Going Back To Israel!

Dave Robbins: On October 7th, 2023, Hamas launched an invasion
of Israel.
That same morning, my wife and I were on Mount Masada with a tour
group of nearly 50 people.
God kept us safe throughout the following week,
despite the declaration of a state of war in Israel.
This October we’re returning to the Holy Land, and we’d love for
you to join us.
We’ll discuss our upcoming trip to Israel on this edition
of “The Endtime Show.”
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Dave: Good afternoon everybody.
I’m Dave Robbins with Endtime Ministry, and I have a very
special guest with me today on “The Endtime Show,” and that is
my lovely wife Jana, celebrating our 37th year this
year in September, and so thank you for joining me today, Jan.
Jana Robbins: Thank you for having me.
Dave: Okay, so we wanted to do this program today, everybody,
because we’re getting ready to head back to Israel.
We’ve got so many people signed up already.
A lot of people are wanting to go, but we’ve got so many
questions, and many of you have never been to Israel with us,
and we wanted to share some of our experiences in Israel, kind
of bring you along on a trip with us if you’re interested
in going.
We certainly would love for you to go with us.
The number to reach us 1-800-363-8463.
Ask for my wife Jana.
But you know, Jana, it’s been such a special thing in
our life.
I’ve been, I think 20 or 25 times.
I know you’ve been over 30 times, and it’s really impacted
our life, hasn’t it?
Jana: Mhmm, it’s been life changing.
Dave: Yeah, some of the experiences we’ve had,
and we first went
and–remember when we went back in ’99 for our first time, and
we’ve got friends today from that very first trip,
lifelong friends.
We’ll have them for the rest of our lives, and so, what a, what
an experience that was.
We started going with your dad, Irvin Baxter, and then he passed
away in, what was it?
November of 2020, and you know, Jana, it was kind of cool,
because about two years–well, two tours before we–we were
take–prior to your dad passing and COVID happening, we were
taking two tours to Israel every year, one in the spring, one in
the fall.
Two times, two trips before he passed, he came up to me and he
said, “Dave, are you getting all of this,” and I had just went
and heard him talk at all the sites all those years, and I
said, “Oh yeah, I’m getting it, Dad.”
You know, and, “Irvin, no problem,” and he was
like, “Well.”
He said, “No, Dave, listen to me, are you really getting this?
There may come a time when you and Jan have to do this by
yourself,” and I thought, [gulping] “Yikes.”
And so I said, “Yeah, I’m getting it,” but man, I tell
you what, my next trip I recorded everything he said.
Every time he talked, I stood right by him and recorded it,
and that was the last trip we went on him with.
I recorded everything.
I’ve got all that transcribed now, and certainly we’ve had to
make it our trip, but–because we’ve been back three times post
your dad passing, but what a great trip and how impactful it
has been over our lives.
So, what I wanted to do here today–you know, the last time
we were in Israel it was a declared state of war, and we
were, you know, we lived through three missile attacks, and the
sirens went off, we’d have to run for the bomb shelter and all
that stuff, but all of that’s changed now, hasn’t it?
And so it’s–you know, a lot of people have asked, “Is it safe?”
Now, I want everybody to know, Jana is our tour
coordinator here.
We own our own touring company, and we work with a touring
company in Israel with–that does everything and facilitates
everything, but as far as on our end, we own our own touring
company, and that–like a travel agency type thing, and Jana is
the coordinator of all of that, and has been for
what, probably–
Jana: 2006.
Dave: Yeah 2006, so almost 20 years now you’ve been
coordinating trips to Israel, and one of the main questions
that people ask, probably number one when they call you is, “Is
it safe over there,” and what–so if I were to ask you
today, “Is it safe in Israel for us to go back to a tour>”
We’re–well, you’ve already started scheduling people to
go back.
We’ve got a lot of people signed up already to go in October.
What would you say?
Is it safe over there?
Jana: Well, I mean, I haven’t been back post the war, however,
we do have great contacts over there that give us great
communication, and I have talked to them.
What I used to say when people would call, “Is it safe
over there?”
I used to say, “Yeah, absolutely.”
I mean, we don’t take you to places that are unsafe.
I used to tell ’em in a weekend in Chicago there’s 30 murders.
In a year in Israel there’s 30 murders.
Well, again, it wasn’t during a time of war, those are the
normal statistics, but post the war, I mean, we were over there
during the war, and I think God gave us a peace.
We were there eight days post the war being declared, and God
did give us a peace about it, but I just don’t have a fear.
I don’t feel fearful to go back.
