I just returned from speaking at a church on the East Coast, and it was instructive for several reasons.

My topic was Israel and her “place among the nations.”

Turnout was excellent but at dinner that evening, the pastor gave me a lay of the land, literally. He said that in his county alone, there are 39 other churches in that denomination. Around eight of them would be open to my message. I also scanned the community during the trip and concluded there are a handful of other denominational churches that might participate in a pro Israel seminar.

A generation or two ago, this situation would have been reversed. Around 75 percent of churches would have been enthusiastic to hear about Israel. Several things have changed:

•A hundred years of seminaries teaching Replacement Theology, or casting doubt on the historicity of biblical accounts—particularly those in the Hebrew Scriptures—produced legions of pastors who skew a significant amount of the Bible to fit liberal worldview.

•As the horrors of the Holocaust fade (soon, no survivors will remain alive), Jew-hatred is able to come into the light and in many places, flourish. This includes too many American churches.

•Churches, following the un-biblical model of the “seeker-driven” model, or the mega-church model, teach topically now. Serious preaching through the Bible, and actual, real Bible study, is largely a thing of the past. The result is a nation that is biblically illiterate.

•Much of America’s evangelical leadership is now cozying-up to the Palestinian narrative.

These factors and more have ravaged the landscape with regard to pro Israel teaching. A parallel outcome is the severely depleted list of churches eager to hear teaching about Bible prophecy. Many of the same above factors apply here, as well, but I must acknowledge that with the latter, the Bible prophecy community has also shot itself in the foot with antiquated teaching methods, date-setting, and flaky topics.

Two things come to mind: Israel, in a secular sense, is a moral nation. Her PR efforts are sometimes lacking, but from security to cultural openness to innovation, Israel is a remarkable place. This is the opposite of what most people hear through media.

Secondly, the Bible itself is remarkably self-authenticating. There is no good reason not to believe the biblical accounts, ranging from origins to the birth of the Jewish people, and the New Testament events.

Yet an intense assault on both the Bible’s veracity, and the legitimacy of Israel has been launched.

If younger generations aren’t given real Bible instruction, these realities I’ve outlined will get worse.

Which itself is foretold in the Bible. Apostasy is already in the American Church.

Ironic.