have very little influence to stop the current course of events. So we must pray. We must to turn to the Lord and seek His mercy, His grace, His favor on our nation and our leaders, lest we see the current economic crisis take us into a financial death spiral. What’s more, we must seek the Lord in pray — even with fasting — for wisdom to know how to invest the resources He has entrusted to us to kingdom work.

Consider this excerpt from page 154 of Dead Heat : “What Bennett had never really considered carefully until now was the possibility that something else might devastate the American people, rendering them ineffective heading into the last of the last days. A financial downturn on Wall Street. The sudden collapse of the dollar. The beginning of another Great Depression. A series of devastating earthquakes. Or hurricanes. Or other natural disasters, like a tsunami. [Or ] the most cataclysmic terrorist attack of all time — five nuclear warheads. And there might be more to come. None of it was clearly prophesied in the Scriptures. Not that he could find. But perhaps he should have foreseen the neutralization of America by more carefully reading between the lines. If so, what else was he missing? What exactly was coming next?”

Last point for now: even as we process the enormity of our own economic crisis, we need to keep our eye on the global economy as well. We need to be aware of just how much suffering and geopolitical instability is being created by this global financial crisis. Russia’s stock market, for example, is down 75%. The value of the Russian currency — the ruble — is down about 30%. I believe we will see a terrible surge of anti-Semitism in Russia as a result. I believe many Russians will blame Jews for their economic troubles. They will blame America as well. The European economy, meanwhile, is experiencing the worst contraction in decades. Spain’s economy, for example, is the worst in 15 years. Whom will Europeans blame? Will they turn against Israel and the U.S.? I suspect many will.

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A new report by a highly respected U.S. think tank indicates time is running out for the West to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons. In fact, “Iran is likely to obtain a nuclear weapon within a year as it already has access to enough fissionable material to manufacture 50 warheads, “concludes a report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

The report urges the new U.S. administration to “strengthen its policies to prevent, mitigate or counteract cascading instability resulting from Iranian nuclear progress.” But the report warns that “time is short.” If the Obama administration does not act decisively, the authors warn that “Israel may decide to act unilaterally” and that Israeli leaders seem convinced that they have a military option. “However, Israelis see the option fading over the next one to two years, not only because of its Iran’s nuclear progress and dispersion of its program but also because of improved Iranian air defenses, especially the expected delivery of the S-300 surface-to-air missile system from Russia.”

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• Jerusalem Post: ‘Israel is mulling Iran military action’
• Haaretz: Iran is likely to obtain a nuclear weapon within a year as it already has access to enough fissionable material to manufacture 50 warheads, according to a report commissioned by a key U.S. think-tank.
• Wall Street Journal: Obama’s Iran Crisis: It’s arriving faster than he thinks.
• Washington Institute For Near East Policy: Preventing a Cascade of Instability (must read report on how dangerous the Iran nuclear crisis has become)
• AP: Saudi minister says Arabs should stand up to Iran
• Russian scholar says US will collapse next year
• Report: significant rise in anti-Semitic attacks in Europe since Gaza offensive and economic crisis
• Daily Telegraph: Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez tightens state control of food amid rocketing inflation and food shortages
• UPI: Drought grips Afghanistan — “Afghanistan is experiencing its worst drought in a decade and its food crisis is deepening as a result, experts said. The relief agency Oxfam said that as a result of the water shortage, 5 million Afghans would face severe food shortages.”

Please join me in the Holy Land in November to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Now more than ever, we need to stand with Israel, show all Israelis unconditional love, and pray for the peace of Jerusalem and the epicenter. In November, The Joshua Fund and I will be taking 300 people on a “Prayer & Vision Trip” of the Holy Land, culminating in our first-ever “Jerusalem Prayer Summit.” Please prayerfully consider joining us. It would be a great honor to have you with us.

For more information, or to register today on-line, please click here.

To see the updated Epicenter 2009 conference site — with video messages from Lt.-General (ret.) Jerry Boykin and Joel Rosenberg — please click here.

To join 90,000 subscribers to Joel’s Flash Traffic email updates, please click here.