Number one, Israel knows that they’re a very small country and
they’re surrounded by a lot of big countries that are not
exactly friendly to them, you know, politically or whatever,
but they have done things to help circumvent some of the
danger, like the Iron Dome.
We were there on Masada when 2,700 rockets were shot over–to
Israel, and they–all of them but two were intercepted.
So we didn’t understand everything at the time so it did
seem a little fearful, but after finding out, oh yeah, this is
how it rolls, that they–anything that’s coming
through the air, they have very sophisticated systems where they
combat their enemy, so I don’t feel fearful.
I have spoken with the owner of the tour company we use in
Israel, and he’s very reputable, and he says that the tours are
starting to slowly come back to the land.
Everything is now reopened.
Everything that was shut down pre–you know, during the war,
they have reopened everything, and so I don’t feel fearful to
go back, and I’ve told people, “If it’s your time to die, what
better place than Israel?”
I’m just saying it’s like–I mean, if it’s your time to go,
God’s–it’s whatever, but I’m just–I’m not gonna be
fearful, so–
Dave: Yeah, I mean, I–so over the years there have been places
here in the United States that I would have been more afraid to
go to than in Israel.
I never felt fearful, and again, we didn’t even feel fearful
during that declared state of war that we were in.
God was leading and guiding us.
We ended up in that hotel out there by the Mediterranean Sea,
up in, what was it?
Jana: Netanya.
Dave: In Netanya, and felt very safe the whole time, so.
Certainly going back though–the situation has certainly changed
in Israel.
Gaza is pretty much contained, all the way down near Rafah, and
also in Lebanon there are buffer zones that Israel has set up.
In Syria there are buffer zones, and Israel went in, pretty much
demolished all of the Syrian military under Bashar al-Assad.
So, whole different situation than when we were there earlier,
so I feel very safe, and our guides, both of them are ex-Navy
SEALs for the IDF, and so they’re still in contact with
the military.
They’re always on their phones and things, and so very, very
safe to go back to Israel.
Jana: One of the things I used to tell people, and this was
clear up ’till the time, and it would still be true today for
the next tour, is we don’t take our groups to Gaza because if
there’s ever gonna be anything that happens it’s probably gonna
be in that area, and that’s exactly what happened, but even
before the war we told everybody we don’t go to Gaza, we don’t go
to the areas in that–the towns in that area because of, you
know, if anything would ever happen, it would be there.
Dave: Yeah.
So yeah, it’s very, very safe to go back and feel very,
very confident.
Plus I know from the prophecies of the Bible, you and I both
know, that Israel will remain intact all the way to the end.
They’re never gonna be destroyed, and God’s got his
hands upon them, certainly, and that really helps to understand
the timing of everything.
If we’re gonna go, now’s the time to go, and so we’re gonna
be heading back.
What’s the dates of the tour that we’re going to?
Jana: We leave on Monday, October 27th,
and we get back on a Friday, November the 7th.
Dave: Okay, so October 27 through November 7,
so we’ll have everybody in time to spend
Thanks–back home in time to spend time with their families
at Thanksgiving.
Okay, very good.
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Dave: Let’s bring everybody on a trip with us, because I
know you’re already talking to people, people are calling in,
and we’ve already esta–set up a bunch of people to go, but for
those that have never been, and like I say, you’ve been
over 30 times.
Give me a–just a brief testimony of one event, one
occurrence that stands out in your mind that you just can’t
shake it.
Like, man, this happened, and you tell people about it, and
what stands out in your mind about one of our–just one of
our trips?
Jana: We had one trip that we had a lot of different things
happen on that same trip.
It was–I’m sure it was 80 to 90 people, I believe, but when we
get up north, we always save the Jordan River baptisms to the
last, and that’s pretty much like the cherry on top, is how
Ido our guide likes to call it, but that’s like it’s the
finishing thing to the whole trip, and we do the baptisms
there in the Jordan River, but at this particular tour we had a
really great group and we had a guy on our group, younger guy,
his name was Chris, and he had ties to–here in Dallas area.
He was seeking God and, you know, after the–he was looking
after the things of God, and he was hungry, and he had gotten a
lot of our materials.
We didn’t know this story going into the baptism, but we found
out later that he had prayed a prayer and said, “God, if all of
this is real, and what they’re saying is right, show yourself
to me at the baptisms.”
Well, we didn’t know any of that, but we had probably
40 people in line to be baptized.
