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Foreign.
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Welcome to the Prophecy Recon Podcast. Strategic intelligence in the last days. Therefore, let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober. First, Thessalonians 5, 6, stay awake, keep watch. And now your host, Joe Hawkins.
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Well, welcome to the Prophecy Recon Podcast. I'm Joe Hawkins and today I have my good friend J.B. hickson of NBW Ministries and we're going to talk about the great last days apostasy. So how's everything going, jb?
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C
Oh, it's great. You know, new year, new initiatives, new plans, new hopes and dreams and new opportunities, of course. And so yeah, just thankful to get to do what we do and appreciate being on the show.
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A
Absolutely. And you've got a busy schedule ahead of yourself. I know if everybody goes to the NBW website, notbyworks.org they're gonna be able to go to your events tab and you got a lot going on this year already.
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C
We do, yeah. We're filling up and grateful for that and but yeah, it's a busy travel. We're home for June, for January, but then we hit the road in February and pretty much every month thereafter for, for quite a while. So hopefully our paths will cross at some of the upcoming events. I'm sure they will.
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A
And. Oh yeah, absolutely. And I, I know that you got a cruise that you're, you're being part of later on in the year, right?
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C
Yes. Praise God for that. Listen, it's a, it's really a once in a lifetime opportunity for anybody that wants to join us, but Don Perkins Ministry According to Prophecy is hosting a Prophecy Alaska cruise. It's September 20th through the 27th. It features Tom Hughes, myself and Don Perkins. So I mean you just put all those factors together and it's like I'm pinching myself to think about spending seven days viewing the beautiful scenery of Alaska. Several ports of call in southeastern Alaska, they're seeing the glaciers. And then when you're at sea, being able to sit under the teaching of Tom Hughes, Don Perkins, you know, several prophecy messages, being enjoying the cruise with a group of other like minded, Bible believing, prophecy minded believers. Just, just awesome. It's it ship, it ships out of Seattle, goes up to Vancouver, Canada, seven days. All the details are@knotworks.org but man, we'd love to have you, have everybody join us. That, that can, it's going to be awesome.
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A
Oh, I bet it is. And you know Tom Hughes himself, wonderful teacher Don Perkins. Love that brother. Both wonderful brothers in the Lord. Yourself of course, definitely go to notbyworks.org and check that out. So it'll be a blessing to everybody. I know. But today, like I said, we're going to talk about the great last days apostasy. And apostasy is one of those things. And I went back and I re. Listened to the message that you gave at the, the Mississippi Prophecy Conference and, and you stated in that message that apostasy is one of those things where the church oftentimes they look outward at what's going on in the world, but they very rarely look inward at the issues that are going on within the church. And apostasy is definitely something that we see as an issue going on within the church. We've seen this, this from the faith. We're seeing people just doing crazy things. We're seeing people wanting to heap up for themselves these teachers that'll tickle their ears. And what does that do? It, eventually it leads them away from the church. And then we see the church bringing in worldly influences, this seeker sensitivity movement that we see going on. And when you bring in things from the world into the church, what does it do? Well, it changes the church and it changes the overall message of the gospel. And it can certainly water it down, don't you think?
