Sid Roth

Sid: We want everyone everywhere to understand God’s marvelous gift of grace.  But you know what, there is a hyper-grace movement that is totally distorting God’s wonderful gift of grace. So I said “Who do I know that would be the best person to analyze what is true Biblical grace, and what is wrong with the hyper-grace movement?” Of course it was called the no brainer it’s my friend Dr. Michael Brown.  Dr. Brown for those of you that aren’t familiar with him; he has a PhD in Near Eastern Languages from New York University.  He speaks, reads, or writes a dozen languages.  He has been in the scriptures for decades in the original languages.  Mike I’m sure you had a burden before we even contacted you about this hyper-grace message that’s going around.  When did you first… were concerned about this?

Michael:  Well it’s because I love the message of grace so much and I’m so jealousy for God’s true grace.  I started to get burdened when I saw just some distortions, some mixture that was coming with the grace message.  But in particular the last year everywhere I turn I’m running into this. Everywhere I turn I’ll quote a scripture about holiness and purity and someone will come back to me “That’s legalism, why are you throwing this under me, I’m under grace.”  And I thought that’s a strange response.  I would talk about let’s press in, let’s go after the Lord and let’s seek Him.  And they’d throw something back at me “That’s works. I’m under grace.”  And then they’d start using all the same terms. “I’m not into behavior modification, I’m not into sin management.”  And I thought “Where are these coming from?”  And so the more I began to look at it the more I saw that there were a number of books, a number of teachers and a number of ministries that all felt that they were part of a “grace revolution” or a “grace reformation.” Some of them say that there have been things hidden from the church 100’s and 100’s of years and now we have recovered it and we are putting this out. And I became increasingly alarmed when I saw the extreme claims that were being made. I became increasingly alarmed when I saw people being damaged.  Then Sid it was like a flood pastors, leaders, believers literally from all over the  America and different countries saying “Mike you’ve got to speak about this, you’ve got to write about this, this is splitting our churches.  This is confusing our people, families are being torn apart.”  And I saw some being touched by a great revelation of grace. And I’m so jealous for it because we can never for a split second down play, despise, denigrate God’s grace.  We live by grace 24-7 but I saw it being mixed with dangerous error.

Sid: Let me tell you what concerns me the most at this point.  The Bible says “Without holiness we will not even see God.”  And what the affect it’s having, even the ones that are not really in heresy, which most of them have a little bit of this heresy, is that when people start watching the TV shows, reading the books what happens is that barometer for holiness goes down and they start compromising.  I don’t want to share testimonies of men and women of God that have done things like leaving their wife and marrying their secretary. But here’s the thing, that’s happened even before the hyper-grace message.

Michael: Hm hm.   

Sid: But it’s justifying it, that’s what’s bothering me.

Michael:  Right, and here’s the thing every hyper-grace teacher that I’ve read and listened to many I’ve dialoged with; I’ve reached out to them and said “I’m writing about this, I’m quoting you do I understand you correctly are you willing to reconsider your position?”  And we’ve gone back and forth and I say “No, this is where I stand.”  Here’s the deal though everyone that I speak to they say the same thing “No, no, no grace is not a license for sin” when you understand grace rightly it helps you to overcome sin.” I said “But the problem is when you teach that God has already forgiven all our future sins before we’ve ever commit them; when you teach we never have to confess our sins to God; when you teach that the Holy Spirit never convicts us of sin anymore; when you tell us that anything where you have to exert some sort of effort to please God or obey God that that’s all wrong that that the flesh that that’s not grace.” Of course you’re setting people up for destruction; of course you’re opening the door for deception to come in. And I’ve told them “We’re not telling people that grace gives them a license to sin your very message is telling it in other ways.”  And that’s the mixture, God’s true grace Titus 2^nd chapter teaches us to say “No to ungodliness.”  God’s true grace changes us from the inside out.  Now here’s what is so important I didn’t call the message counterfeit grace in my book because there’s a wonderful true message that they’re preaching but it’s been preached with exaggeration; it’s been preached with distortion; it’s been preached with error added in.  So a lot of people just get the true part and they’ll say “My life has been changed by this message” I want to preserve that; I’m jealous for that; I don’t want to take away any good thing that anyone received. But when you mix anything with a little poison it can be deadly Sid.

Sid: You know one of the statements that I hear quite often and I believe we have to define this many say “I’m under the New Testament not under the Old; I’m not under the law anymore.”  What would you say I walked up to you Mike and I said “I’m not under the law anymore.” What would you say?