Chris was probably two-thirds of the way back, and two-thirds of
the way back he started shaking like a leaf, and by the time he
got up to my dad to be baptized, he fell over his chest and just
sobbed like a baby because God touched him so supernaturally at
that baptism, and I will never forget that because that was
like–and we found out later that he had prayed that prayer
before he left to go on this trip with us that, and God
showed him.
So, that to me.
I mean a, lot–there’s been a lot of trips that have
been awesome, but that is one of the ones that I talk about more
than any of them.
Dave: You know, Jan, I was sitting here thinking before we
come on the air today, what was my–what testimony would
I share?
Mine are the baptisms, and–because I have seen people
experience the Holy Ghost, the first spiritual experience that
some of them have ever experienced have been right
there in them baptisms.
You know, most tours–the majority of tours start out in
Tiberius and end up in Jerusalem, and then they
fly home.
Ours is the opposite.
We start out in Jerusalem and then end up in Tiberius by the
Sea of Galilee because the baptisms are the highlight of
the tour for us, and I’ve seen so many people have a wonderful
spiritual experience, many for the first time ever, in that
baptism, and so it’s been awesome, and I’ve baptized
probably close to 1,000 people over there now, in all the years
I’ve been doing it and–so I had a professor, he’s still a friend
of ours, I won’t call his name, but he’s still a friend of ours
to this day, and very well read individual, a highly respected
professor in a college up in, I think it’s Oregon or Washington,
and he told me, he said, “Dave,” when he come out of the water,
he said, “I thought I had life all figured out,” but he said,
“This is the first day of the rest of my life.”
He said, “I experienced something today I’ve never felt
in my entire life,” and so I’ve had that happen over and over
and over, so the–certainly, if somebody wanted to have a
spiritual experience, we have many of those on the trip.
It’s not just a sightseeing trip.
It is a sightseeing trip, but it’s not just that, but it’s a
true spiritual experience that you can–you’ll never–once you
experience it, you’ll never forget it for the rest of the
days of your life, and it happened right there in Israel,
and of course, we love Israel because, you know, Jesus was
there, the apostles were there, and our Bible comes from the
Jews, and there’s so much prophecy about Israel.
So, certainly the Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives and
everything that we get to see.
The tomb, Golgotha, the upper room, the Sea of Galilee,
everything, so, so important.
We’ll talk about some of that here in just a moment, but some
highlights of the tour throughout the years, because
honestly, the tour for us, I know, is a–it’s a ministry.
It’s not just, “Let’s go see a bunch of rocks and sand
and buildings.”
So much more than that and–but give me some of the highlights
of the trip for you.
What has the trip done for you over the years?
Some highlights of that?
Jana: Well, I think that when you stand on the Mount of
Olives, and you think in your–if you can see in your
mind’s eye back, and think the scripture talks about, the
Lord’s gonna come back to help save the nation of Israel and
he’s gonna have his saints with him, and we’re gonna stand on
the Mount of Olives with him, and it’s such an awesome feeling
because it’s like, if you’re a born again Christian,
that’s you.
It’s–you’re gonna be one of those that are gonna be on the
Mount of Olives where we’ve stood, I don’t know how many
times, but it’s just such an amazing thing to just look
own–look down over there, and you go down into the Garden of
Gethsemane coming down the Palm Sunday pathway, and then
you–then we take the across the street and go down into the
Kidron Valley where the Bible talks about the battle of
Armageddon culminating, and so you see in your mind’s eye,
not–never going to Israel, I didn’t realize this until I went
there, how close everything is together, and you see how
it–how everything would go.
The the world armies are coming down against the nation of
Israel, and the Mount of Olives are right there and that’s where
the Lord’s gonna be to help fight the battle, and it’s just,
to me that’s a really awesome feeling to think, “Man, one of
these days we’re all gonna be up there right behind him fighting
against the world armies,” so that to me is a huge, a huge
point in the tour.
Of course, the Temple Mount’s always really awesome, and the
southern steps that lead down in–across the street into the
old city of David.
Of course I think David is a lot of people’s favorite one of–one
of the favorite Bible characters.
I mean, Sound and Sight Theaters have made a whole movie about
him, but it’s not just that.
It’s that he was a man after God’s own heart.
He was an imperfect man, but yet he found the forgiveness.
He went beyond his dispensation to get forgiveness when he
should have been killed for all of the things that he did as the
king, but God forgave him, and so that’s–he’s a special–I
like him.
I really like him from the Bible, and his area of–where
he–the old city of David is a really neat place to go.
I mean, there’s a lot of different places as far as in
Jerusalem, but my favorite is up north, in the Sea of
Galilee area.
We go, and of course you have all the different places that we
go around the Sea of Galilee to tour.
