Sid Roth

Sid:  We want everyone everywhere to recognize that we are living in a new day, in a new time.  We are living at the fullness of the Gentile Age at the time in which God is removing the spiritual scales of the eyes of Jewish people.  And that’s why I’m so excited to introduce my good friend, Rabbi Jonathan Bernis, and in particular his brand new book, literally just off the press called, “A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days.”  Jonathan, the world doesn’t need another book on the last days.  Why did you write a book with such a title “A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days?”

Jonathan:  Sid I wrote this book because after twenty-eight years of being immersed in Bible prophecy I’m convinced that what most Bible teachers or end-time teachers are teaching is just wrong.  And that’s like why the title of chapter one is, “What if everything you’ve heard about the last days is wrong?”  The problem is that there are prophecies being fulfilled before our very eyes and most Christians don’t see them because they haven’t been taught to look for them, or they’ve been taught that these things are irrelevant.  And yet they’re black and white prophecy being fulfilled concerning the last days.  And the reason it’s so important for Christians to know about these is because we’ve been told to participate in God’s plan for the Jewish people in the last days.  And that’s why I wrote the book I want everyone that’s listening to fulfill their destiny, God’s given each one a destiny and I want everyone that’s listening to be able to stand in front of Jesus and hear Him say “Good and faithful servant, well done, come and enter my rest.”  But opportunities are being missed daily and the clock is ticking.

Sid:  Now, one of the tricks of the enemy is to get some genuine believers in the Messiah to be involved in Replacement Theology, by that I mean the Church replaces everything we read about natural Israel and the Bible.  Why is that so horrible and why is it wrong?

Jonathan:  It’s horrible because it’s totally against scripture and the Jewish people are the key to understanding last days prophecy, they were the key to the first coming of Messiah, they’re the key to second coming of Messiah; they’re the key to the redemption of the world.  Is that enough Sid, I can go on?

Sid:  And why is Replacement Theology so anti-Bible?

Jonathan:  It’s anti-Bible because the Bible says that when the Jewish people come back it will bring life from the dead when they come back to God and they come back to God through believers, through followers of the Messiah, through Christians.  And if Christians don’t understand there God given destiny and mandate they don’t fulfill this at all and Jewish people don’t come back in the numbers God has ordained them to come back in and release life from the dead upon the world.  Sid, one of the things I talk about in the very beginning of the book is that one of the keys to the whole thing is understanding how important the very existence of anti-Semitism is; why anti-Semitism exists, and what Christians should understand about this.  That’s absolutely key and to do that you have to go all the way back to Genesis 3:15 which is the fall of man in the garden and the first, the first declaration of redemption, the first Gospel message or Gospel promise in all of scripture which is “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed and you shall bruise his heal, but he shall crush your head.”  That is absolutely foundational in understanding the last-days believe it or not?

Sid:  Briefly explain why.

Jonathan:  Okay, simply this.  That I believe that anti-Semitism, the root of anti-Semitism is Satan’s commitment to self preservation; in other words his death sentence that’s been pronounced over him by the Lord Himself come through the seed of the woman, and the seed of the woman which is talking about the Redeemer, talking about the Messiah, talking about Christ, or Messiah, is the person of Jesus and Jesus comes through the seed of Abraham.  So the whole plan of the enemy is keep the Redeemer from coming and by doing that you just have to destroy the seed of Abraham.  And so the seed of Abraham is the backbone to understanding God’s plan for the redemption of the world, and the last days are about the final plans of redemption of the world.  So you have to understand that the role that the seed of Abraham plays, in not only the first coming, but in the second coming of Christ and therefore Satan’s primary goal has been destroy the Jewish people and keep the Messiah from coming and now from returning.  And that’s why we have things like replacement Theology which have a demonic origin.

Sid:  Now if you could have a couple minutes with a Christian that believed that the Church replaced Israel what are some of the strongest things that you would say?

