The authoritarian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic prepared the world for the coming of the Antichrist, Dr. Michael Youssef said on the “Todd Starnes Show.”
Click here to join Todd’s private Facebook group for Conservatives
The “Is The End Near?: What Jesus Told Us About the Last Days” author pointed out that “people complied very quickly” with authoritarianism, not just in the United States, but around the world.
“They became sheep all of a sudden,” Youssef, the pastor of the Church of the Apostles in Atlanta, said.
The “Leading The Way” ministry founder told host Todd Starnes he decided to write the book after he studied what Jesus said about the end times and realized those things “are happening globally.”
Jesus, he explained, likened his second coming to the birthing process when the expectant mother has “birth pains.”
Air Force Tells Cadets to Stop Using Words Like ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’
“In reality, what Jesus is saying to the disciples, look, earthquakes, all of the six things that he give them as the signs, they’re always going to be with us. But here’s the sign that he gave that is so clear, I think missed by a lot of people who are busy with the charts. He said, When you see these things coming in closer and closer intervals, then you know that the baby is about to be born, the happy occasion is coming and therefore you better be ready,” Youssef said.
SEE IT: What Is the First Lady Wearing?
“Todd, I’m seeing now as I travel the globe so many people in Muslim countries and persecuted Christians’ countries coming to Christ by the thousands, even at the threat of their own life as soon as they convert. While in the West, they’re turning their back on the faith and they call it deconstruction,” he said. “And so can also, by the same token, that Satan is preparing the world for the Antichrist, that God is preparing his elect from every corner of the globe for his return.”
LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF BELOW:
Below is a rushed transcript from the Todd Starnes Radio Show:
STARNES: [01:35:19] I want to go to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Line. One of my favorites is joining us. Brand new book out “Is The End Near?” Oh, that’s a great question. It’s a great book. Dr. Michael Youssef is just an incredible leader in the Christian community. He is the founder and president of Leading the Way, an incredible ministry. And he is the founding pastor of the Church of the Apostles in Atlanta, Georgia. And Dr. Youssef joins us today. Dr. Youssef, I hope you’re doing well today. [01:35:50][31.3]
YOUSSEF: [01:35:51] Oh, what a delight to be with you again, Todd. Really is just joy. When I saw your name, I said, man, I want to be there. [01:35:59][7.9]
STARNES: [01:35:59] Oh, this is going to be it’s going to be a fun segment. And first of all, congratulations on the new book. The second question is the end near, Dr. Youssef? [01:36:09][9.1]
YOUSSEF: [01:36:10] Well, I really believe it is. I’ll tell you why. If anybody followed me for all the years I’ve been in the media in the United States: 35 years, I’m not known as being the end time preacher. That’s not me. I’m kind of … Counsel of God. [01:36:28][18.1]
STARNES: [01:36:28] You’re not Hal Lindsay is what you’re saying. [01:36:30][1.8]
YOUSSEF: [01:36:31] No, no, no. I knew Hal, by the way, he’s wonderful man. [01:36:34][3.3]
STARNES: [01:36:34] Oh, yeah. [01:36:34][0.2]
YOUSSEF: [01:36:35] He told me how much you got burnt out [inaudible] …so I learned from him, and I just preached expository, and I’m, as you know, Todd, I’m trained cultural anthropologist. And I so I read I kind of watch trends. And so with the scripture open in front of me to the words of Jesus, not all the stuff about Gog and Magog and Armageddon, and it’s just the words of Jesus. When he was asked by the disciples in Matthew 24, What are the signs of the nearness of your time? And he gives them six. And then he kind of couched that in an image of a birth, a labor pain, birth pangs. And because you know what the baby gets. Began to be pregnant. There was no labor. And then you go for all this period of time, nothing happening with any come toward the end of the nine months, and then they come, the labor pains, would come over. We have 11 grandchildren. So I’ve been through this so many times. You know, they come every 2 hours, every hour, then every half an hour. And so in reality, what Jesus is saying to the disciples, look, earthquakes, all of the six things that he give them as the signs, they’re always going to be with us. But here’s the sign that he gave that is so clear, I think missed by a lot of people who are busy with the charts. He said, When