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C
No question. Yeah. I mean, obviously the Lord loves the church. It's his bride. And you know, over 2,000 years now, sadly, because of the depravity of man and, and the deception of, of the devil, we've, we've done a poor job of, of doing what the church is called to do. But you know, that book was inspired by a number of things. It's been out just under a year now. We published it at the beginning of last year, February, I think it was late February. And you know, as you just said, part of it was, you guys like you and I are so interested in Bible prophecy and certainly the signs are everywhere. We look and we see just the stage being set all over the place in a variety of contexts. But we forget, I think one of the biggest signs, I call it the forgotten sign, and that is apostasy. And so in the book I outline, really define some terms there at the beginning because of Roman Catholic influence, a lot of people hear apostasy or apostate and they think unbeliever and hell. And certainly there are those who think they're Christians and aren't because they've never simply trusted in Jesus Christ and Him alone for salvation. They never placed their faith in him alone. But apostasy, as I outline in the book, can also apply to believers who are believers. They'll be in heaven someday, but they've drifted away from the Lord. Apostasy means falling away. And so regardless of whether in the church today in America, we're dealing with believers who are not right with the Lord where they should be in their fellowship, or unbelievers who've never been saved, the fact is, the church as a whole, as an institution, is absolutely falling away. And so that part of it was just recognizing, wow, this is a major sign of the times that we're getting close to the end, right under our own roofs, so to speak. But another sort of motivation for me was sort of a nostalgic one. Last year was my 40th year in ministry. I was licensed to the ministry in June of 1985, and my home church pastor that licensed me, that had a profound influence on my life is still living. He's 92 years old now. In fact, I had the chance to have him on the show a few months ago. Quite an honor. But anyway, you know, I just was thinking, 40 years. What all has changed in that 40 years? And it truly was amazing when I started thinking about what the church was like when I was sitting in it as a young man, when I was pastoring early in my ministry before, you know, we got started, not by works. And wow, it was stunning to me. And it's kind of like the old Japanese proverb, if you want to. If you want to know about water, don't ask a fish, because it's sort of all around us. And we don't really recognize the changes because we're too close to it. And so anyway, that sort of gave rise to this book. And I outlined seven different ways that the American church in particular is falling away.
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Yeah, it's absolutely fallen away. Like you say, it's fallen away in more ways than one. In the book, you talk about how it's fallen away biblically, morally, socially, you know, academically, politically. I mean, we. We see a lot of this. And there's more. I believe you have seven different ways that the church has fallen away. And what are some ways that you see the church falling away Biblically?
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C
Well, so biblically, absolutely. That's the first one. Everything else sort of flows from that. If you remove the foundation, everything's going to fall apart. No question about it. The foundation is the key, and the Bible is the foundation. You know, God gives us his word, it gives us everything we need for life and godliness. It, you know, is the lamp to our feet, the light to our Path. It's quick and powerful, sharper than any two edged sword. We know faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. Romans 10:17. So obviously the Bible, God's written revelation to mankind, has been under attack since the earliest days of the church. But in particular in these postmodern days now, 2000 years later, it has completely been, you know, just attacked, eviscerated, marginalized in every possible way Biblically, I would say first of all, the notion that there is not one absolute truth as God's word proclaims. You know, I'm starting a new series this year through the Gospel of John. We had our first message recently, first Sunday in January. And you know that book begins in the beginning was the Word, The Word was with God, the Word was God. And so there's the living incarnate Word of God, Jesus Christ. There's a living written word of God, the Bible. And to attack one is to attack the other. And so Satan has had his crosshairs set right on the Bible. And as we saw in the late 1800s, early 1900s here in America, the rise of higher criticism began to suggest that the Bible contains errors, that it can't possibly be the case that there was a global flood or that the Red Sea parted, or that Jonah was inside a great fish for three days, or that God literally created the earth in six literal 24 hour days. And so it just came under attack. And then that was a slippery slope over the last 125 years or so that has led to the denial of the deity of Christ, the denial of the virgin birth, the denial of salvation by grace through faith alone. And so, you know, all of the other problems in the church stem from a departure from the Bible as the only standard for our beliefs, attitudes and practices.
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A
Yeah, you know, and one of the biggest tricks, or you know, it's often said that the greatest trick that Satan has ever pulled is to make people believe that he never existed. And from an, you know, when we look at eschatology, you know, the study of the last things, the end time study, and that's me and you both, we love that. That's, that's really what my ministry is built upon. And, and I love to study the last things, I love to analyze the current events going on. But we, we see how Satan has really infiltrated the church as it pertains to the end times perspective. You know, myself and you and most of the people that we affiliate ourselves with, we hold the, a dispensational point of view. We, we're pre Trib believers, we're pre millennial, we're dispensationalists. We believe in the literal, grammatical, historical translation of scripture. And we, we hold to that. We hold firm to that. But there's many out there that don't. And we can see how the churches these days, how they can, when they go away from, with what scripture says, you know, especially from a historical and from a grammatical and from a literal standpoint, how they can easily really just start falling away from all of the other doctrine. And, and you know, a lot of times, and I say this pretty often, the two things that, that I get attacked on the most is my support for Israel. And anytime that I post anything about a pre tribulation rapture, I don't have to even say pre tribulation rapture. If I just use the word rapture, yeah, I get attacked, right? And, and I don't have to say anything to anybody else. But we oftentimes and dispensationalists and I've especially now that I'm kind of in it, I've been hammered more than anything by people that are preterist that don't hold to the views that we, we hold to. They believe that the fulfillment of Revelation and all the end times events have already occurred in 70 A.D. and, and how we see these poor misinterpretations of scripture really affecting the church as of today. And do you see, you know, from an eschatological standpoint, do you see how you know. Of course you do. This is what you wrote in your section. But how do you see that playing a part in the greater fallen away of the church?