Jonathan:  Well I would take them to Roman’s 11 where Paul warns, “Boast not against the natural branches for it God could cut off Israel He could surely cut off you.”  At what point did the Church reach that level of sin that where God said, “Enough with you already, I’ve had it.”  If we can’t look to a God of faithfulness who has been faithful to the Jewish people, how can we trust them for our own salvation, if He has a point where He says “Enough already.”  I would have passed that point years ago Sid, but I looked to a God whose continued to be faithful to Israel and I can trust Him to be faithful to me and to all believers.  And of course Romans 11 says at the end that they’re enemies of the gospel yes, but for the sake of the Father’s they’re beloved.  But the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable, they’re irrevocable.   There are so many other scriptures that we could go into that clearly Replacement Theology is dangerous Sid, it’s dangerous for the Church because it keeps the Church from fulfilling their God given mandate to provoke the Jews to jealousy.

Sid:  And what I see is kind a flip side of what the devil is doing; on one side he’s trying to get Christians to believe that God is finished with the Jew in Israel and on the other side, he’s taking some good and using it for bad.  By that I mean he’s having many Christians to develop a tremendous supernatural love for the Jew in Israel which is good, but this love entails a mantra that says “I’m not going to share Jesus with my Jewish friend; I’m just going to do some humanitarian good deeds for Israel.”  Why is that so bad?

Jonathan:  Well you have two gutters. On one side of the road you have Replacement Theology which is off the road, on the other side of the road you have this Dual Covenant Theology which says that we can affirm the Jewish people because they have their own path to God and we don’t need to share the Messiah with them.  That’s the other gutter because it keeps us from fulfilling the mandate to provoke the Jewish people to jealousy and it undercuts the gospel imperative which is there’s one Name under heaven by which we must be saved and it’s Jesus or Yeshua the Messiah, He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no one can come to the Father except through Him.  Paul says not only is the gospel for the Jewish people as well, the gospel is to the Jew first.

Sid:  You have some fascinating information in your book with the chapter titled “The World’s Debt to the Jews.”  Tell me some of these great accomplishments the Jewish people have been involved in throughout history.

Jonathan:  Well Sid let me just go back and say first of all that God said that through Abraham, through His seed that all the world would be blessed, it’s not that the Jewish people are any greater, but that God ordained them to be a blessing to the world.  Now keep in mind that the Jewish people are one quarter of one percent of the world’s population.  Yet I just recently looked at a list of Nobel prize winners and 20%, keep in mind that ¼ of 1% of the world’s population, and yet 20% of Nobel prize winners over the years since it started I think in around 1905 have been Jewish.  You have in literature people like Boris Pasternak a great author, Isaac Bashevis, singer; you have eleven Nobel literature winners that are Jewish.  World peace, you have ten leaders that have won the Nobel Peace prize, like L.A. Weasel, Menachem Begin, Perez, Yitzhak Rabin.  In chemistry you have over twenty Jewish scientists who have won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.  You have in economics over twenty that have won since they began giving the Nobel Prize for economics.  In medicine you have over thirty, some of the greatest minds of course have been Jewish, again because God declared that he would use the Jewish people as a blessing to the world and indeed He has fulfilled that promise.

Sid:  And you know what I’m reminded as you’re sharing this, of in Hollywood and they showed me a picture when Barbara Streisand gets saved, what an impact there going to have in the media, Larry King, picture him coming on and saying “Last night Jesus came into my bedroom!”

Jonathan:  Sid, some of the greatest minds have been Jewish, like Albert Einstein, but yet the Jewish people away from God have also created some of the bigger big problems also and so they’ve been a blessing to the world.  You have Carl Marx for example and so on; the Jewish people were designed by God to be a blessing to the world and to be in relationship with Him.  And so you look at the patriarchs, you look at Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Elijah; and so on they’re in incredible contributions to the world as well.

Sid:  I’m reminded of the scripture that if it was a blessing that the Jewish people rejected their Messiah and obviously so Gentiles could be grafted in how much greater blessing when they receive their Messiah, it’s going to cause life from the dead.  And I believe that there is going to be a jolt of the Holy Spirit when large numbers of Jewish people come into the Kingdom in the body like has never happened in history, and literally the average Christian will be walking in life from the dead resurrection power.

Jonathan:  And Sid you asked about the dangers of Replacement Theology, there you have it.  With Replacement Theology you fail to understand the significance of the Jewish people coming back to their God, “It will be bring life from the dead.”  I want life from the dead, I don’t know about others listening but I want to see life from the dead and that can’t happen with Christians believing in Replacement Theology.

Sid:  Okay, consider yourself challenged, if you really want to be on the right side of the fence, in the last days, if you really want to understand your call in the last days.