Capernaum, the Mount of the Beatitudes, and a lot of
other things.
One of the things I’d have to say that stands out up there for
me, is I really like the place where Saul and his sons were
nailed to the wall, Beit She’an, and that place was not even
known to be there in the early ’90s, and the farmer that farmed
that land changed from an international to a John Deere
tractor, and a John Deere tractor goes two inches deeper
on their whatever it is.
Dave: Like, a plow.
Jana: Yeah, so it goes two inches deeper than the
international tractor, and when he changed tractors he
hit something.
Well, the rule there is if you hit anything whatsoever, you
have to report it to the government because they have to
have everything they can to prove that they deserve to be
there, and so he did that, and since then they’ve covered a
whole city.
They’ve uncovered a whole city with amphitheaters, mosaic
floors, steam baths, community toilets, all the stuff that was
back in the day, and it’s like, wow this is amazing because it’s
just one more proof that they deserve to be there.
Dave: Yeah, absolutely.
It’s cool because the city that they discovered, Beit She’an,
when we–we’ve taught for years that when the Battle of
Armageddon is engaged at the Plain of Megiddo, it comes down
into the Jordan Valley, heads south and then goes up into
Jerusalem, and that’s where it culminates.
Where–we take our tour group from Beit She’an up to Megiddo,
and that big valley that’s there, that’s the flat plain
that they will come from Megiddo down to the Jordan Valley, it’s
right there, and then at Beit She’an, that’s where they turn
south and come down towards Jerusalem.
So once you understand all that stuff, it takes the Bible from
being black and white words that you read, and it makes a living
thing, and it’s really helped–over the years it’s
helped build my faith in the Word of God.
Prophecy, there’s the experience, there’s many things
that have helped build my faith in the word of God, but
certainly going to Israel and seeing the Temple Mount, where
the first and second temple stood and a third temple will
stand in the very near future, it’s ju–there’s nothing
like that.
Some of the highlights for me throughout the years, I have
many because I understand the prophecies of the Bible, and
certainly, standing at the Plain of Megiddo, knowing that that’s
where the final battle on the planet–there’s so much about
the day of the Lord, when his wrath will be poured out, at the
Battle of Armageddon, the seven vials of the wrath of God, the
depiction of the Battle of Armageddon in Revelation 16
and 19.
To stand there in the Plain of Megiddo and overlook that, and
knowing that many of the major battles in the Bible throughout
history were fought in that plane right there, Gideon and
the Midianites and all that, and that’s the final battle of Earth
is going to be fought right there, the Battle of Armageddon,
and of course culminate down in Jerusalem, close to 160 miles if
you go to the Jordan Valley route and all that, but, to
stand there and see that has been huge for me over the years.
I’m just kind of in awe, like, “Wow, this is the Plain
of Megiddo.”
The Bible says that he gathered them to a place called the
Hebrew tongue, Armageddon, or Har Megiddo, or the Hill
of Megiddo.
Well, we stand up on that hill and overlook the thing,
it’s amazing.
Also, beyond the spiritual experience, I have had many
pastors come to me over the years, pastors, Sunday school
teachers, and different things, and say, “Dave, all my stories
that I’ve ever told, I’ve been tell–I’ve been preaching for 50
years,” or “30 years,” and they’ll say, “All my stories
just changed, having come here and seen where you can stand on
the Mount of Olives, see the Kidron Valley, see the–when”
right behind us here we have a huge picture of the city of
Jerusalem, and this picture is like you’re standing on the
Mount of Olives looking at the Temple Mount, and our college is
actually right up there in the picture.
The Jerusalem Prophets College is pretty cool.
It’s one of those tall buildings right up there in the middle,
but for me it has been life changing.
Not only for us, but for people that we’ve taken with us on
the tour.
The pastors, but when they go with us for the first time
they’re like, “Oh my goodness.
This–I never dreamed it would be something like this,” because
there’s no picture that can justify being there and seeing
it firsthand.
Hear the hustle and bustle of people walking through the old
streets of Jerusalem, and it has just been awesome to me, to be
there, to eat the food, and I can stomach the food for a
little while, and then I got to get a Big Mac or something
somewhere, I–but, that’s another question.
So, we’re establishing–we’re already setting up people to go
on the tour from October 27 to November 7, a few more questions
here that you might get asked.
Some people have asked, “What’s the weather like over there?”
Jana: So I always tell them it’s similar to Dallas weather, which
if you don’t live in Dallas, you aren’t gonna know that, but we
have always chosen to go to Israel the first two weeks of
May and the first two weeks of November, approximately.