Michael: I would say absolutely, number 1 you’re not under the law as a system of justification; you don’t have to keep this commandment, this commandment to be justified. We’ve been justified through faith in Jesus saying “God save me from my sins.”  You’re not under the law as a system of justification; you’re not under the condemnation of the law that if you fail to keep the Sabbath one day there’s a death penalty of something like that. And you’re not under the law as a tutor, or a supervisor to bring you to the Messiah.  This is all laid out in scripture; as a matter of face I get into this in detail in my book as well.  So the law is no longer leading us to the Messiah; we have found the Messiah and we’re in Him.  NOW under the New Covenant the law is written on our hearts. NOW under the new covenant we have a higher standard.  The law said “Don’t commit adultery.”  Jesus now says to us “Don’t lust in your heart.”  The law said “Don’t murder, now Jesus grace says to us don’t hate in your heart.”  So now we are supernaturally empowered to do what the law commanded us to do; we couldn’t before, it was written on a tablet saying “Do this, do that.”  Now through grace it’s written in our hearts and that’s why Hebrew’s warns us “Don’t tamper with it because this is so much higher; so much more precious it cost Jesus His blood.”

Sid: Okay, if that’s true why don’t…  since the law is written in our heart why don’t we just cut out our Old Testament and throw it away. Why should we even hang on to it?

Michael:  Awe, do you know that one hyper-grace teacher of whom I quote in my book went as far as saying and I wrote to him and said “You still stand by?” He said “100%.”  He said “The Bible Society,” I don’t know which Bible Society he meant, “made a terrible mistake when they put the Old Testament together with the New Testament it has terribly confused believers.”  Sid I have chapters in my book talking about how the Old Testament is thrown out.  And people say “No, no, no we can learn from it; we can learn from examples.” Well Paul writes in 1^st Corinthians 10 to believers and said “Look at how Israel sinned.”  Look at how adultery, sexual morality, and don’t do the same because these are warnings for us. Sid the Bible of the early church was quote the Old Testament that’s the only Bible they had. Paul preached grace based on the Old Testament; now people want to throw it out.  That’s an ancient heresy that goes back to an early church leader who went heretical called Marcion and it goes all the way back to the 2^nd century; it’s being revisited today.  People are getting so caught up…

Sid: So the same spirit that was on this Marcion is on the hyper-grace teachers today.

Michael:  Or at least the tendency to go in that same direction.  There is one very well know TV preacher, author that he has a series a teaching series that contrast the God of the New Testament; the God of love and mercy with the God of wrathful God of the Old Testament. That is classic Marcion belief. So we need to recognize a serious root of error.  Sid, I’ve read stuff. You know I read the Hebrew like other people read the English.

Sid: Listen, you provoke me to jealousy.  Not only does he read the Hebrew but he has memorized a great deal of the Old Covenant in Hebrew. Is that correct?

Michael:  Yeah and I’m provoked that there is a whole lot more that I want to memorize that I want to get in my heart and mind.  It’s not that big a book when you really think about it.  But Sid I read some quotes and here’s what happens, Preacher A says it and then 100 other people repeat it.  I see verbatim book after book, teaching after teaching, they all say the same thing because they all think that Brother So and So researched it because he said the Hebrew said this and that. And it’s wrong!

Sid: (Laughing)

Michael:  That’s absolutely false; that’s absolutely false. I think “What Bible are they reading?”  And what grieves me is that some of these people are fine people with a fine message that could help so many. But they feel as if to really preach grace they have to go to this hyper-extreme.  Some of them say “If it’s not too good to be true it’s not grace.” Well then here’s a logical question, “If there is a hell, if there’s future punishment, then it’s not too good to be true.” Some of them have gone off the deep end and say “That’s right everyone will be ultimately be saved because hey “It’s grace.”  This is where it leads.

Sid: Don’t even some of them say the devil is going to end up being saved?

Michael: Yeah, there’s one fellow whose promote it; he used to promote a healthy revival repentance message.  Then he began to preach hyper-grace and the moment that you try to interact you are Ishmael, I am Isaac, you are under the law and the flesh and I’m in the Spirit.  And now he keeps going further and further and says “Why not, why not Satan being redeemed; why not these wicked spirits being redeemed?”  Is there anything outside of God’s grace?  Now 99% of the guys would reject that but that’s where it does when it goes untethered from scriptural truth.

Sid: You know Mike I am so excited to release your brand new book we are the first it’s called “Hyper-Grace” subtitled “Exposing the Dangers of the Modern Grace Message.”  It’s 300 plus pages. But this is in my opinion the defining book for one of the greatest heresies that the church has had in modern times….