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C
Right? So it's one thing to just disregard the Bible altogether, to mock it, to disparage it, to claim that it's false and just have no use for it. And that's a huge problem in mainline churches today. Most churches today have no use for the Bible anymore. They've become nothing more than social clubs. But among those who do value the Bible, then you have another issue at hand. And that is how do you handle it? How do you interpret it? What is your interpretive method? And as you said, there are a lot of people that we might consider conservative evangelical Christians in the sense that they value the Bible and they love the Lord in many cases. And, but they're just not cutting straight to use Paul's language there in 2 Timothy, what is it, 2:15, correctly handling the word of God, rightly dividing the word of God. And so there are all kinds of false Bible Study methods out there. By the way, for some time now, many weeks, every Monday we're posting a series that I'm doing on how we got our Bible. And right now, the last several weeks we've been in how to study the Bible. Bible study methods. That's a series I'm doing at 8:30 mountain time on Sundays we live stream it but then we post it on Mondays. So because there are so many false Bible study methodologies out there, allegorical method, redemptive movement method, all kinds of false methods, it has led to false views of the end times. And you mentioned some of those, preterism replacement theology, you know, blurring the distinction between the church and Israel, the rejection of the notion that Christ is going to come first for his church, then he's going to come back all the way to the earth to establish and inaugurate his kingdom and take the throne. And so Satan's the author of confusion. We know that. And by the way, I'm so glad you mentioned, you know, Satan as the enemy. We had a conversation just yesterday, Wendy and I did with someone and we were talking about some of the hurts and pains and struggles that people are facing and one particular issue that we're affecting facing family related. And the person just pointed out, hey look, this is a spiritual battle, don't forget that. And I don't know why, but for some reason it was like, duh. Of course, you know, there, there are practical issues, but ultimately it's the devil that comes to steal, kill and destroy, wants to take our joy. But so yeah, the devil loves all this confusion. And so you've got all these competing voices out there. And as I've pointed out recently, you know, in this day and age, popularity automatically makes you an expert. So as long as you have millions of followers like Candace Owens or Tucker Carlson, all of a sudden you're now an expert. I call those tin pot theologians. They really don't have two theological nickels to rub together, but they think they do. And so John Rich and others can speak about theological issues. And even though we might appreciate them and want to be kind to them, they're just dead wrong when it comes to some of these views of the end times. And then you've got the audience out there, the people reading the social media, going to the, you know, YouTube videos and they're, they're confused and they're, they're thinking, well this must be true. So and so said it and, and so then that leads to disillusionment and then a lot of People just go, I don't want to have anything to do with the end times study. Nobody agrees, so it must be too confusing. Why waste our time on it? I, I have a relative that takes that view. They just think, well, there's. Since there's so much confusion about it, well, it must not be clear. And it would be clear if it was. If God wanted us to study it, it would be clear. Well, it is clear when you handle the Bible in its literal, grammatical, historical sense.