Some days it–sometimes it can fluctuate depending on
schedules, but as far as the weather, it’s–during that time,
usually in the spring it’s 80s during the day, 70s at night,
and in the fall it runs 70s during the day and 60s at night.
Now, again, weather is not always predictable, and so
sometimes we’ve had different things than that, but pretty
much overall, all the times, over 30 times that I’ve been,
we’ve always been in that time frame and it’s always been
similar to that weather.
So you can pretty much bank on that.
Dave: Yeah, somebody asked a question, and we get asked this
a lot because a lot–to people who’ve never been with us, and
that is, “Will there be baptisms up in the Jordan?”
Of course we already kind of talked about that.
The baptisms are the most important part of the trip
for us.
Always have been.
That’s the, that is the focal point, to the point where when
we were there in a declared state of war that we ended up in
the–out by the Mediterranean Sea, and I had–we had people
coming to us saying, “Look, we don’t want to get on those
planes,” because all the planes had a big bull’s eye on them,
basically, and so we–they come to us and said, “Look, you guys,
we don’t want to get on the planes until we get baptized,”
because we had been teaching them that baptism is essential
for salvation, and they said, “We don’t want to get on the
planes,” and so I said, “Look, I don’t care what happens, we’ll
baptize you before we leave on the plane.”
Well, they closed the Galilee region down because they had
fired some missiles over in towards the Sea of Galilee, and
then I said, “Well, if all else fails, I’ll baptize you in the
swimming pools.”
Well then they closed all the bapti–all the pools in
Israel down.
All the pools in the hotels, closed, and so I thought, “Man,
what are we gonna do?”
I, you know, I mean–that–we had showers in all our rooms
that weren’t even bathtubs.
I didn’t know what we’re gonna do, and then I was standing
there looking at the Mediterranean Sea and I thought,
“Man, there’s a giant baptistry right there,”
and so we went out and baptized.
Our guide who has been–lived there his entire life.
He can track his fam–his generation seven generations
back in Israel.
He said, “I’ve never seen anybody baptized in the
Mediterranean Sea.”
He’s been a guide for decades, and we took, how many?
We baptized, like–
Jana: 18.
Dave: We baptized 18 people out there, and had a great spiritual
experience as we were getting–the waves were coming
over the top of us, that was an experience, but we still had a
great time of baptism.
So no matter what happens in Israel, we’re gonna baptize
people, and it’s gonna be a great spiritual experience.
What kind of food do people eat?
Jana: So, mostly what they serve is Mediterranean style food, so
you always have a whole bar of multiple salads, a plethora of
all different kinds of salads.
I couldn’t even tell you all of them.
For every meal, including breakfast, but breakfast and
dinner is provided with your tour package, and I mean,
breakfast, you can still get scrambled eggs and toast and
that kind of thing, but it is Mediterranean style for the most
part overall.
Dave: So no, like, Denny’s or any of that over there.
Jana: Well, no, there’s no Denny’s, but we do, we do try to
experience the culture when we go out for lunches.
So like, we’re still gonna get to go to Bethlehem, and our
guide is still gonna go with us.
He has no issue with it, and it’s under Palestinian
Authority, and we go to a little place there called the Christmas
Tree Shop, which is ran by two brothers, and they do falafel
and shawarma, and it’s like, gonna give you–the very first
day it’s gonna give you your very first experience of the
flavor and culture of Israel, so we try to do that for lunch, but
then the others done at the hotels.
Dave: Yeah, actually, the food’s pretty good.
I mean, I basically find something I like to eat, and
I’ll eat that for two weeks and then get pizza or something when
we come back in the airport in New York, so it ends up
working out.
Does the group always stay together?
I mean, I–so I know that a lot of tour places will take 10, 15,
20 buses.
We’ll only take at the most two.
Why is that?
Jana: Well, we’ve experienced over time that we really like
the intimate feeling of a group with two buses, maximum of
100 people.
We all go to the same place.
The only really reason why you use two buses is to get
everybody from point A to point B, but as far as eating
together, experiencing the baptisms together, the boat ride
together, all the major things, we stick together.
Dave: Yeah, okay.
Well, wow, I mean, I’m looking forward to going back to Israel
on October 27th through November 7th, and we’d ask all you guys
to join us if you want to go.
We’re only gonna take two buses.
We’ve got many signed up, and we’re only planning on taking
one bus this next time.
If it fills past that, then we may go to two buses,
but we’ll see how it goes.
To reach us, 1-800-363-8463, ask for Jana.
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