Sid: I’ll tell you something just reading this new translation of the Bible it’s called “The Power New Testament” it’s actually not that new but it’s fairly new for us.  It reveals the Jewish roots and I have to say it the way it is the King James Bible, the modern translations, there was an anti-Jewish bias.  And because of the bias there were serious mistakes made in the translation.  Now I have the translator on the phone his name is William Morford and William studied under a very prominent PhD Greek scholar.  And he made the statement after you showed him “The Power New Testament.” And by the way, where did this PhD and Greek teach Bill?  It was Columbia Bible College at that time and now Columbia International University.  And what was the statement that he made when he read this translation that you did?

Bill: Well he took me around and introduced me to others in the area that he said “Here is one of my students who has surpassed me.”

Sid: And okay, that’s on the Greek side; on the Hebrew side you studied with Eliezer Ben-Yehuda who’s the grandson of the famous Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, one of the first Zionist. And he’s credited with really the modern day Hebrew coming in as a spoken tongue in Israel.  I mean you can’t get any more… any better credentials than that.  But why did you call your Bible “The Power New Testament?”

Bill:  Alright that has little to do with the Jewish roots and a lot to do with the Greek language.  Because both Greek and Hebrew are very expressive languages.  And you know enough Israeli’s to know that they are very expressive people.

Sid: You know that’s probably why I love this; it’s such a fresh, crisp translation and I am understanding more about healing, and I’m not sure whether this was your purpose, but I am understanding more about healing by reading this “The Power New Testament” than any translation that I’ve ever read before.

Bill:  Yes, and see the way verbs are translated, certain tenses and certain moods require you to say “You must do this now or you must continually do this.” Well other translators just say “Do this.” They don’t bring out the urgency and they don’t bring out the time sense that must be done repeatedly or it must be done immediately.

Sid: By the way one of the things that I just happen to be looking at is the area of repentance.  Your Bible brings it out that we’re supposed to do this continuously!

Bill:  That’s right.

Sid: I mean it’s not a one time with Billy deal.

Bill:  Yeah, basically Jesus said to walk in repentance.  And see each of us knows we’ve been saved that’s not the problem but we’re not perfected. What’s right there in the Greek language is that Jesus said “You must continually walk in repentance.”  And we have to recognize that we’re not perfect and that we have to strive to be more Christ like.  That we have to strive every day to be better than we were the day before, and each year stand up the next year better than we are at the end of the year that’s just ended.

Sid: Bill, we didn’t finish up that story on yesterday’s broadcast that God gave you the revelation that He wants us to walk in divine health literally.  And since that time as I understand it you haven’t taken something like an aspirin or an over the counter type of medicine.  You totally have this revelation of healing from the word.

Bill:  Absolutely, and I’m 73 and it goes back at least 23 years since I took any medication.

Sid: But on yesterday’s broadcast you were talking about you were in Israel and you asked God for a sign if He was going to heal your eyes.  Someone accidentally broke your glasses. You took that as a sign and you started walking by faith and then when you realized that you could read street signs but what happens at someone that’s over 70 years of age and goes for a driver’s license not wearing glasses. What kind of results did you get?

Bill:  I went 3 days after my 70^th birthday and got the driver license that I have now, no glasses.  And I read, well you know the Hebrew text.  I can read all those points I use a Parallel English Hebrew Old Testament and I have no problem with the small print.

Sid: This isn’t the purpose of our broadcast, but I fancy myself as a mentor to help believers become all that God wants them to be. I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you
“Why are you so convinced… if I were to say everyone needs to be healed in church.” In a good church not a bad church. Everyone needs to be healed in a church raise your hand.  I think that better than 95% of the people would raise their hands; how come?

Bill: (Laughing) That could be, that could be but my wife had this revelation too.  And several years ago she was diagnosed with cataracts that were ready, in fact the optometrist called them ripe and said that she had to get a surgeon right away and get them off.  She just went because she knew that she needed a new prescription.  And when she got home and prayed about it the Lord would not let her make any appointment. A year later she went back for that test and the cataracts were totally gone.  Her eyes are just as clear today as they can be.

Sid: You know I’m just looking up a particular scripture here in Mark 11:22 and 23. And Jesus said to them “You must have faith in God. Truly I say to you that whoever would say to this mountain ‘You must immediately be removed and you must immediately be cast into the sea,’ and would not doubt in his heart but would believe what he is saying is happening it’s shall be to him.  Because I say to you that you must continually pray for everything, then for whatever you are asking, believe that you have taken it, and it will be there for you…” You see how crisp this is Mishpochah, do you see the tenses.  I mean literally it becomes more to me than any translation that I’ve ever read before.  Is there one particular scripture on healing that you want to bring to our attention?

Bill:  Well there is one; it doesn’t deal specifically with healing but it’s Roman’s 4:17 where he says to “Speak things that are not as though they were. Just as it has been written I have appointed you a father before which he believed God. And the one who brings the dead to life and calls things that are not as though they are and they come into being.”  That’s actually from Isaiah 48:3.