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So I had a friend recently that, that saw you on a show with Brandon House and Brandon Holt House, and, and he was surprised to learn that you were a pastor. He knew that you were affiliated with NBW Ministries because that's your ministry. But. And he knew that I knew you. And he reached out to me and said, hey, I didn't know that JB was a pastor. And it really got me thinking that, you know, a lot of people, they really don't view pastors in the same context that they used to. Right. And I think that is by design, most likely by Satan's design. Because most people, and I rephrase that. I want to say most people, but a lot of people that go into that work, I'm gonna do a air quotes work. That's exactly how they view it. They view it like a job. They don't view it like a calling. And I would assume that, that you didn't become a pastor because this was something that you wanted to do as a job. You did this because this is what you were called to do.
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C
No doubt. I mean, yeah, yeah, no question. I, I wanted to play in the NBA, but obviously God called me to be a preacher. But no, it is a calling for sure. And, and it comes with a lot of heartache and a lot of, you know. You know, our journey's been pretty interesting. We haven't always been just a traditional full time pastor. I've been in academics for a number of years. And then of course we started not by works in 1999. But. But yeah, it's, it's a calling, to be sure.
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And the same thing with Not By Works, that's a calling as well. I mean, I, I've recently moved into that or transitioned into the full time ministry role. Not something that I thought that I would ever do or let me rephrase it, it' I wanted to do, but I wanted to wait until I retired from a job. Right. And, and that's not what the Lord had for me. The Lord said, I need you in this fight now. So go out there and get in the fight. It's definitely something from a financial standpoint that we're having to, to learn all about. But there are people that they view going into ministry as a, as a job. And this is a way that I'm going to get work and I'm going to get money and I'm going to get famous and I'm going to get this platform and I'm going to be able to tell people what I want to hear and I'm going to give them my interpretations of scripture. And then we get situations in the church like drag queen story time. We get these unbelievably crazy displays of Christmas shows or, or, you know, around super bowl time, kicking the Bible, you know, for a field goal and things like that. And you see how the morality of the church has just taken a nose dive. And then you get pastors like Andy Stanley that'll say, you know, Jesus loves me. This I know. No, your Bible didn't tell you so. I mean, he says things like that. I mean, it's just the moral depravity that we see within the church is so rampant today. And, and, and that plays a major part in the fallen away of the church. Because when people heap up for themselves, these teachers, right, that scripture and they want to have their ears tickled, they want to hear what they want to hear. It, it definitely, it tears down the gospel message. And then it, it leads people, it leads these sheep, right? These shepherds are supposed to be shepherd in their flock and it leads them astray. What would you have to say about the fallen away morally of the church?
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C
Oh my. Yeah. I mean, obviously moral depravity is as old as the fall of man, right? The fleshly desires, the desire to do things that are not healthy for us. Remember, all of God's commandments are for our good, right? That's what John tells us. His commandments are a blessing. And so God made us, he created us, he gave us a blueprint for living. And if we follow that blueprint, it's going to go well. But unfortunately we chose using our free will that he gave us to rebel against him. And for 6,000 years now, it's just gotten worse and worse and worse. And the depravity of man is at an all time low. It doesn't get better with time. It's a degenerative disease and it's going to get worse and worse. 2nd Timothy 3:13. Until the Lord comes back to make all things new. So the moral depravity is always lurking right there beneath the surface. But when we are believers and we have the Holy Spirit and we stay in the Word, then that word becomes a convicting influence, a guiding influence. And it helps strengthen our faith so that we're able to withstand the devil and he flees from us, so that we're able to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Galatians 5. So the problem is believers who are catering to the flesh are capable of doing anything that an unbeliever can do. Right? It's not like because you're a Christian, you no longer sin. Because we're a Christian, we have the power to overcome sin if we yield to the Spirit. But many believers quench the spirit. They grieve the spirit, they resist the Spirit. They do all those things the Bible talks about. And so that has led to institutionally the church condoning basically in order to promote its own evil, condoning certain behaviors. You've got pastors and church leaders and others who are wallowing around in sin and to self validate, they're now twisting the scriptures to say, well, this is really okay. You know, I know your parents and your grandparents told you adultery was a problem, but you know, things change and you know, God loves you anyway. If you want to be gender fluid, if you want to change your gender, yeah, God loves you. And that's kind of where Andy Stanley ended up. And it's, it's absolute heresy. And it's, that's why I started with biblical apostasy in my book. Because when you abandon the authority of Scripture, then it opens the floodgates to all these other types of apostasy, behaviorally or morally.