GEOPOLITICAL HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• Hillary Clinton puts America on collision course with Israel as she pledges to press for Palestinian state
• Clinton says U.S. diplomacy unlikely to end Iran nuclear program
• Obama Offered Deal to Russia in Secret Letter (U.S. would give up missile defense system in Europe if Russia would help stop Iran from building long-range missile systems.)
• RUSSIA BRUSHES OFF OBAMA: NO ‘HAGGLING’
• Report: Russian arming Palestinians
• Arabs must unite to confront a nuclear Iran, Saudi FM says
• Secretary Clinton in Israel: U.S. to dispatch two envoys to Syria
• Netanyahu: Clinton and I found common ground
• Damascus Urged to Come Clean on Nuclear Activity

ECONOMIC HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• FLASHBACK: Bible Prophecy and the U.S. and Global Economies: “It’s almost as if you can hear the ice cracking beneath our feet”
• Investors Business Daily: Markets are down 30% since Obama was elected, “slicing over $3 trillion from Americans’ wealth” and causing investors to walk away from investing, “while businesses [have] shut down factories and offices and slash[ed] jobs.”
• Dow finishes below 7,000 for first time since ’97
• White House Knocks Jim Cramer For Calling Obama Budget “Greatest Wealth Destruction By a President”
• Video Clip: Jim Cramer on NBC’s Today Show: “We have an agenda in this country now that I would regard as being a radical agenda. I think we had a budget that came out that basically put a level of fear in this country that I have not seen ever in my life, and I think that that changed everything.”
• Washington Post: Obama Administration likely to hire 250,000 new government workers
• Wall Street Journal: The Obama Economy: As the Dow keeps dropping, the President is running out of people to blame. “As 2009 opened, three weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9034 on January 2, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24% to 6763, for an overall decline of 25% in two months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama’s policies have become part of the economy’s problem. Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after five weeks in office, it’s become clear that Mr. Obama’s policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence — and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.”
• What Rush actually said about the U.S. economy and President Obama: “Do you know that President Obama, in six weeks of his administration, has proposed more spending than from the founding of the country to his inauguration? Now, this is not prosperity. It is not going to engender prosperity. It’s not going to create prosperity and it’s also not going to advance or promote freedom. It’s going to be just the opposite. There are going to be more controls over what you can and can’t do, how you can and can’t do it, what you can and can’t drive, what you can and can’t say, where you can and can’t say it. All of these things are coming down the pike, because it’s not about revenue generation to them, it’s about control.”
• Heritage Foundation analysis concludes Obama plan will increase federal debt by more than $3.5 trillion over the next two years alone: “The United States looks to issue between $3.5 and $4 trillion of government debt over the next two years, possibly more, thanks to deficit spending under current policy, the stimulus bill, and the financing of TARP II. To put this in context, the total publicly held debt today is about $6.4 trillion, so we’re talking about increasing the outstanding debt by more than half in just two years.”

On Monday night, something remarkable is going to take place in the capital of Syria. More than 1,100 senior Syrian government officials, journalists, business leaders and religious leaders — Muslim, Catholic and evangelical Christian — will attend the gala premiere of a major motion picture entitled Damascus, written, produced and directed by entirely Arab Christians.  The film, part documentary and part narrative drama, tells the story of how Saul of Tarsus — one of the first prominent persecutors of Christ-followers in the Holy Land — himself became a follower of Jesus during a miraculous encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus and eventually became known as  the Apostle Paul, going on to write much of the New Testament.

It is unheard of in the Middle East to have a major Christian film about the events of the New Testament debut in a Muslim-majority country run by the secular Ba’ath Party, much less have the premiere supported and attended by senior government officials. That’s what makes the Damascus docu-drama project so extraordinary. What’s more, the film is hosted and narrated by one of the most well-known Syrian TV newscasters who explains the historic events of the life of Paul in the very places where those events occurred. Numerous events in Paul’s life are then dramatized using famous Syrian Muslim actors playing the part of Jews and Jewish followers of Jesus.

After the premiere, the film is expected to be launched throughout Syria and the rest of the Muslim world. Sources indicate senior Catholic leaders in the Vatican recently reviewed the film and were favorable.

The remarkable film debut comes at a sensitive time for Syrian officials who are feeling quite isolated from the West. U.S. and European leaders have been sharply critical of President Bashar al-Assad’s government on a number of fronts, for supporting Hezbollah’s war against Israel, supporting Hamas’ war against Israel, forming a strategic alliance with Iran, buying billions of dollars worth of advanced weapons systems from Russia, and building a nuclear facility with the help of North Korea (a facility that was bombed and destroyed by an Israel airstrike several years ago). Syria’s government has never been controlled by Radical Islamic jihadists. Still, it has long stifled activities by Arab Christians to teach about their faith. It is not clear what the Assad government’s motives are for both allowing and supporting the release of the Damascus film. But it is an encouraging development indeed.