Sid: And so you tell me that you’re 70 on this earth plus not all being a believer but most of the time being a believer that you’re walking just like this scripture.

Bill:  Right.

Sid: Alright that’s Romans 4 let me read this to you Roman’s 4:17 should I begin I’m reading from the “The Power New Testament.”  “Just as it has been written that I have appointed you a father of many nations; before which he believed God.  The one who brings the dead to life and calls those things that are not as though they are and they come into being.”  Let me read that again “Who brings the dead to life and calls those things that are not as though they are and they come into being.”   That is… that’s why you call this I’m sure “The Power New Testament” because that action, that power is put back into the words.

Bill:  Right!

Sid: Now let’s go with one of the major reasons and this may be the major reason Mishpochah.  When your wife was healed did she stand on that scripture?

Bill:  Yes she did that one and several others she knew that she was healed and she didn’t… really didn’t talk about it and I could see over the course of the year I could see the pupils in her eyes getting smaller and the color returning. So I knew that the Lord was doing what He said He would do.

Sid: Now the thing that is so intriguing, and I believe that one of the reasons that this is such an amazing reading Bible.  It’s modern English, it’s not archaic English it’s the Jewish roots. How did you learn these Jewish roots? How did you learn about these idioms if you read it and take it literally take it word for word you’ll miss what Jesus was saying?

Bill:  Alright well, you have to believe it in the first place.  And then just go on with it and the Hebrew things there are so many that I found that I knew even before I met  Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and it would really irritate me to read any other translation. That’s why for a few years before I did the translating I carried the Greek Text with me so I’d  read that and I wouldn’t have to get irritated when even preaching reading from another translation.

Sid: For example in Matthew 11:29 Jesus said “You must immediately take My yoke upon you.” Well what does this word yoke mean, you just look at the footnote and it says The rabbis’ say that the Lord’s yoke is total spiritual surrender.  And then you have a glossary in the back where you go into detail on the things.  As far as I’m concerned if you didn’t have the Jewish roots I would love this translation, but with the Jewish roots it puts it a class all of its own.

Sid:  My guest Pastor Charles Cowan Pastor of a 2,000 member strong Faith Is The Victory Church in Nashville, Tennessee.  Has just written a book; the titled “How to Deal With the Cares of Life.”  And you might say “Well, that’s not bothering me right now.” Well blink your eyes a few times and you will find yourself in a situation in what is going on… Charles with what’s going on the world right now.  I mean since 911 I mean you can’t turn your television on without a particular color terror warning.  You can’t turn your TV on without suicide bombers; you can’t turn your television on without hurricanes and tornadoes.  I mean the Bible does say that men’s hearts will suffer because of fear.

Charles:  Yeah it’s what He said “Men’s hearts will fail them for fear of looking to that which will come upon the world.”  And this thing it seems like it’s intensifying obviously and the whole design is that this thing Satan in this last day in this last hour he is bringing things to bear upon people and God’s people that are causing them to allow fear into their lives.  Which is bringing pressures; bringing them into a place of stress and they’re laden with the cares of life.

Sid: I’m going to get our Mishpochah very upset with me unless I take you back you’re on an airplane all of a sudden it plunges sharply downward.  Fear comes up in your throat a tangible force it shouldn’t be you know better but it does.  Fear literally, the spirit of fear and that’s the Bible calls it literally filled that in tire plane.  The plane then levels and then all of a sudden starts shaking again. And you’ve got a choice as you explained on yesterday’s broadcast, we all have choices.  Follow the external stimulus, or the word of God.  It sounds so simple but that’s our choice.  And as I said that God just told me there are people listening to whose backs and necks are healed in Jesus Name.  Charles we got you back in the plane; it’s shaking all over you’ve just plunged down what’s going on inside of you and what are you doing about it?

Charles:  Well what I’m doing now, what I’m feeling at the moment is an extreme amount of the emotions within me and thoughts that are racing through my mind as to the outcome of this thing as we described yesterday.  But now I found this out that when situations arise they’re going to determine whether I am spiritual or carnal.  When I say they will; I will determine whether I am carnal or spiritual when these things come against me.

Sid: Now when I hear the word carnal I usually think in terms of sexual sins and things like that.  But when the Bibles using the word carnal it’s relying on what your flesh and mind perceive and what the word of God says.

Charles:  When a person of a carnal mind is when they are moved only by what they hear and what they feel.

Sid: And you know what I find a lot of people that state the word but when something suddenly; and these things always seem to be suddenly come at you you go on the carnal side versus the Spirit side.