you see these things coming in closer and closer intervals, then you know that the baby is about to be born, the happy occasion is coming and therefore you better be ready. And then immediately he goes on to Chapter 25. It gives the parable of the ten virgins. Five had the oil ready, and the other five did not. There’s so much in common, but five were ready, five were not. And so I really become convinced as I watched the world and as I’m watching the globe. In the past, a lot of the end time preachers always put everything by America. Everything that happened in America has to do with the end. Well, wait a minute. God is bigger than America. It’s the globe. And so these things are happening globally. And as I watched them and I got the scripture open, I said, I need to write a book. Even though I avoided, you know, getting into the end time stuff. But I said, I think now is the time the world is asking questions, and we — who know Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord of our lives, who know our eternity secure in him — we need to let the world know that there is an opportunity, and the opportunity is now to come in and escape the judgment. And so that’s really my primary motivation. [01:39:32][176.3]
STARNES: [01:39:32] Dr. Youssef, you point out and I go back to the days of the global pandemic, when there was really a lot of panic. And usually in those times, people immediately returned back to the church. But they could not do that because most of the churches in America were closed at the time. You look out at what’s happening with the fires and the floods and the hurricanes and all of these disasters. And you throw into that that the conversation we’re having now on the global sphere where you’ve got nuclear war being threatened and you do wonder, okay. At what point, you know, how crazy is this going to get before the Lord returns? [01:40:15][43.0]
YOUSSEF: [01:40:16] Yes, well, you know, you really put your finger on something very important. What the global epidemic, at least for me, showed us this incredible proclivity on the part of so many so-called Western democracies who immediately turn into becoming authoritarians, into authoritarianism regimes, whether it be in Melbourne, Australia, which are very familiar with that country. My wife is from Australia or whether it be in Canada, where one pastor just only opened the church. She didn’t even have people. He just opened the door and immediately went to prison. And in Sydney, Australia, where if you are if you’re five miles away from home and they catch you on those one of those cameras, you get arrested and go to jail. And so when you see these things in England, my goodness gracious, all this stuff that was happening. And so when you see all of that is happening, you say, you know, the world is being prepared for the Antichrist, because not only that, authoritarianism just popped up so fast, so quickly, but people complied very quickly, too. They became sheep all of a sudden. And so when the Antichrist with a capital A, because a lot of Antichrist through the history with a small A. But when the Antichrist comes, as John talks about in his epistles and his revelation, you’re going to see the people already prepared to comply, to follow, especially the fact that he’s described as a very, very charming, very mesmerizing person who miracles, he’s going to perform miracles. People are going to say, Wow, even in Matthew 24: 24, Jesus said, even if possible, some of the elected will be misled. And that is a mind blowing to me because many times in the Gospel of John Jesus said, Those whom the Father has given me, I lose none. But when you think of the lack of discernment on the part of so many church people today, how easily they’re going to be misled by charming, a charmer who is performing miracles, supernatural, doing great things and everybody is going said, Wow, we want this guy. We want him to rule over us. And so the world is being prepared. By the same token, Todd, I’m seeing now as I travel the globe so many people in Muslim countries and persecuted Christians’ countries coming to Christ by the thousands, even at the threat of their own life as soon as they convert. While in the West, they’re turning their back on the faith and they call it deconstruction. And so can also, by the same token, that Satan is preparing the world for the Antichrist, that God is preparing His elect from every corner of the globe for his return. And so that excites me. I really frighten me at all. That gives me absolutely shivers in the back of my spine, looking up and knowing that my day of redemption is drawing near and I want to take as many people to heaven with me as possible. [01:43:27][191.1]