- [21:36]
A
So the book that you've written, the Great Last Days Apostasy, like you've mentioned a few of them already, but it's fallen away biblically falling away eschatologically, fallen away morally fallen away socially, evangelistically academically and politically. And where can people get this book from? Get the Great Last Days Apostasy?
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C
Yeah, obviously the best place to get it is just directly from NBW Ministries. We have a very robust store. We sell all of my books through the years, plus other great authors such as yourself. Your book is on there, prophecy, recon and you know, so yeah, notbyworks.org or through the MBW Ministries app. Of course, all of our books are available on Amazon and other places as well. The new book Great Last Days Apostasy is available in print, Kindle or audiobook. So yeah, check it out@knotbyworks.org so the
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A
last thing that I got for you today is you mentioned your pastor, Billy J. Crosby had an extreme influence on your life. Right. How does it make you feel to know that you've had that same impact on somebody else? Because I feel like you have that same impact on myself. And that's the reason why I really started the podcast the way that I do. And if you've noticed, my podcast are really, you know, geared after yours. I used your podcast as really the platform or the.
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The.
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The template for. For my podcast. How does that make you feel?
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C
Oh, man, it's humbling. And it's. It's scary, too. And I'm. I'm grateful for those kind words, but it's very humbling because I don't feel like I'm anybody. You know, my journey has been a journey of ups and downs, like anybody's. It's not that, you know, we had charted this course and had it all together, and now after, you know, 33 years of marriage and 40 years of ministry, everything's just firing on all cylinders. We've just tried to stay faithful, to trust God in good times and bad. I think one of the things that really has helped me stay on track is an unapologetic, unwavering commitment to the clarity, accuracy, and urgency of the gospel. And I believe God has blessed that. But, yeah, when you say things like that or when we get those occasional emails, it's humbling. I mean, you know, you're an expert sort of in technology and social media and stuff.
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The.
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C
The tentacles of influence today compared to 40 years ago with my pastor when I was a young man, are so different, and it's so much more powerful. Every word we speak has the ability to just touch thousands that we may never know about. And so it's very humbling. And I'm reminded of James, caution be not many teachers, because we are held to a stricter account. So, yeah, thanks for that. But it's. All I can say is it's humbling.
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Yeah. And, you know, and I've had people that have reached out to me and have told me similar things. You know, your writings have done a. Have done a lot for me. And. And it's. It's something that. It blows my mind, to be honest with you. And the best thing that I can think to myself is how great is our God to allow us the opportunity to be able to hear that on this side of heaven. Because I know that there's times when you, you know, you're out there, you're putting this information out there and you wonder to yourself, is anybody getting anything from this? Is, is, am I making any kind of impact? But you know, you, you definitely are. And whenever I get messages like that, and I know that you're getting messages like that, I know it's a, it's certainly something that we don't deserve, we don't deserve to hear that, but the Lord is allowing us to hear that on this side of heaven. So it's wonderful.
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C
What a blessing.
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A
And before I let you go, do you have any closing in closing thoughts or comments?
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C
Yeah, just we've said it several times in the course of our discussion today. But if you're watching this and you don't know the Lord, today's the day of salvation. Place your faith in Him. He alone can forgive your sin and give you the gift of eternal life. And then for those believers that are watching, listen, keep looking up. It is exciting. 2026 is going to be a phenomenal year. If the Lord tarries, we're seeing amazing things happen. So yeah, stay in touch. If there's anything we can do for you, reach out to us. Not by works.org well, good deal.
- [25:48]
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Well, that's all we got for today. Just want to thank you so much, JB for joining me. And I appreciate everybody for tuning in. It really does help us accomplish our mission to to glorify the Lord, to reach the loss, and to awaken the believer. And until next week, stay awake and keep watch.
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B
Thank you for tuning in to today's podcast. If you'd like to find out more about Prophecy Recon, Please visit prophecy recon.com or prophecyrecon.substack.com Remember to stay awake and keep watching.