Charles:  Well here’s the problem sometimes I think in my estimation it is that people know what the Bibles says but they have maybe reduced it down to using it only when there is such an occasion like this to use it.  But we know this that you know you have a leak in your roof and you’re up there while it’s raining trying to fix it you’re probably not going to get it fixed.  And so what people fail to do is to fill themselves with God’s word before crisis comes; before this stress comes; before the Satan begins to tighten this thing down on them.  And fill their heart and fill their mind with the reading; the reading of the word and mediation in the word of God, or thinking upon the word of God.

Sid: Explain to me what you mean my meditation.

Charles:  Okay, meditation is just simply as I see it it’s just simply where I train my mind to think on the scriptures.  That I can do that when I am driving down the road you know I pick out certain scriptures or a number of scriptures from the Bible.  And I just think upon them. Now people sometimes say this they say “Well, you know you just can’t think about the scriptures all the time.”  But the truth of the matter is that we all are thinking about something all the time.  And it’s rare that our mind, our minds, are not in that thinking mode or process or even many times people lay down at night and can’t go to sleep because their minds are racing.  And so what I mean by that is I take scriptures that pertain to what God has done for me in Christ Jesus.  What did Jesus accomplish for me when he went to the cross; did He do more for me than just make a way for me to go to heaven?

Sid: Charles you and I understand that and we can talk about that all we want right now.  What I want to know is what was going on in your mind and what were you saying with your mouth after these things came upon you in that airplane; that’s what I’m interesting in?

Charles:  Two things that I forced myself to think on the two scriptures was “That He has given His angels charge over me to keep me in all of my ways and to bear me up in their hands less I dash my foot against a stone.”  And then in Isaiah’s writings where he says “No weapon formed against me shall prosper and every tongue that rises against me…” and so forth.  Those two scriptures are what I began to speak out of my mouth; I began to focus my thoughts and my thinking on the word of God.  I began to think on the word of God that God is faithful and He cannot deny Himself.  That “God watches over His word to perform it.”  I just flooded my thoughts with those scriptures and just refused; I mean when a thought would come of that fear again and what was going to happen I would just continually say to myself what God said “This is what God says; this is God; God cannot fail; God will not fail and He will not fail me.”  And I began to just saying that and saying that and as the pilot brought that plane down and leveled it off you know I felt a little bit of relief from the pressures of the fear that was trying to engulf me.  But then we were in that turbulence and here comes that emotion back to me again and the pilot comes on and says “Ladies and gentlemen we’re 80 miles out of Little Rock and we’re going to take it that we’re going to land in Little Rock.”  And then just a few short minutes later he comes back and says “That we’ve been informed that there is an ice storm that’s moving eastward and they have just informed us that the airport at Little Rock has just been closed.”  Well here comes those same emotions almost overwhelming; my mind is so so in turmoil at this time but I knew what to do.  I knew how to confront the situation; I knew that the word of God was my answer. So I began to speak a little louder to myself; “No weapon formed against me shall prosper; every tongue that rises against me in judgment I will condemn; He has given His angels charge over me and they are bearing me up in their hands; I will not dash my foot against a stone and I will be safe because God says that I will.”  So he comes then; the pilot does the captain comes I’m sure he didn’t mean it quite like it came to me but he said “And we are going to make an attempt to make it to Dallas Fort Worth.  Well, I know this you don’t try up there; you do or you don’t.  And so…

Sid: (Laughing)

Charles: And here comes that Satan flooding my mind with that “You’re going to try; he’s going to try; he’s either going to do it or he’s not going to do it.”  In this case he’s not going to do it and I just spoke a little louder what God said about my situation.  What God had done for me in my protection; in my safety and I said that until my mind quieted; till the emotions left my body and I could sit there in that plane in that turbulence.  And I had a perfect peace about me because God’s word had brought me into a place of peace though I was in the midst of the storm.  God’s word by His spirit had brought a peace to me that I could sit in the middle of a storm knowing that the end of the storm while I am yet still in the storm.  I said “I will be safe; this plane will land; I will go to the convention that I’m going to; I will return home to my family because I knew that God… if God said it that’s the way it’s going to be because God cannot lie and God does not fail.”

Sid: You know what I’m wondering?  I’m wondering you know when that tape recorder as you put it in your book starts going off in your mind if you spend a great deal of time watching violent sports on television; watching violence on TV.  Maybe more time than you’ve spent reading the Bible, I can see how Satan can pull that tape out rather than the scripture.