STARNES: [01:43:28] Dr. Michael Yusef is on our Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Line. He’s got a really thought provoking new book out talking about the end of days. Is the end near? There is a Web site, istheendnearBook.com. And of course, we have a link to the book on our live show blog so you can find it there as well. And the book comes out in October. Dr. Yousef, you mentioned and I get these questions a lot as well. And, you know, we’re having a church dinner and we’re just shooting the breeze and they talk about the apocalypse. But, you know, there are fears about that to be one of what if we get hit by an asteroid or there’s something else that would really cause mass, you know, you know, catastrophe. You talk about that in the book. [01:44:16][47.7]
YOUSSEF: [01:44:17] I do. In fact, Jesus himself said there would be signs in the heavens. Now, remember, he’s talking to people at that time, not only the period of history, period of time, but their level of education, everything else, he didn’t tell about asteroids and all these things. He just said, there will be signs in the heavens. I mean, you’re going to see it happening globally. That so will there be asteroid? Here’s where the fear comes in. You remember, I know you’re young, but I’m old man now. But I remember back when Jimmy Carter was being pressured to go unilateral disarmament with the Soviet Union. And a local bishop here in Atlanta wrote him an open letter was published and he said, you know, you need to unilaterally disarm –this was a very liberal bishop. And so then the bishop called me one day, he said. Do you think that letter is correct? I said, look, I’m not here to question your politics or, you know, your theology even, but I want to tell you what I do. At that time, I had three young children. Now I have 11 grandchildren, as I said. If I hear there’s a nuclear weapon left Moscow and it’s heading for Atlanta. I said, I’ll tell you what I would do, and I was speaking as a father who adores his children. I said, I’ll go to the roof of my house and they’ll wait for it so we can go to heaven together. And so if your eternity is secure in Christ, you don’t have to worry about how we’re going to get hit, what’s going to get hit if we’re going to get hit. But you are always looking up and saying, I know Christ, my family know Christ and I, you know, my loved ones know Christ. And whatever happens, we know that eternity, our eternity is so secure in Christ and it’s going to be far more fantastic than this Earth ever hope to be. Why do I worry? Why do I fear? Nothing. But if you do not know the faith and you don’t know Jesus as the personal savior, then I would worry. I would be scared to death. But because I, you know, I wouldn’t know what’s going to be on the other side. And I would want everybody who is listening to us and I know this is not a Christian program, but to think really think about this life, about eternal life, about what God said, about eternity and begin to plan now to prepare. And I’m telling you, in the old days start, some people talk about their end times. End times what happens? They put on white robes. They head for the mountains. That is crazy. I because I believe that we are in the end times, I am working 17 hours a day and literally traveling the globe. I’m just heading for England and I’ll come back after big celebrations and big meetings there. I’m going to go to Australia in November. I’m preaching the gospel all over the world. I am busier than ever before at 74. [01:47:15][178.4]
STARNES: [01:47:16] Wow. [01:47:16][0.0]
YOUSSEF: [01:47:17] It is a slogan. Is a slogan busier than ever before at 74. Because that’s what Jesus said. Occupy till I come. Not put on white robes, head for the mountains. No, he said, occupy until I come. So I’m working and giving and serving. And that’s what we’re supposed to do. Not sit on our blessed assurance and say, okay, waiting for the spaceship. [01:47:39][22.2]
STARNES: [01:47:40] All right, Dr. Youssef, that’s a great way to end the conversation. And we wish you safe travels across the globe. Folks, an opportunity for you to go ahead and preorder this great new book is the End Near? We have a direct link over on our live show blog and you can also preorder wherever you get your books. Dr. Youssef, always a pleasure to have you joining us. And congratulations on the new project. [01:48:05][24.5]
YOUSSEF: [01:48:06] Pleasure, Todd. I want you to come and speak here. Well, sometime. [01:48:08][2.2]
STARNES: [01:48:08] I’d love to do that. I love to do that. What a great church doctor Michael Youssef, everybody. There in Atlanta, absolutely beautiful church, a facility they have there right off the interstate. [01:48:21][12.1]