Sid Roth

Sid: My guest by way of telephone is my good friend Dr. Bob Fischer. I’m speaking to him at his apartment in Tiberias, Israel. Bob tell me what you can see with your eyes as we’re doing this interview.

Bob: Oh Sid it’s glorious, the sun is setting into the Golan Heights or lit up with a beautiful display of pastel colors. The Sea of Galilee which is practically in our front yard is a deep navy blue and it’s magnificent; you know we can just feel the presence of the Holy Spirit all around us and it’s glorious.

Sid: Now you made aliyah that is you immigrated to Israel how long ago?

Bob: We came in August of 1992 Sid that’s gosh almost 12 years ago.

Sid: Tell me what it’s like living in this land that you know God has called you to; that you know that one day the Messiah will rule the world from; that you know that it’s the center of the world as far as prophetic activity and yet you’re in the middle of violence and suicide bombers and terrorism. What is it really like?

Bob: I can describe it in one word Sid, shalom, peace. The Lord is in His wonderful way given all of us in His Body the sense of an overwhelming peace. We’re held in the palm of His hand and we can feel His love and protection and it’s wonderful.

Sid: Tell me a little bit about your upbringing because I believe it’s almost a microcosm of Christian’s worldwide.

Bob: Well Sid I’m a 100% ethnic Jew that was raised in a Gentile world and Jewishness in our family was denied for 2 generations of both sides. It was an anti-Semitism situation and I was born again when I was a young Air Force Officer in a non-denominational Air Force Chapel. And I raised my 3 children; I found my wife I should say I found my wife first and then we raised our 3 children in this wonderful non-denominational atmosphere. And my Jewishness just wasn’t an important thing until much later in my life when the Lord did an incredible work and here we are. (Laughing)

Sid: What would you say was the major ingredient to really want to find out about your Jewish roots, to actually ultimately live in the land of Israel?

Bob: Well we were called into the Messianic Movement and that was the stimulus for the whole thing. In fact Donna who’s a Gentile practically broke my arm you know to get me to finally get involved in my Jewishness because I denied it all my life. And once I got involved in the Messianic Movement I felt this compulsion you know this growing love and this desire then in the midst of a second career with the Boeing Company. We just heard it from the Lord the two of just independently and then together go home and we just simply did. And we did we walked out of the door one day and we came to Israel. I can just say it was supernatural; it was a supernatural thing.

Sid: Now what went on with Bob and his family to a degree is going on with Gentile Christians throughout the world. I’m coming out with a new book shortly and I asked my friend Gordon Robertson, Pat Robertson’s son he’s a host of 700 Club to write an endorsement. And I want to read this endorsement to you. “I’m finding that the longer I am a Christian the more Jewish I become; this year my family celebrated Passover with a traditional Seder Service. During the third cup, the cup of redemption and the reading of Exodus 6:6 which says “I will redeem you with an outstretched arm” I was overcome with a vision of Jesus on the cross redeeming all of mankind with outstretched arms. I believe that in these last days Christians around the world are awakening to their Jewish roots and finding that they have come into the kingdom for such a time as this.” You know Bob that what went on with Gordon Robertson it’s going on with Christian’s all over the world just like it happened with you. Although you were physically Jewish you denied your Jewish heritage and your Jewish roots. You’ve written a number of books on Jewish roots, how many have you written?

Bob: Four Sid.

Sid: And you’ve made it a life study; in fact I believe this maybe one of the first courses of such a nature that is actually a college accredited course at Faith Seminary in Tacoma, Washington that you have then put into a DVD to make available for the average person. How did this course come into being?

Bob: Well Sid I taught it in residence for the first time in September at Faith Seminary and the staff asked me to put it in the form of a video. And it occurred to me that a DVD would be a better means and under their guidance and being called by the Holy Spirit I just simply sat down and basically summarized what I have on my four books and some new material. And I feel very excited about it because it really does talk about the pervasive Jewish roots of the faith.

Sid: Well you know something you sent a lot of time teaching on a group of people that very few Christian’s ever heard of. We’ve all heard of Pharisees; we’ve all heard of Sadducees because we read about them in the New Covenant. However you spent a lot of time, and we found out a great deal of information about these people in the Dead Sea Scrolls of a group called the Essenes. And then you’ve proven that they’re referred to in the New Covenant but they’re referred to under different names. And this is fascinating information; but why would it be important for a Gentile Christian at this point in history to know their Jewish roots. I know that God’s doing it because it’s a supernatural thing happening throughout the world; but why is God doing this?

Bob: I believe that He’s trying to show all of us Jew and Gentile alike who have embraced a faith in Yeshua they were all saved by His blood that our salvation is identical. That there certainly is a difference between Jews and Gentiles ethnically but that we’re all part of the wonderful saved body of Yeshua. We’re all fed by Jewish roots. The problem is that the church has been misguided from time to time through history and has been teaching basically that the church has replaced Israel. There’s a…

Sid: Well even if they don’t teach it that’s the implications that most Christians get.

Bob: It’s true and it’s…

Sid: I mean there’s nothing Jewish when you look at the average Gentile Christian service and yet the whole thing started Jewish. There’s something that I have pondered and that is when so many thousands of Jews became believer’s in Jesus instantly; they didn’t even have the New Testament written out. They certainly didn’t have what we call churches today. They did have the temple still; they did have the traditional non-Messianic Jewish service. And according to the New Covenant they met in homes but how was it such a vibrant movement, how? They didn’t have Bible schools? They didn’t have teaching; they didn’t even have the New Covenant recorded in a book like we do today, they didn’t have DVD’s. How was it such a dynamic move?

Bob: What they had Sid were the Dead Sea Scrolls and this is though the importance of the Essenes.   They had a very detailed understanding of what later became the primary doctrine in theology of the Christian faith and they wrote it down in the Dead Sear Scroll’s. And they were anticipating the Messiah eminently to show up and they knew that He would be from the line of David; that He would come to atone for the sins of men. That He would appear eminently and then at the end of days…

Sid: Now we know that by reading the prophecies in light of having read the New Covenant and knowing history, but you telling me that’s the type of Messiah they were looking for before the Messiah ever came?

Bob: Absolutely, hundreds of years before the Messiah came they wrote down this understanding in the Dead Sea Scrolls in great detail. And so when He showed up to answer your question when Yeshua showed up and walked among them they came to Him in droves. You know we read in the Book of Acts 3000 came in one day. Why? They didn’t need to be evangelized they were waiting for Him.

Sid: But wait a second when you talk to the average Jewish person today they don’t know a whole lot about Judaism the only thing they know is that I can’t be Jewish if I believe in Jesus. You’re saying that it wasn’t that way with the masses the with the first coming of the Messiah.

Bob:   Now it wasn’t and what happened you know; you have to go all the way back to the first century and realize that there were 3 Jewish Sects. The Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes. The Sadducees just kind of disappeared when the temple was destroyed.

Sid: I just think of them as just being sad.

Bob: They were very, very sad; did believe in an afterlife; they didn’t believe in very much of anything.

Sid: Did they believe in the scriptures?

Bob: They certainly believed in the Torah, but that’s where it ended. They didn’t have much vision much beyond that. And they were sad like you point out. But the Pharisees were pretty heavily concentrating on the whole Tanach, the whole Old Testament. But they also had an Oral Law which basically separated them from the Essenes. The Pharisees were looking for a Messiah but a Messiah that would come at the end of days and would solve all of the world’s problems. The Essenes were looking for a Messiah and as I pointed out it was in every measure Yeshua.

Sid: I’ll tell you what we’re out of time today we’ll pick up right here on tomorrow’s broadcast.