Charles: Well he’ll sure do that.  You know what you fill your mind with; what the individual fills their mind with that’s what Satan, you know over on his side of the ledger, that’s what he does.  He’ll push that play button and he’ll run all of these things that we see like on TV and all that we hear on the news and all of the bad that is happening in the world and he’ll play that tape over and over and over again.  And Satan will use those things to try to erase from our mind the word of God that we have placed in our mind. And so that’s why when Paul said “We’re to bring every thought into captivity…”   

Sid: Awe we’re out of time right now. Mishpochah this is so important and the times we’re living in….

Sid: I’m interviewing Ron Cantor and I’m speaking to him at his home at a city right outside of Tel Aviv, Israel.  Ron is Executive Pastor of  Tiferet Yeshua it’s a Messianic Congregation in Tel Aviv and Tiferet Yeshua means the glory of Jesus.  And speaking of the glory of Jesus Ron I am told that things are going on in Israel as far as Jewish evangelism like have not been in centuries.  What are you seeing going on?

Ron:  Well, we in our congregation we’ve been enjoying a wonderful season really from February of this year we’ve seen many Israelis’ come to faith.  We immerse 10 Israelis’ over the summer in the Mediterranean Sea.  And every service the presence of God is there.  And so we’re very optimistic we’re expecting more.  And I would invite all of your listeners around the world to agree with us in prayer because we need the prayers of the believers all around the world in order to be strong.

Sid:  Now we’re interviewing you on your brand new book “Identity Theft” because the churches identity has been stolen. And we’re still trying to now… now the way that you’ve written it it’s masterful.  Now you could have written a book on facts, but instead the Holy Spirit directed you to write a novel about a Jewish reporter that an angel apprehends and takes him back in time.  It’s a fabulous premise on the book, but you work in all the facts in the story line; people will not want to put the book down.  You have humor in the book, but you also have some moments from history that are very sad.  For instance, let me take you back to a Roman emperor by the name of Constantine.  What affect did he have in this identity theft?

Ron:  Well he was the first Roman emperor to embrace Christianity in 312 and he… up until that the other ten Roman Emperors before him were very hostile to the faith.  Hundreds of thousands of believers were martyred in the Roman Empire primarily because they would not proclaim that Caesar was god.  During those times Caesar was considered a deity and once these people began believing in Yeshua they could no longer confess publicly that Caesar was god.  So they would be killed, but Constantine he became a believer. The problem is that he felt that a part of his mission; I say he became a believer, I don’t know based on the fruit after that it’s hard for me to believe he was genuinely born again.

Sid: No I doubt seriously that he was because as I read history he literally started merging paganism and Christianity which was one of the worse things that ever happened to Christianity.

Ron:  Right, and in 325 he instructed the Bishops of Nicaea to get rid of Passover. Up until that point when the church would celebrate the resurrection of Jesus they would use the Jewish feast of Passover.  It made perfect sense because it happened at the same time.  But he was anti-Semitic and he did not want to honor the Jewish people.  Somehow he must have forgotten that Jesus was a Jew and all of the Apostles were Jewish.  But he wrote to the Bishops of Nicaea and they got rid of Passover.  And they took the pagan feast of Ishtar which then became Easter and that’s what we celebrate today. And in addition to that he created the idea of celebrating the birth of the Messiah in addition to his death and he created Christmas and Easter.

Sid: Okay, what affect did it have on a Jewish person that embraced Jesus; was part of the church but wanted to still observe the Sabbath, observe Passover?  What would happen to them?

Ron: That became illegal that became against the law.  You were not allowed; Jew or Gentile to embrace the Jewish feasts, to embrace the Sabbaths. In fact in the year 364 the Council of Laodicea they actually, they formally declared Sunday as the Lord’s day. And they said no longer shall you rest on the Sabbath, the Jewish Sabbath, you must rest on Sunday.  Here’s exactly what the wrote “Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday; they shall work on that day.  The Lord’s day, meaning Sunday, they shall especially honor and being Christians shall if possible do no work on that day.  If however, they are found Judaizing, which means resting on the Jewish Sabbath, they will be cut off from Christ. So when the church should have been concerned about things like adultery or in the modern era pedophilia or things like their worried passing laws that which day somebody rests.  It’s absolutely crazy to the point that if you celebrate the Jewish Sabbath you will be excommunicated; you won’t go to heaven; you cannot partake of the Messiah.

Sid: Well what about something like baptism; how did that get so changed?

Ron:  Well, that’s really interesting because if you take away 2000 years of history you’d understand that baptism is Jewish.

Sid: Yet I’m going to take you back Ron to a Jewish college student that doesn’t believe in Jesus and if someone says “You must be born again and baptized,” what would have went through your mind?

Ron:  I would have said “There can be nothing more un-Jewish than being getting baptized.” It’s one thing to secretly believe in Jesus but being publicly baptized in an essence is to say I am no longer a Jew I’m cutting myself off from my people.  That’s how I felt.  But as I begin to study I began to realize that emerging of water started with the Jewish people.  We see John the Baptist who sounds like a Christian figure. I often ask people when I’m speaking if I mention Jeremiah, Ezekiel, or Isaiah do you think Christian or Jewish?  And they all say Jewish.  And I say what about John the Baptist?  And they say; “Oh Christian” but he wasn’t a Christian. John the Baptist was a Jewish prophet just like Jeremiah; Isaiah, Ezekiel. And what he did was he prophesied the coming of the Lord and he called people to repent and he would immerse them in water to express that.  But not only John in Jerusalem; did you ever wonder Sid how Peter and the other apostles immersed in water 3000 Jewish men plus woman and children on the day of Shavuot?  There could have been as many…

Sid: Listen I’ve been out to the Jordan and I’ve had baptism services and it’s a lot of work; how did they do it Ron?

Ron:  And there’s no water in Jerusalem; in Jerusalem you’re on top of a mountain there’s no river; there’s very little water.  The answer to the question is this, archeologists have found over 50 immersion tanks surrounding the temple.  Now why were they there? Well, whenever a Jewish person would come to Jerusalem to make a sacrifice before they could to into the temple courts with their sacrifice they would have to go in for one of these immersion tanks and get ritually clean.  This was very very familiar to Jewish people, so when Peter commanded that these 3000 Jewish men be immersed in water they didn’t say “What is water immersion, what is this is this a new religion?”  No they were familiar with it in fact they had already probably been immersed that week because they had come up from the nations to celebrate the feast of Shavuot, Pentecost, and probably made a sacrifice at the temple they were completely familiar with whole idea of baptism. But what happened in the Middle Ages, particularly in Spain, is that when the Jews of Spain were told; my wife’s family were run out of Spain 500 years ago.  They were told either be baptized as a Christian or get out of our country.  So this left a horrible taste in the hearts of Jewish people for centuries.  So when we think of baptism sadly as Jewish people we often think of something completely and totally not Jewish.

Sid: You know Ron I’ve studied the Jewish mikvah, where baptism really came from, and I like some of the principles.  For instance, it’s a self-immersion because they don’t want anyone but God to touch them.  And so many times when I have a service in Israel I make it a mikvah service; because many have already been baptized in a traditional sense and it’s one of the highlights of our tour.

Ron:  Amen (Laughing) it absolutely is and it’s completely Jewish. It started with the Jewish people and continues today.

Sid: In a couple of sentences why did you call it “Identity Theft?”

Ron:  Because Jesus was robbed of His Jewish Identity. I told myself when I got born again in 1983 “I’m no longer a Jew.”  Well anybody that read and studied the New Testament would know that that’s ridiculous.  But Jesus was made over the centuries his hair was colored blond and his eyes suddenly became blue many people might think He was Norwegian or Danish but certainly not an Israeli.  I’m not really talking about the tone of his skin or his eyes.  I’m talking about the promised Jewish Messiah.

Sid: But wait a second now I see why that’s important for a Jewish person but why is it important for a Gentile Christian?

Ron:  It’s important for the Gentile Christian because it’s their roots it’s what they believe.  Would you like to be married to somebody for 20, 30, 40 years and then find out that their background was completely in utterly something other than what you believed, that would be shocking. We try to introduce people to the real Yeshua and why He came.  He came in response to the prophesies of the Jewish prophesy.

Sid: Ron, we’re out of time.

Sid:   We want everyone everywhere to understand what replacement theology is and to be able to know what God’s position is.  You see replacement theology is the basic belief; One way of looking at it is, that the Jews have inherited today all the curses and the church as inherited today all of the blessings.  But you cannot read the bible from Genesis to Revelation and come up with that lie. For instance Romans 9, 10 and 11 just briefly… Sandy Teplinski and I’m interviewing her on this wonderful complete fresh approach to the question and the title of the book “Why Still Care About Israel?”  Sandy tell me a little bit of what can be gleaned from Romans 9, 10 and 11.

Susan:   Romans 9, 10 and 11 is chalked full of God’s heart for Israel that He wants His people, the Christian church to know about and to carry.  Roman’ 9 – 11 teaches us that God is… God Himself cares a sorrow in His heart for Israel’s salvation that He calls us to pray for Israel’s salvation that in fact that there is coming a time when Israel will be saved.  And that He has not rejected His people that He has called the Gentle Christian Church to pray for His people. To not be ignorant nor arrogant depending on your translation toward the Jewish people  But to understand that they have been grafted in like olive tree branches into a an olive tree that is rooted in a Jewish soil that rooted in the Jewish patriarchs and the Jewish scriptures and the God of Israel.

Sid: I love it in Romans 9 it says that the Jewish people are loved on account of the fathers.  What does God mean by that?

Susan:   Well what He says is that He loves them because of the covenant that He made with our fathers.  In Deuteronomy 7 God says that He chose and loved Israel because Israel.  That’s as much as He’s going to tell us.  It’s because He chose to make covenant and that that covenant still stands as Romans 9 – 11 expounds on.  And it expounds on that specifically for new covenant Gentle Christians believers.

Sid:  As an attorney what does it mean to you when God says in the New Testament that in reference to Israel “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance?”  As an attorney what does that mean?

Susan:  That means that He cannot take away the gifts that He’s put on Israel, nor the calling on Israel.  And specifically how I get to that as attorney is context. Context is everything.  You know we all love to quote this verse when it concerns our own gifts and callings.  And yes we can expanded way apply that on a certain level to individual believers but we cannot neglect the fundamental context in which that promise appears which is concerning God’s promises and covenant to Israel.

Sid:   You know and I know you feel this way but my heart goes out to how the Palestinians are being used by their own Arab nations that have so much money.  They’re being used by their own leaders who take the billions of dollars the US and other countries are handing them and just put it in their own bank accounts.  How the Palestinians have been left, on purpose, by the Arab nations to live in squalor when the Sheiks are running around with the wealth of the world, I mean they are being used. So what should I as a believer in the Messiah; as a believer that God wants the Jewish people and the land of Israel.  What should my position be with the Palestinians?

Susan:  Well, first of all your position is one of realizing the reality of what you just described.  And it’s a reality that I document extensively in the book and on the book’s website. But also just convey in simple language in the book itself this is the reality; we can’t live in denial any more.  We have to realize that our tax dollars are supporting the Palestinian peoples being used as pawns by the larger Arab Muslim world.  Now as Christians first thing we need to do is pray.  Pray for Israeli, and especially Israeli Messianic social justice organizations that are actually advocated on behalf of the Palestinians and trying to clarify to the nations of the world what is really happening behind the scenes.  Now I’m not talking about liberal left wing Israeli movements that sadly might even deny the scriptures and the word of God and therefore don’t even think about God’s covenant with Israel.  I’m talking about Messianic Israeli Jewish social justice advocates.  There aren’t many aren’t too many but pray for them.  And secondly there are a number of us that are involved in reconciliation efforts with Palestinian Christians.  And in a word it’s beginning stages because our theologies are so different much of the time.  Pray for that because we do love each other as brother and sisters but that love needs to mature in the Lord.  Pray for the minority of Palestinian Christians who do genuinely love God and love Israel.

Sid: You know one of the hopes that I see; one of the wonderful things that I see and I know that you put it in your book.  That Jews and Palestinians are having dreams and visions of Jesus.  And many of these Palestinians become such strong lovers of Jesus and lovers of what Jesus loves, the Jewish people and the land of Israel.  But tell me just briefly about the lies in the media.

Susan:   Oh my, well there is a whole… there have been some whole expose that have been done in the past several years to expose how the Palestinian media which is highly censored anything that is officially realized has to be cleared by the government. There is no freedom of press; highly distorted in order to present the Arab Palestinian Israeli conflict in a cause that is favorable to the Palestinians and highly unfavorable to the Israel.  And frankly what they’re doing many times is outright lying there is no way to whitewash it. They are…

Sid: Give me one example I know you have many in your book.

Susan:  Okay, well just one example this is kind of a comical example.  During the last war with Gaza at the end of 2012, Palestinians were posted on social media different photos and videos that they were representing to the live real shots of Israeli so called abuse of against so called Gazan innocence civilians and what we’ve found; what was found out within a matter of days that some of the footage and some of the photos actually depicted Jewish Israeli terror victims from the previous intifada; the Arab uprising of terror in the 2000’s.  Those were Jews that were being depicted as Arab victims; that’s just one.  Another one I just have to mention because this is the one that’s comical is that there was a video of a Muslim in Gaza that was being held by apparently an abusive Israeli soldier.  So we watch him clutching his chest and falling to the ground and his comrades are surrounding him and in the background there’s gunshots.  And toward the end of the video we see him pick himself up brush himself off put his arms around his friends and then they walk off. Well, that video came down about 24 hours after it went up but that’s the sort of thing that we see.  My question is if the Israeli abuse that alleged is in fact so great why do we have to go to such lengths to artificially portray it?

Sid: Well, that’s pretty logical but this whole thing isn’t logical; it’s not logical that the world is turning against the Jew in Israel.  Except God says it’s a final conflict of darkness and light that’s going on right before our very eyes.  That’s why I’m so excited about your fresh approach.